My old English buddy, John Rackham, wrote and told me what made science fiction different from all other kinds of literature - science fiction is written according to the science fiction method. ↗
I got to spend all of my time every day at work reading and editing papers about cutting-edge technical research and getting paid for it. Then I'd go home at night and turn what I learned into science fiction stories. ↗
I have heard Science Fiction and Fantasy referred to as the fiction of ideas, and I like that definition, but it's the mainstream public that chooses my books for the most part. ↗
Dune is the bestselling science fiction book of all time. It's something you really need to read in your lifetime. If you're going to read The Lord of the Rings, which everyone should, then you have to read Dune, too. ↗
Predicting has a spotty record in science fiction. I've had some failures. On the other hand, I also predicted the fall of the Berlin Wall and the rise of fundamentalist Islam... and I'm not happy to be right in all of those cases. ↗
There's no doubt that scientific training helps many authors to write better science fiction. And yet, several of the very best were English majors who could not parse a differential equation to save their lives. ↗
