In the first of the original Pern trilogy, The Dragonriders of Pern, Anne McCaffery established a culture that was facing a scalability problem. Pern – the planet on which the series takes place – experiences a recurring natural disaster that happens pretty much like clockwork. Every X days, death rains down from the skies. The …
Westerners tend to think of history as linear, like a stock market chart. History is progressing, things are constantly getting better and, if things start to get worse, it’s the start of a regression that will only get worse and worse. It’s at time like this that I like to read books about the past …
In The Hobbit, there is a scene where Bilbo and the Dwarves are wandering around Mirkwood forest. They have lost the path and are wandering without purpose. They have run out of food and are starving and can't make themselves eat the animals that they catch, for they seem inedible. They have run out of …
This morning I have that REM song stuck in my head, the one about how everybody struggles, sometimes. “When your day is long and the night, the night is yours alone, when you’re sure you’ve had enough of this life, well hang on…” Running with this is the image of a storm-tossed boat, a life …
How is your Christmas shopping coming this year? Christmas shopping is one of my favorite things to do. I look forward to it every year. I love putting together a list, reflecting on what I know about the people I am shopping for and choosing things personally, things I believe each person will take some …
