I’ve been whiling away the time for a while now … musing that Brits (and some Canadians, it seems) prefer “whilst,” while Americans (and a bunch of Canadians) prefer “while.”
I find amusement in language and often see humor in it – including multiple meanings to a phrase … Yes … Puns.
OK, I’m reading it now.
Opinion so far? I quote:
"Silvio fell on the ice in front of a skidding truck, after drinking up money intended for a life insurance premium. “Poor bastard,” said Feuermann with genuine pity — “couldn’t even die right.” "
That’s an entire story, in two sentences. We’ve all known that guy. Our imaginations can fill in all the necessary blanks. Nice.
Ok. I may have to read it now. 
I also discovered an on-line reading copy.
Whilst the Internet Archive is a well known and trusted platform, I don’t know much about this other website. I’ve been using it quite happily, but I have a lot of security on my system.
Explore at your own risk.
https://f.feedvu.com/fullbook/a-mirror-for-observers-pdf-edgar-pangborn.html?page=1
Currently 90 and feels like 108
An hour from now(8pm) it will be 87 and feel like 102…
Wishing TCM would run Farenheit 451…would make me feel cooler🌋
All right, finished it.
What can I say that won’t include too many spoilers? I enjoyed it. For a story written in 1954, there were remarkable parallels with recent events. Real life didn’t happen quite the way the story did - although lots of people thought it did.
I thought you could have easily swapped the martians for angels, and you would have ended up with a Michael -vs- Lucifer War in Heaven for the soul of mankind. The Christian symbolism was pretty blatant.
A nice touch to realise that whilst aliens might disguise themselves in human form, they would still give themselves away in other, more primitive, ways.
For science fiction, there wasn’t a lot of science. Well, none, actually. This future doesn’t belong to technologists, but to moral philosophers.
I’ll have to say that the English language is a playtoy to me. I can’t keep from having a bit of fun with every aspect of Human life. And alien. Life is too droll and dreary otherwise. Besides at the basis, my stories have an awful lot of drama and a good helping of tragedy to deal with, so humor gets the characters out of the doldrums and death pits. Mostly. I’m so hard on them. 
We are headed to 100+ temps this week. And our AC went out. Soonest appointment is the day after the peak temps. 
And here it is almost freezing again in the middle off the summer! Did the poles flip while we weren’t watching? 
Heat index over 100 all week long and more moving in next week. If it snows in July then we can move the entire science fiction genre to the non-fiction section. Wish the stations would run ‘end of the world’ movies next week. There’s nothing quite like sci-fi to make you see the reality in front of you…
I had another thought about finding new authors of Science Fiction, For a while, Mal and I subscribed to a couple of Sci-fi magazines, to try to get a feel for contemporary authors. Analog was one I read a lot when I was younger, so we got that one. I think the other was “Astounding”? And now I can’t remember who we decided to check out. 
But I thought that for you @Polyphemus , you might find what you are looking for there, as they often have a novel or novelette included, in parts.