Artist s conception of travel through a wormhole (Credit: NASA)
Wormholes and other means of providing instant access between distant fixed points are narratively convenient. They make it possible to get characters from point A to point B without dying of old age en route. Wormholes (or their equivalent) constrain interstellar travel so that, for example, people cannot simply flee combat by going FTL, nor can they emerge above a planet before their photons arrive to carry out an unstoppable bombing run. From an authorial perspective, such constraints are very, very useful.
Once their attention had been drawn to wormholes some time in the 1980s, authors leapt on the chance to use them in fiction. See, for example, how frequently the phrase appears in American English.
Filthy former public toilet block for sale in Formby Village It s so lovely around here and then there s. that
17:30, 9 APR 2021
Updated
A “filthy” toilet block is up for sale in one of Merseyside’s richest areas. The disused block, within a car park in Formby Village, has attracted vandalism since its closure some years ago.
People living nearby say the block is an “eyesore” and is out of keeping with the aesthetic of the village.
One Formby resident, who wishes to remain nameless, said: “The village is lovely and then there’s this random, filthy block in the middle of the car park.
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Last year, I was so inspired by the various Best Of, Must Read, Smashing Science Fiction and Fantasy lists I encountered around the net that I decided to make my own book list, books chosen entirely on the basis of merit and significance to the field . People enjoyed the first list so much that I perpetrated sequels. I posted a number of lists, each twenty books long, each selected entirely on the basis of merit and significance to the field (ahem). Here, at last, the quintessence of Nicoll lists, comprising the books I would most heartily recommend. Each entry is annotated with a short description that I hope will explain why I picked it.
Don’t Count Out the Cloth Coat
It’s a retort, one forecaster said, to “too many soft clothes, too many elastic waists. We’re all craving a little structure now.”
Putting the YGB in Roy G. Biv: from left, Senator Amy Klobuchar, Senator Roy Blunt, Joe Biden, Jill Biden, Kamala Harris and Doug Emhoff, at the inauguration of Mr. Biden.Credit.Pool photo by Melina Mara
Published March 9, 2021Updated March 10, 2021
In his nationally televised “Checkers” speech of 1952, Richard Nixon, a vice-presidential candidate at the time, aggressively hoisted his Everyman flag. “Pat doesn’t have a mink coat,” he famously said of his wife, “but she does have a respectable Republican cloth coat.”