BECOMING a writer of novels, even novels fuelled by science, was far from any destiny I would have chosen if you’d asked my younger self what it wanted to be. While I always loved fiction, as a child I thought of it as frivolous, pure make-believe. When I was given my first library card at the age of 6, I even made a rule to try to keep the seductive things from enchanting me too thoroughly and making me go soft-brained.
Every time I visited the library I allowed myself to take out one work of fiction. To balance it,…
