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3091092 | /m/08qtdv | The Amulet of Samarkand | Jonathan Stroud | 2003 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Nathaniel becomes an apprentice Magician after his parents forfeit him (as a very young child) to the magicians' adoption service in return for some money. His master, Arthur Underwood, is a mediocre magician and the minister of Internal Affairs. Underwood is unwilling to having an apprentice whilst his wife, Martha, warmly welcomes Nathaniel. Throughout his youth, noteworthy events embitter Nathaniel towards Underwood. One year before the events of the novel Underwood hosts a gathering of magicians in his villa. Upon his presentation to the other magicians, Nathaniel (age 10 at the time) is interviewed by his later antagonist Simon Lovelace who dismisses Nathaniel's obvious powers for magic. Nathaniel retorts impolitely and incurs Lovelace's wrath, in the form of an invisible demon which holds him immobile, allowing Lovelace to deride his helpless condition. Once he is released, Nathaniel sets a fleet of mites upon Lovelace, which he easily destroys, and is punished with a beating from one of Lovelace's imps. Ms. Lutyens, his admired art teacher, attempts to waylay the punishment and gets fired. Following his experience, Nathaniel vows to become his own master and learns from the books in Underwood's study while also plotting the downfall and humiliation of his nemesis Lovelace. Using a rudimentary scrying glass Nathaniel spies on Lovelace. One night he witnesses him paying a bearded mercenary after receiving a suspicious package. The imp in the glass quotes the mercenary as saying that the package is the Amulet of Samarkand. Days after his twelfth birthday, Nathaniel summons the djinni Bartimaeus, a cocky spirit with a grudge against his slavers --- the magicians. Bartimaeus, expecting a ridiculous and simple charge, such as levitating an object, is instead charged with the highly dangerous, unexpected command to steal the Amulet of Samarkand from Simon Lovelace. While fulfilling his charge Bartimaeus runs into Faquarl and Jabor, two djinni under Lovelace's employ, the former of whom harbors a mutual grudge with Bartimaeus spanning thousands of years, the latter being a particularly dangerous and vicious djinni. After escaping Faquarl and Jabor, Bartimaeus is also accosted in an alleyway by a mysterious gang of youths, who attempted to steal the Amulet from him, somehow spotting it under Bartimaeus's clothes. The youths are later revealed to be the Resistance. Bartimaeus is summoned back to Nathaniel who orders him to hide the amulet in Underwood's study for safekeeping. Charged to return to Nathaniel after completing that task, Bartimaeus is with him when Mrs. Underwood calls the boy by his birth name "Nathaniel", thus awarding the djinni with ammunition against the young magician. The use of the birth name acts as a defense mechanism against corporal punishment. Nathaniel counteracts this with a Perpetual Confinement spell on a sealed tin of rosemary (agonising to spirits) which guarantees Bartimaeus' servitude for one month and the safety of Nathaniel. Later, Nathaniel is officially named as John Mandrake. That night John/Nathaniel accompanies the Underwoods to parliament in for the state address. Nathaniel witnesses a wild looking youth release an elemental sphere into the throng of magicians at the address which results in a large explosion of trapped elements; an attack of the Resistance. Bartimaeus was further ordered to spy on Simon Lovelace and to discover all he can about his acquaintances and the Amulet of Samarkand. He disguises himself as a messenger imp, after accosting Lovelace's genuine messenger, and travels to Pinn's Accoutrements to learn of the amulet. Simpkin, Sholto Pinn's foliot assistant, reveals that the amulet had been under government protection before it had been stolen. Then Bartimaeus' cover is blown by Pinn, he botches his escape and is detained in the Tower of London, preventing Nathaniel from summoning him. After Nathaniel fails to clean up his room after his attempted summoning, Underwood discovers Nathaniel's covert operation and confiscates his summoning paraphernalia and notes detailing his plot against Lovelace. However, before he can examine these notes Underwood is called to the Tower of London so he may interrogate Bartimaeus (unbeknownst to Nathaniel). When he returns later, Nathaniel spies on him using the scrying glass but is caught by his master. Before his master can punish him, Lovelace presents himself at the door and demands Underwood's attention. Previously, Bartimaeus had awoken in the Tower to be unsuccessfully interrogated by Sholto Pinn and Jessica Whitwell, the Minister of Security. Jabor and Faquarl assist Bartimaeus in escaping the Tower on condition that he reveal the location of the Amulet and his master. In order to protect his master, and thus avoid perpetual confinement, Bartimaeus refuses and escapes by igniting the car petrol that Faquarl had been covered in during the escape. Bartimaeus then unwittingly leads Lovelace's servants to the Underwood house. Lovelace threatens Underwood with violence when Underwood expresses ignorance to the alleged theft of an artifact. After quailing under Lovelace's magical intimidations, Underwood leads Lovelace to his study where the amulet is discovered. Nathaniel then reveals himself as the thief in an act Bartimaeus deems suicidal. Underwood then betrays Nathaniel by encouraging Lovelace to kill the boy but let him live. In spite of this, Lovelace summons Jabor to destroy the house, Underwood, Mrs. Underwood and Nathaniel; but Nathaniel survives, thanks to Bartimaeus. Instead of fleeing the country after escaping the fire, Nathaniel promises to seek revenge for his beloved Mrs. Underwood's death and forces Bartimaeus to help by reminding him of the rosemary tin should he betray him. An angered Bartimaeus threatens to kill him because he believes that either way he will end up in the tin and encourages Nathaniel to free him then and now, but resolves to try to keep him alive after Nathaniel promises to free him after this final task. Nathaniel meets by chance some members of the Resistance, yet fails to infiltrate the group and furthermore has his scrying glass stolen. After this fiasco, Nathaniel and Bartimaeus travel to Heddlehem Hall in order to stop Lovelace's plot against the government. The pair arrive disguised as a delicatessen manager and his son and Nathaniel slips past Faquarl, who is present in the kitchen at the hall. Bartimaeus attempts to kill the mysterious bearded mercenary, who has become alerted to Nathaniel's plot by the delicatessen people whose van was stolen as a disguise. The mercenary displays an extraordinary resistance to magic and a pair of seven league boots, which grant him exceptional speed. Meanwhile, Nathaniel is discovered by Lovelace and his master Schyler. After Lovelace leaves the room to set his plans in motion, Schyler offered Nathaniel an ultimatum: to join Lovelace in his new order or die. Nathaniel manages to kill Schyler using petty magical firework-cubes and he and Bartimaeus arrive in time for the conference. The room in which the Parliament commune is promptly sealed shut both physically and magically. Nathaniel attempts to warn the seated magicians of the coup, but is unknowingly foiled by Jessica Whitwell, who places him in an impenetrable bubble. The extravagant Persian rug displayed under a floor of glass is pulled away mechanically to reveal an enormous pentacle. Lovelace then blows an ancient summoning horn and calls forth the immensely strong spirit Ramuthra through a rift, who proceeds to warp reality on the seven planes and destroy the surrounding magicians and djinni. Jabor is summoned to destroy Bartimaeus but is tricked into flying toward the summoning rift and is trapped in its attractive field. After this, Bartimaeus, disguised as Lovelace's girlfriend Amanda, distracts Lovelace and allows Nathaniel to steal the amulet. Ramuthra obliterates Lovelace. Nathaniel surprises Bartimaeus by knowing the required method of dismissal. In this climactic moment, the culmination of Nathaniel's disastrous experiences and thirst for knowledge are appeased when he speaks the words of dismissal and cracks the summoning horn. After Ramuthra and the rift disappear, Nathaniel dramatically limps over to the half buried form of the prime minister Rupert Devereaux and lays the Amulet in his hands. After recounting a modified version of events which belittles Bartimaeus' achievement, advocates the role of Mrs. Underwood and neglects the less admirable experiences, Nathaniel becomes the quiet hero of the government. The outside world remains ignorant of his heroic acts, yet Nathaniel is satisfied with a true magician's lifestyle under a new master, Jessica Whitwell. Finally, Nathaniel dismisses Bartimaeus with a mutual agreement that he will never summon Bartimaeus again and that Bartimaeus never reveal Nathaniel's birth name to other spirits and other magicians. Before he is dismissed, Bartimaeus attempts to warn Nathaniel against the typical road of a magician involving power-seeking behavior, materialism, and a generally shallow existence, also adding that Nathaniel should beware of his new master. Bartimaeus tells Nathaniel that he has something other magicians lack, something that he should guard, a conscience. In spite of feelings that this attempt is in vain, his last thoughts before dismissal are those of hope for his young master. |
3091098 | /m/08qtg7 | Eye in the Sky | Philip K. Dick | 1957 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | While on a visit to the (fictional) Belmont Bevatron, eight people become stuck in a series of subtly unreal worlds, caused by the malfunction of the particle accelerator. These are later revealed to be solipsistic manifestations, bringing the story in line with Dick's penchant for subjective realities. As well as his future discussions of theology and fears about McCarthy-era authoritarianism, the novel skewers several human foibles. Jack Hamilton, the central protagonist, is dismissed from his job at the California Maintenance Labs due to McCarthy-era paranoia about his wife Marsha's left-wing political sympathies. Other affected members of the injured touring party include Bill Laws, a Physics PhD who happens to be a Negro, who happens to be employed as a tour guide within the plant. The above-mentioned Arthur Silvester is an elderly believer in the obsolete geocentric cosmology. Joan Reiss is a pathologically paranoid woman. Edith Pritchet is a maternal but censorious elderly woman. In succession, the group moves through solpsistic personalized alternate realms related to the beliefs and opinions of Arthur Silvester, Pritchet, Reiss and a hardline Marxist caricature of contemporary US society. Marsha Hamilton's subconscious perceptions, however, did not produce this alternate reality, as originally thought. It originates instead from an unexpected source, revealed as Charles McFeyffe, a Communist sympathizer who works as chief security officer in the California Maintenance Labs plant. At story's end Jack Hamilton and Bill Laws form a small business that seeks advances in stereophonic technology. The disclosure of McFeyffe's Marxist allegiances is dismissed as completely unprovable. |
3091732 | /m/08qvns | A Planet for the President | Alistair Beaton | 9/30/2004 | {"/m/026ny": "Dystopia", "/m/06nbt": "Satire", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/0c082": "Utopian and dystopian fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | In the face of all sorts of natural disasters of an unprecedented scope, an ever increasing percentage of the U.S. population demands leadership from their President. So far, however, Ritchie has turned a blind eye to ecological concerns, repeatedly dismissing warnings from scientists and environmentalist groups alike as the rantings of "eco-nuts". For example, when wildfires in California not only kill off 38 of Hollywood's celebrities gathered for a private party in Malibu, but also fell the 2,200 year-old General Sherman tree in Sequoia National Park and thus destroy a symbol of American strength and continuity, Ritchie rationalizes his practically non-existent environmental policy by concluding that the fire must have been started by arson, while at the same time ignoring the drought which, at least partially caused by human intervention, enabled the fire to spread so quickly in the first place. The novel predates the terrible wildfires of October 2007. The terrifying consequences of environmental destruction have become a day-to-day reality to people all over the world. The United Kingdom, for example, America's closest ally, suffers "the loss of much of East Anglia" due to flooding, and Prime Minister James Halstead, as a gesture of friendship, sends Ritchie "the last cod from the North Sea for at least ten years", a specimen which, he adds, could just as well be "the last North Sea cod ever". In Nepal, inexperienced engineers trying to drain a glacial lake cause the surrounding moraine to burst, which results in a valley being flooded and in 62,000 Nepalese losing their lives. And in the United States, New Orleans is flooded and destroyed and 23,142 people are killed when Hurricane Wendy, a Category 5 hurricane, hits the city. In these troubled times, many state leaders turn to the American President for support, a fact which on occasion makes Ritchie L. Ritchie reflect on the state of the union and that of the globe at large: In theory, the United States is still a democracy. In practice, Ritchie is heading a War Cabinet. The FBI, the CIA and the Pentagon have assumed most of the tasks of the former government. In order to avert attention from the many presidential lapses, the members of Ritchie's inner circle have become ruthless beyond imagination. For instance, when the President meets "Inspirational Moms and Dads" in the White House and chats animatedly in front of the television cameras with Chuck and Geraldine, a couple who have four kids, his media chief is at first pleased with her boss's performance and the extensive media coverage this event gets. When, however, a few days later that father runs amok and kills his wife and their four children she decides that something has to be done to get the meeting between the President and a murderer out of the headlines. This is the only reason why, during an impromptu conference, the Defense Secretary and she decide to launch an airstrike against Haiti on the following day. In the morning she informs Vince Lennox, Special Assistant to the President, that "[...] we're about to bomb Haiti. Should we wake the President?" "Why are we bombing Haiti?" "We have evidence of terrorist groupings planning an attack on the United States." "You mean that sad little bunch of leftist guerrillas? The ones we've known about for ages?" "Terrorist groupings, Vince." "Oh, I get it. We need to deflect attention from Chuck and Geraldine." "That's one way of looking at it. I'd say it was Chuck and Geraldine and the celebs and General Sherman." "Anna. Are you really sure about this? [...] People will be killed." "Anna Prascilowicz gave Vince a long hard look. "You know, Vince, sometimes I worry about you." Four hours later the airstrike on Haiti went ahead. In the depths of the Haitian mangrove swamps, one guerrilla, eleven fishermen and twenty-two villagers were killed in the space of seven minutes. The President went live on television that night to praise the nation's vigilance in saving America from a ruthless terrorist attack. At a later point in the novel, the President's inner circle will even launch a chemical attack on the unsuspecting—and innocent—Justices of the Supreme Court, all nine of whom will be killed in the attack. Citizens' First Amendment rights are more and more ignored by the Administration. For example, freedom of the press is practically non-existent; many political opponents have had to go underground after the media were gleichgeschaltet. Covert listening devices have been widely installed so that no one can be sure that their conversation is not being listened to, recorded, transcribed, and archived for future use. The U.S. defense budget is the largest in history, while there is no discernible social safety net any longer. The Administration encourages citizens to live by traditional American values. Foreign food imports as well as vegetarianism are frowned upon; the number of females in leading positions has been reduced to a few token women; teen abstinence rallies are regularly organised; homosexuality is generally considered unnatural. A strong Christian element pervades the decision-making process in the White House. The product of these developments is a thoroughly hypocritical society. Vince Lennox, for example, who frequently has to eat cheeseburgers with his boss, does not dare admit to the President that he is actually a vegetarian. Various celebrities publicly support the campaigns for moral integrity and sexual abstinence while behind closed doors indulging in pornography, promiscuity and all kinds of perversions. The President himself, whose son comes out during a live television broadcast, more and more often locks himself in his private study adjacent to the Oval Office to "be alone with his God", a phrase which is very soon recognized by everyone on the presidential staff as a euphemism for drinking bourbon. More and more members of the Ritchie Administration realize that something has to be done about the global environmental crisis. However, influenced by a confidential study made by a government-sponsored think tank, they draw all the wrong conclusions. Instead of promoting a simple lifestyle and drastically reducing toxic emissions, they warm to the idea of MPR—Mass Population Reduction: Fewer people on the planet will also result in less pollution, and that, in the long run, will be the only way to save humanity. The plan is to trigger a pandemic which, within a few hours, will kill six billion people—96 per cent of the world's population, i.e. everyone except the population of the United States. The means for doing so is a newly developed lethal virus which will immediately kill all humans unless they have been vaccinated against it. A new governmental campaign is to make U.S. citizens believe that America's enemies are plotting to attack the United States with biological weapons, and thus scare them so much that they have themselves inoculated. After "Operation Deliverance" has been carried out, Americans are to colonise the globe. This plan, America's rulers believe, has also been sanctioned by God. Preparations start at once. President Ritchie publicly announces that the United States is preparing a global environmental survey as the starting point of a new ecological policy which will be implemented once the data from the survey have been processed and publicized. A date is set, state leaders around the globe applaud the United States for its initiative, there are standing ovations in the United Nations General Assembly, and all countries with the exception of North Korea agree to grant overflying rights to U.S. military aircraft, which is how the alleged survey will be conducted. Secretly, however, these aircraft are now equipped with sprayers which will enable them to spread the highly contagious new virus quickly and efficiently around the world. At the same time mass production of the new vaccine sets in, and soon afterwards the new vaccination programme for all U.S. citizens is started. Just in time before being inoculated himself, Ritchie L. Ritchie realizes that he is allergic to eggs and thus, for medical reasons, cannot be given the vaccine. It turns out that German technology can solve the problem, as there is one company in Cologne which can produce the vaccine without the help of eggs. So, in due course, the President of the United States also gets his shot. Immediately after Operation Deliverance has finally been launched, reports of U.S.citizens dying by the hundreds—although they have been inoculated against the virus—reach the White House. Only too late do scientists find out that, due to the vaccine having been hastily mass-produced, certain production regulations were neglected, which resulted in the vaccine being inefficient. ("The free market made America and the free market destroyed America.") In the end, Ritchie L. Ritchie is the only human survivor, as his vaccine was the only one produced outside the United States. He continues living in the White House for several years until his death. |
3095941 | /m/08r404 | Double Image | David Morrell | null | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | Double Image is a noir thriller from Morrell set in modern-day Los Angeles. It tells the story of a war photographer named Mitch Coltrane, who decides to give up photographing atrocities after an assignment in Bosnia nearly costs him his life. While at home recovering from a gunshot wound from the above-mentioned job, he sees an advertisement in a magazine stating that a legendary photographer from the 1920s and 30's named Randolph Packard will be giving an exhibit of his work. Coltrane attends the exhibit and finds himself face-to-face with Packard, now a sickly old man, who takes a liking to Coltrane and invites him to his private residence the next day. Coltrane and Packard decide to collaborate on a job, in which Coltrane will go to various locations throughout the L.A. area and take photographs of the very same houses which Packard has photographed over half a century ago, in order to show how much Los Angeles has changed over the decades. But before Coltrane can begin his work Packard dies, leaving him a collection of photographs. Coltrane begins the assignment and quickly becomes fascinated by one of the houses in Packard's photographs. Upon finding the house he discovers that it has been maintained in perfect condition with no renovations over the years and he promptly decides to purchase it, since Packard owned the residence and it is now for sale. He also makes a discovery in the house's basement: a hidden vault filled with thousands of pictures of a beautiful young woman. Along with his girlfriend Jennifer, Coltrane begins to try to discover who the beautiful woman was and finds himself enmeshed in a deadly web of deceit and treachery. It is to be mentioned that Georgia O'Keeffe was a renowned American artist, and Alfred Stieglitz a famous photographer. However, Randolph Packard and Rebecca Chance are unfortunately fictional characters. |
3096137 | /m/08r49v | The Number Devil | Hans Magnus Enzensberger | 1998 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | Robert is a young boy who suffers from mathematical anxiety due to his boredom in school. He also experiences recurring dreams—including falling down an endless slide or being eaten by a giant fish—but is interrupted from this sleep habit one night by a small devilesque creature who introduces himself as the Number Devil. Although there are many Number Devils (from Number Heaven), Robert only knows him as the Number Devil before learning of his actual name, Teplotaxl, later in the story. Over the course of twelve dreams, the Number Devil teaches Robert mathematical principles. On the first night, the Number Devil appears to Robert in an oversized world and introduces the number one. The next night, the Number Devil emerges in a forest of trees shaped like "ones" and explains the necessity of the number zero, negative numbers, and introduces hopping, a fictional term to describe exponentiation. On the third night, the Number Devil brings Robert to a cave and reveals how prima-donna numbers (prime numbers) can only be divided by themselves and one without a remainder. Later, on the fourth night, the Number Devil teaches Robert about rutabagas, another fictional term to depict square roots, at a beach. For a time after the fourth night, Robert cannot find the Number Devil in his dreams; later, however, on the fifth night, Robert finds himself at a desert where the Number Devil teaches him about triangular numbers through the use of coconuts. On the sixth night, the Number Devil teaches Robert about the natural occurrence of Fibonacci numbers, which the Number Devil shortens to Bonacci numbers, by counting brown and white rabbits as they reproduce multiple times. By this dream, Robert's mother has noticed a visible change in Robert's mathematical interest, and Robert begins going to sleep earlier to encounter the Number Devil. The seventh night brings Robert to a bare, white room, where the Number Devil presents Pascal's triangle and the patterns that the triangular array displays. On the eighth night, Robert is brought to his classroom at school. The Number Devil arranges Robert's classmates in multiple ways, teaches him about permutations, and what the Number Devil calls vroom numbers (factorials). On the ninth night, Robert dreams he is in bed, suffering from the flu, when the Number Devil appears next to him. The Number Devil teaches Robert about natural numbers, which the Number Devil calls ordinary numbers, the unusual characteristics of infinite, and infinite series. Robert finds himself at the North Pole, where the Number Devil introduces irrational numbers (unreasonable numbers), as well as aspects of Euclidian geometry, such as vertices (dots) and edges (lines). By the eleventh night, Robert has shown considerable increased interest in mathematics, but questions its validity, to which the Number Devil introduces the concept of mathematical proofs, ending with the Number Devil showing Robert a complicated proof of basic arithmetic. On the twelfth night, Robert and the Number Devil receive an invitation (which names the Number Devil as Teplotaxl) to Number Heaven, as Robert's time with the Number Devil has finished. At Number Heaven, Robert learns of imaginary numbers, which Teplotaxl describes as imaginative numbers, as well as the Klein bottle. Walking through Number Heaven, Teplotaxl introduces Robert to various famous mathematicians, such as Fibonacci, whom Teplotaxl calls Bonacci, and George Cantor, or Professor Singer. The book ends with Robert in class using his newfound mathematical knowledge. |
3097394 | /m/08r72k | It's Not the End of the World | Judy Blume | 1972 | {"/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature"} | Karen's world seems to be crumbling before her eyes. She is led to believe that marriage only causes heartache and pain, and so she decides that she will never get marry. Just before she entered sixth grade, she was overjoyed that she was placed in the class of a very nice teacher that she desperately wanted to have; her hopes were shattered when she discovered that the teacher got married the summer before and has turned into a "witch." Her parents act like they do not love each other anymore; the only way that they communicate is by arguing and fighting over every possible situation. Eventually, her father moves out of the family's house. When he announces his plans to go to Las Vegas to file for divorce, her mother is very happy. Karen's brother Jeff runs away after he finds out about his father going to Las Vegas. Their father stays home to find Jeff, so the father is unable to go to Las Vegas. Karen tries every possible way to stop the divorce from happening, including sending anniversary cards and feigning illness. Karen grades the days in her diary and only rarely does the day get an A+. At the end there is the possibility that things might be getting better even though she does not succeed in getting her parents to remarry. Next, Karen's older brother Jeff has a fight with his mother in a restaurant and runs away. Everyone including the police get involved, but after a little while Jeff comes back on his own. Then to make things worse Karen's mother announces that they are moving. Karen tries to see things in a better way and tries to make the best of things and finally has a B+ day. |
3098466 | /m/08r955 | Gravity Dreams | null | 2000 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction"} | Set in the distant future of the year 4512, wherein humans have achieved spaceflight faster than the speed of light, along with nanotechnology, Gravity Dreams centers itself around its main character, Tyndel. He was raised in Dorcha, whose culture uses the philosophy of Dzin as a means of social control. Dzin preaches that what you see is, and not to ask questions that a scientist normally would—a rock is therefore it exists, the clouds are therefore they exist. Tyndel is a master of Dzin. One day he is attacked and infected with nanites. This brands him as a 'Demon' because Dorcha has rejected technology, seeing it as the cause of a major ecological collapse centuries before. After escaping the prison that he is placed in, Tyndel returns to his wife, and sees her killed by the people who he thought were meant to protect her. After effecting his revenge by killing the man who infected him with the nanites, Tyndel flees north to the "Demon Nation" of Rykasha, which still retains high technology and uses nanites. He is taken to a medical facility after experiencing weird lights across his vision. Here he is told that he was infected with a very ancient strain of nanites that would have killed him. They are replaced with more balanced nanites adjusted to his system. He is introduced to his handler Cerrelle who explains to him that it is her duty to help him adjust to their society and become a productive citizen so that he can repay the debt he now owes for their help. Tyndel, however, is riddled with guilt over his wife's death and sees many of her attributes in Cerrelle. He also believes the system should care for him, even though he knows that on a social level that is not possible. He rejects and pushes everything being offered to him away, even as he slowly learns more about the world that he has found himself in—one that clashes with the views that have been sowed into him by his training. At the same time Cerrelle forces him to question how Dzin is used to prevent development, and why its teachings oppose nanite technology. Tyndel is meant to start training as a web jockey—one of those who are able to pilot ships through the "web" which allows faster-than-light travel. He rejects this position, much like a spoiled child, and is instead shipped off to Omega Eridiani, where he spends three years as a low level tech. This places him extremely low in the social ladder of Rykasha. Cerrelle attempts to entice him back and the two have a small fight over what he truly wants. He also gets involved with a fellow tech and after she dies in an accident, Tyndel begins to question much of what he has been doing. He requests to go back to web-jockey training and is accepted. Tyndel undergoes extreme physical training to condition his body to peak levels. He also repairs the relationship with Cerrelle. At this time he again begins to see the distorted vision that he saw when first infected. Eventually he is further enhanced by nanites, so that he may link with the Web Needles, the name given to the faster than light capable ships that the "Demons" use. After a further year of training in space he is made a web jockey. Tyndel hears a voice asking him questions while he is in the web, one that points out some answers to his questions. It is an entity called Engee, which tells him that it requires his consciousness to act as an observation platform for it in a reverse-energy universe. Tyndel accepts and is sent through, learning that Engee is a group of nanites created by the 'Ancients' of Earth before the devastation, and that Engee is attempting to prevent the universe from completing its purpose by replacing the amount of information lost by the expansion of the universe with matter from another universe. After doing as asked, Tyndel returns to Earth and explains what has happened. The Demons act as though it is the end of their society, however Tyndel states that they should just trade with the station of 'followers' because they have some technology that the Demons do not, such as gravity control. He returns to Cerrelle and explains that he and his children will no longer require the nanite treatments as Engee has made them part of his genetics. The Book ends with Tyndel returning to Dorcha to reflect on the past before returning once more to what he now knows as his home in the north. |
3098469 | /m/08r95w | The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus | L. Frank Baum | 1902 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | Santa Claus, as a baby is found in the Forest of Burzee by Ak: Master Woodsman of the World, and placed in the care of the lioness, Shiegra. The Wood Nymph, Necile, breaks the law of the forest and takes the baby because she desires to raise a child of her own as mortals do, convincing Ak that since he made the law, he can allow an exception. Necile calls him Claus, meaning "little one" in the old Burzee language, but Queen Zurline gives him the more formal name Neclaus, "Necile's Little One" (According to a footnote "Nicholas" is an erroneous name based on common convention). He is educated by the immortals of the Forest, including: * The Fairies who watch over humans * The Wood Nymphs who watch over trees * The Gnomes who watch over rocks * The Knooks, who watch over animals * Ryls who watch over flowers * Sleep Fays who bring sleep to the world * Light Elves * Sound Imps * Wind Demons * Water Spirits Upon reaching young adulthood, Ak decides it is time for Claus to see how other mortals live. He sees war, brutality, poverty, child neglect and child abuse and is frustrated by mortals' very existence. Ak encourages him not to shy away from the mortals, because he is one, and must learn to live among them, as he cannot reside in Burzee as an adult. He settles in the nearby Laughing Valley of Hohaho, where the immortals regularly visit and assist him, and Necile gives him a little cat named Blinky. He becomes well known for his kind acts toward children. Once a boy named Weekum gets lost in the snow, and aware of Claus's kindness to children, tries to make it to his house, but collapses before he can make it. Claus finds him and gets him inside. When Weekum regains consciousness, he meets Blinky, and wishes he could have a cat, but there is no money to take care of one. Claus happened to have been carving an image of Blinky to pass the time, so when Weekum wakes from further rest, Claus presents him with the finished carving, calling it a "toy". Soon, the immortals begin assisting him, the Ryls coloring the toys with their infinite paint pots (the first toy was not colored). After Little Mayrie becomes frightened by a toy of Shiegra, he vows not to make toys of wild predators. When he makes a clay figure reminiscent of Necile, he proclaims it a "dolly" (in a typically Baumian reversal, "doll" resulted when children shortened the name). Claus presents the first one to Bessie Blithesome, daughter of the Lord of Lerd, after consulting with Necile and the Queen of the Fairies about whether he should give toys to wealthy children. Says the Queen: whether it be rich or poor, a child's longings for pretty playthings are but natural. Rich Bessie's heart may suffer as much grief as poor Mayrie's; she can be just as lonely and discontented, and just as gay and happy. I think, friend Claus, it is your duty to make all little ones glad, whether they chance to live in palaces or in cottages. He frequently tells children stories of his friends among the immortals, albeit with alterations to protect their anonymity, and coins the term "dolly" to avoid saying "Necile". The Awgwas, evil beings who can turn invisible, steal the toys that Claus is giving to the children, because the toys are preventing the children from misbehaving. This leads to Claus making his journeys by night and descending through chimneys when he is unable to enter the locked doors. The Awgwas are crafty and capable of becoming invisible. They thwart so many of Claus's deliveries that Ak declares war upon them. With the aid of 300 Asiatic Dragons, Three-Eyed Giants of Tatary, Goozzle-Goblins, and Black Demons from Patalonia, the Awgwas believe their might superior to that of the immortals, but the wands of the immortals can turn the evil ones' powers against them, and all are destroyed in their attempts to use them on the immortals. Claus is not present for any of the battle. When it is concluded, Ak tells him simply, "The Awgwas have perished." As his journeys continue, Claus is aided by two deer named Glossie and Flossie, who cart his sleigh full of toys. With their aid, he reaches the dominions of the Gnome King, who wants toys for his children, but does not believe in the concept of gifts, so he trades a string of sleigh bells for each toy given by Claus. Claus gathers eight more reindeer, as they become called: Racer, Pacer, Fearless, Peerless, Ready, Steady, Feckless, and Speckless, and trades enough toys with the Gnome King to get a string of bells for each one. The ten reindeer working together can make such huge leaps through snow fields that it is almost like flying, though they never actually fly. Wil Knook, guardian of the deer, is not pleased with Claus taking them out each night, and demands a stop. Ak arbitrates their disagreement, and concludes that since the reindeer clearly enjoy helping Claus, that one trip a year is acceptable, and gives Wil Knook the privilege of choosing which day. Wil decides upon Christmas Day, being two weeks away from the hearing, believing that will mean a year without taking the reindeer from their homes, for he fears if they are hurt it will mean he has shirked his responsibility. The Fairies, however, find the hoards of toys the Awgwas stole and bring them back to Claus, allowing Claus's first Christmas to proceed in spite of Wil Knook. As his fame spread far and wide, he became recognized as a saint, earning the title "Santa" ("Saint" in most Romance languages). Rumors Claus would have disagreed with say that naughtiness will make him stop bringing toys, but Claus "brought toys to the children because they were little and helpless, and because he loved them. He knew that the best of children were sometimes naughty, and that the naughty ones were often good. It is the way with children, the world over, and he would not have changed their natures had he possessed the power to do so. "And that is how our Claus became Santa Claus. It is possible for any man, by good deeds, to enshrine himself as a Saint in the hearts of the people." Claus sees stockings placed by the fire to dry are a good place for his surprises, but when he finds a family (sometimes taken to be Native Americans, sometimes caricatures of the same) living in a tent with no fireplaces and very little of their own, he lops the top off a small tree and places the gifts on the branches of the trees just outside the tent. Once Claus is in his 60s, the Immortals realize he is near the end of his life. A council, headed by Ak: Master Woodsman of the World, Bo: Master Mariner of the World, and Kern: Master Husbandman of the World, gathers together the Gnome King, the Queen of the Water Spirits, the King of the Wind Demons, the King of the Ryls, the King of the Knooks, the King of the Sound Imps, the King of the Sleep Fays, the Fairy Queen, Queen Zurline of the Wood Nymphs, and the King of the Light Elves with the Princes Flash and Twilight to decide the fate of Santa Claus. After much debate, the immortals decide that using the Mantle of Immortality on Santa Claus is more appropriate than continuing to wait for someone more worthy, and he is granted immortality just as the Spirit of Death comes for him. At the end of the book, the immortal Santa Claus takes on four special deputies, Wisk the Fairy, Peter the Knook, Kilter the Pixie, and Nuter the Ryl. Baum's short follow-up, "A Kidnapped Santa Claus", further develops his relationship with his deputies, who must work in his place when Claus is captured by five Daemons. |
3098692 | /m/08r9q0 | Immortal Coil | null | null | null | When a newly-developed android developed by Starfleet is destroyed, Lieutenant Commander Data helps investigate the incident and who is responsible. During the course of his search he discovers he is not as unique as he once believed. During the run of the original Star Trek series many other robots and androids were seen, yet Data is often referred to as the only android in existence during the time of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Immortal Coil explains what happened to those other robots and androids, and how Data fits into their histories. The story references several previously-seen artificial intelligences and characters: * Exocomps from the TNG episode "The Quality of Life" * Androids from the TOS episode "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" * The M5 computer from the TOS episode "The Ultimate Computer" * Flint and Reyna from the TOS episode "Requiem for Methuselah" * Doctor Ira Graves from the TNG episode "The Schizoid Man" * Commander Bruce Maddox from the TNG episode "The Measure of a Man" * Dr. Noonien Soong, Data's creator, first seen in the TNG episode "Brothers" |
3098707 | /m/08r9rd | Ex Machina | null | null | null | The plot concerns several crew members' efforts to deal with the aftereffects of the V'Ger entity and the long-term ripples of overthrowing a computer intelligence on Yonada so many years ago. |
3098774 | /m/08r9tw | Paste | Henry James | 1899-12 | null | After the death of her aunt, the protagonist Charlotte and her cousin, her aunt’s stepson Arthur Prime, find a tin of imitation jewelry which includes a string of pearls. Charlotte is immediately fascinated with the pearls, and wonders if they could be a gift from when her aunt was an actress. Arthur disputes this and is insulted at the thought of some gentleman other than his father giving his stepmother such a gift. Charlotte quickly apologizes and agrees that the pearls could be nothing more than paste. With Arthur’s enthusiastic approval, she keeps the jewelry for the memory of her aunt. When Charlotte returns to her governess' job, her friend, Mrs. Guy, asks her if she has anything to add color to her dress for an upcoming party. When Charlotte shows Mrs. Guy the jewelry, she too becomes fascinated with the string of pearls, insisting that they are genuine. Mrs. Guy wears the string to the party; and when Charlotte finds out that everyone believed that they were real, she insists that they must be returned to her cousin. Mrs. Guy claims that it was Arthur's foolishness to have given away the necklace, and that Charlotte should have no guilt in keeping it. However, Charlotte decides to return the pearls to her cousin, who still refuses to consider that the pearls could be real. A month later Mrs. Guy shows her a wonderful string of pearls, telling Charlotte that they are the same ones that Charlotte had inherited from her aunt. Charlotte is surprised because Arthur claimed he had shattered them, when in fact he had sold them to the store where Mrs. Guy bought them. |
3099243 | /m/08rbp5 | Maggie: A Girl of the Streets | Stephen Crane | null | null | The story opens with Jimmie, at this point a young boy, trying to fight a gang of boys from an opposing neighborhood all by himself. He is saved by his friend, Pete, and comes home to his sister Maggie, his toddling brother Tommie, his brutal and drunken father and mother, Mary Johnson. The parents terrify the children until they are shuddering in the corner. Years pass, the father and Tommie die, and Jimmie hardens into a sneering, aggressive, cynical youth. He gets a job as a teamster, having no regard for anyone but firetrucks who would run him down. Maggie begins to work in a shirt factory, but her attempts to improve her life are undermined by her mother's drunken rages. Maggie begins to date Jimmie's friend Pete, who has a job as a bartender and seems a very fine fellow, convinced that he will help her escape the life she leads. He takes her to the theater and the museum. One night Jimmie and Mary accuse Maggie of "Goin to deh devil", essentially kicking her out of the tenement, throwing her lot in with Pete. Jimmie goes to Pete's bar and picks a fight with him (even though he himself has ruined other boys' sisters). As the neighbors continue to talk about Maggie, Jimmie and Mary decide to join them in badmouthing her instead of defending her. Later, Nellie, a "woman of brilliance and audacity" convinces Pete to leave Maggie, whom she calls "a little pale thing with no spirit." Thus abandoned, Maggie tries to return home but is rejected by her mother and scorned by the entire tenement. In a later scene, a prostitute, implied to be Maggie, wanders the streets, moving into progressively worse neighborhoods until, reaching the river, she is followed by a grotesque and shabby man. The next scene shows Pete drinking in a saloon with six fashionable women "of brilliance and audacity." He passes out, whereupon one, possibly Nellie, takes his money. In the final chapter, Jimmie tells his mother that Maggie is dead. The mother exclaims, ironically, as the neighbors comfort her, "I'll forgive her!" |
3100266 | /m/08rf16 | Aunt Phillis's Cabin | Seth Eastman | null | {"/m/0276pxr": "Social novel"} | The story is set in unnamed rural town in Virginia, which is frequented by several plantation owners living around it. The town relies on trade from the cotton plantations for its economy. Understanding this, the plantation owners, in contrast to their neighbors in surrounding towns, have adopted a benign approach towards their slaves to keep them peaceful and assure the safety of the town. Several characters in and around the town are introduced throughout the story, demonstrating how this process works and the delicate balance of such a process in action. |
3102550 | /m/08rklt | The People of Sparks | Jeanne DuPrau | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature", "/m/0hc1z": "Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | Having to leave from living in an underground city for over 200 years, the 417 refugees of the city of Ember can't go back and have no idea how to survive on the surface. Wandering for days, exhausted and hungry, they come across the village of Sparks. The people of this small village reluctantly agree to take in the refugees for 6 months, just long enough to teach them to survive on their own. They are allowed to stay in an old hotel, the Pioneer Hotel, which was once grand but has now fallen into disrepair. Most of the rooms have been picked clean of furniture prior to their arrival, making it necessary for the people of Ember to sleep on the floor. There are only 75 rooms, which averages 5 to 6 people a room. There is not enough food for everybody in Sparks, leaving a disaster for both the people of Sparks and the Emberites. The starving Emberites don't seem to know anything about the surface, and the villagers soon begin to resent having to take care of them. Lina Mayfleet, Poppy Mayfleet and Mrs. Murdo are told to live at the doctor's house, where there is a whiny boy named Torren Crane. As tensions mount a mysterious series of acts of vandalism against the people of Ember heightens the anger on both sides, until conflict seems inevitable. The people of Ember are growing restless and the people of Sparks want to get rid of them, as they are not being very civil to each other. Soon the food the Emberites are provided with is more and more unpleasant. The Emberites are unwelcome and they know it. The Emberites are told that at the end of six months they will have to leave and start their own civilization in the Empty Lands. Meanwhile, Lina leaves with a roamer who travels to old cities to find treasure, hoping to find the city she has been dreaming of and drawing. There she finds not a beautiful city like she expected, but a crumbling metropolis. She arrives back to Sparks disappointed. The climax occurs when Sparks' town hall catches on fire. The Emberites watch passively as the people of Sparks try to save the building, most hoping the building will burn down. But Lina decides to help the people of Sparks, upon which most of the Emberites decide to pitch in and they all succeed in putting out the fire. As this happens, Doon Harrow sees that Torren is trapped in the burning tree by the building, rushes in, and bravely saves him before he catches on fire. This act turns around the spiral of resentment and it is discovered that it was in fact a person belonging to the people of Ember, Tick Hassler, who perpetrated the acts of vandalism against the people of Ember. This results in a bright future for both the people of Ember and the people of Sparks, symbolized by Doon's rediscovery of electrical currents, partly due to a school science book describing how to create one, and Torren's light bulb, given to him by his older roamer brother, Caspar Crane. |
3103145 | /m/08rlxk | Luna: A Novel | null | null | {"/m/0lsxr": "Crime Fiction"} | Alba is out running one day when she is kidnapped by a psychiatrist and his patient. They remove Alba to an estate in rural France where she is forced to participate in the patient's entomological fantasies. When Alba goes missing, her adult companion Serge is distraught. He hatches a plot to save her which involves the theft of multiple Rolls-Royces. When a painter comes to the estate to paint Alba in a dragonfly costume, Alba befriends him. Alba manages to escape the estate, but she finds herself traumatized, broke, and lost, with criminals trailing her closely. Eventually Alba and Serge are reunited. |
3103639 | /m/08rmwf | A Nation of Immigrants | John F. Kennedy | 1964 | {"/m/05h83": "Non-fiction"} | The book contains a short history of immigration in the United States beginning in colonial America, an analysis of the importance immigration has played in American history, and John F. Kennedy's proposals for the liberalization of immigration law. |
3104028 | /m/08rnns | The Secret Sharer | Robert Silverberg | 1912 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | *Nameless Captain (Narrator) *Leggatt *Captain Archbold (Skipper of the Sephora) *The Second Mate *The Chief Mate *The Steward ---- The story takes place at sea, near the Gulf of Siam, and is told from the perspective of a young nameless Captain. The captain is unfamiliar with both his ship and his crew, having only joined their company a fortnight earlier. The Captain is furthermore unsure of himself, questioning his ability to fulfill the role of such an authoritative figure. These themes are explored through symbols throughout the novella. The captain soon encounters a naked swimmer holding onto the side ladder of the ship while he is alone at night on look-out duty. He helps the mysterious swimmer onto the boat and hides him in his cabin without the rest of the crew's knowledge. He then learns of the mysterious swimmer's past; his name is Leggatt, and he swam away from a nearby ship, called the Sephora, where, as chief mate, he killed another crew member for insolence during a storm. The captain keeps Leggatt hidden in his quarters, away from the suspicious crew members and a visit from the skipper of the Sephora. Eventually the Captain allows Leggatt to escape by bringing the ship perilously close to land for Leggatt to swim away safely, though this risky sailing maneuver nearly sends the ship into the rocks, testing the Captain's seamanship. He succeeds and leads the ship away. |
3104353 | /m/08rpd9 | The Spellcoats | Diana Wynne Jones | 4/12/1979 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Tanaqui, the narrator, is a young woman living in a small town called Shelling, which lies beside the Great River. She and her four siblings look different from the rest of the townsfolk, and instead of worshiping the River, their family has three idols—the so-called Undying. When the country is invaded by the Heathens (who are modeled after Europeans and are the ancestors of the people of Dalemark in the other three novels) who look like them, Tanaqui and her siblings flee to avoid being killed by the people of their own village. Tanaqui's narration in The Spellcoats is not her diary, nor is it being "told" as many stories are. Rather, Tanaqui is weaving the story into a pair of "spellcoats" that she is making. The first spellcoat tells of how the five siblings (Gull, Robin, Hern, Tanaqui and Duck) traveled downriver on their boat. First, they encounter the mysterious magician Tanamil, then the Heathen king Kars Adon, and finally, at the sea, the evil mage Kankredin, whose aim is to take over the power of the river by taking over the five children's souls. In the middle of this Gull was bound like the One, Tanamil (Younger Amil or the young one) and the Lady. The second spellcoat tells how, after their escape from Kankredin, the five siblings are captured by their own King, "the king of the natives" (who are modeled after Native Americans and Hawaiians and are the ancestors of the Holy Islanders in Drowned Ammet) who has lost his kingdom and is drifting with the remains of his army trying to avoid the Heathens. The King keeps the children in his company because he needs one of the children's idols—the powerful One—to assist him in his pursuits. As Tanaqui continues to weave during her travel upriver with the King, she realizes that the spellcoats that Kankredin and his mages wore gave them the powers that were woven into their spellcoats. She becomes convinced that the words woven into her spellcoats will have the power to defeat Kankredin. Realizing that Tanaqui is the only one able to stop Kankredin and his mages with her weaving, her elder brother Hern convinces the combined forces of their own people and the Heathens to make a stand at the headwaters of the Great River, and hold off Kankredin while Tanaqui completes her second spellcoat. Tanaqui weaves frantically to catch up to her "present," and finally she completes her spellcoat with a waking vision she experiences. In this vision, their eldest family idol called The One rises up, crushes Kankredin, and shakes the land into a new shape. We do not find out from Tanaqui's narration if she succeeds or fails, because she must finish the spellcoat and put it on the idol before the spellcoat's woven spell can take effect. In an epilogue written by Elthorar Ansdaughter, Keeper of Antiquities, we learn that the spellcoats were discovered hundreds of years later, during the approximate time period of Drowned Ammet and Cart and Cwidder, in the mountains of North Dalemark near Hannart. Elthorar notes the close correspondence between various figures in the stories and their apparent counterparts in the legends and folktales of the people of Dalemark. She also tries and fails to determine the places described, leading the reader to conclude that Tanaqui's vision came to pass, Kankredin was defeated, and The One reshaped the land. Like the other three novels of the Dalemark Quartet, The Spellcoats is a story about a physical journey, during which revelations occur. As in the other three books, the presence of magic is not readily apparent at its beginning, but slowly creeps into the story. |
3105149 | /m/08rr4h | Crossfire | Anna Husson Isozaki | null | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The novel is about a girl named Junko Aoki (青木淳子 Aoki Junko), who has the psychokinetic power of pyrokinesis. She decides to kill criminals in order to make her world better. When Junko sets off to rescue a woman kidnapped by juvenile delinquents, the arson division of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police and a secretive vigilante group that wants to recruit her, pursue her. Chikako Ishizu (石津ちか子 Ishizu Chikako), a policewoman, is astounded by Junko Aoki's case as she digs deeper into it. |
3109733 | /m/08s06b | A Stranger Is Watching | Mary Higgins Clark | null | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller", "/m/0lsxr": "Crime Fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | The main characters in the novel are Steve Peterson, whose wife Nina was murdered two years before, his six-year-old son Neil, who witnessed the murder, and Sharon Martin, a young journalist who befriends them both. The novel opens as Steve and Sharon debate capital punishment. A young man named Ronald Thompson has been sentenced to death for Nina's murder. Sharon is against the death penalty and tries to save Thompson. Unknown to them, Thompson is actually innocent. The real killer is a psychopath named August Rommel Taggart, Arty for short. He calls himself Foxy because General Rommel was called the desert fox. He kidnaps Sharon and Neil, hiding them under New York's famed Grand Central Station. The rest of the novel describes the race against time to save the three innocent victims. |
3111401 | /m/08s3c0 | The Nitrogen Fix | Hal Clement | 1980-09 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | The family is allied with an alien, an octopus-like being who can survive in the new atmosphere. Humans must live in shelters with oxygen-generating plants, or use suitable breathing equipment. Some of Earth's original life forms have mutated to survive in the changed atmosphere. Since almost no metals can exist in the corrosive atmosphere, any technology is based on ceramics or glass. Some humans are suspicious of the aliens, and even blame them for the change to the atmosphere, since they seem to be adapted for it. The family have an almost fatal encounter with a group of such people, who are holding another alien hostage. However, the two aliens are able to pool memories biochemically, so that they become the same personality in two bodies. Their combined knowledge and skills help the humans to escape. At the end the aliens reveal that they are basically tourists or scientists, and they travel from one system to another over thousands of years. Atmospheres "mature" when the nitrogen absorbs all the oxygen, the cause being the inevitable evolution of bacteria that use gold to catalyze the reaction. It is hinted, but not stated outright, that human mining of gold triggered this reaction. |
3111640 | /m/08s3rm | Rogue Planet | Greg Bear | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The story takes place a few years after the events of The Phantom Menace. Young Anakin Skywalker chafes under his new life as a Jedi apprentice. He sneaks away from Obi-Wan Kenobi to participate in and gamble on deadly flying games. This is interrupted by a Blood Carver assassin. The Jedi Council decides Anakin would be best served to send him with Obi-Wan to investigate the remote world of Zonama Sekot, a world that produces organic spacecraft. A Jedi has gone missing on Sekot. A battle squadron pursues the two Jedi; it is headed by a weapons designer that has already blueprinted the Death Star. Commander Tarkin, of the future Grand Moff Tarkin becomes involved as well. Blood Carver assassins appear again, the Jedi grow their own ship and no less than two fleets threaten the planet. |
3111831 | /m/08s44w | Tea from an Empty Cup | Pat Cadigan | 1998 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Tea From an Empty Cup is at its core a tightly plotted detective novel. The story revolves around near mythical Japan, which has been destroyed in a vaguely described natural cataclysm several decades before the story opens. The generation that remembers "Old Japan" appears to have passed on. A virtual version of Japan has become a sort of holy grail for a core group of artificial reality addicts. Artificial Reality, or AR, like "post-apocalyptic Noo Yawk Sitty" has become immensely popular in an increasingly dreary overcrowded world, not just as a game, but as a way of life. Written in 1998, the world described bears an uncomfortable resemblance to the amount of time spent online by generations who have grown up with the Internet as part of the fabric of their existence. AR is not just a way of life, it turns out, but also of death, as homicide detective Dore Konstantin discovers when she is called upon to investigate the death of a young man in an artificial reality parlour (think video arcade with a full wired body suit) and discovers he died the same way in the game as in reality. She therefore decides to investigate this young man's life within the artificial realities he frequented, even though the legal precedents already established mean that nothing she discovers is admissible as evidence because "Everything is a Lie" in AR. In the process she stumbles onto something far more complicated then a mere murder case. In Tea from an Empty Cups interwoven storyline, Yuki, a young ethnically Japanese woman is desperately looking for her boyfriend Tom, whom she fears has taken up with a mysterious and notorious woman named Joy Flower, becoming one of "Joy's Boyz", about whom a lot of nasty rumours circulate. When Yuki seeks Joy Flower out, she immediatedly is taken into Joy's inner circle, becoming her personal assistant, which leads her, like Konstantin, into a voyage of discovery towards the central mystery of the book. |
3112463 | /m/08s5lr | Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter | Michael Reaves | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | After years of waiting in the shadows, Darth Sidious is taking the first step in his master plan to destroy the Jedi Order and take over the galaxy. He meets secretly with his Neimoidian contacts in the Trade Federation to finalize details in the plan to blockade the planet Naboo. But one member of the delegation is missing, and Sidious does not need his Force-honed instincts to suspect betrayal. He orders his apprentice, Darth Maul, to hunt the traitor Hath Monchar down. Maul completes this task by decapitating Monchar with his double-bladed lightsaber, but learns from Monchar that he had also recorded proof of the Sith's manipulation of the Naboo blockade on a holocron, to sell for profit. A suicidal attack by a Trade Federation-hired bounty hunter forces Maul to retreat before claiming the holocron, making an explosion which kills the bounty hunter, and by the time he returns to its hiding place, the holocron is in the possession of its intended purchaser, a Corellian con man named Lorn Pavan. Pavan, although at first purely motivated by money and deeply resentful of the Jedi for taking his son away from him, realizes the nature of the information and seeks to take it to the Jedi Temple. Maul, for his part, is ordered by Sidious to not only retrieve the holocron, but kill Lorn, his droid partner I-Five, and anyone else who might have knowledge of the information. Meanwhile, a Jedi Padawan named Darsha Assant is faced with the Jedi Trials to finally become a full-fledged Jedi Knight by saving Oolth the Fondorian, a Black Sun member, and get some information out of him of Black Sun's destruction (which had been caused by Maul in the previous novel Darth Maul: Saboteur). Darsha saves Oolth from a gang in one of the lower levels of Coruscant, but when she and the Black Sun member zip-line toward the top of a building, Darsha and Oolth are attacked by hawk-bats. Eventually, the two go high enough where the hawk-bats force Darsha to release Oolth and he falls to his death on the lower levels. Lorn and I-Five meet up with Yanth the Hutt, a crime lord in one of the lower levels in Coruscant, to get money out of the deal, but Maul arrives to kill Yanth by impaling one of his lightsaber blades into him and murders his bodyguards. This gives Lorn and I-Five the opportunity to escape. Jedi Master Anoon Bondara and his padawan, Darsha Assant, who are on a mission related to the Black Sun crime syndicate, find Lorn and I-Five. The two Jedi agree to escort Lorn and I-Five to the Temple, but the foursome are attacked by Maul, leading up to a battle on the top of a building. Bondara manages to nearly kill Maul at the cost of his own life, leaving Lorn, I-Five, and Darsha to work their way to the Temple from the underground caverns of Coruscant, while Bondara is killed in an explosion that also nearly kills Maul. Maul, however, is not seriously wounded, and immediately begins tracking the three again. After escaping various dangers of Coruscant's subterranean levels, Lorn, Darsha and I-Five are once again set upon by Maul, who is intent on fulfilling his mission. Darsha, realizing that she cannot defeat Maul, draws out their duel long enough for I-Five to hastily repair a carbonite-freezing unit and seal Lorn and the droid inside it. Darsha plunges her lightsaber into a pile of volatile gas canisters, causing an explosion that Maul barely escapes and kills Darsha. Upon surveying the scene, Maul feels no trace of Lorn in the Force, not realizing that the carbonite hibernation has made his lifeforce all but undetectable. An automatic timer frees Lorn from hibernation, and he decides to go after Maul on his own to try to retrieve the holocron. When I-Five attempts to come along, Lorn deactivates him and asks a friend to take the droid, who knows about the blockade, to the Jedi Temple. Lorn's friend, however, decides to keep I-Five for himself - after giving the droid a memory wipe. Lorn, unaware of this, uses a piece from the body of a subterranean creature to block his presence in the Force, and follows Maul to a Republic space station. Lorn sneaks up on and stuns Maul momentarily before Maul awakens and strikes out, severing Lorn's right hand and pursuing him through the station's service tubes. Lorn barely makes it into the public area of the station where Maul cannot follow, and unwittingly gives the holocron to Senator Palpatine of Naboo, not realizing the senator's true identity is Maul's Sith Master, Darth Sidious. After a brief period of recovery, Lorn starts to leave his quarters, only to be confronted by Maul one final time. Maul by this point considers Lorn a worthy opponent and kills him quickly, then leaves, his task completed. |
3112773 | /m/08s699 | The Technicolor Time Machine | Harry Harrison | 1967 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Barney Hendrickson is a mediocre movie-maker with no prospects, and his employer, Climactic Studios, is about to go out of business, particularly as the owner, L M Greenspan has systematically looted the corporation. In desperation, he drags Greenspan to see Professor Hewitt, who claims to have a time machine. Hewitt's idea of a demonstration is not Greenspan's, sending a bottle half a second into the past. Barney desperately takes over the machine, turns everything up to maximum and sends Greenspan's Cuban cigar three seconds into the future, burning out the circuitry in the process. "L M" is convinced enough to finance a replacement, under cover of a mad scientist's plot device for a horror movie. Barney aims to make a historical movie in the past, with a minimal crew, a handful of actors, and all the other parts filled by extras recruited (hopefully for wampum and beads) from the local people. His first script is Viking Columbus, about the founding of the Vinland settlement, obtained by sending Chinese-American scriptwriter Charley Chang back to a barren Precambrian Catalina Island for a month. On the first trip, they capture a Viking named Ottar in Orkney of the 11th century. With Ottar as local guide and interpreter, paid in bottles of Jack Daniel's, they move an entire sound stage into the past and begin filming. Their stars are Ruf Hawk, a narcissistic he-man, and Slithey Tove, a sex goddess. In the present the auditors from the bank are arriving in a few days, at which point they will discover the cooked books. Also, Prof. Hewitt explains that the time machine must return to the present, a moment after departing, before going to any other time. As a consequence, time used in the present day is lost forever. Barney thinks he can stay in the past as long as necessary, but following an attack by marauders shortly after their arrival, Ruf is injured and refuses to participate in the film. Then the time machine itself breaks down in the present day, taking hours to repair. Improvising desperately, Barney casts Ottar in the lead and resolves to stay in the past until all is done. They film Ottar setting sail for Vinland with an actual colonising crew, then the movie people jump, via present day Hollywood, to Newfoundland a few months later, tracking Ottar by a radio beacon on his boat. While waiting, they have a nasty encounter with the natives, whom the Vikings will call skraelings. Ottar hits the beach and digs in while the cameras roll, then the crew jumps forward a year to give the colonists time to build the settlement and stockade. They learn that Slithey, who had become smitten with Ottar, had been left behind by accident. Not only that, she has Ottar's baby son on her hip. They continue filming, even during a mass attack by skraelings, which is repelled with tear gas and Viking axes. Shooting the final scenes, Barney is triumphant - and downcast. Even with all the film shot, he still has to do a soundtrack, dub the spoken lines, and edit the final cut. There is no time in the future to do this, and no equipment in the past. All seems lost. Barney is all set to walk into Greenspan's office empty-handed, when he is stopped by a surprise visitor - a future version of himself, carrying a finished copy of Viking Columbus and sporting a bandaged left hand. He reassures Barney #1 that all he has to do is return to the past and complete Viking Columbus, and that everything will work out in the end. Barney #2 then walks into Greenspan's office with the completed film, leaving Barney #1 to wonder about what happened to his hand. Filled with confidence, Barney #1 heeds his counterpart's advice and returns to Vinland to finish the film. Along the way, however, he gets a wood sliver in his hand, and in order to mess with himself, he demands a huge bandage, over which he pours mercurochrome to make it look like blood. With the movie a smash hit, Climactic's future is assured. Only one puzzle remains. The Vikings went to Vinland, but where did the real settlers land? The Norse sagas say that the expedition was led by Thorfinn Karlsefni, but there was no sign of him. Then Ottar, overhearing, reveals that his formal name is indeed Thorfinn Karlsefni. Shocked, Barney and Hewitt realize that the colony was founded because they decided to make a movie about founding the colony. Not only that, but Slithey, whose character in the movie was named "Gudrid", has also entered history as the mother of her son, whom she called "Snorey" because he snored so much. He will be known as Snorri Thorfinnsson, the ancestor of many Icelanders. The sagas also mention another important figure, Bjarni Herjólfsson. Barney Hendrickson realizes: "They wrote a part for me!" The novel ends with Greenspan planning to produce a historical film about the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, shot on location in 1st Century Judea, while a horrified Barney tries to talk him out of it. This novel presents a clear use of the restricted action resolution of the Grandfather paradox. The actions of the characters can not have changed the past because the past is what their actions brought about. For example, you couldn't go back in time and kill your Grandfather because then you wouldn't be born. A curious fact which probably escapes most English readers: The company's linguist's name, "Dr. Jens Lyn", is actually the Danish name of comic book character Flash Gordon - a homage, probably, to Harrisons many Danish friends - he lived in the country for a while. References of that kind can be found in several of his books, i.e. the placename "Storhestelortby" in "Bill the galactic hero" means "City of big horse shit". The BBC produced a radio play adaption of this novel for the long-running series "Saturday Night Theatre". It was broadcast on September 5, 1981. |
3113572 | /m/08s7rk | Monument | null | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction"} | A nondescript spacer with little education named Cerne Obrien finds a cache of extremely valuable "retron crystals", but crashes on an idyllic planet before he can sell them. The planet has a single continent, inhabited by humans with a Polynesian culture. The natives live contented lives, hunting a horrific sea-creature called the koluf, which constitutes almost their entire diet. Obrien uses his surviving technology to rid the area of several pests, and eventually marries. The natives come to call him the "Langri", a title of deep respect. Obrien lives a peaceful life, watching his descendants grow up, but when he realizes he is getting old, he begins worrying about the future. Unscrupulous developers would inevitably attempt to turn it into a resort. Obrien could handle them if they arrived soon, but he cannot live forever. He has bright young people sent to him. He begins to teach them "the Plan". It is difficult to teach the non-technological natives all they need to know, as they have little concept of modern galactic society, but he manages it. His best pupil is a young man named Fornri. Even as Obrien lies dying, a developer called Wembling arrives to illegally prospect for minerals. The people, led by Fornri, put the Plan into effect. They first capture Wembling and his men, and the crews of the four scout ships sent to find Wembling. The Navy eventually arrives, official negotiations ensue, and a treaty is signed recognizing the planet under the name Langri. The people of Langri fine the Federation for illegal landings. In due course, this (and Obrien's retron crystals) allows the people of Langri to hire a law firm as specified in the Plan. Eventually Wembling realises the planet's potential. He sees to it that the record of Langri's Galactic treaty is lost and procures a charter to develop a tourist resort. The construction drives away most of the koluf, and the people begin to starve; their adaptation to the environment has eliminated their ability to digest "normal" food. The starving people of Langri fail to get a court to stop Wembling; he has a seemingly valid charter. Meantime, Wembling's niece Talitha, and his hired (and fired) anthropologist Hort form a relationship, and sympathize with the natives. They discover Obrien's wrecked craft and read the log, including his notes on the Plan; they are amazed that one man could have created such a complete and detailed scheme, including Obrien's masterstroke. Fearing to interfere with the Plan, they keep their newfound knowledge to themselves. In accordance with the Plan, the people of Langri have been secretly learning to read. After having achieved the required high literacy rate, they successfully petition for membership in the Galactic Federation. The Plan then enters its endgame: the duly formed planetary government imposes a tax rate of 1000%. Since the natives have few personal assets, they can easily afford to pay, but such an exorbitant rate would bankrupt Wembling. The developer mounts a legal challenge, but there is precedent that a government can impose any tax it wishes, as long as it is applied equally to all. Obrien knew of this obscure precedent and made it the cornerstone of the Plan. The new government of Langri plans to build schools, parks, and hospitals to benefit the people. In the short story version, it even hires Wembling, admiring his ruthless energy, if not his morals. (In the novel he departs in disgust after trying to offer the new government a deal on a hotel.) |
3114677 | /m/08s9v5 | Higher Education | Charles Sheffield | 1995 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Since expulsion means that Rick's family will no longer be able to claim their welfare bonus, Rick begins looking for a job. One of his former teachers encourages him to get a job for the Vanguard Mining corporation, whose primary financial interest is in space mining of asteroids in the asteroid belt. The book follows his progress through an initial grueling examination period on Earth, initial training on an asteroid in a high orbit of Earth, and through an apprenticeship on another training facility in the asteroid belt. After proving himself, Rick is recruited to join a secret program to infiltrate and subvert Earth's education systems away from its current initiative-deadening pandering to the lowest common denominator. |
3114705 | /m/08s9xy | The Chessmen of Mars | Edgar Rice Burroughs | 1922 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/04chq5": "Planetary romance", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Tara meets Prince Gahan of Gathol, and is initially unimpressed, viewing him as something of a popinjay. Later she takes her flier into a storm and loses control of the craft, and the storm carries her to an unfamiliar region of Barsoom. After landing and fleeing from a pack of ferocious Banths (Martian lions), she is captured by the horrific Kaldanes, who resemble large heads with small, crab-like legs. The Kaldanes have bred a symbiotic race of headless human-like creatures called Rykors, which they can attach themselves to and ride like a horse. While imprisoned, Tara manages to win over one of the Kaldanes, Ghek, with her lovely singing voice. Gahan, who has fallen in love with Tara, sets out to find her, only to find himself caught up in the same storm, and he falls overboard while attempting to rescue one of his crew. He stumbles upon Bantoom, realm of the Kaldanes, and manages to rescue Tara, and together with Ghek they flee in Tara's crippled flier. Tara doesn't recognize Gahan as the prince she met earlier, as he is worn from his ordeals and no longer dressed in his fancy clothes. In light of her earlier reaction to him, Gahan decides to keep his identity secret, and identifies himself instead as a Panthan (warrior) called Turan. The three of them manage to reach the isolated city of Manator. Gahan ventures into the city seeking food and water, but is tricked and taken prisoner by the inhabitants. Tara and Ghek are also captured. In Manator, captives are forced to a fight to the death in the arena, in a modified version of Jetan, a popular Barsoomian board game resembling Chess; the living version uses people as the game pieces on a life-sized board, with each taking of a piece being a duel to the death. |
3115536 | /m/08sd0j | Varjak Paw | S. F. Said | 2003 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | Varjak Paw is a small Mesopotamian dark blue kitten who lives with his family in the Contessa's house on the hill. He is always made fun of because he is not a proper Mesopotamian blue. When a large gentlemen and two mysterious black cats enter the house, Varjak and his grandfather, Elder Paw, know something is wrong. The family is split apart, leaving Varjak to embark on a quest to the city for help. Using a form of secret cat martial arts called "The Way" handed down from his ancestor, the kitten must make his way through the city and overcome obstacles such as angry dogs, gangs of cats, and the mysterious "Vanishings." Varjak, whose amber eyes shun him from his family (as the color of danger), listens to his grandfather's tales of the Outside. His older brother Julius constantly bullies him. None of his family care to venture into the outside world, for they are happy and contented inside, being fed by the old woman known as the Contessa. One day, a Gentleman appears inside the house with two black cats acting in synchronized motions. The Contessa had died. He seems to take care of the cats, but when Varjak and his grandfather venture outside and his grandfather tells him stories of the mysterious Jalal the Paw, the Gentleman's two black cats kill him. Varjak runs away into the city, where he meets a black and white cat, Holly, and her best friend, a brown cat named Tam. Varjak learns of the Vanishings, the mysterious disappearances of cats off the streets. He travels with Holly and Tam. In his dreams he is visited by the strange Jalal the Paw, who teaches him of the Way, a lost form of cat martial arts. Varjak runs into a cat gang, Ginger's gang. He is immediately beaten up. When he travels into the evil Sally Bones' territory, he learns of the villain and a bit about the Way. The fight between him and the fierce white cat Sally Bones is interrupted by a dog, Cludge. Cludge knocks Varjak out, but wakes up to find that the dog meant no harm, and is even friendly. He befriends Cludge. Which surprised his friends as the dogs were known enemies to cats. Tam disappears and Varjak finds a grotesque toy cat inside a cardboard box, but it has every aspect of a real cat. He and Holly go back to his house, and his family wants Varjak to stay, but soon after Holly gets captured by the Gentleman. Varjak goes upstairs, where he finds dozens of cats inside a large cage, trapped by the Gentleman and his creepy cats. It is found that the Gentleman is taking them into a room and killing them to make toys out of them, although the methods of doing so have never been found (they come back out with glassy fake eyes and collars, with the sound boxes and mechanical movements of a doll, although they look and smell exactly like real cats). Varjak kills one of the black cats by snipping off its collar, the source of the Gentleman's power, and the other falls. The Gentleman is about to kill Varjak when Cludge jumps through the window and scares the Gentleman off. Varjak is named a hero. His family asked him to come back, but decides to live on the streets and leave his family at the house and outside he decides to start his own gang and try to defeat Sally Bones. |
3116503 | /m/08sgys | Rabbit Redux | John Updike | 1971 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Rabbit Redux finds the former high-school basketball star, Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom, working a dead-end job and approaching middle age in the downtrodden and fictional city of Brewer, Pennsylvania, the place of his birth. When his wife leaves him for another man, Harry and his thirteen-year-old son are at a loss, and the chaotic state of the nation circa 1969 finds its way into Harry's home. Updike's recurring themes of guilt, sex, and death are joined in Redux by racism when Harry plays host to an African-American named Skeeter, a cynical, drug-dealing Vietnam vet who engages Harry in debates about the war and race relations. Jill, a wealthy white teenager fleeing suburban Connecticut, enthralls both Harry and his son, and the four of them make a scandalous household emblematic of the Summer of Love's most confusing implications, culminating in a house fire that kills Jill. Harry and his wife are reconciled at book's end. |
3116541 | /m/08sh1p | High Society | Ben Elton | 11/7/2002 | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/05hgj": "Novel", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | It also follows several other characters: *Tommy Hanson. Tommy Hanson is Britain's most successful musical artist and became famous after winning Pop Hero (ostensibly a reference to Pop Idol). He is an abuser of several drugs and narrates his story to people at his NA and AA meetings. His character is possibly inspired by Robbie Williams, whose name is mentioned several times in the novel. *Jessie. Jessie is a seventeen year-old Scottish girl who, after running away from home to London, was coerced into prostitution. The story follows her battle to escape her pimp and her battle against her drug addiction. *Commander Barry Leman a high ranking police officer who becomes obsessed with a personal quest for justice when a friend of his daughter's is horrifically sexually assaulted (and subsequently commits suicide) as a way of threatening him over his involvement with Peter Paget's campaign *Samantha Spencer, Paget's beautiful but psychologically unhinged mistress. *Sonia, a teenage drug mule imprisoned in a Thai jail. |
3117333 | /m/08sk25 | Santorini | Alistair MacLean | 1986 | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | While on station in the Aegean Sea under the guise of a hydrographic survey mission, the crew of Royal Navy electronic intelligence vessel HMS Ariadne witnesses two disasters at once, a mysterious strategic bomber crashing into the sea and a large pleasure yacht on fire and sinking. The plane turns out to have been loaded with nuclear weapons, and the survivors rescued from the yacht (who include a wealthy Greek tycoon) appear somehow connected with the plane's destruction. With potential saboteurs aboard, Commander Talbot and the crew of the Ariadne must raise the one activated weapon before it can explode, setting off the others by sympathetic detonation and causing the nearby volcano of Santorini to explode in a tremendous eruption which would bring on a devastating tsunami and possibly a worldwide nuclear winter. sv:Santorin |
3118111 | /m/08sl_r | The Dark | Marianne Curley | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Arkarian is kidnapped by the Order of Chaos, who plan to weaken the Guard by erasing his birth. Isabel is determined to save him, but that means defying Lorian's orders, risking her life, and facing the underworld itself. Going through many hardships in the underworld with her friend Ethan, and brother Matt. They meet a new friend along the way ( John Wren ) but also rescuing Ethan's sister who got killed when he was a boy ( she is a ghost/spirit ) - ( a wren is a birdlike creature but still has somewhat the appearance of a human ). When rescuing Arkarian, they gain another member of the guard Dillon who was working for the Order of Chaos but came to the good side. Arkarian and Isabel realise they love each other and Arkarian saves them by opening a rift. When they return Lorian summons Isabel to a hearing and Arkarian pleas for her life and finds out Lorian is his father. At the hearing Isabel is pardonned and Lorian grants her the power to cease ageing so she and Arkarian can be together. |
3121975 | /m/08svkc | The Story of an Hour | Kate Chopin | 1894-12-06 | null | The short story describes the series of emotions Louise Mallard endures after hearing of the death of her husband, who was believed to have died in a railroad disaster. Mrs. Mallard suffers from heart problems and therefore her sister attempts to inform her of the horrific news in a gentle way. Mrs. Mallard locks herself in her room to immediately mourn the loss of her husband. However, she begins to feel an unexpected sense of exhilaration. "Free! Body and soul free!" is what she believes is a benefit of his death. At the end of the story, it is made known that her husband was not involved in the railroad disaster and upon his return home Mrs. Mallard suddenly dies. The cause of her death is ambiguous and left for analysis as it can range from her known heart problems to psychological factors. We can ask ourselves if the, real reason for the death was knowing that she wouldn't be free after she sees that her husband isn't really dead. |
3123415 | /m/08sybn | The Last Ship | William Brinkley | 1988-03 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | The story is told in a first-person point of view by the ship's commanding officer, whose full name is never revealed, although it is later revealed that his first name is Thomas. The Captain is writing this history several months after the war in order to describe the USS Nathan Jamess odyssey during in the wake of the conflict's aftermath. The Captain begins by describing his ship, the USS Nathan James (DDG-80), to the reader. The ship, named after an American naval hero from World War II, is a nuclear-powered guided missile destroyer, and is armed with nuclear Tomahawk cruise missiles. He then discusses the ethics of command, both of a warship and of nuclear strike forces; life aboard a United States Navy ship in the Arctic Circle; and the nature of his vessel's mission. He then recounts how, without warning, he one day received orders to carry out a nuclear strike on the Soviet city of Orel and its nearby ICBM silos. He then explains that after carrying out the mission and reporting the fact to his superiors, a reply from the U.S. Navy became hopelessly garbled halfway through the message. With one exception later in the book, this was the last official communication from the United States Navy that the Nathan James ever received. The Captain then decides to head southward into the North Sea, and thence to England, in order to re-establish contact with friendly forces. Upon steaming up the Thames to London, the ship encounters dense clouds of radioactive smoke, through which can be seen the ruins of London. The Captain then reverses course and heads for the open sea in order to escape the radiation. In the following months, the ship's crew discovers that the radioactive cloud hovers around all land masses that the Nathan James approaches, rendering them uninhabitable. The ship soon encounters a Soviet Navy ballistic missile submarine, the Pushkin, off a destroyed Gibraltar, and by common agreement the two ships rapidly establish a truce; thereafter the two commanding officers agree to a joint operation. The Pushkin, fully fueled but low on food, will attempt to reach a secret Soviet supply base in the Arctic and retrieve supplies and nuclear fuel for the Nathan James, while the U.S. Navy destroyer, relatively well-stocked with food but low on nuclear fuel, will make her way to the Pacific Ocean in search of habitable land for the two crews. The ships then part ways. As the USS Nathan James steams through the Mediterranean Sea, it encounters lifeless derelicts, inhospitable lands, and ill, wounded survivors who have made their way to the coasts, though the ship lacks the resources to offer any aid to the stricken civilians. At one point, weeks after the war, the ship does receive a message from the United States National Command Authority ordering all recipients to reply. The USS Nathan James does so, but the mysterious message simply repeats again and again, leading the Captain to believe it is an automated transmission. Based on his knowledge of the Soviet Union's targeting of North America as well as what he has seen of Europe, he, along with most of the ship's officers, concludes that the United States has simply ceased to exist and that what remains of North America is uninhabitable. He thus resolves to proceed to the Pacific Ocean by way of the Suez. At this point however, the ship's Combat Systems Officer challenges the Captain's authority. Believing that parts of North America may be habitable, he demands that the ship return to the east coast so that they can see for themselves. He further charges that the Captain is no longer in lawful command, since the U.S. Navy and the United States, by whose authority he commands the USS Nathan James, themselves no longer exist. The Combat Systems Officer thus demands a vote on the correct course of action. The Captain, angered at this mutiny, allows a vote, believing that the Combat Systems Officer has little support, and he is shocked when nearly a third of the crew side with the Combat Systems Officer. In the end, this minority demands rafts and the Captain's gig in order to sail across thousands of miles of open ocean to the United States. With a mixture of sadness and outrage, the Captain agrees, and as the mutineers depart, the USS Nathan James steams through Suez. In the following weeks, the ship travels through the East Indies, during which she experiences nuclear winter, including sub-freezing temperatures, black snow at the equator and exposure to high levels of radiation. Afterwards, the USS Nathan James reaches the remote South Pacific and, with her fuel levels down to just a few thousand miles of steaming, discovers a small, uncontaminated island. The ship's crew then establishes a community on the island, and the captain and his officers begin to wrestle with the issue of how to go about the business of beginning families. Ultimately the female sailors establish an arrangement, to which the men accede, which consists of a type of polyandry together with a prohibition on monogamy. Ultimately, most of the male sailors mate with most of the female sailors, but no pregnancies occur. Due to this, the crew begins to worry that the radiation of the nuclear winter may have rendered everyone sterile. Some time later, the Pushkin, which had lost contact with the USS Nathan James months earlier, arrives, its crew on the verge of starvation, but bearing an abundance of nuclear fuel. Now, at last, the USS Nathan James is free to explore as much of the world its crew wishes, keeping the island as its home base, without needing to economize on fuel. But at the very moment when the Captain is preparing the ship for such a voyage, a new disaster strikes; a group of sailors led by the Captain's senior officer, abhorring the remaining nuclear missiles aboard the ship, launches them without his permission. But one of the missiles accidentally detonates while in flight, triggering a chain reaction among all of the missiles, destroying the USS Nathan James and contaminating the island. The Captain, his remaining crew, and the Soviet crew immediately embark aboard the Pushkin to escape, beginning a new search for another sanctuary, eventually reaching the United States research facility McMurdo Station, in Antarctica, which contains years' worth of food and supplies. By this time, the Pushkins ballistic missiles have been jettisoned, and the resulting space rebuilt into expanded crew quarters, recreational area, and a nursery. The introduction of the Soviet crew (who were much less affected by radioactive fallout due to the superior protection offered by the submarine) into the predesigned breeding program has resulted in at least three pregnancies by the novel's end. The Pushkin has the fuel to conduct long, thorough explorations of the world. Thus it is the Soviet submarine, and not the USS Nathan James that is the "Last Ship." The novel ends on a hopeful note, as the well-provisioned survivors now prepare to rediscover the world. |
3123579 | /m/08syqh | The Deer and the Cauldron | Louis Cha | 10/24/1969 | {"/m/08322": "Wuxia", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The story centers on a witty, sly, illiterate and lazy protagonist called Wei Xiaobao, who was born to a prostitute from a brothel in Yangzhou during the Qing Dynasty. The teenage scamp makes his way from Yangzhou to the capital Beijing through a series of adventures. In Beijing, he is kidnapped and taken to the Forbidden City, where he impersonates an eunuch. While in the palace, Wei Xiaobao bumbles his way into a fateful encounter with the young Kangxi Emperor and they develop an unlikely friendship. Once, Wei Xiaobao is captured by some jianghu pugilists and brought out of the palace. He meets Chen Jinnan, the leader of the Heaven and Earth Society, an anti-government secret organisation, and becomes Chen's disciple. He also becomes one of the society's branch leaders and agrees to be an undercover agent for them in the palace. He is captured again by another group of pugilists and brought to Divine Dragon Island, where the sinister Divine Dragon Cult (神龍教) is based. Unexpectedly, he becomes the cult's White Dragon Marshal by flattering its leader Hong Antong. Wei Xiaobao is lecherous and flirtatious by nature, and he encounters seven women on separate occasions and eventually marries them. Wei Xiaobao makes several seemingly impossible achievements through sheer luck and cunning. Most of the time, he uses despicable and immoral means to accomplish them. First, he assists the Kangxi Emperor in ousting the autocratic regent Oboi from power. Second, he discovers the whereabouts of the Shunzhi Emperor, who was presumed dead, saves him from danger, and then helps him reunite with his son, the Kangxi Emperor. Third, he eliminates the Divine Dragon Cult by stirring up internal conflict, which leads to the cult's self-destruction. Fourth, he weakens the rebellion staged by Wu Sangui by bribing Wu's allies to withdraw, allowing the Qing army to crush the rebels easily. Last, he leads a campaign against the Russian Empire and helps the Qing Empire reach a border treaty with Russia. He met the Russian regent Sophia Alekseyevna earlier and helped her secure her rule over Russia. Wei Xiaobao is also responsible for recommending talents to the Kangxi Emperor, among whom include the admiral Shi Lang, who led the naval campaign against the Kingdom of Tungning. Throughout the story, Wei Xiaobao exhibits devout loyalty to both the Kangxi Emperor and personal friends in the anti-Qing forces. He instinctively shields the emperor with his body from assassins twice and saved the emperor's life. He plays an important role in assisting Kangxi in consolidating power. On the other hand, he helps anti-Qing forces escape from danger on numerous occasions by distracting imperial forces. He undermines the attempts by the society on the emperor's life and uses his status in the imperial court to prevent the society from being destroyed by the government. For his numerous accomplishments, Wei Xiaobao is rewarded with immense wealth and titles of nobility. His highest rank ever was "Duke of Luding" (鹿鼎公). He also gained respect from the anti-Qing factions for eliminating tyrannical Court officials and defending China from foreign invaders. Ultimately, Wei Xiaobao's conflicting loyalties reach a disastrous conclusion. The Kangxi Emperor discovers Wei Xiaobao's relationship with the Heaven and Earth Society, and forces Wei to make a choice, putting Wei in a dilemma. If Wei Xiaobao chooses to side with the society, he will become an enemy of the state and be forced to turn against the emperor, whom he regards as a childhood friend and master. If he chooses to follow the emperor's orders, he will have to eliminate the anti-government forces and be branded an ethnic traitor. Wei Xiaobao refuses to help Kangxi destroy the society and is forced into exile. However the emperor still regards him as a close friend and loyal subject so he pardons Wei Xiaobao and allows him to return to the palace later. Towards the end of the novel, Kangxi tries to force Wei Xiaobao to help him eliminate the Heaven and Earth Society again. On the other hand, Chen Jinnan had died and the society's members want Wei Xiaobao to be their new leader. Wei Xiaobao ponders over the issue and realises that he will never be able to reconcile between the two rivaling parties. He feels that his divided friendships and split loyalties are tearing him apart. He decides to leave and lead a reclusive life away from society, taking with him his immense wealth and family. Wei Xiaobao is never heard of again. It is said that later the Kangxi Emperor went on inspection tours to Jiangnan to look for Wei Xiaobao but never found him. |
3124623 | /m/08t04q | Seven Ancient Wonders | Matthew Reilly | 2005-10 | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller"} | Around 4,500 years ago, the capstone upon the summit of the Great Pyramid of Giza absorbed the energy released by the Tartarus Rotation (a monstrous sunspot that occurs every 4,000-4,500 years), and saved the earth from major flooding and catastrophic weather. This capstone was later divided up by Alexander the Great with one piece in a booby-trapped hidden location within each of the seven wonders of the world, in other than the Pyramid. If and when they are reunited and replaced on the capstone during another solar event, they can bring 1,000 years of peace or power for the nation which possesses them. In 2006, seven days before this sunspot is again due the pieces are still divided and 3 teams are trying to reunite them, 2 for their own gain - one from Europe (representing the Catholic Church) and the other is CIEF, the Commander-in-Chief's In Extremis Force (an American force covertly representing the power of the Freemasons). The third team is an alliance of a group of 'small nations' called the Alliance of Minnows (Canada, Australia, Ireland, United Arab Emirates, Spain, Jamaica, New Zealand, and later Israel), led by Jack West Jr, trying to reunite the capstone for nobler reasons. This team and the European team each also possess a child, one of the only two people who can read the "Word of Thoth", a special hieroglyphics system used in the booby-traps (the other person is her twin Alexander, who is being brainwashed by the Vatican). West's team gain and lose a capstone, the head of the Colossus of Rhodes to the CIEF but manage to escape and then reach the hiding place of two more pieces at Hamilcar's Refuge on the coast of Tunisia. There they again lose their gains to the CIEF, and again escape. They then spring Mustapha Zaeed, the world's foremost authority on the Capstone and the Seven Wonders and a known terrorist, from Guantanamo Bay, who leads them to two more pieces. After separating the team, the "Coalition of the Minnows" is devastated through kidnap and death. The survivors escape to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon in Iraq, but are there apprehended by an Israeli strike team. West is forced to lead the Israelis to the piece, but the Americans arrive, execute the Israelis, capture the piece and trap West and his team. Jack is presumed dead. The European contingent escorts their hostages to Cairo with a lone Piece - taken from St. Peter's Basilica - and, in attempting to capture the CIEF's five pieces, lose the St Peter's piece and Epper and Lily to them. The CIEF team then goes to Hatshepsut's Mortuary, and - with the aid of the measurements from the Paris Obelisk - finds the last piece in the tomb of Alexander the Great. Taking the whole Capstone to the Giza pyramid on the day of the rotation, placing Alexander in the chamber beneath it to ensure the ritual works. However, Jack West and his team's plane return to stop them. Judah tries to carry out the ritual, but Alexander crawls out to save himself from death, unwittingly ensuring its failure and del Piero's death, then Lily crawls in willingly and Zaeed carries it out successfully. West, however has ensured a twist to who has world dominion. West's team then wins the battle and he finds that Lily has survived by (unlike Alexander) going into the chamber willingly. The epilogue takes place three weeks later, with Wizard and Zoe accompanying Lily across Central Australia, before reuniting with West. |
3124965 | /m/08t13x | The Golem's Eye | Jonathan Stroud | 2004 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | The book begins two years after the events of The Amulet of Samarkand. Nathaniel is apprenticed to the Minister of Security, Jessica Whitwell; and is working as an understudy to the Minister of Internal Affairs, Julius Tallow. At the exceedingly young age of fourteen he is now a government official and a competent magician, but he no longer uses his original servant, Bartimaeus. When the book starts, he is working on a case involving a shadowy group of rebelling commoners, known as the Resistance. Nathaniel knows only a few facts about the group including three of their members' names: Kitty, Fred, and Stanley from his unpleasant encounter with them from Book One. He tries to search for these three through written records but to no avail. He disguises several minor spirits as commoners and sends them out to find the Resistance, but they too find no trace of the elusive group. Kitty Jones is on a mission for the Resistance during a performance of The Swans of Araby, in a posh London theatre. Kitty is having doubts about the point of her working for the Resistance, and she begins to reminisce about her past and why she joined the Resistance. She remembers her childhood, where she lived, somewhat poorly, next door to a Czech family who owned a factory that printed books for the magicians. Kitty often played cricket with her friend Jakob Hyrnek, son of the family that lived next door. One day, she accidentally hit a ball through the window of a magician's car as it passed. The magician came out and ordered his demon, a green monkey called Nemaides, to perform the "Black Tumbler", a magical attack, on Kitty and Jakob. Kitty is then woken up from her dream-like reverie by Fred and Stanley, the Resistance members she is commanding, who chastise her for sleeping on the job, as the intermission of the play has started. They leave the theatre and go to the nearby carpet shop that sells posh carpets for magicians. They break in, steal some documents and magical items, and Fred and Stanley set fire to the shop with an Inferno stick. Kitty is worried about being caught and harming commoners, but Stanley and Fred disagree, ignoring her protests against the fire. They return to the theatre in time for the rest of the play. Afterwards, several major shops in London are broken into by a mysterious enemy; everyone sent to investigate or on duty there is killed. From the foliot Simpkin's point of view, he sees the attacker as a cloud of darkness. Nathaniel switches to investigating the incident, discovering that six policemen and eight spirits including Simpkin were also killed by the creature. Most of the government suspects the Resistance of being behind the attack but Nathaniel thinks otherwise, citing the enormous scale of the attack. Nathaniel and his master, Ms. Whitwell, are called to meet with the prime minister, Rupert Devereaux. He orders Nathaniel to find the Resistance and put a stop to their activities. Nathaniel returns home, searches for a competent demon for surveillance, and finally decides to summon Bartimaeus again, remembering various woefully unsuccessful demons he previously experimented with. He instructs Bartimaeus to find the unknown attacker, identify it, and destroy it if he can. The book returns to Kitty and her memories, continuing from where they left off earlier. Kitty and Jakob had both been sent to the hospital, and Jakob was badly burnt. Kitty escaped mostly unharmed -- although she did not know it at the time, this is due to her innate resistance to magic. Kitty attempts to sue the magician but soon finds the justice system tilted in favor of magicians, and the magician gets away without charge, claiming Kitty and Jakob were trying to rob him. Kitty is fined £100 for compensation to the magician for the damage to his car, and she also has to pay the magician's penalty (£500) for coming late, as per tradition which dictates that fines awarded to winners are passed on to losers of the cases. She thus has to pay £600. As Kitty distraughtly leaves the court, a man asks her to meet up with him later, assuring her he will pay the full fine. She is rather suspicious of the stumbling little old man, but when she returns home and talks to her parents, she finds out the only way they can come up with the money is to sell the house. Kitty quickly decides to meet the man, who turns out to be the leader of the Resistance by the name of Mr. Pennyfeather. This eventually leads to her joining the Resistance, and being placed in command of small groups of raiders, vandalising magicians' property. In the meantime, Bartimaeus meets an old friend named Queezle, and the two hunt for the mystery attacker, commanding a force composed of multiple djinn and foliots. Eventually, as Bartimaeus and Queezle split up to patrol, the attacker runs across Queezle and promptly kills her. Hearing her scream, Bartimaeus returns to assist her. He arrives too late, but is able to track the attacker to the British Museum. He destroys the perceived black mist which conceals the attacker, and discovers that it is a golem, unharmable by djinn and other spirits. However, the golem attacks him as he flees, crushing him under an entire section of the Museum. Bartimaeus is rescued the following morning, and reveals the marauder's identity to Whitwell, Duvall, Nathaniel, and Tallow. Whitwell then orders Nathaniel to travel to Prague, the origin of golem magic, and find out who controls the golem. Kitty, while this occurs, meets with her friends in the Resistance, including their informant, Mr. Hopkins, and they are told that they will raid Gladstone's tomb. Kitty meets with a magician, whose identity remains unknown and is referred to as 'the benefactor', and who gives them the materials to enter the tomb. That night, they enter Gladstone's tomb. As they loot his coffin, Stanley is killed by a powerful afrit named Honorius, caged in Gladstone's bones. The afrit then engages Fred in a blade fight, which delays it long enough for the rest of the living Resistance members to flee the tomb. As Kitty urges her aged leader, Mr. Pennyfeather, up the steps, Fred is killed by the afrit's antique sword, and the afrit quickly drags Mr. Pennyfeather off. Kitty retreats and meets Anne. As they escape the Abbey, Anne is killed by the afrit. At this point, as Kitty flees, the afrit calls her back, imitating Mr. Pennyfeather. Kitty hesitates, and Honorius attempts to kill her; she is saved by her pendant of silver due to all demons' antipathy to the metal, and Honorius' distraction at his rediscovering of the stars. She escapes, with only the staff of Gladstone in exchange for her friends' deaths. Nathaniel travels to Prague to collaborate with a spy named Harlequin to discover who the magician that created the golem spell is. During the second meeting, the Czech police engage him and Bartimaeus, and kill Harlequin, after he gives Nathaniel the magician's name: Kavka. Bartimaeus easily evades the police with Nathaniel, and they arrive at the magician Kavka's house. After 'breaking in', they convince Kavka not to create a second golem. The dreaded Mercenary from the previous book suddenly appears, and casually threatens the three of them. Kavka then destroys the golem manuscript, and a combat scene follows, ending with Bartimaeus blasting Verroq, the Mercenary, through a window with a hurricane, hurling him hundreds of feet away, but not killing him. Nathaniel then returns to London, whereupon he is immediately whisked away with Whitwell to an emergency meeting with the prime minister. Nathaniel learns of the resistance's raiding of Gladstone's tomb, and learns that Honorius is terrorizing all of London. Nathaniel sends Bartimaeus to take care of Honorius, and Bartimaeus eventually drowns Honorius in the Thames, which should have killed him. Bartimaeus returns to Nathaniel, without much praise. Nathaniel then hatches a plan to lure Kitty Jones, who possesses a historical and powerful artifact, Gladstone's Staff, into his clutches, by kidnapping her childhood friend Jakob Hyrnek. When Kitty goes to rescue her friend, she is attacked by the Night Police. Nathaniel, angry at the Night Police's intervention, sends Bartimaeus to escape with Kitty. He does so and takes her to the abandoned building where Nathaniel and Bartimaeus hid after the death of the Underwoods. There, the two share an enlightening conversation about the endless cycle of conflict between humans and spirits. Meanwhile, Jakob Hyrnek and Nathaniel are apprehended by the Night Police and are taken before the Council, who decide that if he can recover the Staff, he will be set free. Vigilance spheres follow them to the building, and Kitty reveals where she hid the Staff. She takes them there, and they recover the Staff. However, when Kitty and Jakob attempt an escape, they are confronted by Honorius, who is revealed to have climbed on a boat from an anchor chain. The ensuing chaos is interrupted when the golem intervenes. When the vigilance spheres flee, Nathaniel tells Kitty he will give her and Hyrnek one day to leave the country. Honorius is destroyed by the golem, and Nathaniel attempts to destroy the clay beast with Gladstone's Staff. He fails, and is knocked unconscious by the magical backlash. Kitty takes a desperate gamble, and yanks the animating parchment from the golem's mouth, thus saving Nathaniel. Jakob and Kitty leave the scene, and when Nathaniel comes to, he and Bartimaeus trail the golem, which is returning to its master. Henry Duvall, the Chief of Police, is revealed to be the perpetrator, and is arrested. A few days later, Duvall attempts escape, unintentionally killing himself. And much to Nathaniel's displeasure, the Staff is stored away. |
3124976 | /m/08t15b | Ptolemy's Gate | Jonathan Stroud | 2005 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | The British Empire is falling apart. Many commoners are unhappy with the current government, though none of the commoners claim responsibility for the status quo. The magician's demons are being assaulted by the children's natural abilities to see and resist the demons. (All of the magicians in the government were originally commoners whose parents sold them to the government at a young age, so it is not hard to understand why they are such a heartless group of people, concerned only with power and wealth.) Some commoners advocate slow reform, while others advocate open revolt, while still others say the commoners should learn how to summon spirits of their own to combat those spirits belonging to the magicians. Ptolemy's Gate concludes with a council of surviving magicians and important commoners trying to work out a government that is beneficial to everyone. Kitty Jones eventually unearths the reason why humans and spirits are locked into the endless cycle, that humans do not understand the nature of djinni and summon them only as powerful, but dangerous, slaves, not equals. This theory is confirmed by Bartimaeus who states that his greatest master, Ptolemy, was the only human who treated his servants as equals and tried to build a bridge between djinni and humans. However, Ptolemy misguidedly believed many others would follow in his footsteps; the only other person to ever successfully cross into the Other Place was Kitty. England's domestic turmoil has taken its toll on John Mandrake. Mandrake is friendless and constantly watched by his numerous enemies. In the three years since The Golem's Eye there have been several attempts on Mandrake's life. His years as a high ranking government official have made Mandrake merciless, and he treats all of his servants cruelly, especially Bartimaeus. However, events in Ptolemy's Gate shatter Mandrake's confidence in what he has become. The transformation from Mandrake to Nathaniel is much more rapid than the one from Nathaniel to Mandrake. Nathaniel drops the name John Mandrake all together, as well as the fear of others knowing his true name, humbly telling it to Kitty, with whom he seems to have struck up a newfound friendship, and boldly proclaiming it to the spirit Nouda. With the end of Mandrake, Nathaniel becomes all that Ptolemy hoped to be. Nathaniel willingly allows Bartimaeus to share his body to combat Nouda and his army of hybrids, using Gladstone's staff, a fusion that forever bridges the gap between humans and djinn. However, at the last moment, he dismisses Bartimaeus and then sacrifices himself to destroy the spirit Nouda. This incident was similar to what Ptolemy did in the moments before he died. |
3129981 | /m/08tckw | All Families Are Psychotic | Douglas Coupland | 2001 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The novel is the tale of the Drummond family from Vancouver gathering together to watch Sarah Drummond's rocket blast off at the Kennedy Center. The Drummonds are a group of misfits with a wide array of personal foibles and intricacies. The novel's plot is the tale of events that reunite the Drummond family after many years of estrangement. Several plot points of the book include geriatric HIV, armed robbery, death in Walt Disney World, pharmaceutical drug lords, black market baby sales, Daytona Beach, and suicide attempts. Early in the book the men of the family travel to nearby Walt Disney World where they receive a package destined for the Bahamas containing a letter written by Prince William stolen from Princess Diana's casket. The men start to travel to the Bahamas to deliver their package, but everything and anything happens to them on the way. The novel is told in a similar style to Miss Wyoming, with many plot flashbacks. However, the focus in this novel is on the temporally linear plot. |
3133672 | /m/08tln8 | The Scapegoat | Daphne du Maurier | 1957 | {"/m/0lsxr": "Crime Fiction"} | 'I left the car by the side of the cathedral, and then walked down the steps into the Place des Jacobins. It was still raining hard. It had not once let up since Tours, and all I had seen of the countryside I loved was the gleaming surface of the route nationale, rhythmically cut by the monotonous swing of the windscreen-wiper. Outside Le Mans, the depression that had grown upon me during the past twenty-fours had intensified.' (p.1) The Scapegoat is narrated by John, an Englishman and lecturer in French history at a London university, who is coming to the end of his holiday in France. He arrives in Le Mans, depressed and melancholy at the thought of returning to his lectures: 'the real meaning of history would have escaped me, because I had never been close enough to people' (p.1). John feels lonely, isolated, and as though his outward life is a meaningless facade. 'I lived and breathed and had my being as a law-abiding, quiet, donnish individual of thirty-eight. But to the self who clamoured for release, the man within? How did my poor record seem to him? [...] Perhaps, if I had not kept him locked within me, he might have laughed, roistered, fought and lied' (p.10). John considers concluding his visit at the Abbaye de la Grande-Trappe where he hopes to find some consolation but as he crosses the road in Le Mans the driver of a car calls out to him, addressing him as Jean. John tries to explain to the man who seems to know him that there has been a mistake but the man takes it to be a deliberate deception, winks, laughs and drives away. He enters the station buffet and is confronted by another man: 'I realised, with a strange sense of shock and fear and nausea all combined, that his face and voice were known to me too well. I was looking at myself' (p.13). John has a premonition that meeting his double could be 'fraught with tragedy, like the Man in the Iron Mask' (p.14) but he sits down and has a drink with his doppelganger, to whom he begins to confess his feelings of depression and failure. His double mistakes him for a Frenchman because of his excellent grasp of the language and they eventually retire to a backstreet hotel where they continue to drink and eventually swap clothes. John falls to the floor drunk and when he awakes, he discovers a chauffeur at the door: 'Monsieur le Comte is awake at last?' (p.27). John realises that his double has disappeared with his clothing and he attempts to convince the chauffeur that he is not the Comte. The chauffeur believes him to be drunk and when he enquires after the 'gentleman I was with last night' (p.30) the hotel receptionist has no knowledge of him. John decides that if 'he wished to make an idiot of me, I would do the same to him. I would put on his clothes and drive his car to hell - as he was no doubt driving mine - and have myself arrested, and then wait for him to turn up and explain his senseless action as best he could' (p.31). Ignoring further opportunities to explain his predicament, John shaves, dresses, gets in the car and they make for the chateau at St Gilles. He realises that Jean de Gué 'had given me what I asked, the chance to be accepted. He had lent me his name, his possessions, his identity. I had told him my own life was empty: he had given me his' (p.34). They arrive at the chateau and John is met by a man named Paul, Jean's brother, who appears irritated by his lateness. John enters the house and goes into a room in which three women are seated. One, named Blanche, leaves as soon as he enters; the second, a fair-haired woman, who is pregnant, tells him that they have been worried about his absence; and the third, dark-haired, exchanges a knowing glance with him. The women inform him that Marie-Noel has a fever and when asked about Paris he declares carelessly: 'I have no idea what happened in Paris. I'm suffering from memory loss' (p.41). The pregnant woman expresses her hope that he has reached an agreement in Paris but John continues to taunt the women: 'Actually, I am not Jean de Gué at all. I am someone else. We met in Le Mans last night, and changed clothes, and he has disappeared in my car, heaven knows where, and I am here in his place. You must admit it's an extraordinary situation' (p.42). The women take no notice, believing him to be suffering from a hangover, and eventually John admits that he drank too much in Le Mans and leaves the room. Venturing upstairs, John finds himself in a bare room decorated only with religious paraphernalia: a painting of the scourging of Christ, a crucifix, and a small alcove for prayer. A servant discovers him and asks, looking rather surprised, if he is searching for Mademoiselle Blanche. He is told that she is with the Madame la Comtesse who is eager to see him and will not wait. He follows the servant into a room in which 'a massive elderly women, her flesh sagging in a hundred lines, but her eyes, her nose, her mouth so astonishingly and horribly like my own that for one wild moment I believed after all Jean de Gué had come up here before me and was masquerading as a final jest' (p.46). John intuits that the woman is Jean's mother and when she presses him as to whether he has renewed the contract; he tells her that everything has been arranged. She pesters him for a present that he has brought her from Paris and then they dine. She tells him that Marie-Noel has been having visions and that 'she kept telling Françoise and Renée that you were not coming back' (p.52). Blanche, who has been sitting with Madame la Comtesse while the local priest attended her, declares that she will inform the bishop if Marie-Noel continues to have visions of the Virgin Mary. The mother's maid, Charlotte, presses John for the package and he leaves the room, fortuitously stumbling upon Jean's dressing room where he discovers a number of parcels, marked F, R, B, P, M-N, and Maman. He returns with the parcel but Charlotte intercepts it and takes it away. When he returns to the dressing room he discovers that the pregnant woman is Françoise and that rather than being Paul's wife, as he had assumed, she is in fact Jean's wife. John gives her the package marked 'F' which turns out to be a locket brooch containing a miniature of himself/Jean. Françoise is pleased but confesses her deep unhappiness to John. When she falls asleep, John goes out into the corridors of the chateau and is accosted by Renée, the dark haired woman, who says: 'I waited for you, leaving my door open. Didn't you see it?' (p.64). John brushes her off and she storms away upstairs. He goes out onto the terrace at the back of the house and is suddenly pelted by chestnuts, by a kneeling figure in an upstairs window. He looks closer and discovers that it is a child who declares: 'I swear to you, that if you don't come to me by the time I count a hundred, I shall throw myself out of the window' (p.67). John rushes inside and finds the child, who looks like Jean de Gué in miniature and calls him 'Papa'; the child is Marie-Noel. She is affectionate and playful with him but notices that his hands and smell are different. She tells him that she had a vision of the Virgin Mary who told her that her father would not return. She declares that she would have killed herself if he had not returned: 'And then I should have burnt in hell. But I would rather burn in hell than live in this world without you' (p.71). Her room, like Blanche's, also contains a crucifix, a prie-dieu, and pictures of the saints. John returns to his bedroom and opens the package marked M-N, it is a book called 'The Little Flower' about St Therese Lisieux. John thinks that Jean acted wrongly to escape from the chateau- 'none of these people under his roof would be behaving as they had behaved tonight but for something he had done to them' (p.76)-but he sees an opportunity for himself to put it right. When John awakes the next morning, Gaston tells him that Paul will be expecting him at the verrerie (the glass-works) in the afternoon. John gives Marie-Noel her present and declares that he will give all the other presents at lunchtime, although Marie-Noel is surprised that there is one for Blanche. At lunch, the content of Renée's package- a lace nightgown- upsets the party and there is further embarrassment when Marie-Noel reads the label on Paul's present- a remedy for impotence. Blanche does not open her parcel. John realises his mistake and leaves with Paul for the verrerie. He apologises for the mistake but Paul remains furious. At the verrerie, John discovers that the reason for Jean's visit to Paris was to attempt to save the business by renegotiating a contract with a firm called Carvalet to sell their glass. Despite having no idea as to the outcome of Jean's meeting, John tells Paul that he has renewed the contract and that production can continue as normal. Paul is delighted. John interrogates Jacques who works at the foundry and discovers that the verrerie is a liability and that unlike Jean's father, and Monsieur Duval who managed affairs previously, the Comte's management of the business has been non-existent. He then meets some of the workers at the foundry including Julie and her son-in-law André who had been badly injured in an accident. Back at the chateau, John reads the letter from Carvalet and discovers that they had declined to renew the contract and that the visit to Paris had been a failure. John decides to rectify the situation. He rings Carvalet and tells them that he will accept their terms, despite running the verrerie at a loss. He suspects that someone has overheard his phone call but he cannot locate the other extension. He rummages through Jean's desk in search of some information about his finances but instead finds a photograph album featuring himself, Paul, and Blanche as children, and a man named Maurice. Renée comes into the library and berates him for giving her the lingerie at the dinner table. John suddenly realises that Jean was having an affair with her and he attempts again to brush her off. He goes to see Marie-Noel and discovers that Blanche had opened her package. Inside was a bottle of perfume and a note: 'For my beautiful Béla, from Jean'. Marie-Noel also lets slip in conversation that Jean had not spoken to Blanche in fifteen years and John muses: 'no wonder the giving of a present had been out of character. The revelation was disturbing, even sinister, especially when I remembered the snapshots of the two children with their arms about each other. Something personal and bitter had come between Blanche and Jean de Gué, yet it was accepted by all, even by the child' (p.127). When John puts Marie-Noel to bed she tells him that she had sinned by threatening to kill herself and she attempts to perform penance by beating herself with a leather whip. Appalled by the effects which Blanche's religion is having on his daughter, John delivers the whip back to her only to find the door slammed in his face. John decides to spend his second night at the chateau sleeping in the dressing room. 'I knew that everything I had said or done had implicated me further, driven me deeper, bound me more closely still to that man whose body was not my body, whose mind was not my mind, whose thoughts and actions were a world apart, and yet whose inner substance was part of my nature, part of my secret self' (p.138). The next morning John decides to go to the bank in Villars to investigate his double's finances. Renée contrives to go with him but John encourages Marie-Noel to join the party. Marie-Noel is delighted but when doing cartwheels in her mother's room, smashes two ornaments. Françoise is upset and lashes out at the child, telling her that when the baby arrives, she will take second place. John takes the pieces of the ornaments with him, parcelled up in some discarded paper he found in the dressing room, hoping to arrange for them to be mended in Villars. Renée is annoyed that she and Jean/John are to be chaperoned by the child and she goes off to the hairdressers. Marie-Noel visits the antique shop to see if they can fix the ornaments while Jean goes to the bank. In his vault he discovers the marriage settlement relating to Jean and Françoise. He discovers that Françoise's dowry was in trust for a male heir and that Jean would only come into the money otherwise if Françoise reached the age of fifty having only given birth to daughters or if she died. John understands why it is crucial for Françoise's baby to be a boy and why she is anxious about the pregnancy. John leaves the bank, having been told that Marie-Noel had already left town in a lorry going back to the verrerie. He goes over to speak to the blonde woman who he presumes owns the antique shop where Marie-Noel left the ornaments. She ushers him inside and declares: 'That child of yours is adorable but it was very naughty of you to send her here. Any why for heaven's sake did you wrap up those pieces of broken porcelain in cellophane and paper with a card addressed to me?' (p.155). John inadvertently wrapped the pieces in the paper containing the note to 'Béla' from Jean. He realises that this woman in Villars is Béla and she is another of the Comte's mistresses. John tells Béla the truth about the Carvalet contract and she asks him why the sudden concern for the verrerie and its workforce. She tells him that she has always wondered whether his lack of interest in the place was because of what happened to Maurice Duval. John encourages her to keep talking and she mentions that he died during the Occupation. He tries to tell her about the change that has come over him/Jean and that he is a different person. Béla replies 'you aren't the only one with a dual personality. We all have multiple selves. But no one avoids responsibility that way. The problems remain to be tackled just the same' (p.164). When John returns to the house, he discovers that the doctor who had called to see Françoise has already left and he has ordered her to remain in bed in order to protect the baby. He goes to talk to Françoise and tells her that he had a long meeting at the bank which prevented him from being home in time, and he confesses about the Carvalet contract. Françoise is pleased that he confided in her and she then asks if he looked at the marriage settlement when he was in the vault. He says that he did and she asks whether he will inherit the money if she dies. '"What happens if I die? You get everything, don't you?" "You're not going to die"' (p.172). John goes to see Jean's mother and when he mentions that perhaps Françoise should see a specialist if the pregnancy is going to present problems, she says slyly 'Whatever for?' (p.176). They are interrupted by a telephone call from Dr Lebrun. He tells John that Françoise needs complete rest. Marie-Noel asks why the servants are gossiping about the baby dying and she asks why they need to have another baby. John replies honestly that it is because of the money they will receive from the marriage settlement. John returns upstairs to sit with Françoise rather than brave Paul and Renée in the salon. She is touched, if a little surprised, by the concern. The following day he goes down to the verrerie to go through the figures with Jacques in the office and he then asks about the rest of the disused house. He finds a box of books, one of which is inscribed 'Maurice Duval', and he asks Jacques why they don't make the house inhabitable. He replies that 'there are not very happy memories connected with the house when it was last inhabited. Few people would wish to live there now [...] When the last man to live here, the master of the verrerie, Monsieur Duval, is woken from his bed in the middle of the night, and taken downstairs and shot by his own countrymen, and his body thrown into the well cut to pieces with his own glass, even if it happened a long time ago and is something we all prefer to forget, yet it does not make anybody very anxious to come and live here, where it happened, bringing a wife and family' (p.189). John signs the new contract from Carvalet and puts it in the post. He then goes to talk to Julie and asks her about the Occupation. She shows him a snapshot of a young German officer whose coat she cleaned so that he would not get in trouble with his superiors. The villagers ostracised her two years afterwards: 'so you see, when war comes to one's own village, one's own doorstep, it isn't tragic and impersonal any longer. It's just an excuse to vomit private hatred' (p.194). When he returns to the chateau, the servants ask John about the arrangements for the annual shoot the following day. He has overheard references to the 'grande chasse' during the past few days but he suddenly realises its implications: he, John, cannot shoot. He goes out into the grounds of the chateau, desperate for an excuse not to participate. He sees a fire burning and decides on a rash course of action. He drops Jean's watch into the fire and then thrusts his hand into the flames to retrieve it. He returns inside in great pain, to the shock of the family, especially when they discover that the watch he had wished to save had been a present from Maurice Duval. Blanche dresses the wound and he tells Paul to organise the shoot; now he is injured, he has no interest in it. When he goes to put Marie-Noel to bed, she tells him that she saw him thrusting his hand into the fire on purpose. He tells her that it was because he had not wanted to shoot and she says that he must have been thinking about Duval. When John questions her further she says that she knows he met a horrible death, but that her grandmother had forbidden her from talking about Duval either to her father or to Blanche. She asks if he did it because he didn't want to kill any birds, and when he says that perhaps that was the reason, she is pleased at his courage and his 'great act of humiliation' (p.216). John persuades her not to mention it to any one and Marie-Noel agrees, although she tells him that she thinks his act to be like the sacrificial mortifications of the saints. When the annual shoot begins the next day, John discovers Jean's mother welcoming the guests, who are so surprised by her emergence from the chateau that John's hand goes unnoticed. John is annoyed when she mocks Paul and Renée's attempts to run the shoot but he then finds himself unable to control Jean's dog, César. The dog scatters the birds, to Paul's annoyance, and John returns to the chateau with Gaston, drinking cognac from a hip flask. He meets the man who first mistook him for Jean in Le Mans before the swop took place and on a whim he gives the man his own address in London: '"Any assistance you give this chap you'll be giving to me; we're closer than brothers." Then I burst out laughing, thinking him extremely stupid not to see the point' (p.229). John is encouraged to give a speech to the guests, which despite his inebriation he does, but they are not amused when he jokes that if he had shot with his damaged hand 'some of you present might never have survived' (p.230). When he returns to the chateau, John is summoned to Jean's mother who appears to be unwell. Her maid is downstairs in the kitchen and the mother urges him to help her, directing him to a drawer. When John opens it he discovers that the package which he brought back from Paris was ampoules of morphine. 'But his mother was not ill or dying, neither was she in pain' (p.234). He reluctantly administers the drug and she loses consciousness. John spends the night in Villars with Béla. He recounts the events of the day and when he recalls his quip about the gun she comments: 'Coming from a one-time Resistance leader to a group of well-known collaborators, it must have sounded curious all the same' (p.245). When he returns to the chateau he discovers a letter from Marie-Noel pushed under his door in which she writes: 'The Sainte Vierge tells me you are unhappy, and are suffering now for wrong done in the past, so I am going to pray that all your sins may be visited upon me, who, being young and strong, can bear them better.' (p.248). When he goes in to Françoise, she tells him that Marie-Noel has disappeared. Everyone goes out to look for Marie-Noel except Françoise. By chance John discovers her down at the house at the verrerie being looked after by Julie, who found her down the well amongst the broken glass after the dog, César, was found there barking. When he expresses surprise about the well and that it has contained no water for fifteen years, he finally discovers the secret of Jean's past. Maurice Duval was shot by Jean and his men: 'poor Monsieur Duval, whose only crime was trying to preserve the verrerie while you were absent, for which you and your little group of patriots called him a collaborator, and shot him, and let him die there in the well' (p.258). John's realises that Marie-Noel had climbed into the well as an act of penitence on behalf of her father. Blanche arrives and looks around her at the house and John suddenly realises that 'what she was looking at had once been part of her life' (p.260): Blanche had had a relationship with Duval. Marie-Noel wakes up and tells John that she had had a dream in which the Virgin Mary told her that her grandmother wanted Françoise to die: 'In the dream I wanted her to die too. So did you. We were all guilty. It was very wicked. Isn't there something you can do to prevent it coming true?' (p.263). At that moment there is a telephone call from the chateau for John to return at once. Françoise has fallen from the bedroom window and been taken to the hospital in Villars. She requires a blood transfusion and when Blanche says that either Jean or Paul could donate because they are the same blood type, John speaks up and denies it. Blanche declares: 'You don't want to save her. You're hoping she'll die' (p.269). Françoise and her baby, which was a boy, both die and John thinks back on his behaviour towards Jean's wife. He is glad he gave her the locket but he regrets that he had done no more. Back at the chateau, John interrogates his mother's maid Charlotte. She says that when Marie-Noel had gone missing, Françoise worried that 'the child might have turned against her. She is too fond of her papa, she said, and of Mademoiselle Blanche' (p.275). Charlotte tells John that she agreed with Françoise and he worries about how this might have affected her. He goes to the bedroom and leans out of the window, wondering whether her death can really have been an accident. Fearing the worst, John goes to interrogate Jean's mother. He forces her into recounting a conversation which she had with Françoise shortly before she died. Madame la Comtesse recalls: '"Does he want me to die so that he can marry someone else?" she [Françoise] asked at last. I told her I did not know. "Jean makes love to everyone. He has made love to Renée, even, here in the chateau, and he has a mistress in Villars" [...] "So the child isn't the only one to want me out of the way," she said, "Jean does, too, and so do you, and Renée, and the woman in Villars." I didn't answer her.' (p.283). Jean's mother concludes by saying 'You've got what you wanted, haven't you?' (p.283) but John denies it vehemently. He declares that he needs her help and after considerable effort, he persuades her to resume her position at the head of the family and to give up the morphine. She agrees and goes downstairs to begin making the funeral arrangements. The commissaire de police arrives to investigate Françoise's death. The suspicion of suicide is raised and when Charlotte is interviewed, she lets slip that she had been listening in to John's conversation with Carvalet about the renewal of the contract. Paul is astonished. When the commissaire goes to Françoise's bedroom Marie-Noel is there, having leant out the window and discovered the locket on the ledge. It seems that when leaning out to rescue Jean's present, Françoise fell. Paul confronts John about the Carvalet contract and he tells him the truth. John admits that he/Jean has no head for business and he agrees with Paul that if he had gone to Paris instead, the contract would no doubt have been more favourable. John suggests that Paul take over that part of the business and travel with Renée, while he stays at the chateau. Paul is surprised but he accepts, believing it to be the only way to save his marriage. Later when Renée confronts him, John says that he is not in love with her. She asks him whether he contrived the Carvalet contract in the hope that Françoise would die, and is relieved when he denies the charge. John sits with Jean's mother until she falls asleep as she is beginning to suffer withdrawal symptoms from the morphine. He then goes to see Blanche and while she dresses his hand, he forces her to talk about the past. He tries to apologise but Blanche is still angry, reminding him of his mockery of her and Duval's relationship, and his jealousy when their father made Duval head of the verrerie. John tells Blanche that he wants her to run the verrerie in his place and to live in the master's house. 'The house is waiting there for you. It's been waiting for fifteen years.' (p.326). The next day the funeral arrangements are begun, Blanche goes down to the verrerie, and Renée begins to talk about travelling with Paul. Then there is a telephone call for John. It is Jean de Gué: 'It's me. Jean de Gué. I've just seen today's newspaper. I'm coming back' (p.334). They agree to meet at the master's house at the verrerie. 'Although the emotion that filled me now was violent, over-whelming, yet at the same time I felt deliberate and calm. I was the possessor now, he the intruder. The chateau was my chateau, the people were my people, the family who in a few minutes would sit with me round the table were my family, my flesh and blood; they belonged to me and I to them. He could not return and make them his again' (p.336). John goes into the library and removes a revolver from the desk drawer. He waits in the master's house but when there is a knock at the door, he finds the priest standing there, who takes the gun from his hand. The priest had feared that John might kill himself and he says: 'What good would that do, to you or to them? By living, you can create their world afresh. Already I see signs of it, here in the master's house' (p.343). When the priest leaves, Jean de Gué enters holding a gun and says 'So you planned to get rid of me, did you, and stay in St Gilles?' (p.345). Jean is amazed that John has managed to keep up the deception for seven days and he amuses himself by wondering how John dealt with his various intrigues, and problems with Renée, with Blanche, with Françoise. He mocks John's attempt to take his mother off morphine: 'tonight she'll be a raving maniac', and he thinks that John's plan for Renée and Paul will break up their marriage even sooner: 'Renée will find the lover she's been searching for and Paul feel himself more inferior than ever [...] What want of tact, if I may say so, how lacking in finesse' (pp.347-8). He is more concerned with the Carvalet contract but considers that asking Blanche to run the verrerie might in fact make sound business sense. Jean thinks that John wants to stay at the chateau for the money and comfort, but John says 'I happen to love your family, that's all' (p.349). Jean laughs in disbelief that he could love them, listing their faults: 'Paul, who is an oaf, a weakling, a thoroughly disagreeable personality [...] Blanche, who is so twisted with repressed sex and frustrated passion that the only stimulation she gets out of life is to kneel before a bleeding crucifix' (p.350). John tells Jean to kill him, if that is his wish, and to throw him down the well. Jean is surprised that he has discovered the secret about Duval. He believes that John could not possibly have met Béla, and John does not disabuse him of this notion. He then tells John that during his time in the chateau, he had been to London. Jean stayed in his flat and then sold it, clearing out his bank account and changing the money into francs after fortuitously meeting up with his friend from Le Mans, to whom John had given his London address during the annual shoot. John is astounded: 'unless I liked to make a fool of myself by writing to the university and saying it was all a mistake - that I had decided not to resign after all - I had no work. I had no money, save for one or two investments. I had no flat, and if I didn't get back to London soon I should have no furniture. I did not exist. The self who had lived in London had gone forever' (p.355). Jean admits that in a strange way he missed his family, and the two exchange clothes. Jean suggests that they might make the switch again, from time to time, if they fancied a change. They get into John's car and drive towards the chateau. He tries to tell Jean that his family has changed, but he ignores him. Jean gets out of the car and walks the rest of the way and John sees him greet Marie-Noel as he drives on along the road. John drives to Villars to see Béla. She alone had realised that he was someone else and not the real Jean de Gué. She says that he had a 'tendresse' that Jean did not possess. She says that because of John the family in the chateau will be different, even if Jean tries to undo the good he has done there. John says that Jean is a 'devil' but Béla replies: 'he's not a devil. He's a human, ordinary man, just like yourself' (p.364). She tells him that 'you've given something to all of us [...] Just now I called it tendresse. Whatever it is, it can't be destroyed. It's taken root. It will go on growing. In the future we shall look for you in Jean, not for Jean in you' (pp.364-5). John says that at St Gilles his failure turned into love but 'the problem remains the same. What do I do with love?' (p.367). He leaves resolving to follow his original path to the Abbey de la Grande Trappe. 'I drove to the network of roads at the top of the town, turned left, and took the road to Bellême and Mortagne' (p.368). |
3134175 | /m/08tmtv | The Zoo Story | Edward Albee | null | null | This one-act play concerns two characters, Peter and Jerry. Peter is a middle-class publishing executive with a wife, two daughters, two cats and two parakeets. Jerry is an isolated and disheartened man. These men meet on a park bench in New York City's Central Park. Jerry is desperate to have a meaningful conversation with another human being. He intrudes on Peter’s peaceful state by interrogating him and forcing him to listen to stories like "THE STORY OF JERRY AND THE DOG", and the reason behind his visit to the zoo. The action is linear, unfolding in front of the audience in “real time”. The elements of ironic humor and unrelenting dramatic suspense are brought to a climax when Jerry brings his victim down to his own savage level. The catalyst for the shocking ending transpires when Peter announces, "I really must be going home;..." At the same time Jerry begins pushing Peter off the bench. Peter decides to fight for his territory on the bench and becomes angry. Unexpectedly, Jerry pulls a knife on Peter, and then drops it as initiative for Peter to grab. When Peter holds the knife defensively, Jerry charges him and impales himself on the knife. Bleeding on the park bench, Jerry finishes his zoo story by bringing it into the immediate present, "Could I have planned all this. No... no, I couldn't have. But I think I did." Horrified, Peter runs away from Jerry whose dying words, "Oh...my...God", are a combination of scornful mimicry and supplication. |
3134572 | /m/08tnmc | No Country for Old Men | Cormac McCarthy | 7/19/2005 | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The plot follows the interweaving paths of the three central characters (Llewelyn Moss, Anton Chigurh, and Ed Tom Bell), set in motion by events related to a drug deal gone bad near the Mexican-American border in southwest Texas, in Terrell County. While Llewelyn Moss is hunting antelope, he stumbles across the aftermath of a drug-deal gone bad, which has left everyone dead but a single badly wounded Mexican who pleads with Moss for water. Moss responds that he doesn't have any and searches the rest of the vehicles, finding a truck full of heroin. He searches for the "last man standing" and finds him dead some ways off under a tree, with a satchel containing $2.4 million in cash. He takes the money and returns back home. Later, however, he feels remorse for leaving the wounded man and returns to the scene with a jug of water, only to find that he has been shot and killed since he left him. When Moss looks back to his truck parked on the ridge overlooking the valley, another truck is there. As soon as he tries to run, he is seen, which sparks a tense chase by gunmen in the other truck. This is only the beginning of a hunt for Moss that stretches for most of the remaining novel. After escaping from the gunmen at the scene of the drug deal massacre, Llewelyn sends his wife, Carla Jean Moss, to her mother in Odessa while he leaves his home with the money. Sheriff Ed Tom Bell investigates the drug crime while trying to protect Moss and his young wife, with the aid of other law enforcement. The sheriff is haunted by his actions in World War II, leaving his unit to die, for which he received a Bronze Star. Now in his late 50s, Bell has spent most of his life attempting to make up for the incident when he was a 21-year-old soldier. He makes it his quest to resolve the case and save Moss. Complicating things is the arrival of Anton Chigurh, a hitman hired to recover the money. Chigurh uses a captive bolt pistol (called a "stungun" in the text) to kill many of his victims (and to destroy several cylinder locks to open doors), as well as a silenced shotgun. Carson Wells, a rival hitman and ex-Special Forces officer who is familiar with Chigurh, is also on the trail of the stolen money. After a brutal shootout that spills across the Mexican border and leaves both Moss and Chigurh wounded, Moss recovers at a Mexican hospital while Chigurh patches himself up in a hotel room with stolen supplies. While recuperating, Moss is approached by Wells, who offers to give him protection in exchange for the satchel and tells him his current location and phone number, instructing him to call when he has "had enough." After recovering and leaving the hotel room, Chigurh finds Wells and murders him just as Moss calls to negotiate the exchange of money. After answering Wells's phone, Chigurh tells Moss that he will kill Carla Jean unless he hands over the satchel. Moss remains defiant and soon after, calls Carla Jean and tells her that he will meet up with her at a motel in El Paso. After much deliberation, Carla Jean decides to inform Sheriff Bell about the meeting and its location. Unfortunately for her and her husband, this call is traced and provides Moss's location to some of his hunters. At the motel, Sheriff Bell arrives to find Moss murdered by a band of Mexicans, who also were after the drug deal cash. Later that night Chigurh arrives at the scene and retrieves the satchel from the airduct in Moss's room. He returns it to its owner and later travels to Carla Jean's house and shoots her after flipping a coin to decide her fate. Soon after, he is hit by a car, which leaves him severely injured but still alive. After bribing a pair of teenagers to remain silent about the car accident, he limps off down the road. After a long investigation that fails to locate Chigurh, Bell decides to retire and drives away from the local courthouse feeling overmatched and defeated. For the rest of the book, Bell describes two dreams that he had the previous night. In one, he met his father in town and borrowed some money from him. In the second, Bell was riding his horse through a snow-covered pass in the mountains. As he rode, he could see his father up ahead of him carrying a moon colored horn lit with fire, and he knew that his father would ride on through the pass and fix a fire out in the dark and cold and that it would be waiting for him when he arrived. And then he woke up. |
3136049 | /m/08trjw | Trials of Death | Darren Shan | 2003 | {"/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/03npn": "Horror"} | Darren Shan, is about to take the Trials of Initiation, a series of tests that vampires were forced to take part in, in years gone by, to prove himself to the Princes. Currently, it is only used for vampires who want to become a general, or for those who wish to demonstrate their strength. However, Darren Shan is required to endure the trials to earn the respect of the entire vampire race for his mentor Mr Crepsley's 'impulsive' decision to turn him. Darren is mostly trained by the games master of the Mountain, Vanez Blaze For The first trial He must escape from a maze that is filling with water whilst dragging a stone weighing half of his body weight. The second trial Darren must complete is The Path of Needles, a barefoot journey through one of the mountains many caverns littered with stalagmites and stalactites, all of which are razor sharp and could fall at any second. Luck is on Darren's side as the Festival of the Undead takes place right after his second trial. During this three day period no official business can take place meaning he gets a five day rest before his next trial. Suffering from a lot of cuts, notably on his hands and back, he finds it hard to enjoy the festival. A veteran vampire and also Larten Crepsely's mentor, Seba Nile, tells him to meet him later as he had a cure for his discomfort. They go to a cavern deep inside the mountain which is covered in spider webs and Darren soon realizes that it is full of hundreds of thousands of spiders. Seba breaks up the cobwebs and applies them to Darren's cuts which he says helped immediately. After the Festival of the Undead, Darren must choose his third trial which is The Hall of Flames, a metal room with various jets that emit flames periodically. Darren must remain in the room for approximately fifteen minutes, trying not to be 'toasted' by the scorching hot flames. This is reveled by many to be one of the hardest trials he could have picked, and barely survives it. The fourth trial is The Blooded Boars, a trial which is generally considered quite easy for full vampires. As Darren is only a half vampire and still nursing bad wounds from the previous trial, he struggles. The aim is to kill two wild boars which have been injected with vampire blood making them more aggressive than usual. Darren kills the first boar but it lands on top of him, his lack of strength means he is unable to move the boar as the second closes in. It charges at him, certain to kill him when Harkat Mulds, the Little Person who accompanies Darren in his journey to the Mountain steps in and kills the boar. This causes uproar as failure to complete the trials leads to death. Mr. Crepsley and Kurda, a soon to be Vampire Prince, argue that Harkat is not a vampire and cannot be expected to behave by their rules, and it was not that Darren would've died if he'd not been interrupted by Harkat. However, it is decided for Darren to be executed for not completing the Trials. Kurda finds Darren in his room facing imminent death and encourages him to escape the mountain. Regretfully Darren follows Kurda as they make for one of the mountains many exits. Soon they are tracked down by Gavner Purl who tries to convince them to go back but eventually ends up following them. They come across a cavern full of the Vampaneze. Kurda tells Darren to go on and him and Gavner would stay and fight the Vampaneze. Darren heads off but decides to come back and fight. He comes back and witnesses Kurda stabbing Gavner in the stomach and it is revealed he is an ally of the Vampaneze. Darren runs and ends up in the Hall of Final Voyage, where dead vampires were tossed into the strong current and washed out of the mountain. He realizes he is on the wrong side of the stream and attempts to jump over it. He falls short and manages to grab on to a rock as Kurda and the Vampaneze enter the cave. Kurda offers his hand to help pull him back to safety but Darren brands him a traitor and pushes himself out into the current. He is swept out of sight into the darkness beyond. fa:آزمونهای مرگ no:Dødsprøvene fi:Kuoleman koetukset zh:死亡審判 |
3136512 | /m/08tslc | Soul Harvest | Tim LaHaye | 2/1/1999 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/0hc1z": "Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | After the Wrath of the Lamb earthquake, Rayford Steele must find his wife Amanda White, who was supposed to land in New Babylon. Buck Williams must find his wife Chloe Steele, who was last seen in a house that is now a shattered ruin. The only other person accounted for is Tsion Ben-Judah, and nearly a quarter of the world's population was snuffed out by the earthquake. The GC starts a new program called Cellular Solar, aka: Cell-Sol (pronounced sell-soul), a solar powered cell phone global network. Both Buck and Tsion find a new home for the Tribulation Force, half of a duplex belonging to the late Donny Moore and his wife, after discovering the death of Loretta, a close friend to the Tribulation Force. Buck searches for Chloe, discovering she is pregnant with their baby. He also meets Floyd Charles, a physician and fellow believer, who later joins the Trib. Force. Mac, Rayford's co-pilot, becomes a Believer. Believers around the world discover that they have received a sign on their foreheads visible only to other believers, leading to the common phrase, “I can see yours. Can you see mine?” This mark becomes a central plot device, since believers are able to locate each other with ease and yet blend in with Antichrist and Global Community Potentate Nicolae Carpathia's henchmen when necessary. Buck finds Chloe in a GC Hospital and rescues her, taking her back to the house where he and Tsion are staying. Tsion is planning to go back to Israel to teach the 144,000 witnesses. Ken Ritz becomes a believer as well. After TV signals return, they discover that the content is terrible from nudity, sexuality, torture, black arts, and more. The Tribulation Force finds Hattie Durham in an abortion clinic in Denver and discovers that Carpathia is plotting to have both Rayford and Hattie murdered there. Pretending to be Rayford, Buck rescues Hattie and unwittingly punches and kills an armed security guard intent on killing them. Later, Buck deeply regrets the guard's death even after one of his friends explains it was a "kill or be killed" situation. Rayford, who continues to fly the Condor 216 for Carpathia, tries to finds Amanda’s body. He buys two sets of scuba gear to dive to the bottom of the Tigris River with Mac. Hattie is sick and Trib. Force members try to get her to accept God. Rayford and Mac find his wife's body as the First of the Seven Trumpet Judgments, flaming hailstones and blood pour down from the sky. Ray recovers her laptop and says that the Hard Drive is intact. Rayford and Mac discuss that they didn't see the mark of the Believer on Amanda, but decide that this is inconclusive because they don't know if she died before or after the marks started appearing, or if the mark stays on the believer or goes away after they die. The GCASA (Global Community Aeronautics and Space Administration), find that a new comet is going to crash in to the ocean, killing marine life and sinking ships. This is the second Trumpet Judgment. Ten weeks later, right before the Trib. Force travels to Israel, the GCASA find a new threat in the heavens, a star called Wormwood. The GC tries to destroy it, shattering it into billions of pieces that fall into the lakes streams and fountains, turning the water to a bitter poison. This is the Third Trumpet Judgment.. |
3136545 | /m/08tsns | Assassins | Tim LaHaye | 1999-08 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/037mh8": "Philosophy", "/m/05hgj": "Novel", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/0hc1z": "Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/03rllnc": "Inspirational"} | Rayford, filled with rage over so many losses, contemplates killing Nicolae Carpathia. He is so obsessed with the idea that he becomes stern and short tempered at times. At the New Babylon palace, David Hassid is placed in charge of delivering 144 computers to Nicolae, but diverts the delivery by telling the pilots delivering the computers to go one place and does the paperwork for another location. Floyd Charles reveals that he was infected from delivering Hattie's stillborn child and goes to the hospital where Leah Rose works. While on the run from GC forces, Floyd Charles succumbs to the poison and dies. The International CO-OP is up and running, which will allow believers to trade when it becomes illegal to buy and sell without the Mark of the Beast. Rayford is still wondering if he might be the one to kill Nicolae. Hattie (who also wants to kill Nicolae) runs off after an incident with Floyd and Rayford goes to find her, only to be tricked by GC Forces. Hattie is imprisoned and taken to the Belgium Facility for Female Rehabilitation, or "BUFFR". Rayford and the newest member of the Trib Force, Leah, are trying to retrieve a large quantity of cash from Leah's safe when the Sixth Trumpet Judgment hits as prophesied in Revelation 9:13-19, where a plague of death by fire, smoke, sulphur and deadly snake strikes carried out by 200 million demonic horsemen, visible only to the Tribulation saints, attack nonbelievers. Ray and Leah run into GC Peacekeeping forces and the horsemen, heading back to the safe house with the cash as the Peacekeepers are killed. David Hassid meanwhile successfully gets the computers incorrectly delivered. He also introduces the Condor cargo chief and his love interest, Annie Christopher, to Mac. An assassination attempt on Nicolae ends up destroying the Condor 216; it is soon replaced by Pontifex Maximus Peter Matthews's plane and renamed the Phoenix 216. The GC plans a gala for the midpoint of the Tribulation in Jerusalem. The Tribulation hurtles to its midpoint as the four murders prophesied in scripture take place. Peter Matthews is murdered by the 10 sub-pontentates of the world. Carpathia personally kills the Two Witnesses with a gun similar to the one Rayford buys to kill him. The Witnesses later protagonize a dramatic resurrection as they are taken up into the clouds, which is dismissed by the media as a hoax. After they are resurrected, an earthquake breaks out, destroying one tenth of Israel and leaving seven thousand dead, as prophesied in Revelation 11:11-13. Finally, Carpathia himself is assassinated as prophesied in Revelation 13:3-4 while delivering a speech three days before the midpoint of the tribulation. Rayford is skeptical as to whether he really was the one who did the deed as he planned to. A hole in Carpathia's head is the same size that Rayford would expect his gun to make, but he was bumped from behind a split second before pulling the trigger. And there were several people near him who are just as suspect. In a brief flashforward to the day before the Pontentate's burial, it is revealed that the assassin was caught on video camera and David Hassid is clearly surprised by what the tape reveals. |
3136559 | /m/08tsqh | The Indwelling | Jerry B. Jenkins | null | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel", "/m/0hc1z": "Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | People flee from the scene of the assassination in a panic. Buck Williams notices that the gunshot sounded similar to the sound of the gun Nicolae used to kill Eli and Moishe. Rayford Steele is still wondering whether he really was the one that scripture singled out to deliver the killing blow to the Antichrist Nicolae Carpathia. In fact, it was Chaim Rosenzweig who stabbed Nicolae through the back of the head with a knife that he created- the thinnest, sharpest knife ever. Leah Rose attempts to free Hattie Durham from BFFR, meeting fellow believer and GC mole Ming Toy. Hattie is eventually let go from BFFR and tracked by the GC, who expect her to lead them to the Tribulation Force safe house. She does not go to the safe house, as the GC wants her to, but goes AWOL. Buck Williams is frantically searching for Chaim, believing that he has had a stroke, or worse, a heart attack. He returns to Chaim's manor to find several of Chaim's friends murdered by GC. Rayford escapes to Greece, worried that the GC may be pursuing him. After being filled with rage for the past several months, resulting in his attempted killing of Carpathia, Rayford is guilty over his selfishness and vows never to allow his emotions to rule him again. Meanwhile, Buck and Chaim make an escape from Israel, ending in a plane crash that results in Chaim's acceptance of Christ, as well as the death of T. M. Delanty. At the safe house, Tsion Ben-Judah experiences a series of dreams imparted unto him by God Himself. He witnesses a brief glimpse of the cosmic war in heaven that is slowly spilling into the Earth. He also receives a glimpse of the future, God's deliverance of His people- the Jews- into a safe haven, an act in which the Tribulation Force will soon play a vital role. He awakens to find that the safe house has been compromised. Rayford Steele, with the aid of new believer Al B, helps Tsion and toddler Kenny Bruce Williams escape the GC. As the world mourns the death of their leader and a funeral service is set for three days later after the assassination, a great statue of Nicolae is erected. Millions gather to view Carpathia's body, encased by bulletproof glass. Suddenly, the statue comes to life in the midst of black billowing smoke and speaks, demanding worship. Leon Fortunato, who is here revealed as the False Prophet, calls down lightning and fire from heaven to kill those who do not worship the image. David and his new fiancée Annie Christopher (who works in the palace and is also a believer) are stationed in different areas as they watch the resulting chaos. In full view of the crowd, Carpathia is resurrected, possessed by Satan on the first day of the Great Tribulation. David is frantic because Annie is missing. The Antichrist speaks to the people of the world, declaring that if anyone is able to doubt that he is God after seeing this, and if there are still people who think that they have already been enduring Tribulation, then they should prepare for the Great Tribulation. |
3136584 | /m/08tssl | The Mark | Jerry B. Jenkins | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/0hc1z": "Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | His Excellency Global Community Supreme Potentate Nicolae Carpathia has been resurrected and indwelt by Satan himself. He plans to remodel his offices and add two floors to his palace, including a glass ceiling. He also demands that the people of the Global Community worship him. Statues of himself are erected for worship. He introduces Viv Ivins to the senior staff and tells them of the loyalty mark program. The Antichrist declares that every single person on earth must receive his mark of loyalty and worship his image or lose their head to the loyalty enforcement facilitator. David Hassid finally finds out that his fiancée Annie Christopher has been killed by lightning called down by GC Supreme Commander and False Prophet Leon Fortunato. Albie and Rayford Steele run across Steve Plank, under the alias Pinkerton Stephens, at Boulder, CO, where Hattie has been taken. Steve tells them his conversion story; he became a believer during the Wrath of the Lamb Earthquake, surviving but losing much of his body. He now wears prosthetic body parts and uses a wheelchair. The three then carry out the incredible rescue of Hattie Durham, who finally becomes a believer. Before they rescue her, she tries to hang herself in her room. Terror comes to Christians in Greece as they are among the first to receive the death penalty for refusing the mark. Lukas Miklos loses his wife, his pastor, his pastor's wife and dozens of fellow Greek believers to the guillotine, while Cameron "Buck" Williams, who is in Greece in disguise along with Albie, help two Greek teenagers escape the detention center. Meanwhile, back in the states, Gustaf Zuckermandel, Jr. also known as Zeke, is distraught to find out that his father, whom everyone calls "Big Zeke", has suffered the same fate after being caught helping and supplying other believers (subversives, according to the GC). In New Babylon, David Hassid, Mac McCullum, Abdullah Smith, and Hannah Palemoon plan to leave, taking Ming Toy's 17 year-old brother Chang Wong (who is also a believer) along with them. But Chang, a computer prodigy, was brought by his parents to New Babylon, hoping to get him hired in Carpathia's forces. Determined to "make proud", Mr. Wong has Chang drugged, carried to the mark application site, and held down, even as he protests. But even after being given the mark of the beast against his will, Chang still has the mark of the believer clearly visible because he never "accepted" the mark of the beast. In this, David and Chang discover a great advantage: Chang can now be the new Tribulation Force mole in the GC Headquarters Palace as he can come, go, and trade freely. Meanwhile, the others plan a plane crash to deceive the GC into thinking they're dead while they join up with the Tribulation force to get ready for the massive exodus for believers which they call "Operation Eagle". Everything reaches a climax when Carpathia announces that he will be returning to Jerusalem to occupy what he believes is his rightful house: the Jewish Temple. |
3136596 | /m/025sl_8 | The Remnant | Tim LaHaye | null | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel", "/m/0hc1z": "Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The Remnant begins immediately after the end of Desecration. The Great Tribulation unfolds, with one million believers gathered in Petra under the protection of God as Global Community Supreme Potentate and Antichrist Nicolae Carpathia continues to attack them and Armageddon approaches. Carpathia is ecstatic that he is about to attack the believers with massive amounts of conventional ordnance, a barrage that no one could survive without a miracle, yet all the believers do, not even feeling the flames that engulf their bodies. A final missile hits, opening a spring that drenches the fire. Afterwards, people talking to each other hear each other in their own language. Chloe Steele Williams, Hannah Palemoon, and Mac McCullum all go to Greece disguised as GC officers to try to rescue George Sebastian. Meanwhile, Ming Toy leaves the safe house and under her new disguise (provided by Gustaf Zuckermandel, Jr. aka Z) attempts to return home to China to aid her parents. While on the way, she falls in love with a South Korean Pilot named Ree Woo (who later marries her). She discovers that both of her parents have become believers, but her mother informs her that her father was killed. Chang Wong despairs for his safety and looks to escape New Babylon. After an arduous ordeal, George escapes his holders. Steve Plank doesn't take the Mark of the Beast and dies at the Guillotine. The new safe house is compromised, and the Tribulation Force is forced to look for a new place. They manage to leave the now compromised safe house and the Chicago, Illinois, area just in time before Antichrist orders what remains of [Chicago] to be obliterated by a nuclear blast. The main Trib. Force members find a new safe house with George Sebastian in San Diego, California. Meanwhile, the next two Bowl Judgments hit: the world's freshwater supply is turned into blood and the sun scorches with fiery heat. Antichrist sends scores of false teachers to deceive as many people as possible. Many people, including several at Petra, follow them only to meet horrible and gruesome deaths. The next Bowl Judgement hits, and a deep and painful darkness descends upon the throne and kingdom of the Antichrist in New Babylon. Chang plans to use the darkness to his advantage in order to finally escape. As the book ends, the final year of the Tribulation begins. God is leveling the playing field and setting the stage for Armageddon, the cosmic battle of the ages that will decide the fate of all that exists. |
3136647 | /m/02p744t | Armageddon | Jerry B. Jenkins | null | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel", "/m/0hc1z": "Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | In the final days of the Tribulation, Nicolae Carpathia prepares to launch the greatest military conflict the world has ever seen, against none other than Jesus Christ Himself, raising the largest army in the history of mankind, the Unity Army. Believers all around the world are in hiding to avoid the Mark of the Beast and execution. Rayford Steele leads a rescue mission to New Babylon to extract GC mole Chang Wong from New Babylon, now eclipsed in a supernatural nightfall that blinds all unbelievers. In Al Basrah, Albie is murdered by a former associate for the bounty posted on those who have not taken the Mark. In San Diego, Chloe Steele Williams falls into the hands of the GC, and the underground safe house is found out, causing everyone to relocate, this time to Petra. Chloe is taken to an execution site to be put to death. Before the mass execution, Chloe's testimony leads several convicts to salvation. Accepting her fate as a martyr, Chloe is executed with a loyalty enforcement facilitator. There is a brief interlude as friends and loved ones gather at Petra for the funerals of Chloe and Albie. Their time of mourning is short-lived, however, as believers must prepare for the coming battle, set to come at the final day of the Tribulation. The Sixth Bowl Judgment hits and the Euphrates river dries up to open the way for the East's mighty armies to come and join the forces of the Beast. God destroys the city of New Babylon with fire that rains from the heavens, and spares all believers inside through the acts of Mac McCullum, who leads a rescue mission into the heart of the city before it is annihilated. On what is expected to be the final day of the Tribulation, the GC Unity Army attacks the city of Jerusalem, breaking the peace treaty Antichrist made with Israel. Tsion, along with Buck, decides to go to Jerusalem and join the fight. Rayford and the others find themselves in the middle of this greatest conflict in history as the bulk of the Unity Army surrounds Petra and stands poised to annihilate all remaining believers. In Jerusalem, Tsion is killed by Unity Army Forces as the GC overrun the Holy City. Buck Williams, in Jerusalem, and Rayford, outside Petra, are both gravely wounded. One of them dies, and the other is on the brink of death. (The mystery of who died is revealed in the next book.) It has been over seven years since the Rapture, and almost exactly seven years since the unholy treaty between Antichrist and Israel. The world is on the brink of total destruction as the tribulation nears its end and believers look to the heavens for the Glorious Appearing of Christ. |
3136654 | /m/025sl_n | Glorious Appearing | Jerry B. Jenkins | null | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel", "/m/0hc1z": "Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The Antichrist has assembled the armies of the world in the Valley of Megiddo for what he believes will be his ultimate triumph of the ages. With a victory here, he would ascend to the throne of God. The Tribulation Force has migrated to the Middle East, most ensconced at Petra with the Jewish Remnant, now more than a million strong. Petra is surrounded by the Unity Army, poised to destroy all that is left of God's people and usher in Nicolae Carpathia's new world order. The world holds its breath as the greatest military battle to ever take place threatens to obliterate all that remains of humanity. All seems lost. Tsion Ben-Judah and Buck Williams have been slain in Jerusalem, now overrun by Global Community forces. The hour of attack for Nicolae Carpathia’s Global Community Unity Army to assault the Rebels at the Temple Mount draws near. The seventh and final Bowl Judgement comes in the form of the greatest earthquake ever measured, followed by a rain of hailstones. Rayford Steele is the only original member of the Tribulation Force alive, and he's severely injured and on the brink of death. The sign of the Son of Man, a large Cross of lightning, appears over the global skyline for the whole world to witness. In addition, people who were sick and disabled were healed, and those who were formerly undecided were on their knees crying out for God to save them. This does not dissuade the enemies of God, as the Unity Army, led by Antichrist himself, makes their final charge against Petra, seeking to annihilate all remaining rebels to the Global Community. But suddenly, when all seems lost, the entire planet is covered in shadowless light and Jesus Christ returns to Earth in power and glory followed by the armies of heaven, slaying the armies of the Global Community with the Word of God in the four final battles of the Apocalypse, leading to a final confrontation with Antichrist in Jerusalem. Once the Global Unity Army has been destroyed, Jesus Christ sets foot on the Mount of Olives and sets up his kingdom in Jerusalem, where he proceeds to sentence The Beast (Bible) (Nicolae Carpathia) and his False Prophet (Leon Fortunato) to eternity in the lake of fire for the atrocities they committed against the entire world. Thereafter, Christ condemns Lucifer to 1,000 years in the abyss. In the newly formed Valley of Jehosaphat, Jesus condemns the last of the unbelievers and those who received the Mark of the Beast, cleansing the world for the beginning of his thousand-year reign. Those who were Raptured or martyred return to Earth to be reunited with their loved ones, and Paradise is ushered in. Believers from all over the world finally reunite in Jerusalem after the long seven years of the Tribulation and welcome the dawn of the Millennium World. |
3136677 | /m/08tsy2 | The Rising | Tim LaHaye | 3/31/2005 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The Rising deals with Rayford Steele's childhood and college days, and how he nearly married another woman. A conflict between father and son as Rayford decides to become an airline pilot against his father's wishes. Also featured is the birth of Nicolae Carpathia, who would later rise up in Nicolae as the Antichrist. Marilena is a simple Romanian woman who is overcome by the need to have a baby. Her husband, Sorin, does not love his wife anymore and is revealed to be a homosexual. Thus, Marilena reads an ad for a group to find something "Beyond themselves", and meets Viviana Ivinisova, later known as Viv Ivins. Viviana is a Russian who talks with the spirit world. She is a Luciferian, and says that loyalty to her lord can bring Marilena the baby she wants so badly. However, this baby comes through genetic engineering with the best traits of two sperm mixed into a hybrid sperm, which is fused with the egg. At first, it is unknown who Nicolae's two biological fathers are. Later, they are found out to be Sorin and his lover, and Nicolae orders them executed and the truth covered up. After giving birth and realizing the amazing talent her son possesses, while showing no concern for her, Marilena discovers Viv's plans for the prodigy child. Jonathan Stonagal is the financier of Nicolae's education. However, Marilena disagrees with these plans so much that she is finally assassinated; however, Nicolae is the one who plans her death through poisoning. Once Nicolae has become a powerful businessman, he is taken by a demon to the desert, where he is forced to remain without food or water for forty days. In a contrast to Jesus' temptation, Nicolae falls to all three temptations. After this, Nicolae is returned to Romania. Meanwhile, Rayford Steele deals with his father, who is determined to have Ray take over the family business. Ray has his own dreams of becoming a pilot, and joins ROTC to attend college, where he meets and almost marries Kitty. However, Ray has second thoughts about the latter, and breaks up with her. Furthermore, he later dates his friend Irene, and they get married after a while. Chloe Steele is born during this time as well. After befriending a woman named Jackie, Irene slowly begins to feel something is missing in her life. Jackie, a Christian, lays out God's plan of salvation, and Irene accepts Christ. |
3136712 | /m/08ts_4 | The Rapture | Tim LaHaye | 6/6/2006 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel", "/m/0hc1z": "Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | In the moments leading up to the Rapture, nobody knows it is coming as the clock silently ticks down. Choices are made. The stage is set as Nicolae Carpathia ruthlessly eliminates any obstacles in his rise to power. Time seems to slow as the clock ticks down. Pan-Con Airlines Captain Rayford Steele prepares for a flight to London with beautiful flight attendant Hattie Durham. Because of his wife's newfound faith, Rayford looks forward to time–and the possibilities–with Hattie. Journalist Cameron "Buck" Williams is in Israel when the Russians attack, and he experiences for himself the power of God when fire rains down from the sky, destroying the attackers. Even more, not a single casualty is reported in all of Israel. Buck cannot deny Chicago bureau chief Lucinda Washington's insistence that the event was prophesied in Ezekiel 38,39 and clearly of the supernatural, though he dares not consider the personal ramifications. Meanwhile, Nicolae Carpathia eliminates any obstacles in his path to power. As the newly appointed president of Romania, Nicolae is invited to speak before the U.N. Without warning, millions disappear and are welcomed into the unspeakable presence of Jesus Christ, and believers from all over space and time reunite in the house of God, as prophesied in 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17. The Judgment Seat of Christ takes place and the saints of the ages are rewarded for their perseverance with crowns from Christ himself. They are followed into heaven, where they see the glory prepared for them by the Lord. On Earth, some realize what has happened, what they’ve lost, what they’ve missed, as the world plunges into chaos as drivers, pilots, and pedestrians of all occupations go missing. Rayford's first officer, Chris Smith, is among the first to commit suicide in the wake of the disappearances and the ensuing chaos. Pastor Bruce Barnes is among those left behind, and the young pastor knows all too well that the disappearances signal the beginning of the end and the darkest days the planet will ever see. |
3137061 | /m/08ttmj | Waterland | Graham Swift | 1983 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Tom Crick, fifty-two years old, has been history master for some thirty years in a secondary school in Greenwich, in a sense the place where, in a world that sets its clocks according to Greenwich Mean Time, time begins. Tom has been married to Mary, for as long as he has been teaching but the couple have no children. The students in Tom’s school have grown increasingly scientifically oriented, and the headmaster, a physicist, has little sympathy for Tom’s subject. One of Tom’s students, Price questions the relevance of learning about historical events. The youth’s scepticism causes Tom to change his teaching approach to telling tales drawn from his own recollection. By doing so, he makes himself a part of the history he is teaching, relating his tales to local history and genealogy. The headmaster tries to entice Tom into taking an early retirement. Tom resists because his leaving would mean that the History Department would cease to exist and be combined with the broader area of General Studies. Tom’s wife is arrested for snatching a baby. The publicity that attends her arrest reflects badly on the school, and Tom is told that he now must retire. Tom uses his impending forced retirement as an excuse to unfold a story to his students. The bulk of Waterland is devoted to this story that, before it is done, covers some three hundred years of local history and relates it to the broader historical currents of those centuries. The primary plot of the story has to do with Tom’s relationship to Mary both before and after their marriage. She is reared on a farm close to where Tom’s father, a lock-keeper, lives with his two sons in the lock-keeper’s cottage, beside a tributary of the Great Ouse. Tom's mother dies when he is eight years old. Mary is also reared by her father because her mother died giving birth to her. He sees that his daughter receives a strict religious upbringing. As Mary matures, her interest in men grows, and she and Tom slip into an affair and she discovers that she is pregnant. Tom’s brother Dick asks Mary if he is the father of the child. Mary lies to him, telling him that Freddie Parr is the father. Dick, distraught at this information, struggles with the drunken Freddie, who cannot swim, and pushes him into the river. It is Tom’s father who pulls Freddie from the sluice, not realising that his drowning is anything but accidental, as the coroner’s inquest finally finds. Mary tries to provoke a miscarriage but fails, so she and Tom, the father of the child, go to an old crone, who performs an abortion that leaves Mary sterile. Her father forces her into seclusion, and for three years she remains isolated. Finally the two fathers agree to bring their children together again; unknown to them, Tom, away fighting in World War II, has already written to Mary. When he comes home, the two marry, and Tom begins his teaching career while Mary takes a position in an old persons’ home. Finally, she steals a baby and explains the new arrival to Tom by saying that it is a gift from God. Obviously disturbed and suffering from a pain that has been festering since her teenage abortion, Mary is arrested. A secondary plot involves Tom’s mother’s family, the Atkinsons, who have run a brewery for several generations. This subplot is interwoven into the development and resolution of the primary plot. |
3138034 | /m/08tw69 | Dangling Man | Saul Bellow | 1944 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Written in diary format, the story centers on the life of an unemployed young man named Joseph, his relationships with his wife and friends, and his frustrations with life. Living in Chicago and waiting to be drafted, the diary acts as a philosophical confessional for his musings. It ends with his entrance into the army during World War II, and a hope that the regimentation of army life will relieve his suffering. Along with Bellow's second novel The Victim, it is considered his "apprentice" work. |
3138438 | /m/08twrk | With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa | Eugene Sledge | 1981 | {"/m/016chh": "Memoir"} | In contrast to the European theater, Sledge's memoir gives a perspective on the Pacific campaign. His memoir is a front-line account of infantry combat in the Pacific War. It brings the reader into the island hopping, the jungle heat and rain, the "banzai attack" or full frontal assault used by his enemies. Sledge wrote starkly of the brutality displayed by American and Japanese soldiers during the battles, and of the hatred that both sides harbored for each other. In Sledge's words, "This was a brutish, primitive hatred, as characteristic of the horror of war in the Pacific as the palm trees and the islands." Sledge describes one instance in which he and a comrade came across the mutilated bodies of three Marines, including one Marine whose genitals had been cut off and stuffed into the corpse's mouth. He also describes the behavior of some Marines towards dead Japanese, including the removal of gold teeth from Japanese corpses (and, in one case, a severely wounded but still living Japanese soldier), as well as other disturbing trophy-taking. Sledge describes in detail the sheer physical struggle of living in a combat zone and the debilitating effects of constant fear, fatigue, and filth. "Fear and filth went hand-in-hand," he wrote. "It has always puzzled me that this important factor in our daily lives has received so little attention from historians and is often omitted from otherwise excellent personal memoirs by infantrymen." Marines had trouble staying dry, finding time to eat their rations, practicing basic field sanitation (it was impossible to dig latrines or catholes in the coral rock on Peleliu), and simply moving around on the pulverized coral of Peleliu and in the mud of Okinawa. |
3139231 | /m/08ty0k | Family Voices | Harold Pinter | null | null | Family Voices exposes the story of a mother, son, and dead husband and father through a series of letters that the mother and son have written to one another and that each speaks aloud. The son has moved off to the city and is surrounded by odd characters and circumstances. The mother, who apparently never receives her son's letters, questions angrily why her son never responds to her letters, and brings news of his father's death. Towards the end of the play, the father speaks as it were from the grave, "Just to keep in touch" (81). A series of interlocking monologues spoken by three Voices (One, Two, and Three), Family Voices exposes themes involving difficulties of communication, the vicissitudes of memory and the past, and family dysfunction familiar from Pinter's other dramatic works, employing some of Pinter's well-known stylistic traits. The peculiar circumstances of the characters evoke the Theatre of the Absurd. The mother and son continually have trouble communicating with each other, resulting in more intense attempts at communication that only serve to make the situation more absurd. |
3139599 | /m/08tysy | The Deceiver | Louise Cooper | null | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0l67h": "Novella", "/m/06wkf": "Spy fiction"} | It is discreetly explained to the Chief of British Intelligence that, in the new atmosphere of detente, and the warming of relations with the Soviet Union, that the SIS's role will have to be redefined, and some of its more aggressive agents will have to be taught a lesson. The Chief is ordered to make an example of a maverick officer, and Sam McCready is suggested. McCready's deputy is unwilling to let his mentor retire without a fight, and insists on a hearing, during which four of McCready's most celebrated cases are recalled. The SIS is approached by a high-ranking Soviet general, offering to turn over documents with crucial details of Soviet military plans. The meeting is to take place in East Germany. McCready is in charge of the operation, but he is too well known by the Soviets to risk going himself. So, he recruits his old ally, aging BND agent Bruno Morenz. As a favour to his old friend, and in stark violation of his BND employment rules, Morenz agrees to enter Eastern Germany, and manages to get the documents into his hands. Morenz, however, is already on the verge of nervous collapse because of events in Western Germany (he was having an affair with a sluttish woman who later insulted him and led to him accidentally killing her and her pimp boyfriend) and makes a rash escape while involved in a minor traffic accident. A man-hunt ensues, with the East German security services eventually realizing that they have a substantial spy case on their hands. McCready also realizes that Morenz is in deep trouble; digging into Morenz' past, he locates a potential hiding place. Against all orders, he assumes a false identity, uses old friends to cross the border without being noticed, and manages to locate Morenz. Since the search is already closing in on them, and Morenz is in no state to make an escape, Sam hands him poisoned alcohol, takes the documents and slips again through the border, thus protecting the general from exposure, saving Morenz from an uglier fate, and retrieving the sought-after document. During a visit of the Soviet Military Intelligence Corps (GRU) to Britain, one of them phones the Central Intelligence Agency's London outpost, and defects to the U.S. He introduces himself as KGB Colonel Pyotr Orlov. Orlov's information prove to be highly valuable, leading to the arrest of Russian spies in many countries, and providing important information on USSR military planning. While the CIA is delighted to have such a valuable asset, Sam McCready has a gut feeling that something might be wrong with Orlov; his suspicion is confirmed by one of his own agents, the head of the KGB's London residency, who secretly works for McCready (Codename Keepsake). Keepsake claims that Orlov is not a defector, but a plant, tasked with denouncing a high-ranking CIA officer as a Soviet mole and thus bringing chaos and distrust to the entire agency. At this point, the cooperation between the U.S. and the British turns into mutual distrust, with both sides vouching for their own sources. The events accelerate when Orlov finally (though indirectly) identifies the supposed CIA traitor; at the same time, Keepsake suddenly departs for Moscow. It looks like Sam is wrong. But in order to prevent the disintegration of the CIA from within, and also to prove to himself that Keepsake was not deceiving him, McCready prepares Keepsake's escape from Moscow. Keepsake reveals that he returned to Moscow in order to bring back incontestable proof of both his own loyalty to Sam, and of Orlov's treachery. It is, however, too late: an over-eager CIA agent has already killed the officer identified. The story ends with Orlov being exposed, and stoically accepting his immediate execution. The SIS uncovers evidence that Libya is preparing a shipment of arms to the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) and other European terrorist groups. Sam McCready recruits an ex-SAS soldier-turned-novelist named Tom Rowse, to pose as a weapons buyer, thinly covered by the pretense of conducting research for a new novel. He manages to get into contact with the Libyan arms provider, and manages to get his weapons cache included in the IRA shipment. With his information, the British are able to identify the ship transporting the weapons. McCready enlists the help of the elite Special Boat Service (SBS), seaborne equivalent of the SAS, to intercept the vessel. A woman, in whom Tom was romantically interested, is found to be directly involved with the IRA terrorists, and is shot dead when the vessel is boarded. There is an error in that part of the book, Rowse flights from Valletta Malta, to Nicosia airport Cyprus.He could not have done that because Nicosia airport has been closed since July 1974. So he would've had to fly to Larnaca. Sunshine is a small (fictional) island in the Caribbean, in transition from British rule to independence. The island is about to hold its first election for governor, and, since no political parties have developed yet, the two leading candidates are both expatriates, without any financial backing or popular support from the population. When a vacationing Florida law enforcement officer recognizes a notorious hired killer amongst one of the candidates' campaign workers, he flies back to Miami in a hurry, but his plane explodes in mid-air. His partner flies to Sunshine to investigate. At the same time, the British territorial governor has been murdered, and Scotland Yard sends an investigator; Sam McCready, who is in the USA, hears about the murder, and decides to pay a visit to Sunshine. The three investigators team up on the island and McCready exposes the two presidential candidates as, respectively, a Bahamian cocaine smuggler, and an agent of the Cuban secret service, both seeking to exploit the island for their own ends. It takes some quick thinking on McCready's part to apprehend the criminals - including forging a document appointing himself Governor for a day - but McCready is able to foil both candidates' schemes, and ensures that Sunshine's transition to independence will be smooth. The DEA agent catches his partner's killer in the smuggler's house, but it takes the Scotland Yard Investigator too long to find out who killed the governor. McCready figures out first the murder was committed by an elderly expatriate American lady, with the sole purpose of drawing the authorities and the press to the island to deal with the entourage of both candidates. Given her age, and extreme popularity with the island's people, McCready decides to keep her crime a secret. At the conclusion of Sam's case, his appeal is rejected. The SIS hierarchy decided, weeks ago, that Sam's office was no longer necessary, since the Cold War was over. Offered a variety of desk jobs, Sam declines in favor of early retirement, deciding that he's done his part. But on his way out, he warns his deputy to keep focused on his job because, despite what the bureaucrats in charge of the SIS think, the world is still a very dangerous place that will always need spies. As he leaves the building, he passes a newspaper headline stating the official end of the Cold War. Four weeks later, he is fishing outside his retirement cottage, when he hears over the radio that Saddam Hussein has invaded Kuwait. Hearing this headline, McCready, vindicated and unmoved, decides it's "time to change his bait". |
3142140 | /m/08v2yy | The Victim | Saul Bellow | 1947 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Asa Leventhal's wife Mary has left the city for a few weeks in order to help her elderly mother move from Baltimore to her old family home in the South. While she is away, Leventhal must take on many tasks of caring for himself which his wife would ordinarily undertake for him. The action of the story begins when Leventhal is at his job as a copy-editor and receives a frantic phone call from his sister-in-law. She tells him that his nephew is terribly ill and that she desperately needs his assistance. During their conversation we learn that Asa's brother Max is a negligent husband and father who has practically abandoned his wife and two sons for itinerant work in Texas. His family subsists on the money he sends to them. On his way to his brother's apartment, Leventhal reflects on the annoyance of being disturbed at work and the shameful treatment which Max is visiting upon his young family. But these reflections quickly take on a tone of self-reproach as Leventhal briefly admits to himself that he has allowed his obligation to this extended family to lapse inexcusably. Throughout the novel, Leventhal flirts with the possibility of widening his arc of responsibility to include humans other than himself and his wife. Usually, however, he finds a way to preserve his positive image of himself and to shirk responsibility for others. This theme is expanded one evening when Leventhal, while walking in the park, is abruptly confronted by a man whose face he is unable immediately to place. Slowly, through conversation and subterfuge, the stranger reveals himself to be an old acquaintance named Kirby Allbee. Leventhal initially regards Allbee, who looks down on his luck, with a mixture of alarm and pity, but is swiftly put on guard, for Allbee's stream of false courtesy is barbed with anti-semitism, and it emerges that Allbee holds Leventhal responsible for his having lost his job at some point in the past. As they stand there, Leventhal scrambles to recall the details of their acquaintance. He does recall Allbee's references to a party at which Allbee had angered Leventhal with anti-semitic remarks, and also that, while looking for a job himself, he had had a disastrous interview with Allbee's old boss. But Allbee has clearly become a 'crank' and a drunk, and Leventhal at first rejects out of hand Allbee's accusation that Leventhal's disastrous interview has lost him his job. Allbee asserts that Leventhal's angry behavior at the interview was deliberate provocation, payback for Allbee's anti-semitic remarks at the party, directed at Leventhal's close friend, Dan Harkavy, who had nonetheless contacted Allbee to help secure the disastrous interview for Leventhal. Allbee confronts Leventhal several more times over the following weeks and it is revealed that in recent years Allbee has led a life of dissipation and poverty. The loss of his job, his wife's subsequent decision to leave him and her ultimate death in an auto accident have left him without resources. Leventhal mulls over his angry behavior at the interview and begins, despite the fact that Allbee is stalking him and spying on him and eventually turns up on his doorstep late at night, to accept some degree of responsibility. He enters into painful introspection about his stance toward others and interpretations of their behavior. We learn that Leventhal's mother was institutionalized for mental illness, that Leventhal's 'nerves' are shot, and thus despite Allbee's alarming behavior the reader accepts Leventhal's doubts about his own assessments of people's motives. Interwoven with his struggles with Allbee are Leventhal's uneasy interactions with the family of his brother Max. After his initial visit to their lowly apartment, Leventhal is convinced that Max has neglected his young wife and children unconscionably and he resolves to give Max a piece of his mind. Leventhal convinces his sister-in-law to allow her son to be admitted to a hospital for treatment. When the young boy takes a turn for the worse, Max returns to the city just at the time of his son's death. Bellow uses the twin events of the death of Leventhal's nephew and the jarring conflict with Allbee to portray a period of self-examination and growth in the life of the protagonist. Although his tangles with Allbee nearly end in disaster, he parts with his brother on good terms, and in a final chapter, we learn that he has been promoted, looks younger despite graying hair, and is about to become a father. The end describes a chance meeting between Leventhal and his old tormentor Allbee—both early-middle-aged, in a theatre, just before the final act. Allbee's fortunes are superficially reversed: he is dating a Hollywood actress and is richly attired. Leventhal is dismayed when Allbee hails him, but Allbee comes close to apologizing for his past aggression, saying that now he has learned that 'the world wasn't made exactly for me' and that he has come to terms with 'whoever runs things'. But since Allbee has in the past bruited his belief that 'the Jews' run everything, Leventhal's parting words to him are, 'Wait a minute, what´s your idea of who runs things?' Poignantly, we part with Leventhal and his 9-months-pregnant wife in the dark, being shown to their seats by an invisible 'usher'. |
3144211 | /m/08v861 | Young Bond Book 3 | Charlie Higson | 1/4/2007 | {"/m/06wkf": "Spy fiction"} | The story's prologue is set in Highgate Cemetery, where Professor Alexis Fairburn, an Eton beak (Professor), is kidnapped by Wolfgang and Ludwig Smith. When he was kidnapped, Fairburn was tracing a tombstone, but leaves the piece of paper with which he was tracing. The story itself starts with young James Bond and his friend, Perry Mandeville (leader of the Danger Society) reminiscing the previous days events. Out of the blue, a letter to Pritpal from Alexis Fairburn comes, regarding Fairburn's resignation from Eton. To House Master Codrose and Headmaster Elliot, the 'mistakes' were just made by Fairburn because of his scatterbrained personality and eccentricity, but Pritpal soon figures out that the mistakes were there for a reason. James and Pritpal work towards trying to decipher them - the first of them are easy - some wrong names in the letter (Luc Olivier and Speccy Stevens) translate into "Solve seven cryptic clues." However, they have to get several photographs of the letter, which has been confiscated by Cecil Codrose, before they can continue. Eventually, they get it and continue. They determine that they have to solve the puzzle of a certain crossword in the next The Times and eventually determine that "Gordian Knot" means that they must meet a man nicknamed "Gordius," who is coming to Pritpal's next Crossword Society meeting. James decides to come along to the meeting, but all the man does is play a game of Hearts, during which time James wins five pounds. The man gives his name as "Professor Ivar Peterson," who is a professor at Cambridge University. However, James and Pritpal do not believe him. James arranges with his friend, Perry Mandeville to go to Cambridge University, which will work as he is intending to go off to London on his father's birthday leave. Before James can go to London, there is a break in at the school and the matron is forced to leave the school out of shock. James is sure that the intruder was intending to take something related to Fairburn. James decides to leave for London with Perry at once and learns that one more clue, when solved, says that Fairburn has actually been kidnapped and James realises that the former Maths beak is in danger. He and Perry drive to London in his Bramford and Martin. On the way, they spy an old Bentley that is for sale. Eventually, they arrive in London and James goes off to Cambridge University to find Professor Peterson. Eventually, he asks his porter if he can see him and he agrees. However, when he goes into his office, he discovers that Professor Peterson has been murdered with an Apache revolver bayonet. The killer is, in fact, still in the room and James flees before he can be attacked. James then reads a letter that he took from Peterson's desk and finds the name "John Charnage" in it. Before he can work out what it means, the killer James had seen arrives in a Daimler vehicle with his accomplice. It is clear to the reader that the killers were Ludwig and Wolfgang, the two men who had kidnapped Fairburn. James flees in the Bramford and Martin, but the men give chase and eventually, James ends up in a river. He manages to escape the vehicle before it explodes and hides under a bridge. James passes out from the cold and wakes up in a hospital. After managing to steal a suit and his shoes, James hitches a ride to Perry's house in a taxi. After a light breakfast with Perry, the two realise that "John Charnage" is actually Sir John Charnage, a local businessman whose father used to own a chemical factory. The two pay him a visit, but James is recognised as the boy that was seen leaving the scene of Professor Peterson's murder. He locks them in a room and leaves seemingly to call the police. James and Perry try and escape, but they are spotted and only narrowly escape by throwing a basket of groceries that a boy was delivering at Charnage. They flag down a taxi and manage to get to Hackney, where the Eton Mission is and for which Pritpal and Tommy Chong are working. The group solve the remains of the puzzle and determine two things - they need to check Room 5 of The Royal College of Surgeons and then go to Highgate Cemetery. They go to the museum first and discover the name "Charles Babbage," who had tried to invent two machines for solving mathematical problems that were basically and early computer and determine that Charnage is trying to build one of these machines. They then head down to Highgate cemetery and meet a tramp named Theo who is living in the cemetery. He casually tells them that the cemetery houses Karl Marx, the man who had come up with the idea of Communism and "the man who turned the Russian bear red." At that moment, Wolfgang and Ludwig arrive at the graveyard and kill the tramp. James and Perry flee and split up. James hides in the trunk of the killers' Daimler and is led straight to Fairburn's kidnapper - Charnage. When they arrive, James sets alight the Daimler and, in the confusion, enters the building. James finds himself in an old, abandoned Chemical factory and finds his way to a room marked "Hazardous Chemicals." He steals a bottle of Potassium from it. However, he is discovered and is forced to escape. He discovers that the factory has been changed into an illegal underground casino. James tries to find a way out, but an American man who has just lost a fortune in the casino forces him to help him win back his money in Roulette, preventing him from escaping. Eventually, James is caught and taken to Charnage, who decides that he needs to kill him. To do this, he forces him to drink a large amount of Gin. Drunk and with a damaged liver, James is then dragged by Ludwig and Wolfgang to a barge and they prepare to throw him into the River Thames. In his drunken state, he works out the rest of the crossword and determines that the word "Bond" (in his name) must have the word "runner" and the letter "m" inserted into it, but cannot make sense of the results. He manages to escape, however, by throwing the jar of potassium he had taken from Charnage's factory at them, blowing Wolfgang's hand off and then throwing himself overboard. After eventually making it to land, he wanders through East London in his drunken state and passes out in an alley. He wakes up to find himself surrounded by a gang of girls, who prepare to beat him up. However, by coincidence, he is in the town of Red Kelly (the boy he met during the events of SilverFin). The leader of the gang is Red's younger sister, Kelly, who immediately takes a shine to James. After getting some food at the local pub, he goes to Red's home and learns that Charnage's business had died several years before because the labourers were always dying. James rests for a few hours and eventually determines that Charnage must have been doing a deal with the Russians to build the computer that he is trying to build, the N.E.M.E.S.I.S. machine. Red inadvertently solves the last piece of the puzzle - one of the results James had got earlier, Brunnermond, was actually where a large explosion took place, near the Royal Docks. James realises that the machine is at the Royal docks, in a boat called the Amoras. They get to the Royal docks in an old mail train that Red has been using. Upon arrival, James and Red's sister sneak up to the boat in a small rowing boat and hide in a bathroom. James locates Fairburn and the three escape to a nearby passenger ship, where they decide to shelter for the night. Kelly, who has demonstrated an interest in James since learning his identity, insists on dancing with him in the ballroom to some music played on an old gramophone. However, during the night, some intruders get onto the boat and search for them. They are attacked by Charnage's butler Deighton and a Russian man, but are rescued by Kelly's gang. They return to the Amoras and destroy the Nemesis machine, killing Wolfgang and Ludwig in the process and decide to go off and find the Russian in charge - Colonel Irina Sedova (Babushka). They track her down to an abandoned train tunnel and search. Before leaving for the search, Red's sister gives James a kiss. They eventually find Babushka, but she prepares to kill James. James manages to kill her henchman, and discovers a gun in his own pocket. He has it aimed at Babushka's head, but she pleads with him to let her go. James agrees and eventually his friends arrive to help him. He tells Perry Mandeville that he intends to buy the Bentley they saw earlier with the money he won at the casino. |
3145214 | /m/08vbhd | Evening's Empire | David Herter | 2002-06 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction"} | The book follows the travels of a man to the small town of Evening, Oregon, where his beloved wife was killed in a freak accident the year before. The novel relies heavily on surrealism and a lolling suspense that is never realized in any sort of actual climax. Nonetheless, the book retains a small following of fans that greatly admire its "mature" style and few reviewers have considered it a poor effort. |
3149476 | /m/08vlxd | Roseanna | Per Wahlöö | 1965 | {"/m/0lsxr": "Crime Fiction"} | A young woman is found dead in a canal, molested and murdered. The case is almost instantly cold: nobody can identify her and where and by whom she was killed. Then a stroke of luck: through Interpol her identity is ascertained—Roseanna McGraw, an American tourist who was taking a boat trip in southern Sweden. A meticulous investigation determines that she was murdered aboard the boat and proceeds to determine if a fellow passenger was responsible. |
3151394 | /m/08vrgq | The Enchanted Castle | E. Nesbit | 1907 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The enchanted castle of the title is a country estate in the West Country seen through the eyes of three children, Gerald, James and Kathleen, who discover it while exploring during the school holidays. The lake, groves and marble statues, with white towers and turrets in the distance, make a fairy-tale setting, and then in the middle of the maze in the rose garden they find a sleeping fairy-tale princess. The "princess" tells them that the castle is full of magic, and they almost believe her. She shows them the treasures of the castle, including a ring she says is a ring of invisibility, but when it actually turns her invisible she panics and admits that she is the housekeeper's niece, Mabel, and was just play-acting. The children soon discover that the ring has other magical powers. The Enchanted Castle was written for both children and adults. It combines descriptions of the imaginative play of children, reminiscent of The Story of the Treasure Seekers, with a magic more muted than in her major fantasies such as The Story of the Amulet. |
3152340 | /m/08vtss | Futility, or the Wreck of the Titan | null | null | null | The first half of Futility introduces the hero, John Rowland. Rowland is a disgraced former US Navy officer, who is now an alcoholic and has fallen to the lowest levels of society. Dismissed from the Navy, he is working as a deckhand on the Titan. On an April night the ship hits the iceberg, capsizing and sinking somewhat before the halfway point of the novel. The second half follows Rowland, as he saves the young daughter of a former lover by jumping onto the iceberg with her. After a number of adventures, in which he fights a polar bear (suffering permanent physical disability due to wounds sustained in the fight) and finds a lifeboat washed up on the iceberg, he is eventually rescued by a passing ship, overcomes his addiction and, over several years, works his way up to a lucrative Government job restoring his former income and position in society. In the closing lines of the story he receives a message from his former lover, pleading for him to visit her and her daughter. |
3154776 | /m/08vz51 | Invasion | Robin Cook | 1997 | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller", "/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Robin Cook envisions in this book a strange contact with extraterrestrial aliens.(A deadly threat to life on earth -from the icy vastness of outer space). An alien virus arrives on earth contained in a tiny black disk. Those who pick up the disk are infected by the virus which spreads rapidly with flu like symptoms. The first human to pick up the disk and be infected is Beau Stark, an ambitious 21-year-old young man. The virus starts by giving him flu like symptoms but within a few hours he is not only free of the symptoms but also infused with new energy and power. His girlfriend Cassy notices major personality changes and an obsession with environment. The man who was all for banning big dogs in the city suddenly acquires one and proceeds to infest it. The virus apparently infects all life forms on earth. Meanwhile the first invasion & infestation having succeeded the disk sends a signal, inviting millions more disks to come. Those who handle the disks receive a sting, soon followed by flu-like symptoms and ending in what could be called "zombie assimilation" into an alien collective consciousness with Beau being the leader. Cassy however shares her fears of Beau’s changing personality with their mutual friend and her ex-boyfriend Pitt, who is a medical student and concerned after witnessing a sudden upsurge in deaths of people suffering from chronic diseases such as diabetes. He takes Cassy to meet his senior Dr. Shiela who is also concerned about the preventable and unexplained deaths and surging number of flu cases. Cassy also tells them about personality changes reported in some people by one of her students, Jonathan. Jonathan introduces the group to his parents Nancy & Eugene, a virologist and a physicist. Jesse, a cop, also comes in contact with the group when he accompanies a colleague suffering sudden seizures to the hospital. The group finally zeros on the disks as being the carriers of the infection and deduces that this may be alien virus and decides to take the matter to CDC. Nancy, Eugene & Shiela travel to CDC HQ, but discover to their horror that the entire board is already infected. While attempting to escape, Eugene is engulfed by one of the disks that is also a powerful weapon which emits radiation and can create a black-hole. The two women make it back to the others and the group flees to a remote cabin owned by Jesse. Meanwhile, The final wave of disks infest the entire earth slowly infecting people all over the world and killing those with any genetic disease. The group contacts other hidden groups who are working on means to combat the virus. However, they soon have to make forays to the town for research supplies and food. On one such foray, Jesse is consumed by the disk just like Eugene, Nancy is infected and Cassy is carried off by the infected to Beau, who is unable to cope with the human emotions and is pining for her. Jonathan, Pitt, and Shiela abandon their hideout and go looking for a Dr. M who has made advances in isolating the virus. Cassy is taken to Beau who informs her that this invasion had been planned for a very long time as the disks only activate the virus which was planned in human DNA 3 billion years ago when life was just evolving on earth. Every million years, the virus activator protein is sent to earth to judge the suitability of its inhabitants as hosts to the virus. This time the hosts have been most suitable and are in the process of building a transporter, which would link Earth to the other planets infested by the virus and allow travel between all those planets. He shows Cassy the transporter under construction and then proceeds to infect her, telling her that he loves her and wants her to be a part of the alien consciousness. The strain makes Cassy faint and when she wakes up, she is horrified by what she would become once the virus takes control. She flees from the place with hopes of contacting her friends and informing them what they are up against. Cassy contacts the group, who has hooked up with Doctor Harlan McCay, who has a Biological Warfare Research Lab at his disposal. When the invasion started, Dr. McCay headed to the lab, which was left over from the Cold War. The lab is stocked and was at least somewhat staffed (the staff apparently left when they got infected) and although it was a secret, the local Native Americans knew about it and had at some point in time informed him of it. The lab had everything they needed to work on a cure for the virus. Dr. McCay discloses that he also was stung by the disk, but has prevented an infection by injecting himself with a monoclonal antibody that at least temporarily prevents the virus from taking hold of the host. Cassy is brought to the facility and given an infusion of the monoclonal antibody. While experimenting they discover that infecting themselves with another virus will cause the virus to expose itself and oxygen will destroy it, since it came to Earth 3 billion years ago when there was little to no oxygen so its vulnerable to it in a virile state. After testing this with infected mice (it cures all except the one infected the longest, who dies; apparently if it's in the system too long, the cure kills), they take a cold virus that has never been encountered before (it was artificially engineered, and thus will no one will have immunity) as it is mild enough to not kill the person infected but will do the job. Dr. McCay acts as the guinea pig and exposes himself to the virus in a containment unit. Beau, in the meanwhile, has discovered that Cassy has escaped and unable to overcome his human emotions, follows and discovers the facility but has to leave before he can find Cassy as the gateway is encountering problems. He leaves a few of his associates behind to deal with the humans. The group escapes the facility and storms the mansion, smashing the gateway with a car. Beau is too far gone to be cured and tells them to run as the destruction of the gateway would cause dispersion. He dies and the mansion is destroyed but they are able to spread the cure and the invasion is halted. |
3155194 | /m/08v_00 | Operation Chaos | Poul Anderson | 1971 | {"/m/0mz2": "Alternate history", "/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | In an alternate world, where the existence of God has been scientifically proven and magic has been harnessed for the practical needs of the adept by the degaussing of cold iron, the United States is part of an alternative Second World War in which the enemy is not Germany but a resurgent Islamic Caliphate, which has invaded the United States. Werewolf Steven Matuchek and witch Virginia meet on a military mission to stop the invading Islamic army from unleashing a secret superweapon, a genie released from a bottle in which it had been sealed by King Solomon. Together, they fight against the demon and incidentally fall in love with each other. After the end of the war (an Allied victory as in our World War II, but U. S. forces remain in occupation of former enemy lands for much longer) the two of them continue and deepen their liaison and have various additional adventures (which were originally published as a series of independent stories). Among other things they stop an elemental summoned as a college prank which had gone amok, confront a succubus/incubus on their honeymoon, and enter the Hell dimension to save their daughter (who has been kidnapped and taken there, with a changeling left in her crib in her place). Some parts of the book can be seen as a kind of social satire. For example, the widespread use of flying brooms and carpets (actually, both have cabins mounted on top of the basic flying instrument) provides in this world a non-polluting flying substitute for cars, which encounters no traffic jams as it can use the whole of the sky. Later, in Hell the protagonists encounter an especially nasty form of torture reserved for heavy sinners: to be enclosed in horrible, clumsy ground vehicles which emit noxious fumes and move with agonising slowness along crowded strips of asphalt. While in Hell the protagonists are at a loss to understand the identity of a moustached man with a strange armband who speaks with a strong German accent, and why the most powerful demons tremble at the sight of him, or why he uses the "ancient and honorable symbol of the fylfot". Their alternative history never had a Nazi Germany. Another part of the book features a magical analogue to the counterculture of the 1960s, presented rather facetiously - reflecting Anderson's attitude to the real-life original. Given the supernatural metaphysics of this world, however, it takes the form of gnosticism, within a "Johannine Church" that is based on either an esoteric reading of the Gospel of John, or an alternative gnostic gospel version of that canonical New Testament book. In his werewolf form, Matuchek does not suffer many of the liabilities of a werewolf of folklore or, indeed, the werewolf of Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions. He remains himself while turning into a wolf, and is able to fully use his four-leg incarnation to fight various enemies; and in this magical world (unlike, for example, in the later created Harry Potter universe), there is no social stigma attached to lycanthropy. Dependence on the moon is lightly tossed aside with a comment that the necessary components of moonlight (specific frequencies of polarized light) have been isolated, and his Polaroid "Were-flash" lets him turn into a wolf or back to his human form at any time, its controls having been designed to be operable even with paws and no opposable thumbs. However, his invulnerability to silver is limited. Conservation of mass makes him a rather large wolf, although other weres in the book, taking far more drastic forms, have more serious problems. (A 600-pound weretiger has to be a 600-pound man in human form, again in order to not violate the Law of Conservation of Mass.) |
3158211 | /m/08w4dh | Monster Nation | David Wellington | 2005 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/03npn": "Horror"} | The Colorado National Guard is called in to investigate a strange epidemic at ADX Florence. Its officers struggle to contain the disease before it overruns the United States, and search for a mysterious woman who may be vital to the solution. The novel begins with a mysterious woman in California being bitten on the street by a random man who walks up to her. She runs into the nearest establishment, an oxygen bar and proceeds to get high while waiting for the police to show up. The police arrive and take her to he hospital where a zombie outbreak is occurring. Although restrained, she manages to convince a nurse to let her go, a nurse who is then consumed by zombies. While this is occurring, we are also introduced to two additional characters, Captain Bannerman Clark and Dick Walters. Captain Bannerman Clark is in the Colorado Army National Guard and is the Rapid Assessment and Initial Detection Officer in Charge, making him the always ready first man on the scene of any major disaster, trained to get the best intelligence on the situation and report to others who will take over. He is called away from enjoying a steak dinner alone to investigate an outbreak of what is believed to be a biological weapon at a prison in Colorado which spread from the prisoners to the guards, causing them to become perceived cannibals. The warden of the prison had travelled to California and had succumbed to the biological agent there, biting and infecting a young woman. Clark then goes to California to assess the damage. Dick Walters is travelling in the rural areas of Colorado to check on an outbreak of an infectious agent in sheep. When he arrives at the farm, the woman he is there to visit greets him with a gun and surmises quickly he is not, "One of them." She takes him to an abandoned mine shaft where several zombies are trapped, zombies which ate her husband and young son. The pair spend the night on the roof of her cabin, waiting for the walkers to come. Clark and the woman meet for the first time when she walks out of the hospital he arrives at, a hospital besieged by zombies. She is thought to be one of them and is to be executed in front of him when she disappears, removing her own aura. The girls then decides, after seeing a vision of a man, to head east towards Colorado. She is picked up by two delinquents along the way and runs amok with them for a bit, seeing a disturbing scene in a small town where the village kills a zombie. They eventually bunker down for the night in a small, abandoned inn. The woman, calling herself Nilla after Nilla Wafers, is approached for sex by the man of the group, but he runs when he sees she is covered in mold. She runs into the forrest nearby and kills a bear when attacked, turning the bear into one of the undead. The next morning the trio depart. Clark is determined to find Nilla after seeing her disappear, but his superiors force him to go to Washington to meet with and work for a civilian. The civilian likes Clark and intends on using him to figure all this out. Clark returns to Colorado to work on the cause of the disease and later transfers to Las Vegas for a short time as the West Coast is eventually overrun by zombies. Dick and his companion eventually come off the roof and go exploring in the night. The woman is attacked atop a hill and he runs, tripping on a rock and falling down the hill. He has a concussion and is attacked, first by the woman's dead sheep, slaughtered to control the disease and then the woman herself. When he is reanimated without arms, this time as a ghoul, a lifeless zombie without intelligence, he is drawn towards the source, an area nearby which exudes life force. He is eventually recruited by a voice coming from the source to go on a mission. The voice guides him along the way. Nilla and her two friends leave the inn and go on, eventually stopping by a truck with two men in the back. The man goes and checks on the two and is bitten when it is revealed it is a zombie feasting on a corpse. The zombie is Dick and he is then tasked with following Nilla after she is abandoned by the woman and her dying boyfriend. Nilla continues on, psychically drawn to a house where she is met by a handicapped man who tells her she is the only one who can stop the source. |
3158342 | /m/08w4nk | The Confusions of Young Törless | Robert Musil | 1906 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Three students of an Austrian boarding school, Reiting, Beineberg and Törless, catch their classmate Basini stealing money from one of the three and decide to punish him themselves instead of turning him in to the school authorities. They start abusing him, first physically and then psychologically and sexually, while also blackmailing him by threatening to denounce him. Their abusive treatment of Basini becomes openly sexual and increasingly sadistic; nevertheless, he endures all the torture even when, after being deprived of any dignity, he is discredited by the entire class. Törless's moral and sexual confusion leads him to join Beineberg's and Reiting's degradation of Basini; he is both sexually attracted to Basini and Beineberg and repelled by them. He observes and takes part in the torture and rape of Basini while telling himself that he is trying to understand the gap between his rational self and his obscure irrational self; he is a disturbed and despairing observer of his own states of consciousness. Basini, being homosexual, is somewhat complicit in the abuse, as he apparently enjoys the sexual part of Beineberg and Reiting's "experiments". Beinberg and Reiting compensate for their own shame about their attraction to Basini by debasing him. Basini professes love for Törless and Törless comes to reciprocate somewhat, but ultimately is repelled by Basini's unwillingness to stand up for himself. This disgust with Basini's passivity ultimately leads him to almost off handedly stand up to Beineberg and Reiting. When the torment becomes unbearable, Törless covertly advises Basini to turn himself in to the headmaster as a way out of the situation. An investigation starts, but the only party to be found guilty is Basini. (In this respect the novel adheres to the "rules" for stories about bullying at school: the victim has to take the blame and the bullies go unpunished.) Törless makes a strange existential speech to the school authorities about the gap between the rational and irrational ("but that after all, things just happen"), which puzzles the authorities more than anything else. They decide he is of too refined an intellect for the institute, and suggest to his parents that he be privately educated, a conclusion that he comes to on his own. Other subplots include Törless's experience with the local prostitute Božena, his encounter with his mathematics teacher, and his analysis of his parents' attitudes toward the world. |
3158402 | /m/08w4tl | Monster Island | David Wellington | null | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/03npn": "Horror"} | Monster Island takes place in Manhattan one month after New York City has been completely overrun by the undead. A former UN employee named Dekalb, whose daughter is being held by a warlord in Somalia, enters the zombie-infested island with a band of East African child soldiers in order to retrieve precious AIDS medication. After surviving numerous zombie attacks, the group encounters Gary Fleck, an undead medical student who has managed to retain a high level of consciousness and self-control unlike other zombies. |
3158434 | /m/08w4wr | The Children of the Company | Kage Baker | 2005-11 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | Like the cyborg Joseph, Labienus was recruited by the Enforcer Budu when his village was wiped out by the "Great Goat Cult" about 15,000 years ago. Unlike Joseph, Labienus was destined for high office in the Company, but was first allowed to develop as an arrogant young individual, delighting in terrifying mortals, who are content to live in small villages. Like many cyborgs, he despises mortals. Eventually Labienus is told to begin organizing mortals and start civilizing them - the first direct evidence in the Company stories that civilization itself is a result of Company activities. Labienus creates a city, which may be Nippur, presenting himself as the god En-lil. After installing a mortal ruler, he moves to Egypt, to run Company operations there. As part of this, he contacts an operative called Imhotep, who is actually Joseph, to begin the secret cabal which will develop, through the centuries, into Dr. Zeus Inc.. Another figure in the Company is Victor. He is also one of Budu's recruits, having been born as an Anglo-Saxon. His mentor in the Company is Aegeus. Victor's first mission is to supervise the revival of Lewis, who was almost destroyed in an encounter with Homo Umbratilis, strange, dwarf-like people in 5th century Ireland. Aegeus is anxious to make sure that Lewis remembers nothing, as he is trying to use the strange new race, who are mechanical and scientific geniuses, to further his own ambitions. These are the same people who pursue Lewis in The Graveyard Game. Victor is somewhat disgusted by what he has to do, and Labienus is able to use this later to manipulate Victor for his own purposes. |
3168384 | /m/08wr9l | Drawing Blood | Poppy Z. Brite | 1993 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/03npn": "Horror", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The novel concerns Trevor McGee, a comic book artist and sole survivor of a family murder-suicide, and Zachary Bosch, a bisexual hacker, and their arrival at McGee's old family home in Missing Mile, North Carolina, a fictional town featured in Brite's previous novel, Lost Souls. Something of a haunted house tale, Drawing Blood was originally entitled Birdland but the publisher retitled it to make a thin connection to Brite's first novel Lost Souls, a vampire tale. The characters Trevor and Zachary reappear in Brite's short story "Vine of the Soul", published in 1998 in Disco 2000, edited by Sarah Champion. |
3171583 | /m/08wy9w | Myron | Gore Vidal | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction"} | Myra Breckinridge, the transsexual who terrorized Hollywood with dildo-rape and lesbianism, has transformed back into her former self, the literally and figuratively castrated Myron. One night, while watching the movie "Siren of Babylon" on the late show, he/she is transported to the set of the 1948 film through the television. It's Myra's dream come true, and Myron's nightmare. As Myron tries to adapt to life inside an endlessly repeating B-movie, Myra slowly starts creeping her way back into Myron's head, making a connection with a gay member of the community to obtain dresses and wigs. Her lapses back into Myron's personality are strongly encouraged by a character slyly based on Norman Mailer (though at one point he drunkenly hits on Myra), while most of the others on the set seem to prefer Myra to Myron. She attempts to castrate a crew member, then tries to castrate herself and partially succeeds in acquiring silicone implants. While Myron desperately searches for a way off the set (running into Richard Nixon along the way, who is considering taking up residence in "Siren of Babylon" in order to escape the Watergate hearings), Myra wants to stay permanently. Eventually, Myra/Myron trades places with Maria Montez, the star of the film. Myra is ecstatic and Myron disappears entirely from the narrative for a time. But when Montez, inhabited by Myra, coincidentally meets the 1948 Myron (who at this point is a child, possessed by the soul of a perplexed Maria Montez) their respective personalities are restored to their original bodies, returning Myron at once to his living room in 1970's California. However, the changes wrought by Myra's running amok on the set of "Siren of Babylon" continue to influence the present, and the book ends with a former cowboy actor in the film, now a transsexual, being elected Republican governor of Arizona. |
3172541 | /m/08w_6x | Dragonfly in Amber | Diana Gabaldon | 7/1/1992 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/01qxvh": "Romance novel", "/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"} | Dragonfly in Amber opens when Claire returns to Scotland with her twenty-year old daughter, Brianna, hoping to find what happened to the men of Lallybroch after the battle of Culloden. After discovering Jamie Fraser's gravestone in an abandoned churchyard, Claire ends up breaking the news of Brianna's true paternity to her and Roger Wakefield. The story then flashes back in time (literally and figuratively) to when Claire and Jamie lived in Paris after leaving the abbey at the end of Outlander. As the story develops, we learn about Claire and Jamie Fraser's fight to stop the 1745 Jacobite rebellion and the bloody battle of Culloden - and also why Claire returned to the future. At the end of Outlander, Claire convinced Jamie that they should do everything possible to stop the Jacobite Rising and the slaughter that would follow. After learning that Charles Stuart is trying to get money from the French King, Louis XV, they travel to Paris. In Paris, Jamie agrees to work with his cousin Jared, running his wine business and, since many of his French relatives are Jacobites and are well placed in society, secures meetings with Charles Edward Stuart (also known as Bonnie Prince Charlie) and many well-to-do members of the French aristocracy and bourgeoisie. So, while running Jared Fraser's wine business, Jamie and Claire begin to plot against the Bonnie Prince. However, their lives are soon interrupted by the arrival of Jack Randall, who Jamie and Claire thought had died at Wentworth Prison. Jamie, despite promising Claire that he would spare Randall's life in order to spare Claire's previous husband, Frank, challenges Randall to a duel in the Bois de Boulogne. Though he doesn't kill the man, he does wound him and renders him impotent. And, after she witnesses the duel, Claire loses the child she was carrying and is taken away to l'Hôpital des Anges, where they believe she won't recover. Jamie is sent to the Bastille for the crime of dueling. After recovering from her illness, Claire manages to free Jamie from prison. A condition of his release is that they must leave France, so they sail to Scotland. (Fortunately, Jamie is pardoned for his crimes). Once in Scotland, Claire and Jamie settle in to farm life at Jamie's home at Lallybroch, with his sister, Jenny, and her family. However, Jamie receives a letter from Charles Stuart, announcing his attempt to retake the throne of Scotland. There is no escape, as Charles has had Jamie's name on the letter as one of his supporters. The Rising has begun. Seeing no option but to fight for the Stuarts, Jamie gathers the men of Lallybroch to join the Stuart army. They fight and win at the battle of Prestonpans, but the tide soon turns against the Jacobites. The Rising culminates in the disastrous battle of Culloden. Jamie, knowing that the Scots won't win at Culloden, takes Claire and heads for Craig na Dun, where he forces her to travel back to her own time, to spare her the battle's aftermath. Before she goes, however, Jamie tells Claire that he knows she is pregnant again. After sending her through the stones, Jamie returns to Culloden, intending to die. The lengthy flashback ends and the reader learns that Brianna is the child Claire was carrying through the stones. Frank asked Claire where she had been during her absence but refused to believe her, thinking she was mentally unstable. Claire told him to leave her but suspecting he was sterile and desperate for a child, he asked Claire to allow him to be father to her baby and only tell Brianna the truth after his death. Brianna refuses to believe Claire and Claire enlists Roger's help by revealing his true parentage to him as the great great grandson of Geilie Duncan and Dougal. They witness Geilie Duncan/Gillian Edgars' disappearance through the stone circle and the novel ends with Roger informing Claire that Jamie didn't die at Culloden. nl:Terugkeer naar Inverness sv:Slända i bärnsten |
3173282 | /m/08x0py | Hart's Hope | Orson Scott Card | 1983 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | Hart's Hope begins by describing the state of Burland: ruled by tyrannical king Nasilee, damaged young princess Asineth, and bloody martial law. While all four gods dislike Nasilee, only the god named God takes action, by raising up the young Count of Traffing, Palicrovol, to overthrow the King. He is assisted by Zymas, Nasilee's former right-hand man and general. Palicrovol kills the king and, to cement his new rule, marries and publicly consummates with the twelve-year-old Asineth. He then sends her away with his ally Sleeve, an albino wizard. He then sends for the Flower Princess, whose nearly unpronounceable name (Enziquelvinisensee Evelvenin) is rarely used and whose hand he secured during his bid for power; she is the most beautiful woman in the world, because she will never lie. These events are described by the narrator of the story, who is addressing Palicrovol directly and begging him to "no longer seek the death of the boy Orem"; despite the use of the pronoun I, the narrator's identity is withheld from the reader. Unknown to Palicrovol, Asineth has conceived, and bears the child for a ten-month term—noted with consternation by a local priestess of the Sister. Sleeve, who being a man knows nothing about the customs of the Sisters, begins to research this phenomenon; unbeknowest to him, Asineth is duplicating his reading and, being a woman, understands a great deal more of it. She employs the most terrible sacrifice possible: her own daughter. Made immensely powerful by this hateful decision, she overthrows the gods and the city of Hart's Hope, setting Palicrovol in place as a humiliated (and continually tormented) puppet ruler. She steals the Flower Princess's face and body and keeps Sleeve, Zymas and the Flower Princess as her personal pets in altered forms, along with her collection of enslaved gods—the Hart a pile of bones beneath the castle, the god named God a blind slave scrubbing floors, and the Sweet Sisters sundered and sold out as whores. She renames herself Queen Beauty and rules with omnipotent power from the capital city, while all her toys—Palicrovol, Sleeve, Zymas and the Princess—are kept immortal for three hundred years. But the gods still have some power, and they arrange for Palicrovol to father a bastard son with specific magical properties who will destroy Queen Beauty—a son named Orem, whose great power is that he is a "Sink", a person in whose presence magic has no power. He is also innocent and good, and is able to win over his mother's husband (though his mother prefers that he play outside, since she can't execute any of her household spells when he's nearby). Of course, since none of the strengthening spells make him any more muscular, he cannot join the military, and is instead passed on to the clergy. From there he travels to Inwit, where he spends a short time on the street before coming under the tutelage of the wizard Gallowglass, who teaches him to control his power. Shortly after a falling-out with Gallowglass, however, he is taken prisoner by the Queen's forces; but instead of executing him, she takes him to husband and, once again, conceives a child during the consummation. Orem, now the "Little King" and exposed to the Queen's pets, begins his life as royal consort of Queen Beauty. He uses his power as a Sink to protect Palicrovol, who takes heart from this apparent weakening of the queen's power and begins to march on Inwit. He also discovers (by overhearing the Queen's Companions) that Queen Beauty has a plan to kill somebody to sustain her power; Orem assumes it is him, though he is warned by his friends not to begin to love the child he sired on the queen—a boy, named Youth, whom Orem nonetheless begins to father. Finally, when Youth is a year old, Queen Beauty launches her plan: to kill him as she did her first, unnamed daughter, as a sacrifice to enhance her power. Sleeve explains to Orem that this is in line with the plans laid by the Hart, Sisters and God: if Orem manages to hijack the ritual, Beauty will not only drink her own vitality from her son's blood, but Orem's Sink-ness, and destroy herself. Orem, grieving over his beloved son, does so, and Palicrovol enters the city triumphant and unopposed. In the end, the narrator, revealed to be the restored Enziquelvinisensee, tells her husband in a letter she is writing for him that he must make the choice: will he kill young Orem for usurping, however briefly, his place on the throne? Or will he decide that enough blood has been shed needlessly for the city and his rule? The Princess's letter doesn't tell the reader, who must rely on their understanding of the characters to decide the ending. |
3173445 | /m/08x11d | Taran Wanderer | Lloyd Alexander | 1967-11 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Taran and Gurgi have returned to Caer Dallben following the events of the third chronicle, The Castle of Llyr. It is now full springtime, at least three years after The Book of Three. Taran knows that he loves Princess Eilonwy, who now resides at Dinas Rhydnant for royal education. In full springtime some weeks after return from escorting her there, he is restless and determines to know his parentage, noble or common, partly in hopes that noble birth will support a marriage proposal. Dallben the enchanter tells him nothing but gives his approval for Taran and Gurgi to travel on their own. They travel first to the Marshes of Morva to ask the witches Orddu, Orwen and Orgoch. Taran has nothing of great value to give in exchange, so Orddu merely tells him of an alternative, the Mirror of Llunet in the far east Llawgadarn Mountains will show him who he is. Taran goes next to Cantrev Cadiffor to be outfit by King Smoit for a longer journey. After a border patrol of Smoit's vassal Lord Goryon steals his horse Melynlas and Gurgi's pony, they spend the night with the farm couple Aeddan and Alarca who have lost their son and livestock. Taran would be welcome to remain and he leaves with new respect for common farmers. They recover their steeds because Melynlas will have no other rider and Goryon is relieved to escape the honorary burden of mastering him.At the neighboring stronghold of Lord Gast they meet old friend Fflewddur Fflam, who seems to return to wandering as a bard every spring. Together they go on to Caer Cadarn where Smoit does welcome them. Goryon and Gast have been feuding for years (every spring?), especially over the prize cow Cornillo. When their dispute breaks out again next day, Taran questions King Smoit's habitual resort to imprisonment and persuades Smoit to try Taran's judgment. Namely, the rival cantrev lords shall resow the fields of Aeddan, which have been ruined by battles. The prize cow shall be further compensation, although the lords shall have her calves. The remainder of their commingled herds shall be divided in half by Goryon, and Gast will choose which half to take for himself. The childless widower Smoit later offers to adopt Taran as his son, who will succeed as King of Cadiffor. Taran declines but says he will gladly accept if he discovers noble birth. Continuing eastward, they cross Ystrad. Taran's pet crow Kaw and Fflewddur's mount Llyan, a giant lion, find treasures which they bring to their masters. Kaw a polished bone the size of a toothpick, which has been stashed high in a tree. Llyan a green and yellow frog that has nearly dried to death: their old friend Doli the dwarf, whom they revive. Doli has been transformed during investigation of a deadly threat to the Fair Folk. He knows that he is not the first to disappear in animal form, for a human wizard Morda has attained power to enchant them, and to raid their underground realms. Taran and Gurgi investigate Morda's abode, followed by Fflewddur, but all are captured by his snares. After explaining himself (history, boasts, plans), Morda turns Fflewddur and Gurgi into a hare and a mouse, but fails to transform Taran. Something protects him, and he guesses from the stump of Morda's little finger that it is the polished bone. Although elderly, Morda is stronger than Taran, but his strength finally snaps the bone in desperate fury to regain it. (Morda has worn a silver crescent moon with pendant jewel on a necklace. Eilonwy has one without the jewel, and Morda prompted by Taran's recognition of the symbol of the House of Llyr has revealed the primary source of his magic. After Eilonwy was kidnapped as a child, the long search by her mother Angharad ended here, where she weakly sought shelter. Morda inherited both the amulet she wore and the empty book among her possessions. He mastered the amulet and developed its power, gave the book to a pest Glew. (The Castle of Llyr.) Morda's death restores Doli and others to their natural forms. Before parting, Taran gives the jewel from Angharad's amulet to him (returning a gift by the Fair Folk to the House of Llyr) and Doli identifies the ceremonial horn Taran wears in token of Eilonwy's pledge. It will summon the Fair Folk to his assistance, and one summons remains. Taran, Gurgi, and Fflewddur camp next with the ruffian Dorath and his band. Their hosts suspect a quest for treasure and offer guidance to Llunet, in exchange for a share. The guests try to slip away early next morning but Dorath prevents that and extracts a wager on hand-to-hand combat with Taran. He cheats and takes Taran's sword (the stake), then departs. An old shepherd Craddoc, with decrepit holdings, welcomes the companions next. From Taran's account of the mission, he welcomes Taran as his son. Fflewddur departs but Taran and Gurgi remain and labor beside him. Taran and Craddoc develop some bond, but Taran also resents the end of his dream of noble birth. During the next winter, however, Craddoc suffers a bad fall down a mountain gorge, and Taran is unable to rescue him. Near death he reveals that he knew enough of Dallben's history to pose as father and gain Taran as a son. The gorge and the weather threaten Taran too, and he finally summons the Fair Folk who are able to save only himself and Gurgi. Afterward Taran and Gurgi continue eastward, across Little Avren to the Free Commots. They stay first with lucky Llonio and his family on the banks of the river, where Taran learns that life is a net to gather what comes. Next Taran assists and learns the trades of three great craftmasters: Hevydd the smith, Dwyvach the weaver, and Annlaw the potter. They teach him that life is a forge, a loom, and a potter's wheel. He learns enough that he would be welcome to remain as assistance, but pottery alone seems to call him and he realizes to his dismay that he will never master it. He does have a new sword, new cloak, and new bowl. Driving the wares of Annlaw to Commot Ivar, he leads the poor farming village in resistance to a raid by Dorath, killing half the band at no loss of life. Annlaw tells Taran the way to the Mirror of Llunet; he knows it, but has never visited, for he knows who he is. After a short journey, Taran and Gurgi find the Mirror, a pool of water at the mouth of a cave beyond the Lake of Llunet. Taran gazes into it, and he is astonished, but Dorath interrupts, now alone. Evidently there is no treasure, so Taran and the ruffian are soon at swordpoint. His old sword shatters on his new one and Dorath flees. Taran does not pursue but returns to Annlaw Clay-Shaper. He relates that the Mirror showed his own reflection and nothing more. Cheated by Orddu? No, for he saw what he had become and all he had learned on the way. |
3173458 | /m/08x12t | The Castle of Llyr | Lloyd Alexander | 1966 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The story begins in the spring perhaps 18 months after the Black Cauldron. (For almost a year FF has lived in his small kingdom.) Eilonwy is the last in a line of royal sorceresses, daughter of Angharad, daughter of Regat, of the House of Llyr (who no longer reign). Dallben the enchanter has decided that Eilonwy, as a princess, needs different that he cannot provide at Caer Dallben. She will reside at a royal court on the Isle of Mona, west of Prydain. With Gurgi, Taran escorts her to Mona, primarily on a ship "captained" by Prince Rhun, a cheerful but incompetent youth. Taran is finally aware of his feelings for Eilonwy and he envies the prince's noble birth. While Eilonwy is introduced to the ladies, the banal tedium of life at court, and the maxims of proper lady-like conduct, Taran meets his frequent companion Fflewddur Fflam, who is living in the stables as a bard, and a traveling shoemaker, who turns out to be none other than Prince Gwydion. Gwydion tells Taran that Eilonwy is in grave danger, very likely from the evil sorceress Achren, who survived Spiral Castle (The Book of Three). He charges Taran with helping to protect Eilonwy. Soon after, Taran and Gwydion separately witness Chief Steward Magg leave the castle to the beach at night and signal a ship at sea. When Magg and Eilonwy do not show for breakfast next morning, the king organizes search parties. One is nominally under the command of Prince Rhun, although the Master of Horse is really in charge. The bards already sing of Taran, and King Rhuddlum asks him to protect Rhun personally. Rhun must rule one day, and he confides that he and Queen Teleria hope for his wedding to Eilonwy. Although he is appalled and envious, Taran takes the oath. Shortly before dusk, the prince separates from the group. Taran pursues him, joined by Fflewddur and Gurgi, but finally must halt and spend the night in the forest. Next day they find his horse outside a small, dilapidated house, and he wishes them good morning from the door. Inside they find a fine small book of empty pages that Rhun decides to keep for himself and a sheaf of notes by the former resident. Evidently Glew was a careful experimentalist with potions and he developed one that successfully enlarged a young mountain cat he named Llyan. Horrified by their inferences from a small pair of abandoned boots, they prepare to leave, but Llyan herself returns settles down just inside the door. She is larger than the average horse and they infer that she recognizes four ready meals. She is entranced by Fflewddur's harping, which allows the others to escape through a broken corner. Later that day, the party is rejoined by Fflewddur on the run and by Taran's pet crow Kaw on the wing. Kaw has spotted Magg and Eilonwy on horse and Taran determines to pursue alone rather than return to Dinas Rhydnant or try to find the official party. Kaw leads them to the river Alaw and some recent tracks of Magg and Eilonwy's horses. Further, Rhun finds Eilonwy's golden bauble near a rock where it appears that they dismounted and fetched a boat. The companions build a hasty raft to follow downstream but it disintegrates before reaching the mouth. Harvesting young willow for repairs, Rhun manages to tumble into a deep pit and his attempted rescue prompts a landslide that traps all four. But the pit opens up into spectacular caverns. None of the party is able to light the bauble, but it glows for Taran after he has given up and turned his thoughts to Eilonwy. They explore by its light and eventually find Glew, who is trapped by his giant size! The companions promise him Dallben's aid and persuade him to show a way out, but he leads them to a dead end tunnel and traps them. Sobbing pitifully, he explains that he surely knows the recipe for a potion that will diminish him, but he must kill one of them for a final ingredient-their choice. Gurgi volunteers and Rhun surprises them by nominating himself, for he has recognized that he is a burden to all and incompetent to rule. Taran explains his oath to the king, which Rhun gainsays. Instead, they notice the exit of bats above their heads and construct a human ladder which enables one to reach a ledge and some unknown passage: Rhun, who shall return to the city and bring help. When Glew permits the exit of his final ingredient, the trio breaks out and attacks him. Meanwhile Rhun has not left the caverns but returned by another route with the help of light. Perhaps because his action is selfless, the bauble now blazes for him and blinds the giant. The enraged Glew inadvertently helps them escape from underground When they reach the mouth of Alaw (some cliffs and rocks, not a flat delta) on the reconstructed raft, they meet Gwydion who hides them and tells what he knows. In particular, he has visited the offshore ruin of Caer Colur and determined Achren, Magg, and Eilonwy with a several mercenary guards. The ancestral home of the House of Llyr and its former peninsula have been sinking since Eilonwy's mother Angharad eloped with a common man. The book of empty pages that Rhun took from Glew's hut actually records the House of Llyr's most powerful enchantments, which are only revealed under the light of Eilonwy's bauble, the Golden Pelydryn. Evidently Achren hopes to rule by bringing Eilonwy to her full ancestral powers yet maintaining control by her personal magic. At night Gwydion rows them all to land below the seaward walls and he hides the book and bauble before they begin to search. Kaw quickly discovers the tower room where Eilonwy resides, and helps to secure a rope for Taran to climb. --only to find that Eilonwy does not know him or any of the names of her former companions. Her memories stir, for he has interrupted a dream of Caer Dallben, but he fails to persuade her and she flees from her room and cries out. Taran vainly hopes to halt the alarm and follows her until Magg arrests him. Gwydion, Fflewddur, and Gurgi have entered the halls as well, and they have the better of struggle with Magg and some guards, but the appearance of Achren and Eilonwy stops the action. Achren demonstrates Eilonwy's power and Rhun stupidly reveals that they know she cannot complete her plans. Rhun shuts up in shame and Gwydion does not yield. Achren turns to Taran and offers to pay him for what he knows: she will restore Eilonwy's memories of him and allow them to wed. Gwydion interrupts the torment by revealing the cache and Magg retrieves the magical implements. When Eilonwy takes hold of the heirlooms, and begins to examine the book in the light of the bauble, she also begins to fight against Achren's spell and finally makes her own choice. Calling upon the full power of the Pelydryn, she incinerates the book in a column of crimson flame, which also quiets the stone whispers of Caer Colur and breaks Achren's personal spell. Meanwhile Magg has responded to Achren's scorn by opening the gates that protect the castle from the sea, and he and the surviving guard have embarked by the only ship. The sea threatens them all and the rowboat has been shattered. Taran loses consciousness and awakes to discover that all reached the shallows alive, and Llyan pulled them up the beach(?) Achren, Eilonwy, Gwydion, Fflewddur, Gurgi and himself. Eilonwy tells how Magg tricked her, gagged and kidnapped her, but she knows little of the episode offshore. Before leaving the sea, she finds a ceremonial horn that has washed ashore, which she calls "all that's left of Caer Colur". She gives it to Taran as a pledge that she will not forget him during her tenure at Dinas Rhydant. He can pledge only his word in return, but "the word of an Assistant Pig-Keeper ... shall do very well indeed." He mentions the royal plan to engage her and Prince Rhun, which she scorns him for taking seriously. |
3176445 | /m/08x8c7 | The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man | James Weldon Johnson | null | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The Ex-Colored Man’s mother protected him as a child and teenager. Because of the money provided by his father, she had the means to raise him in a different environment than most other blacks. He was exposed to only upper-class blacks and mostly benevolent whites. After his mother’s death, his poor orphan status exposed him to a part of black life unknown to him while living a sheltered life with his mother. He adapted very well to life with lower-class blacks, and was able to move easily between the classes of black society. During this carefree period of his life, he was still able to teach music and attend church, where he came in contact with the upper class blacks. The Ex-Colored man living in an all black community discovered three classes of blacks; the desperate class, the domestic service class, and the independent workman. The Ex-Colored Man believed the desperate class consists of poor blacks that loathe the whites. The domestic service, domestic worker class consists of blacks that work as servants to the whites. The third class consists of well-to-do blacks that had no interaction with the whites. Many white readers, who viewed all blacks as a stereotype of a single class, are unfamiliar with the narrator’s description of class distinctions among blacks. Johnson’s description of the black classes also serves to show that blacks and whites also have the same human tendencies to seek social status. While playing ragtime at one of the late night hot spots in New York, the Ex-Colored Man caught the attention of a rich white gentleman. The gentleman had a particular liking to the Ex-Colored Man's music which evolved into a particular liking of the Ex-Colored Man himself. The white gentleman hired him to play ragtime piano for guests at parties. Soon the Ex-Colored Man spent most of his time working for the white gentleman, who would have him play ragtime music for hours at a time. He would play until the white gentleman would say “that will do.” The Ex-Colored man would tire after the long hours, but would continue playing as he saw the joy and serenity he brought the white gentleman. The white gentleman frequently "loaned" the Ex-Colored Man out to other people to play at their parties. The gentleman was not exactly “loaning” him out as a piece of property, but simply giving the narrator a broader palette to display his talents. The Ex-Colored man saw how the rich lived; he was thrilled to live in this life style. The Rich White Gentleman absolutely influenced the Ex-Colored Man more than any one else he met. The relationship towards the Rich White Man was not only on a slave/master basis, but also one of friendship. While he was with the white gentleman, the Ex-Colored Man decided he would use his skills to aid in Abolitionism. Even though life was pleasant, it was void of substance; using his music to aid impoverished African Americans he felt would be a better use of his talents. The Ex-Colored Man continued to show devotion to the white gentleman, as the white gentleman treated him with kindness, which eventually led to the forming of a friendship while in Paris. However, the Ex-Colored Man’s devotion to the white gentleman also portrays the relationship that some slaves had with their masters, showing devotion to the slave-owner. This shows that even though the Ex-Colored Man had “freedom”, but he was still suffering from the effects of slavery. After playing for the white gentleman while touring Europe, the Ex-Colored Man decided to leave the white gentleman and go back to the South so that he could study Negro spirituals. He planned to use his knowledge of classical and ragtime music to create a new Black American musical genre. He wanted to “bring glory and honor to the Negro race”. He wanted to return to his heritage and make it a proud and self-righteous race. Many critics have suspected that the Rich White Gentleman may in fact not be white, but is passing as well. His love for ragtime music and his conviction that the Ex-Colored Man not embrace his blackness to pursue a career as a definitively black composer could be used to argue that he experienced inner turmoil with his racial identity similar to the experience of the Ex-Colored Man. Just as the Ex-Colored Man began to work on his music, he witnessed the lynching of a black man. The crowd originally wanted to hang the man, but decided to burn him instead. The Ex-Colored Man narrates in detail of what he saw, “He squirmed, he withered, strained at his chains, then gave out cries and groans that I shall always hear." The incident at the town square opens his eyes to a racism he has never seen before. He continues, "The cries and groans were choked off by the fire and smoke; but his eyes, bulging from their sockets, rolled from side to side, appealing in vain for help." The scene that day stuck vividly in his mind. It burned a sour image in his brain. He finishes with, "Some of the crowd yelled and cheered, others seemed appalled at what they had done, and there were those who turned away sickened at the sight. I was fixed to the spot where I stood powerless to take my eyes from what I did not want to see.” This scene describes the horror of lynching, and the power it had over the mob of people in the deep south. It should also be noted that many critics believe that James Weldon Johnson wrote this scene about the lynchings to dissuade people from lynchings. Michael Berube writes, "there is no question that Johnson wrote the book, in large part, to try to stem the tide of lynchings sweeping the nation." After witnessing this event, the Ex-Colored Man decided to “pass” as white. He gave up his dream of making music that would glorify his race. He stated that he did not want to be "identified with a people that could with impunity be treated worse than animals," or with a people who could treat other humans that way. He simply wishes to remain neutral. The Ex-Colored Man declares that he “would neither disclaim the black race nor claim the white race.” The world accepted The Ex-Colored Man to be white. Our narrator is “passing” as a white man his whole life and never truly reveals himself as black to the world. This fact is what gives the narrative its title of “Ex-Colored Man”. He later married a white woman, had two children, and lived out his life a successful yet mediocre business man. The only true acceptance the Ex Colored Man experienced in his life was from his wife, who loved him and agreed to marry him after he revealed his secret to her. His wife dies during their second child's birth, leaving him alone to raise his two children. At the end of the book, the Ex-colored Man said, “My love for my children makes me glad that I am what I am, and keeps me from desiring to be otherwise; and yet, when I sometimes open a little box in which I still keep my fast yellowing manuscripts, the only tangible remnants of a vanished dream, a dead ambition, a sacrificed talent, I cannot repress the thought, that after all I have chosen the lesser part, that I have sold my birthright for a mess of pottage.” “Passing” could be interpreted as a decision to avoid the black race. He states that he "regrets holding himself back." He may have been implying that if he had he embraced the Negro community and let the community embrace him, that he could have made a difference. The Ex-Colored Man was one of the few people who was not held back by being black. He had a strong education, smart wits, and light colored skin. The masses all assumed he was white. However, his talent was in black music. Because of his fear of being a Negro, he threw away his talent as a musician to "become" a white man. This act depicts how society was during the 1910s and how terrible it was of this society to force him between his love of music and the safety and convenience of being white. The white gentleman accepted the Ex-Colored Man for who he was, but most people were not like that. He did not go back and play his music for the world after his wife died because of his children. He could not have his white children grow up on the black side of a segregated world. He wanted to give them every advantage he could. |
3179527 | /m/08xgmj | Hot Sleep | Orson Scott Card | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction"} | The book follows Jason Worthing, also known as Jazz, who is a boy growing up on Capitol, the capital planet of the Empire. Jas has "the swipe", which is a genetic trait that allows for telepathy. The swipe is feared in the Empire, so those who possess it are executed. After being found out as a swipe, Jas tries to escape, which leads to his capture by Abner Doon, who helps him rise to prominence as a space pilot. Eventually, Abner sends Jason away as the head of a colony so that the swipe would become more widespread, but when his ship reaches the planet, he is attacked, and the memories of all but one of the three-hundred eleven colonists are destroyed and two-third of the colonist are killed or damaged beyond awakening. Jason prevails, however, leading to the survival of the colony, which he visits every several years, being on Somec the rest of the time. Eventually, Abner Doon comes and sees how Jason has done, and after Doon leaves, Jason takes his ship to the bottom of the ocean. |
3179753 | /m/08xh26 | The Mysteries of Udolpho | Ann Radcliffe | null | {"/m/039vk": "Gothic fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/03npn": "Horror", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Emily St. Aubert is the only child of a landed rural family whose fortunes are now in decline. Emily and her father share an especially close bond, due to their shared appreciation for nature. After her mother's death from a serious illness, Emily and her father grow even closer. She accompanies him on a journey from their native Gascony, through the Pyrenees to the Mediterranean coast of Roussillon, over many mountainous landscapes. During the journey, they encounter Valancourt, a handsome man who also feels an almost mystical kinship with the natural world. Emily and Valancourt quickly fall in love. Emily's father succumbs to a long illness. Emily, now orphaned, is forced by his wishes to live with her aunt, Madame Cheron, who shares none of Emily's interests and shows little affection to her. Her aunt marries Montoni, a dubious nobleman from Italy. He wants his friend Count Morano to become Emily′s husband, and tries to force her to marry him. After discovering that Morano is nearly ruined he brings Emily and his wife to his remote castle of Udolpho. Emily fears to have lost Valancourt forever. Morano searches for Emily and tries to carry her off secretly from Udolpho. Emily refuses to join him because her heart still belongs to Valancourt. Morano′s attempt to escape is discovered by Montoni, who wounds the Count and chases him away. In the following months Montoni threatens his wife with violence to force her to sign over her properties in Toulouse, which upon her death would otherwise go to Emily. Without resigning her estate Madame Cheron dies of a severe illness caused by her husband′s harshness. Many frightening but coincidental events happen within the castle, but Emily is able to flee from it with the help of her secret admirer Du Pont, who was a prisoner at Udolpho, and the servants Annette and Ludovico. Returning to the estate of her aunt, Emily learns that Valancourt went to Paris and lost his wealth. In the end she takes control of the property and is reunited with Valancourt. |
3182248 | /m/08xmlc | The Phantom of Manhattan | Frederick Forsyth | 1999 | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller", "/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/01qxvh": "Romance novel", "/m/050z5g": "Chivalric romance"} | The Phantom of Manhattan tells its story from the viewpoint of several characters. On her deathbed, Madame Giry confesses to a priest of when she took her daughter Meg, then six years old, to a fair. Madame Giry felt so sorry for a young boy with a disfigured face who had been ill-treated that she crept back to the fair at night and stole him. She took the boy to her apartment where she aided and cared for him until she had grown to love him like a son. The boy, Erik, recounted that he had been sold to the circus by his abusive alcoholic father shortly after his mother had run away with her lover. For reasons of security, Madame Giry took him to the Opera house where she worked; he hid out in the catacombs, stealing books and other appliances to educate himself. Over time, as a result of missing objects, the legend of the phantom was born. Erik had fallen in love with Christine Daaé, a young chorus girl who did not return his feelings. Driven by rage, Erik abducted Christine and accidentally killed the tenor Piangi when he was trying to silence him. A mob found their way to his home but all they found was Christine and the Vicomte De Chagny, Erik having already fled to Mme. Giry's apartment on a ship bound for New York. Mme. Giry, who had paid for Erik's passage, then addresses her lawyer Armand Dufour, telling him to go to New York and find Erik; Mme. Giry gave Armand a letter she had written to give to Erik; she said it contained important and vital information for him. Erik then narrates, recounting events after he reached New York. For a short while Erik lived in among the slums of New York in a shack. He met a man named Darius, whom he used to do his bidding. Together, they made their fortune by scamming and conning people for two years. Hearing of a man named Paul Boyton who was looking to open up a theme park in New York, Erik together with Darius arranged to help Boyton build the rides and attractions that were to be included in the park. Other businessmen heard of Boyton's success, and commissioned Erik and Darius to design similar rides for them. Business was good, and through astute investments in the stock market, Erik and Darius prospered. They owned a building called E.M Tower. However, Erik's latent love for opera was never quenched, and after being rejected a private box by the Metropolitan Opera, he and a budding opera house designer Oscar Hammerstein chose collaborate on a grandiose project – an all-new opera house to rival the Metropolitan Opera. Armand Dufour, who had been looking frantically for Erik in New York with little success, was on the point of returning to France when he met a columnist named Cholly Bloom in a coffee shop. Through a translator, Cholly learns of Armand's mission to find the mysterious Erik and quickly realises that this is an opportunity to get a good story, so he accompanies Armand to E.M Towers, where he demands to see Mr Erik Mulheim. However, he is fielded by Darius, who denies him audience, but firmly insisted that he would personally hand the letter to Mr Erik himself. While waiting, Cholly notices that subject of the painting on the wall had been replaced by a rather frightening figure in a mask; when Darius returns, the painting seemingly has gone back to normal. Cholly, confused and suspicious, leaves the tower, convinced that he has just had an encounter with the mysterious Phantom of Manhattan. Darius goes to the House of Hishash in a trance-like state to see his Master, Mammon. He tells Mammon of his concern for his friend Erik since he has received a letter from Paris. Erik, he said, had become increasingly obsessed with opera; Darius is concerned at the risks of investing in the grandiose opera project. In fact, since reading the contents in the letter, Erik sent his man to Paris with a great sum of money to pay for two of the world's leading opera singers – Dame Nellie Melba and Vicomtesse Christine De Chagny – to come to New York for the new opera house's opening. He also has begun to furiously work on writing his own opera. Mammon calms Darius' fears calming that he should not worry but, rather threateningly, concludes the chapter by telling Darius that whatever obstacles that stand in the way of his claiming his inheritance from Erik must be eliminated. We then are introduced to Gaylord Spriggs gossip column, which noted that the whole operatic world was in a frenzy over the arrival of Nellie Melba and Christine De Chagny. The column reveals the vast amounts of money that were spent to induce Dame Melba to cross the Atlantic to come to New York. It also gushes about how Christine De Chagny's claim that she was coming to New York not for the money but out of her sheer admiration of the quality and desire to be a part of the newest opera `The Angel of Shiloh`, whose composer is yet unknown. Meanwhile, accompanying his mother on the boat to New York with a tutor, Fr. Joseph Kilfoyle ('Father Joe'), 12-year-old Pierre De Chagny enquires and is told about Father Joe's experiences and the circumstances which drove him from his native Ireland. As Vicomtesse De Chagny and her son arrive, they are greeted by journalists and fans alike at the quayside. As they make their way through the crowd, onlooker Bernard Smith remarks on New York's great admiration for the young singer and about the welcoming ceremony in which both Christine and the Mayor gave speeches. However, in the midst of the excitement, Smith notices a man whose face is covered by a white mask staring directly at Christine De Chagny from the roof of the warehouse opposite the docks; no one else has noticed him. The figure disappears when he notices Bernard looking at him. He then notices that a man has thrown his cloak on the ground, for Christine and her entourage to walk on, to avoid getting their feet dirty as they enter their carriage. This man turns out to be one of Bernard's own employees – a young news reporter. Cholly's act of kindness earns him an exclusive interview with the world renowned opera singer in her suite. When he arrives, he is greeted by Christine De Chagny's young son Pierre, who is busy examining the contents of a present that has just arrived for him – a certain monkey music box. As the music box begins to play "Masquerade", Christine De Chagny screams and says: "He must be here!" Cholly explains to Christine that the music box comes from Steeplechase amusement park. Christine, clearly agitated, demands to know where the park is, and then asks Cholly to accompany herself and Pierre to the park. Cholly, overjoyed with the chance of getting an exclusive from the opera singer, happily accepts. Meanwhile, Erik is still in shock at seeing Christine again. He realises that his love for her will be forever unrequited, but the letter he received gave him reason to hope: Mme. Giry, his former protector, wrote that Christine has a son and that Erik is his biological father; the young Vicomte De Chagny, Christine's future husband, was unable to have children as a result of an unfortunate set of events. Erik becomes determined to meet Christine the following day, knowing that the music box he sent will have already alerted her to the fact that he is residing in New York. Later that evening, Christine De Chagny's maid, Meg Giry, recalls how agitated her mistress was after hearing the sound of the music box. She later recalls how many years ago she had seen first hand Christine's encounter with the mysterious Phantom. She attempts to comfort Christine. The following day, Taffy Jones, master at Steeple Chase fun-fair, was catering to Christine De Chagny when the controls the hall of mirrors all began to malfunction almost as if they had been reprogrammed. The mirrors swung in a different direction to reveal a person whom Jones could not see, but whom Christine clearly recognised. Jones overhears the pair's conversation in which the stranger says he still loved Christine, and tries to convince her to go with him; she refuses. After a brief pause, he asks Christine to leave him his son. Christine, shocked by his knowledge of Pierre, promised to tell Pierre the truth of his parentage in five years time, and to give her consent for Pierre to go with him should Pierre desire. The stranger does not like this arrangement and vows silently, but within earshot of Taffy, to have the boy one way or another. At the same time Taffy notices another pale faced figure, who apparently has heard the whole conversation, run out of the hall of mirrors. Pierre's tutor, Joseph Kilfoyle, is then shown having an encounter with God in the cathedral. God tells Joseph of Erik's past and that he is not a bad person but a tormented soul who can still be saved. As for his accomplice, Darius, it is too late for him and he has sold his soul to a man made God (Mammon). The new opera opens, and Christine is critically acclaimed by Gaylord's Sprigg. During the last act of the show, the character of the lead tenor is replaced by an unknown, severely disfigured, singer – one whose voice matches the lead tenor in strength and clarity. After the show, the mysterious understudy is still nowhere to be found. Then, Cholly sees him whisper something to Pierre (who also is revealed to be an amazing singer, he is featured in the opera as well) and then pass a note to Christine. The final section of the book is narrated some years later by Cholly, a lecturer at university. He tells his class of the importance of being a reporter and reveals the one event he never printed that occurred on the last day of Christine De Chagny's visit. The Vicomte De Chagny had arrived some time after his wife, and he and Cholly had become friends. While awaiting Christine at breakfast, Cholly lets it slip that she is meeting someone called Erik in the park. Shocked by this news, the Vicompte rushes out; Cholly follows. He notices something else – a slip of paper he discovered on which Darius had written, indicating that Darius intends to kill Pierre, believing him to be the one obstacle between him and his inheritance. Fearing for Pierre's life, Cholly rushes to the park also to warn Christine. When he arrives he hides behind the bushes in time to see the mysterious Phantom and Christine meet, while Darius prepares his gun. As the Vicomte and father Joe arrive, Pierre rushes out of the carriage and embraces his mother. At that moment, Darius shoots, the bullet hits Christine and fatally injures her. The Phantom shoots and kills Darius in return. As Christine lay dying, she confesses the truth to Pierre. The Phantom is heartbroken. The Vicomte De Chagny picks up Christine's body and tells Pierre he must make a choice. Pierre removes the phantom's mask and declares that he will stay with him. The Vicomte goes back to France to bury his wife and love. The epilogue states that Raoul never married again. Pierre and the Phantom stayed in New York and when war broke out they changed their family name and alerted people to the causes of deformity and injury due to the war. The Phantom never wore the mask again. The New York Opera eventually closed down but Hammerstein's grandson wrote many famous musicals in the 1950s with Richard Rodgers. Father Joe remained in the church and taught under privileged children. |
3183130 | /m/08xph3 | The Secret People | John Wyndham | 1935 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | The Sahara is being flooded to create a new sea when the protagonist of the novel, Mark Sunnet, crashes his private rocket plane into an island of what is currently little more than a large lake. He soon finds himself and his female companion sucked into an underground cavern where they are promptly captured by mysterious pygmies. The diet of little people is centred around large fungi; the captives speculate that stories which reached the surface of the little people and their giant mushrooms may have led to the myth of gnomes. Sunnet finds that a tiered community has evolved in the underground caverns - the pygmies inhabiting a large underground collection of natural and artificial caverns and tunnels, and the captured humans in a deliberately isolated subsection of the caverns. He is also surprised to learn that family life exists in the caverns - "natives", children of captured humans who were born and have lived all their lives in the caverns exist, and are generally happy with their life, and have no wish to escape. Most of the captured humans do wish to escape, and two different methods are being tried. Both are tunnels, one going up at an angle, to try and break through to the surface, and another on a level, hoping to intersect a pygmy tunnel or cavern, from where they will be able to make their way to the surface. The pygmies are distressed, and it is Sunnet's arrival that reveals why to the captives - the pygmies fear their environment will be flooded and destroyed by the newly formed Saharan Sea. Their fear is well founded, and the waters break through into the pygmy caverns, eventually flooding the entire ecosystem. Sunnet and a handful of others survive, and finish the story being sunburned after years of subterranean life, and establishing a new company based on primitive - but unique - technology they rescued from the caverns. |
3184881 | /m/08xtgy | L'Œuvre | Pierre-Louis Rey | 1886 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Painter Claude Lantier advocates painting real subjects in real places, most notably outdoors. This is in stark contrast to the artistic establishment, where artists painted in the studio and concentrated on mythological, historical and religious subjects. His art making is revolutionary and he has a small circle of like-minded friends equally intent on shaking up the art world and challenging the establishment. His best friends are his childhood comrades Pierre Sandoz, novelist and Louis Dubuche, an architect. Like Zola, Sandoz contemplates a series of novels about a family based in science and incorporating modern people and everyday lives. Dubuche is not half as bold as Claude and, although a painter, finds music to be his passion. He chooses a more conventional course, opting for the security of a middle-class life and a bourgeois marriage. Sandoz also pursues marriage - not for love but stability and to better understand what he is writing about. The outcry in the artistic community over the sidelining of new artists in favor of popular, established, traditional artists at the annual Salon of the Académie des Beaux-Arts leads to the creation of a Salon des Refusés for the rejected artists to display their work. No painting gathers more interest or generates more criticism than Claude's. Entitled Plein Air (Open Air), it depicts a nude female figure in the front center and two female nudes in the background, with a fully dressed man, back to the viewer in the foreground. (Zola deliberately invokes Le déjeuner sur l'herbe by Edouard Manet, which provoked outcries at the actual Salon des Refusés in 1863.) Claude moves to the country to soak up more of the 'Open Air' atmosphere he revelled in as a child and to create more masterpieces. Accompanying him is Christine Hallegrain, who served as the model for Claude's nude and they have a son. Claude is unable to paint much and grows more and more depressed. For the sake of his health, Christine convinces him to return to Paris. Claude has three paintings in three years rejected by the Salon before a spectacular view of the Ile de la Cité captures his imagination. He becomes obsessed with this vision and constructs a massive canvas on which to paint his masterpiece. He is unable to project his ideas successfully or combine them into a meaningful whole. He begins adding incongruous elements (like a female nude bather), reworks and repaints until the whole enterprise collapses into disaster, then starts over. His inability to create his masterpiece deepens his depression. The slow breakup of his circle of friends contributes to his decaying mental state, as does the success of one of his confreres, a lesser talent who has co-opted the 'Open Air' school and made it a critical and financial triumph. Christine, whom he has at last married, watches as the painting — and especially the nude — begins to destroy his soul. When their son dies, Claude is inspired to paint a picture of the dead body that is accepted by the Salon (after considerable politicking). The painting is ridiculed for its subject and its execution and Claude again turns to his huge landscape. Christine watches as he spirals further into obsession and madness. A last-ditch effort to free him from Art in general and from his wished-for masterpiece in particular has an effect but in the end Claude hangs himself from his scaffolding. The only ones of his old friends who attend his funeral are Sandoz and Bongrand, an elder statesman of the artistic community who recognized and helped nurture Claude's genius. |
3185806 | /m/08xw3x | Beyond Civilization | Daniel Quinn | 2000 | {"/m/05h83": "Non-fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Within the main body of Beyond Civilization, each page contains its own chapter-like heading and a few paragraphs exploring the topic of that heading. The book as whole is divided into seven parts: Quinn states his reasons for writing the book and focuses on clarifying his idea in The Story of B that “If the world is saved, it will not be by old minds with new programs but by new minds with no programs at all.” He articulates how successful situations often have no visible indicators and that this is true in the community of life whose successes, in general, through natural selection are easy to overlook. He expands upon the nature of his idea of a cultural “vision,” including how vision can go bad and how a successful vision results in any easily overlooked lack of symptoms such as social problems. He also introduces Richard Dawkins’s concept of the meme, which he merges into the discourse of his own philosophy. Quinn discusses the memes that are regarded as infallible within our own, world-dominating culture. These range from “Growing all your own food is the best way to live” to “Civilization must continue at ANY cost and must not be abandoned under ANY circumstance.” He explores the history of tribal societies apart from our own who tried civilization by beginning to take up full-time agriculturalism (for example, the Maya and the Olmec), but who unlike us realized the failures of civilization and abandoned it in favor of a return to tribalism. Quinn finds it peculiar that the working masses in our culture have often historically been moved to rebellion against their hierarchal oppressors but never moved to simply walking away from the system of hierarchy itself, which will lead time after time to the majority’s displeasure. He also makes use of an analogy of "pyramid-building" to represent the idea of our culture’s people perpetuating a system which repeatedly fails them because they see no alternative: they think they must continue to “build pyramids” even when they overthrow the despots who originated such an idea and they see themselves as having no choice in the matter, as if pyramid-building is something humans somehow simply cannot resist. Quinn clarifies that he does not mean to say tribalism is perfect, but it is a more workable system than civilization and is in accord with natural selection. He claims also that tribes do not inherently involve “spears and caves,” arguing that some circuses or traveling shows still function as tribes, even today. He also chronicles the passage of a society from one practicing tribalism to one practicing hierarchalism. He states that our culture uses three reasons to justify our resolve in not abandoning civilization: the just-world fallacy, the possibility for transcendence (for example, in the afterlife or through spiritual enlightenment), and the capacity for revolution (which, he argues, merely shuffles the hierarchy around but does not dissolve it). Quinn states that abandonment is a more workable technique to be rid of hierarchy when compared with violent upheaval; this is because, unlike with upheaval, the people in power have no way to defend themselves against abandonment. He also claims that people do not (and cannot) transform our culture toward tribalism in one single event and, therefore, do not need to wait for conditions to improve before starting to act more tribally (for example, by first ending sexism or racism before moving on to tribal endeavors). Quinn proposes an “incremental revolution” in which groups of people begin to form tribes little by little. These tribes, he speculates, would not be based on shared ethnicity like their historical precedents, but rather, on shared occupational interests. In addition, he proposes that no move beyond civilization could cause greater harm to the environment than already does our civilized society, which he terms the “culture of maximum harm,” since it incites each and all of its members to attain the highest, most world-destructive point of affluence. Quinn goes into detail about homelessness. He comments on the paradox that our culture aims to both aid the survival of the homeless, by trying to temporarily house and feed them, but also to thwart their survival, by outlawing and demonizing many of their typical survival-based activities. They perform many of these activities merely in order to continue to live while remaining outside a system that is clearly failing them: creating makeshift shelters in parks, dumpster diving for food, etc. Quinn proposes that city officials should help the homeless by listening to their wants rather than trying to end homelessness altogether by ignoring and hindering their survival tactics in a foolish effort to somehow frustrate them back into the work force. He also provides a few quotations from homeless people who explain their pleasant sense of cohesion and of departure from social obligations in their current condition. Quinn reminisces on his own tribe-like experience creating a local newspaper with three others, the East Mountain News. He expands upon the patterns and arrangements of successful tribes and gives further examples of what he considers tribal or tribe-like organizations. He also makes a distinction between communes and tribes. According to Quinn, a tribe primarily brings together individuals working or “making a living” together democratically; a commune primarily brings together individuals living together but often with a shared set of ideals and with each individual practicing their own personal way of making a living (i.e. working). Quinn refers to many events that show distress among the modern-day youth of our culture, including school shootings and rises in teenager suicides. He believes this points to signs that young people feel they have no place in our deranging society and that our culture provides no strong sense of belonging or of hope toward improvement. Essentially, Quinn argues, our culture must provide an alternate story to the self-destructive one it is currently playing out. He says that this alternate story is also to him the most beautiful one ever told: “There is no one right way for people to live.” He addresses two common accusations about this motto: (1) that he is claiming that there is a right way to live—the tribal way—and (2) that having no one right way to live is still itself an expression of a particular way to live that he believes to be right. He dispels these criticisms by stating: (1) that he prefers the tribal way (and hopes to see the development of a New Tribal way) but has never claimed this to be the one right way, and (2) that knowing there is no one right way to live is not at all a way to live. He admits to not having all the answers and encourages his reader to admit likewise when in similar circumstances. He further encourages the reader (an assumed New Tribalist activist) to let others formulate their own questions, to demand to understand others’ questions before answering them, and to look for people who are already open to something new rather than wasting time on those who would argue and are closed-minded. He concludes that the ending of the book is also the beginning of the revolution. |
3186281 | /m/08xx0d | Class Reunion | Franz Werfel | 1928 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The novel is about 43 year-old Dr. Ernst Sebastian, a lawyer who works as an Untersuchungsrichter (investigating judge) in the fictional town of Sankt Nikolaus during 1927. One Saturday afternoon a middle-aged man called Franz Adler, who has been arrested for the murder of a prostitute, is brought before him. During the interview—a preliminary hearing during which the two men are alone in Sebastian's office—Sebastian recognizes that Adler is in fact his old classmate, who attended the Gymnasium in Sankt Nikolaus, which was then Austria-Hungary, for two years when they were both 16 and 17. Adler, however, who appears to him fearful and beaten by life, does not seem to recognize the judge, and Sebastian decides to postpone any private talk with Adler till the following Monday. As it happens, that same Saturday night Sebastian attends a class reunion (the Abituriententag of the title) occasioned by the 25th anniversary of his Matura (Class of '02), a meeting he knows he will regret going to as it will bring back both a plethora of unpleasant memories and a confrontation with the bourgeois self-satisfaction of his former classmates. That night, Sebastian does not go to sleep. Rather, upset by his chance meeting with Adler and the ennervating talk at the class reunion, he sits down at his desk and writes down a confession in shorthand, which on the following morning turns out to be indecipherable to everyone including himself—except to the reader, who can read Sebastian's confession as the middle part of the novel). At the age of 16, Sebastian, on the command of his father, the highest-ranking judge in Austria-Hungary, has to leave the prestigious Schottengymnasium in Vienna due to poor grades and is forced to continue his education in the provincial town of Sankt Nikolaus, where he stays with two aunts of his. A mediocre pupil, he tries desperately to attract the attention of his new classmates, who turn out to be very reluctant to accept the new boy into their close-knit community. In the course of one schoolyear, however, Sebastian succeeds in tempting, and eventually seducing, many of his classmates to truancy, stay up late on a regular basis, lie to their teachers and parents, drink excessive amounts of alcohol, and eventually associate with prostitutes. In particular, although he is aware of his mediocre performance at school and also of his own abominable character; Sebastian, rather than repent for his sins, sets out to conquer the intellectual superiority of his classmate Adler, a red-haired Jew who writes dramas and philosophical treatises, though he is only 17. To get rid of his rival once and for all, Sebastian pushes him into forging a document. The truth comes out, and before Adler can be expelled, Sebastian helps him escape to Germany, thus ensuring that his own part in the crime will never be revealed. On the Monday following the class reunion, Adler is again brought before Sebastian. This time the judge does reveal his identity to Adler, but on closer inspection of the file in front of him he finds out that the man's assertion that he has never gone to school in Sankt Nikolaus is true. |
3187900 | /m/08xzq4 | Hunter's Moon | Garry Kilworth | null | {"/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | O-ha is a young vixen that has found happiness with her mate A-ho. Soon thereafter, however, a fox hunt ends with A-ho's death. O-ha attempts to move on and moves into a badger sett in which she meets the badger Gar. When she feels that she is about to give birth to her cubs she moves out into a shed and her six cubs are born. On one of her food forages into a manor garden, O-ha is assailed by Sabre, a ridgeback hound. She escapes him, but Sabre leads his master to the shed, and O-ha is unable to save any of her cubs. Sabre, however, swears to one day kill O-ha, as no other creature had ever escaped him as she did. Meanwhile, Camio, an American Red Fox, is being held in a zoo. One night, he escapes from the zoo. He hops a train into the countryside. His travels eventually lead him to Trinity Wood, near which a town is now being constructed. There, he meets O-ha and falls in love with her, but she refuses his attempts to approach her. At one point, O-ha tells Camio that any fox who could kill Sabre would receive her love. Soon after Camio departs, and O-ha, believing that he had gone to confront the hound, heads to the manor to intervene. Camio had instead consulted a fox mystic, who tells him O-ha was herself heading to the manor, thinking he was there already. He rushes to rescue her and with Camio's help and the appearance of a flock of geese travelling south do they escape the clutches of Sabre. O-ha and Camio become closer, and they finally move into an earth together. O-ha and Camio eventually mate. However, when a fox mystic commits ritual suicide in the middle of the new town's square, the residents believe that there has been an outbreak of rabies and systematically begin killing all animals that they encounter. O-ha and Camio barely escape and they flee north to the marshes. There they encounter Breaker, an old Foxhound that had once led the hunts, but who had with age been deposed and sent to a farm, and eventually chased away when feared to have rabies. Finally, they decide that enough time has passed since the humans attacked the animals, and O-ha and Camio return to the town, where they move into the depths of a scrapyard, and Breaker returns to his farm. At the scrapyard, O-ha gives birth to four cubs, but one does not survive the first night. The three other are given the names O-mitz, A-cam, and A-sac (who is an albino). Soon the time of dispersal approaches. O-mitz decides to drop the traditional gender distinction before her name and calls herself Mitz. A-sac and his sister grow up as normal cubs, but A-sac expresses his desire to become a fox mystic, to his parents' dismay, after talking to a rangfar (A wandering fox). One day A-cam and Mitz decide to go to the manor to see what their parents were always warning them about, and are attacked by Sabre, who bites off A-cam's tail. He barely escapes and makes it out to safety, but is dizzy and weak from blood loss. He collapses on a nearby road, and is picked up by some humans who take him away. Mitz returns to her parent's earth and informs them of what happened to A-cam, whom they mourn. Soon thereafter, Mitz goes out to search for an earth of her own, whiles A-sac goes off to meet the fox mystic O-toltol. At the same time, Sabre has escaped from the manor and goes into the town seeking to find and kill O-ha and her family. Mitz almost encounters him, and flees into a nearby house with an open door. The human occupants, unsure of what to do, call in a man that expertly manages to capture and cage her. He then drives to his home, where Mitz meets the friendly St. Bernard dog Betsy. The man who kidnapped her spends some time studying Mitz, before putting a tracking collar around her neck. He drives her back to the city after Betsy explains that he plans to follow Mitz around from a distance, simply taking notes. When Mitz informs her of Sabre, Betsy promises that she'll be safe as long as she can be followed because of the collar. Further north, A-sac has been making his way through the dangerous marshes to O-toltol, who resides within an ancient human tomb, in order to become her assistant. When he finally reaches her, he is disappointed by the crude condition that her home, as well as herself, is in. After being shown into the damp, cold tomb and hearing O-toltol's strange views on humans, A-sac decides to return home. He begins suspecting that something is strange about O-toltol. A-sac becomes even more suspicious when he finds a pile of large bones in one of the tomb's corners. O-toltol insists that A-sac stay to rest and lays down by the exit, barring the way. A-sac feigns to be sleeping, and in the middle of the night O-toltol approaches him and tries to nudge him over, to expose his throat. A-sac fears for his life and clamps his jaws down on her throat, wrestling to hold on to her as she struggles to get away. Finally, he throws O-toltol against the tomb and her back collides against its corner. She loses all her strength and goes limp, slowly dying. A-sac, frightened and shocked, shouts his suspicions that she had been a cannibal who had got rangfars to send young foxes to her. Although not talking directly to him, what could be O-toltol's spirit or A-sac's own consciousness rebukes his accusations. Unsure of whether the vixen had been guilty or innocent, A-sac leaves, emotionally and mentally shaken. He makes his way to the sea and becomes convinced that the fox deity A-O has given him the mission to purge the Earth of evil. He comes to believe that killing O-toltol had been his first mission, and that he now has to go back to the town and kill the 'giant'. He makes his way there, and quickly encounters Sabre. Sure of his quarry, A-sac savagely attacks Sabre, but proves no match for the giant Ridgeback and is killed. Shortly afterwards, Camio and Mitz find themselves outside the safety of their earth when they encounter Sabre. They flee and the giant dog takes up pursuit, but are saved when Betsy and her master interfere. Camio is convinced that the humans must be able to catch Sabre soon, as the giant dog has been roaming the streets for several days. As these events have unfolded, A-cam also had an adventure of his own. After being picked up by the humans, he was driven to a veterinarian that treated his wound. The humans then left A-cam on the side of the road by a nearby field, not realizing that they had left him far away from his home. Completely lost and having problems with his balance after the loss of his tail, A-cam manages to live off the countryside and travels far in an attempt to find his way home again, slowly adapting to his lack of a tail. Shortly after sighting the first landmark, A-cam stumbles upon a fox farm, which he must cross in order to get home. As he traverses the compound, he meets the twin vixens O-sollo and O-fall, whom he agrees to help escape. After escaping the compound under gunfire, O-sollo agrees to become his mate. As winter approaches, A-cam decides to visit his parents one last time, to inform them of his good condition and ask them for advice on living through the winter. He makes it to their earth, much to the family's jubilation, but just then Sabre finds their home. He tries to make his way through the trash and metal in order to reach them, but he is too big and he destabilizes the heap, bringing scrap metal falling down on himself. As the family of foxes escapes, Sabre is captured by the humans. Peace returns as A-cam moves away to live with his mate and start a family, and O-ha and Camio create a new earth by the new railway, with Mitz temporarily moving in with them. As winter falls upon the land, Camio becomes sick. In order to try to save him, O-ha goes out foraging in the middle of a blizzard. She fights her way onward, and when the blizzard stops and the sun breaks through the clouds, O-ha finds herself in the situation that she had so often seen in her nightmares: standing in the white snow as the sun makes the shadows of trees fall around her like black bars. Just then, Sabre appears, being walked by his master. Upon sighting O-ha, who flees, Sabre breaks free of his master's grip and gives chase. She manages to elude him all the way to a farm, where she flees into a barn. There, Sabre reveals that he had killed A-sac and then tries to kill O-ha, biting his jaws into her ear. She tears herself away and flees deeper into the farm, with Sabre close on her heels. Just as he is about to reach her, she is saved by Breaker the foxhound, who is mortally injured after a brief struggle with Sabre. O-ha runs onto a frozen pond and Sabre follows her, but his greater weight is too much for the ice and he falls through. Nevertheless, he continues to try to reach O-ha by breaking the ice towards her, and comes as close as clamping his jaws down on her hind leg and trying to drag her down with him, but she escapes him and Sabre sinks to his icy death alone. O-ha goes over to Breaker and thanks him for saving her, but the Foxhound's injuries are mortal, and he dies. O-ha then returns to Camio, bringing him some food, and when questioned about her ear she replies that it was just a little tussle with an ermine. O-ha and Camio finally find a lasting peace. They have two more litters, and Mitz finds a mate of her own and has her own litters. A-cam, who changed his name to A-salla in order to respect the tradition of reflecting his mate's name, has also established a happy life. At the conclusion of the story, O-ha and Camio are old and after leaving their earth one winter, O-ha lies down and dies peacefully. She follows a spirit to the Perfect Here after Camio performs the last rites on her, and after informing Mitz of her mother's death, he returns to his earth, contemplating the loneliness that he now feels. |
3189922 | /m/08y3ld | The Staircase | Ann Rinaldi | 2000 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02p0szs": "Historical fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Lizzy Ender's father dumps her at a Santa Fe convent after her mother died on the Santa Fe Trail. A Methodist, Lizzy is an outcast in the school who can't comprehend the dedication to Catholicism. She thinks the nuns who pray to Saint Joseph for help to finish their choir loft (which doesn't have a staircase) are crazy. She befriends an unemployed carpenter and suggests he build the staircase. Her classmates are furious as they were waiting for a miracle to occur. The carpenter, named Jose, proceeds to build the staircase in a matter of weeks armed with three simple tools and his faith. After building the staircase, Jose disappears and Lizzy decides to leave the convent to search for her father. This story is based on the real legend of the miracle occurring at the Loretto Chapel in Santa Fe, where an unnamed man(thought to be Saint Joseph) built a staircase. The circular staircase made two complete revolutions lacking both nails and a center support. |
3192496 | /m/08y8z6 | La pensée straight | Monique Wittig | 1992 | {"/m/02t97": "Essay"} | "One Is Not Born a Woman," follows in the wake of Simone de Beauvoir's feminist political visions. Wittig writes, 'Lesbians are not women', under the assumption that the term 'woman' is defined by men. Moreover, she compares lesbians to fugitive slaves. "The Trojan Horse," explains her theory of literature as a "war machine", echoing Gilles Deleuze. |
3193118 | /m/08ybpv | Black Easter | James Blish | 1968 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | In the first book, a wealthy arms manufacturer, Dr Baines, comes to a black magician, Theron Ware. Initially Baines tests Ware's credentials by asking for two people to be killed, first the Governor of California, Rogan (Reagan was governor at the time of writing) and then a rival physicist. When this accomplished to Baines' satisfaction Baines reveals his real reason: he wishes to release all the demons from hell for one night to see what might happen. The book includes a lengthy description of the summoning ritual, and a detailed (and as accurate as possible, given the available literature) description of the grotesque figures of the demons as they appear. Tension between white magicians (who appear to have a line of communications with the unfallen host in heaven) and Ware is woven over the terms and conditions of a magical covenant that is designed to provide for observers and limitations. Black Easter ends with Baphomet announcing to the participants that the demons can not be compelled to return to hell: the War is over, and God is dead. The Day After Judgement, which follows in the series, develops and extends the characters from the first book. It suggests that God may not be dead, or that demons may not be inherently self-destructive, as something appears to be restraining the actions of the demons upon Earth. In a lengthy Miltonian speech at the end of the novel, Satan Mekratrig explains that, compared to humans, demons are good, and that if perhaps God has withdrawn Himself, then Satan beyond all others was qualified to take His place and, if anything, would be a more just god. However, the defeat of Satan is complete - He cannot take up this throne, and must hand the burning keys to Man, as this is the most fell of all his fell damnations - He never wanted to be God at all, and so having won all, all has He lost. |
3193171 | /m/08ybt7 | Darwin's Radio | Greg Bear | 8/31/1999 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | In the novel, a new form of endogenous retrovirus has emerged, SHEVA. It controls human evolution by rapidly evolving the next generation while in the womb, leading to speciation. The novel follows several characters as the "plague" is discovered as well as the panicked reaction of the public and the U.S. government to the disease. Built into the human genome are non-coding sequences of DNA called introns. In Darwin's Radio, certain portions of these "non-sense" sequences, remnants of prehistoric retroviruses, have been activated and are translating numerous LPCs (large protein complexes). The activation of SHEVA and its consequential sudden speciation was postulated to be either controlled by a complex genetic network that perceives a need for modification or a human adaptive response to overcrowding. The disease, or rather, gene activation, is passed on laterally from male to female as per an STD. If impregnated, a woman in her first trimester who has contracted SHEVA will miscarry a deformed female fetus made of little more than two ovaries. This "first stage fetus" leaves behind a fertilized egg with fifty-two chromosomes rather than the typical forty-six characteristic of Homo sapiens sapiens. During the third trimester of the second stage pregnancy, both parents go into a pre-speciation puberty to prepare them for the needs of their novel child. Facial pigmentation changes underneath the old skin which begins sloughing off like a mask. Vocal organs and olfactory glands alter and sensitize respectively, to adapt for a new form of communication. For over a year after the first SHEVA outbreak in the United States, no second stage fetus was recorded to have been born alive. The new human species was highly sensitive to all varieties of herpes and could not be viably born to a mother who had ever been infected with any of the virus' many forms, including Epstein-Barr and the chickenpox — thus eliminating 95% of the female population. Anesthetics and pitocin administered during childbirth were also lethal. So while many women would contract activated SHEVA, few would be able to successfully give birth, making the transition from Homo sapiens sapiens to the new human species very gradual. The international response to the threat of SHEVA was to form a special task force that would work alongside the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to find a vaccine. Because the "disease", called "Herod's Flu", was already in the genome of every person on Earth, the only two options were to either inhibit the activation of the SHEVA gene by discovering the signal it used or to abort the second stage fetus. Due to the rapid mutation rate of the missing-link signal molecule, preventing the activation of the gene was infeasible. The second option, abortion, was already a controversial issue and the proposal of handing out free RU 486 was met with social upheaval, adding to the already chaotic social scene. The general public believed that the government was either not placing due importance on the death of countless fetuses, or already had a cure and refused to release it. In response, government research facilities were forced to test prospective treatments prematurely and could not pursue explanations for SHEVA outside of the "disease" category because of the potential reactions from the masses. It was not until viable second stage fetuses were born that the idea of SHEVA being a part of evolution rather than a disease began to grow from a few isolated sources. |
3195372 | /m/08ygz_ | A Glimpse of Tiger | Herman Raucher | 1971 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The novel's main character is the eponymous "Tiger," a 19-year-old girl who has run away to New York City from her home in Indianapolis because of pressure put on her by her parents. There she meets Luther, a playful con artist who takes her in and becomes her lover; together, the two become a pair of grifters, surviving by sneaking into charity benefits for food and eating free samples at department stores, and by scamming subway passengers into believing that Luther is a blind singer in need of donations. In spite of being a great lover, Luther is incredibly immature, always assuming other personalities and playing games instead of engaging in meaningful conversation or forming real connections with people; Tiger actually knows very little about him. Whenever she tries to get him to talk about himself, he engages in a role-playing game, assuming identities such as "The Mad Bomber of London" or Count Dracula, and then going about his daily routine in this persona. Luther sees no need to evolve beyond his current position in life as an essential thief whose only other real activities are repairing antique toys and cheating at Monopoly. One day, on a whim, Luther invites a homeless schemer named Theodore "Fat" Chance to move in with him, after having known the man for less than half an hour. Fat brings with him Leon, a silent, rodent-like man, and together the two begin plotting to turn Luther and Tiger's apartment into a phone sex operation. Tiger is furious and threatens to leave Luther, but Luther reassures her that the men will not be living with them long. Shortly thereafter, though, Tiger returns home one night from grocery shopping to find that Fat has overdosed on some unidentified drug. Although he pulls through, the incident frightens Tiger enough that she decides to leave Luther and move ahead with her life. At this point in the novel, the narration begins to switch from third person to first person, with italicized segments being narrated by Luther, in what appear to either be letters, journal entries, or direct addresses to the reader. While the third person segments detail Tiger's attempts to re-enter proper society, moving into a YWCA and getting a job as a typist at a law firm, Luther's first person narrations document his attempts to win her back. Tiger puts Luther at the back of her mind and is successful with her plans of becoming part of proper society; she befriends a secretary at her law firm, and is (briefly) promoted to being the personal assistant to one of the firm's lawyers, a handsome, middle aged, sexually aggressive attorney who keeps a couch in his office for the purpose of seducing his unending line of personal assistants. He attempts to sleep with Tiger on her first day as his assistant, and while she initially considers it, she recants at the last minute, resulting in her being demoted back to a typist. Meanwhile, Luther begins showing up at the YWCA where Tiger works, attempting to woo her back. She refuses to come back to him, but Luther recognizes her passionate denouncement of him as evidence that she still possesses some feelings for him. Back at his apartment, Leon leaves, speaking his only words in the book ("Au revoir"), followed sometime later by Fat, who goes off to seek his fortunes elsewhere. At the same time, Luther's electricity is shut off for non-payment, and his spare time becomes dedicated to writing to his vacationing, rich parents for money, and worrying over his sudden sporadic bed wetting. Back at the law firm, Tiger's secretary friend sets her up on a date with an optometrist named Steven, whom Tiger develops a fondness for. On one of their dates, to a Russian restaurant, Luther shows up, performing one of his old grifter routines, pretending to be a Russian waiter. He nearly gets into a fight with Steven, prompting a pair of real waiters to try to eject Luther from the premises. Breaking from his usual pattern of abandoning a character when caught, Luther instead jumps on another diner's table and pretends to be Al Jolson, before assuming the persona of a juggler and hurling people's food at them, sparking a small riot in the restaurant. Luther ends up with his nose broken, but escapes, and in a first-person segment, wonders to himself why he felt compelled to shift characters rather than escape. Briefly wondering if he may be part Russian, he travels to the Russian embassy and requests asylum, which he is naturally not granted. Tiger, meanwhile, is promoted again, this time as the assistant of an absentminded attorney for whom she becomes an invaluable Girl Friday. She also continues to date Steven, and considers starting a friendly relationship with Luther, whom she is concerned about due to his actions at the restaurant. One day he shows up at the law firm, dressed in a gaudy, mis-matched suit, and pulls a routine on the clerks there, earning a large amount of cash by pretending to be collecting for an absentee typist's wedding shower. Luther shows the money to Tiger and asks her to come back to him, but she refuses. She comes home that night to find Luther waiting in her room. He asks her to come back to him one last time, and Tiger explains to him that, while he may be happy with a meaningless, carefree life, she wants to feel some purpose to her existence. Luther sadly acknowledges this, and agrees to let her go. The next day, Tiger is typing when "The Mad Bomber of London" phones into the office to say that he's going to blow up the building. Everyone evacuates except Tiger, who remains at her desk working, knowing that it's another one of Luther's games. In the novel's twist ending, a series of Luther's first-person narratives, tying into his earlier behavior at the restaurant and belief that he is a Russian, reveal that his behavior throughout the novel has not been the cliché actions of a hero in a romantic comedy, but the depraved workings of an obsessed stalker. His narratives degenerate into non-sensical ramblings about breaking his nose on New Year's Eve and bizarre rants about God's bodily functions and hatred of Christianity. In the book's closing third person segments, Luther stands on a street corner watching Tiger's law firm, as the bomb he planted there detonates, and Tiger is killed, her co-workers frantically running around the flaming wreckage looking for her as the now fully insane Luther envisions himself on a beach, finding Tiger as a young girl and then walking away with her to go back home. |
3195652 | /m/08yhjt | The Master Mind of Mars | Edgar Rice Burroughs | 1928 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | On Mars, Paxton is taken in by elderly mad scientist Ras Thavas, the "Master Mind" of the title, who educates him in the ways of Barsoom and bestows on him the Martian name Vad Varo. Ras has perfected techniques of transplanting brains, which he uses to provide rich elderly Martians with youthful new bodies for a profit. Distrustful of his fellow Martians, he trains Paxton as his assistant to perform the same operation on him. But Paxton has fallen in love with Valla Dia, one of Ras' young victims, whose body has been swapped for that of the hag Xaxa, Jeddara (empress) of the city-state of Phundahl. He refuses to operate on Ras until his mentor promises to restore her to her rightful body. A quest for that body ensues, in which Paxton is aided by others of Ras' experimental victims, and in the end he attains the hand of his Valla Dia, who in a happy plot twist turns out to be a princess. |
3199312 | /m/08yrzh | Pushing Ice | Alastair Reynolds | 10/27/2005 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Pushing Ice begins in the distant future, where the elected rulers of the Congress of the Lindblad Ring gather to decide on a suitable ceremony to honour a woman they consider responsible for the technological advancement and territorial expansion of the future human race, Bella Lind. To explain her role, the chronology is then pushed back to the early days of humanity's manned exploration of the solar system, where it is explained that Lind is the captain of the Rockhopper, a spacecraft used for mining cometary ice. While on a routine mission, Lind is informed that Saturn's moon Janus has deviated from its normal orbit, and is accelerating out of the solar system. The Rockhopper, deemed the only ship capable of catching up to Janus, is asked to undertake the task of pursuing the moon, and sending back as much information as possible before being forced to turn back by the limitations of fuel and supplies. However, on their approach to the moon, revealed to be a camouflaged alien spacecraft, Lind and her crew are caught in the field of the ship's inertialess drive, causing them to travel further and faster than expected, and beyond their capacity to return to Earth. Realising their predicament, the crew decide to land on the moon and attempt to survive the flight out of the solar system, wherever it may take them. Eventually it becomes apparent that ship is heading towards Spica, a close binary pair in the constellation of Virgo. At one point before the landing, Bella's closest friend and subordinate, Svetlana Barseghian, pushes for Bella to turn the ship around while there is still a chance to return to Earth. Bella decides that turning back is too dangerous, angering Svetlana, who then leads a mutiny and, after the ship lands, exiles Bella to a structure set apart from the main colony. The novel traces the life of the colony for many years as they try to eke out an existence on Janus and determine why it is moving through space. They work out a way of deriving power from some alien technology they find, and slowly start to improve their living conditions. They eventually arrive at a vast megastructure where they meet an alien species, called 'Fountainheads'. The encounter with the benevolent aliens improves the colonists' situation dramatically. The alien presence is played poorly by Svetlana who loses control of the colony to Bella. Bella does not exile Svetlana, even if she chooses a form of self-exile. The Fountainheads are able to rejuvenate humans, healing injuries and making them younger. The only restriction is that they cannot heal brain damage without the patient losing part of his/her personality. Bella and several others undergo rejuvenation to make themselves younger. Those that are rejuvenated still age, but more slowly. Another several decades go by as the Fountainheads and the humans co-exist. The Fountainheads are trading advanced technology with the colony in exchange for drilling rights on Janus, whose core is a vast energy resource. The Fountainheads warn Bella of the arrival of another, repulsive (by human standards) race called Musk Dogs that will infect the colony and tear it apart in an effort to get at Janus' core. When they arrive, Svetlana meets with the Musk Dogs and trades with them, she tries to regain control of the colony, but her actions set off a chain of events that destroys Janus and requires everyone to evacuate. Svetlana, with the assistance of the Fountainheads, leaves the structure through the gap created by the explosion. Pictures from her ship reveal the structure to be a Torus the size of a planetary system, with part of the structure missing at its center (believed to be the Spicans' quarters). Bella dies during the evacuation of Janus, but her body is nonetheless brought along with the evacuating colony. Her body remains in stasis for decades, waiting for the Fountainheads to restore her to life; she eventually awakens to learn that a new human colony has been established elsewhere in the structure. |
3200770 | /m/08ywr2 | Quicksand | Jun'ichirō Tanizaki | null | {"/m/065q54": "LGBT literature"} | The story is narrated by Sonoko Kakiuchi, a young woman from Osaka. At the start of the novel she lives comfortably with her husband Kotaro, and attends art classes at a local women's school. Rumors spread around the school that Sonoko is having a lesbian affair with another student, the beautiful young Mitsuko. Sonoko finds herself drawn to Mitsuko, though she barely knows her, and she proceeds to forge a friendship with her. Soon, she invites Mitsuko to her house to pose nude for her figure drawing. Mitsuko agrees, but insists on covering herself with a sheet. The sexual tension comes to a head when Sonoko rips the sheet away, thus sealing her infatuation. The two begin a fiery affair. Things are complicated by the arrival of Watanuki Eijiro, Mitsuko's sometime fiance. The effeminate, impotent Watanuki reveals that Mitsuko had intended to marry him, but now refuses unless he allows her affair with Sonoko to continue. Sonoko begins to sense that Mitsuko has been manipulating them both, but is far too mired in her infatuation – the quicksand of the title – to back out. Meanwhile, Sonoko's husband Kotaro has taken notice of her infatuation with Mitsuko. He attempts to put an end to it, but Sonoko will not be dissuaded. After a few chance meetings, Kotaro falls under Mitsuko's spell as well, and attempts to get closer to her. One evening when all three are sleeping in bed together, Sonoko awakens to find Kotaro having intercourse with Mitsuko. Knowing that their ménage à trois is doomed, Sonoko, Kotaro, and Mitsuko form a suicide pact, in which they will kill themselves with poison-laced sleeping powder. In the event, however, Sonoko wakes up, realizing that Kotaro and Mitsuko have withheld the poison from her dose, a final betrayal. |
3202072 | /m/08yzf5 | Man After Man: An Anthropology of the Future | null | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction"} | The book begins with the impact of genetic engineering. For 200 years modern humans morphed the genetics of other humans to create genetically-altered creatures. The aquamorphs and aquatics are marine humans with gills instead of lungs. One species - the vacuumorph - has been engineered for life in the vacuum of space. Its skin and eyes carry shields of skin to keep its body stable even without pressure. Civilization eventually collapses, with a few select humans escaping to colonize space. The humans that manufactured these species degrade to simple farmers and following a magnetic reversal, were driven to extinction. Other humans, the Hitek, become almost totally dependent on cybernetic technology. With Magnetic reversal imminent, the Hitek built genetically altered humans to occupy niches: Genetically-altered humans include a temperate woodland species, a prairie species, a jungle species, and a tundra-dwelling species. Since then the genetically-altered humans must face a new phenomenon. They can no longer be genetically tweaked in a lab, so all modifications must naturally evolve. Many new forms resulted from natural selection. Socials, colonial humans with a single reproductive parent, Fishers, otter-like fishing humans, Slothman sloth-like humans, Spiketeeth, saber-toothed predatory humans, and even parasitic humans developed through natural changes. After five million years of uninterrupted evolution, the descendants of modern man that retreated into space returned. Then the world changed dramatically. Earth was xenoformed and covered in vast alien cities. The humans and other life forms in this new Earth must breathe air with low oxygen content. Thus the alien invaders use cyborg-technology to fuse the bodies of the few human species they find useful on the planet with air tanks and respiration systems. Genetic modification also returned and giant building humans and tiny connection humans were bred to aid city construction. Genetically created horse-like men serve as mounts for the invaders. Some engineered human species even became farmed like pigs or cattle. As with all civilization, this new era of man fell apart once again. Eventually the spacefaring humans left, the Earth was left in ruins. With barely any oxygen left in the Earth's atmosphere, all terrestrial life on the planet perished. At the bottom of the world's oceans, at the oases that were the underwater hot springs, life continues. In the abyss, was Piscanthropus profundus, a deep-sea descendant of the now-extinct Aquatic evolved. It is implied that Piscathropus profundis would eventually recolonize Earth's surface. |
3202505 | /m/08y_59 | Time Jumper | null | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction"} | Greenleaf’s first novel Time Jumper is a coming-of-age novel set in Earth's distant future. The story revolves around two contrasting characters: a dwarf named Erin and an adolescent boy named Randi. Erin lives in a city sealed beneath a protective shield, where everything is artificially engineered, even the birds in the trees. The citizens isolate themselves in their crystal towers, caring only about wealth and status. In stark contrast, Randi lives with his tribe in a much different and more primitive environment: the wilderness outside the domed city. Erin, a loner and something of a freak in a society which values perfection, wants more out of life and spends his time secretly working on his passion, a time-traveling machine like the one built thousands of years ago by the legendary Joc-Sindor. However, Joc-Sindor's attempt to jump through time failed catastrophically, killing thousands and obliterating an area of the city now known as the Black Plain. Erin's task is to find the piece of the puzzle that Joc-Sindor missed and avoid making the same mistake. The story begins when Erin receives a message telling him that the solution to his problem lies in the city's library, a forgotten room hidden in the cavern beneath the city. Books are no longer produced, for nobody reads them. Erin's discovery of a book containing Joc-Sindor's handwritten notes sets off a series of mysterious and frightening events. It appears that someone has taken an interest in Erin's secret development of the time jumper, but whether this individual wants him to fail or succeed is not clear. In the process of pursuing answers, Erin learns surprising truths about his heritage, Joc-Sindor, and the priesthood that rules the city. Meanwhile, in his village beyond the city's shield, Randi wonders about the giant golden bubble and the city inside it, known as Chalmarene, or “place of death.” Years ago, his brother died when he dared to touch the surface of the impenetrable shield. Despite the rules in his village discouraging any interest in the bubble, which has existed unchanging for as long as his people can remember, Randi becomes determined to enter it somehow. In the end, Erin becomes the captive of a rogue priest seeking to sabotage the time jumper in his bid for power and revenge. Intending to kill Erin, the priest leads him through a hidden passageway to the outside, and for the first time, Erin sees the wilderness beyond the shield. By chance, Randi comes upon them while visiting the bubble, accompanied by his dog. The dog—the first real animal Erin has ever seen—attacks the priest, saving Erin's life. Erin and Randi then become unwitting ambassadors for their two cultures, and they embark on an effort to prepare their people for future encounters. |
3203192 | /m/08z0vv | The Recognitions | William Gaddis | 1955 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The story loosely follows the life of Wyatt Gwyon, a Calvinist minister's son from rural New England. He initially plans to follow his father into the ministry, however, he is inspired to become a painter by The Seven Deadly Sins, Bosch's painting in his father's possession. He leaves and travels to Europe to study painting. Discouraged by a corrupt critic and frustrated with his career he moves to New York. He meets Recktall Brown, a capitalistic collector and dealer of art, who makes a Faustian deal with him. Wyatt creates paintings in the style of Flemish and Dutch masters (such as Hieronymous Bosch, Hugo van der Goes, and Hans Memling), forges their signature, and Brown will sell them as newly discovered antique originals. Soon Wyatt is discouraged, goes home only to find his father converted to Mithraism and losing his mind. Back in New York, he tries to expose his forgeries, then travels to Spain where he visits the monastery where his mother was buried, restores old paintings, and tries to find himself in his search for authenticity. At the end, he moves on to live his life "deliberately". Interwoven are the stories of many other characters, among them Otto, a struggling writer, Esme, a muse, and Stanley, a musician. The epilogue follows their stories further. In the final scene Stanley achieves his goal by playing his work at the organ of the church of Fenestrula "pulling all the stops". The church collapses, killing him, yet "most of his work was recovered ..., and is still spoken of, when it is noted, with high regard, though seldom played." The major part of the novel takes part in the late 1940s and early 1950s. |
3203784 | /m/08z1z_ | A Dark Night's Passing | Naoya Shiga | null | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | A Dark Night's Passing is divided into four parts. Its protagonist is Tokitō Kensaku, a young, aspiring writer who have a dark secret in his family's closet. As a young boy he is sent to live with his paternal grandfather and his mistress Oei. His grandfather and his mother dies soon after from illness. In Part One, Kensaku, who resides in Tokyo with Oei, goes with his friends to visit geishas (as well as prostitutes) day in and day out, and finds it difficult to maintain a disciplined lifestyle of writing. He develops interest in a few geishas and bargirls, but his interest comes to nothing. Part Two concerns Kensaku's trip to the seaside town of Onomichi. Kensaku goes there to do some serious writing, but instead find himself proposing to Oei, about twenty years his senior, in letters while asking his elder brother Nobuyuki to act as their intermediary. In their correspondences Nobuyuki tells him a dark secret: Kensaku was conceived as the result of a brief affair between their mother and their paternal grandfather. During this affair their father was studying in Germany, and he chose to forgive his late mother over it. This explains the somewhat cold attitude their father had always with him. Oei turns down Kensaku's proposal, and Kensaku returns to Tokyo. In Part Three Kensaku visits Kyoto, Japan's ancient capital, and decides to make the place his home. He meets a young lady there, Naoko, of whom he takes a fancy, and writes to his brother to ask him to act as a go-between. Oei decides to go overseas to Tianjin, China, to help a kin in her business. Kensaku and Naoko marry, and the first year of their marriage is blissful. However, Naoko gives birth to a baby boy who dies in his infancy from cellulitis. In the final part, Kensaku and Naoko's relations become strained. Naoko mourns her dead baby but becomes pregnant again. Kensaku's feelings toward Naoko change when he realizes she was raped by a cousin when Kensaku goes over to Korea to pick up Oei. Oei now lives with the couple, and Naoko gives birth to a baby girl. Kensaku decides to go for another trip to the secluded countryside after realizing his temper has caused estrangement between him and his wife. During the trip he suffers from a case of cholera whilst his wife rushes down to see him after he falls ill. The novel ends on a cliffhanging style, with the reader uncertain whether Kensaku would ever make it from his feverish state. |
3204913 | /m/08z4y1 | Hernani | Victor Hugo | null | null | Set in a fictitious version of the Spanish court of 1519, it is based on courtly romance and intrigues. In the first scenes Hugo introduces Doña Sol, a young noblewoman of the court of Don Carlos, King of Spain (the future Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor). The King has come to her room to seduce her. They are interrupted by the arrival of Doña Sol's true love, the bandit Hernani, and the two argue over her and are about to duel. Her uncle (and fiancé) Don Ruy Gomez de Silva enters, and demands to know why both men are in Doña Sol's private chambers. Don Carlos asserts that he had come hoping to meet Ruy Gomez to discuss affairs of state, and Hernani does not reveal the King's true intent. In return for the bandit's discretion, Don Carlos claims to Don Ruy that Hernani is a member of his entourage. Thus, each has given the other an honorable excuse for his presence in the quarters of Doña Sol. Thus, three men- two noblemen and a mysterious bandit, are in love with the same woman. What follows in the ensuing chaos of action prompted the biographer of Hugo, J.P. Houston, to write "... and a résumé [plot synopsis] will necessarily fail, as in the case of Notre-Dame de Paris, to suggest anything like the involution of its details" (Houston 1974:53). Don Carlos learns of a midnight rendezvous between Doña Sol and Hernani. He decides to interrupt it in the hope of abducting her. Hernani becomes aware of the plot and has his men surround the King's guards. For the first time, the King becomes aware of Hernani's true identity as a bandit, rather than a nobleman, and refuses a duel. Hernani, although he could charge the King with a crime, allows him to go free. The (interrupted) wedding of Doña Sol to Ruy Gomez. Hernani arrives in disguise, and confronts her for agreeing, however reluctantly, to marry. He admits his criminal past to Ruy Gomez, and the fact that he is being pursued by the King. On the King's arrival, Ruy Gomez hides Hernani and refuses to surrender him, citing laws of hospitality, which, he asserts, protect his guests, even from the King. While Ruy Gomez and Don Carlos argue, Doña Sol, alone with Hernani, reveals that she plans to commit suicide before her marriage can be consummated. The King, frustrated by Ruy Gomez' resistance, drops the pursuit of Hernani, and instead abducts Doña Sol. Ruy Gomez agrees to spare Hernani's life long enough to free Doña Sol, on condition that Hernani will die willingly at some point in the future. Hernani gives him a horn which Ruy Gomez is to blow to announce the moment of Hernani's death. Don Carlos is elected Holy Roman Emperor. He resolves to live up to the requirements and responsibilities of his new title. Carlos pardons Hernani and gives him Doña Sol. The two are married, but as they enjoy their wedding feast, Hernani hears the call of the horn blown by Ruy Gomez. As Hernani is about to drink poison Doña Sol enters the room and tries to convince him that he is hers and he does not have to listen to her uncle. He is unable to persuade her otherwise. She drinks half the bottle of poison. Hernani shocked by Doña Sol's decision to kill herself drinks the other half of the poison and they die in each others arms. Ruy Gomez de Silva kills himself. |
3205275 | /m/08z615 | Robur the Conqueror | Jules Verne | 1886 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel", "/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/05qgc": "Poetry", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The story begins with strange lights and sounds, including blaring trumpet music, reported in the skies all over the world. The events are capped by the mysterious appearance of black flags with gold suns atop tall historic landmarks such as the Statue of Liberty in New York, the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt, and the Eiffel Tower in Paris. These events are all the work of the mysterious Robur (the specific epithet for English Oak, Quercus robur, and figuratively taken to mean "strength"), a brilliant inventor who intrudes on a meeting of a flight-enthusiast's club called the Weldon Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Members of the Weldon Institute are all firm believers that mankind shall master the skies using “lighter than air” craft, and that "heavier than air" craft such as airplanes and helicopters would be unfeasible. The institute has been constructing a giant dirigible called the Go-ahead, and are having a heated discussion of where to place its propeller (in front to pull it, or behind to push it) when Robur appears at the meeting and is admitted to speak to them. He chastises the group for being balloon-boosters when "heavier than air" flying apparatuses are the future. When asked if Robur himself has "made conquest of the air," he states that he has, leading to him accepting the title "Robur the Conqueror." During his short time at the Weldon Institute Robur so incites the members, that they chase him outside. Just as they are about to attack him, Robur appears to vanish into the mob, but he has actually been borne away by a flying machine. Later that night Robur kidnaps the Weldon Institute's secretary, president, and the president’s valet. He takes them on board his ship, a huge rotorcraft vessel called the Albatross which has many vertical propellers so as to operate similar to a helicopter, and horizontal propellers to provide lateral movement. It bears the same black flag with golden sun that has been sighted on so many landmarks, and the music in the sky is explained to be one of the crewmen playing a trumpet. To demonstrate the vessel's superiority, Robur takes his captives around the world in the course of three weeks. The president and secretary are angry at Robur for kidnapping them and unwilling to admit that the Albatross is a fantastic vessel, or that their notions of "lighter than air" superiority are wrong. They demand that Robur release them, but he is aloof and always says that they shall remain as long as he desires it. Fearing they will be held captive forever, the two formulate plans to both escape and destroy the Albatross. After the horizontal propellers are damaged in a storm, the Albatross is anchored over the Chatham Islands for repairs. While the crew is busy at work, the two Weldon Institute members light a fuse and make their escape. They try to bring the valet with them but cannot find him, only later discovering that the coward had escaped already without them. The Albatross explodes and its wreckage, along with Robur and his crew, plunge into the ocean. Meanwhile the three escapees are safe on a small but inhabited island and are later rescued by a ship, then make a long journey back to Philadelphia. The Weldon Institute members return, and rather than describe their adventures or admit that Robur had created a flying machine greater than their expectations of the Go-ahead, they simply conclude the argument the group was having during their last meeting. Rather than have only one propeller to their dirigible, they decide to have one propeller in front and another behind similar to Robur's design. Seven months after their return the Go-ahead is completed and making its maiden voyage with the president, secretary, and an aeronaut. The speed and maneuverability of the dirigible marvels a huge crowd, but are trivial if compared to Robur’s Albatross. Suddenly, out of the sky there appears the Albatross. It is revealed that when the Albatross exploded, enough of it was intact so that at least some of the propellers operated and slowed its descent, saving the crew. The crew used the remains of the Albatross as a raft until they were rescued by a ship. Later, Robur and the crew made it back to his secret X Island, where the original Albatross had been built. Robur has built a new Albatross and now intends to exact revenge by showing it is superior to the Weldon Institute’s Goahead. The entirety of the final scene is described from the crowd's point of view. The Albatross begins circling the Go-ahead; the Go-ahead drops ballast and rises to fourteen thousand feet. The Albatross follows, still a circling menace. The Go-ahead is at the mercy of the Albatross because the Albatross is both faster and more maneuverable. Finally, the Go-ahead exceeds her pressure height, where her gas bags rupture. Losing her buoyancy gas, Go-ahead drops out of the sky like a rapidly descending kite. The Albatross stays alongside of Go-ahead as she falls, signalling the pilot and passengers of Go-head to come on board the Albatross. They refuse, but then the crew of Albatross again seizes them and brings them aboard the Albatross. Having demonstrated his rule over the skies, Robur returns the three men to the ground. In a speech, Robur says that nations are not yet fit for union. He cautions the crowd that it is evolution, not revolution that they should be seeking. He leaves with the promise that he will one day return to reveal his secrets of flight. |
3205902 | /m/05h5pds | The Planter's Northern Bride | Caroline Lee Hentz | null | null | The book's main character is Eulalia, a young daughter of an abolitionist from New England, and the wife of a plantation owner named Moreland. At first indoctrinated by her father's views on Abolitionism, Eulalia initially condemns her husband's use of slaves on his plantation - even though he is behaving benignly towards them - but soon realises how well off Moreland's slaves truly are. As time passes, Eulalia also discovers a plot by a group of local abolitionists to stage a large-scale slave rebellion, with aims to "free" the otherwise-content slaves of the plantation, and to murder both Moreland and Eulalia, despite their kindness to their slaves. |
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