The conceptual elements in VanderMeer's fiction are so striking that the firmness with which he cinches them to his characters' lives is often overlooked.
Watching him interviewed yesterday on MSNBC, I was struck, not for the first time, by the seeming ease, naturalness, and dimpled charm, combined with a sort of gentle firmness, with which he brushes away attacks.
And we congratulate the Belgian Prime Minister on the firmness with which he has managed to apply this open mandate to many issues which go beyond the purely mechanical institutional field.
"I felt that, in speaking from the house of Lincoln, of Jackson and of Wilson, my words would better convey both the sadness I feel in the action I was compelled to take and the firmness with which I intend to pursue this course," he said.
It was a recurrent joy to see the light, clean firmness with which every dancer, whether on point or half-toe, stepped surely into full-stretched arabesque.
Christianity had now become open and established, thanks to the power of its God so often, it seemed, manifested in miraculous acts and to the firmness with which converts were secured in a new life and community.
If there was a slightly unpleasant surprise for the French at this week's meeting, it was the firmness with which Rudolf Scharping, the German defence minister, reaffirmed the primacy of the American connection.
Connor Campbell, financial analyst at betting firm Spreadex, said: "It seems that it is going to be hard to provide a tourniquet for sterling's recent wounds given the solidity of the newly announced Brexit timeline... and the firmness with which May stated her intention to chase border control even if it means relinquishing Britain's position in the single market".
The firmness with which Roman officials have closed doors to any official form of commemoration denotes that the memories stirred by the events at the Ardeatine Caves continue to reverberate in the Italian capital, which this week is observing the 70th anniversary of the deportation of the city's Jewish population during the Nazi occupation.
The striking and hopeful thing about the speeches given by the leaders of the major carbon-emitting nations was the firmness with which almost all of them reiterated their unilateral commitment to making significant, if inadequate, cuts in emissions.
The paper reacted to the "unparalleled and bloody outrage" of Lincoln's assassination in 1865 by urging a continuation of "the conciliating temper, moderation and firmness which he has exhibited".
