Ana

“Life went on. That was the terrible thing. They were ripped out of their world, their lives, their sense of who and what they were. Their history. They were killed, or made to watch the people they loved die. And then, at some point, they were hungry. Thirsty. They had to piss. Someone told a joke, and they laughed, however darkly. They washed dishes. Changed clothes. Held funerals. It felt like it should have stopped, all of it, and it didn’t. The slow, low pulse of being alive kept making its demands, no matter what. However bad it was, however mind-breaking and strange and painful, the mundane insisted on its cut.”
― James S.A. Corey, The Mercy of Gods

“Intelligent aliens might introduce a level of moral complexity that would compromise operational efficiency. Cynical of me to think about it in that way, I know, but there was always a good commercial use-case for minimizing the potential rights of whoever’s environment you were destroying.”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Shroud

“This too shall pass: simultaneously the best and worst commentary on any moment of human experience.”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, Shroud

“I wander through the museums like a drifter down affluent avenues, the value of the pieces on show beyond my comprehension, their beauty out of my reach.”
― Eva Baltasar, Boulder