Arm of the Sphinx (The Books of Babel, #2)

by Josiah Bancroft

Without military experience to shape and temper them, young men turn into idlers, my lord; they turn into bards. The Gardens are full of them, lounging on elbows with their shirts open, spewing poetry at plain-faced girls. I shudder at the waste of it. We will owe this generation a war. —Inaugurations of the Silk Gardens, Salo