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772c918
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History itself was a massive n=1 study, irreproducible. It was what made it so difficult to learn from.
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James S.A. Corey |
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662d885
|
I care deeply about all the fine details," she said, "only actually, I don't. Sum it up."
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James S.A. Corey |
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2b9cab2
|
Excitement and dread wore each other's clothes, spoke in the same voice.
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James S.A. Corey |
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8deb4be
|
It was contrast that gave things shape. Brightness made darkness. Fullness made emptiness. Loneliness defined the borders of whatever not-loneliness was called. They were comparative.
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James S.A. Corey |
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10948fd
|
That's the secret, you know." "What's the secret?" Kajri smiled. "The people who have power over you are weak too. They shit and bleed and worry that their children don't love them anymore. They're embarrassed by the stupid things they did when they were young that everyone else has forgotten."
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James S.A. Corey |
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759b675
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We're outgunned and outplanned, and I don't see how we win.
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James S.A. Corey |
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90267e7
|
It was normal to sacrifice animals. Rats, pigeons, pigs. Dogs. Chimpanzees. Biology had always suffered the cognitive push-pull of proving that humans were just another kind of animal while at the same time claiming to be morally different in kind.
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James S.A. Corey |
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ad16ee7
|
And how are you doing?" He didn't ask because he needed an answer. He asked because he needed her to know the answer mattered to him."
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true-love
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James S.A. Corey |
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e1c71ae
|
Motherfucker," Amos said again, this time without the heat. Holden knew him well enough to know that angry Amos was not nearly as dangerous as cold Amos. "I was thinking I'd have a tough time spacing a blind guy, but turns out I'm gonna be just fine with it."
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James S.A. Corey |
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9833f36
|
The enemy of my enemy is my friend? That's bullshit. There are always more than two sides. Pretending it's only one or else the other is what let that sonofabitch carry so much weight in the OPA for as long as he did." "He"
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James S.A. Corey |
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da8b9ea
|
Mark Watney, out of Mars.
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James S.A. Corey |
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aa45dc0
|
Having a new high consul would be difficult under any circumstances, but it would be less difficult if there were a story with it.
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James S.A. Corey |
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8049d25
|
Chapter 21 : Elvi "We could always mutiny," Fayez said brightly. "We wouldn't stand a chance," Travon said. "I did the nav analysis. Tiamat's Wrath"
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James S.A. Corey |
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0e103aa
|
How many millions of times had people had this exact conversation before? How many wars had put two people together for a moment and then washed them apart? There had to be a tradition of it. A secret history of vulnerability and want and all the things that sex promised and only occasionally delivered. They were just one more couple among all the countless others. It only hurt this time because it was them.
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James S.A. Corey |
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22554ca
|
His first lover--Diane Redstone, her name was--had a phrase for moments like this. Nice woods, she'd say, and then get up out of their bed and go to work. He hadn't understood where the saying came from until years after they parted for the last time. Now that he did, he couldn't help harboring an irrational dislike of Robert Frost.
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James S.A. Corey |
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dffb94a
|
History was drenched in blood.
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James S.A. Corey |
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daff479
|
Don't think about the odds," Bobbie said. "Think about the stakes. Think how much we lose if we take the risk and it goes wrong."
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James S.A. Corey |
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4161d0c
|
A warning tone sounded through the drum, echoing with the distance and the free air. An artificial voice reassured them with its tone while it repeated, 'This is an emergency alert. Report to shelters and await official instructions.' "Listen," Naomi said. "They're playing our song." "Oh my," Clarissa said, laughing. "We have lived our lives wrong, haven't we?"
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James S.A. Corey |
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ab0fdb3
|
We're all going to lose each other eventually, and that's been true since before we were a crew. That's what being born means. Everything else is just specifics.
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James S.A. Corey |
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1b2c8d3
|
Routine was what kept the darkness at bay, when anything did.
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James S.A. Corey |
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f369c6f
|
It gets better, though. Right?" "Sometimes. Sometimes it's just one shit sandwich after another."
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James S.A. Corey |
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c219966
|
Chapter Five: Elvi A few decades earlier and about two hundred thousand trillion kilometers from where she currently sat, a tiny node of active protomolecule in a biological matrix had entered the orbit of a planet called Ilus, hitchhiking on the gunship Rocinante. As the uncanny semisentient intelligence of the protomolecule tried to make contact with other nodes in the gate builders' long-dead empire, it woke up mechanisms that had been d..
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elvi-okoye
the-catalyst
the-expanse
tiamat-s-wrath
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James S.A. Corey |
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276ee41
|
I want this war over with, and a real peace established. The kind where people can be angry with each other and hate each other and no one has to die over it. That'd be enough.
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war
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James S.A. Corey |
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eda4d63
|
Lost cause. Amos will be murdered by space hookers, but at least he'll die the way he lived.
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James S.A. Corey |
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5e5fde3
|
That was what decades of marriage were for. Intimacy and pattern matching as a kind of telepathy.
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James S.A. Corey |
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3cb0917
|
Your fancy alien train is broken?" "My fancy alien material transfer system has been sitting unused for over a billion years and half the planet just exploded. Your ship was built less than a decade ago and you can barely keep the coffee pot running."
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James S.A. Corey |
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bc32915
|
It was, Elvi thought, like finding a sea turtle who thoroughly understood Godel's incompleteness theorem, but didn't have any sea-turtley application for it.
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James S.A. Corey |
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a4f4800
|
The grass is always greener on the other side of personal extinction.
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optimism
personal-extinction
grass
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James S.A. Corey |
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7fe873f
|
Growing older was a falling away of everything that didn't matter. And a deepening appreciation of all the parts that were important enough to stay.
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James S.A. Corey |
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5dbccca
|
Individuals build empires because they want their names to echo through time. They build massive constructs of stone and steel so that their descendants will remember the people who created the world that they only live in. There were buildings on Earth that were thousands of years old, sometimes the only remaining evidence of empires that thought they would last forever. Hubris, the professor had called it. When people build, they are tryi..
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James S.A. Corey |
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28dc121
|
There was a woman I knew. Long time. She used to say you can't judge anyone by what they say. You have to watch what they do." "She said that." "I recognize the irony."
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James S.A. Corey |
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9146820
|
But all the stories about the devil making a deal and then cheating missed the point. The real horror was that once the bargain was struck, the devil didn't cheat. He gave you exactly and explicitly all that had been promised. And the price was your soul.
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James S.A. Corey |
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1d5d531
|
Governments exist on confidence. Not on liberty. Not on righteousness. Not on force. They exist because people believe that they do. Because they don't ask questions.
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James S.A. Corey |
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ed295a4
|
The ocean, just outside, seeped into everything. An olfactory reminder to everyone passing through the Ellis Island of the space age that Earth was absolutely unique to the human race. The birthplace of everything. The salt water flowing in everyone's veins first pulled from the same oceans right outside the building. The seas had been around longer than humans, had helped create them, and then when they were all dead, it'd take their water..
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ellis-island
space-age
seas
ocean
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James S.A. Corey |
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0c505f8
|
I'm rich in interpretation and poor in datasets,
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James S.A. Corey |
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a2b5312
|
That's the thing about autocracy. It looks pretty decent while it still looks pretty decent. Survivable, anyway. And it keeps looking like that right up until it doesn't. That's how you find out it's too late.
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James S.A. Corey |
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1f0a479
|
This isn't about good guys and bad guys," Anna said. "Yes, we've picked sides now, because some of the actions they are about to take will have serious consequences for us, and we're going to try to stop them. But what you're doing is demonizing them, making them the enemy. The problem with that is that once we've stopped them and they can't hurt us anymore, they're still demons. Still the enemy."
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James S.A. Corey |
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e9bf4c6
|
Some sins carried their own punishment. Sometimes redemption meant carrying the past with you forever. She'd gotten used to that over the years, but it was still pretty fucking inconvenient.
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James S.A. Corey |
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7f328db
|
And that's the point I keep trying to make with her, my friend. In a fight like this, unless you're willing to lose everything to win, you lose it all by losing.
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James S.A. Corey |
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fdd211b
|
Individuals build empires because they want their names to echo through time. They build massive constructs of stone and steel so that their descendants will remember the people who created the world that they only live in. There were buildings on Earth that were thousands of years old, sometimes the only remaining evidence of empires that thought they would last forever. Hubris, the professor had called it. When people build, they are tryi..
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|
history
ozymandias
|
James S.A. Corey |
|
70f6cad
|
There was an old joke. Miller didn't remember where he'd heard it. Girl's at her own father's funeral, meets this really cute guy. They talk, hit it off, but he leaves before she can get his number. Girl doesn't know how to track the guy down. So a week later, she kills her mom. Big laugh.
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joke
|
James S.A. Corey |
|
a5babad
|
Oh," Anna said. She was not a political creature. She felt that politics was the second most evil thing humanity had ever invented, just after lutefisk."
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James S.A. Corey |
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01c3995
|
Nothing degraded morale like the sense that the potential for excellence was being denied.
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James S.A. Corey |
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f3262fb
|
It was a lesson he'd never forgotten. That humans only have so much emotional energy. No matter how intense the situation, or how powerful the feelings, it was impossible to maintain a heightened emotional state forever. Eventually you'd just get tired and want it to end.
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James S.A. Corey |