By Alex Ness
March 2, 2026
They say that the days of one's life move faster the older that they are. Is that really true? Well, it depends. No doubt, every day has the same number of seconds, minutes and hours. But how it plays upon the mind and perception is truly not so equal. The more days, hours, minutes and seconds that have passed for the individual, the more fleeting they appear. The context for time, also, is an imaginary thing. We create it, it is a construct, for the context and distance from and to an imaginary point in the distance. The older that one is, therefore, the smaller every day is, the more swiftly it passes. And as such, a historian is dealing with thoughts and paradigms that even those who might still be living from when they occurred would not feel them as deeply as in the moment, and for people of that specific time. (Click upon images to enlarge)
Peter Green was a historian, a classicist, and a thinker who not only understood the times in which he considered, he could feel the whims of time more easily than most in similar settings. I mention him because, I am a historian, and also a poet. The moment is a very important time, and those that happened far from now, in time, often lose appeal as more time gathers. My personal outlook has changed many times, due to personal events, trauma, hope, fear, and epiphanies. As such, finding authors who have placed the truth on paper as well as Green did, lead me to further understanding, hope and perspective.
The Greek world was one of the first known people to the modern world, to achieve the heights of democracy, military excellence as a group, and governance that had honor and truth as goals. Peter Green's works bringing the Greeks and Macedonians into conflict, and then jointly invading Persia, demonstrate how the flexible, democratic leadership could take a far smaller force into a conflict, and destroy it. Persia had numbers. It had a level of cultural enlightenment, and honor. But the Greeks view on the world and the changes in human culture that followed it, led the entire planet to perceive humans as equals, neighbors as being connected, and all people have a voice, democratically, spiritually and as a group of people, who by vote become one in response. Xenophon's Anabasis "The Expedition and Return of the 10 Thousand" is the perfect example, and Green's work enables the reader to understand our deepest roots of democracy and democratic expression. Along with Green's outlook, the work he analyzes and shares is as enlightened as the events themselves. For me, that is a way to visit an era, understand an idea, and find new outlooks, without having to invent a time machine.
My reason for sharing the works and suggesting people read them, is that there is a momentum of culture that is going on currently. No matter how we try, we might well be unaware of all the opportunities lost, all the cultural exchanges. Time maturing is important. We all have our talents, and have our deficits. People in my life have experienced a lesser version of me, receiving no kindness, no interest in repair. If someone injured me, they received a harsh word, action or worse insult in return. I think knowing the past leads me to attempting to be better in my own present.
I'm not a believer in the actual existence of real dragons. However, I do believe in real dragons. Huh? Is Ness high? Not this time. You see, there are concepts that are found across the globe. Certain ideas had to have a precedent. Without getting into what else happened, without happening the way we remember it, certain concepts were remembered in the fossils of dinosaurs and whales. Certain evidence, like the teeth of sharks and other reptiles were found on the beach, indicating something enormous once had these teeth in their skull, like dragons.
Dragons were the imagined creature, and fear led to the adding flight, wings, intelligence. The skeletons were proof to the minds of the day, that something enormous walked great canyons, swam oceans, flew across the sky of watching human kingdoms. The remains were so enormous the people had no problem creating great mythos and legends about them. Therefore, the dragons lived in the imaginations of humans, and as such, people acted according to beliefs. In some art and legends, Dragons represented evil. That they did so didn't make dragons evil, but they surely symbolized an understood concept, that a great evil could be represented in this image.
There are great works featuring dragons in art, in story, in movie, and fairy tales. There are non-fiction examinations of the dragon, from a factual and scientific perspectives. Even with all these selections, There is another great story, involving dragons. The Dragon Slayer is such a story. It suggests from the very beginning that the dragon is an enemy, and the slayer is a hero. But as we know from existence, not everyone drafted to become a hero has heroism rushing through his or her veins. The reason I have begun to consider dragons from a new perspective, is that in the present all dragons have been reappraised in light of modern ideals...
The dragon as the enemy is no longer immediately accepted without further thought. In a world of no black and white ideas, the dragon as an anti-hero is just as valid as any other. As a legend of violent creatures, they stand as the beautiful and huge creatures who deserves to be free in nature. Anything might be done to humans would be due to the humans made by humans. The overall view of dragons and humans have perhaps switched places. There is obviously room enough for all views, so no version of the perception is in need to be the sole version.
As many long time readers know Robert E. Howard and Alan Dean Foster are favorite authors of mine. Both of them even write in the genre of Fantasy and various forms of fiction that some might term Weird Fiction. My point here deals with something people ask me, weekly, if not more often. What does "genre" mean? It isn't a term that implies a lock, there is no warden who sends you to author jail if you violate the boundaries. You should think of genre as a guide to commonly found aspects of story.
Robert E. Howard focused upon action, violent resolution to problems, and worlds of exotic clothing, foods, riches and events. Slavery is common. But not a positive or negative, a state of being. Alan Dean Foster writes in many forms, including Fantasy, but his works are less violent, less solved through violence, and the warrior of Robert E. Howard's tales would not be able to solve the issues found in Foster's tales. The mind in Foster's tales is as much of the weapon as Howard's steel swords.
Each author brings a different collection of work that counts as Fantasy. They are both of fine quality, but they are truly different. They might not be parked next to each other in Fantasy's parking lot, where cars are parked in order of violence and carefree joy. However, they each contain a level of writing that is highly desirable, and tell stories that can't be found in other genres. I'd certainly suggest readers gather the works of both, as they have never failed to be something I enjoyed reading.
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