Alastair Reynolds Quotes

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Alastair Reynolds

Profession : Author

Birth : March 13, 1966

I've always loved far future SF, so it was more or less a given that I would one day want to write in that form.

Alastair Reynolds

Speaking for myself, I really struggle to pinpoint whether I became a scientist because I like science fiction, or did I gravitate to science fiction because I identified strongly with scientists.

Alastair Reynolds

We live in a science fictional world with things like cloning and face transplants, and things seem to be getting stranger and stranger.

Alastair Reynolds

In crime, I like Ian Rankin and James Lee Burke. As for historical books, I enjoy Bernard Cornwell, Patrick O'Brien, and C. S. Forester - anything with battleships!

Alastair Reynolds

I've always been attracted to Pertwee's portrayal of the Doctor as dashing man-of-science, charming, sceptical, and rational.

Alastair Reynolds

As a science fiction writer, it's hard to think of a more stirring theme than the origin and ultimate destiny of life in the universe.

Alastair Reynolds

As a kid, I'd buy novels with these magnificent Chris Fosse covers which showed an enormous contraption hovering over a planet, and you'd always think 'Where's that going to come in?' And it never did! It was always slightly disappointing when the contents of a book never lived up to the cover.

Alastair Reynolds

I don't like a lot of what's published as hard SF. Much of it is right-wing, reactionary crap.

Alastair Reynolds

If you do a certain amount of work every day, it will eventually become a novel.

Alastair Reynolds

I had an artistic streak and was good at painting and drawing and also very good at English, but I did want to be a scientist. The education system means you have to choose physics or Shakespeare. It can't be both.

Alastair Reynolds

Science fiction writers aren't short of ideas. You can read a book, and it sets off a chain of thought processes, so it becomes a response to other people's books.

Alastair Reynolds

In some respects, big ideas can be a bit too big for a short story - especially if you've only got a couple of thousand words to play with, and you need room for other stuff, like character, description.

Alastair Reynolds

There is enough material in the Kuiper Belt to build anything out there. We could gobble up all the little asteroids, filtering out all the volatile materials, leaving us with bits of rock and using that to make some incredible structures.

Alastair Reynolds

I would much rather we concentrated on the immediate, still-potent dangers, such as nuclear weapons, runaway climate change, and so on. Sort those out, then worry about Hal 9000.

Alastair Reynolds

I just start writing, and in the process, one hopefully comes up with ideas and solutions and explores all the little nooks and crannies.

Alastair Reynolds

When I'm working on one book, part of my imagination is thinking ahead to the next one.

Alastair Reynolds

When I was a kid, I was reliably informed that we'd have gone to Mars by 1985, and of course it's 2012, and we're still really no closer to a human expedition to Mars, but that shouldn't detract from the amazing achievements that are being done on a day-to-day basis by robotic envoys.

Alastair Reynolds

You can't underestimate the importance of cover art.

Alastair Reynolds

I don't know why, but American sci-fi writers seem to focus on the near-future, which has given us Brits a clear run at the most fascinating.

Alastair Reynolds

For me, the distant future and far-off galaxies is where it's at. That's where my imagination can really come out to play.

Alastair Reynolds