Christopher Hitchens wielded humor like a saber, using it to slice bad ideas and the fools who espoused them. I began reading his work in Slate. It was brilliant. Hitchens is one of those guys — like Michael Kelly or Hunter S. Thompson or Mike Royko — who, after he dies, forces a reader to confront, with stark dread, the fact that great minds are irreplaceable.

Hitchens could write about anything and make it interesting. Here is an essay he wrote about something very interesting — Hunter S. Thompson.