Stephen Baxter?
Destiny’s Children Books 1 to 4 (Del Ray)
This is a series of books that spans time, from the distant past into the distant future. In medieval times, a woman starts a women-only community, which gradually becomes a cult and later a race all its own. In another story, man travels to the farthest reaches of the galaxy. I like the feeling of being stuck in the author’s world across many time frames; in a sense I try to interpret this feeling into my music—the sense of travel through the ages.

?Siri Hustvedt
What I Loved (Picador)
?What I Loved deals with the pain of loss in a very mature and inspiring way. The author writes in a way that really makes you feel, “Hey, I’ve been through that.” Feeling the most basic of human emotions, often neglected in today’s speedily produced tracks… I tried to inject that into Immune.

Greg Egan
Luminous (Gollancz)
?Luminous is a collection of short stories by one of my favorite authors. He often deals with the near future, taking in developments in science that are happening now but expanding on them. In one story, an intergalactic race downloads its civilization onto the internet. Egan really transports you. I was attempting to do the same with this album, still taking into account the sound and feeling that’s currently happening but transplanting it into a future world.

??Haruki Murakami
A Wild Sheep Chase (Vintage International)
A curious little book into whose life I was deeply sucked! It tells the tale of a man who needs to find a sheep he used in a photo or his life will be destroyed. It was important to me, as some of its themes dealt with isolation and the world within one’s head, a theme I conjure throughout Immune.

Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter
Time’s Eye (Del Ray)
??A collaboration between two of the brightest minds in science fiction, and with each page they never fail to enthrall. Again, the theme here is time travel and dilation, and once again this theme is wrapped up in Immune. Like books, music has this ability to transport the listener or reader to alternate realms of space and time.