Em sent me a link to an article in The Times about sci-fi, its importance and its unpopularity. One of the points it makes is that if anyone manages to write really good sci-fi it instantly gets promoted out of the genre, so that Orwell's 1984 becomes political satire or simply classic literature. Anyway, while reading the article I had a very unpleasant realisation about my own future.

The realisation is in two parts. 1) Sci-Fi is very unpopular, uncool and uncommercial and 2) I have inadvertently spent most of my life training to be a sci-fi writer. I've studied physics and engineering at university and then later molecular biology, physical chemistry and genomics. I've done all sorts of technical jobs involving computers and communications. In my own time I've done my best to learn about politics and the way economies evolve. And I've had several jobs where I had to design possible futures for big businesses. I've also read tons of sci-fi (mainly when I was younger) and latterly I've been writing thrillers. There's no getting round it: the job I am most suited to is sci-fi writer. Oh bum.

Mind you, as visual effects get better and cheaper, people are going to make more and more sci-fi movies and TV shows. Maybe I'll just write screenplays and not be destitute and unpopular. Hooray!