The reason that I like SF and fantasy and horror is that to me it's the pulp wing of surrealism. - China Miéville

We have watched mutant creatures crawl from sewers into cold flat starlight and whisper shyly to each other, drawing maps and messages in faecal mud. I have sat with the wind at my side and seen cruel things, wicked things. My scars and bonestubs itch. I am forgetting the weight, the sweep, the motion of wings. If I were not garuda I would pray. But I will not obeise myself before arrogant spirits.

Their minds were sudden merchants: metaphor, like money, equalised the incommensurable.

Byrne was good, her expertise indispensable, her commitment to the project swiftly personal, but she could not unwind death itself. Only filigree it, in certain ways.