Even the gods cannot change destiny. - Neil Gaiman

I was pleased to get a copy of Roger Zelazny's novel Lord of Light the other day. It's one of my favourite books (I think the first thing author Steve Brust ever said to me was "Let's have an argument. Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light is the best book anyone's ever written." "Ah," I said, "If you make it best SF book of the 1960s, I'll go along with it." "Oh. Fair enough." It was the first of a long line of failed arguments.) It's got a blurb from me on it, which I hope sells many copies.

“Just go with it. It won’t hurt.”
I stared at him. Adults only ever said that when it, whatever it happened to be, was going to hurt so much.

I grew up loving and respecting short stories. They seemed to me to be the purest and most perfect things people could make: not a word wasted, in the best of them.