Gawd, Bill, that brings back memories. I had a close relative who was into all of that stuff. If anybody questioned any of it, she would lapse into this smug, all-knowing smile and mutter something about "concrete-bound."

I became fascinated with the "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century" comic strip in the Sunday funnies when I was about six years old, and have been a heavy-duty science-fiction fan ever since. Whole bookshelves full of Asimov, Heinlein, Edmond Hamilton, all those guys, and on into many of the more recent ones, plus often attending science-fiction conventions, meeting authors, taking in workshops. Jerry Pournelle and I used to be drinking-buddies. I have a couple of half-written science-fiction novels just waiting for me to get back to them (gotta do some up-dating, though). Never missed a single episode of Star Trek, except a couple episodes of Enterprise after it started getting a bit tedious (main thing that kept me watching was Jolene Blalock in a cat-suit; love women with pointy ears; madly in love with Galadriel, too). Science fact also. I rarely miss an episode of Nova, watch the Discovery Channel a lot, and I devour books by people like Stephen Hawking, Carl Sagan, and Michio Kaku. I can let my mind hurtle through vast expanses of space and time, and speculate endlessly on an infinity of possibilities. No lack of imagination.

But I never buy swampland or bridges. At least, I haven't yet.

Don Firth