One of the best science fiction authors has passed. Yes, some do not consider him with the dreaded moniker “science fiction author”, but that is why he was so good. His imagined worlds and futures as breathing realities that he used to paint the actual novel. The novels weren’t really about the technology or shooting-spaceships-pew-pew.

They weren’t so much about “What if?”, but more of: “This is how it will be, how do we thrive in it?” Always with a dark whimsical slant.

– Be careful what you pretend to be because you are what you pretend to be.

– Life happens too fast for you ever to think about it. If you could just persuade people of this, but they insist on amassing information.

and the last thing I read on him, about dependence on oil and global warming and the end of the world.

“No. No. Because I’m eighty-three years old. The lying bastards! On the package Brown & Williamson promised to kill me. Instead, their cigarettes didn’t work. Now I’m forced to suffer leaders with names like Bush and Dick and, up until recently, ‘Colon.’”….

You join the long list of those people that will be missed. Goodbye Kurt.