Building Tomorrow: James Thornton on Science Fiction and the Future We Choose

James Thornton's London flat is exactly what you'd expect from a science fiction writer, and nothing like it at all. Yes, there are floor-to-ceiling bookshelves crammed with classics from Ursula K. Le Guin to Ted Chiang. But there's also a thriving vertical garden covering one wall, test tubes of algae growing on the windowsill, and what appears to be a homemade solar panel charging his laptop.

"I'm interested in practical futures," he explains, gesturing at his makeshift laboratory. "Not just the ones we read about, but the ones we can actually build." This philosophy—that science fiction should be a blueprint for possibility rather than an escape from reality—defines his approach to writing and explains why his novels feel less like fantasy and more like previews of coming attractions.

From Climate Science to Fiction

Before James published his first novel at 34, he spent a decade as a climate scientist, modelling future scenarios and presenting findings to policymakers who often seemed more interested in political calculations than planetary ones. The frustration of watching evidence be ignored or distorted eventually drove him to fiction.

"I realized that data doesn't change minds," he says. "Stories do. People can dismiss a graph, but they can't un-imagine a character they've come to care about struggling through a drought-ravaged landscape or celebrating a technological breakthrough that changes everything."

His first novel, "The Reclamation," depicted a near-future Earth where massive climate engineering projects—some successful, some catastrophic—have reshaped both the planet and human society. It won three major sci-fi awards and established James as a voice worth listening to.

Writing Believable Futures

What sets James's work apart is his insistence on scientific plausibility. His futures may be speculative, but they're grounded in real physics, actual emerging technologies, and genuine understanding of how societies change.

"I get emails from readers asking for citations," he laughs. "They want to know if the bioengineered carbon-capture forests in my novel could actually work. Usually, the answer is yes—with a few optimistic assumptions about development timelines."

This commitment to realism extends to his characters. They're not superheroes or villains, but ordinary people—engineers, teachers, farmers, artists—trying to navigate extraordinary circumstances. "Real change doesn't come from singular genius inventors," James explains. "It comes from countless people making slightly better choices, building on each other's work, creating systems that enable progress."

His latest novel features a protagonist who's a municipal water treatment engineer. "Not sexy," James admits. "But water infrastructure is going to be one of the defining challenges of this century. I wanted to write about someone doing that unglamorous, essential work."

Technology as Character

In James's novels, technology isn't just backdrop or plot device—it's almost a character itself, with its own logic, constraints, and unexpected consequences. He's fascinated by how tools shape the people who use them, how intended purposes diverge from actual usage, how every solution creates new problems.

"Take smartphones," he offers as an example. "They were supposed to connect us, make us more productive, democratize information. And they did all that. But they also fragmented our attention, created new forms of surveillance, changed how our brains process information. Any sufficiently powerful technology does both harm and good—the question is whether we have the wisdom to maximize one and minimize the other."

This nuanced view prevents his fiction from falling into either techno-utopianism or dystopian cynicism. His futures contain both breakthrough and breakdown, innovation and exploitation, hope and warning.

Why We Need Hopeful Sci-Fi

When I mention that much contemporary science fiction seems relentlessly dark—apocalyptic scenarios, authoritarian futures, environmental collapse—James nods vigorously. "I get it. There's a lot to be pessimistic about. But despair is paralyzing. If we can't imagine better futures, we certainly can't build them."

His work deliberately offers what he calls "pragmatic hope"—not naive optimism, but acknowledgment that humans are remarkably good at solving problems when we're sufficiently motivated. "Every disaster scenario I can imagine, I can also imagine people working together to address it. The question is whether we start soon enough."

He points to historical examples: the rapid development of vaccines, the Montreal Protocol that repaired the ozone layer, the transition from whale oil to petroleum (itself now being superseded). "We've done hard things before. We can do hard things again. But first, we have to believe it's possible."

The Role of Fiction in Social Change

James has an interesting theory about science fiction's cultural function. "We use stories to rehearse possible scenarios. That's literally what dreams do—simulate challenges so we're better prepared when we encounter them for real. Science fiction does the same thing at a societal level."

He mentions how Star Trek's communicators inspired the development of mobile phones, how William Gibson's "cyberspace" shaped how we think about the internet, how countless engineers and entrepreneurs cite science fiction as inspiration for their work.

"But it works the other way too," he continues. "Fiction can make us wary of certain paths. Orwell's 1984 gave us vocabulary to recognize surveillance states. Huxley's Brave New World warned about the tyranny of comfort. These stories shape our moral intuitions about technology."

Advice for Aspiring Sci-Fi Writers

James teaches an annual science fiction workshop, and I ask what advice he gives to aspiring writers. "First, actually understand the science. You don't need a PhD, but you need to know enough to distinguish plausible from impossible, to understand what your innovations would actually require and what consequences they'd have."

"Second, remember you're writing about people, not technology. The coolest gadget in the world is boring if we don't care about who's using it and why."

"And third," he adds, "have something to say beyond 'wouldn't this be cool.' The best science fiction is always commentary on the present, even when it's set centuries in the future. What questions are you exploring? What do you want readers to think about differently?"

Looking Forward

James is currently deep in research for his next novel, which explores the social implications of extending human lifespan. He's reading gerontology papers, interviewing biotech researchers, and thinking through how societies would need to restructure if people routinely lived to 150.

"It's not as simple as 'yay, more life,'" he explains. "What happens to careers, relationships, political power when people don't age out? How do you maintain innovation when the old guard never leaves? What new inequalities emerge if longevity treatments are expensive?"

These are the kinds of questions that drive his work—not "what's possible?" but "what would it actually mean?" As our conversation draws to a close, I ask James what he hopes readers take from his books.

"I want them to feel both sobered and energized," he says thoughtfully. "Sobered by the real challenges we face, energized by the real possibilities for addressing them. I want them to close the book thinking not 'that was a nice escape,' but 'what can I do to help build the better version of that future?'"

It's an ambitious goal. But then again, so is writing science fiction that matters, that changes minds, that helps us collectively imagine our way toward a future worth inhabiting. If anyone can do it, it's James Thornton—scientist, storyteller, and practical dreamer of better tomorrows.