The Romans have provided a lot of writers with a model for various interstellar empires, of course, and no wonder. The Roman Empire is a really good example of a large empire that, in one form or another, functioned for quite a long time over a very large area. And over all that time, there was all sorts of exciting drama - civil wars and assassinations and revolts and bits breaking off and being forced back in ... But I didn't want my future - however fanciful it was - to be entirely European. The Radchaai aren't meant to be Romans in Space.

What, after all, was the point of civilisation if not the well-being of citizens?

If there was anything any Radchaai considered essential for civilised life, it was tea.

Unity, I thought, implies the possibility of disunity. Beginnings imply and require endings.

Let every act be just, and proper, and beneficial.

Things happen the way they happen because the world is the way it is.

Surely it isn't illegal here to complain about young people these days? How cruel. I had thought it a basic part of human nature, one of the few universally practiced human customs.