David

“All the ways to break mind and body they had developed fighting people on the other side of the world, they now used on their own people, justifying it by saying their treason had forfeited their citizenship. Made them stateless aliens, without real rights.”
― Christopher Brown, Tropic of Kansas

“Tania had the young lawyer’s idea that the rule of law restrained the exercise of executive power. But the truth she now understood was that law merely served power, like the devil’s butler. Sampling the hundreds of thousands of entries, she saw how they had lawyered the thing up to make it look legit, even as its arbitrary and political character was evident on its face. The standard for inclusion was low—reasonable suspicion. Of what, exactly, the law was no longer terribly worried about making clear. Suspicion of whatever qualities the people in charge of eliminating seditious threats during the twenty-plus-year state of emergency thought made it worth a tag.”
― Christopher Brown, Tropic of Kansas

“bathetic.”
― Jeff VanderMeer, Ambergris

“paucity”
― Jeff VanderMeer, Ambergris