"Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot." Mark Twain

ovelist and essayist Umberto Eco has written on everything from medieval monasteries and theoretical physics to fishing. In a recent "La Bustina di Minerva" column published in the Italian weekly L'Espresso, Eco muses on the religious fanatacism of "Protestant" DOS users and "Catholic" Mac users.

avid B. Greenberger has been interviewing senior citizens at the Duplex Nursing Home for years and collecting their comments in his long-running zine, The Duplex Planet. His insistent questioning keeps the residents thinking; their comments are alternately surreal, funny, and touching.

t's the year 2027. Greenspace patrols the skies and Gametime has been infiltrated by Tibetan zombies and tantric viruses. Plus, a rather large earthquake has struck Japan. The CEO of Satori Corporation is missing, and only Frank Gobi, Consciousness Detective, can find him - and the missing algorithm that will restart the crashed virtual-reality world in which thousands are trapped. Author Alexander Besher takes us into the pulp-fiction future in this first installment from his new novel, Rim.

ome of David Trinidad's poetry looks back to a 1970s childhood and finds talismans that unite a generation. Here are "Cinnamon Toast" and "Answer Song," two poems from Answer Song, his latest book.

ong-time science fiction writer Jonathan Lethem broke into the mainstream last year with his first novel, Gun, With Occasional Music. This Lethem story, "The Speckless Cathedral," previously appeared in the British zine Interzone.

n his articles for The Nation and other publications, Karl Taro Greenfeld has reported on Japan's growing underground of bikers, drug gangs, hackers, and the video porn industry. In this selection from Speed Tribes, his first book, he explores the Japanese hacker scene - the world of the otaku.