Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Post 200 - A Few Thoughts From Clavain

Inhibitors by Joonas Koonula
"We did make love. Early on, we made love often. The other Conjoiners didn't like it, I think - they saw it as an animal act, a primitive throwback to baseline humanity. Galiana didn't agree, of course. She was always the sensual one, the one who revelled in the realm of the senses. That was what her enemies never truly understood about her - that she honestly loved humanity more than they did. It was why she made the Conjoined. Not to be something better than humanity, but as a gift, a promise of what humanity could be if we only realized our potential. Instead, they painted her as some coldly reductionist monster. They were so terribly wrong. Galiana didn't think of love as some ancient Darwinian trick of brain chemistry that had to be eradicated from the human mind. She saw it as something that had to be brought to its culmination, like a seed that needed to be nurtured as it grew. But they never understood that part. And the trouble was you had to be Conjoined before you appreciated what it was that she had achieved."
-Alastair Reynolds, Redemption Ark

4 comments:

  1. Cool. I have yet to get around to reading any Reynolds, but he's on my list.

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    1. He's just about my favorite, Trey! And he is a very nice person too - a great guest of honor at a con. Friendly and non-pretentious.

      His short story collections are a good place to start if you are leery of big tomes. But really with the big tomes you can start just about anywhere.

      We just learned he has a Doctor Who novel coming out in June, so we'll be picking that up as well.

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    2. I picked up Prefect as an audiobook for my drive to visit my parents on Mother's Day this weekend.

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  2. I really enjoyed that one. All told me which actor he was thinking of when he wrote the protagonist, so let's compare notes when you're done

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