My new novel for children, Aliens Stink!, is a science-fiction comedy that details the surprise depollution of Planet Earth at extra-terrestrial hands, and the arrival of a planet-wide pong that could spell (or smell) disaster for humanity…
But, wait. As soon as I mentioned "science fiction comedy", I bet you thought of Douglas Adams. (Particularly if he's namechecked in the standfirst. Ah, well.)
I read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy when I was 13, and quickly tore through its sequels. Adams wasn't like the stately novelists of science fiction I'd read, like Arthur C Clarke and Isaac Asimov. He seemed more like a chaotic cartoonist and critic, biting at the universe and telling us its taste. I loved the way he melded the brain-bogglingly epic with the banal to create concepts that made you think and burst out laughing. That was, and still is, about the only multitasking I can manage.
I'd first felt Adams' influence long before I knew of Hitchhikers, at the age of just seven. He wrote a Doctor Who TV story called The Pirate Planet, which became my special favourite. The convoluted plot centred on a hollow planet that could zip through space and materialise around other worlds, draining them of wealth and energy and leaving them shrunken husks. The story featured a robot parrot, a cyborg pirate captain, an ancient evil queen and Tom Baker haring about like a mad dog. Its super-inventive premise is built on the most flamboyant technobabble, and yet it takes a literal (if badly green-screened) spanner in the works to save the day, as the physics-twisting threats are sorted by a massive explosion. I concurred with the Doctor when he observed, "A bit crude, but immensely satisfying."
I loved it all.
Like much of Adams' later work, and like all the best work for children, beneath a superficially brash and colourful clash of characters there is something more complex and disturbing going on. And upon re-reading Aliens Stink!, I can clearly see its lineage: a humorous situation grows darker, as menace blossoms from the absurd; a small band of humans and benevolent aliens are pitted against dark cosmic creatures whose ambitions are as prosaic as our own but played out on a far grander scale.
Adams went on to script-edit one of my favourite seasons of Doctor Who, one that sharply divides the show's fans – it is praised for its ambitious ideas and upstart imagination, or dismissed for its childish silliness. I prefer the word, childlike. In my fantasy writings it is childlike thinking – a readiness to challenge the impossible and embrace the improbable – that holds the key to survival. After all, what are childhoods if not a search for truths, experience and adventure? If we choose, if we're lucky, we can keep searching our whole lives.
As Aliens Stink! publishes, I am 42 years old – allegedly the answer to life, the universe and everything. I have my doubts. But it's OK. Douglas Adams' writing taught me that finding answers is not nearly so important as asking the right questions.
• You can buy Aliens Stink! From the Guardian bookshop
