I really struggle to pinpoint whether I became a scientist because I like science fiction, or did I gravitate to science fiction because I identified strongly with scientists.
Alastair ReynoldsNightside, cities glistened in chains, and a spray of tinkertoy habitats girdled the planet. Gossamer starbridges reached from the equator towards orbit.
Alastair ReynoldsTo see something marvelous with your own eyes-that's wonderful enough. But when two of you see it, two of you together, holding hands, holding each other close, knowing that you'll both have that memory for the rest of your lives, but that each of you will only ever hold only have an incomplete half of it, and that it won't ever really exist as a whole until you're together, talking or thinking about that moment ...that's worth more than one plus one. It's worth four, or eight, or some number so large we can't even imagine it.
Alastair ReynoldsItโs the people who donโt worryโthose who never have any doubts that what theyโre doing is good and rightโtheyโre the ones that cause the problems.
Alastair ReynoldsHow did you . . . pass the time?โ Sunday asked. โYou couldnโt just ching out of it, could you?โ โWe had a different form of chinging,โ Eunice said. โAn earlier type of virtual-reality technology, much more robust and completely unaffected by time lag. You may have heard of it. We called it โreadingโ.
Alastair Reynolds