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41 " I really don’t know what you’re talking about,” said the Speaker of the United State House of Representatives. “We’re doing great. Turn on any news channel, they’ll tell you. Taxes are low, business is booming, crime is down, the Patriots win the Super Bowl every year, and we’re finally getting our country back. I’ll admit, it used to be a real nightmare around here. "
― Catherynne M. Valente , Space Opera
42 " Think about it, mate: How could a species like that develop the massive technology you need to achieve faster-than-light interstellar travel, yeah? All they do is hunt and eat. They’re just stupid murderlumps or killbots supreme with a side of zombie-mayonnaise. Where’s the nerdy shy Predator scientist who figured out how to build a spaceship while all the big jock Predators were down the pub ripping one another’s spines out, eh? Nowhere, because she don’t exist. "
43 " and tourists who know in their hearts that it’s not wrong to get so phenomenally plastered that you punch a police horse because everyone knows horses vote Tory, "
44 " Kick-starting the gas-guzzling subcompact go-cart of organic sentience is as easy as shoving it down a hill and watching the whole thing spontaneously explode. "
45 " Doors opened at seven, the show started at eight. In pubs and clubs and house parties across the galaxy, the viewers at home were drunk by six. "
46 " I don't see where you get off fretting about whether or not the end of the world is family-friendly. "
47 " This is some hard-core, triple-X, keep-it-in-the-back-room-under-a-curtain, Alice in Wonderland action is what this is,” Decibel said with total delight. "
48 " It's like Goguenar's Fourth General Unkillable Fact says: Everyone's always saying love is the element that binds the universe together, but that's a load of bollocks; It's convenience. "
49 " Because the opposite of fascism isn't anarchy, it's theater. "
50 " everybody was terribly distracted by the seemingly unending, white-hot, existential, logistical, mostly mundane troubles of their own day-to-day lives. "
51 " Yet, it could not be denied that the Voorpret band Applausoleum had handily won the twenty-eighth Metagalactic Grand Prix with their darkwave prog-grunge power ballad “I Can’t Get No Liquefaction.” It’s really next to impossible to stay on key with a half-decomposed larynx and a moldering diaphragm, so Voorpret music takes the form of a genetically modified worm, about the size and shape of a dragonfly larva, dispersed into the audience via sprinkler system, trendy vintage beers on tap at the bar, silver platter passed among the paying public by attractive ushers, or T-shirt cannon, depending on how posh the venue. "
52 " No matter how mad, bad, and dangerous to know a civilization gets, unto every generation are born the lonely and the uncool, destined to forever stare into the candy-store window of their culture, and loneliness is the mother of ascension. "
53 " Az űrhajók borzasztóan hasznos és kellemes holmik, de szigorúan véve nem szükségesek a városban mászkáláshoz. "
54 " Meet the fans, smile for the camera, charm the venue management, chuck anything that smacked of weakness or desperation or fear of the rapidly approaching future, secure the best possible bed for the night. The trick of it was to be ever-so-slightly too honest. No one warmed up to a perfectly professional musician, not even other musicians. They wanted you to be a little more real, a little more raw, a little more broken than they were, so they could feel magnanimous "
55 " But then someone didn’t do the laundry for two weeks, and now it’s nothing but tears and red faces and imprecations against one person or the other’s slovenly upbringing and laser cannons and singularity-bombs "
56 " Mira, he supposed, had always lived in her own head and allowed others to visit once in a while. With advance notice. And extensive decontamination protocols. "
57 " oh, come on, you must know ‘Leave It Black.’ I see a black door and I’m extremely satisfied with how it looks? "
58 " brine shrimp were not overly talkative, squirrels failed to make significant headway in the fields of technology and mathematics, and seagulls were clearly unburdened by reason, feeling, or remorse. "
59 " Everyone cried when the creature first spoke to them. No, not cried. They wept. They wept like the cavemen of Lascaux suddenly transported into the Sistine Chapel just in time for a live performance of Phantom of the Opera as sung by Tolkien’s elves. Their senses simply were not built for this, weren’t meant to come anywhere near this kind of velvet-barreled sensory shotgun, loaded for bear. "
60 " It’s like Great-Aunt Goguenar’s Sixth Unkillable Fact: ‘Everything just gets so fucked up sometimes and the natural resting state of reality is not to make any goddamned sense if it can help it and you’ve just got to accept that because it’s not going to get any better from here on in.’ "