You sit down at the typewriter and rack your brain for an opening sentence. Spreading out in front of you like rows of bounty hunters, bleak-faced and terrifying, are the carefully built sentences that you are expected to use as a representation your reaction to Ulmer's book. Each sentence must deliver the reader directly, in proper linear fashion, to the next sentence, mapping a straight line of criticism from start to finish, sealing off your thoughts and questions into a safe little academic essay. The argument must be tidy, well structured. No tangents, no diversions, each bone tightly bound to a logical spine of reasoning ...

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