The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport Quotes

“Usually when my life goes according to plan, it turns out the plan was made by someone else”
― Samit Basu, The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport

“Here’s something you might not know, though—rulers tend to not be the smartest people.”
― Samit Basu, The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport

“A hassled volunteer stands at what used to be the sex-bot meeting area, explaining that the sex-bots have unionized and are temporarily unavailable”
― Samit Basu, The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport

“Humans are often able to have successful lifelong relationships with others despite being completely unable to comprehend even basic, directly delivered communications.”
― Samit Basu, The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport

“I create a thread of hope out of nothing, and I pull on it. I am, in whatever way, still alive, and I deserve to love. There is more to life than the people I love. And there are more people to love.”
― Samit Basu, The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport

“You exist, and you deserve to belong.”
― Samit Basu, The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport

“Of course power corrupts people. But that doesn't mean you don't trust - it just means you verify with care. In the end, people have no option but to work together.”
― Samit Basu, The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport

“He is proud of himself for bringing himself up, for developing his own value systems based on unregulated popular culture tropes instead of the owner-clan warfare manuals and propaganda that dangerous bots normally grow up on. For defining his own form—monkey, not shapeshifting murder machine—in honor of his missing father and his fleeting memories of the time he was his sister’s favorite person. For being himself, for choosing himself, for naming himself. He is Bador, and he is ready now.”
― Samit Basu, The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport

“Humans are just so incredibly tacky, Bador signals. They see entry calls for a bot combat tournament, and they just have to tie toasters to their heads and apply. Anyone asks questions, they say they identify as bots! Bot allies! It’s just wrong, and if it wasn’t my one way off this trash planet, forget breaking in, I wouldn’t even watch it. He’s actually vibrating with rage.”
― Samit Basu, The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport

“The jinn grants wishes. Three per user.” “Why three?” Bador asks. “It was judged to be an appropriate free trial period,” the jinn says. “More wishes can be unlocked in Unlimited Mode.”
― Samit Basu, The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport

“When flying in panic mode from the house of the brilliant but imperiled human key to a priceless mysterious alien magic treasure to the lair or training ground of her ambitious fighter cyborg monkey-bot brother, it is always best to have precise location markers.”
― Samit Basu, The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport

“I couldn't give me parents the revolution they dreamed of, but I can try, at least, to give my mother the change that she wanted after - the long, slow, boring working of building something better.”
― Samit Basu, The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport

“I suppose it is good training for a leader to feel powerless, or be under constant scrutiny, or be used to knowing that nothing they do will ever be good enough”
― Samit Basu, The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport

“Quests such as this take a long time. Learning how to not repeat mistakes, and gaining a slight understanding of how little control I have over anything takes even longer.”
― Samit Basu, The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport

“It's all very clear, I just chose not to get it, I just decided everyone who didn't agree with my vision was lying, or a fool.”
― Samit Basu, The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport

“I don't want to talk about this. It's not that I think you're wrong, but it's too big for me. I'll never be able to do anything about it.”
― Samit Basu, The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport

“But let's meet him anyway. I need to thank him for saving my life, and tell him I spent a lot of my teen years writing absolutely filthy fanfic about him.”
― Samit Basu, The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport

“No one is watching us here, there are no rules, nothing for you to violate. We are both men of power. Rules are not even guidelines, but just - what is the word? Vibes.”
― Samit Basu, The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport

“Before the Tigers, or the other clans, or the eras before, the algorithms, the megacorps, the nations, the empires, all the way back to the first city-states--- no ruler has looked after our people, they have had to look out for one another. It is why Shantiport continues to exist, against all logic, and that's the spirit that we have to find a way to channel. No system works, no authority is benevolent, no promise is kept. When the megastorms and floods come, when the genocides come, and the famines and diseases, the rest of the world will not even bother to look, let alone help. If they know about us it is a a symbol of poverty, or decay, or despair. But despite all this, sometimes clusters of people emerge, however flawed, who build institutions and culturewaves larger than themselves.”
― Samit Basu, The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport