Postmodern Authors

"Friday nodded and took a deep breath. “Has anyone noticed how short attention spans seem to have cast a certain latitude across the nation?” “Do I ever,” I replied, rolling my eyes and thinking of the endlessly downward clicking of the Read-O-Meter. “No one’s reading books anymore. They seem to prefer the mind numbing spectacle of easily digested trash TV and celebrity tittle-tattle.” “Exactly,” said Friday. “The long view has been eroded. We can’t see beyond six months, if that, and short-termism will spell our end.”"

"Noting with dismay that most cross-religion bickering occurred only because all the major religions were convinced that they were the right one and every other religion was the wrong one, the founders of the Global Standard Deity based their fledgling “portmanteau” faith on the premise that most religions want the same thing once all the shameless, manipulative power play had been subtracted: peace, stability, equality and justice—the same as the nonfaiths. As soon as they found that centralizing thread that unites all people and makes a dialogue of sorts with a Being of Supreme Moral Authority mostly optional, the GSD flourished."

"“How is the faith-unification business?” “We’ve nearly got everyone,” said Joffy with a smile. “The atheists came on board last week. Once we had suggested that ‘god’ could be a set of essentially beneficent physical rules of the cosmos, they were only too happy to join. In fact, apart from a few scattered remnants of faith leaders who can’t quite come to terms with the loss of their power, influence and associated funny hats, it’s all looking pretty good.”"

"But his hits were greater than the sum of his misses, and such is the way with greatness."

"“Tell them ballocks.” “They’ll pay me five hundred guineas.” “Cancel the ballocks thing—tell them you’ll be honored and overjoyed.” “It’s a sellout. I don’t do sellouts. Not for that price anyway.”"

"“The stupidity surplus,” repeated Landen as he sat down at the kitchen table, “I’m all for responsible government, but storing it up like this is bound to cause problems sooner or later—even by acting sensibly, the government has shown itself to be a bunch of idiots.” “There are a lot of idiots in this country,” I replied absently, “and they deserve representation as much as the next man.”"

"The dangerously high level of the stupidity surplus was once again the lead story in the The Owl that Morning. The reason for the crisis was clear: Prime Minister Redmond van de Poste and his ruling Commonsense Party had been discharging their duties with a reckless degree of responsibility that bordered on inspired sagacity. Instead of drifting from one crisis to the next and appeasing the nation with a steady stream of knee-jerk legislation and headline-grabbing but arguably pointless initiatives, they had been resolutely building a raft of considered long-term plans that concentrated on unity, fairness and tolerance. It was a state of affairs deplored by Mr. Alfredo Traficcone, leader of the opposition Prevailing Wind Party, who wanted to lead the nation back onto the safer grounds of uninformed stupidity."

"For centuries I’ve been worrying about audiences seeing me as a mouthy spoiled brat who can’t make up his mind about anything, but, having seen the real world, I can understand the appeal. My play is popular because my failings are your failings, my indecision the indecision of you all. We all know what has to be done; it’s just that sometimes we don’t know how to get there. Acting without thought doesn’t really help in the long run. I might dither for a while, but at least I make the right decision in the end: I bear my troubles and take arms against them. And thereby lies a message for all mankind, although I’m not exactly sure what it is. Perhaps there’s no message. I don’t really know. Besides, if I don’t dither, there’s no play."

"“Humans are molded by evolution to be short-termists, Miss Next,” he continued. His voice rumbled deeply and seemed to echo inside my head. “We need only to see our children to reproductive age to be successful in a biological sense. We have to move beyond that. If we see ourselves as residents on this planet for the long term, we need to plan for the long term.”"

"“Look here, St. Zvlkx,” said Volescamper as they walked towards the marquee for tea and scones, “what was the thirteenth century like?” “The Mayor wants to know what the thirteenth century was like—and no lip, sunshine.” “Filthy, damp, disease-ridden and pestilential.” “He said it was like London, Your Grace.”"

"My father always argued that time was far and away the most valuable commodity we had and that temporal profligacy should be a criminal offense—which kind of makes watching Celebrity Kidney Swap or reading Daphne Farquitt novels a crime straightaway."

"If the real world were a book, it would never find a publisher. Overlong, detailed to the point of distraction—and ultimately, without a major resolution."

"Money had never been a problem in the Book World. All the details of life were taken care of by something called Narrative Assumption. A reader would assume you had gone shopping, or gone to the toilet, or brushed your hair, so a writer never needed to outline it."

"Good evening and welcome to Evade the Question Time, the nation’s premier topical talk show. Tonight, as every night, a panel of distinguished public figures generally evade answering the audience’s questions and instead toe the party line."

"“’Tis very strange!” he murmured, staring at the sun, trees, houses and traffic in turn. “It would take a rhapsody of wild and whirling words to do justice of all that I witness!” “You’re going to have to speak English out here.” “All this,” explained Hamlet, waving his hands at the fairly innocuous Swindon street, “would take millions of words to describe correctly!” “You’re right. It would. That’s the magic of the book imagino-transference technology,” I told him. “A few dozen words conjure up an entire picture. But in all honesty the reader does most of the work.” “The reader? What’s it got to do with him?” “Well, each interpretation of an event, setting or character is unique to each of those who read it because they clothe the author’s description with the memory of their own experiences. Every character they read is actually a complex amalgam of people that they’ve met, read or seen before—far more real than it can ever be just from the text on the page. Because every reader’s experiences are different, each book is unique for each reader.”"

"No one had been more surprised than me by the arrival of the Great Panjandrum when I pulled the emergency handle. For the nonbelievers it was something of a shock, but not any less than for the faithful. She had been so long a figure of speech that seeing her in the flesh was something of a shock. I thought she had seemed quite plain and in her midthirties, but Humpty-Dumpty told me later he had been shaped like an egg. In any event, the marble statue that now stands in the lobby of the Council of Genres depicts the Great Panjandrum as Mr. Price the stonemason saw him—with a leather apron and carrying a mallet and stone chisel."

"Tyrants are all the same—shocking temper when they don’t get their own way!"

"Failure concentrates the mind wonderfully. If you don’t make mistakes, you’re not trying hard enough."

"The leader was identified by his dental records—why he had them on him, no one was quite sure."

"Anything devised by man has bureaucracy, corruption and error hardwired at inception."

"The atmosphere in the room was so thick with dramatic clichés you could have cut it with a knife."

"“Books”—Snell smiled—“are a kind of magic.”"

"“Write is only the word we use to describe the recording process,” replied Snell as we walked along. “The Well of Lost Plots is where we interface the writer’s imagination with the characters and plots so that it will make sense in the reader’s mind. After all, reading is arguably a far more creative and imaginative process than writing; when the reader creates emotion in their head, or the colors of the sky during the setting sun, or the smell of a warm summer’s breeze on their face, they should reserve as much praise for themselves as they do for the writer—perhaps more.”"

"Books may look like nothing more than words on a page, but they are actually an infinitely complex imaginotransference technology that translates odd, inky squiggles into pictures inside your head."

"“And nothing can stop it?” “Nothing I know of,” he replied sadly. “The best way to stop this is to not allow it to start—sort of a minimum entry requirement for man-made disasters, really.”"

"“I’ll tell you what love is,” I told her. “It is blind devotion, unquestioning self-humiliation, utter submission, trust and belief against yourself and against the whole world, giving up your heart and soul to the smiter!”"

"“Don’t believe this,” murmured Miss Havisham. “It’s all poppycock. Her majesty is a verb short of a sentence.”"

"“You’re crazy!” “Undoubtedly. But look around you. You followed me in here. Who’s crazier? The crazy or the crazy who follows him?”"

"I’d come to realize over the years that anything created by mankind had error, mischief and bureaucratic officialdom hardwired at inception, and the fictional world was no different."

"“What’s in Hangar One at the moment?” I asked the driver. “The Magus.” “Still?” Even the biggest refit never took more than a week, and John Fowles’s labyrinthine-plotted masterpiece had been in there nearly five. “It’s taking longer than we thought—they removed all the plot elements for cleaning, and no one can remember how they go back together again.” “I’m not sure it will make a difference,” I murmured as we pulled up outside Hangar Eight."

"You’ll excuse me if I’m not convinced by your supposed altruism."

"Preservation without expenditure is worthless."

"“Listen to what it says in the horoscopes: ‘If it is your birthday, there may be an increased amount of mail. Expect gifts, friendly salutations from people and the occasional surprise. Possibility of cake.’ That’s so weird—I wonder if any of it will come true?”"

"To fail spectacularly is a loser’s paradise."

"“I am surprised to see you because…you died six years ago!” “I did?” inquired Mycroft with genuine concern. “Why does no one tell me these things?” I shrugged, as there was really no good answer to this."

"Hamlet would worry about having nothing to worry about if he had nothing to worry about."

"Winter isn’t a season – it’s a calling."

"The numbers were too great for HiberTech to hide what had happened. As it was, well-engineered corporate surprise, orchestrated bafflement, faux delight, suitable soul-searching and feigned contrition won the day."

"“Oh, hullo, Worthing,” he said in a cheery manner. “How are things?” “Outlook stormy with a chance of scattered death moving in randomly from all points of the compass.”"

"You’ll know the beginning easily enough; it’s when it all started going weird."

"“Dead,” muttered Mycroft with a resigned air. “Never been that before. Not even once. Are you quite sure?”"

"People die in the Winter; it’s what it’s there for."

"I’d been so convinced of that particular narrative I never for one moment stopped to reappraise the situation."

"Whatever. As far as I can see, there is one state of dead and that’s ‘not living.’ Now, do you have anything useful to add to this investigation or not?”"

"“It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not,” he said, “it’s what everyone believes that’s important.”"

"I didn’t know much about Conspiracy, but I did know that its theorists were mostly paranoid and tended to value conviction above evidence."

"The good thing about being in the BookWorld is that we aren’t hampered by anything as awkward as physical laws. The RealWorld must be hideously annoying to do science in."

"How about this for a title: Men Are from Earth, Women Are from Earth—Just Deal with It."

"“How is that working out?” I asked. “Somewhere between frustratingly slow and fiendishly elusive.”"

"I just had an idea for a cheap form of power: by bringing pasta and antipasta together, we could be looking at the utter annihilation of ravioli and liberation of vast quantities of energy."