It had not been a long journey, but the memory of it filled her like an infection. She had felt tethered by time to the city behind her, so that the minutes stretched out taut as she moved away, and slowed the farther she got, dragging out her little voyage.

Anything for gold and experience.

I have danced with the spider. I have cut a caper with the dancing mad god.

Is it more childish and foolish to insist that there is a conspiracy or that there is not?

My sustenance is information. My interventions are hidden. I increase as I learn. I compute, so I am.

I don't like allegory.

In every book I write, I try to name-check the most prominent influences, or the most prominent conscious influences.