Logan's Run

by William F. Nolan

She stared at her palm, because her future and her past were written there. All of her days and her nights and her fears and her hopes.

I enjoy this line and it's reference to palm reading.

Actually there were few DS men who possessed the skill and drive of this friendless, loveless man with the mantis-thin body and the black eyes of a hunting cat. Precise, deadly, ruthless. Only the Thinker knew how many runners Francis had Gunned.

Enjoy the description.

The man’s face was a mosaic of blood and bone-ends; his mouth moved convulsively. A word. The runner was repeating a word.

Great description.

Logan picked up the silver punchkey from the bed. Runners say please; runners say help; runners say mercy; runners say don’t. Doyle had said Sanctuary. And Logan held a key which might lead to it, to a goal never proved to exist, to a place which could not exist. Not in this world. Not for a runner in 2116. But what if Sanctuary were a reality? A place where runners were safe from the Gun. What if he, Logan 3, could find it and destroy it in the last twenty-four hours of his life? His existence would be justified; he’d be a world hero; his life would end in glory. It would be a risk worth taking. And the key to the quest lay in his hand. Do it.

I like this scene. It's his last day and he's so committed that he's willing to run to destroy Sanctuary. He doesn't even let his buddy know?

It was as precise as a diamond cutter and as unemotional as a vending slot.

Good description

The questing fawn lowered its sun-warmed head to lap softly at clear water in a natural stone basin. It did not see the two shadows which hushed over evergreen country. It did not see the two gold shapes which came out of the sun.

That's goofy.

Here was a constellation of winking fireflies stretching to infinity. Here was an immense electronic silence. In the endless, glowing dark was Tangier and London, Macao and Capri and Beirut, El Quederef and Château-Chinon and Wounded Knee. From these caverns leapt the motive force of a dispensary in Chemnitz, a glasshouse in Shropshire, a callbox in Billings, Montana….This vast mountain brain sent its signals along Earth’s nervous system to the distant places, the villages, towns and cities, bringing order out of disorder, calmness out of confusion. They beheld the world.

Great description.