I met with Peter Nicholls at his comfortable home in Surrey Hills. It differs from the suburban houses around it in many ways, the most notable being that it boasts a large, modern stained-glass window depicting galaxies. He lives there with his wife, Clare Coney, and their two sons. We sat on cane chairs in the sun and he smoked a cigar, which he shouldn’t have, because his health is poor. In between talking about his professional life and our shared passion for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, we discussed the swarm of a thousand bees that had that day, in horror-movie style, invaded the family bathroom.

I am a science fiction fan, which is one reason I am interviewing Peter. But the other, more compelling reason, is that he is my father. My mother, my brother and I went with him to the USA in 1968 when he received a Harkness fellowship, but we returned to Australia without him, when I was not quite five years old. So while it could be said that, despite the breadth of his scholarship, Peter is not well known in Australia, it could also be said that there were many years when he was not well known to me. This interview is an attempt to rectify both these things.