I've been sitting in my comfy chair sipping a childhood favorite (a burgundy) and reading The Crazy Years during the slow sections of "Flight of the Phoenix". (By "slow bits, I mean of course the obligatory part of any action film where the characters sit around angsting to one another. Pfooie). And naturally, about every other essay, I had to pause in order to carry on an imaginary argument with Mr. Robinson.

For some of us, that's half the fun; maybe more. All the essayists I've enjoyed--from Lewis, through Sowell to Florence King--share this characteristic: Their writing is so clear and straightforward, even the on points where they're completely mistaken, (or possibly where I imagine them to be so--the exact size of which set, I shall gracefully pass by), are immediately obvious. Like them, Spider Robinson does not gloss over, elide or use rhetorical cheats. This makes the inevitable moment when the author manages to persuade his reader or cause her to reexamine a presumed-settled point positively delightful.

It seems to me that easily spotting the writer's blind spot (or spots) as opposed to say, those places where he's succumbed to hyperbole or the habitual prejudices of his age, argues for the clarity of the man's thoughts and his ability to express them. Add to this Spider Robinson's unique voice, his varied and often amusing experience, and I find even the hobby horses he's chosen to ride with his head so far up his nether regions he'd put star equestrians to shame, are enjoyable. There's a certain intellectual stimulation in arguing over, say, the life skills schools should teach (when to kow-tow to a bureaucrat, when to bully him--and how!) or even why said schools evoke dread in the heart of most teenagers (other than their egregious dreadfulness, that is!)

I missed most of Robinson's columns when he was writing for the Globe and Mail (which has, for some dullard's reason, canceled them). His fiction, eh, some is glorious (the best he co-wrote with Mrs. Robinson), much is repetitive and forgettable. As an essayist, however, he reminds me of Kipling, the poet: Very few pieces are diamonds of the first water, rather more are excellent, but dip into any volume of Kipling and you'll come up with a good solid poem. The same is true, abundantly, of The Crazy Years. If I'd had this collection in my hands I'd have skipped Very Bad Deaths entirely (despite the compelling Hickman cover) as this collection hits all the good parts: The anecdotes, the heart, the no-nonsense authorial pizazz. If Heinlein were a hippie, this would be his voice.

The copy I'm holding in my hands comes from my library, but that's just until the Amazon.com copy rolls in. Even when it's dated, Spider Robinson's "good stuff" is eminently re-readable. And of course, I've got to have it on the shelf for my Mighty Mite to find.

And then, then I hit the epilogue.

You see, I composed this piece two essays and one final rant from the back cover. That back rant is... Well, let's just say there are brave men and women in Iraq giving Spider the finger--and then some. Misinformed, miserably angry and just barely rational; it's everything the preceding pages managed to avoid. Thus I'm tempted to do something I've never done before. Ever. Which is to razor out those last few pages and tuck them away somewhere safe. Understand, please, I'm a parent now: I have BunnyBright to consider. The thing is, would it work? If I left a note for her in an envelope glued to the back cover: You can have these last two pages only after you've read the Stardance Books and Callihan's Cross-Time Saloon.

After all, what if she pulled The Crazy Years off the shelf first--?!