The Mess-Age Dept.

The night before, Steven Savage and I got to talking about themes in our respective works. He is preparing to work on a project called��A Bridge To The Quiet Planet — it promises it to be quite a corker, from everything he's told me about it so far — and was quite conscious of the specific themes he wanted the material to address. Or, rather, the themes suggested by the material that he wanted to make sure the story addresses properly.

One thing we both noted is how discovery of theme is an i...