More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
He never believed we could do anything about the Spin.”
“Wun isn’t just an interplanetary goodwill ambassador. He came here with a plan, a collaborative venture that might give us some clues about the Hypotheticals,
the long-term consequences of E. D. Lawton’s genius have come back to bite him—if E.D. had never existed, Wun Ngo Wen wouldn’t exist.
Garland
Preston Lomax,
Haha
no loyalties that don’t begin and end with Perihelion.
‘Heir’ implies ‘inheritance.’ It implies that, at some point, my judgment supersedes his.
“Exactly what Martian technology are we talking about here?” He grinned. “It’s really very clever. Quasi-biological. Very small scale. Molecular autocatalytic feedback loops, basically, with contingent programming written into their reproductive protocols.”
“Little tiny artificial replicators.”
A chilling moment
The stench of smoke and the sound of weeping woke me.
Ibu Ina.
En was not only her nephew but was related to virtually everyone else in town,
kepala desa
rantau
The Minangkabau of West Sumatra knew how to duck and weave in the face of oppression.
The strength of the Minang, she said, was their flexibility, their deep understanding that the rest of the world was not like home and never would be.
The tradition of rantau, emigration—of young men going out into the world and coming back wealthier or wiser—had made them a sophisticated people.
Jala,
“Jala
Jala has no love for the New Reformasi, fortunately for all concerned.”
Jala,
He was a bad husband, Ina said, but not an especially bad man.
Haha
they won’t come into the village openly, guns blazing. Things have not quite deteriorated to that degree. I expect they’ll watch the waterfront and hope we do something stupid.”
rantau gadang
Haha
Belubus
Batusangkar.
the capital of the Tanah Datar regency of West Sumatra, Indonesia. It is known as "the city of culture"
So you see?” She smiled. “You needn’t be grateful. We’re not your benefactors. Only fellow travelers.”
Haha
Somerset Maugham
Haha
Crossing the Arch would pretty much rule out a traditional education.
En belonged to a generation capable of regarding the future with more hope than dread.
Wedding adat
I don’t believe money is evil, but it can be terribly corrosive.
Simile
Chaucer
Haha
My field no longer requires ploughing, as the song has it.
Haha
Simile
Wun Ngo Wen had become something of a revered figure in rural India, Indonesia, southeast Asia.
he chastised the Americans in an enjoyable way.”
I knew exactly what question I had been suppressing the first time I met Wun Ngo Wen. “I would have asked him about the Spin. About the Hypotheticals. Whether his people had learned anything we didn’t already know.”
Nijon,
Haha simile
“One of the advantages of childhood. Or the First Age, as the Martians call it—is that correct?”
Four Ages to our three?”
Of all the folkways in Wun Ngo Wen’s Five Republics,
their centuries-long mastery of biochemistry and genetics.
