Robert Scheer

That means presenting the issues in certain ways that will appeal to those people and then becoming a prisoner of your own language and thought process. That has always happened - it's just been intensified.

As England manager I always felt we needed an extra man in midfield to retain the ball, but that was more as an attacking ploy to help create opportunities. It came from my experience playing international football in a 4-4-2 and spending half my time chasing the ball.

The historical novelist has to consider what has actually happened, while the SF writer is dealing in possibilities, but they are both in the business of imagining a world unlike our own and yet connected to it.