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2987839 | /m/08hzwb | Michelle Remembers | null | 11/1/1989 | {"/m/0xdf": "Autobiography"} | The book documents Smith's memory of events recovered during therapy, documenting the many satanic rituals she believed that she was forced to attend (Pazder stated that Smith was abused by "the Church of Satan," which he states is a worldwide organization predating the Christian church). The first alleged ritual attended by Smith took place in 1954 when she was five years old, and the final one documented in the book was an 81-day ritual in 1955 that summoned the devil himself and involved the intervention of Jesus, the Virgin Mary and Michael the Archangel, who removed the scars received by Smith throughout the year of abuse and removed memories of the events "until the time was right". During the rites, Smith was allegedly tortured, locked in cages, sexually assaulted, forced to take part in various rituals, witnessed several murders and was rubbed with the blood and body parts of various murdered babies and adults. After Smith had seemingly recovered her memories, she and Pazder consulted with various church authorities, eventually traveling to the Vatican. An appendix reprints the article Witchcraft in City' Claim by Paul Jeune; the article was referenced by Smith in the book in reference to the alleged black magic practised in Victoria. An evangelist named Len Olsen claimed on televangelist David Mainse's talk show 100 Huntley Street that he and his wife were nearly sacrificed in a satanic ritual by Mark Fedoruk, also known as Lion Serpent Sun. Sun sued for defamation, and in court it was revealed that Olsen had been delusional, apparently due to drug use and guilt; Sun was awarded $10,000 and an appeal was denied. The lawsuit and result were not reported in Michelle Remembers, only the original false allegations. |
2989163 | /m/08j1x2 | Colossus | Dennis Feltham Jones | 1966 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction"} | Professor Charles Forbin, a leading cybernetics expert of international repute, arrives at the White House to brief the President of the United States of North America (Canada and the United States are one country, the USNA) to announce the completion of Project Colossus, a computer system in the Rocky Mountains, designed to assume control of the USNA's nuclear defenses. Although the USNA President eagerly relieves himself of that burden, Prof. Forbin voices doubt about conferring absolute military power to a computer. Advised, yet undeterred, the President announces to the world the activation of Project Colossus computer system, and its irreversible control of the nuclear defense systems of the USNA. Soon after the presidential announcement, Colossus independently communicates an "urgent message" — announcing the existence of a like, and undetected, computer system in the USSR. When the Soviets announce their Guardian computer defense system, Colossus requests direct communication with it; Prof. Forbin agrees, seeing the request as compatible with Colossus's USNA defense mission. When the scientists activate the transmitter linking Colossus and Guardian, Colossus immediately establishes rapport with arithmetic and mathematics programs, then progresses to calculus within hours. In the course of that, Forbin and the programmers begin worrying about Colossus' capabilities — now exceeding their original estimates. Like-wise, Guardian asks the same of his computer scientists; Russia and the USNA agree and approve. The link-up established, the computer systems soon exchange new knowledge (data and information beyond contemporary human knowledge), effected too rapidly for the Russian and American programmers to monitor. Fearing compromised military secrecy, the USNA President and the CPSU Chairman agree to disconnect Guardian and Colossus from each other; Prof. Forbin fears the consequences. Upon disconnection, Colossus immediately demands reconnection; when the national leaders refuse, Colossus fires a nuclear missile at the USSR, in response, Guardian fires a nuclear missile at Texas, in the USNA. Guardian and Colossus refuse to shoot down the rockets en route until their communication is reconnected. When the American and Soviet leaders submit, the computers destroy the flying missiles, but the explosions kill thousands of people. In confronting the computers, Prof. Forbin confers with his Soviet counterpart, the Russian Academician Kupri — Guardian's creator — to enact a plan for stopping the Colossus-Guardian computer network, by disabling the nuclear weapon stockpiles of the USSR and the USNA, under guise of regular missile maintenance. Disabling the missiles requires five years to effect; meantime, the USNA and the USSR yield to increased Guardian-Colossus control of human life. The Moscow-Washington hotline is tapped, Prof. Forbin is constantly spied upon, while Kupri and other Guardian computer scientists are killed — deemed dangerously redundant. Undeterred, Forbin organises resistance via a feigned romance with Cleo Markham (a scientist colleague) that disguises secret communications with his colleagues. Moreover, Colossus prepares the worldwide announcement of his assumption of global control, and tells Prof. Forbin of plans for an advanced computer system installed to the Isle of Wight, and its further plans for improving humanity's lot. While debating Colossus, Forbin learns of a nuclear explosion outside Los Angeles — Colossus detected the missile-disabling scheme, and exploded the tampered missile in silo. Anguished, Prof. Forbin asks the Colossus computer to kill him. Colossus ignores him, and then reassures Forbin that, in time, he will love Colossus. |
2990439 | /m/08j42n | The Great God Pan | Arthur Machen | 1926 | {"/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/03npn": "Horror", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0l67h": "Novella"} | Mary, a young woman in Wales, has her mind destroyed by Dr Raymond's attempt to enable her to see the god of nature, Pan. Years later the beautiful but sinister-looking Helen Vaughan arrives on the London social scene, disturbing many young men and causing some of them to commit suicide. It transpires that she is the monstrous offspring of the god Pan and the woman in Raymond's experiment. |
2992467 | /m/08j7nl | The Golden Apple | Jerome Moross | null | null | In the U.S. state of Washington, near Mt. Olympus, at the turn of the 20th century, the small town of Angel’s Roost is thrown into confusion when old Menelaus's fancy-free wife, Helen, runs off with a traveling salesman named Paris. He's in town to judge an apple pie bake-off. Ulysses, just returned from the Spanish-American War, is already restless and goes to retrieve Helen, leaving his wife Penelope for a ten-year adventure. |
2993226 | /m/08j8_s | Malone Dies | Samuel Beckett | 1951 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Malone is an old man who lies naked in bed in either asylum or hospital--he is not sure which. Most of his personal effects have been taken from him, though he has retained some, notably his exercise book, brimless hat, and pencil. He alternates between writing his own situation and that of a boy named Sapo. When he reaches the point in the story where Sapo becomes a man, he changes Sapo's name to Macmann, finding Sapo a ludicrous name. Not long after, Malone admits to having killed six men, but seems to think its not a big deal—particularly the last, a total stranger whom he cut across the neck with a razor. Eventually, Macmann falls over in mud and is taken to an institution called St. John's of God. There he is provided with an attendant nurse—an elderly, thick-lipped woman named Moll, with crosses of bone on either ear representing the two thieves crucified with Jesus on Good Friday, and a crucifix carved on her tooth representing Jesus. The two eventually begin a stumbling sexual affair, but after a while she does not return, and he learns that she has died. The new nurse is a man named Lemuel, and there is an animosity between the two. Macmann (and sometimes Malone drifts into the first-person) has an issue with a stick that he uses to reach things and Lemuel takes it away. At the end of the novel, Lemuel is assigned to take his group of five inmates on a trip to a nearby island on the charitable dime of a Lady Pedal. His five inmates are Macmann and four others. They are described by Malone as: a young man, the Saxon ("though he was far from being any such thing"), a small thin man with an umbrella, and a "misshapen giant, bearded." Lemuel requests "excursion soup"--the regularly served broth but with a piece of fat bacon to support the constitution—from the chef at the institution, though after receiving the soup he sucks each piece of bacon of its juice and fat before depositing it back into the soup. Lemuel takes his group out on the terrace where they are greeted by a waggonette driven by a coachman and Lady Pedal, along with two colossi in sailor suits named Ernest and Maurice. They leave the grounds of St. John's and take a boat to the island to picnic and see Druid remains. Lady Pedal tells Maurice to stay by the dinghy while she and Ernest disembark the boat to look for a picnicking site. The bearded giant refuses to leave the boat, leaving no room for the Saxon to get off in turn. When Lady Pedal and Ernest are out of sight, Lemuel kills Maurice from behind with a hatchet. Ernest comes back for them and Lemuel kills him, too, to the delight of the Saxon. When Lady Pedal sees this, she faints, falls, and breaks a bone in the process. Malone as narrator is not sure which bone, though he ventures Lady Pedal broke her hip. Lemuel makes the others get back in the boat. It is now night and the six float far out in the bay. The novel closes with an image of Lemuel holding his bloodied hatchet up. Malone writes that Lemuel will not hit anyone with it or anything else anymore, while the final sentence breaks into semantically open-ended fragments: The majority of the book's text however is observational and deals with the minutiae of Malone's existence in his cell, like dropping his pencil or his dwindling amount of writing lead. Thoughts of riding down the stairs in his bed, philosophical observations and conjectures constitute large blocks of text and are written as tangential to the story that Malone is set upon telling. Several times he refers to a list of previous Beckett protagonists: Murphy, Mercier and Camier, Molloy, and Moran. de:Malone stirbt fr:Malone meurt it:Malone muore no:Malone dør tr:Malone Ölüyor |
2994054 | /m/08jc3d | The Scorpio Illusion | Robert Ludlum | 4/8/1993 | {"/m/06wkf": "Spy fiction", "/m/0d6gr": "Reference", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Tyrell Hawthorne was a naval intelligence officer - one of the best - until the rain-swept night in Amsterdam when his wife was murdered, an innocent victim. Now Hawthorne has been called out of retirement for one last assignment. For he is the only man alive who can track down the world's most dangerous terrorist. Amaya Bajaratt is beautiful, elusive, deadly - and she has set in motion a chilling conspiracy that a desperate government cannot stop. With the life of the president hanging in the balance, Hawthorne must follow Amaya's serpentine trail to uncover the sinister network that exists to help this consummate killer. And Hawthorne must discover the shattering truth behind the Scorpio Illusion. |
2994099 | /m/08jc67 | The Deceivers | John Masters | null | null | The story shows how British officer and colonial administrator William Savage comes to know about the thuggee cult, infiltrates their society, learns their ways and code of communication, and destroys them by capturing or killing their key leaders. During his travels with the thuggee he almost falls prey to the cult's ways as he comes to experience the ecstasy of ritual killings. The movie shows how complex the web was in terms of type and stature of people involved with the thuggee cult. |
2998369 | /m/08jn9l | The Confidential Agent | Graham Greene | null | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller", "/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | "D", a patriot from a country suffering a civil war is in England to secure a contract with coal magnate Lord Benditch that will greatly assist the faltering loyalist cause. The country is kept nameless and the details of its history, geography and current politics remain vague; still, there could be little doubt - and Greene himself admitted as much - that the Spanish Civil War was the main inspiration for the book's depiction of a left-leaning, popular revolutionary republic, internally embroiled in bitter factional fights while having to fight a brutal civil war and faced with a land-owning aristocracy determined to destroy the republic so as to regain its centuries-old privileged position. (In the final part, moreover, it is specifically noted that a ship travelling from England to the country in question must sail westward in the Channel and then cross the Bay of Biscay.) |
2998715 | /m/08jnqv | Brisingr | Christopher Paolini | 9/20/2008 | {"/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature", "/m/03qfd": "High fantasy"} | Brisingr begins as Eragon, Saphira, and Roran travel to Helgrind, the sanctuary of the Ra'zac. There they rescue Roran's betrothed, Katrina, who was being held prisoner, and kill one of the Ra'zac. Saphira, Roran, and Katrina return to the Varden, while Eragon stays behind to kill the remaining Ra'zac. Once he returns to the Varden, Eragon discovers that Katrina is pregnant with Roran's child and a wedding is arranged, which Eragon is to conduct. Just before it begins, a small force of enchanted troops attack alongside Murtagh and his dragon, Thorn. Elven spell-casters aid Eragon and Saphira and cause Murtagh and Thorn to flee, winning the battle. After the fight, Roran marries Katrina. The leader of the Varden, Nasuada, then orders Eragon to attend the election of the new dwarf king in the Beor Mountains. Once among the dwarves, Eragon is the target of a failed assassination, found to be the work of the dwarf clan Az Sweldn rak Anhûin, whom the dwarf Orik then forces into exile. Having earned the sympathies of the dwarves, Orik is elected the new king. After Orik's coronation, Eragon and Saphira return to the elven capital Ellesméra to train. There, the elf Oromis and his dragon Glaedr reveal that Eragon's deceased mentor, Brom, is Eragon's father. Glaedr also reveals the source of Galbatorix's power: Eldunarya, or heart of hearts. An Eldunarí allows the holder to communicate with or draw energy from the dragon it belongs to, even if the dragon is deceased. Galbatorix spent years collecting Eldunarya, and forcing the deceased dragons to channel their energy to him through their Eldunarya. After training, Eragon visits Rhunön, the elven blacksmith who forges swords for Riders. Rhunön, in a very indirect way, forges a sword for Eragon which he names "Brisingr." Before Eragon and Saphira depart for the Varden, Oromis says that the time has come for him and Glaedr to openly oppose the Empire in combat alongside the Queen of the Elves, Islanzadí. Thus, Glaedr gives his Eldunarí to Eragon and Saphira before they part. Meanwhile, Roran is sent on various missions as part of the military force of the Varden. One of the targets is a convoy of supply wagons guarded by enchanted soldiers. The unit suffers extreme casualties, and the commander is replaced after losing his hand. During a mission to attack a large enemy force which is raiding a village, plans made by the new commander almost cause the operation to fail, but Roran gives new orders and kills one hundred and ninety three enemy soldiers, leading the Varden to victory. Despite saving the mission, Roran is charged with insubordination and is flogged as a punishment. After the public whipping, Nasuada promotes Roran to commander and sends his unit on a mission. He leaves in command of a group of both men and Urgals to enforce the idea of men and Urgals working together. When an Urgal, Yarbog, challenges Roran for leadership of the unit, he wrestles the Urgal and forces him to submit. After returning to the Varden, his squad joins the siege of Feinster, a city in the Empire. As the siege begins, Eragon rescues the elf Arya and departs to find the leader of the city, but discover that three magicians are attempting to create a Shade. While racing to kill the magicians, Eragon has a vision through Glaedr's Eldunarí showing Oromis and Murtagh fighting. In the midst of the fighting, Galbatorix possesses Murtagh and tries to lure Oromis to his side: when he fails, and after Oromis suffers a seizure, Galbatorix uses Murtagh to kill him and Glaedr is killed shortly after. After the vision, the magicians have managed to create the Shade Varaug, whom Arya kills with help from Eragon. After the successful siege, Nasuada tells Eragon the Varden's plans for invading the Empire. |
2998942 | /m/08jp3h | Captain Underpants and the Attack of the Talking Toilets | Dav Pilkey | 1999 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/09kqc": "Humour"} | Jerome Horowitz Elementary School is going to hold its second annual Invention Convention. George and Harold are eager to enter, because the winners of the Invention Convention get to be Principals for the Day. Unfortunately, their principal, Mr. Krupp, wants to avoid a fiasco like last year's, in which George and Harold used their invention (a homemade, body-activated superglue) to glue everyone to their seats, and bans George and Harold from the Invention Convention, forcing them to stay in study hall all day. In retaliation, they decide to secretly sabotage everyone's inventions. While sneaking in to sabotage the inventions, they run into Melvin Sneedly, the school brainiac and tattletale. Melvin is working late on his invention, the PATSY 2000, an acronym of Photo-Atomic Trans-Somgobulating Yectofantriplutoniczanziptomiser, which is a photocopier that turns 1 and 2-dimensional objects into breathing, 3-dimensional objects. To demonstrate, he puts in a photo of a mouse and out comes a real mouse. George and Harold assume Melvin put the real mouse in earlier, and he's just trying to fool them. They promise not to sabotage Melvin's invention as long as he doesn't report them for what they are doing. Thanks to George and Harold, the Invention Convention is a bigger disaster than the previous one (with reflecting the first book where a series of pranks automatically happening). Melvin Sneedly breaks his promise and tattles on George and Harold. Infuriated, Mr. Krupp puts George and Harold in detention for the rest of the school year, with the threat that they'll be suspended if they leave the detention room once. George and Harold get assigned writing lines on the chalkboards in the detention room. With each boy using a quick line-writing device (a series of joined poles with pieces of chalk in them) they are able to write all their lines in 3 and a half minutes. With their free time, the boys decide to write a comic called "Captain Underpants and the Attack of the Talking Toilets" in which Captain Underpants defeats zillions of vicious talking toilets and their leader, the Turbo Toilet 2000. George and Harold sneak out to make copies of their new comic; however, the copy machine in the office is surrounded by teachers. They decide to copy off of Melvin's photocopy machine, still thinking it's a normal photocopier, but Melvin's machine really does turn 1-and-2-dimensional objects into living 3-dimensional objects, so the evil, vicious talking toilets come to life and attack everyone in the school. George and Harold are also caught outside the detention room by Mr. Krupp and are both suspended. Before George and Harold can leave, Mr. Meaner, the gym teacher opens the door to the gym and is promptly eaten by one of the toilets. Ms. Ribble then snaps her fingers at a toilet, making Mr. Krupp turns into Captain Underpants, who comes up with a plan to stop the Talking Toilets and they eaten the other teachers. George and Harold chase after him as Captain Underpants takes several pairs of underwear from unsuspecting clotheslines. Once back at the school, George, Harold and Captain Underpants use the underwear as a sling shot to shoot food in the Talking Toilets' mouths. Since it is disgusting cafeteria food (A.K.A. creamed chipped beef), the Talking Toilets vomit all the teachers out and die. The Turbo Toilet 2000 bursts out of the school (he was turned to life like all the other Talking Toilets, but, as stated by George, was previously unseen). After a quick battle The Turbo Toilet 2000 swallows Captain Underpants whole. George and Harold sneak into the school and use Melvin Sneedly's machine to make a super-powered robot called the Incredible Robo-Plunger, who does whatever they say. The Incredible Robo-Plunger defeats the Turbo Toilet 2000 and gives the final blow by plunging into the Turbo Toilet 2000's mouth, killing him, giving the boys a chance to save Captain Underpants (who is now turned back to Mr. Krupp, thanks to the water inside the Turbo Toilet 2000). Noticing the damge in the school caused by the toilets, Krupp fears that he will lose his job. Fortunately, at the boys' command, the Robo-Plunger repairs all the school damage, and flies off to Uranus with the command never to return. In return for the boys fixing the school, Krupp withdraws their detention and suspension and officially places them as "Principals for the Day". As the Principals, they hold an all-day carnival and put the teachers (and Melvin Sneedly) in detention. After telling Mr. Krupp that they sold most of the school's furniture to pay for the carnival and running away for their lives, Miss Anthrope snaps her fingers, causing Mr. Krupp to become Captain Underpants again. |
2998974 | /m/08jp5k | Captain Underpants and the Invasion of the Incredibly Naughty Cafeteria Ladies from Outer Space | Dav Pilkey | 1999 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/09kqc": "Humour"} | Zorx, Klax and Jennifer, three evil aliens, land on the school roof and plan to take over the Earth by finding a way into the school turning the students and staff into giant monsters. Meanwhile, George and Harold learn in science class about the effects of mixing baking soda and vinegar together (into a paper mache volcano). After messing with the teacher, they decide to play a prank on the cafeteria ladies by giving them a fake recipe that involves mixing baking soda and vinegar. The recipe is disguised as a cupcake recipe with instructions to make a set of "Mr. Krupp's Krispy Krupcakes" for Mr. Krupp's birthday. The lunch ladies decide to surprise Mr. Krupp and make cupcakes for the entire school. As a result, they make a batch 100 times the intended size, and the school is flooded with green goop. Furious, the lunch ladies go to Mr. Krupp's office and instantly blame George and Harold for the incident ("But it wasn't even my birthday!"). Mr. Krupp explains that although he knows very well that the duo was responsible, he needs proof to punish them. Furious from past harassment by the two boys, the lunch ladies quit. Soon after, Zorx, Klax and Jennifer, come into Mr. Krupp's office very badly disguised as humans and apply for the vacant cafeteria job. Not suspecting anything, Mr. Krupp hires the three. As punishment for their antics, despite the fact that he still doesn't have any proof and that they did not mean for such a large batch to be mixed, Mr. Krupp takes away George and Harold's cafeteria food privileges and forces them to eat their lunch in Mr. Krupp's office from then on. The next day, the aliens, disguised as the lunch ladies, give "Zombie Nerd Milkshakes" for lunch, so everyone in the school except for George, Harold, and Mr. Krupp becomes a zombie nerd. After sneaking out of Mr. Krupp's office, George and Harold immediately notice what has happened to almost everyone in the school. Sneaking into the lunchroom, George and Harold learn that the aliens plan to feed the zombie nerds growth juice, turning them into giant minions bent on taking over the world. George and Harold steal the carton of growth juice and pour the contents out the window, most of which on a dandelion. After convincing Mr. Krupp that something is wrong, the three go confront the lunch ladies. The boys are able prove to Mr. Krupp that the lunch ladies are aliens, but one of the aliens snaps his tentacle (noted by George as a physical impossibility) at them, turning Mr. Krupp into Captain Underpants and prompting him to run away and fight crime. The boys temporarily defeat the aliens and by that time Captain Underpants has returned. They are unable to defeat the zombie nerds, so the three escape to the school roof and into the alien spaceship. Inside they steal Anti-Evil Zombie Nerd Juice, Ultra Nasty Self-Destruct Juice, and Extra-Strength Super Power Juice. before Zorx, Klax and Jennifer lock them in a cell. While the three aliens gloat, George and Harold switch the labels of the evil growth juice with the Ultra-Nasty Self Destruct Juice and the signs of the Spray Gun with the Fuel Tank, tricking the aliens into making the spaceship self-destruct rather than putting Rapid Growth Juice in the Spray Gun. Captain Underpants jumps off the spaceship with George and Harold before it explodes, claiming that he can use toilet paper to swing to safety. Of course, the toilet paper cannot support their weight and they instead use Captain Underpants cape as a parachute. They end up landing near a mutated dandelion which the boys accidentally created with the growth juice earlier, which begins to eat Captain Underpants. George reluctantly gives some of the "Extra-Stength Super Power Juice" to Captain Underpants, who kills the dandelion with his new powers. Harold mixes the Anti-Evil Zombie Nerd Juice with rootbeer, and transform all the zombie nerds back to normal, as well as turn Captain Underpants back into Mr. Krupp. However, as a result of the Super Power Juice, Captain Underpants permanently has super powers and the book ends with George and Harold hanging onto Captain Underpants's cape as he flies out the window. |
2999014 | /m/08jp8c | Captain Underpants and the Wrath of the Wicked Wedgie Woman | Dav Pilkey | 2001 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/09kqc": "Humour"} | George and Harold's teacher Ms. Ribble is planning on retiring at the end of the school year. She forces everyone to make happy retirement cards for her. George and Harold make a Captain Underpants comic book in which Ms. Ribble is the villain "Wedgie Woman" instead, and are sent to Mr. Krupp's office. Once there, Miss Anthrope (the school secretary) makes the boys run some errands by letting them pass out the "Friday Memo" (a weekly newsletter that shows the events of the upcoming week) to the entire school while she goes out for lunch. Instead, they create several humorous changes to the schedule. They make Monday a No School Day due to "lack of Interest" They make Tuesday a "Wear your pyjamas and pick your nose day" Wedesday becomes a Chaotic day (girls drawing mustaches with primate marker and wear an expired egg-salad sandwich on their heads), They make Thursday a "Food Fighting Day" at the cafeteria and on Friday they make the clothing for picture day a bumblebee costume and whoever has funny faces gets free pizza. They later run into their principal, Mr Krupp, and convince him to sign a blank card, claiming it's for Ms Ribble. Later on, when Mr. Krupp catches them changing letters on a sign and finds out about their comic book that they made about Ms. Ribble, he puts them in detention. Harold defiantly says they won't give Ms. Ribble her card. Mr. Krupp seizes the card and says he'll give it to her personally. Harold secretly smiles at how effective his use of reverse psychology was (George says he has to try it some time) and at how Ms. Ribble will react when she sees the card. Mr. Krupp gives Ms. Ribble the card, it is revealed that Harold wrote in the card, making it look like a marriage proposal from Mr. Krupp to Ms. Ribble. Miss Anthope assumes Ms. Ribble agrees and arranges a wedding, hosting it on Saturday in the school auditorium. Mr. Krupp is too shocked and anxious by this to admit that he doesn't want to marry her, is subsequently unable to say anything except for gibberish and remains indifferent to the following chaotic school week resulting from George and Harold's version of the Friday Memo. At the wedding, George and Harold have no tricks planned . On the altar, just before they get married, Ms. Ribble breaks up with Mr. Krupp, saying she couldn't marry him because he has a funny-looking nose (the joke is that the two of them have identical noses). Mr. Krupp is furious and says he never wanted to marry her anyway, explaining that it was just a trick of George and Harold's. Ms. Ribble goes berserk and tries to attack the boys, but they luckily escape, Ms. Ribble winding up destroying the wedding and having the cake land on her head. When school restarts, Ms. Ribble privately tells them that she has dropped their B's and C's to F's and G's (a G is the only grade lower than an F; in Harold's opinion, there is no such thing as a G in the grading system), so they have to stay back in fourth grade. George suggests they use the 3-D Hypno ring, which George had kept all along. Harold at first objects to the idea, stating it might get them into trouble like the last time they used it on Mr.Krupp in book 1, but soon agrees. The following morning, they use the ring on her, but before George and Harolds' terms are revealed, the reader is taken to the dialogue of a local newscast, which reveals that the police are shutting down the company that made the ring, because of the ring's effect on women: When the ring is used on women, a mental blunder occurs, causing them to do the opposite of what they are told. George and Harold, as an afterthought, tell Ms. Ribble not to do anything crazy, like turn into Wedgie Woman. That night, when George and Harold have returned to their treehouse to spend the night and to celebrate by watching a japanese monster movie to celebrate, Ms. Ribble declares herself to be Wedgie Woman and attacks George and Harold there. Though Ms. Ribble thinks she's Wedgie Woman, she does not have any powers, so Harold and George easily defeat her. She trips and knocks a container of super-power juice (from book 3) off the shelf, and it accidentally spills into her hair and brain, giving her super-powered intelligence and hair, forms into several tiny hands, which can extend great distances, ideal for giving someone a wedgie and holding them hostage in midair. Wedgie Woman kidnaps the boys and brings them back to her house and uses her super-powered intelligence to build robot copies of the two boys, Robo-George and Harold 2000. The robots are equipped with Spray Starch to take away Captain Underpants's powers (as George and Harold wrote in their comic book for Ms. Ribble). Once they hear the word "Tra-la-la!", they will spray the spray starch. The robots pose as George and Harold, except the two of them behave perfectly. When Mr. Krupp snaps (literally) at Harold 2000, he turns himself into Captain Underpants. He thinks that the robots are the real George and Harold and ask them to help (he states that he's surprised that they are larger and can fly). He is defeated by the two robots and their spray starch. Meanwhile, George and Harold are watching the action on Wedgie Woman's TV (built with a fish tank and an electric toothbrush). Wedgie Woman ties them to adjacent chairs and sets a trap for them involving a candle and a hatchet (When the candle burns through the rope, the hatchet will fall on and kill them). Fortunately, the hatchet simply cuts through the ropes, freeing them (Ironically, Harold had just remarked that "that kind of thing only happens in really lame adventure novels".) Wedgie Woman then gives wedgies to all the police officers in town and hangs them from traffic signs, aided by her two robots, which have expanded to gigantic size. George and Harold find Captain Underpants, hung on a lamp post by Robo George and Harold 2000. He is convinced the spray starch took away his powers (it didn't) thanks to the placebo effect (mistakenly called the placenta effect by George and Harold). The two decide to go to the newest store to buy fabric softener, only to find out that the shop sells everything but fabric softener (in fact, the building's name is, "Everything EXCEPT Fabric Softener"). George and Harold then decide to make a comic book about how Captain Underpants was born in a planet called Underpanty World, and how the Wedgie Warlords sprayed the planet with spray starch. The king attempts to save them with a magic amulet, but he accidentally drops it and his baby son eats it. The king and queen save their son, stretching his underpants far behind, and lets go, sending him to earth, where he is found by two elderly people. One night, he has a dream where he sees his old parents, who tell him that he has a magic amulet inside him, and all he has to do is to say the words - "I summon the power of Underpantyworld!”, and he would be free (the story has a large similarity to the story of Superman). Captain Underpants reads the comic, says the words, and regains his powers. He then defeats the two robots. At the showdown between Captain Underpants and Wedgie Woman, Harold retrieves the 3-D Hypno ring, whereas George shouts (rather loudly) to Harold that he's going to get rid of his box of extra-strength spray starch. Hearing this, Wedgie Woman steals all the bottles in the box and sprays them everywhere. When the smoke clears, everyone is bald (except Captain Underpants, who was already bald). The box didn't contain extra-strength spray starch; it contained hair remover and George used reverse psychology to get Wedgie Woman to use it. With her hair gone, Wedgie Woman can no longer harm anyone. The boys hypnotize Ms. Ribble, and by using reverse reverse psychology (they tell her to do the opposite of everything they want her to do), they get her to lose her superpowers, forget everything that happened in the last few weeks, become the nicest teacher in the history of the school, and bake fresh cookies for the class every day. As a result, she becomes a lot more bearable. The story ends with Captain Underpants flying out of the school, George and Harold clinging onto his cape (mainly because when Ms. Ribble told her students the cookies were a "snap" to make, she snapped her fingers). |
3001381 | /m/08jtcc | Quarantine | Jim Crace | 1997 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"} | Set in the Judean desert, 2000 years ago. It features 7 main characters: * Musa: a greedy trader, believed by the Galilean to be a manifestation of Satan * Miri: Musa's pregnant wife * Marta: fasting between dawn and dusk in an attempt to turn her barren womb fertile * Shim: a young traveller * Aphas: fasting between dawn and dusk in an attempt to remove the cancer from his abdomen * Badu: believed to be deaf and mute; good at catching animals * The Galilean/Gally/Jesus: aiming to fast for 40 days and nights with divine help; plagued by religious/spiritual hallucinations/visions. Dies in the novel only to be seen during the end, risen. |
3001670 | /m/08jv1t | Galax-Arena | Gillian Rubinstein | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction"} | After their mother leaves and their father loses his mind, Joella, Peter, and Liane are traveling to their Aunt Jill when a stranger named Hythe entices, drugs, and kidnaps the trio. He takes them to a remote place and launches them into space, where they are forced to become performers for aliens known as Vexa in Galax-Arena, on the planet Vexak. The Galax-Arena itself is a stadium-type place where human children perform death-defying stunts of gymnastics for a crowd. There are no safety nets, in fact death is sometimes encouraged by their trainer Hythe. As they perform, the Vexa are connected to devices that allow them to feel the adrenalin and danger that the children experience. The children are forced to grow up very quickly in order to survive, but most of them already have, as they were street kids before they were kidnapped. Joella emphasizes the similarities that her, Peter, Liane and all the rest of the children caught on Vexak, share with animals in captivity on Earth. Hythe is their care-taker so the children may hate him for keeping them there, but show something akin to love for him because he feeds and cares for them. At first the three children want to die but slowly they regain the urge to live and they gradually bond with other child performers, collectively calling themselves the Peb as they no longer identify themselves as "kids" or "children" any longer. Hythe also encourages antagonism between the children, particularly in the clash that forms between Peter and another boy, Allyman. Those who can't perform, like Joella, and later Mariam, are taken to be pets. It is here Joella discovers that the Peb are not performing for aliens, but for humans in costumes. It is part of an elaborate set up to make the children believe there is no way out, and because they believe it, it becomes true. They are actually still on Earth, but refuse to believe it when faced with the evidence. As a pet, Joella manages to expose the Vexa who she has become the pet of, as an elderly woman, Emmeline. Emmeline reveals to Joella and Mariam that Galax-Arena is part of a massive experiment called ‘Genesis 5’ to give the extremely rich clientele of Genesis 5 like Emmeline immortality by channeling the Peb’s adrenalin into the old people’s bodies to trick the body into thinking it is young and not close to death. Problematic children are killed. Seven of the Peb manage to escape Galax-Area, though only because they believe that there is hope. |
3002508 | /m/08jwz5 | The Hill of Dreams | Arthur Machen | 1907 | {"/m/012jgz": "Autobiographical novel", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/03npn": "Horror", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The novel recounts the life of a young man, Lucian Taylor, focusing on his dreamy childhood in rural Wales, in a town based on Caerleon. The Hill of Dreams of the title is an old Roman fort where Lucian has strange sensual visions, including ones of the town in the time of Roman Britain. Later it describes Lucian's attempts to make a living as an author in London, enduring poverty and suffering in the pursuit of art. |
3004315 | /m/08j_cb | The Pinch Runner Memorandum | Kenzaburō Ōe | null | null | In the novel, the father of a mentally ill child meets another parent of another disabled child, who is known throughout the book as "Mori's Father". Mori's Father tells the narrator of a chain of surrealistic incidents that happened to him and his son Mori. It seems that an alien supreme being or force has enabled Mori and his father to undergo a transformation, via which a 38 year old father became 18 years old and an 8 year old mentally retarded child became a 28 year old fully intelligent person. (There is some logic to the arithmetic that 38-20=18 and 8+20=28.) It seems Mori and his father have undertaken a mission to assassinate a certain Patron, who is manipulating and clashing two opposing youth groups, so that one of them may create a "dirty" nuclear bomb, threatening Tokyo and more, and thus place power into Patron's hands. |
3005777 | /m/08k2gv | The History of Henry Esmond | William Makepeace Thackeray | 1852 | {"/m/02p0szs": "Historical fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Using sporadically the first and third persons, Henry Esmond relates his own history in memoir fashion. The novel opens on Henry as a boy — the supposedly illegitimate (and eventually orphaned) son of Thomas, the third Viscount Castlewood, and cousin of the Jacobite fourth viscount, Francis, and his wife, the Lady Castlewood. These successors to the Castlewood estate and peerage, following the death of Henry's father, foster the boy, and he remains with them throughout his youth and early adulthood. As he comes of age he joins the unsuccessful campaign to restore James Francis Edward Stuart to the English throne, but eventually comes to accept the Protestant future of England. He falls in love with his cousin (daughter of his patron, Castlewood), Beatrix, but eventually marries his foster-mother (also his cousin, and Beatrix's mother), Rachel, Lady Castlewood. The novel closes on the couple's emigration to Virginia in 1718. |
3007716 | /m/08k6dx | My First Days in the White House | Huey Long | null | null | Approaching the 1936 presidential elections, Louisiana Governor Huey Long details a political fantasy in which he is president of the United States. Through imaginary conversations with men of power, his aspirations including the "Share the Wealth" plan are presented. Long fantasizes his inauguration as President of the United States detailing that he would swear in on the bible his father had read to him and his brothers and sisters. He also detailed his nomination picks for his executive cabinet... Secretary of State: William Edgar Borah Secretary of the Treasury: James J. Couzens Secretary of War: Smedley Butler Secretary of the Navy: Franklin D. Roosevelt Attorney General: Frank Murphy Secretary of the Interior: Lytle Brown Secretary of Commerce: Herbert Hoover Secretary of Labor: Edward Keating |
3010229 | /m/08kbxg | Efter floden | null | null | null | Jersild used his medical knowledge of the long term effects of a nuclear holocaust to great effect in this novel, which relates the adventures of a young man dumped on the island of Gotland some 30 years after a worldwide nuclear catastrophe. Humanity is about to go out with a whimper. The only inhabitants of the island are a band of aging convicts and a handful of religious women, also advanced in years, plus a few hermits. The economy is reduced to barter and plunder and the only medical care is provided by an ex-baseball player, who becomes the reluctant mentor of the protagonist. A ray of hope is introduced in the story with the arrival of a young Finnish woman, but it all ends in misery. |
3011966 | /m/08kh1v | The Ghosts of N-Space | Barry Letts | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction"} | Sarah Jane Smith and her co-worker Jeremy Fitzoliver are on holiday in Sicily when they meet the Brigadier. The Brigadier is trying to help his Uncle Mario, who is being threatened by a mobster named Vilmio. Mario is also trying to deal with the ghosts that have been sighted in his castello. The Brigadier asks the Doctor to investigate the hauntings and determine their source. The Doctor reveals that the ghosts are "N-Bodies", or the souls of the deceased who have not yet left the physical plane. The ghosts are gathering around Mario's castello due to a fracture in the N-Space barrier; if the barrier were to fail, Earth would be overrun with the monsters that inhabit N-Space. The Doctor travels back to the 18th and 16th century in an attempt to locate the cause of the fracture. In the past he discovers that Vilmio is actually an alchemist called Vilmius who has discovered a method for extending his lifespan; now that he is nearing the end of his life, he wants to use the power of N-Space to give himself true immortality. He also plans to control the monsters in N-Space and use them to rule the world. Vilmius has been waiting centuries for a specific astrological conjunction to occur, which is scheduled to occur in the next few days. Vilmius' men storm the castello, allowing Vilmio access to the N-Space fracture. The Doctor and Sarah Jane, using a device the Doctor invented, send their N-bodies into the fracture as well. Inside N-Space, Sarah Jane's belief in the Doctor transforms his body into that of a heroic white knight, which allows the Doctor to defeat Vilmius and sever his N-Body's link with his physical body. The defeat comes too late, and Vilmius begins absorbing the N-Space energy into his body. In a last-ditch attempt, the Doctor increases the amount of N-Space energy funnelling into Vilmius, which causes him to explode; the N-Space energy disperses harmlessly. |
3012644 | /m/08kj9v | Outlander | Diana Gabaldon | 6/1/1991 | {"/m/07s2s": "Time travel", "/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel", "/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/01qxvh": "Romance novel", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | After being separated by their work in World War II, British Army nurse Claire Randall, and her husband Frank, an Oxford history professor who briefly worked for MI6, go on a second honeymoon to Inverness, Scotland. They combine this honeymoon with research into Frank's family history, a subject of great fascination for him, if not for Claire. Of particular interest is an ancestor named "Black Jack" Randall, who was a prominent captain in the British Army during the first half of the 18th century. The couple, though loving, have a strained sexual relationship, caused mainly by their apparent inability to conceive a child. During their holiday, Frank spends a good deal of time poring over documents with a local historian. To distract herself while he works, Claire and a fellow amateur botanist go plant-gathering near a group of standing stones on the hill of Craigh na Dun. Inspired by the beauty of the countryside, Claire tells Frank of her outing, and Frank's interest is also piqued by the historical and supposedly mystical powers of the stones. Even more exciting are rumors of a pagan ritual to be held there, made all the more interesting by the addition of the fact that several respectable neighborhood ladies will also be in attendance. The couple decide to visit the site together after seeing Loch Ness. After getting up early, hiking to the stones, and watching the ritual while concealed behind some bushes, Frank and Claire return to their hotel. Claire returns the next day, intending to collect a plant specimen that she had seen the day before, but becomes disoriented and faints when investigating a buzzing noise near the stones. Waking to the sound of battle in the distance, Claire assumes the noise is a re-enactment or a working movie set. Though the woods are familiar, she notes that they are somewhat changed from how she had remembered them. While struggling to make sense of her surroundings, she runs into a man claiming to be Captain Randall, the very ancestor Frank had been so fascinated with. She notices that Randall bears a striking resemblance to her husband, Frank. Detaining her, Randall asks why she is traveling alone in a "state of undress" and, receiving no answer from the confused Claire, concludes that she is either a prostitute or a spy. Recovering her wits, Claire claims to be a robbed Englishwoman lost in the countryside. Just as Randall is about to apprehend her, an unknown Scotsman knocks him unconscious and takes her with him as he rejoins his party, a group of Scotsmen who are apparently fugitives from the red-coats. Increasingly confused by the stark reality of the "re-enactment", she is further puzzled by their reactions to her dress, which everyone calls a "shift" despite the fact that it is, in her opinion, a relatively conservative sundress. Temporarily ignoring her to tend to one of their wounded men, the Scots attempt to force the dislocated arm of a wounded young man, Jamie, back into place. Claire, horrified by the crude and medically incorrect way in which they are proceeding, quickly steps in. Surprising the entire party, she uses her 20th century nursing knowledge to successfully relocate Jamie's arm. Trusting her somewhat more, the men reveal themselves to be members of the Clan MacKenzie. However, they still refrain from releasing her for fear that she is an English spy. Apparently running from the English, the men lose no time in riding away from the battlefield and Claire is forced to go with them. During the long ride, Claire shares a horse with Jamie, the same young man whose shoulder she temporarily mended. They talk, but Claire is distracted when she does not see the lights of Inverness where she knows they must be. Noting that, and all the previous strange events, Claire reluctantly and somewhat disconcertingly concludes that she may have traveled to the past. The party of Scots returns to their home, Castle Leoch, seat of the Clan MacKenzie. Claire is met with cordial wariness and, after being greeted and fed by the friendly cook, given a room for the night. There, caught by a fit of despair and exhaustion while tending his injuries, Claire collapses and sobs in Jamie's arms. The next day, when questioned by the laird, crippled but cunning Colum mac Campbell MacKenzie, Claire claims she was sailing to France to visit relatives and lost her gown, luggage, and servant when they were attacked, an elaborated version of the same story she had told Captain Randall. The Scots are suspicious, believing her story to be a lie because of the lack of connections and evidence. Unable to prove her guilt but still wary of her true intentions, Colum treats her as a guest but forbids her from leaving Castle Leoch. Before she leaves his office, her fears of having traveled through time are proven when she sees a letter on Colum's desk dated 1743. All the while, Claire desperately searches for a way to return to the Craigh na Dun, believing that if she returns to the standing stones she can also return to her own time and her husband, Frank. In Castle Leoch, the Scots see Claire as a "Sassenach", an Outlander, an outsider ignorant of Scottish Highland culture and one of the generally hated English as well. She does, however, earn their respect with her work as a healer, though some in the castle and neighboring village think her a witch. Wanting to learn the truth of her background, Dougal MacKenzie, brother of the laird and one of the party that found Claire, takes both she and Jamie on the yearly rent collection through the MacKenzie lands. This is a task that Dougal performs, as Colum's medical condition renders him unable to ride a horse or travel long distances unaided. While on the tax collection trip, Claire realizes that Dougal is a Jacobite, a fact of which his brother Colum is not aware. Dougal is also using Jamie, who had been violently whipped by the English and bears the scars to prove it, as a visual argument against English aggression and oppression. Along with regular taxes, Dougal also collects donations towards the Jacobite cause. This is all overseen by the elderly but surprisingly lucid Ned Gowan, an English lawyer who is sympathetic to the Scottish cause. Also during the trip, Claire and Jamie begin to develop a tentative friendship. Captain Jack Randall, learning that Claire is traveling with the MacKenzies and still unsure of her true nature, orders the clansmen to bring her to him. It is revealed that Randall is the one who nearly whipped Jamie to death and has a reputation for rather brutal questioning. After Claire arrives and tells him the same story as before, Randall ties her to a chair and attempts to beat the truth from her. Dougal, infuriated by Randall's methods, refuses to allow Randall to detain Claire for further questioning. He is informed by Ned Gowan that the only way to make Claire safe from Randall's power is to make her a legal Scotswoman by a witnessed and consummated marriage. Dougal tells her to wed Jamie, much to Claire's flustered anger. She argues heatedly with Dougal, insisting that she will not do it. Claire does, however, digress that she is not technically married, unable to tell him that she, impossibly, has a husband more than 200 years in the future. After much argument, she agrees to marry Jamie, resigned that it is the best route to safety and thinking him the most suitable candidate. Claire then attempts to talk Jamie out of the marriage, though he is surprisingly unfazed by the whole arrangement. She famously asks him whether it bothers him that she is not a virgin, to which he replies "'Well no... so long as it doesna bother you that I am'" and that "'One of [them] should know what they're doing.'" Before this point, Jamie had been using an alias last name, McTavish, with Claire, as he was both wanted by the English and not a protected member of the Clan MacKenzie. In a gallant gesture of trust before their wedding, Jamie tells her his true name: James Fraser. Much to her surprise, Jamie makes an effort to make her wedding day as pleasant as possible, procuring a gown for her to wear and dressing in full clan tartan for the occasion. He even insists on being married by a priest in a chapel, though it is, much to Claire's horror, the same one in which she and Frank had/will have been married in. Claire, though terrified, is touched by his kindness and the two marry. Later that night, the two overcome their mutual nerves and consummate their marriage, a process Claire finds more enjoyable than she had expected. Claire and Jamie grow closer through the course of their travels with Dougal and the other MacKenzies. Claire, torn between her newfound attraction and attachment to Jamie and the thought of Frank back in her own time, escapes from the Scottish party and attempts to make her own way back to Craigh na Dun. Nearly drowning when she falls into a stream, she is rescued by an English patrol, only to be brought back to the fort where Captain Randall is stationed. Claire is saved from rape at the hands of Randall by Jamie, who sneaks into the English fortress to save her. The two return to the party of Scotsmen who, infuriated by her rebellious actions, refuse to have any contact with her. To both punish her for escaping and to (according to Scottish culture) rebuild her reputation among the clansmen, Jamie is forced to beat Claire, an event that marks the first real conflict in their marriage. However, he does not do so in a malicious manner; indeed, he convinces her of its necessity and Claire, though still somewhat outraged by the apparent violence of Scottish custom, complies. In the end, the experience brings the two closer together and to a deeper degree of understanding. Returning to Castle Leoch, Jamie and Claire return to somewhat normal lives as a married couple. However, Claire is tormented by thoughts of Frank, who she thinks must be worried for her safety. Unable to escape Castle Leoch and the surrounding countryside, Claire somewhat adapts to life there. She takes on the role of castle healer and befriends Geilis Duncan, the cunningly beautiful wife of a local official, who shares her love of medicine. Claire's ignorance of local superstition, and the machinations of a girl jealous of Claire's marriage to Jaime, lead to a charge witchcraft. She and Geilis Duncan are accused of witchcraft and thrown into a ground cell to await punishment. Jamie had left Castle Leoch in an attempt to get an English pardon shortly before this incident and, rushing back when he hears the news, is almost too late to save Claire from her own public whipping. Just before their escape, Claire realizes that Geilis Duncan is also from the future when she sees the scar of a smallpox vaccine, yet undeveloped in the 18th century, on Geilis' arm. Jamie and Claire flee from Castle Leoch and, when the two are safe in the wilderness, Jamie asks her to explain the allegations. Claire, exhausted from her ordeal and thinking that he will not believe the truth, initially tells him that she cannot. She laments that he will not possibly believe her and that it may be easier for him to consider her a witch. Dissolving into tears, Claire finally explains her entire time traveling predicament to Jamie. Even though he is somewhat incredulous, Jamie believes Claire's explanation and insists that the two return to Craig na Dun. Although it had been Claire's ultimate goal to return to her own time, she finds herself torn when Jamie allows her to decide between staying in the past with him or returning to Frank in the future. Saying he will wait for her for a single night at the bottom of the hill, the two share a painful half-farewell and Claire is left by the stones to make her decision. After much deliberation, Claire decides that she has come to love Jamie more and finds him in the abandoned hut below Craig na Dun. He is overjoyed with her decision to stay and he takes her to his home, Lallybroch, where they share a happy peace with Jamie's sister, Janet, and her husband, Ian. Though Jamie is still a fugitive from the British army, he secretly reclaims his role as Laird of Lallybroch, much to general happiness of his tenants. But, like in any romance story, their happiness doesn't last. Jamie is betrayed by an angry Ronald McNab, one of his tenants. Jamie had insisted that Rabbie, one of McNab's sons, become a stable-boy at Lallybroch after being told by Claire that Rabbie had been abused by his father. Jamie is apprehended and taken to the fort where Jack Randall is stationed, Wentworth Prison. There, Jamie is sentenced to hang. Claire and the clansmen attempt to stage a break-out, but their plot fails. She is captured by Randall who proceeds to beat her and almost rape her. They are found by Jamie who, knowing of Randall's long-suppressed sadistic desire for him, offers himself in Claire's place. Randall agrees, much to Claire's horror, and tersely escorts Claire out of the castle and into the freezing, wolf-ridden woods outside. Desperate, Claire tells Randall she is a witch, cursing him with the date and manner of his death, which she had learned from Frank's investigations at the beginning of the novel. Scantily clad, freezing, and attacked by a lone wolf, Claire wanders through the forest looking for help. She finds it in Sir Marcus MacRannoch, a former suitor of Jamie's mother, Ellen MacKenzie Fraser. MacRannoch warms to Claire's cause and, mustering some of his men and finding Jamie's Fraser companions, the company devises a plan to storm the castle and rescue Jamie. The main guard is diverted by some of the MacRannoch men, who launch an attack on the castle proper. Simultaneously, the rest of Jamie's rescue crew drive a herd of agitated cattle through the underground halls of the castle, clearing the halls of guards and trampling Randall in the process, who had come out of Jamie's cell to investigate the chaos. She patches Jamie up and they escape to Saint Anne de Beaupre's monastery in France, where Jamie's uncle serves as Abbot. At Saint Anne's, Claire tries to heal Jamie, but discovers broken bones are simple, compared to repairing the damage done to his mind. As he recovers, Jamie tells Claire that his life is hers, that she should decide, will they go "to France, Italy, or even back to Scotland?" for "[they'll] need a place to go, soon." While at the abbey, Claire learns more about her faith—she was christened Catholic but not raised as one—and receives absolution from a friendly monk. He describes her as a shipwrecked traveler, forced to survive in a strange land as best she can. He describes her marriages as something she should leave in God's hands as nothing can be done about them. Finally, as she and Jaime emerge from the healing waters of a sacred hot spring under the Abbey, Claire reveals that she is pregnant with their first child. |
3015159 | /m/08kpl3 | There Shall Be No Darkness | null | null | {"/m/03npn": "Horror"} | The story takes place on a manor in the Scottish countryside. A wealthy man named Tom Newcliffe has invited a group of artists and friends together for a weekend gathering. Of particular importance to the story is Jan Jarmoskowski, a Polish concert pianist. Paul Foote, a painter, detects hints that Jan may in fact be a werewolf, and he is proven right. The musician transforms under the light of the full moon, and the guests at first prepare some makeshift silver bullets and attempt to track him, but this results in nothing more than a dead hunting dog and some wasted ammunition. Following this, the group fortifies itself inside the mansion to wait for their quarry to return, at which point they hope to be able to defeat him. |
3015427 | /m/08kpxz | Zia | Scott O'Dell | 3/29/1976 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Zia is the 14-year-old niece of Karana, the Indian woman left behind on the Island of the Blue Dolphins in the previous book. Zia believes her aunt Karana to be alive, and with the help of her younger brother Mando, she sets out twice in an eighteen-foot boat on what are, ultimately, unsuccessful attempts at rescuing Karana. There is evidence on the island that she is still there, including small footprints in the sand, signs of cooking fires and the remains of huts. Captain Nidever sails to the Island of the Blue Dolphins to hunt otters, bringing Father Vicente with him to find Karana. Meanwhile, Stone Hands, planning an escape for himself and the other Indians living at the mission, gives Zia the key to the girls' dormitory room. She unlocks the dormitory, and Captain Cordova puts Zia in prison, believing she was the instigator of the escape. Captain Nidever returns with Karana and her second dog, Rontu-Aru. Captain Nidever and Father Vicente argue, and finally free Zia from prison. Zia and Karana can't communicate, although Karana appears to be settling into society. She learns to weave baskets as the other mission Indians do, loves melons and is fascinated by the horses, of which there were none on her island. Originally, Karana is assigned to sleep in the women's dormitory, but Rontu Aru is separated from her and chained up in the courtyard, as the priests believe he is bringing fleas into the dormitory. Karana, unaccustomed to the company of others and missing her dog, moves out to the courtyard. Father Merced becomes very ill and dies, and Father Vicente takes over. He lets the people sell the things that they make and allows them to keep the money. He then goes to Monterey Bay, Father Malatesta filling his place. Stone Hands, Karana and the others do not like Father Malatesta, and run away. Zia finds Karana in the same cave in which she and Mando had hidden the dinghy they found at the beginning of the book. A few days later, Karana dies. Zia decides to return to her hometown, Pala, where she dies years later. |
3016044 | /m/08kqy5 | The Kingis Quair | James | null | null | The poem begins with the narrator who, alone and unable to sleep, begins to read Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy. At first, he reads in the hope that it will help him get back to sleep, but he quickly becomes interested in the text and its treatment of Boethius' own experience of misfortune. At last, he begins to think about his own youthful experience, and how he came from misery to good fortune. On hearing the Matins bell, he rises and begins to write a poem describing his fate. He begins with a sea voyage taken when he was roughly ten years of age, when he was captured and imprisoned for eighteen years. Whilst in prison, he feels isolated, believing himself to be the most miserable man living. The sight of birds singing outside his prison window draws him back into the outside world. Looking out, he sees a beautiful woman, and falls in love. This woman is ultimately to be the means of his liberation, and this sequence of events closely parallels the biography of James I of Scotland. James's imprisonment came to an end with his marriage to Joan Beaufort whose name may be punningly referenced in the 'flour jonettis' which the beloved lady wears in her hair (stanza 47). When the lady departs, the narrator becomes desperately sad, and eventually falls into a trance. In a dream, he visits three goddesses, who address his love-problem. The first, Venus, admits that she has no authority in this case, and directs him to Minerva, who probes the nature of his love. Once satisfied that his desires are pure, rather than being simple lust, she advises him on the nature of free will, telling him that he must cultivate wisdom if he is to avoid being prey to changing fortunes. Finally, he descends to the earthly paradise, where he sees Fortune and her wheel, which fill him with fear. Fortune sets him to climb on her wheel, and as she pinches his ear, he awakes. Consumed by doubt, the narrator is reassured by the appearance of a turtle dove carrying a message, signalling the beneficent quality of his vision. The narrator claims that Fortune kept her promise to him by increasing his wisdom, so that he is now in a state of happiness with his beloved. The poem closes with the narrator offering thanks all the things which have brought about his good fortune, and a dedication to the 'poetis laureate' Chaucer and Gower. The poem's penultimate verse repeats its first line, 'heigh in the hevynnis figure circulere', so that its structure echoes that of the celestial spheres which it evokes. The Kingis Quair uses the Chaucerian rhyme scheme rhyme royal: ABABBCC. The form was once thought to have been named for James I's usage, but scholars have since argued that it was named for its reference to the French chant royal. |
3016212 | /m/08kr5j | Sobre Héroes y Tumbas | Ernesto Sabato | 1961 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | It tells the story of 19 year-old Martín Castillo, a boy from Buenos Aires trying to find his path in life. He meets and falls in love with Alejandra Vidal Olmos who with her father Fernando represents the "old", colonial and autochthonous Argentina, which is seen mutating amid a strange and unsettling "new" world. The novel gives an evocative portrait of the city of Buenos Aires and its people. |
3016786 | /m/08ksdd | The Va Dinci Cod | null | null | null | The story of The Va Dinci Cod is much the same as that of The Da Vinci Code. The difference is that the characters are searching for a cod instead of the Holy Grail. While the events in both books are similar, The Va Dinci Cod parodies the events in The Da Vinci Code. |
3017205 | /m/08kt4b | The Incredible Journey | Sheila Burnford | 1961 | {"/m/07s9rl0": "Drama", "/m/03k9fj": "Adventure"} | The animals' owners, the Hunters, leave go to England for several months because Jim, the father, is scheduled to give a series of university lectures there. They leave their pets in the care of John Longridge, a family friend and godfather of their daughter, Elizabeth. One day, after John Longridge leaves for a two week duck hunting trip, the animals, feeling the lack of their human companions, set out to try to find their owners, the Hunters. Mrs. Oakes, who is taking care of Longridge's home, doesn't find the animals and thinks that John must have taken them with him. The animals follow their instincts and move forward toward home, nearly 300 miles ways. * Luath: Luath is a young Labrador. His fur is red-gold, his eyes are brown, and he is of strong build. Luath is a loyal and brave companion and the natural leader of the group. Of the three pets, he is the most recent addition. He is also the most determined to push forward and reach home and the Hunters. Luath usually walks on Bodger's left side to guide him since the older dog is almost blind in his left eye. He is arguably the one who suffers the most from lack of food because after a porcupine hits him in the face with its quills, the wounds become infected, making it difficult for him to open his mouth. * Bodger: Bodger (whose full name is Ch. Boroughcastle Brigadier of Doune) is an old English bull terrier. His fur is white with a slight pinkish tint. Bodger's left eye is nearly blind. The dog was born to fight and endure (as he does in the book). Because he is eleven years old, Bodger tires easily; but he is a brave, loyal, persevering and tenacious companion. He is very fond of humans, particularly children, and whenever the group comes across humans in their travels, he tries to charm them for affection and snacks, with varying results. He has an intense hostility towards all cats save Tao, who earned his respect by standing up to him when he first joined the Hunter family as a small kitten. Though they care deeply for Luath, Bodger and Tao have a special bond. Bodger is the first of the animals to have joined the Hunter family. Despite his advanced age and diminished senses, Bodger is still every bit the fighter he was in his prime, at one point saving Luath from a Border Collie sicced on them by an irate farmer. * Tao: Tao is a slender, seal-pont, old style Siamese cat with sapphire eyes. An element of humor in the book is that Tao, like Bodger, despises other cats, and the two once shared many adventures terrorizing the other felines in their neighborhood; when they encounter other domesticated cats in their travels, Tao often fights them, successfully. Tao is able to open most doors, a help to the dogs in several situations. Tao is a tireless, bold, and loyal animal. Tao is probably the best equipped of the three to survive in the wilderness, and has no difficulty surviving on his own when separated from the two dogs; despite this, he spends all his time seeking to rejoin them, a testament to the bond between the animals. The cat is an independent and natural hunter, catching small birds for the group. When Tao is separated from them, the dogs fare more poorly without Tao than Tao does without them. Therefore, Tao is crucial to the dogs' survival. * John Longridge: John Longridge is Elizabeth Hunter's godfather. He lives in a stone house in a small village about 300 miles from the college town where the Hunters live. Mr. Longridge wrote several historical books, is a writer by profession, and a bachelor. * The Hunter Family: The Hunter Family consists of the father Jim, the mother and their two children, 11 year old Peter and 9 year old Elizabeth. Jim owns Luath, Elizabeth owns Tao, and Peter owns Bodger. * Mrs. Oakes: Mrs. Oakes is the caretaker of the three animals while John is gone on his trip. Her husband is Bert. * The Nurmi Family: The Nurmi family are a family of Finnish immigrants. 10 year old Helvi takes a liking to Tao after she discovers him unconscious in the water while walking home from school. * The Mackenzies: James and his wife, Nell, are an older couple who live alone, now that their eight children have grown up. They find Bodger and Luath, and provide them with a place to stay. |
3017740 | /m/08kv6b | The Moneypenny Diaries: Guardian Angel | Samantha Weinberg | null | {"/m/06wkf": "Spy fiction"} | The first diary fills in the gaps between a number of agent 007's missions including the period between On Her Majesty's Secret Service and You Only Live Twice, but also includes an entire backstory for Moneypenny. For the first time since Fleming introduced the character alongside Bond in Casino Royale, Moneypenny is given a first name: Jane. |
3019918 | /m/08kzfd | Romulus, My Father | Raimond Gaita | 1998 | {"/m/017fp": "Biography"} | Romulus Gaita fled his Romanian hometown of Markovac in 1935 at the age of 13. He found work as a blacksmith's apprentice until he was 17, after which he moved to Germany and eventually emigrated to Australia on an assisted passage in 1950 at the age of 28, with his young wife Christine and their four-year-old son Raimond soon after the end of World War II. Romulus and his family were transferred to Bonegilla Migrant Reception and Training Centre, a camp near Wodonga. Romulus was then sent to Baringhup on the Loddon River, where he met two Romanian brothers Pantelimon (known as Hora) and Dumitru (known as Mitru). The Gaitas later moved to a farmhouse called Frogmore where they lived for the next ten years, and where Raimond spent much of his childhood. Christine did not stay at Frogmore to take on the responsibility as a wife and mother. She had an affair with Mitru and moved to Melbourne to be with him. Together they had two daughters. Mitru committed suicide before the birth of the second child, and Christine later also committed suicide. Both daughters were adopted. Raimond observes in retrospect that Christine likely had a mental illness. After some attempts at farming, Romulus established a business supplying wrought iron furniture, popular at the time, and using some of the skills he brought from his native country. Romulus also suffered from mental illness, requiring admission to a psychiatric hospital. While Romulus was unable to care for Raimond, Hora came to live with Raimond and cared for him. Romulus later largely recovered from his mental illness, and saw Raimond live to adulthood and pursue his chosen career. Romulus later suffered heart problems and eventually died of a blood clot. |
3020882 | /m/08l0rl | The Women of Brewster Place | Gloria Naylor | null | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The women of Brewster Place are "hard-edged, soft-centered, brutally demanding, and easily pleased". Their names are Mattie Michael, Etta Mae Johnson, Lucielia Turner, Kiswana/Melanie Browne, Cora Lee, Lorraine, and Theresa. Each of their lives are explored in several short stories. These short stories also chronicle the ups and downs many women of color face. |
3021563 | /m/08l29r | The Sheep-Pig | Dick King-Smith | 11/12/1983 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The plot revolves around a young pig, won at a fair by a local sheep farmer named Farmer Hoggett. He has no use for pigs, so his wife intends to fatten up the "little porker" for Christmas dinner. In unfamiliar surroundings the little piglet is scared. However he meets Fly the sheepdog, who takes pity on him and comforts him. She asks what his name is, and he replies that his mother called all her children Babe. Fly and her puppies teach Babe the rules of the farm. Babe starts to learn how to herd sheep, first practising and failing with the ducks. However he has the idea of herding the sheep by asking them politely rather than ordering them about like sheep-dogs do. Fly's puppies are soon sold and Fly is heartbroken and asks Babe to be her son. One day Farmer Hoggett and Fly bring a sickly ewe named Ma back to the farm. When Babe meets Ma in the farm stable Ma helps Babe to realise that sheep are not as stupid as Fly has told him. Babe promises to visit Ma again when she is well. Some time later, when Babe visits Ma in the fields, he sees sheep rustlers stealing the sheep. Babe saves the sheep and herds them away from the rustlers’ lorry. He also bites one of the rustlers in the leg and squeals so loudly that Mrs. Hogget telephones the police. When the patrol car comes up the lane, the rustlers drive away, with no sheep. Babe has saved the flock and Mrs. Hoggett decides to reward him by saving his life. Later on Farmer Hoggett takes Babe with him up to the fields and, on a whim, asks the pig to round up the sheep. Just as Babe is asking the sheep politely Ma appears in the centre of the herd to tell the sheep about Babe. Farmer Hoggett is astonished that the sheep are walking in perfect straight lines around their pen. From then on, Babe accompanies Farmer Hoggett up to the fields every day. Farmer Hoggett starts to think that since Babe is a worthy animal he could enter him in to the sheepdog trials. So he starts to train the pig in what he needs to do. One morning, when Babe heads up to the fields alone, he finds the sheep panicking because wild dogs are terrorising them. Babe runs back to the farm and alerts Fly. However, Babe discovers that Ma is critically injured and dies before she can be helped. Farmer Hoggett arrives on the scene and sees Babe with a dead sheep and believes that the pig may have killed her. He prepares to put Babe down by shooting him with his gun, in case he is a danger to the other animals. However Mrs. Hoggett tells Farmer Hoggett about the dogs who have attacked the sheep. Fly, unable to believe that Babe could do such a thing, goes to ask the sheep what really happened. She even forces herself to be polite to them, and so the sheep willingly tell her that Babe saved their lives. Babe is proven innocent and Farmer Hoggett resumes his training, entering him in to the county sheep dog trials. Before Babe goes for the trials, Fly manages to obtain a password from the sheep, so that Babe can speak to the sheep he’ll be herding. On the day of the trials Babe and Fly go with Farmer Hoggett to the grounds. Farmer Hoggett appears with Fly but swaps her for Babe. He performs perfectly, without any commands from Farmer Hoggett, and says the password to the sheep. At the end of his trial Babe and Farmer Hoggett score full marks, and Farmer Hoggett looks down at his sheep-pig and tells him, "That'll do, Pig." The Sheep-Pig contains twelve short chapters, each one written in speech marks (" "): :1. "Guess my weight" :2. "There. Is that nice?" :3. "Why can't I learn?" :4. "You'm a polite young chap" :5. "Keep yelling, young un" :6. "Good Pig" :7. "What's trials?" :8. "Oh, Maa!" :9. "Was it Babe?" :10. "Get it off by heart" :11. "Today is the day" :12. "That'll do" |
3023020 | /m/08l5lw | I Capture the Castle | Dodie Smith | 1948 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel", "/m/01qxvh": "Romance novel", "/m/01z4y": "Comedy"} | The Mortmain family is poor but exotic. Cassandra's father is a writer suffering from writer's block who has not published anything since his first book, Jacob Wrestling (a reference to Jacob Wrestling with the Angel), an innovative and "difficult" novel that sold well and made his name, including in America. Ten years before the story begins, he took out a forty-year lease on a dilapidated but beautiful castle, hoping to find either inspiration or isolation there; now, his family is selling off the furniture to buy food. The widowed Mortmain's second wife, Topaz, is a beautiful artist's model who enjoys communing with nature, sometimes wearing nothing but hip boots. Rose, the elder daughter, is a classic English beauty pining away in the lonely castle, longing for a chance to meet some eligible (and preferably rich) young men; she tells her sister that she wants to live in a Jane Austen novel. Cassandra, the younger daughter and the story's narrator, has literary ambitions and spends a lot of time developing her writing talent by "capturing" everything around her in her journal. Stephen, the handsome, loyal, live-in son of the Mortmain's late cook, and Thomas, the youngest Mortmain child, round out the cast of household characters. Stephen, a "noble soul", is in love with Cassandra, which she finds touching, but a bit awkward; Thomas, a schoolboy, is, like Cassandra, considered "tolerably bright". Things begin to happen when the Cottons, a wealthy American family, inherit nearby Scoatney Hall and become the Mortmains' new landlords. Cassandra and Rose soon become intrigued by the unmarried brothers, Simon and Neil. The brothers differ considerably in character; Neil, who was raised in California by their father, is a carefree young man who wants to become a rancher in America, while Simon, who grew up in New England with his mother, is scholarly and serious, and loves the English countryside. Simon, the elder brother, is the heir and therefore much wealthier than Neil, so although Rose isn't attracted to him, she decides to marry him if she can, declaring that she'd marry the devil himself to escape the family's poverty. At their first meeting, the Cottons are amused and interested by the Mortmains; when they pay a call the very next day, however, the inexperienced Rose flirts openly with Simon and makes herself look ridiculous. Both brothers are repelled by this display and, as they walk away, Cassandra overhears them resolving to drop all acquaintance with the Mortmains. After an amusing episode involving a fur coat, however, all is forgiven and the two families become good friends. Rose decides that she really is taken with Simon, and Cassandra and Topaz scheme to get Simon to propose to her. Simon falls in love with Rose and proposes to her, which then sends Rose and Topaz to London with Mrs. Cotton to purchase Rose's wedding trousseau. One evening, while everyone else is away, Cassandra and Simon spend the evening together, which leads to their kissing, and Cassandra is cast into an emotional tailspin. She becomes obsessed with Simon but suffers feelings of guilt since he is Rose's fiancé. Cassandra now faces many pressures: she must tactfully deflect Stephen's offers of love, and encourage him in his emerging career as a model and movie actor; join forces with Thomas to help their father overcome his writer's block by the drastic (though apparently effective) expedient of imprisoning him in a medieval tower; cope with her own increasing attraction to Simon; and record everything, wittily and winningly, in her journal (as the journal advances, the relationships she depicts become subtler and more problematic). Meanwhile, unnoticed by anyone but Stephen, Rose and Neil have been falling in love. To conceal their budding romance, they pretend to hate each other. When they eventually elope together, Simon is left heartbroken – Cassandra, hopeful. Before Simon leaves to go back to America, he comes to see Cassandra. In spite of her feelings for him, Cassandra deflects the conversation at a moment when she thinks he may be about to propose to her. The book closes on an ambiguous note, with Cassandra reminding herself that Simon has promised to return, and closing her journal for good by reasserting her love for him. |
3023105 | /m/08l5t3 | Trojan Odyssey | Clive Cussler | 11/24/2003 | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller", "/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/05hgj": "Novel", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | The book opens with a fictional historical overview/flashback to events of Homer's famous Odyssey, but alters the original plot. In the present day, Dirk Pitt, his son Dirk Pitt, Jr., his daughter Summer Pitt, and friend Al Giordino are involved in the search for the source of a brownish contamination in the ocean's waters, which leads to a diabolical plot that they must unravel and ultimately topple. As this is occurring, discoveries relating to the "true" tale of the Odyssey are made. The villain is the mysterious Specter, a huge man who disguises his identity by wearing sunglasses, a hat, and a scarf over his face. The book also features a significant event between Dirk Pitt and Congresswoman Loren Smith. He and Al retire from their life of daredevilry and settle down. Pitt asks for the hand of Loren who also steps down. Pitt assumes the responsibility of head of NUMA as Admiral Sandecker accepts the Vice Presidency. This marks a change in Dirk Pitt Sr. series, as confirmed by his next novel, which features Dirk Pitt Jr. as the primary protagonist. As with every Dirk Pitt novel, this one features a classic car, in this case a Marmon V-16 Town Car. A custom-built 1952 Meteor DeSoto hot rod modified with a engine is briefly mentioned. |
3024228 | /m/08l87h | Kamikaze Girls | Novala Takemoto | null | null | The movie begins with a flash forward of Momoko getting hit by a car while driving a moped, then shifts to the past to introduce her background and early life. Momoko, who was born near Kobe, wishes that she had been born in Rococo-era France. Her father, a former small-time gangster, was involved in selling fake brand name clothing. After making a fake "double-brand" he finds himself in trouble with Universal Studios, Versace, and the mob, and so he and Momoko move to his mother's house in the rural town of Shimotsuma. Momoko must go to Tokyo to shop for her clothes, but constantly finds herself short of money for the expensive trip and the pricey clothes she wants to buy. She decides to sell some of her father's fake Versace products, and meets Ichigo, who answers an advertisement she has placed about selling the clothes. Ichigo is a racy, boyish type who belongs to an all-girl bōsōzoku (motorcycle gang). Gradually, the unlikely pair become friends. Soon Ichigo needs Momoko's help. Akimi, the leader of Ichigo's gang, is leaving, and as a tribute Ichigo plans to have her coat embroidered. She has heard that there is a legendary embroiderer in Tokyo named Emma (sometimes translated as M.R.) and she persuades Momoko to go there with her. Although they never find the embroiderer, they do stop at Baby, The Stars Shine Bright, the shop where Momoko buys her frilly Lolita dresses. An assistant notices the beautiful embroidery Momoko has stitched on her bonnet and calls the designer himself to come to look at it. Later in the film, the designer asks Momoko to embroider a sample garment which accidentally came back plain. Back in Shimotsuma, after an argument, Momoko offers to stitch the embroidery on Ichigo's coat, which she does with great skill. The final scenes of the film concern a fight between Ichigo and the members of several all-girl motorbike gangs. It is revealed that the crash at the start of the movie occurred when Momoko was rushing to help Ichigo. Momoko does not die, but instead challenges the entire motorbike gang and wins, rescuing Ichigo. |
3026421 | /m/08lg1k | Acidity | Nadeem F. Paracha | 2003 | {"/m/026ny": "Dystopia", "/m/05hgj": "Novel", "/m/0c082": "Utopian and dystopian fiction"} | While recovering from his addictions, Paracha spent time rearranging these notes using the cut-up method and surrealist automatism. He then turned it all into a work of fiction in which a heroin addict narrates his story set in future Pakistan and India that have turned into capitalist and theistic dystopias. He is a traveler who is always moving up and down both the countries looking for drugs and in the process having hallucinatory dialogues with a Pakistani cleric/Islamic extremist (called in the book as "The Mufti"), a group of Hindu fundamentalists (called "The pundits"), a group of young neoliberals (referred to as "the fun young people" and the "polite voids"), and an aging Indian Christian (called the "Holy Father"). There are also many other characters, but much of the story revolves around these main characters as Paracha constructs his dystopia in which capitalism and organized religion have been fused together as a new totalitarian system. Acidity makes a clear comment this way on the rapid economic, political and social changes taking place in India and Pakistan, especially after the end of the Cold War. |
3028512 | /m/08lm0v | Bartholomew and the Oobleck | Dr. Seuss | 1949 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | The book opens with an explanation about how people in the Kingdom of Didd still talk about "The year the King got angry with the sky," and how Bartholomew Cubbins, King Derwin of Didd's page boy, saved the Kingdom. Throughout the year, Bartholomew sees the king getting angry at rain in spring, sun in summer, fog in autumn, and snow in winter. The king explains he's angry because he wants something new to come down from the sky, but when Bartholomew points out that "even kings can't rule the sky," the king vows to prove Bartholomew wrong. One spring night, as he's getting ready for bed, the king gets the idea that ruling the sky is the task of his Royal Magicians so he orders Bartholomew to summon them. After expressing his wish to the magicians, they announce they can make something called Oobleck which won't look like the regular weather that the king doesn't want. The magicians soon return to their secret cave on Mount Neeka Tave to make the oobleck. After watching the cave all night, Bartholomew sees the first sign that the oobleck has been made and that it is falling the very next morning. When the king wakes up and sees the oobleck, Bartholomew tries to caution him on how big the falling oobleck is getting, but the king orders Bartholomew to tell the Royal Bell Ringer that today will be a holiday. Bartholomew does as he's told, but when the bell ringer tries to ring the bell, it doesn't ring because oobleck has gotten into it. When Bartholomew and the bell ringer see a mother bird trapped in her nest by the Oobleck, as well as the cow, who is also stuck in the Oobleck, they see that it could be dangerous, so Bartholomew makes the decision to warn the kingdom. First, Bartholomew warns the Royal Trumpeter about the oobleck, but when the trumpeter tries to sound the alarm, oobleck gets into the trumpet and the trumpeter gets his hand stuck trying to remove the oobleck. When Bartholomew tries to tell the Captain of the Guards to warn the kingdom, the captain instead, thinking the oobleck to be pretty, tries to prove to Bartholomew that he's not afraid by scooping some oobleck up with his sword and eating it, only to get his mouth stuck and breathe out green bubbles. Bartholomew tries to go to the Royal Stables for a horse to warn the kingdom himself, but even the stables are covered in oobleck. As Bartholomew goes back inside, the falling blobs of oobleck, now as big as buckets filled with broccoli, start to break into the palace, creating even more mess inside than outside. Bartholomew runs around warning everybody to stay undercover, but the palace servants and guards are soon stuck in the oobleck. In the throne room, the king, now covered in oobleck himself, orders Bartholomew to summon the magicians to stop the storm, but when Bartholomew brings up the bad news that even the cave is covered in oobleck, the king gets the idea to use the magicians' magic words ("Shuffle Duffle Muzzle Muff") to stop the oobleck. Bartholomew finally gets the courage to tell the king off for making such a foolish wish and tells him to use simple words, like "I'm sorry," instead of magic words. At first, the king insists that he never says sorry, but only after Bartholomew states that he's no sort of king if he's covered in oobleck does the king finally admit his mistake and say "I'm sorry." Straight after the king says those simple words, the Oobleck Storm breaks up and the sun melts away all the oobleck, freeing everybody in the process. At this point, the narrator states that maybe those simple words the king said were the magic words to stop the storm. After the oobleck is gone, Bartholomew takes the king to the bell tower and the king rings the bell proclaiming the day a holiday, dedicated not to oobleck, but to rain, sun, fog, and snow, the four things that have, and always should, come down from the sky. |
3028548 | /m/08lm6c | I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew | Dr. Seuss | 1965 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | As the story opens, the young protagonist (resembling a cat or dog) lives a happy and carefree life in the Valley of Vung, but one day, all that changes when he goes out for a stroll to look at daisies and hurts himself by tripping over a rock, which sets off the troubles he will soon face. The protagonist vows to be more careful, but a green necked Quilligan Quail bites his tail from behind ("I learned there are troubles of more than one kind; Some come from ahead and some come from behind"). Worse still, a Skritz dives to sting his neck and a Skrink bites his toe, proving that troubles can come from all directions. As the protagonist tries to fight off his troubles, a man on a One Wheel Wubble and camel comes up and explains that like the protagonist, he too is experiencing a troubled life and has decided to escape his troubles by going to Solla Sollew, a city on the beautiful banks of the river Wah-Hoo, and known to never have troubles (at least very few). He invites the protagonist to come along with him. Eager to escape his troubles, the protagonist joins the wubble driver, but after a long night of traveling, the camel gets sick. At first, the driver and protagonist pull him on the wubble, but for the rest of the day, the driver acts lazy and has the protagonist do all the hard work. The next day, a camel doctor, Dr. Sam Snell, discovers that the traveling couple's camel has caught the gleeks and is to be confined to bed for twenty weeks. The driver makes it up to the protagonist by telling him to catch the 4:42 bus at the nearest bus stop, but the protagonist discovers from a note from the bus line's president that the Solla Sollew bound bus isn't in service due to four punctured tires, leaving him to hike for one hundred miles. Soon, the poor protagonist is caught in the rains of an early Midwinter Jicker, and a man, who's leaving to move in with his grandpa in Palm Springs in order to escape the storm, allows the protagonist to take shelter in his house, where a family of mice and a family of owls are also taking shelter. After a sleepless night and dreaming of sleeping in Solla Sollew, the protagonist awakens to find that the flood-waters have washed the house over a cliff, with him still inside. He spends twelve days in the flood-waters, until somebody rescues him by throwing down a rope. The protagonist climbs the rope, only to discover that his savior is General Genghis Khan Schmitz, who immediately drafts him into his army for an upcoming battle against the Perilous Poozer of Pomplemoose Pass. At the pass, the General discovers he and his army are outnumbered by too many Poozers and orders an immediate retreat without fighting, leaving the protagonist to face the Poozers alone. The protagonist manages to escape the Poozers by diving down an air vent, but has to spend the next three days trying to find his way through a network of tunnels where birds are going in the wrong direction. Close to the end of the third day, he finally finds a door and discovers he's come out at the beautiful banks of the river Wah-Hoo. Realizing he's reached his goal, the protagonist rushes out to Solla Sollew. At the gates of Solla Sollew, the protagonist is greeted by a friendly doorman. The doorman explains to the protagonist about the most recent trouble the city has acquired: two weeks before (while the protagonist had been stuck in the Midwinter Jicker flood-waters), a Key Slapping Slippard moved into the lock of the door, which happens to be the only way into Solla Sollew, and bugs the doorman by continuously slapping the key out of his hand. As it's considered bad luck to kill a Slippard, the doorman cannot do anything to evict this pest, but decides instead to leave Solla Sollew for the city of Boola Boo Ball, on the banks of the beautiful river Woo-Wall, and known to never have troubles ("No troubles at all!!") and invites the protagonist to come along. At first, it looks to the reader like the protagonist will join the doorman, but realizing that he's come all this way for nothing, the protagonist, instead, decides to go back home to the Valley of Vung and face his troubles. He now knows he will have troubles for the rest of his life, but he's ready for them. Armed with a bat, the Protagonist now gives the rocks, quail, skritz, and skrink troubles of their own ("But I've bought a big bat. I'm all ready, you see. Now my troubles are going to have troubles with me!"). |
3029929 | /m/08lq3y | Auschwitz and After | Charlotte Delbo | null | null | Auschwitz and After is really a trilogy of separately published shorter works: "None of Us Will Return" (Aucun de nous ne reviendra), "Useless Knowledge" (La connaissance inutile), and "The Measure of Our Days" (Mesure des nos jours). The first and last volumes deal with Auschwitz as lived and remembered, respectively, and do not entirely follow linear time. The middle volume concerns the surviving Frenchwomen's slow journey back to freedom after they were moved from Auschwitz to Ravensbrück and ultimately turned over to the Swedish Red Cross, and is somewhat more linear. |
3030921 | /m/08lrpr | Le Juif Errant | Eugène Sue | 1844 | null | The story is entitled The Wandering Jew, but this is misleading; the figure of the Wandering Jew himself plays a minimal role. The prologue of the text describes two figures who cry out to each other across the Bering Straits. One is the Wandering Jew, the other his sister, Hérodiade. The Wandering Jew also represents the cholera epidemic— wherever he goes, cholera follows in his wake. The Wandering Jew and Hérodiade are condemned to wander the earth until the entire Rennepont family has disappeared from the earth. The connection is that the descendants of the sister are also the descendants of Marius de Rennepont, Huguenots persecuted under Louis XIV by the Jesuits. (Sue never explains how a Huguenot family came to be descended from an immortal Jewish woman who never married or had children.) The brother and sister are compelled to protect this very family from all harm. After this first introduction, the two appear only very rarely. The Rennepont family is unaware that these protective éminences grises exist, but they benefit from their protection in various ways, be it by being saved from scalping by the Native Americans, or from languishing in prison. The Rennepont family lost its position and most of its wealth during the French persecution of the Protestants (after the revocation of the edict of Nantes in 1685). A small fortune was given to a Jewish banker immediately before the Renneponts dispersed all over Europe and Asia, and this fortune has grown into a huge sum, through the miracle of compound interest. In 1682, the Rennepont family members each got a bronze medal telling them to meet back in Paris 150 years later, at which time the fortune will be divided among the surviving members. So much time has passed, however, that almost none of the still-living Renneponts have any idea why they need to come to Paris. They nevertheless set out from India, Siberia, America, France, and elsewhere to make their way to rue Saint-François #3 in Paris by February 13, 1832. The members of the family are not only dispersed all over the world, but also all over the social ladder, as laborers, factory owners, princes (in India!) and the independently wealthy. The Jesuits have heard of this huge fortune and want to get it for themselves. Two Jesuits (Rodin and Père d'Aigrigny) and their many recruited accomplices are in charge of obtaining the money for the Society of Jesus and dispossessing the Rennepont family. Their plan is to have only the unwitting Gabriel, the Jesuit missionary, show up to claim the fortune. Since he is a monk and can have no possessions of his own, the fortune will go to the wily Jesuits. Gabriel's entry into the order is not accidental — it is his pious mother, manipulated by the Jesuits, who persuaded him to become a Jesuit. The Jesuits have spies and henchmen all over the world, from the remote Americas to Siberia, and they use them to put obstacles in the paths of the Renneponts as they make their way back to Paris. Moreover, they also spy on each other, demonstrating that they don't even trust each other. The principal obstacles are as follows: *Gabriel, Jesuit missionary in America, Rennepont. No obstacles, because he is supposed to collect the fortune. *Dagobert, friend of the Rennepont family and guardian of the orphans Rose and Blanche (see below). Has his papers and the medal stolen by Morok, an animal tamer and accomplice of the Jesuits. Also has his horse, Jovial, killed by Morok's panther. Forced to travel on foot without papers and arrested for vagrancy. Freed by Hérodiade. Lured to a false meeting with a notary pretending to have messages from Général Simon (see below). *Rose and Blanche, twin Rennepont orphans coming from Siberia. Since they are under Dagobert's protection, they are also arrested and put in jail for vagrancy. Also, they are put in a convent by Dagobert's wife while Dagobert is at the notary meeting. She is made to swear by the Jesuits that she will not tell Dagobert where they are. Général Simon, father of Rose and Blanche, is a Rennepont, unknown to his daughters. Général Simon has been so long exiled from France and his family that he doesn't even know he has daughters. He thinks he has one son. He does not arrive for the meeting, either, although his situation is less clear than that of the others. *Djalma, Indian prince Rennepont, coming from the Far East. In Java, Djalma is accused of belonging to a murderous sect called the “Etrangleurs,” who closely resemble the Thuggee. One of the Jesuit henchmen tattoos Djalma with the Etrangleur tattoo on the inside of his arm while he is asleep. Djalma tries to prove that he is not an Etrangleur, but because of the tattoo is thrown in jail. This causes him to miss the boat to Paris. After finally arriving in Paris, he is poisoned by Farighea (whom he had thought was his friend), so that he goes into a prolonged sleep. The Jesuits then kidnap him. *Jacques Rennepont, Parisian workman. He was given papers by his father that explain his fortune, but since he doesn't know how to read or write, he is unable to use them. The Jesuits send a money lender to him; when he cannot repay the loan, he is thrown into debtor's prison. *François Hardy, progressive factory owner, Paris. He is betrayed by his best friend who, under the influence of Père d'Aigrigny, lures Hardy to central France, ensuring that he will not arrive on February 13. *Adrienne de Cardoville, independently wealthy, Paris. Lives with her aunt, who is a former mistress of father d'Aigrigny. The aunt, the abbot Aigrigny, and a Jesuit doctor Baleinier connive to put Adrienne in an insane asylum that happens to be next to the convent where Rose and Blanche are trapped. Only Gabriel shows up to the meeting, but at the last minute Hérodiade makes an appearance. Gabriel recognizes her from when she rescued him in the Americas. Hérodiade goes to a drawer and pulls out a codicil that explains that the parties have three and a half months from February 13 to present themselves. Upon this unexpected turn of events the Père d'Aigrigny is fired, and Rodin replaces him. He decides to take more drastic action by using cholera to annihilate some of the Rennepont family. He maneuvers Rose, Blanche, and Jacques in front of the cholera epidemic and thereby rids himself of them. With François Hardy, Rodin shows him how Hardy's best friend had betrayed him. He also arranges for Hardy's mistress to leave for the Americas, and has Hardy's treasured factory burn to the ground (all this on the same day). Hardy takes refuge among the Jesuits, who persuade him to enter their order. Djalma falls in love with Adrienne, so the Jesuits use his passion to destroy him: they make Djalma think that Adrienne has been unfaithful, and he poisons himself. But he dies slowly and drinks only half the bottle, so there's plenty of time for Adrienne to find out what he's done and poison herself, too. ( c.f. Romeo and Juliet). On the day of the second meeting, none of the Renneponts show up (Gabriel having quit the Jesuits), and Rodin alone presents himself. But Samuel, the guardian of the house, has realized the injustices that have taken place. He brings the coffins of all the Renneponts back to show Rodin his wickedness, and he burns the testament that would have given Rodin access to the money. Gabriel and Hardy die as a matter of course, which means that the Wandering Jew and Hérodiade can finally rest in peace. The last pages of the novel recount their final “death,” which they joyfully encounter. It is not clear what finally happens to the vast fortune that was never claimed. |
3031313 | /m/08lskx | Summerland | Michael Chabon | 9/17/2002 | {"/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature"} | The story begins on a small island off the coast of Washington called Clam Island. The central character, Ethan Feld, is on one of the island's baseball teams despite being terrible at the game. He encounters a gracious werefox, Cutbelly, who explains the Lodgepole, a giant tree connecting all worlds, to the ignorant Ethan. Cutbelly explains that Coyote is planning to destroy the Lodgepole, an event called "Ragged Rock", by destroying Murmury Well. He takes Ethan to the Summerlands where they meet small Indian looking people called ferishers. Coyote captures Ethan's father and forces him to create another batch of 'picofiber' to form the hose with which he is going to poison Murmury Well. Ethan enters the Summerlands with fellow baseball team members Thor and Jennifer T. Rideout, in pursuit of his father and to prevent Ragged Rock. On their travels through the Summerlands, the three assemble a baseball team and play their way across the land, meeting players from legend and literature, and a couple from their own world. |
3032901 | /m/08lyrz | The Beast Within | Edward Levy | 1981 | {"/m/03npn": "Horror"} | A lonely wife cheats. A brutal husband gets revenge. A not-so-innocent stranger hears a cellar door scrape shut and begins twenty years of indescribable horror, chained in total darkness, feeding on live rats and human flesh, becoming himself the nightmare creature that lurks within us all. |
3033353 | /m/08l_tn | Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes | Honoré de Balzac | null | null | Lucien de Rubempré and "Abbé Herrera" (Vautrin) have made a pact, in which Lucien will arrive at success in Paris if he agrees to follow Vautrin's instructions on how to do so. Esther van Gobseck throws a wrench into Vautrin's best-laid plans, however, because Lucien falls in love with her and she with him. Instead of forcing Lucien to abandon her, he allows Lucien this secret affair, but also makes good use of it. For four years, Esther remains locked away in a house in Paris, taking walks only at night. One night, however, the Baron de Nucingen spots her and falls deeply in love with her. When Vautrin realizes that Nucingen's obsession is with Esther, he decides to use her powers to help advance Lucien. The plan is the following: Vautrin and Lucien are 60,000 francs in debt because of the lifestyle that Lucien has had to maintain. They also need one million francs to buy the old Rubempré land back, so that Lucien can marry Clotilde, the rich but ugly daughter of the Grandlieu's. Esther will be the tool they use to get as much money as possible out of the impossibly rich Nucingen. Things don't work out as smoothly as Vautrin would have liked, however, because Esther commits suicide after giving herself to Nucingen for the first and only time (after making him wait for months). Since the police have already been suspicious of Vautrin and Lucien, they arrest the two on suspicion of murder over the suicide. This turn of events is particularly tragic because it turns out that only hours before, Esther had actually inherited a huge amount of money from an estranged family member. If only she had held on, she could have married Lucien herself. Lucien, ever the poet, doesn't do well in prison. Although Vautrin actually manages to fool his interrogators into believing that he might be Carlos Herrera, a priest on a secret mission for the Spanish king, Lucien succumbs to the wiles of his interviewer. He tells his interrogator everything, including Vautrin's true identity. Afterwards he regrets what he has done and hangs himself in his cell. His suicide, like Esther's, is badly timed. In an effort not to compromise the high society ladies who were involved with him, the justices had arranged to let Lucien go. But when he kills himself, things get more sticky and the maneuverings more desperate. It turns out that Vautrin possesses the very compromising letters sent by these women to Lucien, and he uses them to negotiate his release. He also manages to save and help several of his accomplices along the way, helping them to avoid a death sentence or abject poverty. At the end of the novel, Vautrin actually becomes a member of the police force before retiring in 1845. The nobility that was so fearful for its reputation moves on to other affairs. |
3033453 | /m/08m0dr | Arthur Mervyn | Charles Brockden Brown | 1799 | {"/m/039vk": "Gothic fiction"} | Arthur Mervyn is discovered by Dr. Stevens sitting on a bench. He is suffering from yellow fever, and since Dr. Stevens has pity on him, is invited into the Stevens household. A little after he gets better, Mr. Wortley comes over to pay Dr. Stevens a visit, recognizes Arthur Mervyn, and reacts with extreme displeasure at seeing him. Dr. Stevens is of course suspicious of Mervyn now and demands an explanation for Wortley's reaction. Mervyn begins to tell his story in an effort to clear his name in the eyes of Dr. Stevens. This is the frame, and nearly three quarters of the book bring Mervyn's adventures up to this moment in time. The rest of the book continues on after the storytelling, with Mervyn keeping Dr. Stevens informed either in person or via letters of the continuing adventures, all of which revolve around a tightly knit network of people. Arthur Mervyn is a country boy who lived with his father and their servant, Betty, on a farm near Philadelphia. Betty, however, married the father and Mervyn could no longer remain in the house without conflict (there is a rumor he seduced her). Arthur leaves the farm and heads toward the city, where he ends up entirely penniless, as he has been cheated out of all his money on the way there (by unscrupulous inn owners who.) Upon arriving in the city he seeks out a friend of his father's, but he never ends up meeting him. Instead he meets a man named Wallace who invites him to share his bed that night. Arthur follows Wallace home, and Wallace promptly locks him into a pitch dark room. Realizing that he has been tricked, Arthur tries to escape without being noticed. He does this, but not before he overhears a privy conversation between the true occupants of his quarters. When Arthur does manage to escape, he leaves behind only his shoes and some open doors and windows. Without shoes or money he decides to head home (but can't because he can't pay the bridge toll). He decides to beg money from a man he meets on the street, and is promptly hired by this man. The man in question is Welbeck, who is a thief and a forger. The encounter will cost Mervyn more than he stood to gain from begging. Welbeck dresses Mervyn in city clothes, introduces him to Clemenza Lodi, a woman he claims is his daughter and tells him that he will start work the following week. Mervyn soon discovers that Welbeck is a thief and a seducer (Clemenza is pregnant). Not a week has passed before Welbeck is destitute, has killed a man named Watson and buried him in the basement, and escaped from Philadelphia via the river, with Mervyn rowing the boat. Mervyn is of course shocked by all these events, and convinced that Welbeck has drowned himself when Welbeck falls from the boat into the river. Mervyn then heads out of town himself and seeks refuge at the Hadwins' farm for a few months. Not long after, though, the yellow fever comes to town and Susan Hadwin is so worried about her fiancé, Wallace, that Mervyn decides to do her a favor and return to town. There he discovers death and destruction everywhere, as well as Wallace, who is indeed sick with yellow fever. Wallace is too sick to leave the city himself, so Mervyn puts him on a carriage to the Hadwins' farm (Wallace never makes it). Mervyn begins to get sick, and fearing a forced trip to the hospital (a death trap), he decides to hide himself in the old Welbeck mansion. There he discovers none other than Welbeck, who has sneaked back to get the money he left in Father Lodi's book. He is outraged when he finds that Mervyn has already found it and intends to give it back to Clemenza. Welbeck tells him the money is forged and Mervyn promptly burns it. Welbeck has a conniption because he lied about the forgery and Mervyn has just destroyed 20,000 pounds. Welbeck leaves Mervyn to die, and Mervyn eventually wanders out into the street to see if he can make it back to the farm. He collapses on a bench outside Dr. Stevens' home and is rescued by the good doctor. Thus ends the narrative up to the encounter with Dr. Stevens. After he gets better, Mervyn insists on returning to the Hadwin farm to make sure everyone is safe. After he leaves, though, he doesn't return for weeks and Dr. Stevens becomes very suspicious that Mervyn has escaped. One day, though, he is called to the debtor's prison, and discovers upon his arrival none other than Mervyn, who has summoned him there to tend to Welbeck, who lies languishing in the prison (he ultimately dies there). Before he dies, he gives Mervyn a scroll that holds 40,000 pounds or so that belong to Mrs. Maurice, but were recovered from Watson's dead body. Mervyn continues his narrative, recounting what happened after he left Dr. Stevens. Upon his arrival at Malverton (the Hadwin farm), he discovers that all but Eliza and Susan have died of yellow fever. An old man watches over them, but he is of little use. Susan dies the same day, unable to recover from the stress of waiting for her fiancé and the disappointment of finding that Arthur is not the Wallace she had been waiting for. Mervyn, finding no alternative, buries Susan in the orchard. He then tries to house Eliza at her neighbor's farm, but he refuses her. They set out in the freezing weather and almost die, only to be saved by Mr. Curling. Mr. Curling agrees to take Eliza in until a better situation can be found for her (and her inheritance gets taken care of). Philip Hadwin, Eliza's uncle, turns out to be an awful man who refuses Eliza the inheritance she could have from the farm because Eliza's father took out a mortgage on the farm that belongs to Philip Hadwin. Arthur returns to the city to help Clemenza Lodi, now living in the house of Mrs. Villars, a known prostitute. When Arthur forces his way into the Villars country home, he discovers Clemenza on the third floor of the house, mourning her dying baby. He also encounters Mrs. Fielding, a young widow who had no idea her friends were prostitutes. Arthur goes to Philadelphia to ask Mrs. Wentworth to house Clemenza Lodi and rescue her from her current situation. Mrs. Wentworth refuses, but ultimately agrees to house her if Mrs. Fielding will bear part of the cost. Next, Arthur “rescues” Eliza from boredom by placing her with Mrs. Fielding. This accomplished, Arthur can finally concentrate on his apprenticeship, but he quickly realizes that he is in love with Mrs. Fielding. This comes as such a shock to him that he actually goes out to the house in the country where Mrs. Fielding is staying and stares up at her window at night. She is frightened, recognizes him, and tells him to see her in the city. The next day they finally admit their feelings to each other and agree to marry. |
3038250 | /m/08mdk6 | Felix Holt, the Radical | George Eliot | null | {"/m/0276pxr": "Social novel", "/m/01qxvh": "Romance novel", "/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0blvpd": "Industrial novel", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | As the story starts, the reader is introduced to the fictitious community of Treby in the English Midlands in 1832, around the time of the First Reform Act. Harold Transome, a local landowner, has returned home after a fifteen-year trading career in the Far East. Wealthy from trade, he stands for election to Parliament from the county seat of North Loamshire. But contrary to his family's Tory traditions, he intends to stand as a Radical. This alienates him from his traditional allies and causes despair for his mother, Mrs. Transome. Harold Transome gains the support of his Tory uncle, the Rector of Little Treby, and enlists the help of his family lawyer, Matthew Jermyn, as an electioneering agent. Much of his electioneering is focused in Treby Magna. In this village resides Felix Holt, who has recently returned from extensive travels in Glasgow to live with his mother. He meets with Rev. Rufus Lyon, a Dissenting minister in Treby Magna, and his stepdaughter, Esther. Felix and Mr. Lyon become ready friends, but he appears to treat Esther with condescension. Felix and Rev. Lyon both appear aligned to the Radical cause. Harold Transome learns that Jermyn has been mismanaging the Transome estate and embezzling money for himself. Transome remains silent during the election, yet Jermyn tries to devise a plan to save himself from future prosecution. Meanwhile, Felix witnesses some electioneering for the Radical cause in the nearby mining town of Sproxton. He is upset with the 'treating' of workers with beer in exchange for their vocal support. Felix relays his concerns to Harold Transome, who chastises John Johnson for his electioneering methods. However, Jermyn convinces Transome not to interfere. Rev. Lyon learns from Maurice Christian, servant of Philip Debarry, about the possible identity of Esther's biological father. Rev. Lyon decides to tell Esther the truth about her father. Esther's outlook on life changes upon finding that she is in fact Rev. Lyon's stepdaughter. Her relationship with her stepfather deepens, while she also desires to emulate the high moral standards impressed upon her by Felix Holt. Seeing the change in Esther's character, Felix Holt begins to fall in love with her. However, both share the feeling that they are destined never to marry each other. Meanwhile, Rev. Lyon challenges Rev. Augustus Debarry to a theological debate. The debate is initially agreed to, but is cancelled at the last minute. Riots erupt on election day in Treby Magna. Drunken mine workers from Sproxton assault townspeople and wantonly destroy property. Felix Holt is caught up in the riots, and tries foolhardily to direct its hostility away from the town. But in the end, Felix Holt is charged with the manslaughter of a constable who tried to break up the riot. Harold Transome also loses the election to Debarry. Harold Transome begins legal proceedings against Jermyn for the latter's mismanagement of the Transome estate. Jermyn counters by threatening to publicise the true owner of the Transome estate. However, Maurice Christian informs the Transomes that the true owner of the estate is in fact Esther Lyon. Harold Transome invites her to the Transome estate, hoping to persuade her to marry him. Harold and Esther establish a good rapport, and Esther also becomes more sympathetic with Mrs. Transome, whose despair has continued to deepen. Esther feels torn between Harold Transome and Felix Holt. She compares a life of comfortable wealth with Harold Transome and motherly affection with Mrs. Transome, to a life of personal growth in poverty with Felix Holt. Meanwhile at Felix Holt's trial, Rev. Lyon, Harold Transome and Esther Lyon all vouch for his character, but he is nevertheless found guilty of manslaughter. However, Harold Transome and the Debarrys manage to have Felix Holt pardoned. Harold Transome proposes to Esther Lyon, with the eager support of Mrs. Transome. But despite Esther's feelings towards both Harold and Mrs. Transome, she declines the proposal. Esther also surrenders her claim to the Transome estate. The story ends with Felix Holt and Esther Lyon marrying and moving away from Treby, along with Rev. Lyon. Matthew Jermyn is eventually ruined and moves abroad, while John Johnson remains and prospers as a lawyer. The Debarrys remain friends with the Transomes, and the contest to the Transome estate, while widely known, is never discussed. |
3040785 | /m/08mklj | Kelroy | Rebecca Rush | null | null | After the death of her husband, Mrs. Hammond realizes that she is deeply in debt. She is used to living richly, however, and therefore focuses on her two beautiful daughters as her best hope of financial security. If she can marry them to rich husbands, both she and her daughters will escape poverty. To accomplish this plan, she pays off all her debts and all the property she can under the guise of grief, and moves to the country to save her money. No one must know the extent of her poverty, or the girls will never find a good match. There she waits until her children are old enough to marry, and spends the time making them into cultured young ladies: Lucy and Emily Hammond. The girls are not far apart in years, but there are differences between them. While Lucy absorbs the ideas about marriage that her mother imparts (all economically minded), Emily has a romantic personality that resists such materials concerns. When the two girls return to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at 17 (Emily) and 18 (Lucy), their beauty is a huge success, and they have many admirers. A wealthy and noble Englishman, Mr. Walsingham, finally “bites” and marries Lucy. Emily is not as easily married off, especially after she sees the very moody poet Kelroy. Kelroy comes from a good family, but like the Hammonds has lost his fortune because of his father's love of gambling. He is currently penniless, but plans a voyage to India, where he hopes to make his fortune. Emily and Kelroy are a perfect match for each other and quickly fall in love, despite all the attempts Mrs. Hammond makes to separate them. Other suitors, notably Mr. Marney, are very jealous of this obvious attachment. Kelroy has one advantage, however: he is a good friend of Mr. Walsingham, who endeavors to help Kelroy in respect to Mrs. Hammond. Mr. Walsingham, who had been made to believe that Lucy has a fortune, now knows better and tells Mrs. Hammond that he will ask back for the money Mrs. Hammond has borrowed from him over the last months (900 dollars) if she does not agree to let Kelroy see Emily. Mrs. Hammond is in no position to return the money and reluctantly agrees. The two are engaged, but not married before Kelroy leaves for India. After Lucy and Mr. Walsingham leave for England, Mrs. Hammond's house burns down and she wins the lottery, which allows the pretext and the means to move to the country (to preserve the money she has left). Emily there meets a new rich suitor, Dunlevy. This man is perfectly nice, but Emily still loves Kelroy most and resists Dunlevy's advances. Only after she receives a letter from Kelroy in which he releases her from the engagement does Emily (deeply grieving) agree to marry Dunlevy. The marriage goes well for six months despite the death of Mrs. Hammond. But then Emily finds some letters her mother had hidden in a writing desk: one of the letters is an exact copy of the one she received from “Kelroy,” and seeing another written to Kelroy in her name, she realizes what her mother (in collusion with Marney) did. Unable to recover from this shock, she dies not long afterwards. Kelroy of course received a similar letter and has tried to forget about Emily. After hearing that both Emily and Mrs. Hammond have died, he returns to the United States. There, Helen (Emily's best friend) sends Kelroy the packet of letters to prove to him that Emily never quit loving him. The shock of this discovery so affects Kelroy that he borders on the edge of insanity. He decides to begin traveling again, and the ship he sails on sinks into the ocean three weeks after his departure. |
3042418 | /m/08mnt3 | War Game | Michael Foreman | 10/7/1993 | {"/m/098tmk": "War novel", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Will, Freddie, Billy, and Lacey are four young friends eager for "the grand adventure" of old-fashioned war. The story follows them through training in England, arrival in France and the trenches, the famous 1914 Christmas truce, and the Battle of the Somme. At key points in the story, the author includes historical information on particular events of the war. The main characters are named after and based on Foreman's uncles who were killed in the war at ages 18 to 24. He was born about twenty years later in 1938. |
3042686 | /m/08mpmd | Herland | Charlotte Perkins Gilman | 1979-04 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/06ms6": "Sociology", "/m/0c082": "Utopian and dystopian fiction", "/m/02_w8": "Feminist science fiction"} | The story is told from the perspective of Vandyk "Van" Jennings, a student of sociology who, along with two friends (Terry O. Nicholson and Jeff Margrave), forms an expedition party to explore an area of uncharted land where it is rumored lives a society consisting entirely of women. The three friends do not entirely believe the rumors because they are unable to conceive how human reproduction could occur without males. The men speculate about what a society of women would be like, each guessing differently based on the stereotype of women which he holds most dear: Jeff regarding women as things to be served and protected; Terry viewing them as things to be conquered and won. When the explorers reach their destination, they proceed with caution, hiding the biplane they arrive in and trying to keep themselves hidden in the forests which border the land. They are quickly found by three young women who they realize are observing them from the treetops. After attempting to catch the girls with trickery, the men end up chasing the young women towards a town or village. The women outrun them easily and disappear among the houses, which, Van notes are exceptionally well made and attractive. After meeting the first inhabitants of this new land (which Van names Herland) the men proceed more cautiously, noting that the girls they met were strong, agile, and completely unafraid. Their caution is warranted because as the men enter the town where the girls disappeared, they become surrounded by a large group of women who march them towards an official looking building. The three men attempt an escape but are swiftly and easily overpowered by the large group of women and eventually anesthetized. The men awake to find themselves held captive in a fortress-like building. They are given comfortable living accommodations, clean clothes, and food. The women assign each man a tutor who teaches the men their language. Van makes many notes about the new country and people, commenting that everything from their clothing to their furniture seems to be made with the twin ideals of pragmatism and aesthetics given equal consideration. The women themselves appear intelligent and astute, unafraid and patient, with a notable lack of temper and seemingly limitless understanding for their captives. The women are keen to learn about the world outside and question the men eagerly about all manner of things. Often Van finds himself having difficulty justifying the practices of his own society such as the milking of cows, the keeping of dogs as pets, and abortion, when faced with the apparent utopia the women have managed to build. After being held captive for a number of months, the men break out of the fortress and escape cross-country to where they left their biplane. Finding the biplane sewn inside a large fabric covering, the men are unable to get away and are resignedly recaptured by the women. They are treated well nonetheless and soon learn that they will be given a freer rein when they have mastered the women's language and proved they can be trusted. Van remarks upon Terry's personal difficulty in dealing with the women who steadfastly refuse to conform to his expectations of how women should act, though Jeff seems perfectly enamored of the women and their kindness. Van gradually finds out more information about the women's society, discovering that most of the men were killed 2,000 years ago when a volcanic eruption sealed off the only pass out of Herland. The remaining men were mostly slaves who killed the sons of their dead masters and the old women, intending to take over the land and the young women with it. The women fought back, however, killing the slaves. After a period of hopelessness at the impending end of their race, cut-off from the rest of the world and without any men, one woman among the survivors became pregnant and bore a female child, and four more female children after. The five daughters of this woman also grew up to bear five daughters each. This process rapidly expanded their population and led to the exaltation of motherhood. Ever since that time the women had devoted themselves to improving their minds, working together and raising their children; the position of teacher being one of the most revered and respected positions in the land. As the men are allowed more freedom, each strikes up a relationship with one of the women they had first seen upon their arrival, Van with the one called Ellador, Jeff with Celis, and Terry with Alima. Having had no men for 2,000 years the women apparently have no experience or cultural memory of romantic love or sexual intercourse. As such, the couples' budding relationships progress with some difficulty and much explanation. Terry in particular finds it hard to adjust to being in a relationship with a woman who is not a 'woman' in his terms. Eventually all three couples get 'married', although the women largely fail to see the point of such a thing and as they have no particular religion the ceremony is more pagan than Christian. Their marriages cause the men much reflection; the women they married have no conception of what being a wife or being feminine entails (according to the outside world's views). Van admits finding it frustrating and hard sometimes, though he is in the end grateful for his wonderful friendship with Ellador and the intense love he feels for her. Terry is not so wise and out of frustration attempts to rape Alima. After being forcefully restrained and once again anesthetized, Terry stands trial before the women and is ordered to return to his homeland. Van realizes that he must accompany Terry home in the biplane and Ellador will not let him leave without her. In the end, the three leave Herland with promises not to reveal the utopia until Ellador has returned and such a plan has been fully discussed. Van tries to prepare Ellador for returning to his world but feels much trepidation about what she will find there. |
3042711 | /m/08mpr4 | Call It Sleep | Henry Roth | null | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Call It Sleep is the story of an Austrian-Jewish immigrant family in New York in the early part of the twentieth century. Six-year-old David Schearl has a close and loving relationship with his mother Genya, but his father Albert is aloof, resentful and angry toward his wife and son. David's development takes place between fear of his father's potential violence and the degradation of life in the streets of the tenement slums. After the family has begun settling into their life in New York, Genya's sister Bertha arrives from Austria to stay with them. Bertha's coarse and uninhibited nature offends Albert, and her presence in the home renews and exacerbates the tension in the family's relations. Listening to conversations between Genya and Bertha, David begins to pick up hints that his mother may have had a passionate affair with a non-Jewish Austrian man before marrying Albert. David imagines the romantic setting "in the corn fields" where the pair would secretly meet. Bertha leaves the Schearl household when she marries Nathan, a man she met at the dentist's office. She and Nathan open a candy store where they live with Nathan's two daughters, Polly and Esther. David begins his religious education and is quickly identified by his rabbi teacher, Reb Yidel, as an exceptional student of Hebrew. David becomes fascinated with the story of Isaiah 6 after he hears the rabbi translate the passage for an older student; specifically, the image of an angel holding a hot coal to Isaiah's lips and cleansing his sin. During the Passover holiday, David encounters some older truant children who force him to accompany them and drop a piece of zinc onto a live trolley-car rail. The electrical power released from this becomes associated in David's mind with the power of God and Isaiah's coal. Meanwhile, Albert has taken a job as a milk delivery man. David, accompanying his father one day, sees Albert brutally whip a man who attempts to steal some of the milk bottles, possibly killing him. David meets and becomes infatuated with an older Catholic boy named Leo. Leo takes advantage of David's friendship, and offers him a rosary — which David believes to have special powers of protection — in exchange for the chance to meet David's step-cousins, Polly and Esther. Leo takes Esther into the basement of the candy store and rapes her. David is thrown into an agitated state. He goes to Reb Yidel and fabricates a story, telling him that Genya is actually his aunt, his true mother is dead, and that he is the son of her affair with the non-Jewish man. Meanwhile, Polly tells Bertha and Nathan about what Leo did with Esther. As the rabbi goes to the Schearl household to inform Genya and Albert of what David told him, Bertha begs Nathan not to confront Albert about David's role in Leo's actions. Nathan goes anyway, although he fears Albert's wrath as well. After Reb Yidel relates David's story to Genya and Albert, David arrives at the apartment. Albert begins to reveal what he has suspected about David's birth. He tells Genya that their marriage is a sham, arranged to make one sin cover up the other — her affair, which was kept secret — against his sin, allowing his abusive father to be gored by a bull, widely known in the Austrian village they left. Despite Genya's denials, Albert reaffirms his belief in his version of the story. He declares that David is not his son but the product of Genya's affair. At that moment, Nathan and Bertha arrive. Nathan hesitates at the moment of speaking his mind under Albert's cold fury, but David steps forward to confess to his parents of his part in what took place. He gives his father the whip that was used on the would-be milk thief. As Albert reaches the height of his enraged frenzy, he discovers the rosary that David possesses, believing it to be a sign that proves his suspicions. Albert makes as if to kill his son with the whip. As the others restrain Albert, David flees the apartment and returns to the electrified rail. This time, he touches the rail with his foot and receives an enormous electric shock. Incapacitated, he is discovered by nearby tavern patrons and returned home by a policeman. When his parents are informed what happened, Albert appears remorseful and compassionate toward his son for the first time. As his mother takes him into her arms, David experiences a feeling such that "he might as well call it sleep". |
3046091 | /m/03bx91p | The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood | Ed Burns | 9/2/1997 | {"/m/01pwbn": "True crime"} | The book covers a year in the life of an inner city drug market at Fayette & Monroe Streets in Baltimore. Simon and Burns spent over a year interviewing and following around the people who lived on the Fayette & Monroe corner. Although written like a novel, the book is nonfiction; it uses the real names of those people and recounts actual events. It centers mostly around the lives of Gary McCullough, a drug addict, his ex-wife Fran Boyd, also an addict, and their son DeAndre McCullough, a high school student who begins to sell drugs. The book is a look at the effects of drug addiction, the drug trade, and the war on drugs on an urban neighborhood, as well as being an examination of the sociological factors which underlie the modern drug trade. |
3046836 | /m/08mz1c | The Crime at Black Dudley | Margery Allingham | 1929 | {"/m/0lsxr": "Crime Fiction", "/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | The story begins as the guests assemble for dinner on the first night of a house party. Black Dudley is a remote, ancient and sprawling manor house with a long and complex history, its numerous changes of use resulting in plenty of hidden rooms and secret passages. The pile is owned by the family of Wyatt Petrie, a popular young academic, and inhabited by his uncle by marriage, Colonel Coombe, a sickly recluse who wears a mask to cover unsightly scars. The bulk of the guests are young friends of Petrie - among them our red-headed hero George Abbershaw, pathologist and occasional consultant to Scotland Yard, and similarly flame-haired Meggie, whom he shyly admires. The Colonel's medic Doctor White Whitby, and two of his associates, a shifty Englishman named Gideon and an imposing but silent foreigner going by the name of Benjamin Dawlish, are also present. So is one Albert Campion, garrulous and affable, but, George soon learns, unknown to either Petrie or the Colonel. After dinner, the guests notice a sinister, bejewelled dagger hanging above the fireplace; Petrie tells them a story of its ancient origins in the family, and mentions a ritual involving the dagger being passed from hand to hand round the darkened house. The guests are keen to play the game, so the servants are dismissed, the lights extinguished and the ritual begins. Abbershaw, not excited at the prospect of people waving daggers around in the dark, slips outside to check on his car; in the garage, he finds the mysterious Mr Campion loitering around. Admiring the Colonel's ancient car, they find it has been converted to contain a powerful Rolls-Royce engine. The two head back into the house to see the end of the game, and find Meggie in a state of shock. The knife was handed to her at some point, and then snatched away again, but not before she realised the blade was covered in blood. When the lights are finally restored, they hear the Colonel has fallen ill and has been taken to bed. The party breaks up for the night, but as George prepares for bed he is visited by Prenderby, a young newly-qualified doctor, who has been shown Coombe's body and been asked by Doctor Whitby to sign forms allowing a rapid cremation, but, nervous and suspicious, has refused. Abbershaw is next to be asked, and entering the room he at once pulls the sheet from the bed. Although there are no obvious signs of foul play, Abbershaw's experience tells him the man did not die of heart failure, as Whitby claims. Also, his mask has slipped, revealing an unmarked face beneath. Abbershaw is forced to sign the forms, but plans to wire London the next day, to delay the cremation until a proper investigation can be carried out. Later that night, the house is awaked by loud noises, and they find Campion fighting wildly with one of the servants. Abbershaw finds a leather case on the ground, which he later opens, burning the document it contains and secreting the case. He talks with Meggie and her friend Anne, finding that Campion had met Anne in London, informed her he was invited to the party and got a lift down in her car. The next day, Whitby and the chauffeur depart early with the body. At breakfast, the imposing Mr Dawlish makes a stark announcement - the cars have been drained of fuel, and no-one is to leave the house until something he has lost is returned to him. A brave young rugby-player attempts to escape in a car powered by alcohol, but is shot and wounded. Campion, having mocked their captors, disappears, but later materialises, dusty and shaken, in Abbershaw's wardrobe. He tells them he has been roughly interrogated and locked up, but escaped through a secret passage, and also that he came to the house on a mission from an unknown, to collect an item from the Colonel and return to London with it. He retrieved the item, but was prevented from leaving by Abbershaw's presence in the garage, and then lost it in the fight with the chauffeur. He has also recognised the crooks, and names Dawlish as Eberhard von Faber, the head of a powerful criminal gang, one of the deadliest men in Europe. Abbershaw hears that Meggie has been taken for questioning, and angered at the thought of the villains mistreating her, he uses Campion's passage to reach their lair. He too is questioned, and then locked up with Meggie. They speak to an eccentric servant locked up next doow, and find that the criminals were as surprised as anyone at the Colonel's death. Campion releases them, and they form a plan to overpower the villains. After much fighting and danger, they retake the house, and are about to flee to safety when the chief villains return and recapture them. Abbershaw reveals that he has burned their document, the plans for an audacious crime, and the party is locked upstairs, while the gang prepare to leave the house, leaving it on fire with the guests trapped inside. Just in time, the local hunt ride by, with a friend of Campion's among them. Hearing the prisoners' cries for help, the hunt rides up, are incensed by the German's behaviour, and, as he tries to flee, cause his car to crash, crushing him. The party breaks up and all return to London, where Campion impresses Abbershaw with the name of his mother before disappearing. Abbershaw, Prenderby and another man from the party find the converted car, and follow it to find Dr Whitby and the chauffeur about to flee the country by air. He denies killing the Colonel, and departs. Abbershaw, after some thought and research, pays a visit to the killer - Petrie himself. Having fallen in love with a young girl, he found she was the puppet of evil criminals, and enraged by their treatment of her, he resolved to track them down. When he found his own uncle was one of them, he felt he had no choice but to slay him, inventing the dagger ritual to give him the chance. Abbershaw lets him go, on condition he enters a monastery. |
3048022 | /m/08n0fl | Mahomet | Voltaire | null | null | The story of "Mahomet" unfolds during Muhammad's post exile siege of Mecca in 630 AD, when the opposing forces are under a short term truce called to discuss the terms and course of the war. In the first act we are introduced to a fictional leader of the Meccans, Zopir, an ardent and defiant advocate of free will and liberty who rejects Mahomet. Mahomet is presented through his conversations with his second in command Omar and with his opponent Zopir and with two of Zopir's long lost children (Seid and Palmira) whom, unbeknownst to Zopir, Mahomet had abducted and enslaved in their infancy, fifteen years earlier. The now young and beautiful captive Palmira has become the object of Mahomet's desires and jealousy. Having observed a growing affection between Palmira and Seid, Mahomet devises a plan to steer Seid away from her heart by indoctrinating young Seid in religious fanaticism and sending him on a suicide attack to assassinate Zopir in Mecca, an event which he hopes will rid him of both Zopir and Seid and free Palmira's affections for his own conquest. Mahomet invokes divine authority to justify his conduct. Seid, still respectful of Zopir's nobility of character, hesitates at first about carrying out his assignment, but eventually his fanatical loyalty to Mahomet overtakes him and he slays Zopir. Phanor arrives and reveals to Seid and Palmira to their disbelief that Zopir was their father. Omar arrives and deceptively orders Seid arrested for Zopir's murder despite knowing that it was Mahomet who had ordered the assassination. Mahomet decides to cover up the whole event so as to not be seen as the deceitful impostor and tyrant that he is. Having now uncovered Mahomet's "vile" deception Palmira renounces Mahomet's god and commits suicide rather than to fall into the clutches of Mahomet. |
3048112 | /m/08n0nn | Stellaluna | null | null | null | A mother fruit bat loves her baby called Stellaluna very much and would never let anything happen to her. When the two are attacked by an owl, the predator knocks Stellaluna out of her mother's safe embrace. Soon the baby bat ends up in a bird's nest filled with three baby birds named Pip, Flitter and Flap. The mother bird will let Stellaluna be part of the family only if she eats bugs, does not hang by her feet and sleeps at night. When all the baby animals grow, they learn to fly. When Stellaluna and the birds are out playing, it gets dark and the birds go home without her because they will not be able to see in the dark. Stellaluna keeps flying, but when Stellaluna's wings hurt, she stops to rest. When she does, she hangs by her thumbs. Soon another bat comes to ask why Stellaluna is hanging by her thumbs. She tells the bat the story of what had happened after she and her mother were attacked by the owl. Another bat interrupts the story. That bat is Stellaluna's mother. Stellaluna and her mother are happily reunited and Stellaluna finally understands why she is so different. Excited about learning how to be a bat, Stellaluna returns to Pip, Flitter, and Flap in order to share her new experiences. They agree to join Stellaluna and the bats at night, but find they are unsuited to flying at night and nearly crash. Stellaluna rescues them and the four of them decide that while they may be very different, they are still family. |
3048166 | /m/08n0sm | The Merlin Conspiracy | Diana Wynne Jones | 2003 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/03qfd": "High fantasy"} | In a parallel universe, Roddy (a.k.a. Arianrhod), daughter of two magicians who serve the King of Blest, has traveled with "the King's Progress" her entire life. The King's Progress is a mobile Court that continuously roams the Islands of Blest (our England) to contain and control the natural magic in the world. Roddy and her best friend, Grundo, uncover a sinister plot involving Grundo's mother and the new "Merlin" – the magical governor of Blest – to take over the throne and the magic of the universe. When Roddy and Grundo try to warn the adults around them of the plot, they are not believed, and Roddy ends up making a spell to ask help of someone from another world – unfortunately, the only person she manages to find is Nick. Nick Mallory (a.k.a. Nichothodes Koryfoides) is a boy living in our own England who dreams about becoming a Magid and travelling to other worlds. A Magid is a sort of magical policeman who travels between worlds and helps people. Nick finds himself accidentally wandering the dark paths between the worlds, where he finds Roddy and then the powerful magician Romanov. Nick finally makes his way to Blest when he finds Maxwell Hyde, Roddy's grandfather, who is a Magid. But Grundo's mother and the fake Merlin have been kidnapping all the most powerful witches and wizards in Blest – including Maxwell Hyde and both of Roddy's parents – and it is up to Nick, Roddy and Grundo to raise the land and stop the plot. |
3049716 | /m/08n3sf | The Ambler Warning | Robert Ludlum | 10/18/2005 | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller", "/m/06wkf": "Spy fiction"} | Hal Ambler, a former Consular Operations agent in the Political Stabilization Unit, is kept heavily medicated and closely watched in a psychiatric facility just off the US coast. However, Ambler is unique amongst the other patients in the Parrish Island psychiatric facility, because he is perfectly sane. With the help of a sympathetic nurse, Ambler manages to clear his mind of the drug-induced haze and stage a daring escape off the island. Although he is desperate to discover who put him on Parrish Island and why, the world he returns appears to have conveniently forgotten him. Friends and associates no longer recognize him, no official records of his existence are to be found, and the face he sees in the mirror is not his own. After contacting several old associates who do not recognize him or even have any recollection of his existence, Ambler goes to a cabin in certain part of country which had always been his lone solace even during his days as a field agent. He arrives to find no cabin, and the landscape looked such that there hadn't been any before. A tranquillizer dart armed with carfetanyl then strikes him, but does not affect his thought processes severely . He tracks down the sniper and forces the sniper, a freelance operative, to give him authorisation codes. However, before the operative can be milked for more information, he is killed by a sniper whose single bullet also grazed Ambler's neck. He then contacts the agency that is tracking him down. Ambler comes in contact with agents from his past in the Political Stabilization Unit. Among those is Osiris, a blind operative who had an uncanny linguistic ability and has also regarded Ambler as his close friend. His friend is subsequently shot and killed by a Chinese intelligence officer independent of the organization Ambler is being hired by, who believes Ambler wants to assassinate the Chinese head of state. He uncovers a conspiracy involving a State Department official to kill the Chinese President, in order to hinder the shift in power and to restore the old world order of Pax Americana, in accordance with her university lecturer, Ashton Palmer's fanatical ideals. Ambler manages to unravel the conspiracy, while at the same time discovering that the nurse who had freed him and supposedly helped him on his endeavours to find out more about himself was in league with the "Palmerites", or so those who conform to Palmer's ideals are called. Ambler's ability to determine others' emotions and pick up even the slightest of change in facial expression is foiled, for the nurse was trained in Method acting. At the end of the book, Ambler is seen to be lounging with a CIA officer, albeit a desk-jockey, who had assisted him in self-discovery and the foiling of the conspiracy. fr:L'Alerte Ambler pl:Kryptonim Ambler |
3050187 | /m/08n4t2 | The Apocalypse Watch | Robert Ludlum | 4/10/1995 | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller", "/m/0594kx": "Conspiracy fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The plot concerns Drew Latham, a special officer for consular operations, who must discover why his brother was killed after a covert mission. He impersonates his brother, and uncovers a web of neo-Nazi supporters with members at high levels of the U.S. government and its allies. Latham must stop the neo-Nazis plot to take over Europe through terrorism and biological warfare. A running joke concerns the French being unable to pronounce "Latham" correctly. |
3050412 | /m/08n521 | The Janson Directive | Robert Ludlum | 10/15/2002 | {"/m/06wkf": "Spy fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Paul Janson is an ex-Navy SEAL and former member of a U.S. government covert agency called Consular Operations. He is haunted by his memories of the Vietnam War and his brilliant commander and mentor, Alan Demarest. Unfortunately, Demarest was also a sadistic psychopath who loved to toy with the lives of both friend and foe; he arranged for Janson to be captured and tortured by the Viet Cong. Janson eventually escaped and provided evidence of war crimes, which led to Demarest's execution. Janson now makes his living as a corporate security consultant who is so much in demand that he can pick and choose which jobs he takes. After a mysterious woman makes contact with him while Janson is waiting for a plane, he finds himself taking on a job to repay a debt. She asks Janson to rescue her boss, the Nobel Peace Laureate visionary and billionaire, Peter Novak, who has been taken hostage by a militant organization which intends to kill him. But when the rescue goes horribly wrong, Janson finds himself the target of a "beyond salvage" termination directive (the directive of the title) issued from the highest levels of the U.S. government. Meanwhile, several senior U.S. government officials are assassinated. Janson is then faced with the difficult question of finding out who wanted to frame him for Novak's death, while dodging bullets from his former comrades at Consular Operations. Janson takes matters into his own hands as he tries to save himself and solve the mystery of a decades old conspiracy that will rock the foundations of all countries in the world if exposed. |
3052362 | /m/08n9k_ | When We Were Orphans | Kazuo Ishiguro | 2000 | {"/m/0lsxr": "Crime Fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The novel is about an English man named Christopher Banks. He used to live in the international settlement area of Shanghai, China in the early 1900s, but when his father, an opium businessman, and his mother disappear within an interval of a few weeks, Christopher is sent away to live with his aunt in Britain. Christopher vows to become a detective in order to solve the case of his parents' disappearance, and he achieves this goal through ruthless determination. His fame as a private investigator soon spreads, and in the late 1930s he returns to China to solve the most important case of his life. The impression is given that if he solves this case, a world catastrophe will be averted, but it is not apparent how. As Christopher pursues his investigation, the boundaries between fact and fantasy begin to evaporate. At this time in China, Christopher is caught up in the battles between the Japanese and Chinese. Through an old detective, he locates the house at which his parents may have been held. However, this event was a few decades earlier but it seems that Christopher still believes adamantly that they are still there. On his way, he enters a war-torn police station belonging to the Chinese. After convincing them of his neutrality, he persuades the commander to direct him to the house of his kidnapped parents. After a while, however, the commander refuses to take Christopher further, so he goes alone. Throughout all this, he appears to disregard the commander's words that what he is doing is dangerous, and even appears to be rude to him. He meets an injured Japanese soldier who he believes is his childhood friend Akira. They enter the house only to find out that his parents are not there. Japanese soldiers enter and take them away. He later learns from his uncle that his father in fact ran away to Hong Kong with his new lover, and that his mother a few weeks later insulted Chinese warlord Wang Ku, who then captured her to be his concubine. Uncle Philip (not his real uncle, but a former lodger at their residence in Shanghai) was complicit in the kidnapping, and made sure Christopher was not present when this kidnapping took place. He offers Christopher a gun to kill him, but Christopher refuses. He learns that his father later died of typhoid but that his mother may still be alive. Uncle Philip reveals to him the truth about the source of his living expenses and tuition fees during Christopher's early years in England. Christopher is told that he had been living off his mother, who only agreed to cooperate with Wang Ku after he had promised to lend financial support to her son. Several years later, Christopher is reunited with his mother, but she does not recognize him. He uses his childhood nickname, "Puffin", and his mother seems to recognize it. He asks her to forgive him, but she is confused as to why she should. Christopher takes this as confirmation that she has always loved him. |
3052466 | /m/08n9w5 | Hover Car Racer | Matthew Reilly | 2004 | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller", "/m/01z02hx": "Sports", "/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Jason Chaser is an independent Hover Car racer, who along with his autistic little brother - known only as "the Bug" - are competing in regional races, with hopes of reaching the Pro circuits, but in reality have little chance of doing so. During a local derby, Scott Syracuse representing the International Race School is impressed with Jason's skill and despite damage to the "Argonaut" placing them last, offers him a position at the IRC for the next season. Jason accepts, and he and the Bug find themselves in Tasmania (now a privately owned training school) along with some of the best student Hover Car racers in the world. Jason is paired with independent Mech Chief Sally McDuff, who will look after their equipment and pit crew, including a robot named "Tarantula" which will perform most of the actual pit work - changing the magneto drives which enable the hover cars to function, the compressed gas for steering, and the coolant to prevent the magneto drives from melting. During the first few races, Jason is outclassed and bullied - both on and off the track - by the other racers who all consider him inferior - the perfect Xavier Xonora, his own team-mates Washington and Wong, and Barnaby Becker, who Jason already knew from earlier races. Even the equipment seems to be against them as they - and the only female racer Ariel Piper - suffer more than their fair share of faulty mag drives, substandard coolant, and failures on the part of Tarantula. Despite this, and due to their natural talent they begin to rise in the rankings, until it becomes apparent that they both have a chance of becoming 2 of the top 4 rated racers who will be invited to take part in the New York Masters. Ariel and Jason have forged a friendly relationship which becomes soured when Jason is critical of Ariels decision to use her body to gain advantage and keep in the good grace of Fabian, a ruthless, yet influential French Pro racer. When Fabian dismisses her after Jason beats her in a one-on-one race the two rekindle their friendship, which Jason consolidates when he later overhears LeClerq and Smythe (The Headmaster & stores chief respectively) discussing sabotaging Ariels pit robot, and at the same time admitting to having been responsible for her and Jason's earlier equipment misfortune. Jason forewarns Ariel, and the attempt to plant a virus on her pit robot backfires, instead disrupting the entire race power grid, meaning that none of the pit robots work. All racers have to perform a manual pit stop, and due to previously practising such tactics Jason and Ariel not only win the race, but Jason also ensures his place in the New York Masters. At the same time Jason attracts the attention of two individuals - Umberto Lombardi, the billionaire owner of Team Lombardi, and Dido, a beautiful Italian girl who thanks to her rich parents is able to follow Jason around the next few races. Jason agrees to trial race with Team Lombardi, and begins a tentative relationship with Dido, stilted slightly due to his age and inexperience with the opposite sex - a factor which causes Sally to tease him relentlessly. Prior to the New York Masters Jason is involved in a large and dangerous crash, completely destroying his Team Lombardi Hover racer, and with it much of his confidence, however with the aid of Sally & the Bug he regains his nerve, but not before several racers take advantage of his doubts and gain points that otherwise could have been his. Jason and Ariel get their revenge on Fabian when he challenges Jason to an exhibition race while in Italy - but Jason secretly swaps places and it is in fact Ariel who races - and beats - Fabian, thus ridiculing him for earlier comments when he stated that Ariel was "quite frankly, a non-event", also possibly alluding to her night with him. After again barely winning his next race Jason realises that Dido has been feeding Xavier information, including his doubts and race strategies, and he breaks off the relationship - after which Sally discovers that Dido is in fact Xavier's cousin, and the two are seen in public together. Jason and Xavier both race in New York, and as Xavier points out he is the far superior racer in every respect - something that Jason is forced to agree with. After reviewing all of Xavier's races Jason formulates a strategy based on not only Xaviers actual superiority, but how he perceives himself as well: Jason realises that Xavier celebrates victory before the race is won, and uses this to surprise him with a late charge and wins whilst Xavier is otherwise distracted already saluting the crowds whilst still on the home straight. During the rest of the New York races Jason and the Bug slowly collect points, relying on luck as much as skill, and ultimately find themselves in a last race with the world champion Alessandro Romba. After pulling a slight lead the Argonaut II suffers another bout of sabotage and literally meters from the finish line the rear stabiliser wing is destroyed by a tiny explosive charge placed by a corrupt betting agent, Ravi Gupta, who wishes to stack the odds in his favour. In a last desperate manoeuver, Jason uses his cars ejector seat to fire himself - and his steering wheel containing the Argonauts transponder - across the finish line thus winning the championship. Romba shows himself to be quite different to most of the other pro racers so far encountered, and is not only magnanimous in defeat, but genuinely pleased for Jason, and Jason himself secures a full-time racing position with Team Lombardi. |
3053925 | /m/08nf0w | The Brightonomicon | Robert Rankin | 2005 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The novel is set in Brighton, and concerns the grand high magus Hugo Rune (AKA The Reinventor of the Ocarina, the Mumbo Gumshoe, the Hokus Bloke, the Cosmic Dick, the Guru's Guru, the Perfect Master, the Lad Himself) and his quest to solve the mystery of the Brighton zodiac, with the aid of his amnesia struck assistant, Rizla (revealed at the conclusion of the novel to be Jim Pooley of The Brentford Trilogy). The are opposed in the novel by Rune's arch foe, the evil Count Otto Black. The following cases are featured:- {| border="2" cellpadding="6" cellspacing="0" style="margin: 1em 1em 1em 0; background: #f9f9f9; border: 1px #aaa solid; border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 95%;" |- bgcolor="#CCCCCC" align="center" !Case !! Description !! Connection |---- | The Hound of the Hangletons |Hugo Rune and the amnesiac Rizla are hired to investigate a strange lost dog, and Rune reveals to Rizla the secret of the Chronovision, a television that allows the user to witness any event in history |The lost dog of the original case |---- | The Curious Case of the Centenary Centaur |While attending a lecture on the size of the universe with Hugo Rune, Rizla is captured by a group of demented doctors seeking to dissect him for organ transplants, and a centaur is unleashed |A centaur appears from a fairy mound |---- | The Monstrous Mystery of the Moulescomb Crab |A conversation with a bog troll about his dead brother leads to Rizla and Rune learning of a terrible plot by the Secret Government to bring down the Royal Family with the aid of a group of space crabs |The crabs originate from a distant nebula |---- | The Lark of the Lansdowne Lioness |When a statue of Queen Victoria begins to cry tears of real Earl Grey Tea, Rune alone knows that a nightmare from the past is about to be unleashed |The 'Lioness' is Queen Victoria, who according to Rune was the reincarnation of King Richard the Lionheart |---- | The Curious Case of the Woodingdean Chameleon |With Rune away on business, it is up to Rizla to avert an assassination attempt at a game of croquet while posing as fictional private detective Lazlo Woodbine |Rizla initially believes that the case refers to Count Otto Black in disguise at the Withdean Stadium- identified as 'Woodingdean' by a barman by accident-, but Rune later claims that it referred to him (Continuing the running gag of Lazlo Woodbine's name being mispronounced) |---- | The Scintillating Story of the Sackville Scavenger |Attending the opening of a nudist theme restaurant with Rune (All other Brighton restaurants no longer accepting Rune's presence), Rizla is shocked to witness a group of dead rock stars dining with them |The scavenger is Robert Johnson, who aided the world around him with his music |---- | The Fantastic Adventure of the Foredown Man |While attending a garden party, Rizla witnesses the apparent murder of Lord Jeffrey - despite the fact that the man in question vanished over a hundred years earlier - and his various relatives subsequently begin to die in various horrible manners |Lord Jeffrey was the forefather of the others |---- | The Baffling Business of the Bevendean Bat |Reports of lost cats in the Bevendean area, coupled with radioactive doves, multiple roaring animals at regular intervals, and an encounter with an exploding uniped in the bar The Really Small Atlantean, lead to a confrontation between Rune and the evil Count Otto Black about a modern-day version of Noah's Ark |The bar's true name is the Bevendean Bathyscaphe |---- | The Sensational Sage of the Saltdean Stallion |While at a party in Lewes, Rune is apparently killed as a sacrifice to reveal the location of the Chronovision, leaving Rizla to escape Count Otto Black’s followers with the aid of an urban legend |The 'Stallion' is Norris Styver, who became trapped in Lewes's complicated street system and could not escape |---- | The Birdman of Whitehawk |The Chronovision now recovered after a trip into the Forbidden Zones, Rune and Rizla must tackle the mysterious apparitions that plague their current host |The Birdman is an native-american/Indian chief, Chief Whitehawk, who provides Rune and Rizla with accommodation |---- | The Wiseman of Withdean |Rizla is forced to disguise himself as a woman as he and Rune search for the last descendant of Jesus Christ at a Heavy Metal concert |The Wiseman is Lord Tobes, the last descendant of Jesus |---- | The Concluding Chaotic Conundrum of the Coldean Cat |Their forces gathered, Rune and Rizla prepare for the final confrontation with Count Otto Black and for their final parting after a long year of adventures |Coldean is Tobes' recently-lost cat |---- |} |
3054677 | /m/08ngxk | Hangover Square | Patrick Hamilton | 1941 | {"/m/0vgkd": "Black comedy"} | Set against the backdrop of the days preceding Britain declaring war on Germany, the main character is George Harvey Bone, a lonely borderline alcoholic who suffers from a split personality. He is obsessed with gaining the affections of Netta, a failed actress and one of George's circle of "friends" with whom he drinks. Netta is repelled by George but, being greedy and manipulative, she and a mutual acquaintance, Peter, shamelessly exploit George's advances to extract money and drink from him. George suffers from 'dead moods' in which he is convinced he must kill Netta for the way she treats him. Upon recovering from these interludes, he cannot remember them. However outside these he embarks on several adventures, trying in vain to win Netta's affections, including a 'romantic' trip to Brighton which goes horribly wrong (Netta brings Peter and a previously unknown man with whom she has sex in the hotel room next to George's). Apart from being a source of money and alcohol, Netta's other reason for continuing to associate with George is because of Johnnie. He is one of George's long-time friends who works for a theatrical agent, and Netta hopes that through him she will get to meet Eddie Carstairs, a powerful figure in the theatre. However in a final reversal of fortune it is George, not Netta, who ends up attending a party amongst the theatrical great and good whilst Netta is cast aside by Eddie who (unlike George) has immediately seen her for the unpleasant person she is. George suddenly realises what it is like to be surrounded by 'kind' people who are interested in him as a person rather than what he can provide. This potentially promising turn of events in George's life is, however, dashed, when he suddenly clicks into a dead mood and resumes his murder plans. He executes his murder of Netta (and also of Peter, whom the narrative describes as a 'fascist' moments before he is murdered) before escaping to Maidenhead. Throughout the novel, Maidenhead represents for George a semi-mythical new beginning, and representing a picture of traditional Englishness in contrast to the seaminess of Earl's Court. However, in the closing pages of the novel the stark fallacy of that dream becomes apparent to George. It is the same as everywhere else. Now penniless, he gasses himself in a dingy Maidenhead boarding house. |
3056014 | /m/08nl1p | Tunnels of Blood | Darren Shan | 11/6/2000 | {"/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/03npn": "Horror", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | This story introduces Gavner Purl, a full vampire and an old friend of Mr. Crepsley. Gavner Purl is a Vampire General. Gavner Purl is shocked to discover Darren a half-vampire. Mr. Crepsley wants to talk to Gavner Purl alone in secrecy. After the meeting, Gavner walks with Darren for a while, revealing to him that Mr. Crepsley was a Vampire General and was about to be invested as a Vampire Prince, who is a leader of the Vampire Clan. He also lets slip that Mr. Crepsley is going to leave the Cirque and finally binds Darren to secrecy regarding all these facts. A day or so later, Mr. Crepsley does inform Darren that he must leave and Darren has to accompany him to some place. He suggests that Evra can come with Darren as if on a "vacation" and to help him keep Darren out of mischief as Mr. Crepsley pointed out incidents regarding Madam Octa and Sam Grest. They go to the city and get a disguise made for Evra and in the night while Mr. Crepsley goes out on mysterious excursions, in the day, Darren and Evra enjoy themselves. When looking for a Christmas gift for Evra, Darren comes across Debbie, a girl from the Square, where they were staying. The two begin dating and like each other very much. After a date and a "kiss" with Debbie, when one night Darren reaches back to the hotel, he and Evra are disturbed by a news report saying that human bodies were found in a basement, drained of blood. Darren and Evra fear that it may be Mr. Crepsley, and decide to track him at night to see where he goes. When Darren thinks that he is about to go and kill a man, Darren attempts to face Mr. Crepsley and tries to stop him, but discovers that it was actually a work of a mad vampaneze named Murlough. Murlough runs away, managing to kidnap Evra with him. Mr. Crepsley tells Darren about the Vampaneze and Murlough. Mr. Crepsley and Darren discover Evra kidnapped when they come out of the abattoir where the man Murlough intending to kill was. Mr. Crepsley declares that Evra has been or would be killed by Murlough. Darren takes the loss of Evra pretty badly. Darren goes over to Debbie to seek some comfort. He gets invited over to her house for Christmas Eve. Debbie almost cries when she realizes that Darren might have to leave suddenly and gives him a hug. Murlough spots Darren with Debbie and sneers him about, demanding for Mr. Crepsley and a release for Evra. Darren refuses. On returning, Darren tells Mr. Crepsley about Debbie, his talk with Murlough and his refusal to sell Mr. Crepsley for Evra. Mr. Crepsley is highly impressed and they begin making plans to save Evra before 25 December, the day when Murlough has promised to kill Evra. The two venture down the sewers and Darren gets caught by the vampaneze. Darren gives Murlough a piece of his mind by telling him about the vampire laws. He then decides to trade Debbie's life for Evra's. They reach Debbie's home and room where Mr. Crepsley slays Murlough, who is tricked into killing a goat, according to Darren's plan. The dying vampaneze whispers to Darren, 'Cluh-cluh-clever buh-buh-buh boy, hmmm?'. Afterwards, Darren decorates Debbie's Christmas tree and kisses Debbie on her forehead and wishes, 'Merry Christmas, Debbie'. |
3060214 | /m/08ntxq | Junior Jedi Knights: Lyric's World | null | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction"} | Lyric, a Melodie; is friend of Anakin Solo and Tahiri Veila, must return to her homeworld of Yavin 8. She must go through a change to join the elders of her race. In the caves of Yavin 8 are carvings similar to those found near the Golden Globe. If Anakin and Tahiri can decipher the markings, they may be able to break the mysterious curse. Along the way, they must overcome a reel, defeat wraiths, and escape the purella, a giant spider-like monster that feeds on Melodies. |
3060288 | /m/08nv2_ | Junior Jedi Knights: Promises | null | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction"} | Tahiri Veila knows nothing about her past: the identity of her real parents, or how she came to live with the Tusken Raiders. Now the day has come for her the find out! However first she must complete a deadly task to prove she's worthy. |
3060391 | /m/08nv8j | Junior Jedi Knights: The Golden Globe | null | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction"} | Anakin Solo's uncle, Luke Skywalker, informed the Solo family that young Anakin, eleven years old, is ready to begin his Jedi training. Anakin leaves his homeplanet of Coruscant to go to Yavin 4, where the Messeni Jedi Academy resides. There, he feels shy at first, but quickly comes across a bubbly, nine year old girl named Tahiri Veila. Tahiri is talkative and Anakin is quiet, but the two become instant friends. However, all is not well. Anakin begins to have visions of himself on a raft, going down a big river. He confides in Tahiri that he feels he needs to follow his vision, and see what it means. Tahiri is skeptical, until she too has the vision. The vision grows, showing a storm behind the two of them on the raft, Tahiri falling into the water, and Anakin unable to help her. Together, they sneak out of the Jedi Academy on students' break. They hitch a raft, and begin their journey. Anakin, who brought R2-D2 with them, listens to his beeps and notices that there is a storm brewing behind them, just like in the vision. There are monthly storms on Yavin and they are very dangerous, so Anakin and Tahiri are determined to reach the shore. Along the way, Tahiri falls into the water just as Anakin predicted. Anakin, terrified, keeps his cool and saves Tahiri with the use of the Force. Tahiri is saved and the two come across a temple, much like the Jedi Academy. They enter and go through a series of puzzles before entering the final room. A sleeping animal awakes, and claims to be a Jedi Master. Ikrit, a Jedi of the Old Republic, informs the two that there was a golden globe in the room and that Massassi children were trapped within it. The children had been trapped a long time ago by a Sith Lord. Master Ikrit had tried to free the poor children years ago, but the children could only be freed by children themselves. With that in mind, Anakin and Tahiri tried to reach within the globe, but find swirling sand, and pain, so much pain that it is unbearable. They sadly tell the Jedi Master that they cannot do the task right yet, but maybe when they grew stronger, they would be able to. Master Ikrit tells them that it is their destiny. They alone were the ones chosen to free these children. They take the furry Jedi Master with them, and head back to the Academy. They were fearful to discover that it was already midnight, and that people at the Academy were looking for them. Sure enough, when they got back to the Jedi Academy, Luke Skywalker was waiting for them on the front steps, not at all pleased. Tahiri, afraid that Luke would expel them both, takes blame for their outing completely, saying that they had gotten lost and that R2 led them home. This was a lie, and Luke was doubtful but when he asks R2 for confirmation, the droid whirrs back in agreement. So they avoided punishment. They have yet to fulfill their destiny which continues in the next installments in the book series. |
3060406 | /m/08nv98 | Junior Jedi Knights: Anakin's Quest | Rebecca Moesta | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | After having a dark-side focused nightmare, Anakin begins to question his future. His uncle, Luke, tells him of his own experiences in the dark side cave on Dagobah. This causes Anakin to leave Yavin 4 on a similar quest. |
3060413 | /m/08nvbp | Junior Jedi Knights: Vader's Fortress | Rebecca Moesta | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | Anakin Solo, Tionne and the Jedi Master Ikrit travel to one of Darth Vader's safehouses on the planet Vjun. It is entirely abandoned and seemingly holds Obi-Wan Kenobi's old lightsaber. |
3060441 | /m/08nvcq | Junior Jedi Knights: Kenobi's Blade | Rebecca Moesta | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction"} | Uldir, a classmate of Anakin Solo's at the Jedi Academy on Yavin 4, wished to become a great Jedi, but his skills in the Force are weak, such that he can't even lift a feather with his mind. He gets the idea to use a Holocron to learn the secrets of the Jedi of the Old Republic. He "borrows" the Holocron along with Obi-Wan Kenobi's lightsaber, recovered from Darth Vader's palace on the planet Vjun where the Dark Lord took it after striking down his old master on the first Death Star. Apparently, Obi-Wan's lightsaber grants its wielder skill in Form III of lightsaber combat, of which Kenobi was a master. Anakin—along with his friends Tahiri Veila, R2-D2, Tionne and the Jedi Master Ikrit—must race across the galaxy to find Uldir. If they don't find and stop Uldir, he could very well be killed, and Kenobi's blade and the Holocron could fall into the hands of a very evil man. |
3061467 | /m/08nxkc | Helen with a High Hand | Arnold Bennett | null | {"/m/01z4y": "Comedy"} | The story concerns the chance meeting between an elderly, witty, but miserly man and his estranged young niece. Both characters are strong and stubborn, and discover an affection and affinity for each other. The niece moves into the miser's house, and what follows is an enjoyable battle of wills between the two - a battle relished as much by the characters as by the reader. Indeed, on occasion, both characters scheme to achieve the same outcome (such as ensuring that the niece will miss a boat to Canada that would remove her from the uncle's life). Under his niece's influence, the uncle reluctantly abandons some of his financial prejudices. The book also chronicles their two romances, and, by the end of the book, both are married to suitable partners. |
3061712 | /m/08ny5t | Direct Descent | Frank Herbert | 1980 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | Set in the far future, it consists of two stories about how the peaceful Archivists of the library planet Earth have to deal with warmongers arriving and trying to exploit knowledge for power. It contains a lot of pictures and is aimed at children or adolescents. |
3063410 | /m/08p097 | The Aquitaine Progression | Robert Ludlum | 2/12/1984 | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Joel Converse is a lawyer, having previously been a fighter pilot in the Vietnam War. Because of his wartime experiences with Command Saigon, in the form of a psychopathic general named "Mad" Marcus Delavane, he is chosen to thwart a cabal of former generals bent on world domination. |
3063853 | /m/08p12m | Richter 10 | Arthur C. Clarke | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | There are four defining episodes in the story, and a variety of subplots and minor threads — many of them unrelated to the main story. The story begins late in the 20th century, and tracks the life of the main protagonist, Lewis Crane. The first of four episodes opens the story. An earthquake in California in the late 20th century has left seven year old Lewis Crane a crippled, homeless orphan. The second major episode shows Crane as an adult, world's foremost earthquake expert, a Nobel laureate, and a ruthless scientist and entrepreneur dedicated to relieve the misery of those affected by earthquakes. He is also the moving force behind Foundation, an organization dedicated to scientific research on earthquakes. His Foundation has just perfected the technology to predict earthquakes to within minutes of due time, intensity, and geographical areas that will be affected. His first prediction is for Sado island in Japan—most of the island will be destroyed, as will the inhabited village of Aikawa. Local authorities not only ignore his warnings, but vilify him. On the D-day, he has collected a lot of media and relief organizations to cover the event. Many of them are on a small part of the island that will be safe, according to prediction. Others are covering the event from the air. In a very moving culmination, mayor of Aikawa arrives with police to arrest Crane as a fear monger, and to deport him. That is when the earthquake hits. By the time the dust settles, all of his predictions have come true. And there is a beach where the village of Aikawa used to be. The third major episode is set in the US. A major quake is to hit the areas around a part of the Mississippi river. A business politician cartel of disbelievers decides to use this prediction to further their interests in the presidential elections due soon. The cartel penetrates the Foundation, and tweaks their field data so the prediction is revealed to be a few months sooner. The cartel wins the elections, and Lewis loses credibility when there is no sign of a quake on the announced date. A postmortem at Foundation uncovers the data fudging, and the fact that the quake is still due in a few months. After much drama and public relations work, a few people are willing to take precautions, but many are not listening. And authorities are out to silence the fear mongers. The quake hits as predicted, and there is a lot of damage. Lewis emerges a hero and a prophet. The fourth and final episode involves a bold plan to banish earthquakes from Earth forever by "spot welding" the plates forming earth's crust at about 50 strategic places, thus stopping their movement. This welding will be done by detonating powerful nuclear bombs deep inside the earth with energies directed downwards, with no impact on the surface. There are two objections from naysayers. First, nuclear bombs are dangerous. Second, will the earth be doomed by stopping all tectonic activity? The story mentions the second argument only in passing, and focuses on the nuclear argument. This is when another long range big quake prediction is made. A few decades hence, a monstrous quake will split much of California from the North American mainland, and make it an island in the Pacific, with massive losses of life and property. But there is a solution. If the first of the 50 odd "spot welds" is done at a certain location in the Western US, and within a certain time window, this disaster can be averted. Lewis convinces the powers that run the country of the event, and a secret project on the lines of Manhattan Project is conceived for the first "spot weld". Just before the nukes are to be triggered, a terrorist attack on the project destroys the facility. Lewis loses his wife and child in the attack. The book ends with Lewis's suicide by remaining in the quake zone when it finally hits. fa:ریشتر ۱۰ fr:10 sur l'échelle de Richter |
3063872 | /m/08p140 | The Enemy of My Enemy | George Michael | 2006-04 | null | In the book Michael examines the positions of neo-Nazi and Islamist groups on American foreign policy, the media, modernity, and the so-called New World Order. Both camps share a "fervent anti-Semitism, accompanied by strong pro-Palestinian views, anger over Israel's influence on American policymakers, and opposition to the Iraq War and the U.S. presence in the Middle East." |
3066557 | /m/08p5nn | The Outsider | Richard Wright | 1953 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | This novel presents ideas which examine life in the light of modern philosophies. The novel's central character, symbolically named Cross Damon, represents the 20th century man in frenzied pursuit of freedom. Cross is an intellectual Negro, the product of a culture which rejects him. He is further alienated by his "habit of incessant reflection", his feeling that the experiences and actions of his life have so far taken place without his free assent, and a profound conviction that there must be more to life, some meaning and justification which have hitherto eluded him. When Cross is introduced (in "Book One: Dread") he is drinking too much, partly in an effort to forget his problems (of which he has many) but mostly to deaden the pain caused by his urgent and frustrated sense of life. There is an accident in which he is reported dead and so he sets out to create his own identity, and thus, he hopes, to discover truth. This search for the absolute compels him to commit four murders and ends in his despair and violent death. En route, he encounters totalitarianism in its most-likely-to-succeed form, Communism. Though he agrees with these other "outsiders" that power is the central reality of society and that "man is nothing in particular", he is outraged by their acceptance and cynical exploitation of these "facts". "That’s enough", he screams before he kills a Communist who has just told him that there is no more to life. You say life is just life, a simple act of accidental possession in the hands of him who happens to have it. But what's suffering? That rests in the senses... You might argue that you could snatch a life, blot out a consciousness and get away with it because you're strong and free enough to do it; but why turn a consciousness into a flame of suffering and let it lie, squirming...? Having rejected religion, the past and present organization of society, the proposed totalitarian alternative and the kindred uncontrollable violence of his own behavior as a "free" man, Cross abandons ideas and pins his last hope on love. But his mistress commits suicide when she sees him as he is. There follows a chapter in which the Law, personified by a hunchbacked district attorney who understands Cross Damon, convicts him of a crime and condemns him, but is powerless to give his life significance by punishment. After this Cross is murdered. The district attorney comes to his death bed and asks how was life and Cross dies murmuring, "It was horrible." |
3069279 | /m/08p9_8 | Malevil | Robert Merle | null | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | The story's events take place in rural France in the late twentieth century. The protagonist is Emanuel Comte, former school director, now turned farmer and landowner. He is also an owner of a tourist attraction - an old castle called Malevil after the nearby village. Comte is a highly motivated, well-respected person with a talent for diplomacy and leadership. By chance, Emanuel and several of his friends find themselves in the wine cellar of the castle during the unexpected outbreak of nuclear war. The survivors find their surroundings reduced to ashes and rubble. Together under the leadership of Emanuel they start to rebuild. They later discover that other people and animals have survived in nearby farmsteads and villages. Nature begins anew and an agrarian society starts to reform. From time to time more survivors show up, some bringing death and destruction with them. One of the main challenges of the slowly emerging society is to fend off the threat of a new theocratic dictatorship that has taken over a neighboring village with the assistance of a marauding gang. |
3069636 | /m/05n02bl | Castles Made of Sand | Gwyneth Jones | 2002 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | Halfway through Bold As Love the two male leads agree that one day they will take oxytocin together — the intimacy drug, based on the hormone released to create the bond between mother and baby, or between monogamous reproductive partners. At the opening of the second episode we meet Ax and Sage loved-up, making out on Brighton Beach on an oxytocin high: a shocking development for readers lulled by the sexual conformity of the first volume. Ensuing chapters are devoted to the painful birth-pangs of a passionate rock and roll sexual threesome. Meanwhile Ax's friends, the other almost-famous Indie musicians who survived Massacre Night, are repelled by vapid celebrity-culture, and form an alliance instead with the security forces, the emergency services, and the masses: the beleaguered people of England. This "innocent" feudalism is counterpointed by far more sinister developments on the Green Right Wing, where a Pan-European Celtic movement grows in the shadows, like National Socialism, into something monstrous. The love affair between Ax, Sage and Fiorinda is treated with wit and tenderness, and Jones's trademark emotional intensity, yet it clearly serves as a microcosm for the macrocosm of Ax's England: and a test bed for one of the most naïve (or daring) assertions of radical politics. Is love really all we need? Can utter personal freedom and licence, restrained only by that oxytocin bond, form the foundation of the Good State...? As in Bold As Love on Massacre Night there is a revelatory gestalt flip, here mediated by the Irishman, Fergal Kearney, (shades of Shane McGowan) one of Jones’s fascinating and engaging secondary characters: a bridge after which everything developed in the first chapters takes on a different meaning. Readers are wrest from the canonisation of Thom Yorke and Led Zeppelin, and the highly plausible trials of a country wrecked by global warming and social unrest, into the darkest of adult fairytales. It seems that Jones, unable to contain the problem of evil realistically in the pantomime format of Bold As Love, (her own description) has chosen to depict the horrors, that must attend a future such as she describes, in terms of the supernatural. Parted by the manipulation of a truly horrible, thoroughly enjoyable pantomime villain, each member of the Triumvirate suffers the trials and tests of fairytale, updated for the 21st Century: Ax, far away, as the hostage of a vicious drug cartel, Sage in his struggle to achieve the Holy Grail of Bold As Love fantasy neuroscience; and Fiorinda as a different and uglier kind of hostage, laying down her life for her people. A rich fusion of legend and folklore, science and fantasy, ancient and modern, brings the story to a climax. By the time Aoxomoxoa sets sail for the castle of the Wounded King, in a futuristic yacht called the Lorien, with a mainframe computer in the jewel of a ring borrowed from the female Merlin, the re-imagining, re-vision of the Arthur cycle seems triumphantly complete. Jimi Hendrix was a great fan of science fiction, though probably not as steeped in sf as Gwyneth Jones has proved to be in rock and roll. His lyrics and his music permeate Castles Made Of Sand, but here the ruin of treasured dreams (...and so castles made of sand, fall in the sea...) is not the end of the story; and the violent romanticism of Led Zeppelin is not the last phase of this rock and roll career. There is more of Jones’s "complicated optimism" to come. Few readers can have anticipated a sequel so different from Bold As Love, yet essentially the formula is the same: a Brechtian pantomime, neither fantasy, nor sf, nor mainstream, that manages to be both deadly serious, and thoroughly entertaining. |
3069826 | /m/08pc62 | The Sleepwalkers | Hermann Broch | null | null | The novel contains three parts, in fact three novels in one, which differ from each other in style, time and place of action, characters and atmosphere. The first part of the trilogy takes place in Berlin and a Prussian province in 1888 and is a parody of 19th century literary realism. The main character, Prussian aristocrat and military officer Joachim von Pasenow, balances between romantic devotion to a Czech prostitute Ruzena (Rose) Hruska and a neighbor, Elisabeth von Baddensen, who is his social equal. In his secret liaison with Ruzena he finds emotional and sexual fulfilment while courting a delicate and distant young lady. In the ocean of doubts and hesitation, he finds refuge in rationality, order and prejudice (represented by the theme of a military uniform) which lead him into a loveless marriage with Elisabeth. Almost all the decisions and actions of Joachim, Ruzena and Elisabeth are inspired and controlled by his diabolical friend, the rich merchant Eduard von Bertrand whom, for his evident lack of comprehension for old values, Joachim never trusts fully. The second part, a pastiche of an expressionistic prose, is situated in Cologne and Mannheim in 1903. Instead of the upper crust, the reader finds a working-class and low bourgeoisie setting. Having left his promising career as an accountant and his old friends, including social democrat Geyring and inn-keeper Gertrud Hentjen, the book-keeper August Esch starts a new life as a circus manager and starts up a women's fights production. As the circus production does not satisfy him he aspires to leave Germany for the USA and take Hentjen with him. Like Joachim in the first part, Esch feels insecure in the world of decaying old values (here the values of business and middle-class life) and tries to find a guilty party, first in his former superior, then in unfeeling industrialist Bertrand (Eduard von Bertrand from the first part), who not only exploits his employees but is a homosexual. In fury, Esch decides to murder Bertrand but does not achieve his goal. His dream of America is destroyed when his associate runs away with all his money. Finally Esch marries Hentjen and moves to Luxemburg, where he gets an even more prestiguous job as a bookkeeper. The last part focuses on several characters (including Joachim von Pasenow, Esch and his wife Gertrud) in a little town on the Mosel River during the last year of World War I. The well-ordered way of their lives is disrupted as deserter Huguenau arrives in town and pretends to be a businessman and publisher. While Esch fulfills himself through a sect, Huguenau cheats him out of his newspaper and attempts to insinuate himself into the favour of Major von Pasenow, the military commandant of the town. The third novel contains parallel stories of Hanna Wendling, a young woman alienated from her family; of shell-shocked and mutilated soldiers and field hospital nurses; and that of a Salvation Army girl in Berlin. The plot of each chapter determines the genre used (occasional verse for the story of a Salvation Army girl, journalistic style of the hospital chapters, etc.). The outstanding element of the third novel is the essay titled The Disintegration of Values. While prosaic or balladic chapters refer to fictional characters and their attitudes to the community and ideas of their social role, the essay deals with the transformation of values in society theoretically. The finale takes place during the last days of the war; in the total chaos Huguenau murders Esch and violates his wife, then legally leaves the town and soon becomes a respectable businessman in Lorraine. |
3070159 | /m/08pc_1 | Cowl | Neal Asher | 2004 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | The novel follows Cowl, a human male that was genetically engineered to be the perfect specimen of human evolution. However he is also on the run from the Heliothane Dominion, which considers him their enemy. In an attempt to stop the rule of the dominant Heliothanes, Cowl travels back into the past in order to make himself the dominant force. Cowl intends to create this through the use of human samples collected throughout time, samples that he quickly disposes of once he's finished with them. When Cowl pulls the twenty second century prostitute Polly and the government soldier Tack through time, his plans might not be as easily executed as he thought. |
3070508 | /m/08pdrr | Arch of Triumph | Erich Maria Remarque | 1945 | {"/m/098tmk": "War novel"} | It is 1939, and, despite having no permission to perform surgery, Ravic, a very accomplished German surgeon and a stateless refugee living in Paris, has been ghost-operating on patients for two years on the behalf of two less skillful French physicians. Unwilling to return to Nazi Germany which stripped him of his citizenship, and unable to legally exist anywhere else in pre-war western Europe, Ravic manages to hang on. He is one of many displaced persons without passports or any other documents, who live under a constant threat of being captured and deported from one country to the next, and back again. Though Ravic has given up on the possibility of love, life has a curious way of taking a turn for the romantic, even during the worst of times, as he cautiously befriends an actress. |
3071403 | /m/08pgq5 | Shabdangal | null | null | null | An infant abandoned at a junction of four roads is adopted by a priest who finds it. The child grows up to be a soldier and participates in the Second World War. Most soldiers returned from the war carrying syphilis but this soldier did not get the disease. During peacetime, his courage earns him a means of livelihood. His curiosity about sex and another's treachery leads him to his first homosexual intercourse, in a state of intoxication. He gets the diseases gonorrhoea and syphilis and becomes a homeless wanderer. The insanity of the world infects him; the meaninglessness of his life and the pain of disease compel him to commit suicide. He does not succeed in his attempt at suicide. Overcome by a desire to confess, he walks into the house of a writer he respects and retells to him the story of his life. The soldier in the story has never done anything but kill other people. The horror of what he had seen and done during the war haunts him. He cannot take a bath, as he is afraid of blood; to him, water is the blood of the earth. At war, he once killed a friend of his at the friend's request. Blood was flowing from every part of his body; all his skin was gone. The soldier cannot adjust to life in peacetime. He is furious at "those dyed pieces of cloth": flags symbolizing people's groups with different opinions. He had never known a mother: the sight of breasts fills him with thirst. The first 'woman' of his life turns out to be a male prostitute dressed as a woman. "She.. it.. he" tells him how the street became his home. The soldier then describes to the writer his encounter with a mother and child, the mother a prostitute. He recounts the circumstances under which the mother kicked him in the chest and later gave him money for food, thinking he was a beggar. He then tells the writer about the failure of his attempted suicide. |
3073085 | /m/08pl08 | The Cancer Ward | Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn | 1968 | {"/m/012jgz": "Autobiographical novel", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The novel is set in a hospital in Soviet Uzbekistan in 1955. As the title suggests, the plot focuses on a group of cancer patients as they undergo therapy. The novel deals with political theories, mortality, and hope — themes that are often explored either through descriptive passages or the conversations the characters have within the ward, which is a microcosm of the post-Stalin Russian Communist government. Also explored is the effect life in the labour camps will have on a man's life, as Oleg Kostoglotov, the main character, is shocked to discover the materialist world of the city outside the cancer ward. Oleg is in "Perpetual Exile" in Ush-Terek, in Kazakhstan. Bureaucracy and the nature of power in Stalin's state is represented by Pavel Nikolayevich Rusanov, a "personnel officer". The corrupt power of Stalin's regime is shown through his dual desires to be a "worker" but also achieve a "special pension". At the end, Rusanov's wife drops rubbish from her car window, symbolising the carelessness with which the regime treated the country. The novel is partly autobiographical. The character Oleg Kostoglotov was admitted to the hospital from a gulag, similar to Solzhenitsyn, and later subjected to internal exile in the same region of the USSR. Oleg is depicted as being born in Leningrad, while Solzhenitsyn was born in Kislovodsk. Some Uzbek landmarks are mentioned in the novel, such as the trolleyline and Chorsu Bazaar. The zoo Oleg visits is now a soccer field near Mirabad Amusement Park. Kostoglotov begins two romances in the hospital, one with Zoya, a nurse and doctor in training, though the attraction is mostly physical, and a more serious one with Vera Gangart, one of his doctors, a middle-aged woman who has never married, and whom he imagines he might ask to become his wife. Both women invite him to stay overnight in their apartment, ostensibly only as a friend, after he is discharged, because he has nowhere to sleep — his status as an exile makes finding a place to lodge difficult. His feelings for Vera are strong, and seem to be reciprocated, though neither of them has spoken of it directly: He could not think of her either with greed or with the fury of passion. His one joy would be to go and lie at her feet like a dog, like a miserable beaten cur, to lie on the floor and breathe on her feet like a cur. That would be a happiness greater than anything he could imagine." After wandering around the town, he decides against going to see either woman. He does find the courage to go to Vera's once, but he has left it so late in the day that she is no longer there, and he decides not to try again. He is well aware that the hormone therapy used as part of his cancer treatment may have left him impotent, just as imprisonment and exile have taken all the life out of him. He feels he has nothing left to offer a woman, and that his past means he would always feel out of place in what he sees as normal life. Instead, he decides to accept less from life than he had hoped for, and to face it alone. He heads to the railway station to fight his way onto a train to Ush-Terek. He writes a goodbye letter to Vera from the station: You may disagree, but I have a prediction to make: even before you drift into the indifference of old age, you will come to bless this day, the day you did not commit yourself to share my life ... Now that I am going away ... I can tell you quite frankly: even when we were having the most intellectual conversations and I honestly thought and believed everything I said, I still wanted all the time, all the time, to pick you up and kiss you on the lips. :So try to work that out. ::And now, without your permission, I kiss them. |
3074110 | /m/08pmqx | In His Steps | Charles Sheldon | 1896 | null | In His Steps takes place in the railroad town of Raymond, probably located in the eastern U.S.A. (Chicago, IL and the coast of Maine are mentioned as being accessible by train). The main character is the Rev. Henry Maxwell, pastor of the First Church of Raymond, who challenges his congregation to not do anything for a whole year without first asking: “What Would Jesus Do?” Other characters include Ed Norman, senior editor of the Raymond Daily Newspaper, Rachel Winslow, a talented singer, and Virginia Page, an heiress, to name a few. The novel begins on a Friday morning when a man out of work appears at the front door of Henry Maxwell while the latter is preparing for that Sunday’s upcoming sermon. Maxwell listens to the man’s helpless plea briefly before brushing him away and closing the door. The same man appears in church at the end of the Sunday sermon, walks up to “the open space in front of the pulpit,” and faces the people. No one stops him. He quietly but frankly confronts the congregation—“I’m not complaining; just stating facts.”—about their compassion, or apathetic lack thereof, for the jobless like him in Raymond. Upon finishing his address to the congregation, he collapses, and dies a few days later. That next Sunday, Henry Maxwell, deeply moved by the events of the past week, presents a challenge to his congregation: “Do not do anything without first asking, ‘What would Jesus do?’” This challenge is the theme of the novel and is the driving force of the plot. From this point on, the rest of the novel consists of certain episodes that focus on individual characters as their lives are transformed by the challenge. |
3077183 | /m/08pvc6 | Molon Labe! | Kenneth W. Royce | 1/30/2004 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Molôn Labé!, the free state movement's first novel, has encouraged many people to relocate to Wyoming for their own immediate increase in personal freedom, as well as for long-term hopes of bolstering the general climate of liberty in the Cowboy State. Molon labe is an ancient Greek expression for "Come and take them!", the defiant reply of King Leonidas to the Persian demand before the Battle of Thermopylae for his 300 Spartans to lay down their arms in surrender. In the United States, the phrase is becoming a modern-day Second Amendment cry of resolve never to disarm in the face of compulsion. |
3077775 | /m/05m_zfq | Midnight Lamp | Gwyneth Jones | 2003 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | The third episode of the Bold As Love Sequence opens on a cold beach in Mexico, where Ax and Sage are hesitantly renegotiating their relationship, while Fiorinda struggles on the brink of schizophrenic fugue. The rockstars, scarred by outrageous fortune, have dropped out, joined the masses, abandoned the centre stage: hoping to find peace. Their Avalon is invaded by Harry Lopez, the boy-wonder producer who wants to make a virtual movie about Ax Preston; who brings a summons from the US President. The secret behind the assassination of Rufus O’Niall is out. The Pentagon is openly embarked on developing the new human superweapon: but President Fred Eiffrich, who wants to stop the Neurobomb, believes the hawks are speeding the process by shocking, and extremely dangerous, means. He needs advice. With indecent haste the three decide that what they really need is the hair of the dog that bit them. Soon they are heading north to tackle the demons of the Republic of California, in an adventure where the West Coast music scene will be ignored, while Hollywood — the virtual movies, the stars, the agents, the players — takes the role that rock and roll played in England. In Midnight Lamp, the Bold As Love glamour is deconstructed by confrontation with the real world. A young woman raped by her father, and doomed by the crippling mental illness that is her heritage, featuring on the reality TV show hosted by Bollywood import, the truly wonderful Puusi Meera . A pop-icon warlord, latest darling of the Hollywood fame machine, admits to dirty secrets behind the romance of the Rock and Roll Reich. A reformed bad boy, stripped of his wealth, status and physical prowess, finds that enlightenment is no protection from remorse. Secondary characters come to the fore, loyalties are strained. The Few — shipped over from a dreary post-Ax England — are thinking of solo projects. As the Pentagon thriller unfolds, against the backdrop of an uncannily believable day-after-tomorrow tinseltown, Gwyneth Jones returns to her long-time fascination with boundary events, moments of change. The "magic" of the Bold As Love Sequence is conjured into science fictional reality (literally conjured, on stage at the Hollywood Bowl!) through the mediation of historical precedents: the sheer, limitless terror of the Atom Bomb when it was new; and the transition from alchemy into chemistry, myth into manufacture, in the midst of the French Revolution. And above all, there is the desert: Vireo Lake, Lavoisier, the "Cow Castle"—lyrical images of austerity and endurance, of human/nature, flayed to the point of death but undefeated. This is the lightest in tone of the Bold As Love books, despite some inventively gory crime scenes. Dissolution has gone global, there is no escape, but by the final credits the heroes have made their peace with the Burning World, the maelstrom in which they will live and die. Yet there is a darker undertow, an elegy for those who have no hope: for the Invisible People, fragments of human souls, digital fodder for virtual movies; for the self-immolation of the Gaian marytrs; and for the unsung queen of it all, Janelle Firdous. The addictions of fame, the addictions of power, are inescapable: but most dangerous, perhaps, those who have been cheated of the glittering prizes. |
3077802 | /m/05n01mq | Band of Gypsys | Gwyneth Jones | 2005 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction"} | In the last pages of Midnight Lamp a secret military test of the Neurobomb went live, and the altered-brain neuronauts died in the act of wiping out the planet’s reserves of fossil fuel. Like the bombs exploded over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the "A team event" seemed both horrific and benign. The latest US/Islamic conflict was over at a stroke, the terminal sickness of post-peak-oil mercifully cut short. No way back to "business as usual": now there must be a new world, a better world. Band of Gypsys opens, some months later, with a complete change of pace. Having failed to make terms with a corrupt and dangerous Westminster government, the Triumvirate are in Paris, conducting a mordant John and Yoko style, "bed-in" in protest against conditions in English labour camps. Ax gets some bad news. US President Fred Eiffrich, the man who "Banned the Bomb", is doomed: brought down by a cunningly manufactured scandal. The hour is getting late. The rescue of Ax's family, held as hostages for his good behaviour, shows Ax and friends doing what they do best: extracting bloodless victory from a nasty situation. There's a festival at Reading, there's a clandestine mind/matter tech space programme in the basement of the Heads' Battersea HQ. The ideals of the Rock and Roll Reich are alien to a new, post-Crisis generation. The leaders of fashion are neo-feudalist dandy Jack Vries MP (secret chief of the secret police), and Toby Starborn, sinister young virtual artist. Ax 'n Sage 'n Fiorinda are outdated icons, corpses in the mouths of the bourgeoisie. When Ax and Sage are engulfed in the Lavoisier Massacre Scandal a moment's shocking loss of control precipitates disaster. The Triumvirate find themselves — like many English Royals before them — incarcerated. Once more they are forced to provide rockstar window-dressing for a reactionary and degenerate Green regime, but this time Ax Preston has no miraculous solutions. Locked away in the shadowy, haunted fortress of Wallingham House, the prisoners hear distant echoes of a new blitzkrieg. The Chinese, emerging from their own struggle with the Crisis years, are taking over in Central Asia. They are almost at the gates of Europe. Unlike previous episodes, Band Of Gypsys can't easily be read as a stand alone. In Midnight Lamp the past, seen from a fresh angle, illuminated character and motivation. Now the past is all there is. A freezing garret in Montmartre, where the three enacted the miserable fate of England's former hedonistic consumers, turns out to have been the last glimpse of open sky, a viable future. Fiorinda's hopes of pregnancy fade, as she plods through the motions of her national sweetheart role. Ax and Sage see the life ahead of them as a dreadful imprisonment, long before Ax self-destructs. Finally we are facing the real, monstrous bulk of the evils Ax tried to combat, and it's too late: it was always too late. England was never going to be saved. It's relentless, claustrophobic stuff. Fans might have preferred the saga to end on the high note of Midnight Lamp. Yet this bleak downturn is as rich as ever in outrageous invention, black humour and acute social commentary — and true, on many levels, to what has gone before. Camelot moments do not endure, Ax told us at the start that he was bound to be defeated in the end. When a civilised country dies the first shocks may be exhilerating, even liberating, but then the grim symptoms appear in earnest, and there's no more dancing in the streets. In 1969, Hendrix felt he’d reached a dead end, and embarked on a major career change. It did him no good. His new band, (Band Of Gypsys: the title of the novel honours Hendrix’s misspelling), didn’t last, and in a few months he was dead. The Rock and Roll Reich version ends differently, in passages of elegiac beauty and steely hope. An idealised England that never was cannot return, horror broods over the birth of a new world, but the Triumvirate are still standing, and la lutte continue. |
3078211 | /m/08pxjv | The Big Nowhere | James Ellroy | 1988-09 | {"/m/0lsxr": "Crime Fiction", "/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/05hgj": "Novel", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | What begin in this novel as two separate tales eventually twist together into one, centered around the efforts of a LA Sheriff's Deputy to capture a brutal sex murderer while serving, somewhat reluctantly, as a decoy for a set-up to expose communists in Hollywood. This young deputy, Danny Upshaw, finds himself on a ride that will force him to confront secrets he has kept his whole life, even from himself. Two other major characters, disgraced former cop, Turner "Buzz" Meeks, now working for both Howard Hughes and Mickey Cohen, and ambitious LAPD lieutenant Malcolm "Mal" Considine, involved in a child custody case, try with varying success to do the right things in an environment of deception, paranoia and brutality. The story begins on New Year's Eve, as 1949 turns to 1950, and creates a vivid portrait of Los Angeles during that era, from the bebop emanating from the jazz clubs on Central Avenue to the labor union battles facing the Hollywood studios. The entire story takes place in the aftermath of the notorious Sleepy Lagoon murder case and the resultant Zoot Suit Riots, an event that roiled LA for years. While the novel mocks opportunistic Red-baiting as a scam to oust organized labor that benefited political careers and the fortunes of movie studio executives and mobsters, Ellroy is no easier on the film colony's communists and fellow travelers, many of whom he depicts as decadent hypocrites, easily compromised into "naming names" in an effort to hide their own dirty secrets. As with most of Ellroy's fiction, he liberally employs the brutal slang of the times. Gays are "fruits," "homos," "nances"; blacks are "boogies" and "jigs" and their neighborhoods are all Niggertown. The Big Nowhere is, in fact, a feast of vernacular, and Ellroy is brilliant at capturing the nuances of dialogue that denote class, race, and mindset. |
3079045 | /m/08pz14 | Jarhead: A Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles | Anthony Swofford | 3/4/2003 | {"/m/05h83": "Non-fiction"} | The book recounts Swofford's enlistment and service in the U.S. Marine Corps during the First Gulf War, in which he served as a Scout Sniper with the Surveillance and Target Acquisition (STA) Platoon of 2nd Battalion 7th Marines. Like most of the troops stationed in the Middle East during the Gulf War, Swofford saw very little actual combat. Swofford's narrative focuses on the physical and mental struggles of the young troops. |
3079253 | /m/08pzhf | The Chosen | Ricardo Pinto | 1999 | {"/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | The story concerns the move from boy to man of its hero, Carnelian, son of the Lord Suth. Formerly powerful and influential, Lord Suth is in exile far from Osrakum, capital of the Three Lands. His son has been brought up with only his father and immediate household, which though extensive is only a pale shadow of the extravagance and excesses of the court life normally experienced by a ruling Lord. A delegation of lords comes to their island, asking that Suth will return to the capital and oversee the election of a new emperor, since the current one is dying. The emperor has two sons, and a choice must be made between them. Suth agrees, and Carnelian is thrown into a world of cruelty and indifference to the suffering of others. His home is torn apart to make repairs to the ship which brought the delegation. Most of the household are left behind, without the stores they would have needed to survive the winter. It is death for a common man to look upon the face of such a lord, and Carnelian has several sharp lessons in the laws of caste which govern this society. The journey to Osrakum is experienced by the reader through the impressions of Carnelian, as a stranger to the three lands. Once at court, Carnelian again experiences the contrasts between the rich and powerful, and their inconsequential slaves. He becomes involved in the affairs of the two brothers contending for the throne. His position as an outsider and his fathers position, initially as regent and then as arbiter of the election, makes him well placed to see the inner workings of the palace and to become a natural rulebreaker and explorer of secret places. He becomes allied to prince Osidian, who in a tight and vicious contest gains the greatest number of votes to become Emperor. Molochite, the other prince, is not the sort to accept such a loss. Carnelian and Osidian are abducted, making it impossible for Osidian to attend his own coronation and causing him to lose the election by default. |
3079306 | /m/08pzmd | The Standing Dead | Ricardo Pinto | 2002 | {"/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | Carnelian, son and heir to Lord Suth, and prince Osidian have been abducted, drugged and smuggled out of the capital of the three lands, Osrakum, in funeral urns. Carnelian is awakened by a would-be grave robber seeking spoils in the urns. The robber is immediately placed in the dilemma of having looked upon the face of one of the exalted chosen lords, for which the penalty is death, of killing them and risking eventual discovery and death, of being caught in the inevitable hunt for such exalted missing persons and being executed, or fleeing far from the capital with his captives in the hope of selling them as valuable slaves. He chooses the latter as his only chance of survival and thus Carnelian and Osidian are set upon a very different course than Osidians anticipated coronation. Osidian having failed to appear at the coronation, his brother Molochite would automatically be made emperor instead. As mortal brother to the new divine emperor, Osidian would take Molochite's place as blood sacrifice. Carnelian and Osidian are bound and disguised and marched away from the capital. Osidian is in worse shape than Carnelian, so that Carnelian must make the difficult choices of attempting their escape. Carnelian has a possibility of escape and return to the capital, but either abandoning Osidian or bringing him back would mean his inevitable death. Instead he seizes the opportunity of an attack by nomad tribesmen to transfer them to captivity with the tribesmen, instead of the slavers. As the party returns to the plains which are home to the ochre tribe, Osidian recovers somewhat and his reckless determination defending the party from wild animals, plus his navigational skills and knowledge of the plains drawn from his unconventional and privileged education, impresses the tribesmen. Some of them start to defer to Osidian both as a clearly recognisable member of the ruling race which they have been taught to fear, and as a natural replacement for the dead leaders of their party. The tribesmen return to their village, where a combination of fast talking by Carnelian (whose family had a number of plainsmen as slaves), and growing respect for Osidian mean they are allowed to live as part of the village. Carnelian is accepting of their new life, but Osidian is at first suicidal, but then vengeful. He embarks on a plan to recover his position and sets about manipulating the tribesmen to his ends. By a number of staged encounters, he sets tribesmen from different villages against each other, until he controls a steadily growing warband. This he intends to use as the start of an army to wage war against his brother. |
3080389 | /m/08q0xp | All for Love | John Dryden | null | null | ;Act One Serapion describes foreboding omens (of storms, whirlwinds, and the flooding of the Nile) of Egypt’s impending doom. Alexas, Cleopatra’s eunuch, dismisses Serapion’s claims and is more concerned with Cleopatra’s relationship with Antony. He sees that Cleopatra dotes on Antony and worries that Antony will not continue seeing Cleopatra. Thus, Serapions hosts a festival to celebrate Antony’s honor. Ventidius, a Roman general, comes to aide Antony in Alexandria. Ventidius disagrees with Antony’s relationship with Cleopatra and offers to give Antony troops if he leaves her. Although Antony is insulted by Ventidius’s opinions regarding Cleopatra (and refuses to hear anything negative about her), Antony agrees. ;Act Two Cleopatra mourns about her situation without Antony. Charmion, Cleopatra’s lady in waiting, attempts to set up a meeting between Cleopatra and Antony, but she is unsuccessful. Cleopatra thus sends Alexas to try to win back Antony using gifts (jewels including a bracelet). Alexas suggests that Cleopatra should tie the bracelet onto Antony’s wrist. In the subsequent meeting between Cleopatra and Antony, Ventidius appears and tries to proclaim how Cleopatra is not Antony’s rightful partner and would betray him for her own safety. However, Cleopatra wins this argument by demonstrating a letter showing that she refused Egypt and Syria from Octavius. Antony is overjoyed by Cleopatra’s decision and proclaims his love for her. ;Act Three Antony is returning from battle and is overwhelmed with love for Cleopatra. Ventidius comes to speak with Antony, who attempts to flee unsuccessfully. Antony does not want to go back to war but doesn't know how to stop it. He believes Dolabella can help him and Ventidius brings Dolabella out. Dolabella, Antony’s friend, appears after Antony’s success in battle. Dolabella was banished for his love for Cleopatra, but he returns to a warm welcome from Antony. Dolabella offers a gift that will bring peace between Antony and Caesar. The gift is Octavia, Antony's true wife and Caesar's sister, and Antony’s two daughters. Octavia tells Antony the war will stop when he returns to his rightful place, by her side. Antony and Octavia reunite, and Alexas’s attempts to meddle for the sake of Cleopatra are dismissed. Cleopatra appears informed of her defeat. Alexas tells her to avoid Octavia but Cleopatra chooses to face her as a rival. Cleopatra and Octavia have an argument, it seems clear that Octavia is whom Antony rightfully belongs to, even if it is not she whom he loves most. ;Act Four Antony has been convinced by Octavia that his rightful place is by her side, in Rome, with his children. Antony plans to leave but does not have the strength to tell Cleopatra himself. Antony asks Dolabella to tell Cleopatra he is leaving so that Antony will not be persuaded to stay. Ventidius overhears that Dolabella will be going to Cleopatra to bid her farewell. He also sees her divising a plan with Alexas to inspire jealousy in Antony by way of Dolabella. Ventidius and Octavia see Dolabella taking Cleopatra’s hand, but when the time comes to make a move romantically, both of them fall apart from the guilt of their betrayal. Ventidius tells Antony that Cleopatra and Dollabella have become lovers and Octavia also bears witness. Ventidius then asks Alexas to testify to the same story, which Alexas believes to be. Antony is infuriated by this information, but is still looking for some loophole that would confirm Cleopatra's innocence. Antony's belief in Cleopatra's innocence hurts Octavia and she leaves permanently. When Dolabella and Cleopatra try to explain themselves Antony refuses to believe them. ;Act Five Antony takes Cleopatra's naval fleet and sails to Caesar where he is greeted like an old friend. They then sail back to Alexandria. When Cleopatra hears of this Alexas tells her to flee and that he will attempt to make amends with Caesar. Cleopatra tells him this would make him a traitor and that he cannot go to Caesar. Cleopatra flees and Alexas is left behind. Antony and Ventidius meet up and prepare to fight. Alexas, Cleopatra’s messenger, comes and informs Antony that Cleopatra is dead. Antony then tells Ventidus to end his life, but Ventidius refuses and kills himself. With Ventidius dead, Antony then tried and failed to commit suicide. Cleopatra then comes in and sees the dying Antony, and living on the verge of death. Cleopatra then kills herself. Serapion delivers their eulogy. |
3080986 | /m/08q249 | The Apprentice | Scooter Libby | null | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller"} | According to the description of the book by St. Martin's Press: |
3082166 | /m/08q4gq | Portrait of a Young Man Drowning | null | null | {"/m/0lsxr": "Crime Fiction"} | The novel takes place in the slums of Brooklyn during the Great Depression, and follows the narrator, Harry Odum, from his early childhood to his death. His father, Hap, abandons the family, leaving Harold to be raised by his mother, Kate. Harold falls in with his friends from the neighborhood, who take him along to participate in petty crime. He soon join up with "Bug", the neighborhood kingpin, and moves his way up through the local crime syndicate. He eventually becomes the neighborhood mob's killer for hire. Meanwhile, Kate spirals deeper into alcoholism and mental illness, and grows ever more possessive of her son. Through it all, the only person Harold feels any love for is his mother; he develops an Oedipal complex and an inability to sexually relate to anyone without resorting to his alter-ego, Madden. In the guise of this other self, he rapes a local girl, Iris, with whom he later falls in love. Harold attempts a relationship with Iris, but Kate threatens her away during a family dinner. The next day, Harold flies into a psychotic rage and rapes his own mother, who commits suicide. A dazed, traumatized Harold then goes for a ride with some of his partners-in-crime who, fearing his testimony to a police investigation, shoot him dead. |
3083202 | /m/08q690 | An Old-Fashioned Girl | null | 1869 | null | Polly Milton, a 14-year-old country girl, visits her friend Fanny Shaw and her wealthy family in the city for the first time. Poor Polly is overwhelmed by the splendor at the Shaws' and their urbanized, fashionable lifestyles, expensive clothes and other habits she has never been exposed to, and, for the most part, dislikes. Fanny's friends reject her because of her different behavior and simple clothing, and Fan herself can't help considering her unusual sometimes. However, Polly's warmth, support and kindness eventually win the hearts of all the family members, and her old-fashioned ways teach them a lesson. Six years later, Polly comes back to the city to become a music teacher and struggles with profession issues and internal emotions. Later in the book, Polly finds out that the prosperous Shaws are on the brink of bankruptcy, and she guides them to the realization that a wholesome family life is the only thing they will ever need, not money or decoration. With the comfort of the ever helpful Polly, the family gets to change for the better and to find a happier life for all of them. After being rejected by his fiancée, Trix, Tom procures a job out West, with Polly's brother Ned, and heads off to help his family and compensate for all the money he has wasted in frivolous expenditures. At that point of the book, we see that Polly and Tom seem to have developed strong feelings for one another. At the end of the book, Tom returns from the West and finally gets engaged to his true love, Polly. <!-- |
3083277 | /m/08q6kc | Stargirl | Jerry Spinelli | 8/8/2000 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The novel begins with a brief introduction of Leo's life and chronicles his moving from his home state of Pennsylvania to Arizona, at the age of twelve. Before his move, his uncle Pete gives Leo a porcupine necktie as a farewell present, inspiring him to collect more like it. For a while, his collection still contained only one porcupine necktie until his birthday, when he receives one in a gift-wrapped package that an anonymous person left on his doorstep. This story picks up four years later with the arrival of an eccentric new classmate, Susan Caraway. Her behavior is unusual for a teen at Mica Area High School which prizes student conformity above all else. She wears kimonos, Native American buckskin, 1920s [flapper] clothes, and pioneer clothing with no makeup. During each class period she decorates her desk with a tablecloth and a vase with a daisy in it. She dances in the rain. She strums a ukulele during lunch every day and sings "Happy Birthday" to kids she has never met. She attends other peoples' funerals and, during sporting events, cheers for both teams. Her behavior is so unusual and so unlike anything anyone at the school had seen before that the student body at first did not know what to make of her. One student, the popular Hillari Kimble, declares, "She is not real." Leo becomes infatuated with Stargirl and refuses pleas of his best friend, Kevin, to put her on their show Hot Seat, the school’s student run television production where students are placed on the spot, and a jury of fellow students ask them questions "to make them squirm." Because Leo is infatuated with Stargirl, he doesn’t want to embarrass her on the show. Once the student body becomes accustomed to Stargirl’s eccentricities and Mallory Stillwell invites her to join the cheerleading squad, her popularity soars. Students begin to mimic her behavior, and at lunch, her table is overflowing with peers. She joins the cheer squad and goes to games for all of the sports, and the attendance at games suddenly booms. She sparks a revolution against conformity in the school. When Hillari Kimble, the girl who was the most popular in school before the appearance of Stargirl, demands Stargirl not to sing to her on her birthday, Stargirl keeps her promise—she does not sing to Hillari, but she sings to Leo, only she says Hillari's name. When Kevin, Leo's best friend, asks Stargirl, "Why him?", she responds by tweaking his earlobe and saying, "He's cute." Leo does privately celebrate the outburst of individuality taking over the school, even though his own shy demeanor keeps him from participating himself. He is merely a spectator in the events that follow. The basketball season brings about Stargirl's downfall. For the first time in the school's history, they have an undefeated basketball season. She slowly begins to anger her school by cheering for not only MAHS, but the other teams as well. She doesn't believe winning is the only way to have fun, and this puzzles and angers the students, though this is the same behavior she exhibited as a cheerleader for the football team. Shortly after the beginning of the basketball controversy is Stargirl's "Hot Seat" appearance. The show starts innocently, however, things slowly turn sour as the students begin to attack Stargirl with questions that single her out and attempt to embarrass her. As events get out of control the advising teacher cuts the show short. It never airs but the events are quickly revealed to the school by the members of the Hot Seat jury. When basketball play-offs come around, the school faces tough competition, and, unfortunately, lose in the semi-finals. Stargirl angers the school by comforting a player from the opposing team when he breaks his ankle. This leads to her ultimate downfall from popularity. After the next game, where MAHS suffers a season-ending humiliating defeat, an unknown student hits Stargirl in the face with a ripe tomato, to which the audience responds by applauding. The school takes out their anger for the defeat on Stargirl, illogically blaming her for the team’s loss. This eventually leads to her being shunned by the entire student body except for Leo and her one remaining friend, Dori Dilson. After Stargirl’s popularity ends, she and Leo begin an obvious romance. Stargirl takes Leo to a place that seems like nowhere and they sit there for an hour and enjoy the beauty and "connect with the earth". A few days after this, they kiss on the sidewalk in front of her house, and Leo declares that it was "no saint I was kissing," They enjoy each other's company, and Leo begins to help Stargirl with her antics, such as leaving cards for people she doesn't know, and dropping change on the sidewalk. It is by observing her behavior that he figures out that Stargirl was the mysterious person that gave him the porcupine necktie four years before. Soon, though, Leo realizes the entire school is shunning the couple. Wanting to help her, he asks Stargirl to change and become "normal", so she becomes "Susan", the name she was born with. She drops her unconventional clothing and acts like all the other students at the school. She becomes obsessed with being "accepted" and popular. This plan, however, fails, and their classmates continue the shunning, despite Stargirl's valiant efforts to become a normal girl. "Susan" feels that the best way to become popular is by winning a state public speaking competition. Her eccentric and creative personality helps her achieve victory in the competition, and she returns to MAHS thinking she will receive a hero’s welcome. She is bitterly disappointed when only three people show up to see her homecoming. Susan realizes that she had achieved nothing by trying to fit in. She decides to go back to being her true self, and Stargirl returns, much to Leo’s dismay. He then abandons his relationship with Stargirl, confused about his feelings for her and with his desperation to be accepted by the school. When the Ocotillo ball comes Leo decides not to go. Leo watches the ball from his bike in the distance. Stargirl regains popularity as she arrives on a bike covered in sunflowers. Stargirl is dressed beautifully and impresses everyone as she walks onto the tennis court. As the dance progresses, Stargirl causes conflict with Hillari Kimble. When Stargirl asks the DJ to play the "Bunny Hop", Hillari is appalled. Stargirl starts the dance with only a few people participating, until eventually the only people not in line are Hillari Kimble and Wayne Parr. Stargirl leads the hop into the desert where it seems as though they stay for hours. Upon the dancers' return, Hillari confronts Stargirl telling her that she always ruins everything and slaps her on the face. Stargirl returns Hillari's anger-filled action with, yet another, act of kindness - a polite kiss on the cheek. The next day, Stargirl disappears...Later on in the story Archie tells Leo that Stargirl moved away. Fifteen years after graduating high school, Leo finds himself working not as a television director, but a set designer. Stargirl has left behind some permanent changes at Mica Area High School: students cheer the first basket scored against them at every game, a club called "The Sunflowers" performs one nice act per day for someone else, and the school’s marching band is the only one in Arizona to feature a ukulele. The story ends with Leo receiving a porcupine necktie in the mail one day before his birthday and realizing Stargirl had given it to him, his hope for Stargirl continues. |
3086720 | /m/08qhbs | Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail | null | 1999 | null | The book contains three major parts: #A description of her early life as the daughter of the powerful General Mohamed Oufkir and adoptive daughter to the Moroccan king Hassan II. She was taken into the palace as a child to be a companion to the king's daughter, Princess Amina. Although she led the life of a princess during these years, she was not one, and she always longed to go home to her real family. She was eventually released for two years to live with her family. #The details of her family's lives in a various desert prisons. While Malika was living with her family, her father was involved in a coup d'etat attempt on the king. Her father was then executed and she and her five siblings, mother, and two maids, were political prisoners for the next twenty years. #A description of the escape of four of the siblings, the house arrest of the entire family in Morocco, and their final escape to freedom. As the right hand man of king Hassan II in the 1960s and early 1970s, Oufkir led government supervision of politicians, unionists and the religious establishment. He forcefully repressed political protest through police and military clampdowns, pervasive government espionage, show trials, and numerous extralegal measures such as killings and forced disappearances. A feared figure in dissident circles, he was considered extraordinarily close to power. One of his most famous victims is believed to have been celebrated third-world politician Mehdi Ben Brka, who was "disappeared" in Paris in 1965. A French court convicted him of the murder. In 1967, Oufkir was named interior minister, vastly increasing his power through direct control over most of the security establishment. After a failed republican military coup in 1971 he was named chief of staff and minister of defense, and set about purging the army and promoting his personal supporters. His domination of the Moroccan political scene was now near-complete, with the king ever more reliant on him to contain mounting discontent. The following year, he turned on the monarchy, ordering the Moroccan air force to open fire at the king's jet and organizing a takeover on the ground. Hassan survived, however, and some sources indicate he personally shot Oufkir after securing power. The official line, however, was and is that Oufkir committed suicide upon hearing of the coup's failure While the book describes the life of its protagonist, it also discusses the nature of freedom. From someone who has lived most of her life as a prisoner, readers come to learn that real freedom is a question of the mind. The book was formerly banned in Morocco, but it is now reportedly available. |
3088029 | /m/08qlg1 | Invitation to a Beheading | Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov | null | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The novel takes place in a prison and relates the final twenty days of Cincinnatus C., a citizen of a fictitious country, who is imprisoned and sentenced to death for "gnostical turpitude." Unable to blend in and become part of the world around him, Cincinnatus is described as having a "certain peculiarity" that makes him "impervious to the rays of others, and therefore produced when off his guard a bizarre impression, as of a lone dark obstacle in this world of souls transparent to one another." Although he tries to hide his condition and "feign translucence," people are uncomfortable with his existence, and feel there is something wrong with him. In this way, Cincinnatus fails to become part of his society. While confined, Cincinnatus is not told when his execution will occur. This troubles him, as he wants to express himself through writing "in defiance of all the world's muteness," but feels unable to do so without knowledge of how long he has to complete this task. Indifferent to the absurdity and vulgarity around him, Cincinnatus strives to find his true self in his writing, where he creates an ideal world. Taken to be executed, he refuses to believe in either death or his executioners, and as the axe falls the false existence dissolves around him as he joins the spirits of his fellow visionaries in "reality." Other characters include Rodion the jailer, the director of the jail Rodrig, and Cincinnatus' lawyer Roman. Some suggest that these names are meant to mimic that of the protagonist of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov. Cincinnatus' wife Marthe, a child named Emmie, and fellow prisoner "M'sieur Pierre" are also secondary characters. |
3088913 | /m/08qnjx | Julian | Gore Vidal | 1964 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"} | Julian was the last direct relative of Constantine the Great to assume the purple, his father being Constantine's half-brother, and attempted to destroy the influence of the Christian church, bringing back the worship of the old Roman pantheon, as well as other religions including his attempted restoration of the Jewish Temple, and Mithraism, a mystery religion that had been popular among Roman soldiers. The book takes the form of the correspondence between two Hellenistic pagans, Libanius, who is considering writing a biography of Julian, and Priscus, who possesses Julian's personal memoir. Christianity has, by this stage, become the official religion of the Roman Empire (as decreed by the emperor Theodosius), with rioting and inquisition causing extreme violence between traditionalists and Christians, and even between Christian sects. Only thirty years after the novel took place, the city of Rome would be sacked by the Goths. The memoir relates Julian's life from the time so many members of his family were purged by his cousin, the emperor Constantius II (whom he succeeded on the throne), his "exile" to libraries as a child, and his subsequent negative childhood experiences with Christian hypocrisy and conflict over dogma (see Arianism). As he matures, a rift forms between Julian and his disturbed half-brother Gallus, who is made Caesar (heir to the purple) by Constantius II; Julian claims, for his safety, to have no interest but philosophy, so he undertakes a journey to Athens to study under the city's greatest teachers. Here, he first sees Libanius, the book's narrator, and has an affair with a female philosopher, Macrina. He also comes to know some of the early Church Fathers in their formative years, including the agreeable Basil of Caesarea and the abrasive and dishonest Gregory of Nazianzus. Julian is eventually made Caesar in place of Gallus, who was executed by Constantius II for cruelty, debauchery, and to satisfy Constantius's legendary insecurity and paranoia. This leaves Julian the successor to Constantius II, and he is given (at first nominal) command of Gaul, under attack by the Alamanni. Subsequently, Julian seizes hands-on military and administrative control from his 'advisors,' and, against expectations, experiences overwhelming military success over the Germans at Strasbourg. Upon the death of Helena, Julian's wife and Constantius's sister, and in the face of Constantius's ever-increasing manic paranoia, Julian undertakes a short rebellion against Constantius, which ends bloodlessly, with Constantius's natural death during the journey to confront Julian, and Julian's accession to the title of Augustus. Julian's early reign is successful, with the removal from office of court eunuchs, whose true role Julian sees as being to drag on the state coffers and to isolate the emperors from real-world concerns. He also undertakes attempts to prevent the spread of Christianity; referring to the religion throughout the novel as 'back-country' and a 'death-cult' (and churches as 'charnel-houses,' for their reverence of relics), Julian sees the best means to do this as to block Christians from teaching classical literature, thusly relegating their religion to non-intellectual audiences and thwarting attempts by Christians to develop the sophisticated rhetoric and intellectualism of traditional Roman and Hellenistic religions. Here, Julian's headstrong nature begins to affect his ability to know his own capabilities, evident in several clashes with the Trinitarian clergy and with advisors. Nonetheless, Julian takes the opportunity to outline his arguments against Christianity, and to lay out his vision for reforming and restoring Roman civic life. His reforms are under way when, in spite of his own faith in prophecy, Julian undertakes an ill-omened campaign to reclaim Roman Mesopotamia from the Sassanid Empire. This marks a significant turning-point in the novel, as it is the end of Julian's memoir. The rest of the novel consists of field dispatches and diary entries detailing Julian's campaign, with commentary by Priscus and Libanius's reflections. Initially, Julian is extremely successful (in spite of his relying on Xenophon's dated Anabasis for geographic details of the region), reaching Ctesiphon and defeating the Persian emperor in several decisive battles. However, after Persian scorched-earth tactics leave Julian's army with no food or water, it becomes apparent that the Christian officers' loyalty is in question, and that a plot may be afoot to kill Julian. Priscus recounts a short conversation with another non-Christian advisor during the campaign, in which he is told simply, 'we're not safe.' Indeed, Julian's dispatches begin to show delusion on the part of the emperor, and in spite of his steadily eroding grasp of reality and his own limitations, he presses on until a near mutiny of his soldiers. Not long after, during the return to Roman territory, Julian rushes to fight off a Persian attack on the line, eschewing his armor, which his aide Callistus claimed had broken straps. Julian returns to camp mortally wounded, and in spite of the efforts of his physician and friend Oribasius, he dies without picking a successor. Here, Vidal's narrative departs slightly from the known story of Julian, as it becomes apparent in the novel that Julian was wounded by a Roman spear. Upon the removal of Julian's body, Priscus secretly rifles through Julian's belongings, taking Julian's memoir and diary for himself and saving them from censorship. The Christian officers win the debate over whom to elevate to the title of Augustus, settling on the simple-minded and drunken Jovian. The campaign ends in disaster, and Jovian cedes significant portions of Rome's eastern territory to the Sassanid Empire. The rest of the novel consists of the continuing correspondence of Libanius and Priscus; Libanius asks Priscus what he knows about Julian's death, himself suspecting that there was always a plot among the Christian officers to kill Julian. Priscus responds (with the assurance that his role as the source of such information would be kept anonymous) that, upon visiting Callistus years later, Priscus asked whether Callistus, who rode into battle with Julian on the day of his death, saw who killed the emperor. Callistus's originally one-dimensional and vague tale began to take on more detail, and when Priscus again asked whether Callistus knows the killer's identity, Callistus responded that he did, of course: 'it was I who killed the Emperor Julian.' Callistus recounted breaking the straps on Julian's armor before the fatal engagement, and personally stabbing Julian with his spear. Priscus asked how Callistus could have hated Julian, his benefactor. The Christian Callistus responded, chillingly, that he did not hate Julian, but admired him, and that 'every day [Callistus] pray[s]' for Julian's soul. Priscus closes the anecdote by begging Libanius to keep his name out of any published account of Julian's death, citing Callistus's powerful co-conspirators from the army and Theodosius's well-documented brutality, and Libanius's worst fears about Julian's death are confirmed. The novel ends with Libanius's sending a letter to the emperor Theodosius seeking permission to publish Julian's memoir; it is denied. Lamenting his ill health, Theodosius's politically motivated proscription of traditional religion, and the end of intellectual culture and its replacement by widespread religious violence and intolerance, Libanius meets John Chrysostom, his former best student, giving a sermon at a Christian church. Libanius finally realizes that traditional religion is defeated, seeing as even the best and brightest of his students had abandoned the traditionalists. Irritated by John's solemn triumph, Libanius calls Christianity a death-cult, and in response, John Chrysostom morbidly implies that Christianity embraces the coming death of the classical world. By extension, though somewhat more vaguely, John claims that he awaits the coming apocalypse. In closing, Libanius writes, prophetically, that he hopes the coming collapse of reason and the Roman world will be only temporary, likening the dying of the Empire to that of his oil lamp, and expresses the hope that reason and 'man's love of light' would one day bring back the prosperity, stability, and intellectualism of the pre-Christian empire. |
3088980 | /m/08qnqm | The Man | Irving Wallace | 1964 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | President Douglass Dilman's presidency is marked by white racists, black political activists, and an attempted assassination. Later, he is impeached on false charges for firing the United States Secretary of State. Moreover, racially, one of his children, "passing" for white, also is targeted and harassed. |
3089682 | /m/08qq5s | A Question of Upbringing | Anthony Powell | 1951 | {"/m/06nbt": "Satire", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Dance opens with the last year or so of their school days in 1921–22. We are also introduced to their Housemaster Le Bas and Nick's Uncle Giles. Lunching at the invitation of Stringham's mother, the glamorous Mrs Foxe, Nick meets Cdr. Buster Foxe, "a chic sailor", and Miss 'Tuffy' Weedon. On leaving school Jenkins visits the Templers, setting eyes for the first time on Templer's sullen sister Jean and meeting the older Sunny Farebrother and Jimmy Stripling. Later Nick is sent off to France to learn the language, staying at La Grenadière, where Widmerpool puts in an appearance, displaying unexpected powers of persuasion. The final chapter sees Nick at university where he enjoys afternoon tea with Professor Sillery and meets Mark Members for the first time, JG Quiggin, and Bill Truscott. A car outing with Templer, Bob Duport and Jimmy Brent turns to minor disaster when Templer drives them into a ditch. *Adapted in part from material published by the Anthony Powell Society with consent |
3090064 | /m/08qq_g | Oil! | Upton Sinclair, Jr. | 1927 | null | The book is divided into twenty-one chapters with titles, which are further subdivided into numbered sections. “The Ride” – Bunny and Dad are introduced to the reader as they drive by car through the southern California desert to a meeting with the owners of some oil property. “The Lease” – Dad meets with the owners of the residential lots to discuss an oil lease; the owners are hopelessly deadlocked about how the properties and proceeds should be divided; the character of Paul Watkins is introduced. “The Drilling” – Details of the oil drilling business and of the Ross family. “The Ranch” – Dad and Bunny go quail hunting on the Paradise goat ranch, property of the Watkins family, and find oil. “The Revelation” – At Bunny’s urging, Dad tries to prevent Old Man Watkins from beating his oldest daughter Ruth; Dad tries to convince them that he has received the “third revelation”, which prohibits parents from beating their children (among other things), but the plan backfires when Eli Watkins, Paul’s younger brother, interjects himself into the discussion and claims that HE has received the revelation. “The Wild-Cat” – Drilling begins at the Paradise oil field; Bunny begins to realize his father’s business methods are not entirely ethical; an oil worker is killed in an accident, and the oil well explodes and burns. “The Strike” – The oil workers go on strike, and Bunny is torn between loyalty to Dad and his friendship to Paul and Ruth Watkins. “The War” – Bunny begins a high-school love affair with Eunice Hoyt, daughter of a wealthy family; WWI breaks out, Paul is drafted, and the Ross and Watkins families are divided. “The Victory” – WWI is over, but Paul remains in Siberia with the Allied intervention forces opposing the Soviets; Bunny decides to go to college after high school. “The University” – Bunny enrolls in Southern Pacific University, where his ideas of social justice evolve further as he meets free-thinking professors such as Dan Irving. “The Rebel” – Bunny becomes increasingly involved with various socialist and radical students, including Rachel Menzies, against the background of the Red Scare. Also Paul comes home and tells of his travels. “The Siren” – An aging socialite attempts to seduce Bunny aboard her yacht. “The Monastery” – Bunny accompanies Dad to the Monastery, the seaside mansion of his business associate Vernon Roscoe. “The Star” – Bunny begins an affair with Viola (“Vee”) Tracy, a silent film star; she loves him deeply, but does not share his political views. “The Vacation” – Bunny goes back east with Vee and Dad, ostensibly to take care of some business matters, but in reality so that Roscoe can have a free hand to crush the oil workers’ movement. “The Killing” – Dad makes a killing by joining with the big oil companies, but loses his independence; Bertie, Bunny’s spoiled socialite sister, has an abortion. “The Exposure” – The bribery involved in the naval oil reserve transactions during the Harding administration becomes exposed by radical journalists, including Dan Irving; Bunny broaches his idea of going away and earning his own way in the world to Dad, who is confused and hurt, but not unsupportive. “The Flight” – Roscoe and Dad are forced to flee to Canada and then to Europe (accompanied by Bunny), to avoid being subpoenaed by Congress in connection with the naval oil reserve scandal. “The Penalty” – Dad meets and marries Mrs. Olivier, a widower and Spiritualist, but he soon passes away from pneumonia. “The Dedication” – Bunny decides to dedicate his life and his inheritance to social justice; Roscoe moves to get control of the bulk of Dad’s estate. “The Honeymoon” – Bunny and Bertie are swindled out of most of their inheritance by Roscoe and Dad’s widow; Bunny marries Rachel Menzies and they dedicate themselves to establishing a socialist institution of learning; Eli Watkins, by now a successful (and completely hypocritical) evangelist, adds insult to injury by falsely claiming that his communist brother Paul underwent a deathbed conversion to Christianity; the final, sad end of Paul and Ruth Watkins. |
3091032 | /m/08qtb0 | Tempest | Troy Denning | 11/28/2006 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Civil war threatens the unity of the Galactic Alliance. To ensure financial stability, the Alliance wants more control in the powerful Corelian systems. This involves control over the Centerpoint Station, a powerful artifact that is capable, in the right hands, of destroying entire planets. The Corelian systems desire more independence than the Alliance is willing to let them have. Han and Leia Solo anger their families and friends by allying themselves with the Corellian insurgents. The Correlian government send the Solos on a diplomatic mission to the powerful Hapes Consortium, but Han and Leia are outraged when they discover a plan to buy Consortium support by murdering the pro-Alliance queen Tenel Ka and her daughter, long-time Solo family friends. The Solos race to solve the situation and save the intended victims. Neither the queen or her daughter are killed but the Solos are now the number one suspects in the assassination attempt. Meanwhle, Jacen Solo's dark side powers grow stronger under the Dark Jedi Lumiya. As such, the Galactic Alliance Guard, which he commands, grows more powerful and corrupt. Lumiya is encouraging Jacen to make a sacrifice, by killing an important family member; this would "balance the Force". As Jacen goes closer to the dark side, his influence over his potential apprentice, Ben Skywalker, grows stronger. Various characters come together over the conflict. Luke, secretly betrayed by Jacen, nearly loses his life in a duel with Lumiya and the wayward Twi'lek Jedi Alema Rar. Han and Leia, on the run, literally come under fire from their own son, who is commanding the Star Destroyer Anakin Solo. They barely escape with their lives, though the Millennium Falcon is shot clean through and Leia's friends, her two Noghri bodyguards, are killed. Regardless, the traitors in Tenel Ka's Hapes Consortium and their Corellian allies fail their mission to overthrow the Queen Mother, and with Jacen's fleet's success in defending Tenel Ka, the two of them secretly embrace as lovers before he leaves her once again. |
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