Intermezzo: A.E. Van Vogt's The Weapon Shop and the 2025 Election
As the holidays creep closer, I am gradually slipping into one of my sci-fi moods. I don't know why, but there is something about the cold days, dark nights, and light-up decor that makes me feel like I am living in a space station on the "blackest sea", as one sci-fi author put it, whose name is long forgotten to me. As such, I begin to binge on science fiction like a drunk during happy hour. Recently, I have found myself exploring the world of audiobooks. I have found them to be wonderful diversions as I engage in my seasonal ritual of scouring the house from top to bottom in my unquenchable desire to rid my interior life of all traces of the most obnoxious season of all, summer. Audible recently introduced me to an excellent science fiction compendium entitled The Science Fiction Hall of Fame: Vol. 1, 1929 - 1964. As the name suggests, this has proven to be an excellent collection of some of the greatest tales to come out of the rightly titled "golden age of ...