I’ve discovered Derb’s secret! He’s a speed reader. He suggests it’s normal to read 20,000 words in a half hour. And this is on a computer screen which is much harder on the eyes than print and the words are by Lee Harris, who’s great but not exactly zippy, light reading. That suggests he can read 100,000 serious words in 2.5 hours. Which means he can start just about any book at 9:00 AM and still have an hour or so to kill before lunch.

Mutant! Freak! Outlander! Punish the different one, he’s special!