“How am I supposed to save the universe with all this noise?!”
― Diane Duane, Wizards at War
Fighting Entropy
Diane Duane is a terrific fantasy writer. One of her series is The Feline Wizards in which cats are running the real show behind the scenes and if we only knew!
The fun of reading fantasy is that the author must create a universe with rules. The story sits within this universe and must abide by the rules and we can expect some fantastic rules. It is fun.
As a reader, I wish that authors would give credit when they lift another author’s universe. I can think of several who used other peoples imagination and set their story but never gave credit. Shameful really.
One of the fun things about Diane Duane’s universe is the idea of fighting entropy. In this she created a religion for the characters without a god. If you do a good act, you are extending the ending of the universe. Entropy also means randomness, so good works bring order to our world.
No matter which religion we choose to follow, if we are compelled to simply “do good” I think it is a good thing. After reading Ms. Duane’s books, I found myself picking up an empty can on the street and carrying it to the recycle bin. I am helping to save the universe, what greater motive?
The Profound Bartender 
Love this. On the topic of “borrowing” others’ work, I think it’s so difficult but we should give credit wherever we can. Still, we stand on the shoulders of giants, all artist’s work is founded on something they learned from a mentor alive or dead, looking at music one can see how certain people influenced others, how a thought or a look or something we derived from another. No one – not even those we borrowed from – didn’t take something from somewhere. At what point it becomes one’s own, one’s unique contribution is an interesting topic, especially for copyright and patent lawyers.
I also loved the discussion of just “doing good”. If that were everyone’s religions we’d be doing a lot better around this planet.
Nice work Kubla.
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