Tell us about yourself
I’m a science fiction writer from Davis, California. Suburban house-husband, gardener, backpacker in the Sierra Nevada, player of various sports. Two adult boys, wife a chemist with US Geological Survey.
Tell us about your latest book
I wrote a novel set 32,000 years ago in the south of France, describing the lives of the people who painted the Chauvet Cave.
What sparked your love of Sci-Fi?
I grew up in southern California during years when it rapidly changed from an agricultural plain to a mega-city. When I ran into science fiction, it struck me as a kind of realism. It was the best literature for expressing my life.
Your favourite Sci-Fi film (s) and why?
2001 a Space Odyssey— so peculiar and slow, spacey and cosmic.
Book v film?
Book.
Greatest Sci-Fi book character?
Mr. Tagomi from Philip K. Dick’s The Man In the High Castle.
Greatest Sci-Fi film moment?
The trip near the end of 2001.
Sci-fi or Science Fiction?
Science Fiction.
Is there a Sci-Fi book you’d like to see made into a film?
Many. Maybe start with Joanna Russ’s The Female Man.
Which fictional planet would you like to live on, and why?
I’d like to live on an Earth that people were taking care of properly.
Favourite technology from science fiction that you wish had happened?
Star Trek’s people transporter device.
Advice for any young people starting their Sci-Fi journey – essential viewing/reading?
Start with Ursula Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness. Then Delany’s Dhalgren, then Gene Wolfe’s The Book of the Long Sun. Lem’s Solaris, Disch’s Camp Concentration. Philip K. Dick’s The Man In the High Castle. Olaf Stapledon’s Starmaker. These will give a new reader many ideas for more.
Your 3 dream dinner dates from the world of Sci-Fi (alive or dead)
The alive ones I dine with frequently, it’s a pleasure. Dead: Joanna Russ, Olaf Stapledon, H.G. Wells.
Outside of literature and film, what inspires your writing?
My daily life.
Kim Stanley Robinson’s latest book is 2312, available now.
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