Warren Ellis is an English author of comics, novels and television scripts well known for their exploration of transhumanist themes, particularly cryonics, nanotechnology and human enhancement. He has won numerous Eagle Awards for best comics writer. His first nonfiction book, Spirit Tracks, is due out this year (published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux), and looks at the “future of the city, the ghosts that haunt it and the science-fiction condition we live in.”

Vassili Christodoulou: Let’s kick off with science fiction. What sort of things did you read when you were younger, and how did this inspire your adult work?