Theomachy

It's not often these days that I run across an established English word that I've never encountered before. I'm not referring to new words or words from other languages that become English words, both of which have always occurred, just not at the breakneck speed they do today (thank you, Internet). But leave it to Jerry Pournelle to title an essay with a word that sent me off to a dictionary site for both meaning and pronunciation.

The point of all this is to point everyone to probably the best description of where book publishing is today, how it got here and the issues surrounding e-books, publishers, distributors, Amazon, et al. It is written by a professional writer who has been writing for decades, who knows the publishing industry at the cellular level, and is personally involved in technology issues and has been from day one (one of his first computers is now on display in the Smithsonian).

If you read further into that essay, you will find a rather disturbing description of a worm infection/ invasion that Dr. Pournelle suffered on one of his systems. It seems to be extremely sophisticated and he has yet to find any software that can even identify it, let alone eliminate it. Be careful out there.

Now I have to think of a way to work "theomachy" into casual conversation.