Quotes by Robin Sloan

Neel cuts in: Whered you grow up?Palo Alto, she says. From there to Stanford to Google: for a girl obsessed with the outer limits of human potential, Kat has stayed pretty close to home. Neel nods knowingly. The suburban mind cannot comprehend the emergent complexity of a New York sidewalk.I dont know about that, Kat says, narrowing her eyes. Im pretty good with complexity.See, I know what youre thinking, Neel says, shaking his head.Youre thinking its just an agent-based simulation, and everybody out here follows a pretty simple set of rules-- Kat is nodding--and if you can figure out those rules, you can model it. You can simulate the street, then the neighborhood, then the whole city. Right?Exactly. I mean, sure, I dont know what the rules are yet, but I could experiment and figure them out, and then it would be trivial-- Wrong, Neel says, honking like a game-show buzzer. You cant do it. Even if you know the rules-- and by the way, there are no rules--but even if there were, you cant model it. You know why?My best friend and my girlfriend are sparring over simulations. I can only sit back and listen. Kat frowns. Why?You dont have enough memory.Oh, come on--Nope. You could never hold it all in memory. No computers big enough. Not even your whats-it-called--The Big Box.Thats the one. Its not big enough. This box-- Neel stretches out his hands, encompasses the sidewalk, the park, the streets beyond--is bigger.The snaking crowd surges forward.

America pays defense contractors to build aircraft carriers. Google pays brilliant programmers to do whatever the hell they want.

It was a fungal party hellscape.

Walking the stacks in a library, dragging your fingers across the spines -- its hard not to feel the presence of sleeping spirits.

After that, the book will fade, the way all books fade in your mind. But I hope you will remember this:A man walking fast down a dark lonely street. Quick steps and hard breathing, all wonder and need. A bell above a door and the tinkle it makes. A clerk and a ladder and warm golden light, and then: the right book exactly, at exactly the right time.

The Golden Horn of Griffo is finely wrought, Zenodotus said, tracing his finger along the curve of Telemachs treasure. And the magic is in its making alone. Do you understand? There is no sorcery here...“Magic is not the only power in this world,” the old mage said gently, handing the horn back to its royal owner. “Griffo made an instrument so perfect that even the dead must rise to hear its call. He made it with his hands, without spells or dragon-songs. I wish that I could do the same.

So I guess you could say Neel owes me a few favors, except that so many favors have passed between us now that they are no longer distinguishable as individual acts, just a bright haze of loyalty. Our friendship is a nebula.

People want things to be real. If you give them an excuse, theyll believe you.

It was tall, made of pale blue light, a creature with long arms and long legs and the shadow of a smile, and above it all, eyes that shone bluer still than its body. What do you seek in this place? the shade asked plainly.

Hes like a storybook spirit, a little djinn or something, except instead of air or water his element is imagination.

Have you ever played Maximum Happy Imagination?Sounds like a Japanese game show.Kat straightens her shoulders. Okay, were going to play. To start, imagine the future. The good future. No nuclear bombs. Pretend youre a science fiction writer.Okay: World government... no cancer... hover-boards.Go further. Whats the good future after that?Spaceships. Party on Mars.Further.Star Trek. Transporters. You can go anywhere.Further.I pause a moment, then realize: I cant.Kat shakes her head. Its really hard. And thats, what, a thousand years? What comes after that? What could possibly come after that? Imagination runs out. But it makes sense, right? We probably just imagine things based on what we already know, and we run out of analogies in the thirty-first century.

Each big idea like that is an operating system upgrade, she says, smiling. Comfortable territory. Writers are responsible for some of it. They say Shakespeare invented the internal monologue.Oh, I am very familiar with the internal monologue.But I think the writers had their turn, she says, and now its programmers who get to upgrade the human operating system.I am definitely talking to a girl from Google. So whats the next upgrade?Its already happening, she says. There are all these things you can do, and its like youre in more than one place at one time, and its totally normal. I mean, look around.I swivel my head, and I see what she wants me to see: dozens of people sitting at tiny tables, all learning into phones showing them places that dont exist and yet are somehow more interesting...

Its circumference was tiny, but he had a life, and he would not give it up.

Corvina must have been so different then ... really literally a different person. At what point do you make that call? At what point should you just give someone a new name? Sorry, no, you dont get to be Corvina anymore. Now youre Corvina 2.0 - a dubious upgrade.

The buzz about Google these days is that its like America itself: still the biggest game in town, but inevitably and irrevocably on the decline. Both are superpowers with unmatched resources, but both are faced with fast-growing rivals, and both will eventually be eclipsed. For America, that rival is China. For Google, its Facebook. (This is all from tech-gossip blogs, so take it with a grain of salt. They also say a startup called MonkeyMoney is going to be huge next year.) But heres the difference: staring down the inevitable, America pays defense contractors to build aircraft carriers. Google pays brilliant programmers to do whatever they want.

The space is appropriately shoe-boxy and all the shelves are there. Ive set them up with a coordinate system, so my program can find aisle 3, shelf 13 all by itself. Simulated light from the simulated windows casts sharp-edged shadows through the simulated store. If this sounds impressive to you, youre over thirty.

To be honest, my life has exhibited many strange and sometimes troubling characteristics, but shortness is not one of them. It feels like an eternity since I started school and a techno-social epoch since I moved to San Francisco. My phone couldnt even connect to the internet back then.

Shes wearing the same red and yellow BAM! T-shirt from before, which means (a) she slept in, (b) she owns several identical T-shirts, or (c) shes a cartoon character—all of which are appealing alternatives.

Im going to put the moves on her, he says gravely. Things might get weird. He says it like a commando setting up a midnight raid. Like: Sure, this is going to be extraordinarily dangerous, but dont worry. Ive done it before.

All the secrets of the world worth knowing are hiding in plain sight.