The more you read about and immerse in a culture, the more it comes alive, and the more textured and nuanced and detailed and unstereotypable it becomes.
Paolo BacigalupiTheyโd blame a castoff just for breathing. You could be good as gold and theyโd still blame you.
Paolo BacigalupiFood should come from the place of its origin, and stay there. It shouldn't spend its time crisscrossing the globe for the sake of profit.
Paolo BacigalupiIt's still a load. If there was balance, the soldier boys would all be dead, and we'd be sitting pretty in the middle of the Drowned Cities, shipping marble and steel and copper and getting paid Red Chinese for every kilo. We'd be rich and they'd be dead, if there was such a thing as the Scavenge God, or his scales. And that goes double for the Deepwater priests. They're all full of it. Nothing balances out.
Paolo Bacigalupi