The big idea: will sci-fi end up destroying the world? | Science fiction books | The Guardian

One can only imagine the horror the late Iain Banks would have felt on learning his legendary Culture series is a favourite of Elon Musk. The Scottish author was an outspoken socialist who could never understand why rightwing fans liked novels that were so obviously an attack on their worldview.

But that hasn't stopped Musk, whose Neuralink company - which develops implantable brain-to-computer interfaces - was directly inspired by Banks's concept of "neural lace". The barges used by SpaceX to land their booster rockets are all named after spaceships from the Culture books.

Musk's entire career stems from trying to replicate sci-fi novels. His desire to colonise Mars was sparked by the Foundation novels of Isaac Asimov (another staunch leftwinger). Tesla's Cybertruck is something that - in Musk's words - "Bladerunner [sic] would have driven".