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The Hells existed because some faiths insisted on them, and some societies too, even without the excuse of over-indulged religiosity. Whether as a result of perhaps too faithful a transcription – from scriptural assertion to provable actuality – or simply an abiding secular need to continue persecuting those thought worthy of punishment even after they were dead, a number of civilisations – some otherwise quite respectable – had built up impressively ghastly Hells over the eons. These were only rarely linked with other Afterlives, hellish or otherwise, and even then only under strict superveillance, and usually only with the aim of heightening the anguish of the sufferers by subjecting them to torments their own people somehow hadn’t thought of, or the same old ones but inflicted by extra-gruesome alien demons rather than the more familiar home-grown variety.

— Surface Detail by Iain M. Banks (Culture, #9)

Nobody knew, either, what bright little soul had first hit on the idea of linking up two Afterlives, but given that emerging civilisations were generally quite keen to establish permanent, high-capacity, high-quality and preferably free links with the dataspheres and informational environments of those around them – especially those around them with better tech than they possessed – it had always been going to happen, by accident if not by design. It even benefited the dead of both civilisations, opening up additional new vistas of exciting post-death experience, the better for the deceased to resist the regrettable attraction of a second, properly terminal event. Linking up all amenable and compatible Afterlives had become something of a craze; almost before the relevant academics could come up with a decent provisional analysis of the phenomenon’s true cultural meaning and implications, practically every corner of the civilised galaxy was linked to every other part by Afterlife connections, as well as by all the other more usual ties of diplomacy, tourism, trade, general nosiness and so on. So, for many millions of years there had been a network of Afterlives throughout the galaxy, semi-independent from the Real and constantly changing just as the galactic community in the Real changed, with civilisations appearing, developing, steady-stating or disappearing, either changing beyond recognition, relapsing in some way or going for semi-Godhood, sidestepping the material life altogether by opting for the careless indifference that was Subliming. Mostly, nobody mentioned the Hells.

— Surface Detail by Iain M. Banks (Culture, #9)

Like many societies finding their hitherto unquestioned customs and ethical assumptions impacting squarely with the breathtakingly sophisticated summed morality of a meta-civilisation inestimably older, vaster and by implication wiser than themselves, the Sichultia became highly protective of their developmental foibles, and refused to mandate away what some of them at least claimed to regard as one of their defining social characteristics and a vital and vibrant part of their culture. Not all Sichultians agreed with this, of course; there had always been opposition to the very idea of Indented Intagliation, as well as to the very notion of a political-economic system configured to allow such options – a few deranged ruffians and degenerate troublemakers even took issue with the primacy of private ownership and the unfettered accumulation of capital itself – but most Sichultians accepted the practice and some were genuinely proud of it.

— Surface Detail by Iain M. Banks (Culture, #9)

Hun og Ingela så film nesten hver uke. Leide Moviebox på Konsum og tre filmer om gangen. Ofte ble hun stresset foran kassa, livredd for at Helmi skulle komme marsjerende og brenne hull i henne med øynene. «Vet du ikke at Gud hater deg nå?»

Hun prøvde å kompensere. Om kveldene tok hun fram Barnas bibel og prøvde å finne stedene der det sto at alt morsomt var forbudt. Antakelig sto det i den ekte Bibelen, men den orket hun ikke lese.

— Skam by Ann-Helén Laestadius, Magne Tørring (Translator) (Sápmitrilogien, #3)

Marina hadde aldri likt marsvinet, det hadde nifse øyne og flekket tenner. Dessuten var det rart for en voksen å ha marsvin som kjæledyr. De kunne ha hund eller kanskje katt, men marsvin og hamster var det bare barn som hadde.

— Skam by Ann-Helén Laestadius, Magne Tørring (Translator) (Sápmitrilogien, #3)

Farmora hadde sagt det mange ganger, at det sto en hel forsamling bak farfaren. Men om det nå var slik at Gud kalte ham hjem, så var det Hans vilje. De kristne virket ikke redde for døden, derimot var de ganske redde for å gjøre noe feil mens de levde.

— Skam by Ann-Helén Laestadius, Magne Tørring (Translator) (Sápmitrilogien, #3)