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" When I think about myself as a writer, for sure I am a science fiction writer. The tools of extrapolation, the tools of anticipating the future - those are science fictional questions. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

Science

Future

I Am

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" Fiction is optimistic or unrealistic enough to demand that there should be a meaningful narrative. "

" The sources and research I use for my inspiration aren't your typical sci-fi subjects, but it's really driven by obsession and personal anxiety more than trying to take up the sword and do what's right. "

" People don't actually stay still, you know - when their area is a disaster, they go somewhere else, right? And that's just a natural human impulse. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

People

Disaster

" The marketplace tells us that good, visceral storytelling has a place. But there are lots of questions about the format that stories take. "

" A wise human would have an understanding of the supply chain and how the pieces fit together. But it's against our nature to think about it. "

" As an author, you're really grateful for the people who are supporting you, but on some other level, that can be a dangerous echo chamber. "

" I didn't think of myself as writing 'cli-fi,' but I'll take the label. I'll take any label that makes someone think they might be interested in my stories. "

" We're all happier when we know less, because the details are frightening and haven't really improved much. The more you pay attention, the more horrifying the world is. "

" Science fiction has these obsessions with certain sciences - large scale engineering, neuroscience. "

" Businesses that decide to be reality based and identify where they're vulnerable to climate impact, that start thinking about how to buffer against it, are going to be able to take advantage of shortages. When the water runs out, not everyone is in the same pickle. "

" I'm interested in how we react when we're heavily pressed. When we're vulnerable and our survival is in question, how do we behave? "

" The things that have really gotten confusing to me is how you balance the desires of your publishers to produce things on a schedule, and people are always sort of giving you ideas on what you should follow up with or how you should proceed next and things like that. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

Ideas

People

" I'm really interested in how conflicts arise and how they reach points of no return. I'm no pacifist. Sometimes force is necessary. But war is a choice. "

" I suspect that young adults crave stories of broken futures because they themselves are uneasily aware that their world is falling apart. "

" I think there are narratives going on all the time that we think of as tangential - up until they turn out to be deciding factors in our lives. "

" Everyone in China knows The Topics. The television stations and newspapers run the same state-generated stories all across the country, and the Chinese form their opinions based on these somewhat controlled sources. "

" The loneliest Chinese man I ever met lived halfway up the Three Gorges, in Sichuan Province. "

" I don't put a very clear label on my work. If anything, I write science fiction - looking at a moment now, in the present, and then extrapolating outward to think about what the future might look like if this particular trend goes on, or if this particular trend is the most dominant. That's a science fictional tool. "

" I have friends who are science journalists, and I'm seeing stories of theirs or talking with them about ideas that they're pitching. Certain kinds of science are around me all the time, like climate change and biology. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

Change

Ideas

" As a writer, you should care about reluctant readers. You want these kids to feel like books are amazing and cool and that they're an escape. "

" As a kid, I always liked reading stories where I had a power-projection fantasy. I wanted to be inside of a story where I had power and influence, was going to rise to power, was going to somehow influence my society. "

" When somebody keeps telling you, 'This book is amazing,' you sort of have this pleasing instinct to say, 'Oh, let me make you happy again; let me do that trick again.' "

Paolo Bacigalupi

Book

Amazing

" When I was writing 'The Windup Girl' and 'Ship Breaker,' I was writing those simultaneously, so I was an unpublished writer, not really having that full sense that these books would go out in the world, that they would be successful, that there would be an audience and that there would be fans of those stories. "

" I'm particularly interested in black swan events: unprecedented surprises that destroy the conventional wisdom about how the world works. "

" As far as 'Windup Girl' becoming a hit - none of us expected that. 'Night Shade' was just hoping not to lose their shirts, and I had grown up hearing from everyone that science fiction didn't sell, so all of our expectations were very low. "

" I'm less crazy and unhappy when I'm writing. "

" Mostly I sat down and said, 'I'm not going to write a boring story.' And that actually, surprisingly, solves most of your problems. "

" Sometimes when we label something dystopian fiction, I feel like we're trying very hard not to use the words 'science fiction,' because science fiction has those horrible connotations of rocket ships and bodacious babes. "

" The young adult category is particularly interesting to me in terms of science fiction and fantasy tropes. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

Young

Fantasy

" My conception of my ideal reader has expanded quite a lot as I've matured: Ultimately when I think of my ideal reader, it's someone who's not sitting down with the intention of automatically arguing with the book: somebody who's going to give me enough slack to tell my story. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

Enough

Story