Terry Pratchett

This might look like a book set in the Pacific ocean. Nothing could be further from the truth!!!!! It is in fact set in a parallel universe, a phenomenon known only to advanced physicists and anyone who has ever watched any episode of any SF series, anywhere.

For the sake of the game she was banned from bowling after Daphne’s father explained that women should not really be allowed to play cricket because they fundamentally didn’t understand it. But it seemed to Daphne that Cahle understood it very well, and therefore tried to get it over with as quickly as possible so that they could get on with something more interesting, since in her opinion the world was overwhelmingly full of things that were more interesting than cricket.

They had the well-fed, important, careful look of people who took care not to be at the top. A lot of government people like them had dined at the Hall. They had learned over the years that the top was not a happy or safe place to be. One rung down, that was the place for a sensible man. You advised the king, you had a lot of power, in a quiet kind of way, and you didn’t get murdered anything like as often. And, if the ruler started to get funny ideas and it became a bit of an embarrassment, you just…took care of things.

“You should call me Your Majesty, eh?”

“And how did you become a king, Mr. Cox?” said Daphne. “I’m sure it involved killing people.”

“Why are you so much smarter than us?”

“I don’t think we are, really. I think it’s just that you have to learn to make things when it’s cold for half the year. I think we got our empire because of the weather. Anything was better than staying at home in the rain. I am pretty certain people looked out of the window and rushed off to discover India and Africa.”

And perhaps at the other end of the world there is a place where the screaming can’t be heard, and I may find it in my heart to grant God absolution!

Another thing about grandmother was her believe that a conversation consisted of someone else listening to her talking, so even mild interruptions seem to her to be some strange, puzzling inversion of the natural order of things, like pigs flying. It baffled her.

Mau had been shocked at this. Every boy wanted to be a warrior, didn’t he?

“You didn’t want to be a warrior?”

“Never. It takes a woman nine months to make a new human. Why waste her effort?”

Normally people tended to be very quiet in the parish church. Perhaps they were afraid of waking God up in case He asked pointed questions or gave them a test.

It can’t be magic, Daphne thought. Magic is just a way of saying “I don’t know.”

Some people would tell you anything if they thought you’d be scared.

He is frightened of me, Mau thought. I haven’t hit him or even raised my hand. I’ve just tried to make him think differently, and now he’s scared. Of thinking. It’s magic.