GEOFF RYMAN

The trouble with writing for the web is that writing is about getting people to forget they're reading. Anything that reminds them they are reading, or which annoys or distracts them, bounces them out of the world. And the web, it seems to me, is all bounce. A very, very difficult medium to write for.

Traditional fiction has a little bit of spatial exploration but is basically a question of time - the question is, what happens next?

Everything, no matter how beautiful, is only with us for awhile.

Everything move...you wonder how it all knows where to go. Einstein wondered how birds knew where to migrate to. He thought they might follow lines of light in the sky. He saw everything as lines of light. That's how he was built. So we don't know how he moved, either. Any more than the birds.

Sex complicates, but it is the power of love to simplify.

Everything goes, everything is lost, eventually. But if something is good, it doesn't matter what happens. The ending is still happy.

I sure do think it is an emergent form, but I also despair of reading online until screen quality is better.

My favourite sites are all about web accessiblity, like Jakob Nielsen's site, but I'm afraid I've got quite utilitarian in my uses of the web. I buy things for friends and family in America on it. I find train times on it. I get a quick short article on a subject from it. I do not surf for fun much.

In a sense who you are has always been a story that you told to yourself. Now your self is a story that you tell to others.

I work with a lot of scientists, and one of the frustrating things they find is that all this fascinating stuff is being done which doesn't find its way into science fiction. They say look at the science fact pages - they're so much more imaginative than science fiction.

The trouble with writing for the web is that writing is about getting people to forget they're reading. Anything that reminds them they are reading, or which annoys or distracts them, bounces them out of the world. And the web, it seems to me, is all bounce. A very, very difficult medium to write for.

I sure do think it is an emergent form, but I also despair of reading online until screen quality is better.

My favourite sites are all about web accessiblity, like Jakob Nielsen's site, but I'm afraid I've got quite utilitarian in my uses of the web. I buy things for friends and family in America on it. I find train times on it. I get a quick short article on a subject from it. I do not surf for fun much.

It's my experience that scientists can find it difficult to understand the needs of scriptwriters or storytellers.

I work with a lot of scientists, and one of the frustrating things they find is that all this fascinating stuff is being done which doesn't find its way into science fiction. They say look at the science fact pages - they're so much more imaginative than science fiction.

With the hyperlinks, '253' says, 'Look at all the links we have we don't know about.' Without the links, the message becomes, 'Look at God's infinite variety.'

Traditional fiction has a little bit of spatial exploration but is basically a question of time - the question is, what happens next?

Franchising implies a financial arrangement, and I am always pleased to consider those.

'253' has a little bit of time in it, but basically, everything's happening at once in a small space, and you're exploring the space. 'What happens next?' is not the question that you're asking or answering. It's where do you go, and why should you go there?

Everything move...you wonder how it all knows where to go. Einstein wondered how birds knew where to migrate to. He thought they might follow lines of light in the sky. He saw everything as lines of light. That's how he was built. So we don't know how he moved, either. Any more than the birds.

Everything, no matter how beautiful, is only with us for awhile.

In a sense who you are has always been a story that you told to yourself. Now your self is a story that you tell to others.

Sex complicates, but it is the power of love to simplify.

You know, all the evil in the world, all the sadness comes from not having a good answer to that question: What do I do next? You just keep thinking of good things to do, lad. You'll be all right. We'll all be all right. I wanted you to know that.

Everything goes, everything is lost, eventually. But if something is good, it doesn't matter what happens. The ending is still happy.

This is what books only aimed to do and never could. Give you the glint of someone else's sunrise, what living is really like, you get old and it hurts to bend your elbow; your friends start to die, you can’t get fresh fruit in the shops.

I'm in the back of a limousine with Charlie Chaplin and it’s 1928. Charlie is beautiful; his body language seems to skip, and reel and rhyme, heartbreaking and witty at the same time. It seems to promise a better world.

Literature for me… tries to heal the harm done by stories. (How much harm? Most of the atrocities of history have been created by stories, e.g., the Jews killed Jesus.) I follow Sartre that the freedom the author claims for herself must be shared with the reader. So that would mean that literature is stories that put themselves at the disposal of readers who want to heal themselves. Their healing power lies in their honesty, the freshness of their vision, the new and unexpected things they show, the increase in power and responsibility they give the reader.