The first in a series of quotes from Jean Raspail’s novel The Camp of the Saints (1973):
Like all the ships in this phantom fleet, there wasn’t a light to be seen on her once it was dark, not even a glimmer. Everything must have gone dead—boilers, generators, everything, all at once—as she ran to meet her self-imposed disaster. Perhaps there had been just fuel enough for this one and only voyage. Or perhaps there was no one on board anymore who felt the need to take care of such things— or of anything else—now that the exodus had finally led to the gates of the newfound paradise… this vanguard of an anti-world bent on coming in the flesh to knock, at long last, at the gates of abundance.
