Fractal Noise (Fractalverse, #0)

by Christopher Paolini

Sometimes the universe decided to rip apart your life and stomp on the pieces, and there wasn’t a damn thing you could do about it except say, “Now what?”

To have his path made clear for him is the aspiration of every human being in our beclouded and tempestuous existence. —JOSEPH CONRAD

“I say enjoy life while can. Universe is dark and dangerous place—of that Ms. Indelicato and I agree—but is beauty and pleasure too, and pleasure in beauty. If nothing matter and everything chance, then only reasonable response is take enjoyments where you can. That includes pleasures of mind as well as body, even if means certain, ah, temporary discomforts.”

However, Pushkin’s philosophy seemed painfully bare to Alex. Pleasure—intellectual or otherwise—was all well and good, but it wasn’t enough. It couldn’t balance out the weight of his grief. For that, Alex needed something more substantial, something more tangible. In that regard, Talia’s faith was appealing, but there too, he felt a painful lack. Tempting as it was to lay his problems on an uncaring (or even caring) god, doing so merely transposed the question instead of truly answering it—handing off to another what he was unable to answer for himself. And that didn’t sit right with Alex. In the end, he feared there was no answer. Or none that would ever satisfy him.

the technology of a truly advanced species might be indistinguishable from the natural forces of the universe, even as the acts and works of humans might appear to an ant or a worm.