If the real world were a book, it would never find a publisher. Overlong, detailed to the point of distraction-and ultimately, without a major resolution.

In any regime there is always something that one should agree with, and in Shades there are quite a few notions that, on the face of it, seem like a good thing - the strict adherence to good manners, the fact that learning a musical instrument is compulsory, as is dancing, performing musicals and an hour's Useful Work every day in order to properly discharge your duty to society. But a cage is still a cage, irrespective of the nature of its bars.

the Real-World was a sprawling mess of a book in need of a good editor.

Words are like leaves,. . .like people really, fond of their own society.

Her majesty is one verb short of a sentence.

I don't need you to agree with me," she said quietly." I'll go away happy with a little bit of doubt. Doubt is good. It's an emotion we can build on. Perhaps if we feed it with curiosity it will blossom into something useful, like suspicion - and action.

Literature is claimed to be a mirror of the world,” I said, “but the Outlanders are fooling themselves. The BookWorld is as orderly as people in the RealWorld *hope* their own world to be—it isn’t a mirror, it’s an aspiration.