Shay sometimes talked in a mysterious way, like she was quoting the lyrics of some band no one else listened to.

It's just the way things are." she shrugged. "It's no one's fault." "Or everyone's.

Around the outskirts of the city, cut off from town by the black oval of the river, everything was in darkness. Everyone ugly was in bed by now.

Luckily for writers - and unluckily for history - every scientific idea creates human conflict.

He squeezed her hand. "Then I'll come get you, wherever you are when it happens. We'll be okay." "But what about everybody else?" He stared out across the river, nodding slowly. "My guess is, everybody else is in big trouble.

She thought of the orchids spreading across the plains below, choking the life out of other plants, out of the soil itself, selfish and unstoppable. Tally Youngblood was a weed. And, unlike the orchids, she wasn't even a pretty one.

You can't blame a match for a house made of straw, Alek.