Fiction is such a brain override. Nobody would have heard of Ayn Rand if she had published her ideas purely as non-fiction.

I don't mean this as a criticism of Ayn Rand's ideas. Just today, I looked on a filesharing network for works by Ayn Rand. Copies of "Atlas Shrugged" outnumbered copies of her other, more interesting works at least 10 to 1.

Eliezer is one of the more rational people out there, yet I think he's given more examples of fiction that influenced him, than of non-fiction that influenced him.