Books

Something I noticed re-reading Roger Zelazny's "Doorways in the Sand"

I recently re-read Roger Zelazny’s “Doorways in the Sand,” which I last read when I was a teen-ager. I loved it as much today as I did then. One of my favorite Zelazny books, which makes it one of my favorite books. In that novel, a character in his 60s is looking back on his life and says that the world goes through one massive change after another—but they happen one at a time, spaced out at long intervals, and after each change life goes back to pretty much what it was before, so you can convince yourself nothing has changed.

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I started reading Chasing the Dime by Michael Connelly 📚 He’s always reliable.

My 15 minutes of badass literary scholarship

In another online community, somebody asked for the title and author of a story about humans encountering another race that seemes to live a simple agrarian life. When asked how they generate electricity, or other questions about advanced technology, the agrarian person responds that they don’t know. Later, it becomes clear this other race is far advanced of humans, with great psychic powers. Asking them about electricity and such is like asking us about the best kind of wood to rub together to start a fire—something our distant ancestors knew but almost nobody today does.

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