The Mercy of Gods (The Captive's War #1)

by James S.A. Corey

Good and evil are constructs lesser beings build to create divisions in places where rigor and intelligence are insufficient. It is a sloppy shorthand, and prone to error.

Your own people were in a constant generational argument over which group or subgroup, gender or culture or religion, suffered most at the hands of the others, as if the concept of justice were not narrative and abstract.

The species that exist long enough to achieve higher orders of intelligence do so only by relentlessly out-competing the other species around them. And it is this endless, iterative testing of ourselves against the universe that drives us eternally toward greater power and effectiveness.