Cosmic Smokescreen

Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinded critics and philosophers of today – but the core of science fiction, its essence has become crucial to our salvation, if we are to be saved at all.

Isaac Asimov (1920 - 1992)

My latest order from Amazon arrived today. The main item in this particular order is a hardcover edition of John Scalzi's The Ghost Brigades, plus two other books – all military science fiction novels. It's terribly frustrating trying to find the latest science fiction (SF) books at the local bookstores – nobody reads them – so I have to resort to buying online. The Ghost Brigades is a follow-up to the 2005 Old Man's War, which was nominated for the 2006 Hugo Award for Best Novel.

As usual, I had the order delivered to the office, largely due to the high regard I place on the Pos Malaysia delivery service at home. Hopefully, I'd be able to start reading the books by the end of the week. As of now, I still have three piles of examination scripts to mark – a total of about 120 scripts. Just looking at them makes me sick; if only I could outsource the whole marking work to some company in Bengaluru.

I wonder if the students could understand what they wrote themselves. Half of the handwritten scripts are barely legible, while some thought that they can get away with not knowing what were actually being asked by dazzling me with whole pages of pure BS. I also found one student (so far) dedicating one whole page of the answer booklet composing a letter of apology for not being able to completely the answer the exam questions. Looking at the scripts, it is hard not to wonder what the students were doing the whole semester. Am I that bad?

Thankfully, there are always the few that tell you that it is all worth it.

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QUICKIE: The Hugo Award is given every year to the best science fiction and fantasy (SFF) works of the previous year by the World Science Fiction Society. The 2006 Hugo Award for Best Novel went to Spin by Robert Charles Wilson. Really cool book, I read it earlier this year in April.