Saturn Run Quotes

“trust no one, everything breaks, nothing works as advertised, and if anything can go wrong, it will.”
― John Sandford, Saturn Run

“Women are basically recreational areas, with several separate facilities available at any given time.”
― John Sandford, Saturn Run

“Troops were always better when unencumbered by attachments, especially attachments to critical personnel. There might even be more complicated sexual arrangements, he worried, that could turn into bitterness and strife. For example,”
― John Sandford, Saturn Run

“could make it into one continuous segment; and”
― John Sandford, Saturn Run

“long-forgotten film from a century earlier, The Andromeda Strain, resurfaced on the Internet.”
― John Sandford, Saturn Run

“Most ships that stop here are colony ships, on their way to colonize new planets. A certain percentage of technological societies severely damage their own planets before they become mature enough to understand the damage they are doing. In the past, a number of species have gone extinct before they achieved interstellar flight because of that damage, usually through runaway biological warfare or atomic warfare, with its consequent radiation poisoning. Those that do manage to survive despite badly damaged planetary ecosystems often look for a place to begin again to assure species survival.”
― John Sandford, Saturn Run

“The purpose of depots like this one is to allow contact between alien species without direct contact. Early on, direct contacts were tried many times, by many different species, in many different ways. It almost always went badly. With few exceptions, alien species are too different from each other to allow constructive interaction. At best the efforts were extremely discomforting to one or both of the contactees. At worst, one or both found the other genuinely repugnant in some way.”
― John Sandford, Saturn Run

“The transfer from Minneapolis to Georgetown had been seamless. Her new condo was a slightly scary demonstration of the government’s ability to read a single individual’s habits and tastes, purely through available databases. Because it was perfect, right down to the smart door. The door read her implants, unlocked and opened itself, and closed itself behind her. She could mumble out a shopping list—for anything, from food to clothing—and the door would arrange for it to be delivered, and then would keep an eye on the delivery cart.”
― John Sandford, Saturn Run

“the ground, he messed around with electric guitars, video games, propeller-driven airplanes and wooden speedboats. He loved real hardware even more than he loved his computer, and he did love his computer. If he could build it, fix it, refurbish it, or just plain tinker with it, he was happy.”
― John Sandford, Saturn Run

“You don’t mess with astronomers, Joe.”
― John Sandford, Saturn Run

“There are only four ways to move heat around: convection, conduction, transport, or radiation.”
― John Sandford, Saturn Run

“think I get it. Destroying a depot to get what you want, when it gives stuff away freely, would be killing a goose that laid the golden eggs. You could, if you’re shortsighted.” He stopped, thought for a moment. “I wonder, can a species that embarks on multi-century voyages be shortsighted? Good question”
― John Sandford, Saturn Run

“A certain percentage of technological societies severely damage their own planets before they become mature enough to understand the damage they are doing. In the past, a number of species have gone extinct before they achieved interstellar flight because of that damage, usually through runaway biological warfare or atomic warfare, with its consequent radiation poisoning.”
― John Sandford, Saturn Run

“Y’know what I think? I think they’re pump-priming. I think they’re giving us technology that they expect will make us more valuable to them. I don’t think this is charity or altruism. I think this is self-interest. Remember, they already have met us, in a very real sense. They know our languages. We don’t know how they know—maybe their supercomputers just analyzed radio broadcasts. But however they got their hands on the information, they know a lot more about us than we know about them. Besides, it’s not like this costs them anything.”
― John Sandford, Saturn Run

“Crow was getting a contact high from the dope; either that, or from the jambalaya.”
― John Sandford, Saturn Run

“We got all the big brains working on a reaction, but I'm telling you, there's no way we can no. Not with those kids on the swing set. I suspect they're about to produce a vid of her breast-feeding the little fuckin' crotchfruit.”
― John Sandford, Saturn Run

“Space junk had made low Earth orbit space almost unusable by the mid-thirties, and it had taken a decade of concerted and costly international effort to clear out the big stuff.”
― John Sandford, Saturn Run

“Only the criminally stupid or naïve assumed that the other side was less clever.”
― John Sandford, Saturn Run

“Pregnant”
― John Sandford, Saturn Run

“learn more about”
― John Sandford, Saturn Run

“Fuck Morton K. Brigham and Yale University,” Clover said. “You ever been to that place? You have to have a pole stuck up your ass before you’re allowed to walk on campus. Seriously, they have a booth with poles. Before they hire you for a job, they stick a second pole up there.”
― John Sandford, Saturn Run

“the”
― John Sandford, Saturn Run

“hundred and forty-three hours to departure.”
― John Sandford, Saturn Run

“systems—power, propulsion, communication, life support—were”
― John Sandford, Saturn Run

“ailurophile”
― John Sandford, Saturn Run