I’m not an ecologist but I’m quite interested in the natural world, that’s just one of my general interests in life, the world around me, and I suppose that the fact that a large part of the first book was set on Earth and quite a bit of the second book is set on Earth, it was just an opportunity to reflect that concern in a book. Was that a conscious change?Īlastair Reynolds – It probably reflected personal concerns that have always been there that haven’t necessarily come out in the fiction, I think. Geek Chocolate – While space is where you made your name, the first two novels of the Poseidon’s Children sequence have a very strong ecological theme, the elephants of the first volume becoming the trantors of the second, and the influence of the merfolk of the United Aquatic Nations and their resolve to live in harmony with the sea. Attending the Edinburgh International Science Festival to participate in fellow astronomer and novelist Pippa Goldschmidt‘s event What Scientists Read on April 17 th, he was sat with Geek Chocolate for a long chat over coffee and cake to talk about his career, his novels, his future work, the current frontiers of astronomy and a few teases about the forthcoming concluding volume of the Poseidon’s Children trilogy, due 2015. With twelve major novels published since his 2000 debut Revelation Space, shortlisted for both the BSFA and Arthur C Clarke awards, alongside a plethora of short stories and novellas, former astronomer Alastair Reynolds is not only of the most prolific and significant of modern science fiction writers but also one of the most approachable.

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