“‘When loyalty is freely chosen, based on conscious decisions, we find it is fluid and dynamic. When loyalty is fear induced, as in many repressive regimes, it is deeply damaging. We are learning the kinds of strengths and skills we may need to determine the difference between the two for ourselves, so that we can […]
“The beauty of science lies for me not merely in its ability to produce fantastic new technologies that transform and can improve the human condition. It is rather in its ability to open our eyes to the endless wonder of the real universe, which continues to surprise us every time we open a new window […]
“To speak of these things and to try to understand their nature and, having understood it, to try slowly and humbly and constantly to express, to press out again, from the gross earth or what it brings forth, from sound and shape and colour which are the prison gates of our soul, an image of […]
I’ve never been partial to James Joyce, but consider it part of my due diligence as a committed reader to get to know him. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, widely considered his most accessible work, seemed like a good place to start. Joyce wields words carefully, opening the novel with stripped […]
“Stephen watched the three glasses being raised from the counter as his father and his two cronies drank to the memory of their past. An abyss of fortune or of temperament sundered him from them. His mind seemed older than theirs: it shone coldly on their strifes and happiness and regrets like a moon upon […]
“ZEAL WITHOUT PRUDENCE IS LIKE A SHIP ADRIFT. But the lines of the letters were like fine invisible threads and it was only by closing his right eye tight and staring out of the left eye that he could make out the full curves of the capital.” ––A Portrait of the Artist as a Young […]
It is fitting that the final Culture novel should ruminate so radiantly on matters of longevity and disembodiment, but disappointing that it should also be so decidedly dull. I’ve long considered Iain M. Banks to be one of the brightest stars in the sky of scifi authorship, but this visit to the Culture universe failed […]
“You should always tell the truth, unless you find yourself in a situation where it would be utter moral folly to do so.” ––The Hydrogen Sonata, by Iain M. Banks, pg. 505 “Human beings were not the least significant portion of the wealth to have been plundered by the Republic during its wars of […]
“‘Isn’t it like a threat, though, this thing, hanging over us? I look at it some days, hanging over the city, over us, and it makes me shiver.’ ‘It used to make me catch my breath, sometimes, I’ll give you that. What can I say, Virisse? Promises take many shapes, and the more…momentous they are, […]
“‘So, do we get more secure as we get older?’ ‘Some do. I have. Though I have also detected a sort of long-term tidal action in that and a lot of other emotional states. For real-time centuries I will feel, say, gradually more secure in myself, then for the next few centuries I’ll feel less […]