"[H]umans hate to admit error even as they stand there, black and smoldering, with the stub of a cigarette in one hand, in the middle of a wide crater containing them and the remains of a sign that once read DANGER: VOLATILE EXPLOSIVES"
James Davis Nicoll is a Canadian freelance game and speculative fiction reviewer, former security guard and role-playing game store owner, and five-time Hugo nominee, who also works as a first reader for the Science Fiction Book Club. As a
"We discovered at one point that the brick wall of the pillar would hold up a sock pretty well. This led to sorting socks by putting them on the wall, which in turn led to mosaics built entirely of socks. Mission drift is a hazard in all pursuits, including doing the laundry."
"I wonder if hes planning a book called SRS? Or Flu?"
"Gun-wielding recluse gunned down by local police" isnt the epitaph I want. I am hoping for "Witnesses reported the sound up to two hundred kilometers away" or "Last body part finally located"."
"The thing about the Star Wars expanded universe that most impresses me is how the need for endless sequels has taken what was way back in the late Disco a fairly upbeat series where the good guys eventually prevailed and turned into a crapsack setting thats grimmer than the disintegration of Yugoslavia, Congo Wars I & II and the Mongol Conquests combined."
"The one job that machines cannot do is be a cruel plutocrat. Thats why humans are still needed."
"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We dont just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary."