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All Quotes by author - Edward M. Lerner
" A funny thing about near-future stories: the future catches up to them. If the author is unlucky, the future catches up faster than the book can get out the door. "
Future
Stories
Up
" Anything that can unambiguously represent two values - while resisting, just a wee bit, randomly flipping from the state you want retained into the opposite state - can encode binary data. "
Values
Want
Two
" Authors like reading. Go figure. So it's not surprising that we sometimes bog down in the research stage of new writing projects. "
Reading
Writing
Sometimes
" Happily, researchphilia is not the problem it once was. The Internet makes just-in-time research very practical. "
Practical
Internet
Research
" History buffs expect historical background in historical fiction. Mystery readers expect forensics and police procedure in crime fiction. Westerns - gasp - describe the West. Techno-thriller readers expect to learn something about technology from their fiction. "
Technology
History
Mystery
" I have to believe SF writers will continue to inspire the public to have faith in - to demand! - a future that is at least as big and bold as the past. "
Faith
Future
Believe
" I like to think readers appreciate a well-drawn near-future as well as a well-drawn far-future. "
Appreciate
Well
Think
" I'm a physicist and computer scientist by training. I worked in high tech for thirty years as everything from engineer to senior vice president - for many of those years, writing SF as a hobby - until, in 2004, I began writing full time. "
Training
Writing
Time
" In mainstream literature, a trope is a figure of speech: metaphor, simile, irony, or the like. Words used other than literally. In SF, a trope - at least as I understand the usage - is more: science used other than literally. "
Words
Literature
More
" It would help if human experts agreed on the meaning of such basic terms as intelligence, consciousness, or awareness. They don't. It's hard to build something that's incompletely defined. "
Hard
Build
Help
" I want to believe humanity has not forgotten how to explore. "
Explore
Believe
Want
" Lots of science fiction deals with distant times and places. Intrepid prospectors in the Asteroid Belt. Interstellar epics. Galactic empires. Trips to the remote past or future. "
Science
Future
Past
" Many a fine SF story uses science or technology merely as backdrop. Many a fine SF story presumes a technological breakthrough and explores its implications without attempting to predict how the thing might actual work. "
Story
Science
Technology
" One of the bedrock principles of physics is the conservation of energy. In this universe, energy can be neither created nor destroyed. "
Principles
Universe
Energy
" Readers and viewers will differ about what's totally standalone, what's totally serially dependent, and what's merely enriched by reading/viewing in a particular order. "
Totally
Order
About
" Some books are serials, not to be mistaken for anything else. 'The Two Towers,' for example, ought never to be read in isolation. "
Example
Two
Never
" The biggest fatal flaw in most fictional portrayals of nanotech - what sends those books arcing across the room - is ignoring that the nanobots need energy to do... anything. "
Books
Energy
Ignoring
" The challenge - and much of the fun - of writing in an established future history lies in incorporating new knowledge while remaining true to what has gone before. Expanding and enriching, not contradicting. "
Future
Knowledge
Challenge
" The distinguishing characteristic of the techno-thriller is technical detail. "
Technical
Detail
Characteristic
" The medical nanobots in my novel 'Small Miracles' tap the energy sources that the patient's own body provides. That is, they can metabolize glycerol and glucose, just as the cells in our bodies do. "
Body
Medical
Miracles
" Time travel offends our sense of cause and effect - but maybe the universe doesn't insist on cause and effect. "
Time
Our
Time Travel
" Too much detail can bog down any story. Enough with the history of gunpowder, the geology of Hawaii, the processes of whaling, and cactus and tumbleweed. "
Too Much
Story
History
" What kind of hard SF do I write? Everything from near-future, Earth-centric techno-thrillers to far-future, far-flung interstellar epics. "
Hard
Write
Kind
" What SF author or fan isn't interested in human space travel? I've yet to meet one. "
Travel
Space
Meet
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