I have to get the details right.I'm David Matuszek, known to my students as "Dr. Dave."I got my PhD in computer science from The University of Texas in 1978. I've taught there, at the University of Tennessee, at Villanova University, and most recently at the University of Pennsylvania. At UPenn I was the director of the MCIT (Masters in Computer and Information Technology) program from 2000 to 2017.Maybe that's irrelevant to being a science fiction author. On the other hand, I've been involved in Artificial Intelligence for several decades, so I think my opinion is as good as anyone's as to what AIs will be like in, say, another hundred years.

I think an AI like Gort is perfectly plausible.I had a lot of fun writing this. I spent hours figuring out how to rebalance the ship. I love learning new things, and for this book I learned about nanotubes in spider silk, dilatant liquids, Deinococcus radiodurans, and the air-cleansing properties of chrysanthemums. I wrote programs to calculate distances and flight times. I worked out what technology Bob needed to do his job. The plot twists came as a surprise to me as much as to my readers.My next novel, All True Value (due out in early 2020), is about colonizing an alien planet that unexpectedly has a native population.

The natives aren't like us. What is their society like? How did they get to be the way they are? If they have technology, where is it? And since we don't have a (*cough* magic *cough*) Universal Translator, how do we even talk to them? Most critically, can we get along, or will they destroy us? I had to get the details right.Plus, I learned a lot about goats. Other things too, but mostly goats.I hope to see you again in All True Value.