Fantasy Authors

"Well, now is the time to peel back the foreskin of misconception and apply the wire brush of enlightenment to this mass of sticky half-truths and lies. The truth hurts, but not as much as the consequences of willful ignorance."

"Er, I can’t confirm or deny, but that’s a good guess."

"“He’s an artist,” she said calmly. “I’ve dealt with the type before, and recently. Like the bad guy said, never give an artist a Browning; they’re some of the most dangerous folks you can meet. The Festival fringe—shit! Artists almost always want an audience, the spectacle of destruction.”"

"And that’s when it turned intae the full-dress faeco-ventilatory intersection scene."

"You got overdraft at the mythology bank."

"Never underestimate the intrinsic, as opposed to ideological, conservatism of an idea like revolution once it’s got some momentum behind it."

"“A cure for old age is a very common wish,” Kurtz observed. “Dashed slug-a-beds want to be shot by a jealous husband, not a nurse bored with emptying the bedpan.”"

"“Will you stop calling me a child!” Rachel hunched around in her chair and stared at him. “But you are, you know. Even if you were sixty years old, you’d still be a child to me. As long as you expect someone or something else to take responsibility for you, you’re a child. You could fuck your way through every brothel in New Prague, and you’d still be an overgrown schoolboy.” She looked at him sadly. “What would you call a parent who never let their children grow up? That’s what we think of your government.”"

"The Cold War was all about who could build the biggest refrigerator, wasn’t it?"

"“But then—you’re telling me they brought unrestricted communications with them?” he asked. “Yup.” Rachel looked up from her console. “We’ve been trying for years to tell your leaders, in the nicest possible way: information wants to be free. But they wouldn’t listen. For forty years we tried. Then along comes the Festival, which treats censorship as a malfunction and routes communications around it. The Festival won’t take no for an answer because it doesn’t have an opinion on anything; it just is.” “But information isn’t free. It can’t be. I mean, some things — if anyone could read anything they wanted, they might read things that would tend to deprave and corrupt them, wouldn’t they? People might give exactly the same consideration to blasphemous pornography that they pay to the Bible! They could plot against the state, or each other, without the police being able to listen in and stop them!” Martin sighed. “You’re still hooked on the state thing, aren’t you?” he said. “Can you take it from me, there are other ways of organizing your civilization?” “Well—” Vassily blinked at him in mild confusion. “Are you telling me you let information circulate freely where you come from?” “It’s not a matter of permitting it,” Rachel pointed out. “We had to admit that we couldn’t prevent it. Trying to prevent it was worse than the disease itself.” “But, but lunatics could brew up biological weapons in their kitchens, destroy cities! Anarchists would acquire the power to overthrow the state, and nobody would be able to tell who they were or where they belonged anymore. The most foul nonsense would be spread, and nobody could stop it—” Vassily paused. “You don’t believe me,” he said plaintively. “Oh, we believe you alright,” Martin said grimly. “It’s just—look, change isn’t always bad. Sometimes freedom of speech provides a release valve for social tensions that would lead to revolution. And at other times, well—what you’re protesting about boils down to a dislike for anything that disturbs the status quo. You see your government as a security blanket, a warm fluffy cover that’ll protect everybody from anything bad all the time. There’s a lot of that kind of thinking in the New Republic; the idea that people who aren’t kept firmly in their place will automatically behave badly. But where I come from, most people have enough common sense to avoid things that’d harm them; and those that don’t, need to be taught. Censorship just drives problems underground.” “But, terrorists!” “Yes,” Rachel interrupted, “terrorists. There are always people who think they’re doing the right thing by inflicting misery on their enemies, kid. And you’re perfectly right about brewing up biological weapons and spreading rumors. But—” She shrugged. “We can live with a low background rate of that sort of thing more easily than we can live with total surveillance and total censorship of everyone, all the time.” She looked grim. “If you think a lunatic planting a nuclear weapon in a city is bad, you’ve never seen what happens when a planet pushed the idea of ubiquitous surveillance and censorship to the limit. There are places where—” She shuddered."

"Ultimately, it was easier to change the subject than think the unthinkable."

"It was a lousy plan, the only thing to commend it being the fact that all the alternatives were worse."

"A curious horror overtook him, then. His skin crawled; the back of his neck turned damp and cold. I can’t go yet, he thought. It’s not fair! He shuddered. The void seemed to speak to him. Fairness has nothing to do with it. This will happen, and your wishes are meaningless."

"“They’re too literal-minded,” he said quietly. “All doing, no innovative thinking. They don’t understand metaphors well; half of them think you’re Baba Yaga returned, you know? We’ve been a, ah, stable culture too long. Patterns of belief, attitudes, get ingrained. When change comes, they are incapable of responding. Try to fit everything into their preconceived dogmas.”"

"True revolutionary doctrine teaches that the only law is rationalism and dynamic optimism."

"Intelligence and infinite knowledge were not, it seemed, compatible with stable human existence."

"Unfortunately, it appeared that she was going to be around when they learned the hard way that interstellar wars of aggression were much easier to lose than to win."

"“I don’t like their system, and they know it. That’s why I’m sitting in this cell instead of in my cabin, or on the engineering deck. But—” He shrugged. “Their social system is one thing, but people are people everywhere you go, just trying to get along in this crazy universe. I don’t like them as individuals, but that’s not the same as wanting them dead. They’re not monsters, and they don’t deserve what’s coming to them, and life isn’t fair, is it?”"

"Time travel destabilizes history. History is a child of contingency; so many events depend on critical misunderstandings or transient encounters that even the apocryphal butterfly’s wing is apt to stir up a storm in short order."

"“We have a problem, sir.” “What do you mean, a problem?” demanded the Admiral. “We’re not supposed to have problems—that’s the enemy’s job!”"

"“Do you believe in angels, Robard?” he asked faintly. “No, sir.” “Well, that’s alright then, she must be a devil. Can deal with those, y’know.”"

"“Talk you of tradition in middle of singularity.” Sister Seventh twisted her head around to look out the windows at the foggy evening drizzle beyond. “Perplexity maximizes. Not understand singularity is discontinuity with all tradition? Revolution is necessary; deconstruct the old, ring in the new. Before, I questioned your sapience. Now, your sanity questionable; sapience not. Only sapient organism could exhibit superlative irrationality!”"

"Quote, the viability of a postsingularity economy of scarcity is indicated by the transition from an indirection-layer-based economy using markers of exchange of goods and services to a tree-structured economy characterized by optimal allocation of productivity systems in accordance with iterated tit-for-tat prisoner’s dilemma. Money is a symptom of poverty and inefficiency. Unquote."

"“I Critic am. Critics follow Festival for many lifetimes. We come to Criticize. First want I to know, am I Criticizing sapients? Or is just puppet show on cave wall of reality? Zombies or zimboes? Shadows of mind? Amusements for Eschaton? A shiver ran up and down Burya’s spine. “I think I’m sapient,” he said cautiously. “Of course, I’d say that even if I wasn’t, wouldn’t I? Your question is unanswerable. So why ask it?” Sister Seventh leaned forward. “None of your people ask anything,” she hissed. “Food, yes. Guns, yes. Wisdom? No. Am beginning think you not aware of selves, ask nothing.”"

"“Didn’t I have you executed last week?” “I very much doubt. It.”"

"As every secret policeman knows, there is no such thing as a coincidence; the state has too many enemies."

"I am the Eschaton. I am not your God. I am descended from you, and exist in your future. Thou shalt not violate causality within my historic light cone. Or else."

"Before the singularity, human beings living on Earth had looked at the stars and consoled themselves in their isolation with the comforting belief that the universe didn’t care. Unfortunately, they were mistaken."

"Any job I do—if it doesn’t work, somebody pays. Possibly hundreds or thousands of somebodies. That’s the price of good engineering; nobody notices you did your job right."

"The first rule of space travel...is that mistakes are fatal. Space isn’t friendly; it kills you. And there are no second chances.”"

"“Hello, Martin. What can I do for you?” “Got a problem.” “A big one?” “Female human-sized.”"

""The court is watching," she pointed out. "I thought you wanted me more exposed to the public eye?" he teased. "I reverse myself," she said coldly, "and argue for a little circumspection." She tugged at his hand, but he didn't release her. She gave up, unwilling to be seen trying to pull away. "You don't think I can do it." She didn't think he could. "I don't care what they think." She knew that. It worried her. "No," said the queen, but she wavered. He sensed it and smiled. "Am I king?" he asked, irrepressibly. It was the one argument she was in no position to deny. She wanted him to be king, and he was resisting it with all his will."

"If a man who claims to see the future is a fool, how much more so, the man who believes he can control it? We think we steer the ship of fate, but all of us are guided by unseen stars."

"In my experience, the more you know of the gods, the more you know what you cannot understand."

"Eschewing ceremony, Eugenides said, "You shot their ambassador?" "You gave me the gun," protested Sounis. "I didn't mean for you to shoot an ambassador with it!" Eugenides told him. "Oh, how our carefully laid plans go astray," murmured the magus. "You shut up!" said Gen, laughing."

""Ten thousand!" I shouted at the walls, back in the room with the wooden shutters, now open so that anyone could hear me, on the porch or probably across the compound. "That arrogant bastard landed ten thousand men at Tas-Elisa. In my port! Mine!" When I was a child and playmates snatched my toys out of my hands, I tended to smile weakly and give in. Years later I was acting the way I should have as a child. Probably not the most mature behavior for a king, but I was still cursing as I swung around to find a delegation of barons in the doorway behind me. My father, Baron Comeneus, and the Baron Xorcheus among them. They thought it was how a king behaved."

"Staring at me over the barrel of my gun, Akretenesh said, "Did you not just days ago lecture me about the sacred truce?" With my finger still through the trigger guard of the spent pistol, I lifted my left palm upward to the sky to see if lightning struck me down. When none did, I smiled again. "We will have to assume the gods are on my side." "I am an ambassador," Akretenesh warned me, anger bringing his confidence back. "You cannot shoot." "I don't mean to," I reassured him, still smiling. I adopted his soothing tones. "Indeed, you are the only man I won't shoot. But if I aimed at anyone else, it might give others a dangerously mistaken sense of their own safety." I raised my voice a trifle, thought it wasn't really necessary. "We will have another vote, Xorcheus." They elected me Sounis. It was unanimous."

"In the shocked aftermath, I said, "We'll give them a second chance." With my right hand, I reached to the other pocket. I had known as soon as I lifted the false bottom of the gun case and looked underneath what it meant. I had tried without ceasing to find some alternative to Attolia's ruthless advice, and I had failed. Gen's fit reassured me that I had not failed for lack of trying. He had seen no other solution himself. I lifted out the matching gun and read the archaic inscription. Realisa onum. Not "The queen made me," but "I make the king.""

"Do you warn him not to offend the gods?" "There was no need," said Attolis, smiling, "He couldn't offend the gods with a pointed stick."

"You have heard the queen's advice. My gift is below. Would you wait to see it until you have decided what you will do with hers?"

"Inside the case was a dueling pistol, a king's weapon, wheel-locked, chased in gold. Eddis had seen it earlier that day. When Sounis lifted it out and tipped his head over the locking mechanism, she knew he was reading the letters inscribed there: Onea realia. "The queen made me.""

"I seem to remember once sharing my oatmeal with you," Sounis remarked. "I seem to remember stealing your oatmeal," said the former Thief of Eddis, "but it didn't have sand in it." "Sand?" said Sounis, taken aback. "Sand, and if my queen notices, she will have someone flayed."

""When you stop fussing," Gen had said, slipping to his knees beside her couch, "I will sleep with two knives under my pillow." Attolia had looked down at him and said sharply, "Don't be ridiculous." Only when Eugenides laughed had Sounis realized her implication: If she ever turned against Eugenides, a second knife wouldn't save him."

""I know exactly when. I was hiding in a takima bush in the Queen's Garden, watching the older son of the Baron Erondites tell Attolia that he loved her. He was trying to propose a marriage and she thought he was talking about a poem he was writing. I was laughing like a very quiet fiend, trying not to make the branches around me shake, and then, between one heartbeat and the next, and to my complete surprise, it wasn't funny anymore." He rubbed his chest, as if a remembered pain. "I wanted to kill him. Once she was gone, I very nearly jumped out of the bush onto his head. Poor Dite." Poor Eugenides, thought Sounis, to fall in love with a woman he had already made into an enemy."

"You bastard," said Sounis wearily. "I don't know why I don't stab you here in this alley so I can be the annux over Sounis and Attolia." They were twisting through the narrowest of passages, with Eugenides still in the lead, turning on what seemed to be a whim from one walkway to the next. "Well, the stabbing would be unkind," said Eugenides, "but you can have the annux part with my goodwill." "Not Attolia's." "True," said the king. "Better not stab me."

"Don't you trust my palace security?" "Yes, of course," Sounis said, trying to think of some other reason besides mistrust to sleep with a knife. He heard Eugenides laugh. "My queen and I sleep with a matched set under our pillows, as well as handguns in pockets on the bedposts. Don't be embarrassed." :"Gen, what are you doing in my bedroom in the middle of the night?" Sounis asked. "Going out of my mind," said Eugenides promptly. "At least I am on the verge of going out of my mind."

""Sophos, you sleep with a knife under your pillow? I'm hurt." "I'm sorry," said Sounis, blinking, afraid that he had made contact with his wild swing. "I was joking. Wake up the rest of the way, would you?" "Gen, it's the middle of the night." "I know," said the king of Attolia."

"Eddis nodded. "Gen leaves the reins in Attolia's hands. Which is not what either I or Attolia recommended, but wisely he ignored us both." "Wisely?" Smiling, Eddis said, "He hasn't the temperament. He gets angry. She only ever gets angry at him." Sounis, having seen the Thief of Eddis lose his temper, could see her point."

"Would I be wrong," Sounis asked one evening as he walked with Eddis, "to think that I talk to you, you talk to Gen, and Gen talks to Attolia, who talks to the magus, who talks to me?" Eddis laughed. "Not always. Sometimes, as in this case, someone approaches my Eddisian ambassador Ornon, here in Attolia, and he talks to me, I talk to you, you talk to Attolia, Attolia talks to Gen, and he talks to me." "I see you appear in that progression twice." "Oh, more than that, because after Gen talks to me, the process reverses. He goes back to Attolia, who talks to you, who go to the magus, who repeats the information to me, who gives it to Ornon, who takes it back to whoever started this particular political ball rolling in the first place."

"Then, as you well know, Eugenides looked me in the eye as if I were a complete stranger and said, "The simplest way to end a war is to admit you have lost it." The silence after that was not polite."