"One fine day my friend is approached by a colleague.
- So how are things? asks the colleague.
- Pretty well. Flourishing, really.
- What are you doing these days?
- Still reviewing a great deal.
There is a pause.
- So have you any plans for the future?
- I expect to do more of the same, I suppose, says my friend.
- No, no, says the colleague, what I mean is: when do you plan to do some real work again?"

In "Scores: Re Views 1993-2003" by John Clute

We can all guess who "the friend" is, right? Now look, just because you don't understand the genius that is John Clute, don't knock it. Sure, everything he writes looks like you've dropped a box of scrabble. Nobody understands the words, because he uses words that pre-dated Christ. Just look at the pictures of himself for a clue. For all you small minded fools, Clute is giving you a clue. See the stick above his right elbow? It is his dowsing stick. I have seen him at low tide, in the early hours before sunrise, along the muddy banks of the dart 'dowsing' for words. He finds words that fell overboard from sailors ships to be lost in the thick mud. Digging them up with his bare hands. Words that have laid forgotten for “gembdiddiatcha”. The post-it notes contain random large words. Placed upon the wall in random. Every 23 words he writes, he selects one and makes Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis it the 24th word. I have it of good authority that some of those post-it notes actually belonged to WIlliam Shakespeare himself. The light bulb that is above his head? “Confliptoniationish” is an idea's bulb. When ever he needs an idea, he pulls a chord and 'Eureka.' Though I love Clute, He did sell me a word once that turned out to be a cut-n-shut, in that it was two pedestrian words cut in half and joined together. But never mind that. If you want what I mean go read some of his reviews on Gibson's "Virtual Light", Swanwick's "The Iron Dragon's Daughter", Egan's "The Permutation City", Priest's "The Prestige", etc.

Clute was one of the best things that ever happened to SF, SF-wise. ( )