Destiny gets compressed, you know, into just that small fraction of a second you have right in front of you at any one time. And there’s nothing romantic about keeping your head down to avoid getting shot, or trying to save a friend who’s been injured, or coming face to face with a creature who is as smart and mean and as terrified of dying as you are, and who wants to make sure that if someone is left on the ground there, it’s you and not it.
Again I ask permission to be blunt.” “Ambassador Abumwe, at this point I cannot imagine you being otherwise.
Lovely,” Wilson said, looking at the display. “And by ‘lovely,’ I mean ‘Oh, crap.
Leon had attached himself to me in Chicago like a fat, brat-and-beer-filled tick; I was amazed that someone whose blood was clearly half pork grease had made it to age seventy-five.
What is it like when you lose someone you love?” Jane asked. “You die, too,” I said. “And you wait around for your body to catch up.” “Is that what you’re doing now?” Jane said. “Waiting for your body to catch up, I mean.” “No, not anymore,” I said. “You eventually get to live again. You just live a different life, is all.
Hey, you know what, basing an entire system of social, political and economic control on the vague, all-too-easily misinterpreted words of a single person claiming divine inspiration is probably not actually all that smart, now, is it.
At least one tribe, the Geln, strongly opposed attacking the Colonial Union, since humans were reasonably strong, distressingly tenacious and not especially principled when they felt threatened.
I said ‘not so much,’” Dr. Russell said. “Not so much as what? Having your head stepped on by an elephant?” “Not so much as when the sensors connect to each other,” Dr. Russell said. “The good news is that as soon as they’re connected, the pain stops. Now hold still, this will only take a minute.” He tapped the PDA again. Eighty thousand needles shot out in every direction in my skull. I have never wanted to punch a doctor so much in my life.
Weren’t we having a mutiny?
If someone is telling you to live in interesting times, they are basically telling you they want you to die horribly, and to suffer terribly before you do. Seriously, they are not your friend. This is a tip I am giving you for free.
Fear isn’t the desire to avoid death or pain. Fear is rooted in the knowledge that what you recognize as yourself can cease to exist. Fear is existential.
Trust your weapon, it is almost certainly smarter than you are. Remember this and you may yet live.
I thought this was a matter of some urgency, Harry.” “It is,” I said. “But I fell from the sky today. I could use a couple of waffles.
This novel took me rather longer than usual to write, for a number of reasons but one big one being simply that 2017 was a raging trash fire of a year, filled with horrible people trying to do horrible things and often succeeding. It’s harder to bear down creatively when the world is burning.
The trick is not to find the story of the century. You won’t miss that story when it happens. No one will miss it. The trick is to find the story of the day and for that day make whoever reads it or hears it care about it so intensely that it doesn’t leave them. Then it becomes a story of their life. Maybe even the story of their life.
You can’t afford anthropomorphic biases when some of the aliens most like us would rather make human hamburgers than peace.
Are we there yet?” I asked Joshua. “No,” Joshua said. “Are we there yet?” I said. “No.” “Are we there yet?” “No.” “Are we there yet?” “Yes,” Joshua said. “Stop the car.
It’s war, you jackasses,” Keyes snapped. “I’m sorry it’s not terribly convenient or comfortable for you.
What was your job back on Earth? I’ve always been curious. I taught eighth-grade math in Tallahassee. Huh, I said. That’s not what I expected. Are you kidding? Powell said back. You try teaching algebra to a bunch of little shitheads for thirty-eight years straight. The way I figure it I’ve got about another decade before my rage from that gets entirely burned up.
It’s the end of civilization as we know it. And it’s going to be great for business.