At first, when California started winning its water lawsuits and shutting off cities, the displaced people just followed the water-right to California. It took a little while before the bureaucrats realized what was going on, but finally someone with a sharp pencil did the math and realized that taking in people along with their water didn't solve a water shortage.

Nature has become something new. It is ours now, truly. And if our creation devours us, how poetic will that be?

If I cared for human approval, I would have been dead long ago.

Pain held no terror for him. Pain was, if not friend, then family, something he had grown up with in his crèche, learning to respect but never yield to. Pain was simply a message, telling him which limbs he could still use to slaughter his enemies, how far he could still run, and what his chances were in the next battle.

I write at a standing desk, which has helped me be much more productive and solved some back problems, but mostly all my quirky habits have to do with procrastination and avoidance rather than with work. I'm slowly trying to stamp those out.

Laws are a fine thing on paper, but painful when no bribery can ease their bind.

She smiles at him, too young to know him for a stranger, and too innocent yet to care.