## Metadata - Author: [[Michael Marshall Smith]] - Full Title: Only Forward - Category: #books ## Highlights - The fact that Zenda had asked me to change meant that I was almost certainly going to be meeting someone. I meet a lot of people. Some of them need what I can do for them, and don’t care what I look like: by the time I’m the only person who can help them, they’re prepared to put up with sartorial vagueness. ([Location 161](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003IDMUOA&location=161)) - I reached the final bend and flowed round it like an oiled shadow or something similarly quiet. ([Location 962](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003IDMUOA&location=962)) - I’m a bit of a connoisseur of disaster areas in Neighbourhoods, and I can tell what they’re like immediately. This was not a place where you’d stash guns or run a drug-peddling concern. It was too clean, too flat. I can’t describe exactly what was missing, a sense of fear, or possibility, or something. There were a few derelicts around, sure, and it wouldn’t be my first choice of a place to hang out, but it was a nothing. It had no atmosphere, no sense of inwardness or community. Somewhere had to be not quite as nice as everywhere else, and this happened to be it. That was all. ([Location 1065](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003IDMUOA&location=1065)) - I was hungry, and intended to hang out in the first hotel in a restaurant-orientated fashion. ([Location 1092](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003IDMUOA&location=1092)) - I guess when I think of resorts I think of the upmarket end of LongMall and the whole of Yo! Neighbourhood, which are geared to providing visitors with a full-on pleasure explosion. ‘Jesus,’ people tend to feel when they’ve spent a day or two in those places, ‘that’s enough fun. More than enough. Let me out.’ ([Location 1094](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003IDMUOA&location=1094)) - I haven’t described what I look like, have I? Remind me later and I will: it’s not that bad, but it’s kind of uncompromising. Every face says something: the deal with mine is that though you might not like what it’s saying you have to admire the strength of its convictions. ([Location 1163](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003IDMUOA&location=1163)) - Life is like a video game: when you get to a new screen, the thing to do is move as quickly as possible, before the situation gets any worse. ([Location 1300](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003IDMUOA&location=1300)) - I’m not a malicious man, but like most people, I have a small list of friends whom I would revenge with extreme and irrevocable violence. Spangle is near the top of that list. The number two spot, in fact. ([Location 1872](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003IDMUOA&location=1872)) - The odd thing is that fighting for the right side never feels like a choice. You choose to do the bad things in your life: the good ones come and drag you along with them. ([Location 2075](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003IDMUOA&location=2075)) - Zenda came and crouched down by us, doing her best to soothe the Actioneer. I don’t know what it is about women, but they can do that. They have the technology. Even now, when no one really gives a shit about the difference between men and women any more, even now that more women work than men, even now that the sexes have stopped giving each other such a hard time all the time, there are differences, as there always have been. Men and women are not the same. I’m sorry, but it’s true. ([Location 2117](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003IDMUOA&location=2117)) - More cautiously than I would have believed possible, like an advertisement for the whole concept of caution, Alkland slowly came out from under the bench. ([Location 2641](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003IDMUOA&location=2641)) - Tags: [[favorite]] - ‘Everybody has a stream in Jeamland. It’s where their dreams come from.’ ‘Did you ever spend a long time, say six or seven years, taking drugs twenty-four hours a day?’ he asked, yawning massively. ([Location 2835](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003IDMUOA&location=2835)) - ‘Stark, you’re mad!’ Alkland shouted, suddenly hysterical. ‘If you think I’m going to be able to shin up hundreds of feet of sheer brick you’re out of your bloody mind.’ He ranted on in this vein for quite some time, getting more and more heated. I let him. People always feel better when they’ve had a chance to blow off some steam about something that isn’t the real problem. ([Location 3150](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003IDMUOA&location=3150)) - Okay, so most people find it a bit difficult to come to terms with the way things work here, but Alkland was having an exceptionally hard time. No one who thinks memos are important will ever find it easy to fly. ([Location 3186](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003IDMUOA&location=3186)) - ‘This is very easy,’ I said, soothingly, looking into his eyes. ‘We’re not climbing at all. We’re just going somewhere that happens to be upwards.’ ([Location 3191](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003IDMUOA&location=3191)) - ‘Stark, greetings. It is beyond my limited, though regal, powers of expression to evoke my pleasure at meeting you once more.’ ([Location 3273](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003IDMUOA&location=3273)) - ‘What brings you, therefore, once more to our hallowed kingdom, O Stark, lone swordsman of the path of righteousness?’ Ignoring Alkland’s quiet giggling, I took a pace forward. ‘Well, O King, it’s like this. I come not on my own account, but as a guide, an escort, for the Lord Fell of Alkland.’ I gestured towards the Actioneer, who bowed again, quaking with suppressed laughter. ‘His lordship’s in a spot of grief at this time, and we are travelling long in search of a solution to his troubles.’ ‘I see,’ said the King sagely. ‘I perceive indeed that he has the mark of evil on him.’ This, I assumed, was a reference to Alkland’s facial colouring, though who knows. Maybe he didn’t like his jacket. ‘Where does the source of this evil lie?’ ‘I fear our quest lies far from here, over the mountains and through the, er, through the realms of Spangle, probably.’ ‘Spangle. Where is that, O warrior?’ I pressed on, improvising wildly. ‘Many, many leagues hence, my liege. Miles away. Through the Corridor of Yoper and the constellation of Everlasting Sound.’ Finally it got too much for Alkland, and a burst of laughter escaped. The King swivelled his gaze towards him. ‘His lordship finds something amusing?’ ‘No, no,’ I said quickly, ‘ ’tis but a part of the curse laid upon him. Sometimes, such is the evil hex laid upon him by the warlock Telephone, he laughs at completely inappropriate times.’ ([Location 3295](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003IDMUOA&location=3295)) - ‘What are BufPuffs?’ asked Alkland, struggling to keep up. ‘Shower attendants,’ replied the soldier. ‘They shower with you to mute the sound of falling water and stop there being too much space in the cubicle.’ ‘Oh,’ said Alkland, baffled, and I smiled. BufPuffs sounded like a euphemism if I’d ever heard one. ([Location 3317](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003IDMUOA&location=3317)) - It just kept going down and down and I wondered desperately where it stopped because I had to get to the bottom and find my way back to wherever it was I’d left whatever I’d left behind behind. I had to find it, and bring it back. ([Location 3377](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003IDMUOA&location=3377)) - I had a quick and much-needed shower, and even found myself grinning slightly at the realisation that Alkland would be doing the same thing, with a BufPuff in attendance. I was sorry to have missed out on that. The more I thought about it, the idea of having someone else, however platonically, share your shower sounded like quite a nice idea. Taking a shower gets boring after the first thousand or so times, don’t you find? There you are, alone with the water, trying to avoid getting scalded or frozen, spreading the soap around and, that’s it, really. Not very exciting, interesting or sociable. ([Location 3412](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003IDMUOA&location=3412)) - The mind is like a troubled community, with different races and creeds jostling up against each other and having occasional fist fights. If you try charging in to sort things out you end up with a riot on your hands. And mental riots are the worst: they don’t make much noise but boy, do they leave a mess. ([Location 3424](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003IDMUOA&location=3424)) - It was a picture of a three-year-old. A pretty, laughing little girl, straw-blonde hair thrown across her face by a breeze which had long ago faded to nothing. ([Location 3458](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003IDMUOA&location=3458)) - Fat Neighbourhood is a newish Neighbourhood where people go to escape shapist conditioning. People who don’t conform to culture’s stereotypes of how slim or attractive you should be go there and hang out, free from pressure to feel bad about themselves. It’s a great idea, but as everyone who lives there seems to be on a diet, I don’t think it can be working terribly well. Their mono was functionally challenged, as usual: I suspect they think fixing it would constitute forcing it to conform to culture’s stereotypes of a useful means of transport. ([Location 3487](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003IDMUOA&location=3487)) - Getting into Natsci is a relative formality. It’s not a complete free-for-all like Colour or the really relaxed Neighbourhoods, but it’s not tough. You just have to be able to name five famous computer programmers and four basic sub-atomic particles, and demonstrate a mild interest in monorail-spotting. I have no interest at all in the latter, but I know what to say. I can fit in. ([Location 3492](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003IDMUOA&location=3492)) - People have turned inwards, set up their own little camps where they can be the way they want to be. In a time when hardly anyone bothers to visit Neighbourhoods more than ten miles away, the emotional support for world domination just isn’t there any more. ([Location 3726](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003IDMUOA&location=3726)) - I pulled open the front door as a loud crump from below told me that the BugAnaly™ had finally got what was coming to it. Some rather distressing screams suggested that a couple of the ACIA agents had been standing a bit too close. Still, never mind, eh? For one, you think Alkland and I would have left my apartment under our own steam if they’d caught us? For two, I don’t give a fuck. I’m where I am now because when I was young I wanted more. I wanted to live in a film. I looked, and I found. Now I live in that film, and here the bad guys are everyone who isn’t you and if they die you don’t have to give a damn. Now I don’t care much for that younger me, and I wish to God I could take back what he did, unfind what he found. But I can’t. I did what I did and I was who I was. That was me once, just like the teenager who wanted to be a rock star was me, like the child who’d never had someone’s brains splashed over his face, and whose fingers were small and warm and safe in his father’s hand. They were all me, and they’re all in there somewhere, standing alone and lost in twilight. But I can’t find them. I can’t find them because they hide when I try to look for them. They hide from me. They don’t want to know me, because they know nobody’s really there. Oh fuck, ignore everything I say from now on. I’m not myself. Or maybe I am. It’s been so long I can’t remember. The more you get to know someone, the more there is to dislike. If you get to know them well enough, you hate them. And who knows me better than anyone else? Rafe does. ([Location 4181](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003IDMUOA&location=4181)) - May Shelby marry the least boring and stupid doctor, lawyer or orthodontist of her generation. May their dinner parties be the most celebrated and exclusive soirées Brandfield has ever known, and may they have a golf club specially formed for them to be the sole members of. She was there, is what I’m saying. ([Location 4196](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003IDMUOA&location=4196)) - ‘Shelby?’ I said. ‘I’m always happy to see you. It’s always a pleasure, always. Today, however, and I’m referring for the moment solely to the times when I’ve seen you in a, shall we say, professional capacity, I’m more pleased than ever before.’ ‘Stark.’ ‘There are no words to express my joy. None at all. I have a dictionary, and I’ve looked. I’d have to paint you a picture, sculpt a sculpture or maybe try to express it through free-form improvisational dance.’ ([Location 4206](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003IDMUOA&location=4206)) - You think you see the world as it really is, think the gaps you see, the time you understand, is the way it is. But there are other gaps, ones you don’t know about, and in those gaps the devils are playing. ([Location 5036](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003IDMUOA&location=5036)) - The light of life shines up from your birth, and I’d left so much in the way that I had stood for years in twilight, isolated and alone while the person I’d once been still stamped and raved, blocking the light and poisoning the sun. The world could no longer reach me, and my past had become all I had, a past I could do nothing about, could never go back and change. Everything you’ve done, everything you’ve seen, everything you’ve become, remains. You never can go back, only forward, and if you don’t bring the whole of yourself with you, you’ll never see the sun again. ([Location 5073](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B003IDMUOA&location=5073))