I think it's really hard to draw a hard-and-fast line and say 'Grimm's Fairy Tales' doesn't count as science fiction or fantasy. Or at what point do we say mythology is not fantasy, so reading mythology when you're young does not count as an exposure to fantasy?
I think the thing is with a movie that has this much science fiction in it; you need characters who are more science fact, if you know what I mean, than they are human.
Let it be understood, in the first place, that a science fiction story must be an exposition of a scientific theme and it must be also a story.
I don't think I've ever really been a science fiction writer. I'm closer to a fantasist, speculative fiction, whatever, but labels are ultimately derogatory, and I eschew them as best I can.
I find fantasy easier to write. If I'm going to write science fiction, I spend a lot more time thinking up justifications. I can write fantasy without thinking as much. I like to balance things out: a certain amount of fantasy and a certain amount of science fiction.
Doing science fiction at a high level is tricky. It's really tricky.
If you don't care about science enough to be interested in it on its own, you shouldn't try to write hard science fiction. You can write like Ray Bradbury and Harlan Ellison as much as you want.
The science fiction method is dissection and reconstruction.
In really, really good science fiction, the line between the science and the fiction is blurry.
Sci-fi is speculative fiction. 'Field of Dreams' is sci-fi.
I wouldn't necessarily consider myself the typical sci-fi genre fan. I do have a lot of sci-fi shows that I enjoy, but I wouldn't call it my favorite genre of all.
I always say 300 is a sci-fi movie as much as anything. It's like that could be another planet. It doesn't have to be earth necessarily. That's like when people get so wrapped up in the politics of 300 I always go, "By the way, that's a sci-fi movie. It's not really a historical film."
But I think, and hope, that the novels can be understood and enjoyed as science fiction, on their own terms.
If you're writing fantasy or science fiction, it's really hard to do if you don't know a lot, at least in a basic way, about how the real world works.
