Mary Doria Russell

"One minute, she was in the State of Puerto Rico and the next minute, she was in the State of Persistent Vegetables."

"The , it's called—written and spoken with capital letters. So remote, it is almost a nation unto itself. On maps, it is labeled the , a blade of land thrusting north by northeast into the frigid waters of . Running lengthwise down the peninsula's center, like the blood gutter of a bayonet, are the richest s on earth. collected chunks of the red metal from streams and shallow pits: float copper so pure it hardly needed refining at all, so beautiful and malleable that it could be made into that were traded as far south as Arkansas."