First, do HARM
PW: Science fiction has a tradition of dystopian novels that comment on current political events, Orwell's 1984 and Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 being two of the most famous. Do you see Harm as being in that tradition?
BA: It never occurred to me. Harm is the sort of book I have been writing over the last half-century. Non-Stop, Greybeard, Forgotten Life, Super-State . . . all protest against something, generally against the shortcomings of human life itself. Of course I have read More, Brave New World, and all the rest of the famous utopias.
PW: Why choose science fiction as the genre in which to critique the way that governments have responded to 9/11? Doesn't that risk diluting your message in ways that a realistic novel would not? For example, couldn't critics dismiss your arguments by saying that Harm is a fantasy, its main character a man with a personality disorder?