We are very much like them: indiscriminate killers, ruled by drives little acknowledged and less understood, mindlessly territorial and murderously jealous - the only significant difference being that they have yet to master our expertise in hypocrisy, the gift of our superior intellect that enables us to slaughter one another in droves, more often than not under the auspices of an approving god!

I will teach you to love death. I will empty you of grief and guilt and self-pity and fill you up with hate and cunning and the spirit of vengeance. I will make my final stand here, Benjamin Thomas Parish.

Great sci-fi has never shied from tackling the Big Questions, though really great sci-fi never forgets to entertain us along the way. Shock and awe applies to art, as well.

Why did they come billions of miles just to stare at us? It's rude.

Nothing makes us love something more than the loss of it.

There was, like, this black hole where the world used to be, and we were both falling toward it. What could we hold on to?

Are you okay?" I (Cassie) call up to him. "Um. Define okay." (Ben) "Okay means you're not bleeding to death." "I'm okay.