But pacifism only works when your enemy has a conscience.
But listening to people bitch? Yeah, that’s sorta your job. It’s why you make the big money. We make the same money. Then I guess you’re doing it for the fame and glory. I hate you, Holden said.
But after a few decades, you come to a place where you realize that there’s really no difference between trying and not trying. I still travel. I still talk to people. Sometimes we talk about Jesus Ch...
Burton had sent Timmy to collect a debt, Timmy had killed the man instead, and Burton hadn’t cut him loose. Two points defined a line, but three defined the playing field. Burton didn’t always have ne...
Bobbie ignored the macho posturing. Everyone dealt with pre-combat jitters in their own way. Bobbie preferred obsessive list making. But flexing and threats were good too.
Boarding a ship was one of the riskiest maneuvers in naval combat. It was basically a race between the boarders rushing to the engine room and the collective will of those who had their fingers on the...
Belters had been a structural underclass fighting to have people on the inner planets even notice when they were dying.
Before Prax had gotten married, he’d seen a dance performance based on neo-Taoist traditions. For the first hour, it had been utterly boring, and then after that, the small movements of arms and legs...
Been brooding the whole time? she asked. Some of it, yeah. Did it help? Nope. Right. Spring into action, then? He nodded at the amber door alarm. Not yet. She glanced down. The override light flickere...
Because we’re human, and humans are mean, independent monkeys that reached their greatness by killing every other species of hominid that looked at us funny.
Basia floated next to the gunner’s seat watching the hateful math spool out across the screen. She
Avasarala: ... and I understand that you've got a few after-market add-ons?Keel-mounted rail gun! Alex said with a grin. That scream of overcompensating for tiny, tiny penises, but might prove useful,...
As soon as we get the place secure, I’ll get in touch, Miller said. Okay, but don’t take too long. If Thoth Station has a whorehouse left standing, I’m going to need help prying Amos out of it.
Anyone who had not had his determination, ruthlessness, and luck deserved pretty much whatever shit he handed to them.
Anyone can kill a planet from orbit, Holden replied. You don’t even need bombs. Just push anvils out the airlock. That thing out there could kill… Shit. Anything.
Anna had walked on a moon of Jupiter. She’d looked up through a dome-covered sky at the great red spot, close enough to see the swirls and eddies of a storm larger than her home world. She’d tasted wa...
And with all of the enemy's citizens living at the bottom of huge gravity wells, we don't even have to aim particularly well. Einstein was right. We will be fighting the next war with rocks. But the B...
And for a moment, he was tempted. In that hesitation between drawing breath and speaking, part of him wondered what would happen if he shed the patterns of history and spoke about himself as a man, ab...
All through human history, being a moral person and not being pulled into the dramatics and misbehavior of others had caused intelligent people grief.
Alien superweapons were used, Alex said, walking into the room, sleep-sweaty hair standing out from his skull in every direction. The laws of physics were altered, mistakes were made.