Francis Spufford

Systems matter too.

Ideas matter too.

Science fiction is a great literature of ideas.

And also science fiction is a literature which lets you play games with time.

It says the apparently natural scale of time in which time passes at one second per second and a decade is the long time.

is not the only scale that matters and not the only scale on which you can tell stories.

Science fiction is the literature in which you can move 10,000 years forward between part two and part three if you want to.

And then there's also fantasy.

And I have some touchstone writers, particularly in the area of kind of YA fantasy, two Kiwis, in fact, Margaret Mahie,

alas no more and elizabeth knox who is very much still going hooray hooray um and with a new book out um oh yeah no the absolute book can i pause to rave for a moment about the absolute book it is a weird book as well as an absolute book it is it travels to kind of hell purgatory fairyland um various bits of england book festivals in auckland um

and a number of places in between.

And it is one of those books where the mixture of things going on is something you could never have anticipated until she showed you it could be done.

But that is a transporting and otherworldly experience of the highest order, and I hope a lot of people read it.

And her YA stuff is very good too.

Mortal Fire is a fabulous novel.

More recently, Susanna Clarke's

published another novel.

Yes, Piranesi.

Yes.

Which I had, like everybody else, I've been settling comfortably down to thinking Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell was such a good book that even if she never writes anything else, that will be sad, but still better life work between covers.