This afternoon one of my friends emailed me and said, “Did you notice that Tim Pratt and Larry Niven are appearing at USC today?” I thought this must be some sort of joke, since it seemed too improbably awesome, especially considering that I hadn’t heard anything about it, but it turned out to be completely true. I had already missed their event, but I made it over to campus in time to hang out with them. I’d never met Larry Niven before, and it was a big thrill for me to be able to do so. He’s my dad’s favorite science fiction writer, so I read a ton of Niven growing up, and especially his short stories such as “Inconstant Moon,” “Neutron Star,” and “Death by Ecstasy” were huge inspirations to me. Tim will also be dropping by USC’s Ground Zero coffee house tomorrow at 1:00 p.m. to give a reading, so if you’re in the neighborhood you should definitely stop by. If you’re not in the neighborhood, you can still check out his new collection Hart & Boot & Other Stories, which is one of the best collections I’ve read recently (and I’ve read a lot of collections recently).
Then this evening I went to a production of Maxim Gorky’s “The Barbarians,” which was thrilling, though I found the ending pretty unsatisfying.
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