Bokelskere.no

Real physical perfection isn't something a guy like me gets to see up close and personal very often, and it's something to marvel at - then run away from, before it hypnotizes you like a snake staring into the eyes of something small, furry, and edible.

Imagine a world where speaking or writing words can literally or directly make things happen, where getting one of those words wrong can wreak unbelievable havoc, but where the right spell you can summon immensely powerful agencies to work your will. Imagine further that this world is administered: there is an extensive division of labour, among the magicians themselves and between the magicians and those who coordinate their activity. It's bureaucratic, and also (therefore) chaotic, and it's full of people at desks muttering curses and writing invocations, all beavering away at a small part of the big picture. The coordinators, because they don't understand what's going on, are easy prey for smooth-talking preachers of bizarre cults that demand arbitrary sacrifices and vanish with large amounts of money. Welcome to the IT department.

Didn’t they know that the only unhackable computer is one that’s running a secure operating system, welded inside a steel safe, buried under a ton of concrete at the bottom of a coal mine guarded by the SAS and a couple of armoured divisions, and switched off? What did they think they were doing?

I’m lurking in the shubbery behind an industrial unit, armed with a clipboard, a pager, and a pair of bulbous night-vision goggles that drench the scenery in ghastly emeralt tones. The bloody thing make me look like a train-spotter with a gas-mask fetish, and wearing them is giving me a headache

Because, you see, everything you know about the way this universe works is correct—except for the little problem that this isn’t the only universe we have to worry about. Information can leak between one universe and another. And in a vanishingly small number of the other universes there are things that listen, and talk back—see Al-Hazred, Nietzsche, Lovecraft, Poe, et cetera. The many-angled ones, as they say, live at the bottom of the Mandelbrot set, except when a suitable incantation in the platonic realm of mathematics—computerised or otherwise—draws them forth. (And you thought running that fractal screen-saver was good for your computer?)

We remain convinced that this is the best defence posture to adopt in order to minimize casualties when the Great Old Ones return from beyond the stars to eat our brains

Å streife omkring har bestandig vært, og er fremdeles, min store lidenskap, mitt hjertes glede og selve solskinnet i min eksistens. I barndommen, guttedagene og som voksen har jeg streifet om, ikke bare i skogene og på fjellet i mitt eget fedreland, men overalt i hele den vide verden.

Hvor ofte hadde hun ikke tenkt at det å gå i skogen, var som om å gå i et kirkerom.

Det fantes ikke rettferdighet i verden. Men gode krefter fantes det. I dypet av alle mennesker.

It is very clear in an empty room by night what sort of people have sat and talked and occupied themselves in it by day.

Alle mennesker kommer inn i denne verden som ubeskrevne blad, Yona, sa han rolig. Identiteten din er ikke ¨fastlagt ved fødselen. Det eneste som betyr noe, er hvem og hva vi velger å gjøre oss til, hva vi velger å gjøre med livet vårt.

Vi er alle forbundet med hverandre,Yona. Du vet det nå. Og når skjebner først vikles inn i hverandre, er de lenket sammen for alltid. Livet er sirkler som spinner rundt over hele verden, og når det er meningen at de skal krysse hverandre igjen, skjer det. Det er ingenting vi kan gjøre for å hindre det.