Pulling 180

Nonfiction writers imagine.  Fiction writers invent.  These are fundamentally different acts, performed to different ends. 

Unlike a fiction reader whose only task is to imagine, a nonfiction reader is asked to behave more deeply: to imagine, and also to believe.  Fiction doesn't require its readers to believe; in fact, it offers its readers the great freedom of experience without belief - something real life can't do.  Fiction gives us a rhetorical question: "What if this happened?"  (The best) nonfiction gives us a statement, something more complex: "This may have happened."

Free Lunch

For years now, I've been a fan of Cheeseburger Brown stories.  Like many others, I jumped right from the Vader Blog into the surreal Simon of Space and have been hooked on his stories ever since.  If you're a fan of Sci-fi and have a few spare moments to kill online, I'd recommend jaunting on over to his Free Stories section.  Dive right in - start anywhere, it doesn't matter.  Many of the stories are loosely connected to one another, so once you've started you'll find yourself pulled into other narratives as well.  It's a wonderful motley mess of Sci-fi goodliness. 

And although I don't read his blog as often as I should, I loved this short tale about his Time Traveling Son.