Singularity Sky Quotes

“I am the Eschaton. I am not your God.
I am descended from you, and exist in your future.
Thou shalt not violate causality within my historic light cone. Or else.”
― Charles Stross, Singularity Sky

“Accelerating to speeds faster than light was, of course, impossible. General relativity had made that clear enough back in the twentieth century. However, since then a number of ways of circumventing the speed limit had turned up; by now, there were at least six different known methods of moving mass or information from A to B without going through c.”
― Charles Stross, Singularity Sky

“Thou shalt not violate causality within my historic light cone. Or else.”
― Charles Stross, Singularity Sky

“As long as you expect someone or something else to take responsibility for you, you’re a child.”
― Charles Stross, Singularity Sky

“Oh yes, and compulsory ferret-legging down the pub on Tuesday evenings, for the tourist trade tha’ knows.” “Ferret-legging?” Rachel looked at him incredulously. “Yup. You tie your kilt up around your knees with duct tape—as you probably know, no Yorkshireman would be seen dead wearing anything under his sporran—and take a ferret by the scruff of his neck. A ferret, that’s like, uh, a bit like a mink. Only less friendly. It’s a young man’s initiation rite; you stick the ferret where the sun doesn’t shine and dance the furry dance to the tune of a balalaika. Last man standing and all that, kind of like the ancient Boer aardvark-kissing competition.” Martin shuddered dramatically. “I hate ferrets. The bloody things bite like a cask-strength single malt without the nice after-effects.”
― Charles Stross, Singularity Sky

“His remit will be to monitor the use of reality-modification weapons by both sides in the conflict and to assure the civilized worlds that the New Republic does not engage in gratuitous use of time travel as a weapon of mass destruction.”
― Charles Stross, Singularity Sky

“demonstrating the importance of being Ernst as the marketing department put it.”
― Charles Stross, Singularity Sky

“Timoshevski gaped. “You have a Cornucopia machine?” he demanded breathlessly. Burya bit his tongue; an interruption it might be, but a perfectly understandable one. “Yes.” “Will you give us one? Along with instructions for using it and a colony design library?” asked Burya, his pulse pounding. “Maybe. What will you give us?” “Mmm. How about a post-Marxist theory of post-technological political economy, and a proof that the dictatorship of the hereditary peerage can only be maintained by the systematic oppression and exploitation of the workers and engineers, and cannot survive once the people acquire the self-replicating means of production?”
― Charles Stross, Singularity Sky

“We’ve been a, ah, stable culture too long. Patterns of belief, attitudes, get ingrained. When change comes, they are incapable of responding. Try to fit everything into their preconceived dogmas.”
― Charles Stross, Singularity Sky

“Idealism couldn’t coexist with so many other people’s ideals, betrayed in their execution by the tools they’d chosen.”
― Charles Stross, Singularity Sky

“Neither of them noticed the pair of polka-dotted knickers hiding behind the ventilation duct overhead, listening patiently and recording everything.”
― Charles Stross, Singularity Sky