Excellent new take on first contact. What if aliens land, stay for awhile, then pack up and leave without saying a word, but leaving some detritus behind?

Preachy, poorly-written diatribe about the evils of big pharma, with some laugh-out-loud bad sex scenes, especially the ones between the bad cop and the bot.

I came to this book having watched the excellent television series, and was sorely disappointed. The book has plenty of plot, but its characterizations are lazy and cliche. In the series, the characters have texture and layers. In this book, they‘re barely one-dimensional. If I had read this before watching the series, I probably wouldn‘t mind it quite so much.

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.

Only the uncool have the requisite alone time to advance their species.

What was magical at two in the morning was tawdry and cheap and dangerous to your general health at two in the afternoon.

I am a genius of infinite potential and highly limited patience. People shouldn‘t try me so.

We notice the silence of men. We depend upon the silence of women.

There was the faintest of pure sounds, high and sharp, like the breaking of a mouse‘s heart.

[S]cience fiction fans might break out in pointy ears from time to time, but they bought books by the shovelful and read them round the clock.

After all, it was a boy's job to make things - furniture and machines and money and books and governments and art and such. It was a girl's job to sit still and let someone else make something out of them, and that was that.

I'm more than delighted that you've invited a token woman to give the Hagey lectures this year, and though you might have chosen one more respectable than myself, I realize that the supply is limited. (From "Writing the Male Character")

The goals of the feminist movement have not been achieved, and those who claim we're living in a post-feminist era are either sadly mistaken or tired of thinking about the whole subject. (From the introduction to "The Edible Woman")

If we cease to judge this world, we may find ourselves, very quickly, in one which is infinitely worse. (From the speech "Witches")

The difference between witch-hunting and more conventional forms of justice and punishment is that in the latter you're supposedly being punished for what you've done, but in the former it's enough to be who you are. (From the speech "Witches")

A man who is good at it is a craftsman. A woman who is good at it is a dubious proposition. [...] When a man is attacked in print, it is usually for what he says; when a woman is attacked in print, it's often for being who she is. (From the speech "Witches")

I belong in the refrigerator. Because the truth is, I'm just food for a superhero. He'll eat up my death and get the energy he needs to become a legend.

Bad things happen to everyone. Good things happen to ... well, somebody, probably. Somebody somewhere else.

They all felt safe with their girlfriends' ambitions -- artists and actresses and scientists. Girls you could brag to the alumni magazine about, but no one they ever had to compete with.

I was gonna graduate in overachieving-know-it-all studies. I was gonna throw my stupid mortarboard in the stupid air and it was gonna hang there for this long beautiful golden endless moment, like the last shot in a sitcom, before falling back into my arms filled up to the brim with tomorrows. The future looked so good on me.

I began as a profoundly apolitical writer, but then I began to do what all novelists and some poets do: I began to describe the world around me. (From the introduction)

[I]f I don't poke my head out of my shell and show people who I am, all people will ever think I am is my shell.

Losing yourself does not happen all at once. Losing yourself happens one no at a time.

I am never more sure of myself about a topic than when I have absolutely no experience with it.

Very disappointing. Interesting concept, poor execution. No character development. I'll try the next one in the hopes that the authors got too tangled in an interesting concept and forgot to write a good story.

[H]umanity will never be shed of the notion that violence convinces tech to get its shit together.

It is rarely the places that birth us that see our true worth.

The weed takes what does not belong to it and gives nothing back but more weeds; the apple tree takes what is freely given to it, and returns cider and pies and tarts and jams.

Unreadable dreck. I gave up after 30 pages.

There is a rumour going around that I have found God. I think this is unlikely because I have enough difficulty finding my keys, and there is empirical evidence that _they_ exist.

[A]t its best science fiction is about us and our Faustian bargain with our big brains, which dragged us out of the trees but may yet drag us into the volcano.

We all soon become aware that to many otherwise intelligent people 'the Idea' is the heart, soul and centre of a novel, and all of that stuff about plot, character, dialogue and 100,000 written words is a clerical detail. Get the Idea, and all you need then is someone to 'write it down'.

They're a loveable lot who drink like the rugby club and fight like the chess club.

Australia has the best de facto national anthem in the world. Even people living in swamps in Brazil knew that if you heard the strains of 'Waltzing Matilda' you'd soon be swamped by young men and women with orange complexions and the heaviest knapsacks in the world.

More than half the skill of writing lies in tricking the book out of your own head.

I think my brain is on time-share to a better author overnight.

I like the fortuitous onomatopoeia of words for soundless things. Gleam, glint, glitter, glisten... they all sound exactly as the light would sound if it made s noise. Glint is sharp and quick, it glints, and if an oily surface made a noise it would go glisten.

What surrogate mothers and anti-abortionists and the fetal rights issue had failed to do in uniting women,the prospect of not menstruating did. Women had organized rallies,circulated petitions, elected senators, passed amendments, been excommunicated, and gone to jail, all in the name of Liberation.

"In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for. As for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican." Quoting HL Mencken in the afterword for "Inside Job"

To Susan's luminous, numinous mind, this is another revelation: the saving grace of illusion.

One shortcoming of many metaphorical interfaces is that their design tends to be guided by the goal of representing objects and relations among them as opposed to representing actions. Often, the former seems easier to do.

In task-oriented environments, the trick is to define the "whole" activity as something that can provide satisfaction and closure when it is achieved.

[I]ntrinsic constraints should limit, not what people can do, but what they are likely to think about doing.

[M]any people do not perceive how truly dangerous the political situation in this country is today. If Bob Dole were to be elected president and Gingrich and the Republicans were to maintain control of Congress, we would see a legislative agenda unlike any in the modern history of this country.

Forty's not the worst thing to happen to anyone.

[S]urprise and reversal are tools for changing what people understand and expect, for stimulating interest and involvement, and for orchestrating the shape of the action.

She never meant anything she said before ten in the morning.

It's the writing that makes a thing proper and solid and true in the first place.

What others call you, you become.

When your parents choose your name, they make a little wish for your future and fold it up inside your heart forever. When you choose your own, you make your own wish.