Wow, I wonder how much time and thought he put into the speech. The whole part about his first published piece was great. I recently had my first piece published and I told everybody in my life about it. Gave copies to all my close friends. Even my ex-wife got one. I can believe him that the excitement and emotional reward lessens with frequency, but I doubt I'll ever hace the same level of frequency as Neil.

What really struck me was the criticism of contempory genre fiction, specifically SF. It was a bit poetic in a 'beating-around-the-bush' kind of way, but still the message is there. Speculative Fiction has become the primary form of media, be it graphic novel, video game, or blockbuster movie, SF has risen to the top of the slag heap. Where do we go now is the appropriate question.

I remember one summer in the 1992 when I stumbled across the first Borderlands short story collection. I was blown away by what these unknown authors were doing with the genre. They had shirked off the heavy coat of traditional formulas and plot devices and were pushing genre fiction into new directions. I suddenly wanted to be a writer. After reading the first edition of Borderlands I was inspired to write a novel. I know, pretty arrogant to think that I could side step the whole short story thang, but I did it. I wrote 217 pages of a 'horror' (for lack of a better term) novel in a dim and dank basement with my cat and cases of cheap beer. The 217 pages died a horrible death due to flooding in that same basement three years later, but at the time I was completely energetic about the story. My best day, I still remember this, was 25 pages in a single sitting, long-hand. Regardless, what had really impelled me was the sheer liberty in writing genre fiction that these authors illustrated.

Neil said in regards to SF: "There was a battle for the minds of the world, and we appear to have won it, and now we need to figure out what we're doing next."

I don't think we really have to worry too much with Neil pushing the Genre forward as he always does, but on a personal level as an author I have taken his words to heart.