Machines were of little interest to me, perhaps because on the frontal armor of each sat an inventor, inspired to semitransparency, who verbosely explained the structure and purpose of his handiwork. No one listened to the inventors, and it seems they talked to no one in particular.
— A. & B. Strugatsky, Monday Begins on Saturday, story 3 — the description of a travel into the "depicted future", a tangible reality consisting of various authors' "imaginings" of the future.
