L.E. Modesitt, Jr. – The Official Website

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Like most authors, I want my readers to have as much background information as possible, particularly about recently released books, and books that will be published in the months ahead. But it’s equally important for new readers to learn about the books already out there. Those are some of the purposes of this site.

Another reason for the site is to acquaint you all with the range of my books. Just because you liked one of my fantasies doesn’t mean, unfortunately, that you will like one of my “hard” SF novels. I’d hope that you would, but another point of this site is to give you more information so that you know more about what I’m writing and what I have written.

Thanks again for reading my work, for supporting me, and for keeping the written word alive and well!

—L.E. Modesitt, Jr.

The Supply Chain Woes
October 18, 2021

As a recent and continuing victim of supply chain woes, I not only have a personal interest in the problem, but a definitely professional one – because I don’t get paid the last of the advance on Isolate until the book is printed and published, and it appears likely that its publication date will be moved again (although this is not yet certain) because of the impact these issues are having on the printing industry. I’m far from the only author having these difficulties, which include some of the largest best-sellers in F&SF, and which will before long, if not already, affect a great number of authors who rely on the sales of actual printed books.

Too many people are blaming most if not all of the delays and problems on COVID, but while COVID may indeed be a contributing factor, what COVID also did was reveal the near-fatal [at least I hope they’re near-fatal, rather than fatal] flaws in the current U.S. and world economic structures.

Some time ago, I pointed out the fragility of an economy and an industrial structure based so heavily on “just-in-time” delivery systems and suggested that this could prove problematic and have wide-spread repercussions. When companies don’t have inventory of products and of components and parts, the smallest disruption can halt production, and many corporations are facing more than small disruptions. These repercussions also appear to be increasing rather than decreasing, and they’re being complicated by other problems.

A record number of employees quit their jobs in August. They weren’t furloughed, fired, or laid off. They quit, and they quit at a time when wages are increasing. A recent study by the consulting firm McKinsey & Company found that while corporations thought employees were most motivated by money, the leading complaints by workers were that they felt undervalued, overworked, and that corporations didn’t really care about them or listen to them.

Amazon may be raising wages, but it’s also raising the pressure to “produce” to the point that more than a few employees have stated that they don’t even have time for bathroom breaks.

The difficulty in finding sufficient retail and service industry employees will likely mean that consumers will turn more to Amazon and other online delivery platforms at a time when those delivery systems are already overloaded, and when there’s already a shortage of truck drivers.

It’s not just in business, either. School systems and higher education are facing more and more disgruntled employees, especially teachers and professors who feel that they’re pressured to compromise on standards, to coddle students who are unmotivated and undisciplined, and to turn out “numbers” rather than quality.

Shortages of trained medical professionals at all levels are increasing, both from deaths and disabilities and from burnout caused by continual overwork.

Add to these the growing demand for electronics/computerization in all fields and the fact that certain key resources are limited both by design and by physical scarcity and/or production difficulties.

Good systems that can endure hardships and shortages incorporate redundancies, back-up plans, contingency planning, and additional staff, but those cost money, and the emphasis on immediate results, maximum profits, and minimizing costs means that when disruptions occur, small problems escalate into larger ones, and larger ones can become catastrophes.

And that’s exactly where we’re heading. Even if we muddle through this time, the odds are that the lure of low costs and higher profits will drive business back into the same rut… with even worse results the next time… assuming there is a next time.

Their Own Worst Enemies
October 14, 2021

There’s a very simple rule about making laws. You have to have the votes. Right now, the Democrats barely have the votes for the second “infrastructure” [for social/environmental programs] bill if the total cost is somewhere in the vicinity of $2 trillion [or possibly less] over ten years. They can’t possibly get that $3.5 trillion bill that they want, because they do not have the votes.

All the gnashing of teeth, all the crying out about the unfairness, or the need to reduce the inequalities of opportunity and wealth mean nothing without the votes to pass a more expensive bill. The simple fact is that those votes are not there, and it’s highly unlikely they will be in this Congress. It’s even more unlikely that they will be there in the next Congress, given that the political party in control has almost always lost votes in a mid-term election.

The sensible course is for Democrats to negotiate within their own party for the best they can get support for and pass it now. They certainly won’t have any more votes next year, since next year is an election year and political positions will become even more entrenched. That means there will be even less chance to pass a large bill.

If they pass whatever they can this year, it’s better for them than passing nothing, and if, miracle of miracles, they actually gain seats in the mid-term elections, then they can revisit the issues in 2023.

But Democrats being Democrats, it appears likely that all the Republicans have to do is to do what they always do best – and that’s nothing, because the Democrats appear to be on the road to accomplishing nothing at all because the “progressives” in the party don’t have the votes for what they want, and, in demonstrating their purity and resolve not to accept less than what they’re demanding, they’re destroying not only their chances for improving matters for their constituents, but they’re also eroding support for their President, which will make it even harder for them to hold seats in Congress in the mid-term elections, let alone pick up seats.

As I’ve said before, you have to get the votes before you can enact the policies you champion. And right now, the Republicans and the more conservative Democrats have the votes, and the way the “progressive” Democrats are acting, it’s likely to stay that way.

Arrogance
October 11, 2021

Arrogance has always been distasteful to me, but recent “debates” on this website and in the public arena about COVID have demonstrated a great deal of arrogance. Two categories, in particular, stand out: arrogance of the able/entitled and arrogance of the comparative young.

I will freely admit that I had advantages growing up, particularly being raised in an intact, caring, economically stable, and quietly disciplined family; being given the advantage of a good education by my family; and inheriting decent genes. None of these advantages were my doing, but those basic advantages gave me a far better personal foundation upon which to build a future and several different careers than millions of people who were born at the same time. This is nothing new. It’s been that way at least since the beginning of towns and cities.

The problem is that far too many people of modest or even greater accomplishment discount those basic but unseen advantages and claim, variously, that they accomplished what they have all on their own, or that others could do the same if they weren’t lazy, or that their superiority is innate. Yet study after study has shown that accomplishments are the result of a myriad of factors, roughly half genetic and half environmental, most of which factors we do not control, especially when we’re young. But too many people of “ability” and/or accomplishment, especially, disproportionately, Caucasian males, have the arrogance to assert or imply that the failures of those less fortunate are entirely their own fault, and, even if that’s not so, there’s no reason to help them or even try to improve equality of opportunity in society.

The other form of arrogance revealed in the COVID debate is the dismissal of older people, immuno-compromised people, and others who are not healthy young adults as not worth protecting because the length or type of life they have remaining is somehow less valuable.

I did a quick check of people who accomplished notable achievements late in life, and that list is anything but short, but I include some examples. Winston Churchill was 65 when he became Prime Minister at the beginning of WWII, and it’s doubtful that there was anyone else who could have done what he did (since every other leading British politician had already botched matters). Peter Roget created the first effective thesaurus when he was 73. Darwin didn’t publish On the Origin of Species until he was 50. Louis Pasteur was 63 when he developed and proved the effectiveness of his rabies vaccine. Rita Levi-Montalcini won a Nobel Prize for her discoveries about the nerve growth factor at age 79 and made additional significant discoveries for almost another decade. At 55, Pablo Picasso completed his masterpiece, Guernica. At 88, Michelangelo created the architectural plans for the Church of Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri. Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of the “Little House on the Prairie” book series, was 64 when she published her first work, Little House in the Big Woods. Benjamin Franklin was 70 when he signed the Declaration of Independence. Then, of course, there’s Stephen Hawking, who was anything but hale and healthy for most of his life.

The value of a life can be “measured” in many ways – by accomplishments, by character, by the changes in the lives of others resulting from one’s acts or failures to act, by the amassing of influence and power, but why are those, or other measurements, not applied to older, immuno-compromised, or disabled individuals, rather than considering them of less worth or consideration merely because of their age or physical frailty? Or is youth, which is so often wasted on the young, so much more important?

I certainly learned more from older teachers and older mentors than from those younger, yet many of the views I’ve seen expressed suggest that, rather than require a minimal effort of others, such as a vaccination, politicians and policy makers would rather subject older people and those more vulnerable to greater danger. And if those who suggest such an approach do succeed in establishing such a precedent, will they go “gentle into that good night” or will they “rage against the dying of the light” [of civility and care] when it comes their turn to be minimized or disregarded? [With thanks to Dylan Thomas].