These Stepsons tread where mortals don't belong, some of us think. They seek out battle high above their station. Who knows what powers may yet take them and their mystic allies to task, bring them their comeuppance?

Very little in science fiction can transcend the gimmickry of a technical conceit, yet without that conceit at its heart a book is not truly science fiction. Furthermore, so little emerging thought and technology is employed by sf writers today that the genre is lagging far behind reality both in the cosmology area and the technology area: sf is no longer a place to experiment, but is now very derivative.

I survive. I survived it all then and I'll survive the rest of it. Without your help.

Everything that anyone respects is what men naturally excel at: fighting, accruing wealth, playing at power.

So some will be left who remember.

Let fools believe what fools believe.

Deception is a tactic: use it. Do whatever it takes to win.