Steven Boyett

Steven R. Boyett, also known as DJ Steve Boyett, is a writer and disc jockey based in Northern California.

Ariel (1983)

 * All page numbers from the second mass market paperback edition published by Ace ISBN 978-0-441-01794-2 (First printing; 2009)


 * You had to be a virgin to touch a unicorn... A flush crept up my neck. Okay, so I’d touched her. Being a virgin had some advantages after all. Hooray.
 * Chapter 1 (p. 9)


 * Change implies cause, and cause implies source. Things don’t just happen.
 * Chapter 5 (p. 47)


 * “‘Different laws of physics,’” said Ariel, “and ‘supernatural’ seem synonymous to me.”
 * Chapter 5 (p. 47)


 * A difference which makes no difference is no difference.
 * Chapter 5 (p. 47)


 * “But we’ve got to be quiet. Understand?” “I know how to be quiet. Even girls can do it, under pressure.”
 * Chapter 7 (p. 63)


 * Innocence is in many ways ignorance.
 * Chapter 8 (p. 81)


 * Nothing’s worth living for if there aren’t things you think are worth dying for.
 * Chapter 11 (p. 127)


 * The end of the world turned out to be something I preferred to fantasize about rather than experience.
 * Chapter 13 (p. 166)


 * Don’t go looking for adventure; you might find it.
 * Chapter 14 (p. 194)


 * “The National Hot Air Museum is just down the road a piece,” he added. “Better known by its branch names: the Capitol and the White House.”
 * Chapter 21 (p. 311)


 * Life goes on, yes, and our capacity for self-deception accompanies it.
 * Chapter 24 (p. 388)


 * Tip: utopian and floral town names are inversely proportional to their hellholishness.
 * Afterword (p. 394)


 * The Boyett Style Guide: (a) anything worth doing is worth overdoing (I can’t write a check if it isn’t in iambic pentameter); (b) anything worth saying is worth saying three times; (c) leave no literary stone unturned; (d) fill all cracks, paint all surfaces, and illuminate all dark corners; and (e) whenever two or more metaphors are suitable, use them all. I never metaphor I didn’t like.
 * Afterword (p. 399)


 * Language is a biggie, too. I utterly loathe fantasy novels in which characters stride thusly up yon hill. Walk up the damned thing, for the love of god. This Renaissance Faire lily-gilding has damaged the veracity of contemporary fantasy more than any single quality I can think of (though arguably the inability of many fantasy [and science fiction] writers to have the perspective to see how often they engage in what Freud called “projection” may be an equal culprit in the self-ghettoization of fantasy and science fiction as literary forms).
 * Afterword (pp. 402-403)


 * I don’t think I believe Evil exists. I believe selfishness does.
 * Afterword (p. 410)