...and There Was Nothing To Do Except

Fiction That Responds To Recent World Events Is A Hostage To Fortune Because All Momentous Events Look Very Different A Year, Two Years, Three Years Later.

People Think That Alien Spaceships Would Be Solid And Made Of Metal And Have Lights All Over Them And Move Slowly Through The Sky Because That Is How We Would Build A Spaceship If We Were Able To Build One That Big. But Aliens, If They Exist, Would Probably Be Very Different From Us. They Might Look Like Big Slugs, Or Be Flat Like Reflections. Or They Might Be Bigger Than Planets. Or They Might Not Have Bodies At All. They Might Just Be Information, Like In A Computer. And Their Spaceships Might Look Like Clouds, Or Be Made Up Of Unconnected Objects Like Dust Or Leaves.

... He Had Always Rather Liked Emergencies. Other People's At Any Rate. They Put Your Own Problems Into Perspective. It Was Like Being On A Ferry. You Didn't Have To Think About What You Had To Do Or Where You Had To Go For The Next Few Hours. It Was All Laid Out For You.

I Think I've Learnt That There Is No Character So Strange That You Haven't Shared Their Experience In Some Small Way.

Then He Asked If I Didn’t Like Things Changing. And I Said I Wouldn’t Mind Things Changing If I Became An Astronaut, For Example, Which Is One Of The Biggest Changes You Can Imagine, Apart From Becoming A Girl Or Dying.