Science fiction has its own history its own legacy of what's been done what's been superseded what's so much part of the furniture it's practically part of the fabric now what's become no more than a joke...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.

I think a lot of people are frightened of technology and frightened of change and the way to deal with something you're frightened of is to make fun of it. That's why science fiction fans are dismissed as geeks and nerds.

A lot of what the 'Culture' is about is a reaction to all the science fiction I was reading in my very early teens.

My point has always been that ever since the Industrial Revolution science fiction has been the most important genre there is.

Science fiction is trying to find alternative ways of looking at realities.

Tasmanian history is a study of human isolation unprecedented except in science fiction - namely complete isolation from other humans for 10 000 years.

Science fiction encourages us to explore... all the futures good and bad that the human mind can envision.

Invented languages have often been created in tandem with entire invented universes and most conlangers come to their craft by way of fantasy and science fiction.

In Poland my audience is all women between 18 and 30. At U.S. conventions you have the fantasy and science fiction crowd. At Harvard you have an entirely different audience. It's so schizophrenic.

I think if I'm going to do a science fiction I'm going to go down a new path that I want to do.

Science fiction is becoming more of a diverse kind of genre.

With science fiction there's endless possibilities.

I was attracted to science fiction because it was so wide open. I was able to do anything and there were no walls to hem you in and there was no human condition that you were stopped from examining.

So fantasy was fine early on and when I discovered science fiction I was very happy with it because my first interest in science fiction came with an interest in astronomy.

No one was going to stop me from writing and no one had to really guide me towards science fiction. It was natural really that I would take that interest.

The thing about science fiction is that it's totally wide open. But it's wide open in a conditional way.

Science fiction let me do both. It let me look into science and stick my nose in everywhere.