Vera Mont

There are many kinds, degrees, flavours and temperatures of love. The giving love of a parent to an infant is unconditional - at the moment. But as th...

Does any of this erudite palaver have any bearing on religion and suffering?

Thanks, but that's not what he said. I was objecting to responses like "You know something? That is a knowledge claim." and found no virtue at all in ...

I'm not at all sure he'd want me pawing his newborn ms, given how negative I was about this story. However, a novel I had already agreed to comment on...

What discussion? You make incomprehensible statements about what you do not and can not know, and then double down on them with gobbledegook. Done her...

You mean like presupposing that events have meaning? And that, without even a definition of 'meaning'. Go ahead and ask relevant questions. Wake me wh...

Much can be said about the process of observation, taking measurements, hypothesizing, experimentation and testing. The 'basic data' is already there,...

Granted: anything may be meaningful to somebody to some extent in the context of some kinds of engagement... whatever that means. However, it does not...

What does 'good' metaphysics add to good physics? And why is an addition required? What 'knowledge claim'? Human brain processes information delivered...

Some of us have nothing better to do than ask questions to which there are no answers. Most of us, most of the time, are busy trying to survive. That ...

Why do you need to understand "what it means to be human"? You're already human; it doesn't have a meaning; it's just one of the facts about which you...

One of your own devising - no prompt? Good. So have I. Even a couple of sentences floating around my head. But I'm ready to give them up if most peopl...

Hypnosis needs to be a lot more precise and controllable. External recording not possible, unless (?until) compatible hardware is perfected and indivi...

OK by me, so long as we can avoid topics like 'Hume's response to Plato". That kind of topic may be of deep academic interest, but tends to leave us t...

About a week incubating. That is, I usually have a theme or topic squirreling around in my head for a while, could be hours or months, before it prese...

What are you trying to do us also-rans? Let hypericin submit any old thing he threw together at the last minute, and maybe we'll have a chance.

I much prefer the human one, especially the unswept and unhosed bit. It had different imagery, not richer. The hollow buildings sound post-apocalyptic...

I would have been happier with two of the repetitions - empty and anomaly, for preference; I liked those. The others grated just a little. I rewrite c...

Wouldn't know how, even if I were remotely tempted.

I admired the imagery and appreciated the skill, but I could make no sense of the story.

The other guy thinks the caveman would have been funnier or more effective or something if he'd delivered the lines in a british accent rather than th...

Then he should say so. That's perfect! Combining two confusing sentences into one that makes sense and sounds good. I understand why, but you might wa...

Italics in a new paragraph, rather than quotation marks - they both serve the purpose: to differentiate narration from dialogue. A popular alternative...

I'll come back with fresh eyes tomorrow.

You're right; that was Tobias who obliged. I also misremembered his footwear.

Flying black cassock, streaming white beard? That's all your own, and you promised to squelch it. In the story, it's an ordinary clean-shaven young ma...

I don't think it matters. You started her as female, and I gather sex is part of the legend, so it would be fine to leave the pronoun in place through...

Every paragraph? Yes, I think it would become tiresome. But at scene and focus changes, it works.

I doubt most readers would have a problem either way. As soon as she/it attacks Ivan, she/it becomes a monster; I'm not sure anyone stills identifies ...

Change a half dozen adjectives to avoid snagging critical minds, and it's just fine the way it is.

No, I believe this is one of those volatile periods. In prehistory, extreme events - a major flood or drought, a devastating inter-tribal war - would ...

Make the best possible start to 2025!

I don't think so. There have been periods, in various places, when not much changed for several generations - or even a couple of centuries. And then ...

Homeward for literary merit. Nude Descending a Staircase for a fresh perspective. The Unrighted Leotard for sheer unbridled madness. Dispatch UK-028 f...

Please don't! The story - which btw, have I said? is magnificent as it stands - would lose a psychological dimension.

I'm sorry I shortchanged this story. It was one of the first I read, right after my little mishap, when typing difficult. Better cast now (it's Kermit...

FWIW, I like the appendix too. For one thing, the monks were funny and I was curious how they fared. I always like to know, after a contest for exampl...

Yeah, except all he's offering top and bottom is bread. With shit in between. I mean, do you want that sandwich?

Anybody can find anything anywhere, if they look hard enough. Which organizations have been studied? What is a sociopathic tendency? Haven't we all go...

Not a great recommendation for therapy - or marrying a shrink, I suppose. Still, another interesting perspective on the process. I can't think why thi...

Yup. Comes a point in a long diatribe when one - author or reader - is simply tired of listening. That, too, is an individual choice. You can't save e...

Or re-invented, or reconfigured or merely sabotaged.

Not me! He's got plenty already. It's the other Ahmirs of this world that could benefit from hugs instead of kicks.

I don't relate this to Paper Houses. To which story does it refer? The judgment call, of course, is when feedback stops being constructive and when it...

Judith Rossner wrote a novel titled 'August' , back in 1983; I don't know how relevant it is to analysis today. My own second-hand experience goes bac...

Could have been The Outer Limits or Alfred Hitchcock Presents, but Rod Serling had the most poetic introduction. I call those little anomalies mind-sn...

His father was a white-collar worker in a high-rise office block, an unimaginative, ineffectual man who took his frustrations out on his family. He fl...

FWIW, my first impression of the lad came from "lived alone in his mother's flat" and he's mixed race, rejecting one half of his heritage - I assume t...

Connor's conscience. Admitted. The Twilight Zone reference was evident to me and I failed to see that it wouldn't be to anyone else. So, I guess, anot...

They're actual places and people. He's experiencing deaths that crop up from history, according to some random cue in his own life. At night, Connor i...