There’s lots more to it — decades of narrative embroidery; a surfeit of clones — but this is the core: “You could extinguish a star,” but you never will, because that power is occupied by the task of living.

The thing I appreciate about this story — this parable — is that it cuts a million different ways.

Isn’t poverty the techno-organic virus, and aren’t millions of people on this planet the mutant marvels, all their incandescent capability occupied by the stress of surviving day to day?

— Robin Sloan, You could extinguish a star, 2024