On Tues. Nov 4, 2003 Steve Simmons wrote: >On Mon, Nov 03, 2003 at 06:28:03PM -0800, Steven Brust wrote: >> I've found I've steadily been reading less fiction and more non-fiction. I >> have no idea if that's related to writing, or if I'm just getting old enough >>to not have fun any more. Probably a little of both. In the last six months I've read a sociology textbook, "The wealth of nations", "New ideas from dead economists", "The elegant universe" and I am reviewing calculus with a tutorial. I couldn't read more than a few pages of "the wealth of nations" without falling asleep when I was in college, but now--I find it quite fascinating. On the other hand, calculus was a blow-off class for me, I was the only 'A', and now I find it takes me a week to work through one chapter of the review. Your brain changes over time I guess. (yes I know that statement is vague and inappropriate coming from a doctor, but I am brain dead today from pain killers for my back. Boy wouldn't hate to be my patient today?) >IMHO ones tolerance of mediocre fiction writing declines over time.Non-fiction is >driven as much by the interesting-ness of the facts,and one can tolerate mediocre >prose in pursuit of those interestingfacts.Plus non-fiction doesn't suffer as much >from unbelievable charactersor impossible plots. True but-----There is plenty of good SF/F and straight fiction out there, you just have to find it. John D. Barbato, O.D.