The mind couldn’t think about the End of the World all the time. It needed the occasional break, a romp through the trivial. Because it was through trivia that the mind was anchored in reality […]
The Victorian system used Darwinian techniques to create killers adapted to their prey, which was elegant and effective but led to the creation of killers that were simply too bizarre to have been tho...
That, as far as she could tell, was the purpose of the religion she had been brought up in: it made people feel better when really horrible things happened, and it offered a repertoire of ceremonies t...
THE LAY OF WALMART TRANSLATOR’S NOTE: The Lay of Walmart comprises two parts. Handwriting analysis confirms that both were written by the same author, self-identified as Tóki Olafsson, a skald
Sergeant Major, Arjun said quietly, there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy. Yur snorted. Is that a fancy way of saying it’s above my pay grade, sir?
One of the funny things about it, in retrospect, was its slowness, the lack of any dramatic Moment When It Had Happened. It was a little bit like the world’s adoption of the Internet, which had starte...
Nell did not imagine that Constable Moore wanted to get into a detailed discussion of recent events, so she changed the subject. I think I have finally worked out what you were trying to tell me, year...
My men think you are dead now, and won’t waste balls on you, Jack said. In fact I have let you live, but for one purpose only: so that you can make your way back to Paris and tell them the following:...
Just because the Panjandrums know how to run cheeseburg stands, they think they know how to run a Convox.
It wasn’t just a matter of hiding what you really felt. If you hid your feelings well enough, it actually changed you. A
Is power like the vis viva and the quantite d’avancement? That is, is it conserved by the universe, or is it like shares of a stock, which may have great value one day, and be worthless the next? If p...
If we get out of this, will you be my girl?
I think I’m in love, she said. He clapped a bag over his mouth and threw up. HOW
I get it, Richard said. But is that all we are? Just digital Crips and Bloods?
I doubt you even know what duty is, she retorted. A risky response—such flippancy of the tongue—and it might provoke them, but showing fear would invite a response. Half of combat is causing your oppo...
From long experience in places like Afghanisatan and Chechnya, Sokolov recognised, in the black jihadist’s movements, a sort of cultural or attitudinal advantage that such people always enjoyed in sit...
Fraa Jad took the garment from me and discovered how the fly worked. Topology is destiny, he said, and put the drawers on.
Dr. Turing of Cambridge says that the soul is an illusion and that all that defines us as human beings can be reduced to a series of mechanical operations.
Didn't happen anymore. Pizza delivery is a major industry. A managed industry. People went to CosaNostra Pizza University four years just to learn it. Came in its doors unable to write an English sent...
Ammonia worked better, but it was dangerous, and you couldn’t easily get more of it in space. If the Cloud Ark survived, it would survive on a water-based economy. A hundred years from now everything...