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Samit Basu Books

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“Of course, some adjustments had to be made [to heroic quests]. For example, when a giant sea serpent had been spotted idling in the ocean, no doubt scouting for a pleasant coastline to ravage, they had known it would attack a maiden tied to a rock. The only problem had been getting a maiden to volunteer to be tied to a rock. No one in Bolvudis particularly wanted to end up inside a sea serpent’s stomach. Asvin had been very surprised, until Gaam had explained that it was not always the case that a hero’s mere presence would cast all damsels in the area into perilous predicaments he could rescue them from. Most of the rescues in the legends were, Gaam said, either fictitious or pre-arranged, and hardly ever sheer coincidence or fate. In the end a grumbling Maya had let herself be tied to a rock while Asvin, sword in hand, prowled the beach. The fact that the serpent’s arrival had created a huge wave that had swept Gaam and Asvin far away and Maya had had to burn off her ropes and kill the monster on her own was, they all agreed, best kept secret.”

HumorHeroes
Book:The Simoqin Prophecies
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“Before the Tigers, or the other clans, or the eras before, the algorithms, the megacorps, the nations, the empires, all the way back to the first city-states--- no ruler has looked after our people, they have had to look out for one another. It is why Shantiport continues to exist, against all logic, and that's the spirit that we have to find a way to channel. No system works, no authority is benevolent, no promise is kept. When the megastorms and floods come, when the genocides come, and the famines and diseases, the rest of the world will not even bother to look, let alone help. If they know about us it is a a symbol of poverty, or decay, or despair. But despite all this, sometimes clusters of people emerge, however flawed, who build institutions and culturewaves larger than themselves.”

Society
Book:The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport
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