Use of Weapons
{4.5/5} “Everywhere they found themselves, the galaxy bubbled with life and its basic foods kept on speaking back to it… Still, he suspected if the Culture had really wanted to, it could have found far more spectacularly different and exotic places for him to visit. Their excuse was that he was a limited creature, adapted […]
The Player of Games
{5/5} “All reality is a game. Physics at its most fundamental, the very fabric of our universe, results directly from the interaction of certain fairly simple rules, and chance; the same description may be applied to the best, most elegant and both intellectually and aesthetically satisfying games. By being unknowable, by resulting from events which, […]
Consider Phlebas
{4.5/5} “They’re on the side of life — boring, old-fashioned, biological life; smelly, fallible and short-sighted, God knows, but real life. You’re ruled by your machines. You’re an evolutionary dead end. The trouble is that to take your mind off it you try to drag everybody else down there with you. The worst thing that […]
Sword of the Deceiver
{4.5/5} “Samudra felt another numbing moment of pure disbelief. The Huni were digging in on the northern border, his treaty with one of their father’s protectorates was shattered, a royal woman was threatened and humiliated in public. He, Samudra, had been all but accused of harboring traitorous designs, and the emperor of Hastinapura was having […]
The Firebird’s Vengeance
{4.5/5} “But this is the seduction and this is the danger that we all face no matter how weak our powers. Power attracts. It pulls and it changes. No matter how blessed a sorcerer’s sight, power and the closeness of power clouds it. You are very much in danger of going blind.” Bridget Lederle’s daughter […]
Shine
{4/5} “It has always been the will of man to separate us in thought, in clothing, in language. Separate, we can be controlled. Separate, we can be killed in the quiet of the night and disappear into myth. Separate, we forget that in the end we have the power.” Shine edited by Jetse de Vries […]
House of Suns
{5/5} “In the long run, the best strategy for cultural longevity was either to sit tight in a single system, or become like the Lines, entirely unshackled from planetary life. Expansionism worked for a while, but was ultimately futile. Not that that stopped new emergents from trying, even when they had six million years of […]
The Usurper’s Crown
{4.5/5} “What few outsiders knew was that the palace itself formed a latticework of spells with the Pearl Throne at its heart. The order of the passages, the order of the day, the patrols of the soldiers, the dances of the worshipers, all combined to continuously renew the work of the thousand sorcerers who had […]
Star Trek: Troublesome Minds
{4.5/5} “Occasionally a child has a telepathic ability that exceeds the strength of most Isitri. These children are undisciplined and have a tendency to push their thoughts and emotions on those around them. Usually, with training, this can be controlled. Every few generations there is a genetic mutation that produces what we call a ‘troublesome […]
The Distant Hours
{4.5/5} “All things considered, I think I was doing pretty well: only occasionally did I allow myself to slip deep inside the pool of my own most maudlin imaginings. At these times I’d find a quiet, dark corner — all the better to give myself over fully to the fantasy — and picture in great […]