In February 2006 this website asked it's readers to submit questions for an interview with Stephen Baxter. Finally, after The Manifold took several months collecting and compiling questions, here is the entire interview.

For ‘The Manifold’ website, July 2006.

The Manifold: Stephen, thanks for taking the time to answer these questions. It’s quite an eclectic mix of questions.

SB: Thanks to everybody who posted a question.

The Manifold: Let's get straight into them...

Raj Chari, London: Hi Stephen. Many of your novels appeal to me as they are set in the close future, and I imagine that I will live to see a few things happen, such as massive ‘softscreens’ that can be folded away, and hopefully a return to the moon and onwards to Mars. But is there anything that you have put in your older novels that you now think had too optimistic a timescale?

SB: I can’t think of anything. It’s odd that you can prophesy reasonably easily for the short and the long term. In ‘Titan’ I wrote about a shuttle lost during reentry, which unfortunately came to pass; you could see the accident waiting to happen. In the long term the laws of physics work themselves out, so we know what will happen to the sun, say. The medium term is trickier, say 50-100 years. In ‘Transcendent’ I have the Americans giving up the automobile by about 2040, in order to take the lead in climate change. Is that too optimistic? I hope not!

Ghost Particle, Malaysia: Have any of your writings been considered for a movie project and/or tv series?

SB: Yes. My story ‘Pilot’ (in ‘Vacuum Diagrams’) was optioned for a movie, and got as far as a screenplay. ‘Moonseed’, my novel, was optioned when it was still just an outline, so I definitely had a movie treatment in mind. Again it got as far as a screenplay. But the production company ran into trouble on another picture and folded, and that was that! My ‘Mammoth’ series was considered for animation by Cosgrove Hall, who make ‘Postman Pat’ among other things, another one that fell through, but it would have been brilliant … Currently ‘Time’s Eye’ (with Arthur C Clarke) is being developed for an American TV mini-series. So there’s been interest, and as CGI technology improves there’s a better chance of one of my big-budget novels being realised. But it’s a very crowded market; for every movie made there must be thousands of failed proposals … Personally I prefer working on novels anyhow.

Paul Campbell, United Kingdom: When I discovered your work I felt that 'sense of wonder' I thought one only got from SF when reading it for the first as a teenager. However, since "Titan", I've gotten the feeling that you've lost your sense of economy: every new book now seems to be part of a trilogy and each volume in these trilogies is 500 or more pages long. Do you feel this is a valid observation, or do you believe your stories justify the larger canvases you've been giving them?

SB: I generally write long books or series of books because a) it’s what the publishers believe the market wants b) the big ideas do seem to need room. My first ‘long’ book was ‘Flux’; I did turn in a shorter version but it was just too crowded and I expanded it. The ‘Manifold’ series is a case in point. The Fermi Paradox – do aliens exist? – is such a big current question that I spent three linked novels and a short-story collection exploring it, and still didn’t get to the bottom of it.

Ghost Particle, Malaysia: Do you have any techniques or methods that help you to stay focused when writing about a particular subject and remain interested all the time?

SB: That’s a good question. I’m nineteen years (God help me) into a career as a published writer now, and I write in a variety of different markets (sf, young adult, non-fiction) and different kinds of books (big-scale hard sf, alternate history, etc) partly because I like to try to keep fresh by hitting myself with new challenges. I like & admire Terry Pratchett’s work but I couldn’t do a 20-book series. So variety is one way. And it may seem obvious but I only choose subjects to write about that I’m interested in myself. I really enjoy being immersed in NASA politics for a year, or Roman Britain, or the evolution of man. Of course by the third draft of almost anything it gets a bit tedious, but then you have the pleasure of seeing the book itself emerging. Short stories are fun; you’re in, out and done within a few days, quite a relief!

Ian Guthrie, Paisley, Scotland: Hi. In your book Transcendent, the main character is named Poole, and has an uncle George. In Arthur C. Clarke's 3001, the main character is Poole and he also has an Uncle George. Is this an intentional homage?

SB: No, pure coincidence. I first named Michael Poole some time in the early 90s I suppose with my novel ‘Timelike Infinity’. At that time I hadn’t read ‘2001’ for a long time, the book in which the astronaut Poole first shows up. And no I hadn’t even noticed Uncle George in ‘3001’! I think I picked up the name Poole from a visit to Poole in Dorset around that time.

Lando Griffin, Quahog: Assuming that the human race does not destroy itself in the next few decades, roughly in which decade do you think a human will be further away from the Earth than the Voyager probes (if ever) and why?

SB: Very hard question. If we learn to live beyond the Earth, on the Moon or Mars, why not go further, especially if there’s somewhere worth going? Here’s a flyer. If we discover Earth-like worlds beyond the solar system, and we may well do so soon with the new generation of telescopes, so that we have somewhere beyond the sun that’s worth going – and especially if we detect traces of life there – and if we have a propulsion breakthrough, such as fusion drives – we could be sending off our starships a century from now. I still believe the stars are meant for mankind.

Asim Qureshi, Birmingham, England: Dear Stephen, I met you at Glasgow Worldcon and here is my question. Nearly all Science Fiction writing of high calibre is devoted to civilising the vast arena of the Universe and the Space within it but nobody treats the vast oceans of this planet as space which has to be discovered properly and fully researched in a logical way. Do you ever plan to write a good story about the oceans of this planet because I know that you will do justice to this subject. I look forward to hearing from you.

SB: No current plans. But as the ocean floors are still less well mapped than the surface of Venus, there’s plenty of room for stories down there, as has been proven in the past, from ‘Stingray’ to ‘The Abyss’!

Bill Reid, New York, US: One of my favourite popular-science books of recent years was your excellent ‘Deep Future’. Have you any plans to write other non-fiction books in a similar vein in the near future?

SB: Thanks very much. No current plans but I continue to develop my knowledge and thinking about the future as I work on my books. I have to give a talk to an EU / Microsoft conference on the future later this year. My theme will be that just as the Apollo astronauts were the first to see the whole Earth, our generation is the first to see the whole of the future, all the way out to a billion years when the sun overwhelms life on Earth.

Starbuck, US: Hello Stephen, do you get time to read other sci-fi novels? Which current authors do you admire?

SB: I don’t read that much to tell you the truth. It’s partly because reading fiction seems to use the same mental muscles as writing it; a first draft is like ‘reading’ the novel for the first time. But I’m a big fan of Benford and Bear; of McAuley and Reynolds; of Robson and Stross and Schroeder.

Ben, Winchester, UK: Do you think China will take the lead in the space race, and would you say that a country like China is better equipped to advance into space as they are (perhaps) not as accountable for high levels of safety that NASA & the US government seem burdened with?

SB: They might well be the first back to the Moon, and for the exact same reason as the Americans went: prestige. I’m not sure about the safety aspect; they seem to be proceeding cautiously as it’s all very public. In ‘Titan’ I predicted, or hoped, that China might impel the US to get involved in a new ‘space race’ like the one in the 1960s with the Russians. International cooperation and/or competition does seem to drive space exploration. Of course the Chinese went exploring in the fifteenth century, before closing their minds to the outside world and breaking up their treasure ships; if not the whole world could be Chinese by now …

Kevin Smith, Glasgow: The Manifold books were a real eye opener to me, the first novels in a long time that really got me thinking. My personal solution to the Fermi paradox is that no civilization would broadcast radio for longer than, say, a few thousand years, and therefore it is very unlikely we’ll ever pick anything up using our current methods of searching for radio waves. Can I ask what you think the reason for the Fermi Paradox is?

SB: That’s a plausible possibility. Even now we are still broadcasting but increasingly by closed networks, which wouldn’t ‘leak’ to the stars as we did even a few decades ago. So maybe races are only ‘noisy’ for a short time. We’ve been searching so long now that we ought to have picked up anybody ‘noisy’ pretty much on this side of the Galaxy, and we haven’t. I can’t really believe we’re alone, given that life started here on Earth (or blew in from somewhere else) very soon after the planet formed.. I suspect They are out there, but utterly alien, perhaps living in vastly different environments to ours, perhaps with vastly different motivations, so much so we may not even recognise Them as intelligent if we fell over Them (or vice versa) and may have no basis for communication. One day we’ll find Them, I think.

Malcolm R, London: Would you say that writing for small publications like Interzone & Locus is the only practical way of breaking into the science fiction market, or will a decent sci-fi novel still be accepted from a first-time writer by publishers?

SB: Publishing short stories was my way in. The publishing houses do watch the magazines. After five or six stories I had a track record and a career, and I had proven I wasn’t a flash in the pan; the publishers are more reluctant to invest if they’re not sure you can actually deliver the novel you’ve outlined, and can deliver more in the future. So when I sent novel proposals to the publishers I stood out a bit from the ‘slush pile’. It’s still the way I’d recommend, as a way to learn the trade and to build a profile. But there are always exceptions; Susanna Clarke for instance had no previously published fiction (I don’t think).

Nien, Manchester, UK: If you could go back in time and have a chat with an 18 year old Stephen, what would you say? Would you try and learn a second language to increase your chances of becoming an astronaut?

SB: I’d definitely do that. But I don’t think I’d change anything. In retrospect my career has been a typical writer’s career, a bit restless, doing this and that, but gathering experiences that all fed into my writing in the end. I don’t think it would have done me any good to do nothing but write from the age of twenty-one; you need something to write about. I couldn’t have understood how NASA works, say, if I hadn’t worked for monster organisations like Nat West Bank!

Gary B, Jefferson, Wisconsin, United States: I cannot wait for Firstborn to come out next year. Could you perhaps reveal a few details about what will happen in that novel and whether it’ll be the last in the series?

SB: I’m sorry I can’t say too much as we’re working on it right now. I hope it will continue the ‘Time Odyssey’ series satisfactorily. It’s the only one we are contracted for right now, but it’s not a series that will ever have an easy closure, and I hope we’ll do more!

The Manifold: And to finish, there seem to be a lot of questions about the Xeelee; here are a few:

Gray Hudson, Swindon, England: In which order should I read the Xeelee sequence? In the order of publication or try to stick with the timeline?

SB: I hope that all the books and indeed the stories can be read stand-alone. I’m not a great fan of books that end with cliff-hangers. So you could go in anywhere. One way would be to start with ‘Vacuum Diagrams’, a collection that sets out the overall story of the universe. Then ‘Timelike Infinity’ and ‘Ring’ which tell the story of Michael Poole, then ‘Raft’ and ‘Flux’ which are really incidents against the wider background, and finally ‘Destiny’s Children,’ if you can stand it!

Paul Schell, Medford, MA, USA: Will we be seeing more of the Xeelee and will you be continuing the Destiny's Children series?

SB: The DC series itself will conclude with ‘Resplendent’, a linked collection of stories setting out the wider background to the future history of DC. I’m sure I’ll return to the Xeelee universe, indeed I’ve completed one story (about the Squeem) for a ‘space opera’ anthology edited by Gardner Dozois. And my ‘Old Earth’ stories in Analog Magazine are a vision of the far future of that universe. The good thing about all this for me is that it all came from my very early work, my unconscious, and some of it is now so old it feels like somebody’s else’s work altogether, and for those reasons it’s quite rich and fresh. The DC series itself came out of wondering how a certain chunk of the ‘old’ history, as man conquered the Galaxy, actually could have come about. I think there will always be new stories to be told.

Matt, Australia: I know this is a silly naive question but.... What are the Xeelee really like? What are their origins, their appearance, their mechanism of breeding? How do they think etc... Thanks

Eric Besaw, U.S, Michigan: Sir, Will you ever detail in a novel the true inner workings of Xeelee society, command structure, forms of Xeelee communication, and even a description of what an early "biological" Xeelee might have looked like, etc.? Thank you.

SB: Thanks for these two questions. Matt’s isn’t naïve at all. My Xeelee series began with my first published story, ‘The Xeelee Flower’ (later collected in ‘Vacuum Diagrams’). This was really an adventure story which needed big powerful off-stage aliens – hence the Xeelee. I began to work up more stories in the same universe, dominated by the Xeelee, who I wanted to be utterly aloof, utterly powerful, utterly unknowable, waging war with an opponent just as aloof and unknowable, with us caught in the middle. I suspect this is a relic of my Catholic background; I’m lapsed now, but I grew up being taught that the universe is pretty much like that. And maybe there is a metaphor for the human condition in there somewhere, how we’re all motes adrift in a universe shaped by immense forces. So to me the Xeelee came flying out of my unconscious, just as unknown to me as to everybody else. As I worked through the stories and books I developed details of them – their ships, their war with the photino birds. In my novel ‘Exultant’ I sat down and really tried to work out an origin / ecology for them, which partly answers your questions I think. But I haven’t got into their ‘society’ as such yet. I like to have unanswered questions. And after all, all they do is stomp us; their command structure is as irrelevant to us as the United Nations is to an ant being stomped by a farmer’s boot! But I’ll return to this universe and no doubt will dig in more … As I say though I will be finding out at the same time as the readers; it’s all a kind of psychoanalysis for me!

The Manifold: Thanks very much for taking the time to answer these questions Stephen, and thanks to everyone who submitted a question.