Preston Manning

When we classify an issue as a 'shield issue' it is usually because we feel that someone else occupies the high ground on that issue. We feel we can't win on that issue and so we adopt a defensive posture.

Did you know there's a difference between being busy and being fruitful? Did you ever stop to think that just being busy - running around in circles all day but not accomplishing anything - is the same as wasting your time? It's frustrating to expend so much energy and time and not have any fruit from your effort!

The historical novelist has to consider what has actually happened, while the SF writer is dealing in possibilities, but they are both in the business of imagining a world unlike our own and yet connected to it.