Record of a Spaceborn Few (Wayfarers, #3)

by Becky Chambers

There was a difference between being shy and being sequestered. Rarely in history had things turned out well for people who chose to lock themselves away.

If one experiences oblivion daily – and for an enormous portion of the day, at that – should it not be familiar territory?

‘Our species doesn’t operate by reality. It operates by stories. Cities are a story. Money is a story. Space was a story, once. A king tells us a story about who we are and why we’re great, and that story is enough to make us go kill people who tell a different story. Or maybe the people kill the king because they don’t like his story and have begun to tell themselves a different one.