leah george’s Reviews > Foundation and Empire > Status Update

“…and approached to shake Bayta’s hand with careless pressure. Bayta returned it vigorously, man-fashion.”

for having literally no deeper female characters in the last book, Bayta is a welcome and surprisingly relatable character in this book gj asimov

“‘Inertia! Our ruling class knows one law: no change. Despotism! They know one rule: force. Maldistribution!
They know one desire; to hold what is theirs.’”

shit sounds familiar

“And behind a very sturdily built and staunchly defended facade of practical, unromantic hard-headedness towards life, there was just that little pool of softness that would never show if you poked for it, but could be reached if you knew just how—and never let on that you were looking for it.”

“The gleaming metallic towers that surrounded him and continued onwards in never-ending multiplicity to beyond the horizon oppressed him; the whole busy, unheeding life of a world-metropolis cast him into the horrible gloom of isolation and pygmyish unimportance.”

my nightmares of living in a big city

“Unimaginative enough to face danger without fear, he was strong and agile enough to face it successfully.”

the job requirements for americas fuckboy fighter pilots in trillion dollar failing F-35s

“The man who stood on the threshold was tall and…wore a short coat of a soft, leathery plastic…He stepped in casually, and looked about with calculating eyes. He favored the general with a rudimentary wave of the hand and a half nod. ‘Lathan Devers…Listen, if you're the boss, you'd better tell your hired men here to lay off my cargo’

so this is where Han Solo came from

“The Emperor of the Galaxy and the Lord of All whimpered as he lolled his head backward into the invigorating plane of force about his pillows. It yielded in a softness that did not touch, and at the pleasant tingle, Cleon relaxed a bit. He sat up with difficulty and stared morosely at the distant walls of the grand chamber. It was a bad room to be alone in. It was too big. All the rooms were too big…

“Psychohistory dealt not with men, but man masses. It was the science of mobs; mobs in their billions. It could forecast reactions to stimuli with something of the accuracy that a lesser science could bring to the forecast of a rebound of a billiard ball, the reaction of one man could be forecasted by no known mathematics; the reaction of 1 billion is something else again