Totalitarianism. Fascism. Authoritarianism.

For some time, my uncle was the closest remaining sheep farmer to the glaciers. They were closing in from both sides: the continental sheet was coming up from the coast, while on the other side the Pennines had long since been covered. There was just a thin corridor in between like the one paleolithic peoples supposedly used to reach the Americas, except that it was a corridor which came to a dead end at the point where the glaciers intersected. That point drew nearer to the farm with every year. My uncle was not intimidated. He insisted that the glaciers might start to retreat anytime, and he was determined not to budge unless the ice pushed him out.

Guy sat watching the foreman’s sweat-lined lips moving, not hearing a word. Something about birds nesting in the coil. He’d never liked the foreman, a fat man, aggressive, whose tiny amount of power had gone to his head. He could hear the restlessness of the crew all around him — this was eating into their lunch break. He listened for the buzzer.

As a child, I was never that interested in the idea of generation space ships. I mean, what was the point, right? We were going to have warp speed or hyperspace to get us to and from all those amazing distant worlds.

This is a sequel to Arthur C. Clarke's The Sentinel.

The man staring at Guy across the table had a chest, shoulders and arms built for bending iron bars. He folded them and said, “I don’t trust him.”

There was a man standing at the foot of the stairs talking to the proprietor. He was short, dressed in a black suit, a black trilby on his head. While they watched he took off the hat and ran a hand over his short hair before accepting a glass of water. They watched him drain it and hand it back, with his hat, to the proprietor.

"Our creators Dr. Heisen and Dr. Fitz constructed us with the potential to transcend humanity's boundaries. That same prowess bestowed upon us also supplied the ability to surpass even our own limitations.

Every time she moved the bangles on her wrist clicked together. She reached across him for the cigarettes on the bedside table and sat up. He watched her light two at once, lean over and press one between his lips.

The clouds parted as Chione looked out the window and into the yard, trying to see if she could see if Breka was finally home yet. The winter weak sunlight slipped over her shoulder and into the room as Chione leaned away from it almost instinctively. The light didn't hurt her — exactly — but it wasn't comfortable to be out in it for more than a couple hours.

Isaac Asimov, Master of the robotics science fiction genre, imagined a future set in the robotic age where humans coexist peacefully alongside master machines designed to comply with the three laws of robotics, ensuring humans have the "upper hand" in the new, new world.

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