Star Trek: Living Memory
{4.5/5} “The Federation isn’t perfect. We’re better than most, but we only got that way because of past generations of protestors who pushed for a better world. And we do backslide now and then — our leaders get complacent and lazy and need a kick in the pants to remind them what we stand for.” […]
Star Trek: The Higher Frontier
{4.5/5} “Seems to me that you can’t learn that much from someone who’s already like you. That might just be why we’re out here exploring strange new worlds instead of ordinary old ones.” Star Trek: The Higher Frontier by Christopher L. Bennett, published in 2020 When many Aenar are killed on Andoria by unknown attackers, […]
Titan
{4.5/5} “”Something tried to eat me,’ she said. ‘Something ate all the organic parts of my suit, and all my hair, then excreted the junk right here. Including me.’ She noted in passing that she was glad the thing had classified her as junk.” Titan by John Varley, published in 1979 The Ringmaster’s mission is […]
Golden Fleece
{5/5} “I slapped a NETWORK BUSY/PLEASE WAIT message on her screen and quickly shuffled the file. Of course, the network was never busy, but I made a point of flashing that message at each crew member once every few months. Never hurts to keep one’s options open.” Golden Fleece by Robert J. Sawyer, published in […]
A Psalm for the Wild-Built
{5/5} “This had been the way of things since the Transition, when the people had redivided the surface of their moon. Fifty percent of Panga’s single continent was designated for human use; the rest was left to nature, and the ocean was barely touched at all. It was a crazy split, if you thought about […]
Star Trek: TNG — Shadows Have Offended
{4.5/5} “Picard laughed. It was the easiest he’d ever felt in Lwaxana’s presence. He realized with a start that he had been so involved in learning what happened that he had, just for the few moments it took her to tell the story, allowed himself to forget about Kota, the Enterprise, and the Romulan, and […]
Omnifix
{4.5/5} “Alex was flummoxed, could hardly digest all the things they’d spoken of so far, felt like all these years he’d been a playgoer, watching the play from a safe distance, accepting the play as reality. But the play was just a Megaplex-doctored reality– the true action was taking place backstage.” Omnifix by Scott Mackay, […]
West of January
{5/5} “I was born somewhere in the west of January, probably near the middle of Wednesday. I cannot locate the spot more closely. Even if I knew it exactly — even if there was a bronze tablet there to record the event — I could not name it for you.” West of January by Dave […]
Passion Play
{4.5/5} “Being a shaper makes you look behind the surfaces of things. It was my father and his discipline of History that first showed me the patterns running below the skin of life. But where he studied the march of nations, I followed the twisted ways of the individual heart.” Passion Play by Sean Stewart, […]
Star Trek: Spock Must Die!
{2/5} “Perhaps you can learn to live with two Spocks, but it would be somewhat painful for me. If you would imagine what it would be like to have a second James T. Kirk abroad in the universe, you will readily understand why.” Star Trek: Spock Must Die! by James Blish, published in 1970 The […]