To me, science fiction is about the sense of mystery, the sense of awe. Not 'shock and awe', just 'awe.'
I have a kind of standard explanation why, which goes like this: Science fiction is one way of making sense out of a senseless world.
I think the reason people are dealing with science less well now than 50 years ago is that it has become so complicated.
My parents wanted me to be a doctor. So I took up science, but then realised that my heart was not in it at all. The thought of treating ailing people was very depressing.
When I investigate and when I discover that the forces of the heavens and the planets are within ourselves, then truly I seem to be living among the gods.
I never, as a reader, have been particularly interested in dystopian literature or science fiction or, in fact, fantasy.
The artist does not illustrate science (but) he frequently responds to the same interests that a scientist does.
Much of today's public anxiety about science is the apprehension that we may forever be overlooking the whole by an endless, obsessive preoccupation with the parts.
Science is a tool, and we invent tools to do things we want. It's a question of how those tools are used by people.
I meant exactly what I said: that we are saddled with a culture that hasn't advanced as far as science.
Every moment of a science fiction story must represent the triumph of writing over world-building.
Mysteries once thought to be supernatural or paranormal happenings - such as astronomical or meteorological events - are incorporated into science once their causes are understood.
Science is not a thing. It's a verb. It's a way of thinking about things. It's a way of looking for natural explanations for all phenomena.
Science operates in the natural, not the supernatural. In fact, I go so far as to state that there is no such thing as the supernatural or the paranormal.
I actually consider myself as totally privileged to be able to serve science and medicine in a global fashion, because science and medicine know no boundaries.
I started out writing much more science fictiony stuff and writing about science fiction.
And by the way, I wanted to point out that Kindred is not science fiction. You'll note there's no science in it. It's a kind of grim fantasy.
Modern science tells us that the conscious self arises from a purely physical brain. We do not have immaterial souls.
I didn't invent forensic science and medicine. I just was one of the first people to recognize how interesting it is.
The folly of mistaking a paradox for a discovery, a metaphor for a proof, a torrent of verbiage for a spring of capital truths, and oneself for an oracle, is inborn in us.
Science fiction is about worlds you don't know and worlds you can create, like in 'Avatar'.
