Alastair Reynolds

I think the danger with using the term 'trilogy' is that it sets up particular expectations in the reader's mind.

If there's a story I absolutely cannot tell without faster-than-light travel, then I am quite prepared to accept it - even though I don't personally believe it is possible.

I prioritise story over science, but not at the expense of being really stupid about it.

To be remembered at all is an achievement of sorts.

One of the big breakthroughs I had as a writer was when I stopped agonising over every word.

I despair of reality television, but I've never met anyone who watches it. Or people say, 'I watch it, but I hate it.' I've never met anyone who loves it. It's like, it's there, and we have to accept it.

It's a novel experience to have one of my books read by a reading group.

I've never had much interest in spinoffery - the idea of writing in someone else's universe generally leaves me cold - but 'Doctor Who' is different. I've grown up with it. It's been part of my life since I was tiny, watching Jon Pertwee on a grainy black and white television in Cornwall and being terrified out of my mind.

As a science fiction writer, it's hard to think of a more stirring theme than the origin and ultimate destiny of life in the universe.

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.

Dreams of warp drives and hyperspace are just that - dreams.

I hope that 'House of Suns' functions as an independent novel.