I first met Asher in a diner, where he was holding forth one night (it’s always at night) on why no one had thought to apply the principle of saline batteries to the fact that the earth is mostly covered by ocean. Recently, he was arguing with someone about the terminology of sex appeal and, during pauses, castigating US foreign policy as based on apocalyptic eschatology. I hadn’t known what eschatology meant until that conversation. To say Asher has a sharp wit is an understatement, but he’s also a bit of a fop. He’ll sit there with a cashmere scarf draped around his neck, ensconced in a velour robe, wearing silk pajamas and polished loafers, smoking a pipe. The waitresses are fascinated by him. When he orders tea, he says “tea service, please”, because he lives in the South, and “tea” by itself is invariably delivered iced.

I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that, for a long time, I took Asher for pompous. Now, I wouldn’t put it like that. He’s arrogant, but he’s actually capable of the things that most arrogant people are pretending about. I will say he’s not fully aware of how other people are feeling at times. If he has an overriding flaw, it’s tending to regard people as interesting objects in an amusement park of ideas and, when they fail to interest him, as mere ornaments decorating and perhaps even interfering with his fascination with the world. Asher doesn’t clearly delineate where the world and people are distinct. As a result, he can hurt feelings, and he can really annoy people who aren’t open to an entirely new form of personality, but if people push farther and get to know him deeply, he is a source of constant interest, intrigue, and moral and intellectual challenges. Asher, in short, is not for the faint of heart – he’s for the brave.

Asher himself is brave, if not invincible. We’ve come to his rescue on more than one occasion when the bar crowd gets out and storms the diner, and some loud pugilist sees Asher’s confidence as a threat to be broken. Most of the time, he can handle it. You’ve seen those movies where the villain doesn’t know he’s dead, but eventually looks down and sees the hero’s handiwork? That’s Asher in a rhetorical conflict. It’s only when the guy is clearly planning to bust him up, that we have to remind everyone that this hodgepodge of jokers, outcasts, and lovers of sci-fi is a group. Mess with one of us, and you get us all, even the scary ones.

Asher needs defending – he’s like a rare idiot savant in the world, except there’s never been anyone quite so endearingly foolhardy and, if Asher is a savant, they haven’t yet invented the subject area that accounts for his brilliance. He’s a bright, pathetic star, that keeps lighting our world. That’s why it hurts so much. That’s why it’s so hard that he’s sick.

Asher is often called prideful, because of his self-awareness, arrogant when he is unselfconscious and amazing, and pompous, when he’s assertive and self-confident. He is sometimes thought to be impatient (and sometimes it’s true) but, sometimes, it’s just that he’s moving at a different speed.