"What I have enjoyed about science fiction from the time I dove in was how it opened my natural space. If I were reading Hyperion by Dan Simmons or whatever, as I'm walking down the street, I'm thinking of the shit that I just read and the world feels a little larger. I'd be thinking that there's more layers, parallel universes and so forth. It has enhanced my view of possibilities. It's kind of like film in a way. Great writers leave space, and that gap in between is your understanding."

Blade Runner 2049

"One surprising result of the ghettoizing of speculative fiction, however, is that writers have enormous freedom within its walls. It's as if, having once confined us within our cage, the keepers of the zoo of literature don't much care what we do as long as we stay behind bars. What we've done is make the categories of science fiction and fantasy larger, freer, and more inclusive than any other genre of contemporary literature. We have room for everybody, and we are extraordinarily open to genuine experimentation."

"It is not experimental but traditional work that wins Hugo and Nebula awards within the field."

"The power of science fiction is that you're able to experience the worst-case scenario without actually having to live it." (artist)

"You don't have to be a scientist to write effective science fiction, but you do need to be enthused about the adventure of discovery."

"The sf reader doesn't expect to receive a complete picture of the world all at once. Rather he builds up his own picture bit by bit from clues within the text. ... This, again, is one of the protocols of reading sf. The reader is expected to extrapolate, to find the implied information contained in new words."

"In practical terms, you'll have a better chance selling to the [sf genre] magazines if your story is (1) short and (2) science fiction rather than fantasy. My career followed that track; so did the careers of most other science fiction writers in the field."

Legion

Logan

Universes in Suspension

"There's a cycle in science fiction that most writers follow. They break into the field by selling short stories and novelettes to the magazines until their names and styles become familiar to book editors. Then they sign a few book contracts, get some novels under their belts, and suddenly they don't have time for those $400 stories anymore. The magazines that nurtured them and gave them their starts watch as the novels flow and the short fiction trickles in. So the magazines are forced to search constantly for new talent."

"In the long run, then, whatever is published within the field of science fiction and fantasy is science fiction and fantasy, and if it doesn't resemble what science fiction and fantasy were twenty years ago or even five years ago, some readers and writers will howl, but others will hear the new voice and see the new vision with delight."

"When you ask a science fiction question, the first thing you have to do is root it in reality; you have to explain to yourself why it's possible, so you can believe in it yourself."

"All these [sf genre] magazines pride themselves on publishing stories from new writers. What doesn't get told quite as often is that they survive by discovering new writers."

"Fantasy looks like the abandonment of the laws of science. ... That's what it looks like.  Dig deeper.  Like science fiction, fantasy also starts out with an if."

"Everywhere we look: problems.  Everywhere we further look: solutions.  The children of men, the children of time, how can they not be fascinated with these challenges?  Thus: science fiction and its recent history."

"New writers are, if anything, even more welcome in the magazines. The appetite for new writers in the field of speculative fiction (science fiction and fantasy) is still enormous. If you write competently and if your story has any spark of life, you will sell it."

How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy

"Ten years ago a friend loaned me Parable of the Sower and it completely changed my life.  It caused me to view art, sci-fi, and literature in completely new ways.  I was very moved by the way Butler was able to seamlessly weave in heavy subject matters as race, gender, and class without ever compromising the integrity of the sci-fi."

"The little Brontës, with their kingdom of Gondaland, the infant Alcotts, young Robert Browning, and H.G. Wells all led an intensive dream-life which carried over into their maturity and took another form; and there are hundreds of authors who could tell the same stories of their youth." (artist)

"The reader wants to see the scenery, hear the music, taste the spices, pet the critters, smell the air, and most of all, he wants to feel the emotions.  This is the excitement of science fiction: It gives the reader a chance to be someone else for a while—someone profoundly different; someone in a different universe, facing different challenges."

"I waited until I had an idea for a novel that I completely loved, and then wrote it.  My enthusiasm is what helped me get through the whole process—including finding an agent."

"The first issue in any science fiction story is believability.  Because science fiction is rooted in science—what we actually know about the way the universe works—the writer has a responsibility to stay consistent with that body of knowledge.

"There's psychology in anything if you're creating believable characters, but there's an enormous amount that's important that happens outside you, and science fiction and fantasy and detective novels and romances tend to be about action."

"Things took a more dramatic turn for me when I stumbled across The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester. ... I didn't know Bester was a legend in the field.  Neil Gaiman wrote the introduction, but at the time I didn't know who he was, either.  I just decided to try it ... and it just blew my mind.  I think of The Stars My Destination as my origin story: reading that book made me want to find more books that could blow my mind like that."

"The appetite for new writers in the field of speculative fiction (science fiction and fantasy) is still enormous. If you write competently and if your story has any spark of life, you will sell it."

"Remember: The most important part of science fiction is the science.  Otherwise it isn't science fiction."

"I tried Jurassic Park, and Michael Crichton is ultimately the author who really got me into science fiction.  He's actually kind of anti-science fiction in a way, because science is always the antagonist in his novels, but all of the science in Jurassic Park gave me the confidence to go try some 'real' SF."

"A rustic setting always suggests fantasy; to suggest science fiction, you need sheet metal and plastic. You need rivets."

"That sense of wonder is what you aspire to create; that's what you must create if you are going to write effective science fiction and fantasy."

Arrival

Misfits

"The sense of wonder is the marvelous heart of every great science fiction or fantasy story.  It comes from the surprise of discovery.  It comes from the recognition of the magic within.  Most of all, it comes from the realization—the acknowledgment—of something new in the universe."

"I had discovered the first kind of boundary that marks the twin genres of fantasy and science fiction: the publishing category."

"The science fiction and fantasy audience ... is the best audience in the world to write for. They're open-minded and intelligent. They want to think as well as feel, understand as well as dream. Above all, they want to be led into places that no one has ever visited before. It's a privilege to tell stories to these readers, and an honor when they applaud the tales you tell."

Worlds of Wonder

Criminal

The Cyclist

Cargo

Edge of Tomorrow

"If the setting is a spaceship or a magical land then we'll call it genre fiction, but anyone should be able to get caught up in the lives of such characters."

"A science fiction writer is one who carves fog, discerning and uncovering the human soul beneath the future's cloud.  In writing science fiction, you can never forget that much more than our world exists."

Fortunately, the Milk

The Sparrow

Hyperdrive

Moon

V for Vendetta

Jurassic World

Her