The Southern Reach books imaginatively figure this contact. The beauty of the books is that they let the other side win. They offer a collapsitarianism in reverse.

Mr. Francis seems to understand the fundamental principle of all moral accounting, the great ethic rule of three. Let A do to B, as he would have B do to him; the product will give the rule of conduct required. My father smiled at this reduction of the golden rule to arithmetical form.

The evolutional descendants of those early shavers of beards and lancers of boils have made good (and, perhaps, nearly exclusive) use of the title […]

Thomas Mann was an archmodernist, and this was his favorite story: