but all the things Science had promised us hadn't come to pass. Disease was still a problem. Starvation was still a problem. Violence and crime and war were still problems. In spite of the advance of technology, things just hadn't changed the way everyone had hoped and thought they would.

Night wasn't so much falling as sharpening its claws.

I felt like I had just double-tapped Santa.

Smiling always seems to annoy people more than actually insulting them. Or maybe I just have an annoying smile.

Me and polite have never been on close terms.

In the action business, when you don't want to say you ran like a mouse, you call it 'taking cover.' It's more heroic.

Oh, I forgot to mention it: My brother is the kind of man whom women stalk. In cooperative packs.