I didn't intend the Fantastic Toronto survey to be a review of the works mentioned ("read it" / "now there's a weekend I'll never get back") but rather an annotated bibliography that just happened to morph into something resembling a thesis (without a degree at the end of it). (Have you noticed that my writing style is overadorned with asides in parentheses?) However, my thinking later changed: I had a number of comments from readers who are looking for the books I've "recommended," while a really, really awful novel (by Robin Matchett) put paid to my reluctance to add "not recommended" when deserved. On occasion. A partial "recommended" list is contained in an interview I did in 2007, and I've also added remarks for some of the surveyed works seen since the interview. For works deficient in literary qualities, search for such words as "not recommended reading."

I've sprinkled the site and the survey with Toronto photographs I've taken over the years. The picture to the right, of Queen's Park, I've plonked on this page just because. Dozens of pictures can also be found in the Photo Gallery, which is much more wide-ranging in theme than Toronto.

The Photo Gallery also displays some of the rocks I collect, such as varieties of agate and jasper. The header on my site incorporates just such a rock: Ocean Jasper, from Madagascar.

I've been writing non-fiction for fun instead of profit for many decades, and I've put some of the articles under Other Writing.

Enough talking from me. Explore the site. You'll find things not available anywhere else, and you won't be bombarded with ads or temptations to spend money—unless you'd like to buy the works I mention in the survey. (Support the authors! Buy their books! Subscribe to the magazines/websites they appear in!) As a voracious reader and book-buyer myself, I like to encourage others to do likewise. Local independent bookstores I go to include Eliot's Bookshop (Yonge north of Wellesley; huge second-hand stock, with a big SF section), and Bakka-Phoenix, 697 Queen St. West (soon to move to bigger quarters on Harbord St. west of Spadina). Oh, and do go to authors' launches and readings. And literary conventions (see the Links page)!

I promised to stop talking. There.