Sf Said Quotes

When people dis fantasy—mainstream readers and SF readers alike—they are almost always talking about one sub-genre of fantastic literature. They are talking about Tolkien, and Tolkien's innumerable heirs. Call it 'epic', or 'high', or 'genre' fantasy, this is what fantasy has come to mean. Which is misleading as well as unfortunate. Tolkien is the wen on the arse of fantasy literature. His oeuvre is massive and contagious—you can't ignore it, so don't even try. The best you can do is consciously try to lance the boil. And there's a lot to dislike—his cod-Wagnerian pomposity, his boys-own-adventure glorying in war, his small-minded and reactionary love for hierarchical status-quos, his belief in absolute morality that blurs moral and political complexity. Tolkien's clichés—elves 'n' dwarfs 'n' magic rings—have spread like viruses. He wrote that the function of fantasy was 'consolation', thereby making it an article of policy that a fantasy writer should mollycoddle the reader. That is a revolting idea, and one, thankfully, that plenty of fantasists have ignored. From the Surrealists through the pulps—via Mervyn Peake and Mikhael Bulgakov and Stefan Grabiński and Bruno Schulz and Michael Moorcock and M. John Harrison and I could go on—the best writers have used the fantastic aesthetic precisely to challenge, to alienate, to subvert and undermine expectations. Of course I'm not saying that any fan of Tolkien is no friend of mine—that would cut my social circle considerably. Nor would I claim that it's impossible to write a good fantasy book with elves and dwarfs in it—Michael Swanwick's superb Iron Dragon's Daughter gives the lie to that. But given that the pleasure of fantasy is supposed to be in its limitless creativity, why not try to come up with some different themes, as well as unconventional monsters? Why not use fantasy to challenge social and aesthetic lies? Thankfully, the alternative tradition of fantasy has never died. And it's getting stronger. Chris Wooding, Michael Swanwick, Mary Gentle, Paul di Filippo, Jeff VanderMeer, and many others, are all producing works based on fantasy's radicalism. Where traditional fantasy has been rural and bucolic, this is often urban, and frequently brutal. Characters are more than cardboard cutouts, and they're not defined by race or sex. Things are gritty and tricky, just as in real life. This is fantasy not as comfort-food, but as challenge. The critic Gabe Chouinard has said that we're entering a new period, a renaissance in the creative radicalism of fantasy that hasn't been seen since the New Wave of the sixties and seventies, and in echo of which he has christened the Next Wave. I don't know if he's right, but I'm excited. This is a radical literature. It's the literature we most deserve.

Believe something is impossible,’ said his ancestor calmly, ‘and you will surely fail. But believe in yourself and you can do anything.

I think Dr. Willis McNelly at the California State University at Fullerton put it best when he said that the true protagonist of an sf story or novel is an idea and not a person. If it is *good* sf the idea is new, it is stimulating, and, probably most important of all, it sets off a chain-reaction of ramification-ideas in the mind of the reader; it so-to-speak unlocks the reader’s mind so that the mind, like the author’s, begins to create. Thus sf is creative and it inspires creativity, which mainstream fiction by-and-large does not do. We who read sf (I am speaking as a reader now, not a writer) read it because we love to experience this chain-reaction of ideas being set off in our minds by something we read, something with a new idea in it; hence the very best since fiction ultimately winds up being a collaboration between author and reader, in which both create and enjoy doing it: joy is the essential and final ingredient of science fiction, the joy of discovery of newness.

As he practiced his writing, Jijingi came to understand what Moseby had meant: writing was not just a way to record what someone said; it could help you decide what you would say before you said it. And words were not just the pieces of speaking; they were the pieces of thinking. When you wrote them down, you could grasp your thoughts like bricks in your hands and push them into different arrangements. Writing let you look at your thoughts in a way you couldn’t if you were just talking, and having seen them, you could improve them, make them stronger and more elaborate.

Science is not just the search for the truth,” he said. “It’s the search for purpose

I had said that Le Guin's worlds were real because her people were so real, and he said yes, but the people were so real because they were the people the worlds would have produced. If you put Ged to grow up on Anarres or Shevek in Earthsea, they would be the same people, the backgrounds made the people, which of course you see all the time in mainstream fiction, but it's rare in SF.

Gated?” Aaron asked. “What does that mean?” Scott paused before sharing a look with Skyler and Ella. “When you first arrived at Salvador, you came across a Gate,” Scott said. Aaron thought for a moment. “You mean that big white door?” Scott’s lips lifted into an amused smile. Behind him, Skyler facepalmed.

Aaron’s eyes widened. “That’s Lexi?” he asked. Kyran turned to him with a frown. “Yeah. Why?” “Nothing,” Aaron said. “It’s just...when I heard Skyler was messing around with Lexi,” he shrugged, “I figured she was your...girlfriend.” Kyran raised an eyebrow. “Skyler’s stupid, not suicidal.

The last man she'd dated said something to her, shortly before they broke up: 'I don't know, maybe I'm boring, but I never really feel like you're there when we're out to dinner. You live in your head. I can't. No room for me in there. I don't know, maybe you'd be more interested in me if I were a book.' She had hated him at the time, and hated herself a little, but later, looking back, Hutter had decided that even if that particular boyfriend had been a book, he would've been one from the Business & Finance aisle and she would've passed him by and looked for something in SF & Fantasy.

Science is not just the search for the truth,” he said. “It’s the search for purpose.

Maldonado's face was ghastly. 'That' she said, pointing below the bed where the cat lurked, 'and that' - pointing to what lay on the floor - 'prove it was no dream. Do dreams leave marks behind them?' ("I'm Dangerous Tonight")

Before he could think past his rage, Aaron launched himself at Kyran. His first strike was dodged by a chuckling Kyran. His second was caught. “Easy,” Kyran said, holding on to Aaron’s clenched fist. “You’ll pull something.

I have no quarrel with you,” Viktor said, speaking to the four men that came to Chris and Alex’s side. “I have no interest in fighting any of you. My enemy is only Christopher Adams.” “That’s the thing,” Neriah said. “You mess with one of us...” “…you mess with all of us,” Hadrian finished with a smirk.

First of all, she wasn’t my girlfriend, we were nine,” Alex said. “And the only reason she liked you was because you used to show off your powers all the time.” “No I didn’t,” Chris said. “Yeah, you did,” Joseph grinned. “All the time,” Hadrian added, lifting his glass to take a sip. “It was really annoying,” Neriah said.

denial. It rose up out of him, and rushed towards her. He came at her with all his power, all his Skills, all

Nothing erases the past. There is repentance, there is atonement, and there is forgiveness. That is all, but that is enough. It has long been said that air (which others call argon) is the source of life.

Are you hurt?” Alex asked. Chris felt his chest seize with panic. “No, are you?” he asked quickly. “No,” Alex replied. “My head hurts, but I’m guessing that’s because I was knocked out.” “Yeah,” Chris said, trying to ignore the pounding in his skull. “Mine too.” He let out a frustrated breath. “Thanks a lot!” There was a pause before Alex asked, “You’re blaming me for this?” “You distracted me,” Chris accused. “If you hadn’t been there, I would have sensed the attack.” “Yeah, sure,” Alex said, sarcasm thick in his voice. “You would have sensed it. You have great intuition, after all.” “Shut up!” Chris barked.

Chris looked around as Alex appeared in the doorway and his face broke into a wide, beaming grin. “Oh, look, Kate – look who’s here.” Kate was standing at the small table, sprinkling coriander leaves on the platters of chicken. She glanced at Alex and smiled, her blue eyes lighting up at the sight of her one and only brother-in-law. “He’s very familiar,” Chris said. “I’m sure I have a brother who looks just like him.” Alex rolled his eyes. “Ha ha,” he remarked and walked into the kitchen.

Nothing is ordinary,' said the tyger. 'Everything is extraordinary. In all of infinity and eternity, that flower exists only in this world; this precise posi- tion in space and time. Everywhere else, there is a different flower, or no flower at all. And the same is true of you. Nothing special? You are miraculous beyond measure, both of you.

know it’s my psychosis, he said to himself, but I still don’t want to get caught.

[SF] was a commercial genre born in the old adventure pulp magazines of the first third of the twentieth century, aimed primarily at adolescent males, which, over the decades, in fits and starts, evolved into an intellectually credible, scientifically germane, transcendental literature without losing its popular base. Of what other literature in the history of the western world can this truly be said?

Anger and rage are like speeding," Kyran said. "It propels you to go further, faster than you thought possible, carrying you with its momentum, but if you don't know when to let go, you'll inevitably crash.

I think Dr. Willis McNelly at the California State University at Fullerton put it best when he said that the true protagonist of an sf story or novel is an idea and not a person. If it is good sf the idea is new, it is stimulating, and, probably most important of all, it sets off a chain-reaction of ramification-ideas in the mind of the reader; it so-to-speak unlocks the reader's mind so that that mind, like the author's, begins to create.

Well, this is the hardest part to believe; look, you can suspend me if you want to, but it's the God's honest truth. This man Tompkins came all the way down to where I was bending over the body at the foot of the stairs. I straightened up and covered him with my gun. It didn't faze him in the least, he kept moving right on past me toward the street-door. Not quickly, either; as slowly as if he was just going out for a walk. He said, 'It isn't my time yet. You can't do anything to me with that.' ("Speak To Me Of Death")

We can honestly say that everyone we've known who has used effective communication has been grateful for it in the long run. Often, effective communication brings about huge relief by showing you just how strongly your partner feels about you -- and by strengthening the bond between you two. And even though in some instances the response may not be what you hoped for and you'll be convinced that you've ruined everything -- if only you had said or done something else, he would surely have come around -- we've never heard anyone say in retrospect that they regretted raising an important issue in a dating or relationship setting. In fact, they overwhelmingly express gratitude that effective communication got them that one step closer to their long-term goal of either finding the right person or strengthening their existing bond.

But what if things aren’t what they seem? As you said, there is no truth in the Digital Sea.” “Eventually we must cling to some reality,” Mekena said. “Even if we are not sure it is the most real. One can wait for a whole lifetime for the reality we want and miss the one we have in our hands.

the question was, given that we know about other branches, whether making good choices is worth doing. I think it absolutely is. None of us are saints, but we can all try to be better. Each time you do something generous, you’re shaping yourself into someone who’s more likely to be generous next time, and that matters. “And it’s not just your behavior in this branch that you’re changing: you’re inoculating all the versions of you that split off in the future. By becoming a better person, you’re ensuring that more and more of the branches that split off from this point forward are populated by better versions of you.” Better versions of Nat. “Thanks,” she said. “That’s what I was looking for.

Then she closed her eyes and said, almost involuntarily, “Kel Fulbreech just kissed me.” Jimex paused, just for a moment, in his wiping. “Oh,” he said, his voice milk-bland and mild. “I don’t believe Ellenex has medication for that.” Park felt a laugh bubble up in her chest, but stifled it sharply. How like an android to think of such a thing as needing a prescription—a cure. Maybe he was right.

As he practiced his writing, Jijingi came to understand what Moseby had meant: writing was not just a way to record what someone said; it could help you decide what you would say before you said it. And words were not just the pieces of speaking; they were the pieces of thinking. When you wrote them down, you could grasp your thoughts like bricks in your hands and push them into different arrangements.

The honky-tonk bartender, who doubled as bouncer, waiter, and cashier, was in no mood to compromise. Mercy was not in him. He came out around the open end of the long counter, waddled threatening across the floor in a sullen, red-faced fury and began to shake the inanimate figure lying across the table with its head bedded on its arms. "Hey, you! Do your sleeping in the gutter!" If you gave these bums an inch; they took a yard. And this one was a particularly glaring example of the genus bar-fly. He was in here all the time like this, inhaling smoke and then doing a sunset across the table. He'd been in here since four this afternoon. The boss and he, who were partners in the joint - the bartender called it jernt - would have been the last ones to claim they were running a Rainbow Room, but at least they were trying to give the place a little class, keep it above the level of a Bowery smoke-house; they even paid a guy to pound the piano and a canary to warble three times a week. And then bums like this had to show up and give the place a bad look! He shook the recumbent figure again, more roughly than the first time. Shook him so violently that the whole reedy table under him rattled and threatened to collapse. "Come on, clear out, I said! Pay me for what you had and get outa here!" ("I'm Dangerous Tonight")

As the bartender struck a match to light her cigarette, she put her hand on his wrist to steady it. Travis saw him jump, draw back. He held his wrist, blew on it, looked at her reproachfully. Travis said: 'Why, you scratched him, Sarah.' 'Did I?' And as she turned and looked at him, he saw her hand twitch a little, and drew still further away from her. 'What - what's got into you?' he faltered. There was some kind of tension spreading all around the horseshoe-shaped bar, emanating from her. All the cordiality, the sociability, was leaving it. Cheery conversations even at the far ends of it faltered and died, and the speakers looked around them as though wondering what was putting them so on edge. A heavy leaden pall of restless silence descended, as when a cloud goes over the sun. One or two people even turned and moved away reluctantly, as though they hadn't intended to but didn't like it at the bar any more. The gaunt-faced woman in red and black was the center of all eyes, but the looks sent her were not the admiring looks of men for a well-dressed woman; they were the blinking petrified looks a blacksnake would get in a poultry yard. Even the barman felt it. He dropped and smashed a glass, a thing he hadn't done since he'd been working on the ship. Even the canary felt it, and stood shivering pitifully on its perch, emitting an occasional cheep as though for help. ("I'm Dangerous Tonight")

Since I was about ten years younger than this crew of alcoholics, I just listened and filled their cups with cheap wine. After they’d had enough, I’d tell them of my escapades in Riverbank and in Panama where I’d worked with the Southern Baptist Convention and Jesus Christ to save the black souls of niggers, spics and Indians. I used to keep my eye on Harris when I told my stories. He had this nasty habit of pulling out a little notebook in the middle of a conversation and jotting down, as he said, “story ideas.” Later on, after I’d transferred to S.F. State and taken his writing course, he asked me if I wanted to read his first draft of Wake Up, Stupid! I kept it for a week and returned it to him at the next short story seminar. I only read the first paragraph. After that, I was no longer afraid of the intellectuals. I knew I could tell a better story.

Someone said that people don’t really want to date other people. They don’t really want equal partnership—you know, two full people in a relationship. Two people with demands and desires and differences of opinion about everything. What they want is one-point-five people in the relationship. They want to be the complete one, the person who controls the relationship—and they want the other person to be half a person. You know, someone who gets them, but who doesn’t have their own demands. Someone who appears complete, with all these personality quirks and their own opinions and stories about the world—but not in an annoying way. Not in a way that would demand you change. So six or seven years ago, this big company in the SF-SD Axis that specializes in AI started cranking these things out. What you do is, you fill out this long questionnaire on your terminal, play a whole bunch of different simulations and puzzle games, and then they custom-produce one for you.

I was about to search for information on forging a digital watermark to prove this video was faked, but I stopped myself, recognizing it as an act of desperation. I would have testified, hand on a stack of Bibles or using any oath required of me, that it was Nicole who’d accused me of being the reason her mother left us. My recollection of that argument was as clear as any memory I had, but that wasn’t the only reason I found the video hard to believe; it was also my knowledge that—whatever my faults or imperfections—I was never the kind of father who could say such a thing to his child. Yet here was digital video proving that I had been exactly that kind of father. And while I wasn’t that man anymore, I couldn’t deny that I was continuous with him. Even more telling was the fact that for many years I had successfully hidden the truth from myself. Earlier I said that the details we choose to remember are a reflection of our personalities. What did it say about me that I put those words in Nicole’s mouth instead of mine?

Kranz said later that there were only a few things he would do differently if a similar crisis arose again, but one would be to pack off small groups of engineers to other rooms instead of having them all milling around in the same place.

It is said that repentance and atonement erase the past.

WHEN MY DAUGHTER NICOLE WAS AN INFANT, I READ AN essay suggesting that it might no longer be necessary to teach children how to read or write, because speech recognition and synthesis would soon render those abilities superfluous. My wife and I were horrified by the idea, and we resolved that, no matter how sophisticated technology became, our daughter’s skills would always rest on the bedrock of traditional literacy. It turned out that we and the essayist were both half correct: now that she’s an adult, Nicole can read as well as I can. But there is a sense in which she has lost the ability to write. She doesn’t dictate her messages and ask a virtual secretary to read back to her what she last said, the way that essayist predicted; Nicole subvocalizes, her retinal projector displays the words in her field of vision, and she makes revisions using a combination of gestures and eye movements. For all practical purposes, she can write. But take away the assistive software and give her nothing but a keyboard like the one I remain faithful to, and she’d have difficulty spelling out many of the words in this very sentence.

Science is not just the search for the truth,” he said. “It’s the search for purpose.” And I had no response.

I’m not sure about the math,” said Dana. “But I definitely think that your choices matter. Every decision you make contributes to your character and shapes the kind of person you are. If you want to be someone who always gives the extra money back to the cashier, the actions you take now affect whether you’ll become that person. “The branch where you’re having a bad day and keep the extra change is one that split off in the past; your actions can’t affect it anymore. But if you act compassionately in this branch, that’s still meaningful, because it has an effect on the branches that will split off in the future. The more often you make compassionate choices, the less likely it is that you’ll make selfish choices in the future, even in the branches where you’re having a bad day.” “That sounds good, but—” Nat thought about how years of acting a certain way could wear ruts in a person’s brain, so that you would keep slipping into the same habits without trying to. “But it’s not easy,” said Nat. “I know it’s not,” said Dana. “But the question was, given that we know about other branches, whether making good choices is worth doing. I think it absolutely

The tyger's tail thumped behind her. "This stunted little world breaks my heart,' she said. 'So much here has stagnated and died. I wanted to remind you of what has been lost - but also of what is possible. You see, tygers could flourish only when they lived in freedom. And you have never known what it is to be free.

To open a gateway between worlds,' said the tyger, in the darkness of the ruin, 'you must first of all see the possibility of a gateway. Then you must make that possibility a reality. You must create it. You will find the power you need inside you, if you go through the doors of creation to the other side.

Doubt the clouds in the sky, the movements of the tide, or the turning of this world around its sun. But never, ever doubt me.

Perhaps not yet,' said the tyger, 'but you have the potential. Every human being has it. At first, only immortals did. But then someone stole a spark from the fires of infinity, and gave it to your kind. So now the power of creation is yours, like perception and imagination. And with these powers, there is nothing you cannot do.

Hold on to your dreams,' said the tyger. 'They will help you change the world, or create new worlds, for every time you make a choice, that is what you do. And if you can dream of something - then in all of infinity, there must be at least one world in which that dream is real.

Don’t mind the mess,” he said jovially, seeing Norton still hovering uncertainly by the door. “The whole house is like this, I’m afraid. Never could stop accumulating stuff. Never could throw anything out. My wife used to say I’d been a jackdaw in my previous lives. That’s why I didn’t leave, you know. I couldn’t start off again somewhere else without all this. Sometimes I think there’s more of me here—” his gesture took in the room, and the other rooms beyond it – “than here.” He tapped the side of his skull.

There are many things in this world that trouble me,’ she said. ‘Do they not trouble you, too?

Doubt anything you like,’ said the tyger, fi tv rand proud. ‘Doubt the clouds in the sky, the movements of the tide, or the turning of this world around its sun. But never, ever doubt me.

Imagine how different you would be if the history of your world was different,' said the tyger. "There are infinite possible histories of the world, and of yourselves. So you should never stop questioning the world, and everything in it; wondering how it could be different.

Varjak Paw,’ said Elyza Scratch, unsheathing her claws, ‘the way Razor fooled Luger was genius, and I take back everything I said.

If this were some kind of entertainment, this would be roughly the point where Rupert said, "We don't have any more time, Professor, you must complete your research as soon as possible," but there was no great sense of urgency, no sense that it even mattered. It was just something that Rudi was interested in, for his own reasons. They could be working on this for years and still not understand it, and it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference. He said, "Look, Professor, a lot of effort went into getting you that information. We'd be grateful if you could make some kind of sense of it reasonably soon. "There is one thing I can tell you right now," Lev said..."Whoever is running this thing, they're really interested in railways.

As he practiced his writing, Jijingi came to understand what Moseby had meant: writing was not just a way to record what someone said; it could help you decide what you would say before you said it. And words were not just the pieces of speaking; they were the pieces of thinking. When you wrote them down, you could grasp your thoughts like bricks in your hands and push them into different arrangements. Writing let your look at your thoughts in a way you couldn't if you were just talking , and having seen them, you could improve them, make them stronger and more elaborate.

Don’t move to Silicon Valley. Even before 2020, I would have said, “Don’t quit your job, don’t move to SF, don’t pass go, and don’t collect $200 (from VCs).” After all, San Francisco is expensive, traffic-heavy, and not a great place to raise your children—or even a dog. Now, post-COVID, remote work is the new normal, and that means you can stay where you are. Sam Altman, the former CEO of Y Combinator, said that he was “very excited to see SF have to compete with other cities.” Me too. Not only is it cheaper and less competitive to build your company in a smaller town or city, but it’s also better for the local community, which as we’ve learned can pay dividends for your business.

Park went to the usual dispensary line, feeling the absence of Keller as if she had lost her favorite coat. She felt cold, uneasy, vulnerable. The domestic android, Megex, seemed to notice her discomfort from behind the counter and said, “Would you like a juice bulb?” “Thank you,” Park said gratefully as the brown-haired android placed it on her tray.

Renée promised to show her the state of California. She drove like a truck driver in her Mercedes, straight down the middle of the freeways as fast as she could get away with. Delilah had expected they’d see a lot of museums, but they never went close to one except once, when they got lost and ended up in L.A. by the La Brea Tar Pits next to the Los Angeles County Museum. No operas, no concerts. And the international wonders – the giant sequoias and the coast at Big Sur – were never on the agenda. They did drive to Yosemite Valley one Saturday, parked near an old apple orchard by a campground. Delilah started to get out to look for the waterfalls. “Don’t,” Renée said, looking at her watch, “you’ll ruin it,” and they headed back to S.F. after five minutes.

With Remem providing only the unvarnished facts, my image of myself will never stray too far from the truth in the first place. Digital memory will not stop us from telling stories about ourselves. As I said earlier, we are made of stories, and nothing can change that. What digital memory will do is change those stories from fabulations that emphasize our best acts and elide our worst, into ones that—I hope—acknowledge our fallibility and make us less judgmental about the fallibility of others.

thought back to what Erica Meyers said about Remem’s inability to hurt solid marriages. Implicit in that assertion was a claim about what qualified as a solid marriage. If someone’s marriage was built on—as ironic as it might sound—a cornerstone of forgetfulness, what right did Whetstone have to shatter that? The issue wasn’t confined to marriages; all sorts of relationships rely on forgiving and forgetting.

writing was not just a way to record what someone said; it could help you decide what you would say before you said it. And words were not just the pieces of speaking; they were the pieces of thinking. When you wrote them down, you could grasp your thoughts like bricks in your hands and push them into different arrangements. Writing let you look at your thoughts in a way you couldn’t if you were just talking, and having seen them, you could improve them, make them stronger and more elaborate

I would have testified, hand on a stack of Bibles or using any oath required of me, that it was Nicole who’d accused me of being the reason her mother left us. My recollection of that argument was as clear as any memory I had, but that wasn’t the only reason I found the video hard to believe; it was also my knowledge that—whatever my faults or imperfections—I was never the kind of father who could say such a thing to his child. Yet here was digital video proving that I had been exactly that kind of father. And while I wasn’t that man anymore, I couldn’t deny that I was continuous with him. Even more telling was the fact that for many years I had successfully hidden the truth from myself. Earlier I said that the details we choose to remember are a reflection of our personalities. What did it say about me that I put those words in Nicole’s mouth instead of mine?

I can’t tell a psychophyte – what is it?” “Psilophyte,” said Gilzow. “I can’t tell a psilophyte from creamed spinach. To me, a trilobite’s just a waterlogged pillbug. And it doesn’t matter what time period I’m in, meteorology’s the same here as it is back home. Trade winds blow from the east, a high-pressure system’s still – everything’s different for the rest of you.” “Not for me and Bonnie,” said Holmes. “Rocks is rocks.” “Still.” Ovington gestured at the

Moseby explained to Jijingi how each sound a person spoke could be indicated with a different mark on the paper. The marks were arranged in rows like plants in a field; you looked at the marks as if you were walking down a row, made the sound each mark indicated, and you would find yourself speaking what the original person had said. Moseby showed him how to make each of the different marks on a sheet of paper, using a tiny wooden rod that had a core of soot.

Raising a child, she said, “puts you in touch, deeply, inescapably, daily, with some pretty heady issues: What is love and how do we get ours? Why does the world contain evil and pain and loss? How can we discover dignity and tolerance? Who is in power and why? What’s the best way to resolve conflict?

Obviously you’re going to have your hands full,” says Ana, “but what do you think about adopting Lolly?” It would be fascinating to see Lolly’s reaction to a pregnancy. “No,” says Robyn, shaking her head. “I’m past digients now.” “You’re past them?” “I’m ready for the real thing, you know what I mean?” Carefully, Ana says, “I’m not sure that I do.” “People always say that we’re evolved to want babies, and I used to think that was a bunch of crap, but not anymore.” Robyn’s facial expression is one of transport; she’s no longer speaking to Ana exactly. “Cats, dogs, digients, they’re all just substitutes for what we’re supposed to be caring for. Eventually you start to understand what a baby means, what it really means, and everything changes. And then you realize that all the feelings you had before weren’t—” Robyn stops herself. “I mean, for me, it just put things in perspective.” Women who work with animals hear this all the time: that their love for animals must arise out of a sublimated child-rearing urge. Ana’s tired of the stereotype. She likes children just fine, but they’re not the standard against which all other accomplishments should be measured. Caring for animals is worthwhile in and of itself, a vocation that need offer no apologies. She wouldn’t have said the same about digients when she started at Blue Gamma, but now she realizes it might be true for them, too.

I can’t change the things I did, but at least I can stop pretending I didn’t do them. I’m going to use Remem to get an honest picture of myself, take a kind of personal inventory.” Nicole looked at me, gauging my sincerity. “Fine,” she said. “But let’s be clear: you don’t come running to me every time you feel guilty over treating me like crap. I worked hard to put that behind me, and I’m not going to relive it just so you can feel better about yourself.” “Of course.” I saw that she was tearing up. “And I’ve upset you again by bringing all this up. I’m sorry.” “It’s all right, Dad. I appreciate what you’re trying to do. Just…let’s not do it again for a while, okay?” “Right.” I moved toward the door to leave, and then stopped. “I just wanted to ask…if it’s possible, if there’s anything I can do to make amends…” “Make amends?” She looked incredulous. “I don’t know. Just be more considerate, will you?

Our language has two words for what in your language is called ‘true.’ There is what’s right, mimi, and what’s precise, vough. In a dispute the principals say what they consider right; they speak mimi. The witnesses, however, are sworn to say precisely what happened; they speak vough. When Sabe has heard what happened he can decide what action is mimi for everyone. But it’s not lying if the principals don’t speak vough, as long as they speak mimi.” Moseby clearly disapproved. “In the land I come from, everyone who testifies in court must swear to speak vough, even the principals.” Jijingi didn’t see the point of that, but all he said was “Every tribe has its own customs.

Here was the line at which the pursuit of truth ceased to be an intrinsic good. When the only persons affected have a personal relationship with each other, other priorities are often more important, and a forensic pursuit of the truth could be harmful. Did it really matter whose idea it was to take the vacation that turned out so disastrously? Did you need to know which partner was more forgetful about completing errands the other person requested? I was no expert on marriage, but I knew what marriage counselors said: pinpointing blame wasn’t the answer. Instead, couples needed to acknowledge each other’s feelings and address their problems as a team.

By fixing every detail of an insult in indelible video, it could prevent the softening that’s needed for forgiveness to begin. I thought back to what Erica Meyers said about Remem’s inability to hurt solid marriages. Implicit in that assertion was a claim about what qualified as a solid marriage. If someone’s marriage was built on—as ironic as it might sound—a cornerstone of forgetfulness, what right did Whetstone have to shatter that?

You could not find the places where words began and ended by listening. The sounds a person made while speaking were as smooth and unbroken as the hide of a goat’s leg, but the words were like the bones underneath the meat, and the space between them was the joint where you’d cut if you wanted to separate it into pieces. By leaving spaces when he wrote, Moseby was making visible the bones in what he said.

Branches are generated by any quantum event, right? Even before we had prisms, branches were still splitting off constantly; we just didn’t have access to any of them. If it were true that there’s always a branch where you pick up a gun and shoot someone on a whim, then we should have seen the same number of random murders every day before the prism was invented as we saw every day after. The invention of prisms wouldn’t cause more of those murders to line up in this particular branch. So if we’re seeing more people killing one another since prisms became popular, it can’t be because there’s always a branch where you pick up a gun.” “I follow your reasoning,” said Zareenah, “but then what’s causing the rise in murders?” Kevin shrugged. “It’s like a suicide fad. People hear about other people doing it, and it gives them ideas.” Nat thought about it. “That proves that the argument can’t be right, but it doesn’t explain why it’s wrong.

He had come to trust what was written on paper over what was said by people, and that wasn’t the Tiv way. The assessment report of the Europeans was vough; it was exact and precise, but that wasn’t enough to settle the question. The choice of which clan to join had to be right for the community; it had to be mimi. Only the elders could determine what was mimi; it was their responsibility to decide what was best for the Shangev clan. Asking Sabe to defer to the paper was asking him to act against what he considered right.

I asked them to imagine what it would be like if we lived in a world where, no matter how deeply we dug, we kept finding traces of an earlier era of the world. I asked them to imagine being confronted with proof of a past extending so far back that the numbers lost all meaning: a hundred thousand years, a million years, ten million years. Then I asked, wouldn’t they feel lost, like a castaway adrift on an ocean of time? The only sane response would be despair. I told them that we are not so adrift. We have dropped an anchor and struck bottom; we can be certain that the shoreline is close by, even if we can’t see it. We know that you made this universe with a purpose in mind; we know that a harbor awaits. I told them that our means of navigation is scientific inquiry. And, I said, this is why I am a scientist: because I wish to discover your purpose for us, Lord.

I told Wilhelmina I would have to speak to her parents about what she had done. She seemed unconcerned. “I won’t apologize for bringing people closer to God. I know I’ve broken rules in doing so, but it’s the rules that need to be changed, not my behavior.” I told her that people couldn’t simply disobey rules just because they disagreed with them, because society would cease to function if everyone did that. “Don’t be silly,” she said. “You lied when you sent that mailgram as Mr. Dahl. Was that because you believe we should all be free to lie? Of course not. You thought about the situation and concluded that lying was justified. You’re prepared to take responsibility for what you did, aren’t you? Well, so am I. That’s what society needs us to do, not to follow rules without thinking.

Science is not just the search for the truth,” he said. “It’s the search for purpose.” And I had no response. I had always assumed those were one and the same, but what if they aren’t? I don’t know what to think now. It frightens me to imagine that you have never been listening at all.

Raniya had been flush with anticipation for this moment, and so was surprised to find that Hassan’s movements were clumsy and awkward. She remembered their wedding night very clearly; he had been confident, and his touch had taken her breath away. She knew Hassan’s first meeting with the young Raniya was not far away, and for a moment did not understand how this fumbling boy could change so quickly. And then of course the answer was clear. So every afternoon for many days, Raniya met Hassan at her rented house and instructed him in the art of love, and in doing so she demonstrated that, as is often said, women are Allah’s most wondrous creation. She told him, “The pleasure you give is returned in the pleasure you receive,” and inwardly she smiled as she thought of how true her words really were.

I admit the idea of sex with a digient bothered me initially, but I guess I’m not opposed to the idea in principle. It’s not something I can imagine doing myself, but I don’t have a problem if other people want to, so long as it’s not exploitative. If there’s some degree of give-and-take, then maybe it could be like Derek said: good for the digient as well as the human. But if the human is free to customize the digient’s reward map, or keep rolling him back until he finds a perfectly tweaked instantiation, then where’s the give-and-take? Binary Desire is telling its customers that they don’t have to accommodate their digients’ preferences in any way. It doesn’t matter whether it involves sex or not; that’s not a real relationship.

writing was not just a way to record what someone said; it could help you decide what you would say before you said it. And words were not just the pieces of speaking; they were the pieces of thinking. When you wrote them down, you could grasp your thoughts like bricks in your hands and push them into different arrangements. Writing let you look at your thoughts in a way you couldn’t if you were just talking, and having seen them, you could improve them, make them stronger and more elaborate.

He waved his hand. “I do not sell passage through the Gate,” he said. “Allah guides whom he wishes to my shop, and I am content to be an instrument of his will.

After all, these days a man of sixty is practically a young man. (said in a 1947 SF story Centaurus II)

We've all made mistakes," she said. "Believe me, I've made my share. But there's a difference between accepting responsibility for our actions and taking the blame for random misfortunes.

No.” She bit her lip and played with her hair in a flirty way, but she wasn’t really good at flirting. He knew she was attracted to him. He liked her, too, but for different reasons. There was something real about her, and he met a lot of people in San Francisco who weren’t real at all. It didn’t matter what she said; he just liked listening to her talk. “What about you?” he asked. “What’s the Lucy Hagen story?” She blushed and looked away. “Oh, that’s a boring story.” “I doubt it. Everybody’s got a story. Did you grow up in the city?” “No. Out in Modesto. I went to SF State and wanted to stick around after college. Nobody was hiring business majors, so I applied at Macy’s. I had

writing was not just a way to record what someone said; it could help you decide what you would say before you said it. And words were not just the pieces of speaking; they were the pieces of thinking. When you wrote them down, you could grasp your thoughts like bricks in your hands and push them into different arrangements.

It has long been said that air (which others call argon) is the source of life. This is not in fact the case, and I engrave these words to describe how I came to understand the true source of life and, as a corollary, the means by which life will one day end.