It had stories about alien abductions and UFO sightings and weird stuff like that, so maybe that’s where my sci-fi love came from. One of the things I loved was going to the little library at school where they used to get a magazine called The Unexplained. Some of it can very effectively get to the question of what it is to be human, if you think about being abducted by aliens or invaded by aliens.Ībduction by aliens was something that fascinated me when I was younger. You’ve got your highbrow very sciency science fiction and you’ve got your more lowbrow-but fun-monsters and bug horror science fiction, so it’s quite a broad topic. Science fiction is a huge genre, it can almost be anything.

Wells and Jules Verne were writing, there were advances in technology and industry that they could write about and use to fill readers with wonder and fear.

It is a little bit scary, but I think science fiction has always been relevant. My colleagues have done an interview with ChatGPT, asking it to recommend the best books on artificial intelligence. I’ve just been reading about ChatGPT, which can even write a book for you. It can make the impossible possible.ĭo you think sci-fi books are more relevant than ever, with the development of AI? The idea of intelligent machines taking over seems increasingly plausible. Or it can twist the world we live in and make it seem more exciting or dangerous. I think science fiction can take us away from the world we live in and transport us to somewhere completely different. For me, my love of science fiction came more from the television-I loved Doctor Who, The Tomorrow People, Planet of the Apes-and from the cinema. When I look at the books that are available for young readers now, I’m jealous, because we didn’t have that variety when I was growing up. I don’t think I read a lot of science fiction when I was younger, either. Can you tell me what I was missing? What do 8-12 year olds get from reading science fiction that they don’t get from other types of books? I don’t remember reading much sci-fi as a child, other than Jules Verne. Foreign Policy & International Relations.

Sci fi audiobooks