Why We Write by Toby Weston

Posted on June 8, 2018 by Jeyran Main

Why We Write by Toby Weston

Sharing somebody else’s mind space, or allowing visitors into your own, is an intimate act. It requires a good chunk of audacity to reveal your thoughts and share them with complete strangers; this is certainly how I felt as a teenager, privileged to have been granted access to the worlds that Asimov, Adams, Heinlein, and Clark had created.

Exposure to these glittering Science Fiction utopias, and positive visions of a technological future, certainly shaped my thinking. The breakneck advancement of technology since—the propagation of digital networks; the advancement of AI; and the mind-boggling speed of automated systems—has only reinforced this techno-optimistic worldview.

If society is lagging behind some of these promises, perhaps it is just a lack of understanding that the possibilities and capabilities which I glimpsed three decades ago are finally entering humanity’s grasp…

I think this is why I write—to recreate for others that sense of teenage wonder at a world full of beguiling possibilities.

When possible, I try and empathize with the ‘baddies’ in my fiction. Good vs Evil can be too simplistic. In reality, challenges often come from the environment—both natural and man-made—rather than issuing from well-delineated malevolent antagonists. A corporation composed of [mostly] well-intentioned people can still cause tremendous damage!!

I write Hard Science Fiction because I want the worlds I create to seem tangible and authentic. My stories are a little more gritty than the idealistic mid-century-modern visions of Asimov et al—perhaps more Cameron’s Aliens than Spielberg’s ET. But I think the real world already looks enough like a 70s SciFi dystopia, that we don’t need any more post-apocalyptic grime.

I hope that my books paint a believable world and that my characters face real challenges. Ultimately, I hope I can inject some reasoned optimism into the debate and help others conceive a brighter vision of the future.

Above all though, my books are intended to be recreational; if my [not-so] secret agenda is to embed techno-utopian manifestos into my fiction, there must be hidden deep within Matroska layers of audacious, gripping, funny techno-adventure!!

Written by Toby Weston

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