“What is that stuff he’s saying?” Serge asks Laura. “It’s from the Egyptian Book of the Dead,” she replies, hand pressed to her forehead as though this action alone allowed her to think. “ ‘The Book of Stepping Forth by Daylight,’ in fact, if I recognise this passage rightly.” “First thing ever written for a dead readership,” mutters Alby.
I appear to have made a note next to this quote on my Kindle: first thing, but not the bloody last.