How Much Background?
The other day I came across a term new to me (“loreporn”), or at least new in the context in which it was used, that being the idea of excessive background information in novels as analogous to the...
View ArticleWriting Thoughts
Every writer has his or her own personal requirements to be successful, and that’s often why workshops and courses sometimes don’t work, and why writing gurus often think, I’ve spelled it out step by...
View Article“So we worshipped the Gods of the Market….
“So we worshipped the Gods of the Market who promised us these beautiful things… Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew…” Kipling – “The Gods of the Copy Book...
View Article“Timeless” F&SF ?
There are novels that wear well over time, but not all that many, because too often authors are locked into their “present,” whether through social conventions, marketing requirements, or reader...
View ArticleCovid-19 and a Few Numbers
According to the CDC, the fatality rate for influenza has historically run roughly at a rate of 1/10th of one percent, that is to say, that for every thousand people infected, one person died. The...
View ArticleLead Time and Dedicated Resources
The lack of adequate personal protective equipment for medical personnel dealing with the covid-19 pandemic, the lack of adequate numbers of respirators, and the lack of advance planning in the United...
View ArticleOne-Eyed Man Promotion
Just on this coming Saturday, April 4th, Tor is making the e-book version of The One-Eyed Man available for just $2.99. Because it’s just a one-day promotion, let friends or relatives know that, if...
View ArticleMusings on Covid-19 in Utah
The state of Utah is currently under a gubernatorial “directive” – rather than a mandatory order – to stay at home, and all schools and universities have closed their physical facilities to students,...
View ArticleProcedures… and Common Sense
All large organizations have procedures. They couldn’t work without them. The vast majority of procedures govern routine tasks, and generally work moderately well, but there are also emergency...
View ArticleCheapskates or Chiselers?
When I was a teenager and not old enough to drive, there weren’t many jobs open, first because even back then very few were hiring fourteen year olds, and, second, the places that might hire youngsters...
View ArticlePresident Know-Nothing
The American Know Nothing Party, which began as an anti-Catholic, anti-immigration, and xenophobic, (and also violently anti-elite) secret society, later formally known as the Native American Party and...
View ArticlePrivileged Cluelessness
I know more than a few successful people who are where they are because of privilege of some degree… and who would violently dispute the point. In fact, when I made the point to two of them, to one...
View ArticleFreedom… or Murder?
Here in Utah, as well as elsewhere in the United States, we’ve had demonstrations by generally right-wing individuals, who are demanding that government open up the economy – immediately! These...
View ArticleRugged Individualism
Conservatives tend to be fond of the myth of rugged individualism. So does a certain small subset of fantasy and science fiction writers. The irony of “rugged individualism” is that no individual will...
View ArticlePolitical Darwinism?
Social Darwinism comes in many flavors, most of which emerged in the United Kingdom, North America, and Western Europe in the 1870s, and which attempted to apply biological concepts of natural...
View Article“Free Stuff”
Everyone likes “free stuff,” especially if they don’t consider the costs of those “free” goodies, but there’s a cost to the “free” stuff. Facebook is “free” to users, but, as one tech type put it,...
View ArticleOvercount? Undercount?
How many people in the U.S. have died of the coronavirus? According to the official U.S. death toll as I write, this, the number is 76,600. Today the Christian Science Monitor reported that, according...
View ArticleChoice?
The 2018 film, The Green Book , depicts a 1962 tour by Don Shirley, an extraordinary black classical and jazz pianist, who melded jazz and classical music on that tour and in the majority of his public...
View ArticleWho Really Believes That S**t?
I’ve always been a big fan of facts. When I was in school, though, I often got in trouble because I didn’t apply the scientific method to so-called facts I ran across. Some of those “facts” I embraced...
View ArticlePackages and Their Wrapping
Some people wrap gifts elaborately. Others place them in a decorated bag, perhaps surrounded with colored tissue. And others don’t bother with wrapping at all. Likewise, some gift-receivers admire well...
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