Pat Cadigan: Real

“The authenticity may have been dubious, but the excitement had been real.”

Pat Cadigan book Synners

Source: Synners (1991), Chapter 9 (p. 93)

“Mindplayers didn't really address a lot about the criminal element of this particular world. Everybody in the Mindplayers world couldn't possibly live like the few people that you saw. A lot of times, a culture almost seems to float on top of its own black market, and things from that filter up through the culture. I get the feeling that this law-abiding peaceful thing that I live in now is almost never-never land - to a certain extent it's not even really real. I spent a decade working for Hallmark cards, which is supposed to epitomise sweetness and light and good living and ethics and morals. But Hallmark, like many American manufacturers, has a lot of things like toys and ornaments manufactured in the Far East, by people in sweat-shops. These are children, old people, poor people, people who don't have enough to eat; we get these things so cheaply because we simply use these people and throw them away. This is what I mean about our culture, our never-never land, floating on top of our underworld.”

Pat Cadigan

Cadigan (1993) in: " Interview with Pat Cadigan, May 1993 http://tamaranth.blogspot.nl/1993/05/interview-pat-cadigan-may-1993.html" in The Hardcore, 1993

Children , People , World , Peace

“That was the real price, I thought. Once you had power, you ended up having to depend on it. Eventually, like anything else, it owned you.
Eventually? No, from the beginning; we just don’t bother admitting it at first.”

Pat Cadigan

Source: Short fiction, Naming Names (1992), p. 389

Dependency