For all the throngs out there, especially those wearing thongs, who have been wondering where I have been… “I cannot bear another day without one of Shystee’s inane self-referential rants!”

Well, I have been battling an alien symbiant from the planet Nickatina. I was able to detach it one week ago, but it lurks nearby, at the downstairs neighbors’, at the corner sto’…

As horrible as it sounds I am tempted, constantly, to reattach my Face Hugger. The alien symbiant knew how to work it’s tendrils up my nose and tickle my brain’s pleasure centers. Only when I fed it what it wanted, of course. Then it would make me feel smart, confident, fast.  Read more 

I’ve always loved Ursula LeGuin, not just for the sensuous detail of her imagined worlds, but for the rigor with which she works through the logic of her premises; she’s like Heinlein in that regard, as opposed to (another great American novelist) Philip K. Dick, whose logic can be a little… slapdash. But heck, at a nickel a word, who wouldn’t chop as little logic as possible?  Read more