I have been asked why I chose science fiction instead of writing something closer to the world I have actually lived in. The honest answer is that science fiction gave me more room. When you set a story in the future, you can strip away the noise of the present and get to the things that do not change. Human ambition. The appetite for control. The instinct to protect the people you love. Science fiction lets you talk about those things at a scale that makes them impossible to look away from.