September 11, 2001

Today is September 11, 2026. It's the 25th anniversary of the Islamist terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people when hijackers flew passenger jets into the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon. A fourth flight crashed in Pennsylvania when passengers resisted the hijackers.

I've talked about people talking about 9/11. I reviewed conspiracy movies like Loose Change and 911: In Plane Sight, as well as Lawrence Wright's book The Looming Tower, about the failure to prevent the attack. But I haven't talked directly about 9/11 on this blog, even in an anniversary year like 2011, although at that time I was hardly writing, anyway. But in this milestone year, it seems apropos.

9/11 is to my generation what the JFK assassination or the moon landing was to my parents': it's that moment when you can remember exactly where you were and you realized you were witnessing world-changing events.

When the planes actually struck the Twin Towers, I was en route to work—already late. When I arrived at the office, the first thing my boss said to me was that I needed to check out the TV in the break room. The TV was on, but I was the only one there. I arrived just a few minutes before the collapse of the north tower. The south tower was already gone, but this wasn't clear to me yet until the second tower fell and there was nothing left.

I didn't get a lot of work done that day. I had never experienced that kind of pure horror before; nor have I since. What I had witnessed was the mass death of 1,700 people in the north tower (as we would learn later) not to mention the thousand that had already died in the south tower half an hour earlier. Finding out later, when I got home, what had also happened in Washington and Pennsylvania only intensified that horrified feeling when I realized the fuller scope of what had taken place.

I was in Ottawa, 400 miles and a whole other country away from New York. I'm sure that my circle of acquaintances, personal and online, is probably large enough that at least one person knows someone who was killed on 9/11. But I have no personal stake in the attack.

But it was the single largest loss of life on American soil due to enemy action, surpassing even Pearl Harbor. As a speaker I heard said a few weeks later, moral relativism was dead. (And it was, at least briefly). We had witnessed an act of pure, objective, evil, unsurpassed before or since in my lifetime. "Never forget" is the motto. And may I never forget.

Perelandra: Chapter 17

Spoiler alert: This post is part of an in-depth discussion of Perelandra by C. S. Lewis, which will inevitably reveal key plot points. If you don't want me ruining the experience for you, put this post down and go read Perelandra now. I promise I won't be offended.

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The story so far: Our protagonist, Elwin Ransom, was brought to the planet Perelandra (Venus) by the Oyarsa of Malacandra (Mars), whom he encountered in the previous book, Out of the Silent Planet. His mission to Perelandra was, as yet, unknown.

Perelandra was a warm, overcast, ocean planet with next to no solid ground. What passed for land were floating mats of vegetation, where plants grew for food and friendly wildlife dwelt. Ransom also met a green human woman, who initially mistook him for the King, her male counterpart. She was apparently in close communication with Maleldil, the supreme spiritual ruler of the universe, who helped the Green Lady understand that Ransom was from a different world and his ways were different.

Ransom and the Green Lady visited the Fixed Land, one of Perelandra's few true islands. Maleldil had made a rule forbidding the King or the Green Lady from dwelling there, or even spending the night. They saw an object fall into the sea. It was a spherical spaceship, of the same kind in which Ransom was kidnapped and taken to Mars. In fact, they soon meet his abductor, Weston, on the beach.

Weston's humanistic, scientistic beliefs had evolved into a mystical form of emergent evolution. He now believed in a cosmic Force that directed his actions. When the Christian Ransom attempted to refute this belief, he became angry and was possessed by the Force. His own personality was apparently consumed, and he became the Un-Man. He escaped to the floating islands and attempted to persuade the Green Lady to violate Maleldil's law. While Ransom was there to refute his arguments, the Un-Man was relentless and had no need for sleep, and Ransom realized he could not keep up his side of the argument indefinitely.

Science Fiction-Free September 2026

It's September, and that's the month when I declare a moratorium on reading science fiction, usually in favour of something I wouldn't normally just casually pick up.

This year, though, I left the planning too late, and when it came down to figuring out what I might like to read this month, I didn't find myself too enthusiastic. Besides, there was a list of books on my to-read list that I was looking forward to, and I don't really feel like holding them back.