Poul Anderson was one of those second rank science fiction authors whose books were often around in the 60s and 70s, but when I sampled them, they rarely seemed to make the grade. However, the generally reliable and imposing Encyclopaedia of Science Fiction refers to Anderson as 'perhaps SF's most prolific writer of any particular quality', and I was pleasantly surprised to re-read his 1964 collection of five long stories, Time and Stars to find that there is some really good storytelling here. In the first story, No Truce with Kings, a war between future US factions, reduced to nineteeth century technology, uncovers a surprising driving force for one side and is arguable a clever counter to Asimov's psychohistory concept. We then get Turning Point, where an interstellar expedition has to decide what to do when faced with a civilisation that is not yet technologically advanced, but where the aliens are significantly more intelligent than humans. Escape from Orbit is i
Paul Sen first encountered thermodynamics while studying engineering at the University of Cambridge. He became a documentary filmmaker who brought a love of storytelling to the worlds of science and technology. Paul’s award-winning TV company Furnace, where he is creative director, has made many BBC science series such as Everything and Nothing, Order and Disorder, The Secrets of Quantum Physics, and films such as Gravity and Me: The Force That Shapes Our Lives and Oak Tree: Nature’s Greatest Survivor. This won the prestigious Royal Television Society Award for best science and natural history program and the Grierson Award for best science documentary in 2016. His first book is Einstein's Fridge . Why science? I love the characters and the stories behind scientific discoveries. To find out what drives people to puzzle out how our universe works is to celebrate the best of us as a species. I am also fascinated by the relationship between science and society—why do certain scientifi