“Gold,” says the Consul, knowing that this is the only syllable that has held its power over the ages. — Dan Simmons

Doing a life study while drunk and in the process of being seduced is never a formula for quality art.

The modern universe, as machine and man had come to understand it, needed no Creator; in fact, allowed no Creator. Its rules allowed very little tinkering and no major revisions. It had not begun and would not end, beyond cycles of expansion and contraction as regular and self-regulated as the seasons on Old Earth. No room for love there.

It seemed that Abraham had offered to murder his son to test a phantom.

Have you considered that these prophecies were not divine revelations, but merely manipulation from some secular power?