With epic fantasy, there is a tendency for it to be quintessentially conservative in that its job is to restore what is perceived to be out of whack.

I think most fiction focuses on uncomfortable settings because that's interesting.

There's a tendency in American thought - maybe elsewhere, but that's the culture I know best - to default to social Darwinism, even though even Darwin noted that's a misapplication of his ideas.

When I start a new novel, I often write 'test chapters' in different tenses and from different points of view in order to figure out which is best to tell the tale.

I am not here concerned with intent, but with scientific standards, especially the ability to tell the difference between a fact, an opinion, a hypothesis, and a hole in the ground.

All science is static in the sense that it describes the unchanging aspects of things.

In science, every question answered leads to 10 more. I love that science can never, ever be finished. From a young age, people think, 'Science is hard and boring.' We don't tell children, 'Yes, you have to learn these formulae and theorems, but then you go on to learn about nuclear reactions and stars.'

I worked with Stanley Kubrick for almost a year back in 1990, trying to develop the screen story for his project 'Artificial Intelligence,' which is about a robot boy who wishes to become a real boy, a future scientific fairy tale inspired in the myth of Pinocchio.