Tannishblog

This web log is capricious, in that it guides itself. Patterns are recurring, however, and one is a thread of My Favorite People I Haven’t Met. Meet David Brin: A scientist and Science Fiction author of repute, and one of the smarted people I’ve encountered, albeit briefly. He even has a blog!

I first “met” Mr. Brin at a SciFi/writers fandom convention (GENCON) in 1999. I use quotes here because it’s inaccurate to say I’ve met him when all we did was share a room at a conference. He was speaking on a panel of three published authors about the role of mythology in speculative fiction (i.e. Fantasy and Science Fiction), where David was the third speaker. Who were the other panelists? I forget. Such is the strength of his thoughts and delivery, that to this day I can recall only what he said. His fellow panel members were in the wrong place that day; David blew them away.

“Hello,” he said, “My name is Nirb Divad.” He then spoke from notes he claimed to have written on the plane, “on the fly,” which contained more thought and substance on the subject at hand that the other panelists could muster in a week. He dominated. Afterwards, there was nothing the panel could do but to open up discussion. My wife and I, already fans of his fiction, walked away fans of the man.

Read his stuff, it’s definitely thought -ful and -provoking.