...and anyway not zoned for it.
Charles Yu’s 2010 novel, “How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe” includes this little gem:
Thirty-one is a smallish universe, slightly below average in size. On the cosmic scale, somewhere between shoe box and standard aquarium. Not big enough for space opera and anyway not zoned for it.
I’ve been sitting here feeling smug, because I suspect that I spy a Vernor Vinge reference in there, and I haven’t found anywhere else on the internet that makes that particular meaningless little observation. Hooray!