I listen to his heartbeat. Hear him breathe. As though becomes motion and motion becomes all that lies between him and his end. As the black Is burning blue with the light of tiny funeral pyres. As his missiles and bullets take away his enemy. All they were and will ever be. I can taste it in his whispers. See it in the tiny photograph he has taped to his console. All he thinks of amid this loveless dance. All he cares about here on the edge of forever, is her. He does not want to die. Not because he is afraid. Simply because he cannot bear the thought of leaving her behind. And there, in that tiny moment, I envy him.

— Amie Kaufman

I’ll ask you to look at the ships arrayed against you and consider what weaponry they might possess. Weaponry strong enough to crack your hulls? I know what weaponry you bring to bear, and I assure you it will not crack ours. “Are you willing to risk the lives of thousands under your command to find out? Are you willing to risk your own life?” The silence hung across space like a shroud.“This is not over, Admiral Solo.”“That is the first true thing you’ve said today.

— G.S. Jennsen

Imagine, Bishop, that you have a beloved cat, but that your cat is not with you. If you close your eyes and further imagine you are petting your cat, the same neurons in your brains are activated as if you were petting the actual cat. Our minds may know the difference between its models and reality itself, but it prefers its models. So much so that we apprehend reality through our models, rather than directly via the sense. When I'm speaking to you, I have a little bishop in my head, and though I speak out load, I'm speaking to my little bishop. When you answer, I can only perceive you through my model of you. Mentars also make models, but they don't apprehend reality through them. They end up, not with little people in their minds, but with highly complex rule sets. They relate to their models in the same way we relate to weather models, as things to consult, but not to conflate with external reality.

— David Marusek

In the corner of her eye she caught her daughter’s shoulders drop as Alex exhaled with uncommon soberness. “So you trust me, and you understand that I will never do anything I think might hurt you.” Miriam stopped outside the armory and pivoted to her daughter. “Alex, what have you done?

— G.S. Jennsen

In this messianic vision, machine intelligence will come to redeem the universe of its incalculable stupidity. He takes a goal-oriented approach to cosmology, imposing upon the universe itself a kind of corporate project-management structure, composed of a series of key deliverables across deep time.

— Mark O'Connell

It felt somehow comforting to return to the sparkling lake tucked into the mountains on Portal Prime. But why, when everything about Meme made her the antithesis of comfortable? Because here was where desperation had become hope. Where helplessness had become purpose.

— G.S. Jennsen

It gets very hard to predict the future once you have smarter-than-human things around. In the same way that it gets very hard for a chimp to predict what is going to happen because there are smarter-than-chimp things around. That’s what the Singularity is: it’s the point past which you expect you can’t see.

— Nate Soares

It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be... This, in turn, means that our statesmen, our businessmen, our every man must take on a science fictional way of thinking.

— Isaac Asimov

It was killing him, seeing her this way. She was not meant to be uncertain, timid or fearful; the woman he knew exuded confidence so fiercely it might as well be a damn spiritual aura. He needed to fix this. “It’s time to adjust your perspective. You want to show the politicians on Earth they don’t rule the galaxy? Well, let’s show them.

— G.S. Jennsen

Mia stood between the bed and the broken window, holding an active plasma blade at waist-height in front of her. A thick coat of blood stained the plasma nearly from hilt to tip, hissing as it dribbled from blade to floor.“Are you all right?” Mia gave her a wan, distant smile. “It’s okay. I’ve done it before.

— G.S. Jennsen