This book is weird and awesome.
Quotes:
A giant cockroach had walked into the room,
Ken Kiang started an ambitious program to ensure that all underprivileged schoolchildren had “postmodern yet easy-to-manage” hairstyles.
A phone call from Ken Kiang had summoned his “Fleet of Fury.” Ken Kiang had engineered the planes himself—sleek, terrifying machines, bristling with spikes and weaponry, the kind of planes that left no doubt about how evil their commander was.
“HERE’S to villainy!” cried Ken Kiang, lifting his glass. “Here’s to wicked work well wrought! Here’s to outrage, injustice! Violence and venom! Marvelous murderers and cutthroat criminals! I embrace you all, brothers! I’m one of you now!”
“It’s a very honorable and pointless tradition,”
“Puttering, Muddling, and Mucking About: An Inquiry into Idleness. Quite well known in the field.”
Actually, the Belgian Prankster hung out at the Country Kitchen in Muscatine, Iowa.
ZZZ, a massive-headed Brazilian physicist.
“‘She is the Ichthala,’
“What you recognize, Jo, are just your little corners of the world. The real world, the total reality of the world, is a thousand times larger than that. What you had thought of as your world—and what people in Eldritch City think of as their world—are just small, disconnected bits of the actual entire world. According to my theory, there are thousands of these regions, all hidden from each other. Most of the world is still unexplored!”
“As an Odd-Fish, it is not my job to be right,” said Sir Oort. “It is my job to be wrong in new and exciting ways.”
Ken Kiang wasn’t a hero in the sense that he would, say, save a child from a fire—the very notion nauseated him—but he was a hero in that he was willing to stake everything on a hopeless gamble.
Fortunately, most people are not exposed to the temptations that destroy souls, and so they muddle through their small lives harmlessly, a little frustrated but more or less content, enjoying the humdrum happiness that is the lot of the common man.
Any idiot can fire a gun and kill someone. It takes real evil to ruin a soul.
“Having an enemy is a delicate art. It demands dedication and a certain style. If you handle it right, it can even be good for you.
“Your words are as empty as your sting, Sleeping Bee!” retorted Zam-Zam. “Your feast shall be of the ashes of defeat, and on those, you shall feast heartily! Your corpse shall be torn to bits by my thousand children, who shall raise each morsel to their mouths, chew your disgraced innards with contemptuous joy, and excrete them with a smirk! I have spoken!”
For Ken Kiang, it was never enough to win. It was the verve, the showmanship, above all the arrogant stunt that mattered—the crucial cherry on top that said, “Not only have I won, but I won with enough leisure to toss in this final, outrageous flourish.”
One of his languages was based on tasting patterns of spices, so that books were read by eating them, page by page;
The Belgian Prankster lounged in a booth, surrounded by fawning psychoanalysts.
Jo stopped. She didn’t know what she was feeling. It wasn’t fear or hatred or even disgust. It was a horrible tingle of joy.
“I’m Aznath, the Silver Kitten of Deceit.”
“Outstanding Schwenkmanship, old boy!” roared Colonel Korsakov, slapping Ken Kiang on the back. “Never knew you had it in you! A top-drawer Schwenkrider, eh? You must tell me your secret!”
Although a disgrace to Eldritch City in general, and the Order of Odd-Fish in particular, it will be noted the butlers all wore irreproachable ascots.”
Many times, Ken Kiang had heard the saying “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” It would be too tidy to say that for Ken Kiang, the road to heaven was paved with bad intentions. Still, his intentions had always been the worst; yet now he was as close to happiness as he was ever likely to get.
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