Geeks run the world. Condoleezza Rice is a geek, Bill Gates is clearly a geek, many of the big filmmakers and writers are geeks, lots of military people are geeks. Anyone who has heard Donald Rumsfeld talk about military hardware knows they are in the presence of a geek.

I do, however, feel reasonably strongly the sense that the job of a piece of argumentative scholarly non-fiction is not the same as the job of a piece of fiction.

In the field of fantastic fiction, the question of world-building is not uncontroversial. But I grew up with 'Dungeons and Dragons,' so that whole world-building thing is very close to my heart.

Ever since I was two, I've loved octopuses, monsters, abandoned buildings.

But the power of science lies in open publication, which, with the rise of the Internet, is no longer constrained by the price of paper.

What's interesting about science is that we're constantly discovering new things about the universe, about ourselves, about our bodies, about diseases, about the possibilities of the future. It's amazing. Science is one of the coolest things about being a human being - without a doubt.

Science fiction is a way that I can go into the abstract, go into the imagination, and audiences are still willing to go along for the ride.

When they're watching musicals, I've heard people say, 'That's not realistic! Why would they just start singing?' But, I think they can believe it if they try! I mean, science fiction requires a suspension of disbelief, but people allow themselves to sit back and enjoy it anyway.