“ The multiple-worlds theory of cosmology allows room for every religion's Heaven and Hell and other planes to coexist, with the similar planes of all the sapient beings of all the worlds in all the galaxies...How often do the wires get crossed, as it were, leaving your paladin in a Hell for hedonistic lizards, for example.”
“ In a deeply unsettled world, much of it anarchistic or ruled by murderous gangs, a group have adopted the armour, weapons and discipline of an army of the distant past.”
“ By late afternoon, the sky starts to cloud over. The sun shines behind the fluffy clouds, gilding the edges and showing a Jacob's-ladder of rays streaming through the gaps...very pretty. Gradually the clouds shift into a new configuration: you realize with awe-struck, preternatural clarity that the clouds form a map of a coast-line that you know, against the blue sky as ocean: surely it's a Sign! Suddenly, the golden beams coalesce into one long ray that strikes across the blue. A star-like gleam flashes under the ray: perhaps it is an island? But the charts show no island there...who would want to hide an island? Who could do it?”
