Books, my wonderful ball and chain.
Cord: "Do you need transportation? Tools? Stuff?"
"Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs," I said. "We have a protractor."
[Conversation between Erasmas and his sister Cord when he first step into the Saecular world (Anathem, 320)]
The whole description of going into space is also a riot xD
Lots of interesting theories in Anathem, like how for every world, there is a more perfect parallel dimension upstream that contains all the Ideals... like the Spiritus Mundi. Turns out that when we are capable of time/faster-than-light travel, we will be able to swim upstream and see for ourselves.
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"Women have no sense of discretion. They cannot kep domestic squabbles to themselves. She will tell all the awful things I said, and they'll cluck and tell her it's what she must expect from a husband, husbands demand that their wives make all the sacrifices, you poor thing, poor poor Deet. Well, Leyel didn't begrudge her this barnyard of sympathetic hens. It was part of human nature, he knew, for women to form a perpetual conspiracy against the men in their lives.
"How ironic, he thought. Men have no such solace. Men do not bind themselves so easily into communities. A man is always aware of the possibility of betrayal, of conflicting loyalties. Therefore when a man
does commit himself truly, it is a rare and sacred bond, not to be cheapened by discussing it with others.
"She commanded his very heart, becasue it was impossible for him not to desire anything that would bring her happiness.
"But she, no, she could not do that for him. To him, their marriage was their very soul. To Deet, their marriage was just a friendship with sex. Her soul belonged as much to those other women as to him. By dividing her loyalties, she fragmented them; none were strong enough to sway her deepest desires. Thus he discovered what all faithful men eventually discover - that no human relationship is ever anything but tentative. There is not such thing as an unbreakable bond between people. Like the particles in the nucleus of the atom. They are bound to be the strongest forces in the universe, and yet they can be shattered, they can break.
"Nothing can last. Nothing is, finally, what it once seemed to be. Anyone who thinks he has the perfect marriage, a perfect friendship, a perfect trust of any kind, he only believes this because the stress that will break it has not yet come. He might die with the illusion of happiness, but all he has proven is that sometimes death comes before betrayal. If you live long enough, betrayal will inevitably come."
["The Originist", paraphrased, from "Maps in a Mirror"]
Orson Scott Card & Isaac Asimov in one story? I'll try not to melt in my panties. (lol jk jk) I had forgotten about "The Originist", OSCard playing in Asimov's universe. What a s3xy combination~
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Dinner time!
Current Mood: 
contemplative 
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