So.
I'm watching the second season of Highlander, an episode creatively titled "Warmonger", and the reporter who is trying to get the story of an evil immortal who has played the power behind the throne, tosses off this explanation of why she is taking the opportunity to interview this very dangerous man: "Stalin is dead. Mao is dead. And Saddam Hussein hasn't been giving interviews lately."
That's from memory so I'm sure it's not exact, but close enough.
I just thought it was interesting that in 1994-ish Saddam Hussein rated an offhand popular cultural reference that paired him, as the then living member, of a very elite company.
George Bush decides to do something about it ten years later and suddenly Saddam is just another guy, no worse than anyone else.
I'm watching the second season of Highlander, an episode creatively titled "Warmonger", and the reporter who is trying to get the story of an evil immortal who has played the power behind the throne, tosses off this explanation of why she is taking the opportunity to interview this very dangerous man: "Stalin is dead. Mao is dead. And Saddam Hussein hasn't been giving interviews lately."
That's from memory so I'm sure it's not exact, but close enough.
I just thought it was interesting that in 1994-ish Saddam Hussein rated an offhand popular cultural reference that paired him, as the then living member, of a very elite company.
George Bush decides to do something about it ten years later and suddenly Saddam is just another guy, no worse than anyone else.
Comments
No, nothing published, nothing novel length finished. I have sent short stories out in the past to magazines and been rejected, so I can claim that bit of follow-through and legitimacy.
For a lot of years I wouldn't have named myself a writer... I mean, everyone is, right? And everyone sucks. So announcing that you're a writer when you don't have anything published to point at sort of feels like an announcement that one is a poseur. But I realized a while ago that if I didn't think of myself that way, as a writer, then I'd never do it.
I do write. And what I write is usually science fiction.
I like Baen and what seems to be the publishing philosophy there. I participate on a usenet group, rec.arts.sf.composition, and for many years there was a lot of disdain expressed for Baen... until increasingly more long time newsgroup participants were published by Baen rather than someone else. It's hard to bad-mouth the publisher who bought the book of the fellow you're talking to.
I think that for many years science fiction was having a crisis of relevance. The general thought was that science fiction needed to be elevated from pulp to literature. Lately, however, I think there has been a shift back to an appreciation of adventure and story, to give the pure energy and vitality of the genre its due.