Fall of Light (The Kharkanas Trilogy, #2)

by Steven Erikson

known and what was unknown. Strangers. We’ve bred and multiplied into the isolation of anonymity, too many to count, no point in trying. Let my eyes glaze over these unfamiliar faces before me. The alternative is too ghastly, should I see in each visage my own longing for something better, and for somewhere else, a place in which we all belonged. A place without strangers, a civilization of friends and family.