Month: June 2026

In Praise of Reading

Reading is a truly wonderful invention. What do great writers of history have to say about it? Let’s find out.

I’m old-fashioned and think that reading books is the most glorious pastime that humankind has yet devised.

Wisława Szymborska

There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.

Joseph Brodsky

Books are good company, in sad times and happy times, for books are people – people who have managed to stay alive by hiding between the covers of a book.

E.B. White

And let us not forget these eternal words of wisdom from the novel Don Quixote:

Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

A love of reading is the best sort of crazy (but do try to get plenty of sleep).

To Colonize the Red Planet

“I am going to colonize Mars!”

“Why would you want to do that?”

“Because it’s there!”

“Yes, it is there. It’s very, very far over there.”

I don’t think we’ll ever colonize Mars. And being a stick-in-the-mud, I also feel the need to ask the question: Why?

We already have a perfectly habitable planet right here. And before anyone says anything about climate change, overpopulation, wars and various other sundry problems that plague the human species, let me remind you that Earth remains habitable without having to put on a space suit to walk outside, whereas Mars … doesn’t.

Besides, if we colonize Mars, who’s to say we won’t just bring said issues with us?

It doesn’t sound like a good time. Colonists would be living in sealed rooms for the rest of their lives. You can’t go outside and play. The solar radiation is deadly, the dust storms are deadly, the air is deadly and how long can you last before cabin fever sets in? Or you want to strangle your roommate who lives within a hundred feet of you every day?

The idea is romantic, I confess. A big, bold step for mankind, just like the moon landings were. But it seems … excessive. Indulgent. Something more suitable for speculative fiction. We haven’t even gotten around to colonizing the moon. Aren’t we skipping a step by making a beeline for Mars?

Or maybe sixty years from now, I’ll read this blog and laugh at my pessimism. But, for now, I say with confidence: We aren’t going to colonize Mars.

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Many thanks for visiting my blog. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

So Many Words, So Little Time

A part of being a writer is having ideas. Some of us have one, maybe two, really good stories in us our whole lives, and the challenge is to shape that story into something as close to perfect as possible.

Others of us, myself included, have what feel like too many stories. We need to get them all out or we’ll burst. But there’s never enough time. Write five stories, ten, a hundred, and it never feels like enough.

And then I look at authors like Alan Dean Foster and Terry Brooks and feel horribly inadequate.

Time is precious and limited, and we do not have the luxury to use it as we wish. Jobs and chores and other tasks come up, and so we must sacrifice the time we wish we could spend on things we enjoy. I have a job, and I cannot write 24/7 as much as I wish I could.

Therefore, I try to make my peace with it. I strive to focus on the here and now. I may never get all the stories inside my head onto paper, but I can try. And for all of you who feel the same way, who feel paralyzed by helplessness or fear that your ideas will never be fulfilled, remember: Do what you can with the time you have.

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Many thanks for visiting my blog. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

“Hermes is not having the best time. He walks a fine line, and his duty as messenger of Olympus weighs heavily on him. Being a god in the modern age means living in a world that no longer believes in gods. How much can one deity accomplish when no one respects him anymore? And why do his instincts tell him that he, the son of Zeus, is losing favor with his own family?

Tensions abound. The upstart Young Gods play dangerous games using entire cities as their boards. Formless monsters strike from the nighttime shadows, terrorizing hapless mortals. Agents of rival pantheons scheme to thwart Olympus’ designs. In the thick of it all, Hermes does what he does best: trick, lie, and cheat his way to victory.“