I've probably read more bad science fiction than anyone else alive. But I've also read more good science fiction than anyone else alive.

What science fiction does is take what might be possible someday and examine what might happen if it were - the drawbacks and the positive things.

Philadelphia's a good science-fiction town. There are many professional writers here, like Michael Swanwick, Tom Purdom, Gregory Frost, Victoria McManus and others. There are professional artists such as Bob Walters and Tess Kissinger and Susan McAninley.

I don't read other science fiction. I don't read any at all.

When I was a boy in Salem, Mass., in the 1950s, if you wanted to buy a book, you had to take a train to Boston. And when you got there, to a bookstore, there was no such thing as a science-fiction section.

I want to be the Cecil B. DeMille of science fiction.