Anything that can go wrong, will

Consider the true picture. Think of myriads of tiny bubbles, very sparsely scattered, rising through a vast black sea. We rule some of the bubbles. Of the waters we know nothing.

And every friend I've got has been writing Mars stories. It was pretty clear I'd never catch up.

Bruce Sterling is one terrific writer and he's relatively new, but I don't know how long he's been doing it; he probably doesn't need the publicity anymore!

Anything that can go wrong, will

I'd visit the near future, close enough that someone might want to talk to Larry Niven and can figure out the language; distant enough to get me decent medical techniques and a ticket to the Moon.

The Product of Freedom and Security is a constant (F X S = k). Giving up freedom for security is beginning to look naive.