Sublime

People jumped out of windows. They peed in their pants. “There were all kinds of collisions between different kinds of vehicles,” wrote Kilgore Trout. No sooner had the judge restored order, though, than a huge crack opened in the floor of the Pacific Ocean.

“I got myself a combat magnum parked near my bed. I hate to tell you what mischief it can cause with the placement of a man’s features.”

lie doggo

Murderers lurked in my closet.

This use of ordinary people as the principal characters was fairly rare in science fiction when the book came out, and even now the genre slips easily into elitism—superbrilliant minds, extraordinary talents, officers not crew, the corridors of power not the working-class kitchen.

‘Need a ride home?’ In the bleak light he looked young-old, tired, and cynical, but he didn’t look like a grifter. ‘For how much?’