The Doors of Eden

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

the no man’s land between inorganic process and organic existence is a region, not a hard dividing line.

physicist

I thought was mathematician

whether nine-millimetre rounds would stop even a perfectly normal wild boar was anybody’s guess.

Probably not

How long, after all, does it take for life to generate sentience, for sentience to generate a civilization that can command its world enough to be proof against disaster?

Can a civilization ever be disaster proof?

rodents of unusual size.

Princess Bride!

Big brains are expensive, and species must cut their evolutionary cloth to suit their purse. Being clever isn’t the universal panacea we’d maybe like it to be.