I burnt my fingers. Typing is hard. So is thinking. These deserve a bit better than what they're going to get, but at least Adam Roberts has already made the joke about multi-volume fantasy novels versus mutli-volume literary novels so I don't have to. I noted that the narrator is the one character who seems to actively take an interest in others, particularly their inner lives, and an empathy even with the unsympathetic seems to be the key, if nothing else, at least to being a writer.

And now: ouchie.