The technology is dated now, but if you can get your hands on them, I very much recommend Whitley Streiber and Dan Kunetka’s WARDAY and NATURE’S END. In the former, an escalating game of “You suck!” “No, *you* suck!” between the US and Russia (these were written in the 1980s) turns into global war. The nuke strikes…

Folx. Sorry. I hate being not-corrected by my tech.

I think you're very kind to Texas, C.A., even if the state of the fold in blue doesn't deserve it. Here's to kindness!

5 lousy years for a kiddie stalker? By the time he gets out he’ll have developed his fixation to the point of murder.

You know some awfully milquetoast cats. Bland, personalityless . . . Today the two newest cats in our house ganged up on the meanest female of the set and ran her out of “their” room. Then they and the next older cat decided to play a two-story-and-staircase game of tag. I’ve had cats who fetch peanuts in the shell,…

An idea. Mom mentions they adopted four African-American kids just before she started doing this. Is it possible she feels discarded and is angling for more attention/love? In a very astonishing way?

::shrug:: It happens.

I disagree with the group thing. If you look at more groups than the two this writer suggested (Algonquin Round Table), what you’ll see is one or two stars and a number of lesser lights struggling to keep up.

You know the wrong children’s book writers, then.

Guys, I have news for you—some of us out here don’t want children. We don’t suffer agonies from the choice, we don’t explode into a geyser of last-minute bio-panic at forty, we don’t weep in our sixties for opporknocketies lost, we don’t stare dewy-eyed at the windows of Babies-R-Us EVER. This question comes up over…

Aw, nuts. But "Now go away . . ." is also one of my favorites!

I read the Deryni books in the 70s, when I was looking for something more realistic than Tolein. I loved Kurtz's realism, her obvious roots in medieval Christian practice and theology, and the pure medievalism of her setting. (I am also a fan of Dorothy Dunnett and her ilk.) She gave me the courage to stick to my own…

Just curious—how many YA books have you read?

Oh, there was some awesome language in "Tombstone"! I watch it over and over just for that!

I'm in love . . . .

Well, he'd lived in Hobbiton a long time. Live in any small town even a short time and you get grumpy, particularly if a lot of your relatives also live there.

"Ah mock at you with mah monkeypants!" Python and the Holy Grail

Technically it's not a put-down, but my boss's 8-year-old sent the playground bully off with a Terminator 2: "Either make your move or get out of my face."

Kay is a god to me—his entire oeuvre is high fantasy at its best.

darker maybe, but almost unreadable in its density.