Well, when you look at a lot of science fiction novels they're asking questions about power. There are questions about what it means to have power and what are the long-term consequences of power.
To me, science fiction is about the sense of mystery, the sense of awe. Not 'shock and awe', just 'awe.'
My old English buddy, John Rackham, wrote and told me what made science fiction different from all other kinds of literature - science fiction is written according to the science fiction method.
'Doctor Who' is where my love of science fiction and fantasy started. I was introduced to it when I was 8, and I'm still an avid viewer.
I've always been a fan of science fiction. My family, we all used to watch 'Star Trek' together, which is kind of a nerdy family activity.
I think if I did do something in another genre, it would be science fiction; I'm a big sci fi nerd.
I've probably read more bad science fiction than anyone else alive. But I've also read more good science fiction than anyone else alive.
When it comes to the things that people really want in science fiction - like space travel - the simplest things end up causing them not to happen. Humans are 100-pound bags of water, built to live on Earth.
When 'Blade Runner' came out, and especially, even actually when 'Alien' came out, it kind of changed how all science fiction movies were designed after that. And that was a really great thing. Now we're watching a lot of movies that are Xeroxes of Xeroxes of Xeroxes of Xeroxes of 'Blade Runner.'
I like some science in my science fiction.
It's ironic: In movies, the most successful films of all time have been sci-fi or fantasy. By far. But a lot of people won't even read science fiction books.
I love science fiction. I always have, ever since I was a kid. I love a lot of science fiction writers. William Gibson is one of my favorite writers.
You do a drama, and you are limited by the rules of reality, and in science fiction, you create your own reality. Some people find that daunting; I find it challenging.
I have a fondness for historical fiction, something wondrous like 'Wolf Hall,' but I'll read most anything as long as the story grabs my mind or my heart, and preferably both. You would be hard pressed, however, to find science fiction on my shelves.
There were four major 20th-century science fiction writers: Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein and Ray Bradbury. Of those four, the first three were all published principally in science-fiction magazines. They were preaching to the converted.
The things that I've enjoyed most are not really science fiction. They are not much fun to make because there are so many toys involved. They are fun for directors who like toys, like Ridley Scott, but they are not a lot of fun to make. A lot of hanging around, changing this and that.
We've been surrounded by images of space our whole lives, from the speculative images of science fiction to the inspirational visions of artists to the increasingly beautiful pictures made possible by complex technologies. But whilst we have an overwhelmingly vivid visual understanding of space, we have no sense of what space sounds like.
Physics is often stranger than science fiction, and I think science fiction takes its cues from physics: higher dimensions, wormholes, the warping of space and time, stuff like that.
One of the dangers of science fiction, particularly bad science fiction, is that you have these scenes where the characters turn to a blackboard and start explaining how this faster-than-light drive works, or something like that. We never really have those conversations in real life. That's not part of the way we interact as human beings.
When a writer is already stretching the bounds of reality by writing within a science fiction or fantasy setting, that writer must realize that excessive coincidence makes the fictional reality the writer is creating less 'real.'
Many of the top-grossing movies of all time are science fiction.
Social progress is a big thing for me. Although science fiction is traditionally concerned with the hard sciences, which is chemistry, physics, and, some might argue, biology, my father was and still is a social scientist at the University of Toronto.
A lot of what the 'Culture' is about is a reaction to all the science fiction I was reading in my very early teens.
Science fiction has its own history, its own legacy of what's been done, what's been superseded, what's so much part of the furniture it's practically part of the fabric now, what's become no more than a joke... and so on. It's just plain foolish, as well as comically arrogant, to ignore all this, to fail to do the most basic research.
Science fiction is about worlds you don't know and worlds you can create, like in 'Avatar'.
We never had books at home, but my dad, seeing how keen I was to read, took me to Islington Library when I was about eight and we pulled out two - a Biggles and a science fiction novel. I never got the ace fighter pilot but fell in love with all things to do with the future and space. Isaac Asimov soon became my guiding star.
One of the many things that surprised me about 'Wool' is how many of its fans don't consider themselves science fiction readers.
I would like to do a science fiction film some day. Star Wars seems really to have destroyed the genre, which at one time offered great musical opportunities.
I like science fiction and physics, things like that. Planets being sucked into black holes, and the various vortexes that create possibility, and what happens on the other side of the black hole. To me it's the microcosmic study of the macrocosmic universe in man, and that's why I'm attracted to it.
Science fiction has never been about the future; it's always been about the present day whether it's Victorian England that Wells was writing about or the post-9/11 era that I'm writing about.
I hate to tell you this, but you will never actually go to a galaxy far, far away and encounter Darth Vader. That's science fiction; it isn't going to happen.
'Knowing' is one of those movies where you're going to get the spectacle, and you're going to have the entertainment in the grand science fiction tradition. But also, it will perhaps stimulate some discussion to help you sort out on your own where you might choose to go in terms of your own needs. Now, I say that without preaching.
I have never been a fan of science fiction. For me, fiction has to explore the combinatorial possibilities of people interacting under the constraints imposed by our biology and history. When an author is free to suspend the constraints, it's tennis without a net.
Even if you only want to write science fiction, you should also read mysteries, poetry, mainstream literature, history, biography, philosophy, and science.
Historical fiction is actually good preparation for reading SF. Both the historical novelist and the science fiction writer are writing about worlds unlike our own.
One of the advantages of having gone to Penn State was having had a scholar for a mentor - Philip Young. Also, a professional writer named Philip Klass taught there. He was a science fiction writer whose pseudonym was William Tenn. As a professional writer, he brought wisdom to teaching because he'd done it for a living.
