[I]t was really only in the generation or two before....

“ [I]t was really only in the generation or two before hers that the idea had started to traverse the spectrum of likelihood in the popular imagination, beginning at unthinkable, progressing to absurd, then going from possible but unlikely to probable and likely, before eventually arriving – round about the time of her birth – at seemingly inevitable. ”

Iain M. Banks

From : The Hydrogen Sonata