[realnilkless]

Phew! I just bought Omega Minor today and, looking at the first page, I can see it's going to be a long, long ride. If anyone needs tempting (or put off) by the book, then here's that first page:

Im Anfang war die Tat - In the Beginning was the Act.

And this is what concludes that act, that serpentine pas-de-deux so skillfully performed against the satin backdrop of the blackest night: A lightning bolt hurls upward in a blinding curve of pristine white, the laws of gravity suspended for a quarter-second. There is a scream of triumph as the gushing garland - that string of boundless energy - spouts into the springtime air: With a dull thud the alabaster blob flops on a silken belly, tan and taut and humid with moonlight, and in the panting silence after the victory cry the room echoes with the silent howl of half a billion mouths that never were: 23-chromosome cells thrash their tiny tails in terror on the bare and barren skin. An illicit hand sends another power surge through his penis, fiercer still than the first - then a compassionate tongue descends, its trembling tip dipping into the basin of his navel: For an instant, a sticky thread of pearls connects the woman with the Center of his Being, then she swallows - she drinks my seed, he thinks, she WANTS my seed, and the thought makes his heart swell, not with love but with misplaced pride - and then her lips slide full over his lingam and the last fruits of her labor slither down her shiny throat. And while the man's mouth is still screaming in triumph, the gametic hordes yell out in Todesangst, for their worst nightmare has come true: In the woman's churning stomach the cell membranes break open, the molecules dissolve, and the strands of code unwind, and naked lies the blueprint, the secret of who Goldfarb is - the nucleic acids adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine swirl around in irreperable chaos, their alchemy forever lost. Here lies a man, exulting over the demise of a world population. Sure, I can see how that last sentence may tie in to a Holocaust theme. But, what to say about how he gets there? Not a dictionary page wasted.