Galactic Nova Quotes

PLANETARIUM Thinking of Caroline Herschel (1750–1848) astronomer, sister of William; and others. A woman in the shape of a monster a monster in the shape of a woman the skies are full of them a woman ‘in the snow among the Clocks and instruments or measuring the ground with poles’ in her 98 years to discover 8 comets she whom the moon ruled like us levitating into the night sky riding the polished lenses Galaxies of women, there doing penance for impetuousness ribs chilled in those spaces of the mind An eye, ‘virile, precise and absolutely certain’ from the mad webs of Uranusborg encountering the NOVA every impulse of light exploding from the core as life flies out of us Tycho whispering at last ‘Let me not seem to have lived in vain’ What we see, we see and seeing is changing the light that shrivels a mountain and leaves a man alive Heartbeat of the pulsar heart sweating through my body The radio impulse pouring in from Taurus I am bombarded yet I stand I have been standing all my life in the direct path of a battery of signals the most accurately transmitted most untranslatable language in the universe I am a galactic cloud so deep so invo- luted that a light wave could take 15 years to travel through me And has taken I am an instrument in the shape of a woman trying to translate pulsations into images for the relief of the body and the reconstruction of the mind.

Thirty-seven udvars, sir. To have enough fuel to return to Nova Baikonur, we must turn back at thirty-five udvars.” “Two udvars?! We’re only two udvars short?

Running for your life is one way to keep in shape.

The real good stuff is in the little room in the back right. Rare volumes, you know. I especially recommend the first-edition Pratchetts.

Nova shoved the spare space suit at Midnight. "Put this on!" Steel cursed and looked down at his own suit. "There are holes in this." Nova groaned, reached into her pocket, and tossed him a roll of duct tape. "Never go hunting aliens without duct tape. Tape yourself up!