After a professional break during which he wrote novels, two plays and some poetry, in September 2011 he returned as a full-time Arts section editor and film critic to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

In 2008 his science fiction novel Abschaffung der Arten (translated by Samuel P. Willcocks into English as Abolition of the Species) was shortlisted for the German Book Prize.

Among his influences are writers as diverse as Harlan Ellison, Joanna Russ, Nicola Griffith, Carol Emshwiller, Theodore Sturgeon, Irmtraud Morgner and Peter Hacks.

His book Niegeschichte reflects on nearly 1000 pages about the genre of science fiction as a machine of art that can also change thinking, it was published in 2019 by Matthes & Seitz Berlin.

In January 2009 he discussed the future of a Marxist outlook on society with Philipp Oehmke in Der Spiegel – and answered to the question whether he is in favor of abolishing capitalism entirely with "Yes, absolutely," and said of his preferred replacement system "Marx calls this socialism".