Red Szell

I just found it too science-y and too conceptual, as far as physics and maths were concerned.

I tended to go for softer science fiction, more...

Ian Banks, Ian M. Banks, where you're talking more about the psychological aspects of how would humans react if they were in space?

How do other races of beings in other solar systems act between each other?

I suppose Star Wars is a classic example, actually.

It professes to be very scientific, but actually if you look at it, it's all about the characters.

Oh, absolutely.

And I think, you know, right from the very, very start from Jules Verne and H.G.

Wells, what if we are not alone?

What if these massive leaps forward that have resulted from the Industrial Revolution were to be harnessed and we could travel back in time or we could travel to the moon or to the bottom of the sea?

And...

Those questions still dominate our thinking the best part of 150 years later.

We haven't really explored that far.

And that speculation is still at the core of science fiction.

One of my criticisms of science fiction has always been exactly that.

It really suits the...

rough diamond outsider male scientist.

Now, I adore the John Wyndham books, you know, Day of the Triffids, The Croc and Wakes, things like that.

But you always have a square-jawed, awkward outsider who's a scientist, who is the protagonist, and he is emotionally two-dimensional.

I felt there was more than an element of that with Ryland Grace.