The other day I was reading reader reviews of Rex Regis , a habit that my wife disparages, and there is, I must admit, a certain validity to that disparagement, but I occasionally find useful comments and every so often those which are thought-provoking.

The comment that I found thought-provoking was one reader’s comment that because a lead-lined room for limiting the power of imagers figured in the book, I had to be running out of ideas. To me that comment revealed a certain unrealistic short-sightedness. In the world of Terahnar, the use of lead-lined rooms for imagers dates back well before the beginning of Scholar, and there’s no secret to the usefulness of lead in this regard. Those who used the lead room did so exactly because that usefulness was well known, although they did employ another device that had just been developed, a fact seemingly overlooked by the reader.

Now and again, I’ve noted similar comments about other authors’ works as well; so my observations don’t represent something limited just to my work. As I have stated more than once, human beings will employ what is useful, and they will continue to use whatever they find useful until it is no longer useful or until they find a better way or tool. If more than one person uses a gun or laser or whatever, that doesn’t mean an author is out of ideas; it means he or she understands people and tools.

Somewhere, among a certain group of fantasy readers, there seems to be a belief that each and every problem must be resolved in a new and unique way, as if the only measure of author creativity is a new and different solution to each problem, even if some of those problems are the same nature as preceding difficulties. It’s one thing to use a new technique or technology if it fits into the story, can be supported by the magic/technology in use or is a logical outgrowth of that magic or technology, and doesn’t require resources beyond the ability of the individual or culture, but to throw in “new” gimmicks merely to keep readers interested or for the sake of trying to usually ends up undermining the credibility of the story… and the author.

Yet, at the same time, I do understand the desire on the part of readers for something “new,” for something to inspire that sense of wonder. The problem is that “new” things don’t happen that often in any civilization, and need to be introduced sparingly… or the author ends up producing a magic funhouse (in fantasy) or technoporn (in SF), neither of which are something to which I aspire. So it’s likely you’ll only see “new” techniques and/or gadgets in my work when they fit in the societies I’m describing… as I’ve tried to do all along.

There’s a phrase that exists in the American/English language: “It’s never too late to [fill in some goal or action].” I don’t know if similar phraseology exists in other languages, but its prevalence in today’s society is indicative of a mindset that Americans can do anything, even if it seems too late. After all, late as it was, didn’t the U.S. enter World War II and turn the tide, so to speak? Didn’t we come late to rocketry, but become the first to put astronauts on the moon? And I have to admit that there are a number of other examples.

BUT… all too many people fail to realize that there are just as many examples of “too little, too late,” and I have the feeling that, as a result of a society that has become ever more one of instant gratification, just-in-time supply deliveries, and the up-and-coming 3D print-it-yourself technology, we’re losing sight of too many areas where it may well become “too late.

In some areas, we accept, if grudgingly, that “too late” exists. If a child doesn’t learn a second language young, that child will never learn to speak the language without an accent. If you don’t master the violin by age 13-14, you’ll never be a concertmaster/mistress. At some point, it is too late even for a professional athlete to continue performing at a high level. In other areas, we don’t seem to get it at all. Remedial writing instruction for college students [except for foreign students who write well in their own language] is largely useless. Those skills have to be learned close to the time of puberty, yet universities pour billions of dollars into such courses.

The idea of it never being too late is more pronounced in socio-political issues. Gun violence at American schools, now at even grade schools and middle schools, not just colleges and high schools, is continuing to increase to the point that I have to question if it is not too late to ever reduce the carnage. With close to 400 million firearms in circulation, with popular opposition over any control whatsoever of who can use weapons and under what conditions, and a growing lack of self-discipline by a growing percentage of the American public, is there really any way the violence and deaths can be reduced?

Global warming is continuing, despite recent evidence of a slight decrease in solar radiation received by the entire earth. Billions of years ago, Venus and earth were more similar, until runaway global warming turned Venus into a hothouse torrid enough that lead can melt in places on its surface. Another study just revealed that the firn ice of Greenland has either reached or is close to reaching its capability for absorbing meltwater, and further increases in meltwater could lead to the melting of the entire icecap of Greenland. How long before it’s too late to save much of Florida and U.S. coastal cities?

In the end, there is a difference between situations where “it’s never too late”; situations where it soon will be too late; and situations where it’s already too late. But because of the human tendencies to procrastinate and to demand just one position, maybe, just maybe, in cases where there’s any doubt at all we ought to take the default position that, if we don’t do something now, all too soon it will be too late.

Recently, in response to one of my blogs about the excessive salaries paid to university administrators here in the U.S., and particularly in Utah, one of my readers sent me a link to a UK site, which, interestingly enough, contained a news story about how university administrators there had received a five figure pay increase while faculty got, as I recall, less than a one percent increase, after almost a decade of essentially no pay increases. Unfortunately, this trend isn’t confined to universities; it’s also a trend in business, and that trend is to stiff the people actually doing the work and reward the executives and managers for keeping costs down and profits up – effectively by keeping pay as low as possible and piling more and more work on those under them.

Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, observed just several weeks ago that the 99% versus the one percent was a highly inaccurate and deceptive depiction of income inequality, in that nine-tenths of the uppermost one percent had seen modest real gains in income, perhaps less than ten percent after inflation, accompanied by as much as a twenty-percent increase in hours worked… and that didn’t take into account that this group already worked long hours. In short, 99% of the working people in the United States have seen real wages and salaries decline, the next nine-tenths of a percent have managed modest gains in income by working much longer hours, while the income of the top tenth of one percent has skyrocketed.

To make matters worse, at least here in the United States, wealthy business types, such as the DeVos and Koch families, have embarked on what amounts to political crusade to reduce the bargaining power of “labor” at all levels – except very upper management – while also pressuring politicians at all levels to keep taxes low and to reduce support services to the poor and working poor, as well as the unemployed…and, of course, to provide a wider range of “business” tax subsidies. The result is, of course, more of what we’re already experiencing – increasing income inequality as the real income of the top tenth of one percent goes up and the real [after taxes and inflation] income of everyone else goes down, or perhaps holds steady or rises slightly for a “fortunate” few; slow, almost non-existent job growth; and an anemic economy at best.

I’m as incensed as anyone about the comparative handful of the “professional poor,” and the grifters, especially huge agribusiness combines and special interest loophole users, who employ every angle to con money from the federal government, and I’m not exactly pleased by couples who have far more offspring than they can support, and knowing that, who continue to have more children. BUT… statistics show that the majority of those receiving unemployment assistance are still looking for work… and the vast majority of working Americans are getting screwed.

Meantime, the top one tenth of one percent, such as hedge fund managers, and the DeVos and Koch families, are doing just fine, and all too many of them are trying to find ways to lower their taxes and keep down labor costs, regardless of the devastating impact on most working Americans.

For all the reputed values, enthusiasm, and idealism reported as embodied in today’s college students and younger professionals, there’s one value far too many are lacking and whose value these young adults totally fail to grasp.

That’s the necessity of practicing certain skills until they are letter-perfect, even when such practice is boring and seems to be drudgery. A few weeks ago, I attended a professional opera convention [as a guest.  You’d never want to hear me sing.].  One of the comments that came up time and time again from professional directors in the field was the necessity for young singers to not only have a fine and trained voice, but to have mastered basic musicianship – to have the ability to play the piano well enough to accompany themselves in practice, to be able to work out the most complex rhythms, to have mastered perfect intonation and diction [and that means working to eliminate regionalisms and mispronunciations in everyday speech].  These are not the exciting aspects of opera, singing the grand arias, perfecting stage presence, and the like.  They’re fundamentals, and mastering them takes long and hard work.  Year after year, my wife sees students with great natural voices who she knows will go absolutely nowhere, simply because they’ve gotten where they are on pure natural talent, but they’ll never get any better, because, to get to the truly professional level, their fundamental musicianship has to be outstanding, and that takes work they aren’t willing to undertake, and in some cases, those skills are so lacking that it’s literally too late for such students to develop them, even if they were willing to work that hard on those basics.

This principle applies in all fields. One of my daughters is a doctor, surgeon, and senior professor at an excellent medical school.  Several years ago, more than a few would-be doctors were absolutely appalled at their additional weekend assignment – if necessary, hours of repetition in practicing stitches until these doctors-to-be could meet her standards, simply because their stitches were sloppy, uneven, and didn’t meet professional standards.  Boring?  Yes.  Drudgery?  Absolutely!  But if you’re the one they might be operating on, wouldn’t you want those stitches to be as perfect as possible? And despite surgical staples and modern adhesives, there are times and places where old-fashioned stitches are indeed necessary.

I’ve seen the same thing in writing, especially in science fiction and fantasy.  Too many young would-be writers immediately embark upon writing the great fantasy novel.  Some do not even understand, on a technical level, what a sentence is.  Nor do most understand that, to write a truly original work of SF or fantasy, a writer must actually know far more than a “mainstream” writer does. When writing mainstream fiction, a writer doesn’t have to think in any great depth about the economic or political structure of our society, but only about how it works or doesn’t. I still remember a comment Ben Bova made on one of my early stories.  He pointed out that a gadget I mentioned in the second paragraph invalidated the entire culture and setting. When you write F&SF, if you want it to be good, the magic/technology has to fit with the culture, the people, the economics, the geography, the political structure… and a lot more… and learning all that isn’t easy. Neither is applying it.  Both take work, intellectual drudgery, if you will.

The problem is that, today, everything’s supposed to be interesting, even fun. I’m sorry, but being successful in anything is going to take a whole lot of drudgery, and those who skip it may succeed for a while… before the roof – and the world – fall on them and crush them.

According to a just-published study in the American Journal of Sociology, the reason why divorce rates are higher in religiously conservative “red” states than in more liberal “blue” states is precisely because of those religious values.  That’s right, ultra-religious protestant values undermine the stability of marriage, contrary to what all those ultra-religious types profess about the sanctity of marriage.

Why?  The answer lies in the fact that such belief systems pressure young people to avoid sexual encounters before marriage; to avoid “artificial” or “anti-life” birth control measures, often endorsing only abstinence-only birth control; and usually to have large families.  The result is early marriage under higher economic stress by young people who often do not know who or what they are, and this is reflected in a long-standing and continuing divorce rate higher than that in states where the culture is less religiously dominated.

Not only that, but because the religious cultures permeate all aspects of the regions in which they are predominant, even non-believers in those areas are influenced through various effects, such as local and state laws, educational curricula, and social interactions.  In addition, also according to the study, “If you live in a marriage market where everybody marries young, you postpone marriage at your own risk. The best catches… are going to go first.”

The problem these religious types face is that what they believe about sex and young people, and how they should behave, is totally at odds with human behavior, and at a time when the age gap between physical/sexual maturity and economic/social maturity is the largest ever in human history, the only way the vast majority of young people can deal with that gap over time is either early marriage or sex without marriage, and when effective contraception is against religious values, the results are usually early marriage, with more than the normal rate of “premature” first births.  That puts a high percentage of such early marriages at risk from the beginning,

Having spent the last twenty years in exactly one of those cultures, I have seen exactly that scenario play out time and time again, and it continues to amuse me, if ironically [since I’m long since past any real amazement], that people here deny the fact that the divorce rate is higher and that their beliefs are the principal reason for the family instability that they so decry.

But then, as I’ve often observed, true believers often pay no attention to reality, especially where religion is concerned.