No one disputes that seeming order can come out of the application of simple rules. But who wrote the rules?

Not wanting to die was another universal constant, it seemed.

Paul Levinson has outdone himself: The Plot to Save Socrates is a philosophically rich gem full of big ideas and wonderful time-travel tricks.

It is either coincidence piled on top of coincidence," said Hollus, "or it is deliberate design.

A science fiction writer should try to combine the intimately human with the grandly cosmic.

There is no indisputable proof for the big bang," said Hollus. "And there is none for evolution. And yet you accept those. Why hold the question of whether there is a creator to a higher standard?

With billions of years, who knows what science might make possible? Why, it might even make it possible for an intelligence, or data patterns representing it, to survive a big crunch and exist again in the next cycle of creation. Such an entity might even have science sufficient to allow it to influence the parameters for the next cycle, creating a designer universe into which that entity itself will be reborn already armed with billions of years worth of knowledge and wisdom.