City of Last Chances (The Tyrant Philosophers #1)

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Back home, the real power was held by the Temporary Commission of Ends and Means. Everyone knew the days of the Commission were numbered. That was, in fact, the first axiom of the Commission, recited whenever it was in session. The same perfectly formulated words had been used when the Commission first convened several centuries ago, affirming its own transient nature and its willingness to disband the moment lasting perfection had been brought to the rest of the world.

He needed the object of his affections to have a certain purity and detachment, or at least, he needed to kid himself about it. They had to be better than he was, or why else adore them? You couldn’t do that with someone from work.

No questions, because to pry into the reasons and the logic of it would be to pull the miraculous apart and find, no doubt, the mundane and the reasonable behind it. And there is no give in the mundane. There is no ‘perhaps’ or ‘what if’ in it. It hits you, and you take the blow.