179. ENDER'S GAME

Orson Scott Card 1985

In this intense and captivating science/fantasy fiction, Andrew 'Ender' Wiggins is only six years old when he is chosen by the futuristic government to defeat the aliens who have previously attacked earth twice. He is forced to leave his parents, brother Peter (whom he hates) and sister Valentine (whom he loves), to train with all the other new recruits called 'launchies' in the space station known as the Battle Room. Ender immediately feels and endures the escalating isolation and hardship the training entails. Does he have what it takes to become commander and finally defeat the 'buggers'?

"I've watched through his eyes, I've listened through his ears, and I tell you he's the one. Or at least as close as we're going to get."(opening lines)

'I'm sorry if you're lonely and afraid. But the buggers are out there. Ten billion, a hundred billion, a million billion of them, for all we know. With as many ships, for all we know. With weapons we can't understand. And a willingness to use those weapons to wipe us out. It isn't the world at stake, Ender. Just us. Just humankind. As far as the rest of the biosphere is concerned, we could be wiped out and it would adjust, it would get on with the next step in evolution. But humanity doesn't want to die. As a species, we have evolved to survive. And the way we do it is by straining and straining and, at last, every few generations, giving birth to genius. The one who invents the wheel. And light. And flight. The one who builds a city, a nation, an empire.'(35)

'Dap came to the door that night and moved quietly among the beds, touching a hand there, a forehead there. Where he went there was more crying, not less. The touch of kindness in this frightening place was enough to push some over the edge into tears. Not Ender, though. When Dap came, his crying was over, and his face was dry. It was the lying face he presented to Mother and Father, when Peter had been cruel to him and dared not to let it show. Thank you for this, Peter. For dry eyes and silent weeping. You taught me how to hide anything I felt. More than ever. I need that now.'(45)

'And instead of pushing his face into one of the liquids, he kicked one over, then the other, and dodged the Giant's huge hands as the Giant shouted, "Cheater, cheater!" He jumped at the Giant's face, clambered up his lip and nose, and began to dig in the Giant's eye. The stuff came away like cottage cheese, and as the Giant screamed, Ender's figure burrowed into the eye, climbed right in, burrowed in and in.'(64-65)

"Colonel Graff, the games have always been run fairly before. Either random distribution of stars, or symmetrical."
"Fairness is a wonderful attribute, Major Anderson. It has nothing to do with war."(97)

"It doesn't mean he's crazy, Dink."
"I know, you've been here a year, you think these people are normal. Well, they're not. We're not. I look in the library, I call up books on my desk. Old ones, because they won't let us have anything new, but I've got a pretty good idea what children are, and we're not children. Children can lose sometimes, and nobody cares. Children aren't in armies, they aren't commanders, they don't rule over forty other kids, it's more than anybody can take and not get crazy.'(108)

'You've been isolating the boy. Maybe he's writing for the end of this world, the Battle School. Or maybe it's about the end of the world he grew up with us a little boy, his home, coming here. Or maybe it's his way of coping with having broken up so many other kids here. Ender's sensitive kid, you know, and he's done some pretty bad things to people's bodies, he might be wishing for the end of that world."
"Or none of the above."
"The mind game is a relationship between the child and the computer. Together they create stories. The stories are true, in the sense that they reflect the reality of the child's life. That's all I know.'(121)

'Writing was something Val did better than Peter. They both knew it. Peter had even named it once, when he said that he could always see what other people hated most about themselves, and bully them, while Val could always see what other people liked best about themselves, and flatter them. It was a cynical way of putting it, but it was true. Valentine could persuade other people to her point of view -- she could convince them that they wanted what she wanted them to want, Peter, on the other hand, could only make them fear what he wanted them to fear.'(127)

'Isolation -- is the optimum environment for creativity.'(149)

'And the despair filled him again. Now he knew why. Now he knew what he hated so much. He had no control over his own life. They ran everything. They made all the choices. Only the game was left to him, that was all, everything else was them and their rules and their plans and lessons and programs, and all he could do was go this way or that way in battle. The one real thing, the one precious real thing was his memory of Valentine, the person who loved him before he ever played a game, who loved him whether there was a bugger was or not...'(151)

'Well, what I've done to you this day, Bean, I've done. But I'll be watching you, more compassionately than you know, and when the time is right you'll find that I'm your friend, and you are the soldier you want to be.'(168)

"Two faces of the same coin. And I am the metal in between." Even as she said it, she wondered if it was true. She had shared so much with Peter these last few years that even when she thought she despised him, she understood him. While Ender had been only a memory till now. A very small, fragile boy who needed her protection. Not this cold-eyed, dark-skinned manling who killed wasps with his fingers. Maybe he and Peter and I are all the same, and have been all along. Maybe we only thought we were different from each other out of jealousy.'(236)

"In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in the very moment I also love him. I think it's impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves. And then, in the very moment when I love them --"(238)

'Billions of those connections between human beings. That's what you're fighting to keep alive.'(244)

'He had long since learned that when something unusual was going on, something that was part of someone else's plan and not his own, he would find out more information by waiting than by asking. Adults almost always lost their patience before Ender did.'(260)

'Welcome to the human race. Nobody controls his own life, Ender. The best you can do is to choose to fill the roles given you by good people, by people who love you.'(313)

a Tor Book edition
324 pages
Book borrowed from the library
Book qualifies for: 100 + Reading Challenge
Book idea from Jillian @ Random Ramblings (thanks!). Her review is HERE.

82. DR. JEKYLL and MR. HYDE

Robert Louis Stevenson 1886

Who has not heard of this novella? A classic mystery science fiction, it is a very intriguing and candid rendition of the battle between one's own good and evil side, said to have been written by the author while sick in bed in 1885. There are three main narratives from three close friends (Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Utterson and Dr. Lanyon) that essentially comprise this short book. It starts with Lawyer Mr Utterson wondering about the mysterious relationship between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as he witnesses the horrid Mr. Hyde and later receives Dr. Jekyll's last will wherein he leaves all his property to Mr. Hyde. He gets more confused after a close friend Dr. Lanyon abruptly dissociates and detests Dr. Jekyll. The last narrative is in the form of a letter of explanation from Dr. Jekyll of the disastrous events after his discovery of the transforming potion.

'Mr. Utterson the lawyer was a man of a rugged countenance that was never lighted by a smile; cold, scanty and embarrassed in discourse; backward in sentiment; lean, long, dusty, dreary and yet somehow lovable.'(opening line)

'But he had an approved tolerance for others; sometimes wondering, almost with envy, at the high pressure of spirits involved in their misdeeds; and in any extremity inclined to help rather than to reprove."I incline to Cain's heresy," he used to say quaintly: "I let my brother go to the devil in his own way."(37)

'It is the mark of a modest man to accept his friendly circle ready-made from the hands of opportunity; and that was the lawyer's way. His friends were those of his own blood or those of whom he had known the longest; his affections, like ivy, were the growth of time, they implied no aptness in the object.'(38)

'He is not easy to describe. There is something wrong with his appearance; something displeasing, something down-right detestable. I never saw a man I so disliked, and yet I scarce know why. He must be deformed somewhere; he gives a strong feeling of deformity, although I couldn't specify the point. He's an extraordinary looking man, and yet I really can name nothing out of the way. No, sir, I can make no hand of it; I can't describe him. And it's not want of memory; for I declare I can see him this moment.'(43)

'The will was holograph... it provided not only that, in case of the decease of Henry Jekyll, M.D... all his possessions were to pass into the hands of his "friend and benefactor Edward Hyde," but that in case of Dr. Jekyll's "disappearance or unexplained absence for any period exceeding three calendar months," the said Edward Hyde should step into the said Henry Jekyll's shoes without further delay and free from any burthen or obligation, beyond the payment of a few small sums to the members of the doctor's household.' (45)

'The death of Sir Danvers was, to his way of thinking, more than paid for by the disappearance of Mr. Hyde. Now that the evil influence had been withdrawn, a new life began for Dr. Jekyll. He came out of his seclusion, renewed relations with his friends, became once more their familiar guest and entertainer; and whilst he had always been known for charities, he was no less distinguished for religion. He was busy, he was much in the open air, he did good; his face seemed to open and brighten, as if with an inward consciousness of service; and for more than two months, the doctor was at peace.'(71)

'On the 8th of January Utterson had dined at the doctor's with a small party; Lanyon had been there; and the face of the host had looked from one to other as in the old days when the trio were inseparable friends. On the 12th, and again on the 14th, the door was shut against the lawyer. "The doctor was confined to the house," Poole said, "and saw no one." On the 15th, he tried again, and was again refused; and having now been used for the last two months to see his friend almost daily, he found this return of solitude to weigh upon his spirits. The fifth night he had in Guest to dine with him, and the sixth he betook himself to Dr. Lanyon's.'(72)

'It was sometimes his way-- the master's, that is -- to write his orders on a sheet of paper and throw it on the stair. We've had nothing else this week back; nothing but papers, and a closed door, and the very meals left there to be smuggled in when nobody was looking. Well, sir, everyday, ay, and twice and thrice in the same day, there had been orders and complaints, and I have been sent flying to all the wholesale chemists in town. Every time I brought the stuff back, there would be another paper telling me to return it, because it was not pure, and another order to a different firm. This drug is wanted bitter bad, sir, whatever for.'(83)

'What he told me in the next hour, I cannot bring my mind to set on paper. I saw what I saw, I heard what I heard, and my soul sickened at it; and yet now when that sight has faded from my eyes, I ask myself if I believe it, and I cannot answer.'(102)

'It was thus rather the exacting nature of my aspirations than any particular degradation in my fault, that made me what I was, and with even a deeper trench than in the majority of men, severed in me those provinces of good and ill which divide and compound man's dual nature.'(103)

'It was on the moral side, and in my own person, that I learned to recognise the thorough and primitive duality of man; I saw that, of the two natures that contended in the field of my consciousness, even if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically both; and from an early date, even before the course of my scientific discoveries had begun to suggest most naked possibility of such a miracle, I had learned to dwell with pleasure, as a beloved daydream, on the thought of the separation of these daydreams, on the thought of the separation of these elements.'(104)
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First Signet Classic Printing, December 1978
124 pages
Book borrowed from the library
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Personal note: This edition has an awesome introduction by Vladimir Nabokov (Lolita). For a great review, check this one from The Books of My Life.

77. FRANKENSTEIN

Mary Shelley 1818

A timeless, relevant book, a symbolic reminder to us of the dangers of pursuing scientific obsessions no matter what. Robert Walton narrates in epistolary form his rescue of Victor Frankenstein as his ship and crew are stranded on ice on their way to explore the North Pole. While recuperating on the ship, Victor Frankenstein, despondent and remorseful reveals his horrific deed: his creation of a life who turned into a monstrous murderer whom he now wants to destroy. The novel also lends a unique voice to Frankenstein's monster as he seeks understanding for the confused existence he never asked for.

'You may easily perceive, Captain Walton that I have suffered great and unparalleled misfortunes.. I had determined, at one time, that the memory of these evils should die with me; but you have won me to alter my determination. You seek for knowledge and wisdom, as I once did; and I ardently hope that the gratification of your wishes may not be a serpent to sting you, as mine has been. I do not know that the relation of my disasters will be useful to you; yet, when I reflect that you are pursuing the same course, exposing yourself to the same dangers which have rendered me what I am, I imagine that you may deduce an apt moral from my tale; one that may direct you if you succeed in your undertaking, and console you in case of failure.'(25)

'I feel exquisite pleasure in dwelling on the recollections of childhood, before misfortune had tainted my mind, and changed its bright visions of extensive usefulness into gloomy and narrow reflections upon self. Besides, in drawing the picture of my early days, I also record those events which led, by insensible steps, to my after tale of misery: for when would I account to myself of the birth of that passion, which afterwards ruled my destiny, I find it arise, like a mountain river, from ignoble and almost forgotten sources; but, swelling as it proceeded, it became the torrent which, in its course, has swept away all my hopes and joys.'(34)

'Such were the professor's words-- rather let me say such the words of fate, enounced to destroy me. As he went on, I felt as if my soul were grappling with a palpable enemy; one by one the various keys were touched which formed the mechanism of my being: chord after chord was sounded, and soon my mind was filled with one thought, one conception, one purpose. So much has been done, exclaimed the soul of Frankenstein-- more, far more, will I achieve: treading in the steps already marked, I will pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers, and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation.'(42)

'Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least be my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge, and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow.'(47)

'A human being in perfection ought always to preserve a calm and peaceful mind, and never allow passion or a transitory desire to disturb his tranquility. I do not think that the pursuit of knowledge is an exception to this rule. If the study to which you apply yourself has a tendency to weaken your affections, and do destroy your taste for those simple pleasures in which no alloy can possibly mix, then that study is certainly unlawful, that is to say, not befitting the human mind.'(50)

'It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs.'(51)

'I beheld the wretch-- the miserable monster whom I have created. He held up the curtain of the bed; and his eyes, if eyes they may be called, were fixed on me. His jaws opened, and he muttered some inarticulate sounds, while a grin was stretched out, seemingly to detain me, but I escaped, and rushed downstairs.'(52)

'... but is it not a duty to the survivors, that we should refrain from augmenting their unhappiness by an appearance of immoderate grief? It is also a duty owed to yourself; for excessive sorrow prevents improvement or enjoyment, or even the discharge of daily usefulness, without which no man is fit for society.'(80)

'Remorse extinguished every hope, I had been the author of unalterable evils; and I lived in daily fear, lest the monster whom I had created should perpetuate some new wickedness.'(81)

'Yet you, my creator, detest and spurn me, they creature, to whom thou art bound by ties only dissoluble by the annihilation of one of us. You purpose to kill me. How dare you sport thus with life? Do your duty towards me, and I will do mine towards you and the rest of mankind. If you comply with my conditions, I will leave them and you at peace; but if you refuse, I will glut the maw of death, until it be satiated with the blood of your remaining friends.'(89)

'I was dependent on none and related to none. 'The path of my departure was free'; and there was none to lament my annihilation. My person was hideous and my stature gigantic. What did this mean? Who was I? What was I? Whence did I come? What was my destination? '(115)

'We may not part until you have promised to comply with my requisition. I am alone, and miserable; man will not associate with me; but one as deformed and horrible as myself would not deny herself to me. My companion must be of the same species, and have the same defects. This being you must create.'(128)
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a Barnes and Noble Classics edition, 2003
197 pages
Book owned
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Personal note: Highly recommended by Bibliophiliac and great book review by Kah Woei at The Books Of My Life.

43. the SPARROW

Mary Doria Russell 1996

An extraordinary science fiction with strong religious and philosophical undertones about extraterrestrial life in planet Rakhat. The voyagers are a group of friends: Emilio Sandoz, Anne, George, Jimmy and Sofia. Emilio Sandoz, a Jesuit priest and lone survivor of the mission recounts their compelling story in alternating present and flashback telling. It is a story of love and friendship, belief and faith.

"It was predictable, in hindsight. Everything about the history of the Society of Jesus bespoke deft and efficient action, exploration and research. During what the Europeans were pleased to call the Age of Discovery, Jesuit priests were never more than a year or two behind the men who made initial contact with previously unknown peoples..."

"Ruminating over the same problem as he walked back to his lightless room on the eastern side of the Rome Ring, John Candotti had his own theory about how things had gone wrong. The mission, he thought, probably failed because of a series of logical, reasonable, carefully constructed decisions, each of which seemed like a good idea at the time. Like most colossal disasters."

"Sometimes... I begin with songs. They provide a sort of skeleton grammar for me to flesh out. Songs of longing for future tense, songs of regret for past tense, songs of love for the present."

""Do you know what made me fall in love with you?" George asked suddenly. Anne shook her head, puzzled that he should ask her this now. "I heard you laugh, down the hall, just before I got to Spanish class that first day. I couldn't see you. I just heard this fabulous laugh, like a whole octave, top to bottom. And I had to hear it again.""

"At first, they simply listened to the fragment of music over and over, each time groaning as the signal fell off to static just as the music began to build to something wonderful. Then after the third hearing, Anne said, "Okay. What can we tell about them? They sing in groups, and there is a lead singer. So they have a social organization. Can we assume they breathe air because their music can be heard like this?""

"The discussion went on for some time, with George, Anne and Jimmy extrapolating, deducting and arguing. Emilio, thoughtful, went back to the music again, playing it through softly once more, but then he turned the playback off. Sofia alone had neither comment on the music nor any speculation about the singers..."

"Trained as linguist and a priest, Emilio had a hard time understanding the Einsteinian physics that predicted that the transit time elapsed on Earth would be around seventeeen years, while the effect of traveling near light speed would make it seem closer to six months for the crew onboard the asteroid."

"And now we have evidence that another sentient species exists nearby and that they sing. They sing, Anne... We have to find out about them. There is simply no alternative. We have to know them."

"Why is it that God gets all the credit for the good stuff, but it's the doctor's fault when shit happens? When the patient comes through, it's always 'Thank God," and when the patient dies, it's always blame the doctor."

"When he got back to the apartment, he found that the household numbers were somewhat reduced that evening. Askama had left to play with her friends, as she often did if Emilio was out of sight for a while. Manuzhai had gone visiting. She might not come back at all; equally likely, she might return with five or six guests who'd spend the night. Chaypas was away on some errand, for some unspecified length of time. People often disappeared like that, for hours or days or weeks. Time seemed unimportant to the Runa. There were no calendars or clocks."

"The Runa could be perceptive, but he did occasionally find some of them -- not dense really, but limited somehow. "The technological basis for the society is gathering." George was saying disgusted. "They collect food. and flowers, for crying out loud. Damned if I know what they do with them.""

"Emilio, everything I have learned about the mission leads me to believe that you went for the greater glory of God. You believed that you arrived at your destination by the grace of God. In the beginning, everything you did was for the love of God. I have the testimony of two of your superiors who believed sincerely that something far out of the ordinary happened to you on Rakhat, that you--..."

"There are times, he would tell the Reshtar, when we are in the midst of life -- moments of confrontation with birth or death, or moments of beauty when nature or love is fully revealed, or moments of terrible loneliness -- times when a holy and awesome awareness comes upon us. It may come as deep inner stillness or as a rush of overflowing emotion. It may seem to come from beyond us, without any provocation, or from within us, evoked by music or by a sleeping child. If we open our hearts at such moments, creation reveals itself to us in all its unity and fullness. and when we return from such a moment of awareness, our hearts long to find some way to capture it in words forever, so that we can remain faithful to its higher truth."

Personal Note: Read and was amazed: May 1, 2010 Amsterdam, Netherlands. Thanks to Bibliolatry

4. the TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE

Audrey Niffenegger 2003

A brilliant and exceptional book about Claire Abshire, an artist from Michigan  and a time-traveler's wife. Her husband is Henry de Tamble, a librarian from Chicago who is afflicted with a rare genetic disease of time traveling coined Chrono-displacement . She is six years old when she meets him, and through the years that he travels back in time, they fall in love and later marries. A truly remarkable and unique love story.

'It's hard being left behind. I wait for Henry, not knowing where he is, wondering if he's okay. It's hard to be the one who stays. I keep myself busy. Time goes faster that way.'

'When I am out there, in time, I am inverted, changed into a desperate version of myself. I become a thief, a vagrant, an animal who runs and hides. I startle old women and amaze children. I am a trick, an illusion of the highest order, so incredible that I am actually true.'

'I fear finding myself in a prison cell, an elevator full of people, the middle of a highway. I appear form nowhere, naked. How can I explain? I have never been able to carry anything with me. No clothes, no money, no ID.'

I hate to be where she is not, when she is not. And yet, I am always going, and she cannot follow.'

'I'm Claire Abshire. I knew you when I was a little girl...I'm at a loss because I am in love with a man who is standing before me with no memories of me at all. Everything is in the future for him.'(4)

''What is the Meadow?" I am practically hopping with excitement. I have never met anyone from my future before, much less a Botticelli who has encountered me 152 times.'

'I don't usually tell myself stuff ahead of time unless it's huge, life-threatening you know? I'm trying to live like a normal person. I don't even like having myself around, so I try not to drop in on myself unless there's no choice.'(21)

Where was I when I saw me?(27)

'Now for me, it's different. Because I am a time traveler, I jump around a lot from one time to another. So it's like if you started the tape and played it for a while but then you said Oh I want to hear that song again, so you played that song and then you went back to where you left off but you wound the tape too far ahead so you rewound it again but you still got it too far ahead. You see?'(45)

'All my life I have pretty much accepted Henry as no big deal; that is, although Henry is a secret and therefore automatically fascinating, Henry is also some kind of miracle and just recently it's started to dawn on me that most girls don't have a Henry or if they do the've all been pretty quiet about it.'(71)

'Well, technically speaking, I'm your husband. Since you haven't actually gotten married yet, I suppose we would have to say that you are my girlfriend.'(90)

'When Clare draws she looks as though the world has fallen away, leaving only her and the object of her scrutiny. This is why I love to be drawn by Clare: when she looks at me with that kind of attention, I feel that I am everything to her.'(104)

'One of the best and most painful things about time traveling has been the opportunity to see my mother alive.'(109)

'I realize that I have forgotten my present Henry in my joy at seeing my once and future Henry, and I am ashamed. I feel an almost maternal longing to go solace the strange boy who is becoming the man before me, the one who kisses me and leaves me with an admonition to be nice. As I walk up the stairs I see the Henry of my future fling himself into the midst of the slam dancers, and I move as in a dream to find the Henry who is my here and now.'(162)

'Henry sighs. "My whole life is one long deja vu."'(178)

'He has this idea that every piece of music should be treated with respect, even if it isn't something he likes much. I mean, he doesn't like Tchaikovsky, or Strauss, but he will play them very seriously. That's why he's great; he plays everything as though he's in love with it.'(201)

"But don't you think," I persist,"that it's better to be extremely happy for a short while, even if you lose it, than to be just okay for your whole life?"(239)

'The compelling thing about making art-or making anything, I suppose-is the moment when the vaporous, insubstantial idea becomes a solid there, a thing, a substance in a world of substances.'(284)

'When I was a child I looked forward to seeing Henry. Every visit was an event. Now every absence is a nonevent, a subtraction, an adventure I will hear about when my adventurer materializes at my feet, bleeding or whistling, smiling or shaking. Now I am afraid when he is gone.'(285)

"Our love has been the thread through the labyrinth, the net under the high-wire walker, the only real thing in this strange life of mine that I could ever trust"

First Harvest edition 2004
540 pages
Book owned