An article in today’s UK Daily Telegraph reports on evidence given by three leading British novelists to a Parliamentary select committee where they suggest that Britain’s leading authors deliberately “censor” themselves from writing “disturbing” sci-fi plots similar to 9/11 because they fear copycat attacks. Robert Harris, the author of historical fiction works, warned that “sophisticated societies do collapse”.

The article also reports that Harris, along with sci-fi writers Adrian Tchaikovsky and Peter F. Hamilton, told the committee how they imagined unprecedented and unforeseen risks. However, Harris also told the committee that one of the joys of being a writer that’s different from being a politician is that you can dream up the problems and you’re not required to provide the solutions. He pointed out that he felt his role to be more about scaring people and stimulating their imaginations, rather than saying how we might fix it.