Shadow of the Leviathan by Robert Jackson Bennett

The Tainted Cup

Robert Jackson Bennett, The Tainted Cup

“That’s the problem with figuring shit out—eventually you run into someone who’d prefer all their shit remained thoroughly unfigured.”

“Civilization is often a task that is only barely managed. But harden your heart and slow your blood. The towers of justice are built one brick at a time. We have more to build yet.” ― Robert Jackson Bennett, The Tainted Cup

“The thing about war, boy, is while it happens, you’ve no idea what’s going on—and when it’s over, everyone spends the rest of your life telling you what you did.” ― Robert Jackson Bennett, The Tainted Cup

A Drop of Corruption

Robert Jackson Bennett, A Drop of Corruption

“Just keep an eye out for the fellow with testicles large enough to cause back deformities, and we shall have our culprit!”

The second decade of the twenty-first century seems replete with examples as to why autocracies are, to put it mildly, very stupid. Our headlines are dominated by regimes with one nigh-all-powerful man at the top making any number of terrible choices, and then – to the bafflement of the entire globe – doubling down on them, thus inflicting massive suffering on his people. It seems the talents that make a man capable of navigating palace intrigue until he wins the throne generally don’t coexist with the talents required for – or even a passing interest in – good governance.

“This work can never satisfy, Din, for it can never finish. The dead cannot be restored. Vice and bribery will never be totally banished from the cantons. And the drop of corruption that lies within every society shall always persist. The duty of the ludex is not to boldly vanquish it but to manage it. We keep the stain from spreading, yes, but it is never gone. Yet this job is perhaps the most important in all the Iyalets, for without it, well… the Empire would come to look much like Yarrow, where the powerful and the cruel prevail without check. And tell me - does that realm look capable of fighting off a leviathan?” ― Robert Jackson Bennett, A Drop of Corruption

Robert Jackson Bennett, A Drop of Corruption

"To serve is a tremendously humbling thing. How easy it is to mistake glory and fame for duty! But duty is thankless, invisible, Forgettable—but oh, so very necessary.”

“And thus the emperor said to his advisers, ‘We have seen many empires fall, for they did not extend past the breath of their emperors. They decayed, and grew unjust. If I wish this new empire to last, I should not declare to my people that I am the Empire. Rather, I should say to them, You are the Empire. And with that blessing, they shall make a realm for the ages.’ ” ― Robert Jackson Bennett, A Drop of Corruption

“Regardless, the second decade of the twenty-first century seems replete with examples as to why autocracies are, to put it mildly, very stupid. Our headlines are dominated by regimes with one nigh-all-powerful man at the top making any number of terrible choices, and then—to the bafflement of the entire globe—doubling down on them, thus inflicting massive suffering on his people. It seems the talents that make a man capable of navigating palace intrigue until he wins the throne generally don’t coexist with the talents required for—or even a passing interest in—good governance.” ― Robert Jackson Bennett, A Drop of Corruption