Daniel Abraham: Thing

“I think that the successful genres of a particular period are reflections of the needs and thoughts and social struggles of that time. When you see a bunch of similar projects meeting with success, you’ve found a place in the social landscape where a particular story (or moral or scenario) speaks to readers. You’ve found a place where the things that stories offer are most needed.”

Daniel Abraham

On his blog, talking about genre http://www.danielabraham.com/?p=160
Context: I think that the successful genres of a particular period are reflections of the needs and thoughts and social struggles of that time. When you see a bunch of similar projects meeting with success, you’ve found a place in the social landscape where a particular story (or moral or scenario) speaks to readers. You’ve found a place where the things that stories offer are most needed.
And since the thing that stories most often offer is comfort, you’ve found someplace rich with anxiety and uncertainty. (That’s what I meant when I said to Melinda Snodgrass that genre is where fears pool.)

Thinking , Time , Success

“If things got out of hand, it would mean six or seven million dead people and the end of everything Miller had ever known.
Odd that it should feel almost like relief.”

Daniel Abraham

Source: Leviathan Wakes (2011), Chapter 16 (p. 164)

People , Feeling , Dead

“The beautiful thing about losing your illusions, he thought, was that you got to stop pretending.”

Daniel Abraham

Source: Leviathan Wakes (2011), Chapter 18 (p. 184)

Beauty

“There’s a right thing to do,” Holden said.
“You don’t have a right thing, friend,” Miller said. “You’ve got a whole plateful of maybe a little less wrong.”

Daniel Abraham

Source: Leviathan Wakes (2011), Chapter 36 (p. 363)

“But, like so many things in life, when you come to the spot where you’re supposed to do the rituals, you do them.”

Daniel Abraham

Source: Cibola Burn (2014), Chapter 48 (p. 491)

Life

“She was not a political creature. She felt that politics was the second most evil thing humanity had ever invented, just after lutefisk.”

Daniel Abraham

Abaddon's Gate (2013), Epilogue (p. 538)

Evil

“There are no souls, Melba thought with a touch of pity. We are bags of meat with a little electricity running through them. No ghosts, no spirits, no souls. The only thing that survives is the story people tell about you. The only thing that matters is your name.”

Daniel Abraham

Source: Abaddon's Gate (2013), Chapter 11 (p. 121)

Soul , People

“Desperate psychotic people do desperate psychotic things when they’re exposed. I refuse to grant them immunity from exposure out of fear of their reaction. When you do, the desperate psychos wind up in charge.”

Daniel Abraham

Source: Caliban's War (2012), Chapter 42 (p. 463)

Fear , People

“Do not underestimate his capacity to fuck things up.”

Daniel Abraham

Source: Caliban's War (2012), Chapter 9 (p. 100)

“I’ve been through a lot of hearings about one damn thing and another. Most of the time they’re exercises in ass covering. If the unvarnished truth ever came out at one, it would be because someone screwed up.”

Daniel Abraham

Source: Caliban's War (2012), Chapter 9 (pp. 93-94)

Truth , Time , Exercises

“Things changed, and they didn’t change back. But sometimes they got better.”

Daniel Abraham

Source: Nemesis Games (2015), Chapter 51 (p. 519)

Change

“Thing is, we’re humans. We’re tribal. More settled things are, the bigger your tribe is. All the people in your gang, or all the people in your country. All the ones on your planet. Then the churn comes, and the tribe gets small again.”

Daniel Abraham

Source: Nemesis Games (2015), Chapter 30 (p. 317)

People , Country

“Thing about civilization, it’s what keeps people civil. You get rid of one, you can’t count on the other.”

Daniel Abraham

Source: Nemesis Games (2015), Chapter 30 (p. 316)

People

“I try to do the right thing, Holden. But there are times when it’s not obvious what that is.”

Daniel Abraham

“I agree with you,” Holden said. “Right up to the part where you tell me this is one of those times.”
Source: Nemesis Games (2015), Chapter 28 (p. 298)

Time

“Some things stayed secrets even when you told them.”

Daniel Abraham

Source: Nemesis Games (2015), Chapter 3 (p. 33)

Secret

“All the numberless different solutions that evolution had come up with under all the different stars, and all responding—more or less—to the same pressures. Eyes on every world. Mouths near the sense organs, because things with feeding coordination did better than things without.”

Daniel Abraham

Source: The Expanse, Tiamat's Wrath (2019), Chapter 34 (p. 359)

Sense , Star , World

“The people who have power over you are weak too. They shit and bleed and worry that their children don’t love them anymore. They’re embarrassed by the stupid things they did when they were young that everyone else has forgotten. And so they’re vulnerable. We all define ourselves by the people around us, because that’s the kind of monkey we are. We can’t transcend it. So when they watch you, they hand you the power to change what they are too.”

Daniel Abraham

The Expanse, Tiamat's Wrath (2019), Prologue (p. 5)

Children , People , Stupidity , Love