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3292274 | /m/093rqz | Meditations on the Peaks | null | null | null | Julius Evola considered mountaineering to be an initiatic discipline consistent with his ideas on Traditionalism. In the first chapter of Meditations on the Peaks, Evola contrasts mountaineering with generic "sport" and the scholarly life. He claims that mountaineering, when performed correctly, combines the aspects of heroic action of sport with the discipline and specialized learning of the scholar. This combination of action and learning forms for Evola a sort of ideal ascesis or discipline "in the Roman sense" because it combines an asceticism of action with an asceticism of contemplation. Evola also explores the significance of mountains to ancient mythologies. Mountains were the seats of the gods in Norse, Greek and Iranian mythologies. Legendary heroes were often required to climb mountains as a symbolic and heroic act in order to achieve the goals of their quests. The mountain is so important because it has a special spiritual significance in that it is "higher" and closer to nature and to the gods. For his description of the importance of the mountain, Evola turns time and again to a quote from Nietzsche, "Many meters above sea level--but how many more above ordinary men!" The second half of the book is concerned primarily with Evola's descriptions of his own experiences climbing a number of mountains. He describes the perilous circumstances of a number of climbs and both the camaraderie and the solitude he experienced on the peaks. In the appendices, Evola discusses Nicholas Roerich, an artist whose depictions of mountain scenes Evola finds to be of a spiritual significance. He also discusses religious traditions relating to the mountains in Tibet and Tyrol and their significance to broader tradition. The collection ends with a short essay, "Height", discussing the various ways that distinctions in height are used to connote "higher" spiritual states. |
3292524 | /m/093s7k | My Pretty Pony | Stephen King | 9/26/1989 | null | An elderly man, his death rapidly approaching, takes his young grandson up onto a hill behind his house and gives the boy his pocket watch. Then, standing among falling apple blossoms, the man also "gives instruction" on the nature of time: how when you grow up, it begins to move faster and faster, slipping away from you in great chunks if you don't hold tightly onto it. Time is a pretty pony, with a wicked heart. |
3293111 | /m/093tl8 | The Dawning Light | Randall Garrett | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | As the novel opens, Kris peKym and his cronies are doing an unprecedented and revolutionary thing - they are robbing a bank. Although the Nidorians use paper money, it is always backed by reserves of precious metal, in this case cobalt. The gang removes all the cobalt from one of the regional banks, making its scrip worthless. The plan is to use their cash reserves from other banks to buy up the worthless notes at a steep discount, then let the cobalt be re-discovered, multiplying their funds overnight. The scheme appears to succeed, but in the process Nidorian society becomes ever more fractured. Del peFenn Vyless, the radical leader of Norvis' party, is assassinated. His place is taken by Kris peKym who, as a Yorgen and direct descendant of the Lawgiver, is an ideal figurehead for the movement to restore the old ways. Kris peKym spreads a rumor that the Earthmen are responsible for the theft of the cobalt, and when the Earthmen refuse to deny this rumor, he foments a riot that results in the sacking of the School. The cobalt is discovered there, where Kris had planted it. The Earthmen do nothing - they stand and watch the destruction, then float up into the sky, surrounded by a blue glow. As far as the Nidorians can tell, they have been driven off Nidor. Things progressively get worse until mass starvation, food riots and breakdown of the law result in the destruction of the main Temple. Norvis confronts his grandfather, who collapses and dies as his world crumbles around him. Norvis' party appears to have won, but it is a Pyrrhic victory, with new religious sects appearing and more economic problems. Kris peKym is appointed Executive Officer by the remnants of the High Council, the first autocratic leader in the history of Nidor. Norvis sets out on a quest - his mother had told him how she happened across an encampment of Earthmen in the mountains, and he wants to know if they are still there. He finds the camp, but it is abandoned. However, he has company - the Earthman he knows as Smith, who caused his downfall. Smith has been waiting for Norvis. Norvis pulls out a weapon to exact revenge, but holds off long enough for Smith to persuade Norvis to come with him to a place where all will be explained. Rising together, just as the Earthmen did when the School was sacked, they enter a spaceship, which rises above the atmosphere. Norvis is shown what the Great Light really is, and how far away it is. He sees his planet from above, the first Nidorian to do so. Smith explains that when the Earthmen first encountered Nidor, it was the first time they had found a species they had anything in common with, albeit one that had no inkling of other worlds, because they never saw the sun or stars. Intelligent life is rare, and previous encounters with aliens had been hostile and traumatic. Nidor promised humans something they thought they lacked - stimulating companionship and competition. However Nidorian society was locked in stasis. It could never provide a challenge to humans, and any significant interactions would destroy it through culture shock. Instead the humans adopted the role of the beneficent Earthmen, with a distinctive appearance, for instance wearing beards, and created institutions like the School of Divine Law, which, over the years, would result in the disruption of the static society. They also created the conditions for intelligent, outward-looking Nidorians to meet and marry, thus breeding a new Nidorian who would lead the new society. Norvis realizes that he is a result of that breeding program. Smith explains he was kicked out of the School because they knew what problems the peych hormone would cause. Indeed, the tactic proved so successful they have been kicking out other students of Norvis' calibre so they would be just as motivated as Norvis himself. Smith returns Norvis to the surface of the planet, but not before telling him "See you in a couple of centuries". Humans and Nidorians will not meet again until Nidor lifts itself into space, as it must. When that happens, humans will not look like the hated Earthmen, and the two species will become friends. Back on the surface, Norvis has an epiphany. He has been trying to get rid of the Earthmen for what they did to Nidor, but everything they did, even partly causing the peych glut, was minor. The person really responsible for ruining Nidor, by killing Del peFenn, by starting heretical religious sects, by creating the Merchants Party itself in opposition to the priests, is Norvis himself. The Earthmen did not need to ruin Nidor. They simply bred a Nidorian to do it for them. Now there is no going back. Norvis returns to his own kind. He is shocked to find that Kris peKym has been assassinated while he was gone. He nominates a new leader, and prepares to do what he must, starting with rebuilding the School. |
3294825 | /m/093xwx | Path of Destruction | Drew Karpyshyn | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction"} | Bane's backstory is established in the book. He is born as Dessel on the planet Apatros, the son of a miner named Hurst. An abusive alcoholic, Hurst blames the boy for the death of his wife in childbirth, and often calls him the "Bane" of his existence. His father takes him into the mines at a young age, and the boy is bullied and abused well into adulthood. He is powerful in the dark side of the Force. In a vain attempt to reestablish himself, Bane challenges Sirak to a fight and is seriously injured in the ensuing duel. He teaches a force-sensitive young girl named Rain, who had been brought to Ruusan by the Jedi. When Rain's friend is accidentally killed by two Jedi troops, her anger draws her to the dark side snapping both of the soldiers' necks. When Bane happens upon this scene, he realizes he has found a worthy apprentice. |
3297573 | /m/0941vr | The Final Solution | Michael Chabon | 11/9/2004 | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | Although the plot of the story is modelled on the classic ratiocination stories of Doyle, there are two separate mysteries in the book, only one of which the Holmes character is able to solve by the end. The story opens with the description of a chance encounter between the old man and the young boy Linus Steinman, who, we find out moments later, is a German-Jewish refugee staying with a local Anglican priest and his family. Because the parrot sitting on the boy's shoulder is in the habit of rattling off German numbers in no obvious order — "zwei eins sieben fünf vier sieben drei" ("two one seven five four seven three") — the old man quickly deduces the boy's reason for being in England. After we are introduced to the priest, his wife, son and two lodgers sitting at dinner, we find out that the numbers may have some significance. One lodger speculates that the numbers are a military code of some kind and seeks to crack it. The other lodger, a Mr. Shane, from the British foreign office, pretends at dinner not to even notice the bird, which the family and Linus call Bruno. But because everyone else around the table is intensely interested in it, Shane's behavior only heightens their suspicions. After Mr. Shane is found murdered the next morning and the parrot Bruno has gone missing, the local inspector, Michael Bellows, recruits the old man to help solve the mystery. The old man, his interest piqued by the boy's strange attachment to his bird, agrees only to find the parrot — "If we should encounter the actual murderer along the way, well, then it will be so much the better for you," he says (ending chapter 3). Although the Holmes character succeeds in that endeavor, neither he nor anyone else in the book discovers what the true meaning of the numbers are, though there are clear implications of a solution. One hint, given by the author Chabon, is that the numbers are often recited in the presence of trains, and indeed, the parrot calls it "the train song". Another hint, revealed in the book's penultimate chapter, which is told from the perspective of Bruno, is that the boy and his parrot used to visit an Obergruppenführer while still in Germany, where it is implied he learned the song. But the biggest hint of all is the book's title and the boy's dumbness. Added to that, neither the parrot nor the boy ever voice the German numeral "null". |
3300212 | /m/0946br | Life and Fate | Vasily Grossman | null | null | The novel at heart narrates the history of the Shaposhnikov family and the Battle of Stalingrad. It is written in the socialist realist style, which can make it seem odd in parts to western readers. Life and Fate is a multi-faceted novel, one of its themes being that the Great Patriotic War was the struggle between two comparable totalitarian states. The tragedy of the common people is that they have to fight both the invaders and the totalitarianism of their own state. Life and Fate is a sprawling account of life on the eastern front, with countless plotlines taking place simultaneously all across Russia and Eastern Europe. Although each story has a linear progression, the events are not necessarily presented in chronological order. Grossman will, for example, introduce a character, then ignore that character for hundreds of pages, and then return to recount events that took place the very next day. Thus, it is difficult to synopsize the novel, but the plot can be boiled down to three basic plotlines: the Shtrum/Shapashnikov family, the siege of Stalingrad, and life in the camps of Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. Although Life and Fate is divided into three parts, all of these plotlines are featured in every section. Viktor Shtrum is a brilliant physicist who, with his wife, Lyudmila, and daughter, Nadya, has been evacuated from Moscow to Kazan. He is experiencing great difficulty with his work, as well as with his family. He then receives a letter from his mother from inside a Jewish ghetto informing him that she is soon to be killed by the Germans. Lyudmila, meanwhile, goes to visit her son from her first marriage, Tolya, in an army hospital, but he dies before her arrival. When she returns to Kazan, she is extremely detached and seems to still be expecting Tolya’s return. Viktor finds himself engaging in anti-soviet conversations at his colleague, Sokolov’s house, partly to impress Sokolov’s wife, Marya (Lyudmila’s only friend). He consistently compares political situations to physics, and remarks that fascism and Stalinism are not so different. He later regrets these discussions out of fear that he will be denounced, an indecision that plagues his decision-making throughout the novel. Suddenly, Viktor makes a huge mathematical breakthrough, solving the issues that had hindered his experiments. Viktor’s colleagues are slow to respond, but eventually people come to accept the genius of his discovery. After moving back to Moscow, however, the higher-ups begin to criticize his discoveries as being anti-Leninist and attacking his Jewish identity. Viktor, however, refuses to publicly repent and is forced to resign. He fears that he will be arrested, but then receives a call from Stalin himself (presumably because Stalin had sensed the military importance of nuclear research) that completely, and immediately reverses his fortune. Later, he signs a letter denouncing two innocent men and is subsequently racked by guilt. The last details about Viktor regard his unconsummated affair with Marya. The events recounted at Stalingrad center on Yevghenia Shapashnikova (Lyudmila’s sister), Krymov (her former husband), and Novikov (her lover). After reconnecting with Novikov, Yevghenia evacuates to Kuibyshev. Novikov, the commander of a Soviet tank corps, meets General Nyeudobnov and Political Commissar Getmanov, both of whom are party hacks. Together they begin planning the counter-assault on Stalingrad. Novikov delays the start of the assault for fear of unnecessarily sacrificing his men. Getmanov later denounces Novikov and he is summoned for trial, even though the tank attack was a complete success. Meanwhile, Krymov, a Political Commissar, is sent to investigate House 6/I, where a tiny group of soldiers have held back the Germans for weeks, even though they are completely surrounded and cut off from all supplies. Grekov, the commanding officer, refuses to send reports to HQ, and is disdainful of Krymov’s rhetoric. He later wounds Krymov in his sleep, causing him to be evacuated from the house. Soon after, House 6/I is completely leveled by German bombs. Krymov, a staunch communist, is then accused of being a traitor (this was standard for Russian soldiers who had been trapped behind enemy lines) and is sent to Lubyanka Prison in Moscow, where he is beaten and forced to confess. Yevghenia decides not to marry Novikov and goes to Moscow to try and visit Krymov. He receives a package from her and realizes that he still loves her but may never be released from prison. The sections that take place in the camps have few recurring characters, with the exception of Mostovskoy, an Old Bolshevik who takes part in a plot to rebel against the Germans, but is dismayed by the prevailing lack of faith in Communism. His interrogator, Liss, asserts that Fascism and Communism are two sides of the same coin, which upsets Mostovskoy greatly. He is later killed by the Germans for his part in the uprising. In one scene, Sturmbannführer Liss tells old Bolshevik Mostovsky, a Nazi concentration camp inmate, that both Stalin and Hitler are the leaders of qualitatively new formation: "When we look at each other's faces, we see not only a hated face; we see the mirror reflection. ... Don't you recognize yourself, your [strong] will in us?" Grossman also focuses on Sofya Levinton, a Jewish woman on her way to a Nazi extermination camp. As Grossman moves into Part Three of the novel, he writes with an increasingly analytic style and abandons many of the characters that he has created. The only plotlines that achieve real closure are those whose protagonists perish during the war. All of these characters, he seems to say, are part of a larger, ongoing story—that of Russia, and of mankind. The final chapter solidifies this notion of universality. The author introduces a set of characters who remain anonymous: an elderly widow observing her tenants, a wounded army officer recently discharged from hospital, his wife and their young daughter. Grossman describes the type of Communist party functionaries, who blindly follow the party line and constitute the base for the oppressive regime. One such political worker (политработник), Sagaidak, maintained that entire families and villages intentionally starved themselves to death during the collectivisation in the USSR. |
3301625 | /m/0949kc | The Body of Jonah Boyd | David Leavitt | null | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Anne finds the manuscript and schemes against Boyd in order to teach him a lesson for his carelessness. She asks Ben Wright, the youngest son and amateur poet who was also present when Anne found the books again, to hide the novel until she would tell him to "surprisingly find" it. Jonah stops writing and changes his careless behaviour towards Anne. Since Anne very appreciates her kind of "new" husband and does not want him to get into his former rut again, she decides to leave the book in Ben's care instead of returning it to her husband. Jonah, who used to drink, again finds consolation in alcohol, which ultimately leads to his death through a car accident. Years later, when almost nobody who knows about Boyd’s novel is still alive, Ben finishes the book and publishes it under his name. Critics review Ben's ending as the best part of the novel. This way, Ben develops his own writing style and becomes a successful novelist. When Denny finally discovers this "theft", she decides to confront Ben. Surprisingly he sees this situation as a possibility to confide with someone rather than a threat. At last they marry and after Ben's death Denny even inherits the Wrights’ house, which plays a central part in the family's and Denny's lives and in which all the fatal events took their start. |
3302985 | /m/094dhn | Heavy Weather | P. G. Wodehouse | 7/28/1933 | {"/m/02yq81": "Comic novel", "/m/01z4y": "Comedy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/09kqc": "Humour"} | Monty Bodkin, despite his wealth, needs to hold a job down for a full year ("There are wheels within wheels"), so when he is sacked from his job assistant-editing Tiny Tots for Lord Tilbury's Mammoth Publishing Company, he jumps at his pal Hugo Carmody's tip that his old job as Lord Emsworth's secretary is available, especially on hearing that his former fiancee Sue Brown will be on the premises. Hearing that Monty is on his way, and fearing Ronnie's jealous nature, Sue heads to London, dines with Bodkin and warns him to be distant; on the train back, they both encounter Ronnie's formidable mother Lady Julia, and claim not to know each other. Lady Julia, having seen Sue and Monty at lunch together, tells her son about their suspicious behaviour, and Ronnie is at once convinced that Sue loves Monty. Meanwhile, Connie and Parsloe-Parsloe, unaware of these developments, task Percy Pilbeam with obtaining Galahad's manuscript, used to ensure Sue and Ronnie's marriage is permitted. Lord Tilbury, also wanting the book, visits the castle and is rebuffed. Leaving, he calls on the Empress, but is locked in a shed by Pirbright the pig-man, instructed by a suspicious Lord Emsworth to guard the pig closely. He is released by Monty Bodkin, who he persuades to steal the book by offering him a year's guaranteed employment - he is worried about his tenure at the castle, as Lord Emsworth suspects him, being the nephew of his rival Parsloe-Parsloe, of scheming to nobble his pig, the Empress. Beach, catching Pilbeam in the act of grabbing the book, tells Galahad and is instructed to guard the book himself. When he overhears Tilbury and Bodkin plotting in the garden at the Emsworth Arms, however, he sees the task is too much for him and hands the book on to Ronnie Fish. Fish is distracted by his loss of Sue's love, but once the storm breaks feels better; he sees Monty Bodkin, drenched from the rain, and is friendly towards him. However, when he sees "Sue" tattooed on Bodkin's chest, his mood turns sour once more. Sue, having heard Ronnie's kind words, is also cheered and rushes to find Ronnie; when he is once more cold and distant, she breaks down and breaks off the engagement. Bodkin finds Ronnie and asks him a favour - to get Beach to hand over the book, explaining he needs it in order to marry his girl. Ronnie, inwardly furious, chivalrously hands it over. Gally sees Sue is upset, learns all and confronts Ronnie with his idiocy. He explains about Bodkin and Sue, and Ronnie forgives her. Gally then confronts his sisters, threatening them once more with his book; although Julia is at first unmoved, when Gally relates a few of the stories it contains concerning her late husband "Fishy" Fish, she is defeated. Bodkin, having engaged Pilbeam to find the book for him, tells the detective he is no longer needed, revealing where he has hidden the manuscript. Pilbeam steals it, planning to auction it between Tilbury and the Connie-Parsloe syndicate, and hides it in a disused shed. He informs Lord Emsworth that Bodkin released Tilbury, and Bodkin is fired. Pilbeam is summoned to see Lady Constance, and primes himself with a bottle of champagne. She is insulting, and Pilbeam vows to sell the book to Tilbury, who he calls promising to deliver it, but he retires to bed first to sleep off the booze. Lord Emsworth, having moved the Empress to her new sty for safety, finds her eating the manuscript. Pilbeam sees this, and hurries to Connie and Parsloe-Parsloe, but is denied his fee when they find the pig has eaten the book. He then rushes to the Emsworth Arms, and gets a cheque out of Lord Tilbury, telling him the book is in the pigsty. Bodkin is on hand, however, and destroys the cheque and warns Emsworth by phone that someone is heading for his sty. Later, full of remorse, he offers Pilbeam a thousand pounds to employ him for a year in his agency. While Emsworth is being badgered by his sisters into denying Ronnie his money, a mud-spattered Lord Tilbury is brought in, captured by Pirbright. Gally and Sue then appear, informing Emsworth that Ronnie has the pig in his car and will drive off with it if denied his cash. Emsworth coughs up, and the happy couple depart, much to Gally's satisfaction. |
3303051 | /m/094dqb | After Many a Summer | Aldous Huxley | 1939 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/037mh8": "Philosophy", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The action revolves around a few characters brought together by a Hollywood millionaire, Jo Stoyte. Each character represents a different attitude toward life. Stoyte, in his sixties and conscious of his mortality, finds himself in deep contemplation of life. Enlightenment eludes him, though, as he is ruled by his fears and cravings. Stoyte hires Dr Obispo and his assistant Peter to research the secrets to long life in carp, crocodiles, and parrots. Jeremy, an English archivist and literature expert, is brought in to archive a rare collection of books. Jeremy's presence highlights Stoyte's shallow attitude toward the precious works of art that he affords himself. Other characters are Virginia, Stoyte's young mistress; and Mr Propter, a professor who lives on a neighboring estate. Mr Propter believes: ... every individual is called on to display not only unsleeping good will but also unsleeping intelligence. And this is not all. For, if individuality is not absolute, if personalities are illusory figments of a self-will disastrously blind to the reality of a more-than-personal consciousness, of which it is the limitation and denial, then all of every human being's efforts must be directed, in the last resort, to the actualization of that more-than-personal consciousness. So that even intelligence is not sufficient as an adjunct to good will; there must also be the recollection which seeks to transform and transcend intelligence. This is essentially Huxley's own position. Though other characters achieve conventional success, even happiness, only Mr Propter does so without upsetting anyone or creating evil. Dr Obispo places great faith in science and medicine as saviours of humankind. He sees everyone as a stepping stone to science, the greater good, and thus only derives happiness at others' expense. According to Propter's philosophy, he is trapped in ego-based "human" behaviour that prevents him from reaching enlightenment. Obispo seduces Virginia in a characteristically egotistical way. She is unable to resist him despite her loyalty to Stoyte. When she is found out by Stoyte, he wants to kill Obispo but accidentally kills Peter (whose thoughts and morals had slowly started to expand under Propter's tutelage) instead. Obispo covers up the act for money and continued research support. This takes him, along with Virginia and Stoyte, to Europe, where they find an immortal human, the Fifth Earl of Gonister, still alive at 200, who now resembles an ape. Stoyte cannot grasp that transcendence or goodness should be one's ultimate goal, rather than prevention of death, and expresses his wish to undergo treatment so that he too will live forever. |
3303123 | /m/094dx9 | W ou le souvenir d'enfance | Georges Perec | 1975 | {"/m/012jgz": "Autobiographical novel"} | In the first part, the fictional narrator is contacted by a mysterious individual, who informs him of the disappearance of a deaf and dumb boy in a shipwreck. The boy is also called Gaspard Winkler—the adult narrator of the story discovers that he took on the boy's identity after deserting the army, although at that time he believed he had been given forged identity papers. In the second part, the fictional narrative (apparently based on a story written by Perec at the age of thirteen) recounts the organisation of an Olympian Island called W, in which life revolves around sport and competition. While the island might at first seem a Utopia, successive chapters reveal the arbitrary and cruel rules that govern the lives of the athletes. The final autobiographical chapter links back to the fictional narrative by a quotation from David Rousset about the Nazi concentration camps, where Perec's mother died: by now the reader has discovered that the story of the island is an allegory of life in the camps. |
3303913 | /m/094gp8 | Gypsy Rizka | Lloyd Alexander | 1999 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | Rizka is a gypsy who lives just outside of a town in a vardo and waits for the return of her gypsy father after the death of her mother. Fortunately, she has Big Franko looking out for her and the company of her cat Petzel. Throughout the story, she experiences numerous adventures helping out friends and folks in town as well as outwitting local town official Sharpnack, who will do anything to get rid of Rizka. |
3305645 | /m/094l4_ | The Fifty Year Sword | Mark Z. Danielewski | 10/31/2005 | {"/m/0707q": "Short story"} | The Fifty Year Sword is essentially a mature-audience ghost story, in the disguised form of a children's book. The events of the book take place at a woman's 50th birthday party in an orphan's foster home, told from the point of view of Chintana, a kind yet sullen seamstress who is struggling with the recent divorce from her husband over an affair, the mistress, Belinda Kite, of which is ironically the birthday girl whose party Chintana is attending. A storyteller is invited by a social worker to entertain the orphans. He brings with him a long, black box. The storyteller entertains the orphans by explaining his adventures of obtaining the contents of the box: His Fifty Year Sword, a weapon that never fails to cut but shows no wound until the victim's 50th year of life. He recants a suspenseful, epic journey through mystical rocky trails and soundless forests, bent on finding an otherworldly swordsmith to satisfy a dark, never explained personal grudge. He then opens the box, revealing a seemingly bladeless sword, and he waves it in the air at the candles. Just then, the mistress and Birthday Girl, who has barged in toward the end of the story, gets annoyed at the storyteller and tells the children the whole thing is a bunch of hogwash, and sets out to prove it. She takes the hilt of the sword, and slashes it around at herself in any and all places in order to disprove the man's story, much to the horror of the children and the bemusement of the shadowy storyteller. The suspense grabs the reader even more as the storyteller finishes and Chintana and the other guests go outside so the Birthday Girl can toast herself as her 50th year of life begins at the stroke of midnight. As they take the toast, and the clock hits midnight, signaling the 50th year of Belinda Kite, Belinda falls to pieces, as she has sliced herself in all discernable locations. Chintana, in a fit of empathy, runs to Belinda and holds her as the different discernable entities of her human body fall off. Chintana, at this point, likens holding her together to a series of stitches and the pressures and cuts that can tear it apart. How does one know how much it will take before it tears? |
3306513 | /m/094mql | Flight of Eagles | Jack Higgins | 7/2/1998 | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller", "/m/05hgj": "Novel", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"} | Jack Kelso, an American ace pilot in World War 1, is shot down and nursed back to health by a German nurse, Baroness Elsa von Halder. They marry and return to America after the war. After Jack is killed in a car accident, Elsa returns to Germany with their eldest son Max, who assumes the title of Baron von Halder. Harry, his identical younger (by twenty minutes) brother, remains with his grandfather, millionaire Abe Kelso. Inspired by their father's example, both brothers become ace and much decorated pilots in opposing forces. Max joins the Luftwaffe and Harry, after fighting in Finland, returns to England, joining the Royal Air Force as a 'Finn'. The brothers rise in rank and number of 'kills', occasionally hearing of the others exploits. They actually meet again in the skies and also when Harry is shot down. Max summons an English rescue boat using his airborne radio. Elsa continues her social climbing amongst the nazi elite, although Max warns her of the potential danger. Harry becomes a special duties pilot and crashes in France whilst landing a French Resistance leader. He is imprisoned at a local chateau where he and Max finally meet face to face. Himmler, learning of the capture of one ace, arranges for the brothers to be blackmailed. Max is to assume Harry's character, 'escape' in England and assassinate General Dwight D. Eisenhower. Fearing for his Mother's life, Max is forced to agree and flies back home. Elsa tries to commit suicide, but is shot dead in the attempt. The brothers' plot fails, mainly because the brothers see themselves as flyers and honourable men, not assassins. Max returns to France, rescues Harry and flies back to England, but Max is killed when they are intercepted by an Me109. Harry returns to flying and is killed in a later mission, late in the war. The narrative is surrounded by a 'frame story', with a prologue and epilogue. In 1998, the author and his wife, an experienced pilot, are forced to ditch their airplane in the English channel and are rescued by the Cold Harbour lifeboat. They learn something of what happened in Cold Harbour during the War and later meet other surviving characters. A central character of the story is 'Tarquin', a bear wearing flying kit with both RAF and RFC insignia. He was Jack's lucky mascot, later Harry's and was lost when Harry crashed. Tarquin passed to a French family and was later bought in an English antiques shop by the author's wife, also as a flying mascot. There are a few twist reveals in the final chapter of the story, having to do with the fate of some of the earlier characters. Also when the twins are split after their father dies, they argue over who will take possession of Tarquin, they agree the bear stays in America, Max the oldest wins the toss and stays with his grandfather as "Harry" sending Harry to Germany as "Max"...so when Himmler forces Max to become Harry, they are actually switching back to their original selves. The book is supposedly based on a true story. pl:Lot Orłów |
3307322 | /m/094p8m | The Kestrel | Lloyd Alexander | 1982 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | Theo is traveling through Westmark, learning about the country of which he will soon be Prince Consort. He is not surprised to find great poverty: Mickle - now known as Princess Augusta - could have told him that from her years on the street. His friend Florian could have told him about the aristocracy's graft and corruption. But neither could have foreseen a loaded pistol in the practiced hand of the assassin Skeit. The echoes of that shot ring from the muskets and cannons of a Westmark suddenly at war - a war that turns simple, honest men into cold-blooded killers, Mickle into a military commander, and Theo himself into a stranger. As set up in Westmark, Theo and Mickle are in love. A corrupt general is in a cabal with a rival country, and plans to surrender after a token resistance, allowing a country with a more aristocratic government to replace the more populist Mickle who is seen as too close to revolutionaries like Florian. However, although the general surrenders, his soldiers refuse to, and the nominal resistance becomes a full-blown war as the people fight to determine their own destiny. Similar to how the aristocratic powers of the time invaded France to restore the aristocracy, here a foreign country is meddling in the internal affairs of Westmark. And just as France repelled the great powers with an army led by the people and of the people, the Westmark forces run by Florian, and his lieutenants, Theo — now the eponymous Kestrel — and Justin, fight to preserve the country. But becoming a general, a tradesman in blood and death, costs the artistic and conscientious Theo a great deal. He has to cut off pieces of himself in the service of a more pressing need. Meanwhile, Mickle must run her government in exile. Musket and his master, Count Las Bombas, are dragged in to serve as her advisors. She says she wants his advice, as he used to serve with the Salamanca lancers, one of his blustery claims from Westmark. The character Las Bombas is, like the bard Fflewddur Fflam in The Chronicles of Prydain, bombastic, yet of a true heart, and a solid friend. There are sub-plots involving some gamine children, and difficulties in the cabal involving Cabbarus, the villain of the first book. In the end, good triumphs not by force, but by compromise. Constantine, the young king, was set up to be killed by his guardian, but ends up being captured. He and Mickle come to terms, and they draw up a peace treaty to benefit both countries. Mickle sets up a representative government to reign along with her, but that forces her and Theo to postpone their wedding. |
3307869 | /m/094qcv | A Breath of Snow and Ashes | Diana Gabaldon | 9/27/2005 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/01qxvh": "Romance novel", "/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"} | Claire is the wife of Jamie Fraser, her 18th century husband, and facing the politics and turmoil of the forthcoming American Revolution. The preceding novel, The Fiery Cross, concluded with political unrest in the colonies beginning to boil over and the Frasers trying to peacefully live on their isolated homestead. Jamie is suddenly faced with walking between the fires of loyalty to the oath he swore to the British crown and following his hope for freedom in the new world. |
3309504 | /m/094t55 | Legacy of the Jedi | Judy Blundell | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | Lorian Nod is a promising Padawan and the best friend of Count Dooku. When Lorian decides to learn the ways of the Sith, Dooku must decide to side with the Jedi Council or his best friend. Thirteen years later, Dooku has become a Jedi Master and taken Qui-Gon Jinn as his Padawan. Lorian has been exiled from the Jedi Order and become a roaming space-pirate. In a twist of fate, Dooku will once more face his old friend. Thirty-two years later, Qui-Gon has lost his former apprentice Xanatos to the dark side and has after much thought decided to train Obi-Wan Kenobi. On one of their many missions, they must work together to fight Lorian Nod once again. Twenty-three years later, the Clone Wars have engulfed the galaxy. Obi-Wan and his own apprentice, Anakin Skywalker, have received a message from Lorian Nod calling for a treaty between himself and the Republic. Obi-Wan and Anakin journey to the planet, even if it is a trap. But the final showdown will be between two former Jedi, Count Dooku and Lorian Nod. |
3309710 | /m/094tlw | The Approaching Storm | Alan Dean Foster | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The Republic is decaying, even under the leadership of Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, who was elected to save the galaxy from collapsing under the forces of discontent. On the tiny but strategic planet of Ansion, a powerful faction is on the verge of joining the growing Separatist movement. The urban dwellers wish to expand into the prairies outside their cities - the ancestral territory of the fierce, independent Ansion nomads. If their demands are not met, they will secede - an act that could jump-start a chain reaction of withdrawal and rebellion by other worlds of the Republic. At the Chancellor's request, the Jedi Council sends Kenobi and fellow Jedi Luminara Unduli to resolve the conflict and negotiate with the elusive nomads. Undaunted, Kenobi and Unduli, along with their Padawans Skywalker and Barriss Offee, set out across the wilderness. Many perils lie waiting to trap them. The Jedi will have to fulfill near-impossible tasks, befriend wary strangers, and influence two great armies to complete their quest, stalked all the while by an enemy sworn to see the negotiations collapse and the mission fail. |
3310452 | /m/094w8k | A Tramp Abroad | Mark Twain | 1880 | {"/m/014dsx": "Travel", "/m/017fp": "Biography", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0xdf": "Autobiography", "/m/04z2hx": "Travel literature"} | The first half of the book covers their stay in south-western Germany (Heidelberg, Mannheim, a trip on the Neckar river, Baden-Baden and the Black Forest). The second part describes his travels through Switzerland and eastern France (Lucerne, Interlaken, Zermatt, Chamonix and Geneva). The end of the book covers his trip through several cities in northern Italy (Milan, Venice and Rome). Several other cities are touched and described during their travels, as well as mountains such as Matterhorn, the Jungfrau, the Rigi-Kulm and Mont-Blanc. Interleaved with the narration, Mark Twain inserted also stories not related to the trip, such as Bluejay Yarn, The Man who puts up at Gasby's and others; as well as many German Legends, partly invented by the author himself. Six Appendices are included in the book. They are short essays dedicated to different topics. The role of The Portier in European hotels and how they make their living, a description of Heidelberg Castle, an essay on College Prisons in Germany, The Awful German Language, a humorous essay on German language, a short story called The legend of the Castle and finally a satirical description of German Newspapers. |
3310677 | /m/094wy0 | Secrets of the Jedi | Judy Blundell | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | To be a Jedi is to safeguard peace in the galaxy. To be a Jedi is to defend justice against tyranny. To be a Jedi is to rely on the Force. To be a Jedi is to not love or live as normal people do…at whatever the price. Jedi know that love is not meant to be for them. But when Obi-Wan Kenobi and his fellow apprentice Siri approach a very human failing, the reverberations are felt for many years…to when Obi-Wan has an apprentice of his own, Anakin Skywalker, whose secrets will draw Obi-Wan and Siri further into the Clone Wars. |
3311086 | /m/094xpq | Boba Fett: The Fight to Survive | Terry Bisson | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction"} | After Boba Fett's father, Jango Fett, dies at the Battle of Geonosis, he takes his belongings and searches for Count Dooku. Inner feeling and ideas are explored, jealousy of the clone troopers, his love for Padmé Amidala and yearning for a mother. Boba uses the 'book' to help him find his father's employer Count Dooku to collect what he owed his father. He suffers a string of bad luck and complications, including a bounty put on him by the Jedi for questioning. In the end he finally meets Aurra Sing, who like his father, works as a bounty hunter. While Boba is on his adventure he goacles, with the book that his father gave him as guide. His father told him not to open the book unless something happens to his father. After his father's crucial death, Boba opens the book and there are recordings from his father Jango. So this book is mainly about Boba getting to the place where his dad tell's him, and get revenge on Mace Windu the Jedi Master who killed his father. |
3311547 | /m/094yjk | Plowing the Dark | Richard Powers | 2000-06 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Taimur Martin, the prisoner of war, spends five years analyzing and replaying his life while trapped in a single room. He has little outside contact. He occasionally exchanges words with his captors, and for a short interlude he is able to communicate with nearby prisoners using a tapped Morse code. He reads a book called Great Escape. He spends most of his time thinking about his life and relationship with his girlfriend Gwen. When his story resumes after he is released, he has a child and a wife, and much time has gone by. In the second narrative, a virtual reality machine ("The Cavern"), is being built by workers at the Realization Laboratory. The main characters are Adie Klarpol, an artist who no longer does original work; Stevie Spiegel, an engineer-turned-poet-turned-programmer; Ronan O'Reilly, an econometrician who hopes to predict the outcome of world events; and Jack "Jackdaw" Acquerelli, a young computer programming wizard. They are attempting to recreate the world inside a three-walled room. They create a completely immersing experience, but near the end Adie realizes that the technology will be used by the military. She has to reconcile with herself, but ends up creating another room which recreates the destruction and rebuilding of civilization. The author ultimately explores the possibilities of what can happen in one room, because near the end the two strands connect in a rather ambiguous way. |
3311734 | /m/094y_f | Who Killed the Robins Family? | null | null | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery"} | Who Killed the Robins Family? was a mystery novel in which all eight members of the Robins family are murdered or disappear throughout the story. The hardcover book provided no solutions to the murders. The books were also a contest where the person who provided the best answers to who, when, where, how, and why each murder happened won $10,000. The paperback version, released after the contest ended, revealed the answers to all the questions. Most chapters revolved around the death of a Robins family member, though one chapter contained a murder and a disappearance, and two others involved a disappearance. Most chapters contained all the needed information to provide all five answers regarding each death, though some gave only a hint as to an answer. However, if properly understood, it only took a bit of minor research to obtain the complete answer. The murders ranged from a classic locked-room puzzle to death by strangulation. The book also gives homage to several classic works of mystery and suspense. As the book is a contest, liberties are taken with proper police investigation of the crimes, which would have resulted in an immediate solution. For example, when one family member is shot to death in a darkened room, nobody thinks to check for gunshot residue. In addition, while some murders have fit very neatly with the facts on a theoretical basis, the method of implementation has questionable realism. |
3318976 | /m/095hqk | A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder | James De Mille | 1888 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/026ny": "Dystopia"} | The main story of the novel is the narrative of the adventures of Adam More, a British sailor shipwrecked on a homeward voyage from Tasmania. After passing through a subterranean tunnel of volcanic origin, he finds himself in a "lost world" of prehistoric animals, plants and people sustained by volcanic heat despite the long Antarctic night. A secondary plot of four yachtsmen who find the manuscript written by Adam More and sealed in a copper cylinder forms a frame for the central narrative. They comment on More's report, and one identifies the Kosekin language as a Semitic language, possibly derived from Hebrew. In his strange volcanic world, More also finds a well-developed human society which in the tradition of topsy-turvy worlds of folklore and satire (compare Sir Thomas More's Utopia, Erewhon by Samuel Butler, or Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Herland) has reversed the values of 19th century Western society: wealth is scorned and poverty is revered, death and darkness are preferred to life and light. Rather than accumulating wealth, the natives seek to divest themselves of it as quickly as possible. Whatever they fail to give away to wealthy people is confiscated by the government, which imposes the burden of wealth upon its unfortunate subjects at the beginning of the next year of reverse taxation as a form of punishment. |
3319237 | /m/095jmp | The Laughing Policeman | Maj Sjöwall | 1968 | {"/m/0lsxr": "Crime Fiction"} | A gunman shoots the passengers of a public transport bus with a sub-machine gun; he kills eight people (including Detective Åke Stenström), and wounds one. Detective Beck and his team suspect the mass-murder is to disguise the murder of Detective Stenstrom, who was spending his free time investigating the sixteen-year-old murder of a Portuguese prostitute. |
3319540 | /m/095kk9 | Autumn Term | Antonia Forest | 1948 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Nicola makes an inauspicious start to her career at Kingscote School when she drops her leaving present, a penknife, out of the train and pulls the communication cord so that she can jump out to retrieve it. She and her twin then suffer the indignity of being placed in a Remove form, when all their sisters have always been in A forms. The misery is compounded when they discover that Removes are not even allowed to play netball! Since there is nothing else they can do, they join the school Guide Company and hope to shine there. All goes well until a hike down to the beach is planned. Nicola and Lawrie offer to take a shortcut through a farmyard in order to get the campfire lit. Unfortunately a haystack on the farm is found burned down later that afternoon and the twins are the prime suspects. Lois Sanger, their Patrol Leader, should be the one to take responsibility but instead twists the story to make herself look good. After an agonizing Court of Honour, the twins are asked to leave the company. Halfterm with the family gives opportunity for the elder Marlows to laugh at the twins' failures. Nicola takes advice from her eldest brother, Giles (a lieutenant in the Navy), that she should concentrate on what she is good at - being bad! A few weeks later, when things are particularly miserable at school, she remembers his advice. She takes the train down to Port Wade to visit Giles and his ship. When she gets there, she realises that she has not enough money for the return ticket and that she has no idea where to find Giles. Eventually she tracks him down and, although he is singularly unimpressed with her, he does at least put her on the train back to school. The second half of term is dominated by the fundraising efforts of the Third form. The other classes are organising a Bazaar, and offer Third Remove the Jumble and Kitchen stalls. Preferring to do their own thing, Third Remove put on a play. Tim (Thalia) Keith, niece of the Headmistress, writes a version of The Prince and the Pauper so that Nicola can be Edward VI and Lawrie can play Tom Canty, the beggar boy who looks just like the king. The play is saved by Lois Sanger who agrees to read the narration for them, in an attempt to atone for her actions in the Guide company. Nicola is unreconciled, but acknowledges that Lois does read well. However, it is Lawrie who is the star of the show, carrying the rest of the cast with her. Nicola, alone of Third Remove, makes a respectable showing in the end of term exams. However, the rest of the form are more than satisfied to have earned the epithet 'brilliant eccentrics' from one of the Sixth Form, if a little embarrassed to discover that through Nicola's efforts they have also won the Form Tidiness Prize! |
3319760 | /m/095l8g | The Marlows and the Traitor | Antonia Forest | 1953 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Taking an early morning walk in a fierce storm, Peter Marlow is deliberately snubbed by one of his teachers from Dartmouth Naval College, Lewis Foley, who is spending the Easter holidays in the fishing village of St Anne's Oldport. Later, he and his sister Nicola, follow an irresistible sign to a place called Mariners. Mariners turns out to be a deserted house complete with its own crow's nest and a sign to Foley's Folly Light. Nicola discovers from one of her fishermen friends, Robert Anquetil, that Lewis had grown up in the village and that Mariners belongs to his family. Anquetil warns her not to go near the house again. However, when she returns to the hotel where the Marlows are staying, she finds that Peter has already told the others and that they are planning a trip that afternoon. Reluctantly, Nicola agrees to go along with them. The children enter the house and go exploring. While Nicola, Peter and Lawrie go down to the cellars, Ginty agrees to keep guard. But when she hears a noise she panics and follows them down the stairs. Peter has found some microfiche which seems to show details of Naval secrets. A man enters the cellars and the girls are afraid, but Peter recognises him as Lewis Foley and starts to tell him about the secrets he has found. Foley produces a gun and forces the children to come with him on his boat, but Lawrie manages to escape. Nicola puts sugar in the boat's engine so that Foley can't take them further out to sea. Instead he lands at the lighthouse and signals to someone to collect him there. He is ordered to dispose of the children but ignores this command. Lawrie gets run over on her way back to the hotel and is knocked unconscious. When she recovers she tells Robert Anquetil, who turns out to be a secret agent, what happened. He is ordered not to look for the children, since capturing the traitor and his allies is more important. Peter and Nicola make a plan to signal from the lighthouse to any passing ships. Nicola and Ginty pretend that Peter has drowned, trying to escape from the lighthouse so that he can hide without Foley coming to look for him. Foley seems genuinely upset about Peter and is kind to the girls. Later that night, they signal SOS, watching the Naval fleet go past without seeing them. However, they persevere and eventually are spotted by Anquetil. Foley comes up the stairs when they are signalling but Ginty throws her lamp at him so that he is seriously injured. The next day, a submarine emerges and men come to collect Foley and the children. Peter has taken Foley's revolver and he shoots the Admiral. But before anything else can happen, the Navy appear and the submarine is destroyed. The children are rescued and Nicola fulfils an ambition on the way home, when she is allowed onto the bridge of the destroyer. Nicola and Peter are a little disappointed that they are forbidden from telling anyone their adventures, but Ginty is glad to forget the whole thing. |
3320089 | /m/095m4m | Falconer's Lure | Antonia Forest | 1957-12 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The Marlow family are staying at their cousin Jon's farm during the school holidays. Out collecting eggs early one morning, Nicola Marlow hears what she thinks is a cat caught in the top of a tree. She climbs up to rescue it, only to find that it is a bird, wearing leather thongs. Before she can make any attempt to save it, its owner climbs up beside her. He tells her that the bird is a falcon called Jael and its thongs, or jesses, have broken loose. Nicola recognises him as Patrick Merrick and tells him who she is. He asks if she would like to help with the hawks over the summer. While they are out with the hawks that afternoon, Patrick and Nicola feel something a bit like an earthquake. When they get back, they find out that it was her cousin Jon's plane crashing and he is dead. Nicola's father inherits the farm and the family will not be returning to London. Neither Captain Marlow, nor his eldest son Giles, want to leave the Navy to run the farm. Nicola suggests by accident that her sister Rowan should do it. She offers and eventually her parents agree that she can leave school to become a farmer. Nicola and Patrick spend most of their time with the hawks over the summer. While they are teaching Jael to catch rabbits, Peter who is out shooting rabbits, shoots Jael and kills her. Later, Regina rakes away and, although Patrick later finds her caught in some netting, she has forgotten him so he lets her go. Only Sprog, the little merlin who Patrick thinks of as a joke, is left. The other big event of the summer is the Colebridge Festival. Nicola comes second in the singing competition, despite stopping in the middle of her song because it reminds her of Jael. Her twin Lawrie is sent out of the elocution competition for unconsciously mimicking another contestant. Later, however, she follows the adjudicator and persuades her to let Lawrie say her piece again. She agrees that Lawrie has real talent and introduces her to another actor. Peter and Patrick compete against each other in the diving competition which, in the end, Peter wins and the two of them become friends again. For Nicola, the gymkhana is a crucial competition in which she might win enough money to enable her to keep Sprog at school. Unfortunately, the other contestants think she is Lawrie and want to get their own back at her for Lawrie's performance in the elocution comp. She is knocked and bumped and falls off her horse. Later, Rowan offers her half of whatever she wins in the showjumping, but she is beaten by Patrick. When Nicola arrives home with Patrick she is greeted by his father who has a large cheque for Nicola from the sale of a secondhand book on hawking she bought earlier that summer. Amazed, Nicola admits to Patrick that she had been worried about the money for Sprog. |
3320223 | /m/095mhg | The Dew Breaker | Edwidge Danticat | 2004 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The Book of the Dead: main characters are introduced, Ka and her family. Ka sculpts a wooden statue of her father, it is cracked wood, scared and the image of him is thoughtful, pondering, staring at his hands. Ka and her father are on a trip in order to show the statue to someone who would like to buy it. The statue is a disturbance to Ka's father because he does not feel he is deserving of it. Before they reach their destination, Ka's father leaves their motel room with the sculpture and returns after many hours without it. Soon after he reveals the real reason he fled Haiti to his daughter. ″Ka, your father was the hunter, he was not the prey.″ The rest of this story is Ka seeing her father in a new light, not as the oppressed anymore. Seven: A short and seemingly completely unrelated story to the first, Seven is about a man whose wife arrives from Port-au-Prince to NYC. They've been separated for seven years and now are together again in a strange place, living together in a basement. In the basement also live her husbands two housemates, Michel and Dany. Her husband works two jobs, a night janitor at Medgar Evers College, and a day janitor at Kings' County Hospital. Water Child: Nadine works in a hospital. She has family in Haiti, and soon after we discover she seems to be a previous girlfriend of the man in the previous story. ″He should be home resting now, she thought, preparing to start his second job as a night janitor at Medgar Evers College.″ But when she tries to call him she finds the number unlisted as in the previous chapter it is noted "Gone was the phone number he'd had for the last five years, ever since he'd had a telephone. (He didn't need other women calling him now.)" because of the arrival of his wife. Nadine is very secluded, most of the story is about her unborn, aborted child. A shrine has been constructed for this child that is described in much detail. She is estranged from her family, lover, and country. She has a very quietly tortured soul. The Book of Miracles: Narrated by Ka's mother, The Book of Miracles chronicles the family's car trip through NYC to get to Christmas-Eve mass and their run-in with a look-a-like of Haitian criminal Emmanuel Constant. Ka's "Manman," Anne, is very faithful and struggles with her daughter's flippant demeanor and typical teenage angst. "What if it were Constant? What would she do? Would she spit in his face or embrace him, acknowledging a kinship of shame and guilt that she'd inherited by marrying her husband?" The potential presence of Constant coupled with the religious setting brings to light Anne's own guilt and fear of living a lie, both with her relationship with her daughter and as a member of the Haitian community in NYC. Night Talkers: It's quickly established we're talking again about one of the men of the basement, Dany. Dany has traveled back to Haiti to visit his aunt Estina Esteme. He tells his aunt that it is his landlord who he recognized to have killed his parents, who is also the father of Ka. Then Claude appears. Claude is also from NY but has been exiled back to Haiti for killing his father in a rage. Claude contracts to Dany is a rough way. Dany has traveled so far because he's found the murderer of his parents, only to find Claude, accepted into the community he stills feels so to be much a part of him. Claude, the man who murdered his own father. The Bridal Seamstress: The story of the magazine intern Aline Cajuste and Beatrice Saint Forte the bridal seamstress. Beatrice is not very compliant with Aline's attempts to guide or even start the interview. But Aline is not made for this job and is sympathetic and swayed by the person Beatrice is. Beatrice offers advice, saying things like, ″Everything happens when it's meant to happen.″ Beatrice takes Aline for a walk, motioning to houses, all her neighbors from different places in the world and she ends on the Haitian prison guard. Not the barber he's become, but the prison guard he was. She says, ″I knew him in Haiti.″ And then after some small talk Beatrice openly expands into the story of the prison guard she knew it Haiti. She explains the term, chouket lawoze, Danticat's settled on the translation Dew Breaker. Beatrice goes on to show her whipped feet. Aline's undecided whether the woman is even sane, but in the end sees sense in her and returns to sit by her side, to watch the leaves fall. Monkey Tails: This is the most detailed retelling of life on the ground in Haiti during Jean-Claude Duvalier's regime. It recounts the president and his wife on television, the regular radio addresses, and the exile of Baby Doc. This story also gives an idea of familial relations, the broken families living next door to each other, and never openly acknowledging their illegitimate relations. It features a young Michael, one of the men from the basement. The Funeral Singer: This is the story of three Haitian women trying to make it through a diploma class in America. The story falls backs on their pasts and futures. One of the women Mariselle may have been a victim of Ka's father, as her husband "had painted an unflattering portrait of the president...He was shot leaving the show." Also the teacher June, may be the patient of Nadine in the 'Water Child' who lost her voice due to laryngectomies and had to go a speech therapist, for when teaching "Her voice hisses, but is flat, never rising or falling." The Dew Breaker: This uniting end story clarifies the story of Ka's father, and his relationship with his wife. The relationship is a very strange on that echos back to themes of the book about family and redemption. Anne's husband is also the murderer of her brother the priest which makes the situation epically poignant. Danticat never seems to allow the reader to have any room for comfort. She doesn't let us off with anything. Nothing is easily answered, or explained. It's unbelievable and completely possible that Anne could forgive this. It's as big a question as the redemption of a murderer, no matter how corrected he's become. |
3320340 | /m/095mrz | Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman | Walter M. Miller, Jr. | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | The main character of the novel is Brother Blacktooth "Nimmy" St. George, a monk at Leibowitz Abbey. Brother Blacktooth, a former Nomad, is fluent both in Nomadic and Churchspeak. Unsatisfied with his job as a translator of ancient texts, and haunted by his roots as a Nomad, Blacktooth becomes increasingly restless. He feels pulled between the two societies: that of the church, and that of the wanderer. Blacktooth's reputation as a misfit compels the Abbot of Leibowitz, Jarad, to seek his expulsion from the order, while Blacktooth's unique linguistic skills attract the attention of the visiting Cardinal Elia Brownpony (called the Red Deacon since he was never ordained as a priest). Brownpony requires a translator in his travels in order to deal diplomatically with unruly Nomad tribes, the Grasshoppers and Jackrabbits. Thus, Cardinal Brownpony decides to enlist Nimmy's services, saving him from disgrace at the hands of Jarad. Brownpony and Nimmy set off to the conclave, along with Brownpony's other servants: Wooshin (aka "Axe"), a mysterious warrior from the Orient, and Chur Hongan (aka "Holy Madness"), his Nomadic driver. Soon afterward, the reigning Pope dies. A conclave of cardinals is called to elect a new one, including a Cardinal Abbess from N'Yok (New York). The Church had been exiled from the holy city of New Rome in previous decades because of an invasion by then king (or "Hannegan") of Texark. As a result, all papal affairs were conducted in the city of Valana, beyond the reach of the Texark empire. During their journeys, the group (specifically, Holy Madness) have a divine vision. The vision is of the Night Hag, who only appears to a man in order to announce the death of someone else. It is from her appearance that Brownpony infers the death of the Pope. The Night Hag is one of the three avatars of the Nomad goddess, Open Sky. Open Sky's other two avatars are The Buzzard of Battle and the Wild Horse Woman. Upon arriving at the settlement of Arch Hollow on the way to Valana, they are accosted by genetically handicapped Nomads. The Nomads are quickly subdued by Wooshin, an adept warrior. Among the Nomads, Nimmy has occasion to meet Ædrea, a beautiful mutant who is able to pass for healthy. The two fall in love, despite the fact that both are forbidden to fraternize: he because of his vows, she because of her genes. The group continues to Valana without her, and Nimmy is prohibited from seeing her again. Only after they have left Arch Hollow far behind does Blacktooth realize that he has left his rosary in Ædrea's possession. At the Conclave, Brownpony surprises the assembled cardinals by openly admitting that he is of Nomad ancestry. He makes this confession in order to embarrass a Texark scholar who was then present. Unfortunately, immediately after the outburst, a sickly student marches into the auditorium and attempts to assassinate the very same Texark infiltrator. Given the timing, it is widely presumed that Brownpony was behind the assassination, so attempts are made on the lives of Blacktooth and Brownpony. The violence of the Conclave escalates to a breaking point. The citizens of Valana, impatient for a new Pope, sequester the Conclave until the rival factions of cardinals (some allied with the Church, others with Texark) elect a new Pope. Under duress, the Conclave elects Amen Specklebird, a cryptic and oracular vagrant, who doubles as a cult icon for the Valanian people. Amen's election marks the first stage in a series of events that escalate tensions between Texark and the Church. Amen's reign as Pope proves to be short-lived. He makes an abortive attempt to return the Church to New Rome by sending a mission of Nomads and Cardinals east. The convoy is turned away by Texark guardsmen. However, the Nomadic contingent of the convoy, being hungry and poorly fed, decides to split from the Papal authority and raze the countryside around New Rome. Brownpony, with his entourage, are arrested by the Hannegan, Filpeo Harq, after a tense standoff in his palace. They are soon released under a suspended sentence of death. After the mission's failure, Amen controversially resigns as Pope and retreats to his old vagrant's cave overlooking Valana. While cardinals backed by the Hannegan declare the papacy illegitimate, a conclave of Valana clergy declare that Brownpony is Pope. Taking the name Amen II, Brownpony declares an effective crusade against the Texark Empire, leading an alliance of Nomads to recapture New Rome and excommunicating the Hannegan's cardinals. Meanwhile, Blacktooth accompanies the Valana militia, now led by Cardinals Nauwhat and Hadala, both of whom are of dubious loyalty to Brownpony's faction. Suspicious Nomad detachments trap the militia between a Texark army and themselves, and Cardinal Nauwhat defects to the Texark camp. One of Hadala's bodyguards, one of the Pope's Yellow Guards (elite Asian swordsmen), executes Hadala when he realizes that the cardinal has betrayed Brownpony. Blacktooth rejoins Brownpony, who elevates him to the position of Cardinal and sends him to New Rome to announce the coming of the crusaders. Blacktooth is seized by Texarks, who cast him into a New Rome dungeon. He eventually becomes aware of fires in the city, and is alerted to the fact that the Nomads have deserted Brownpony's cause and are sacking the city and countyside, while a Texark relief force approaches. He escapes the dungeon and falls into a drugged stupor, truly awakening in the damaged St. Peter's Cathedral, where he finds Brownpony and his last surviving bodyguard, Wooshin. Their reunion is disrupted by the arrival of a Nomad warrior, who informs them that the last loyal portions of the crusading army are departing. He warns them to flee, but Brownpony refuses and seats himself on the papal throne, the first Valana pope in decades to do so. When the Pope becomes aware of approaching Texark cavalry, he committs hara-kiri. Blacktooth stops Wooshin from joining him in the ritual act of suicide, and flees the approaching horsemen. Blacktooth renounces his cardinalcy before meeting briefly with the new, Texark-sponsored Pope, who turns out to be none other than the defected Cardinal Nauwhat. Blacktooth learns that the Hannegan Filpeo Harq, too, is dead, assassinated in an act of self-sacrifice by the vengeful Wooshin. It is mentioned that Blacktooth lived out his days as a hermit, not far from where Ædrea, now called Sister Clare, lives in a nunnery. |
3321416 | /m/095ppd | End of Term | Antonia Forest | 1959-12 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Nicola's merlin, the Sprog, makes off from the train when she is on her way back to school, taking a sparrow for the first time in his life. Returning to the station, she finds a new girl, Esther Frewen. Esther's parents are divorced and have sent her to boarding school because she doesn't quite fit in their new lives. She is not too worried about this, but mainly about leaving her puppy, Daks, behind. A few weeks into term, Nicola, along with most of the school, is shocked to find that she has been left out of the Junior Netball team. In fact, this is the work of Lois Sanger, Nicola's old enemy and now school Games Captain. She is a soloist in the Christmas Play, but does not find this much consolation. Half-term is less fun than expected, mainly because Mrs Marlow's mother is visiting. Nicola and Patrick manage to sneak off for a day to visit Wade Minster and look at the carved falcon and then enjoy a cold, dark ride back over the downs, while Patrick recites the Lyke-Wake Dirge. Back at school, Nicola finds that she has been given the part of Shepherd Boy in the Christmas Play, the part Lawrie desperately wanted. Lawrie thinks this is treachery on a grand scale. However, when she falls and hurts her leg so that she cannot play in a netball match, she finds a possible solution. Nicola agrees to pretend to be Lawrie so that she can play in the match - which they win comfortably. Lawrie is now convinced that somehow she will be the Shepherd Boy. On the day of the Play, Esther (who is now supposed to be singing Nicola's solos) disappears, leaving a note for Nicola. She has gone home to prevent her mother getting rid of Daks. Nicola, Lawrie, and their friends Tim and Miranda agree that Nicola should go back to singing and Lawrie will act. Miranda, despite being Jewish, agrees to fill the spare place in the procession. There is a huge fuss at the Minster when the staff realise what has happened and there will clearly be "blood for breakfast" before too long. However, no-one can think of a better plan. Everyone, including Grandmother and Patrick, is amazed by Nicola's singing and Lawrie's acting. Ginty and Ann play Gabriel and Mary respectively, causing Mrs Marlow a certain embarrassment when she realises how much her family have dominated the production. |
3321893 | /m/095ql_ | The Restraint of Beasts | Magnus Mills | 1998 | {"/m/0q9mp": "Tragicomedy", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The novel starts with a phone call, "Mr McCrindle's fence has gone slack", and sees the three main characters duly dispatched to the scene of Tam and Richie's previous job, which they have left in a hurry. The ensuing Kafkaesque incidents set the tone for the rest of the novel, where Tam, Richie, and the narrator find themselves 'sent off' to England in work-related 'exile'. |
3321984 | /m/095qvk | Transcendent | Stephen Baxter | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The story alternates between two timelines: the world of Michael Poole in the year 2047, and that of Alia, a posthuman girl who lives approximately half a million years in the future. Engineer Michael Poole is recovering from the death of Morag, his pregnant wife. Poole works as a consultant designing space propulsion systems, and dreams of being able to one day explore the stars. However, there are more pressing matters; humanity faces a serious bottleneck, with the Earth reeling from the effects of anthropogenic climate change and resource depletion; automobile production has all but ceased, except for hydrogen-based mass transit, and air travel is limited to the very rich. Due to climate change, the oceans have become dead zones, with rising sea levels and severe weather displacing millions. While working in Siberia, Michael's son Tom is injured by an explosion of methane gas from previously frozen hydrates, suddenly released from the now-melting tundra. Michael begins to research whether this is an isolated incident or the beginning of something more serious. With the help of an artificial sentience named Gea, he discovers that a potential release of all such frozen greenhouse gasses could destabilize the environment enough to make the Earth untenable for human habitation, in a repeat of the Permian extinction. Michael consults members of the Poole family, who come together to work on the problem. Tom, John, and the elderly George (a principal character of Coalescent) reunite, and a maverick geoengineering company funds the project. Michael designs a subsurface refrigeration system that could stabilize the frozen hydrates. Meanwhile, Michael continues to be haunted by visions of his dead wife, apparitions he has been seeing his entire life, even before he first met her. He becomes obsessed with discovering the origin of this phenomenon, and his quest for answers drives a wedge between him and his family. Aunt Rosa Poole (from Coalescent), a Catholic priest and ex-member of the Order, helps Michael research the problem, drawing on her vast knowledge, stemming in small part from her relationship with the Coalescent hive and its historical archives. The rest of the Poole family joins the investigation when Morag appears during a trial test of the engineering project. This time, everyone sees Morag, even observing drones recording the event. After the project is bombed by a terrorist group, Morag goes from being an apparition to reincarnating in physical reality. This frightens everyone, even Michael. 500,000 years in the future, the Nord, a generation ship, sails through the galaxy carrying Alia, a young girl, and her family. As part of a government program called the "Redemption", Alia is obligated to witness the life of Michael Poole, from start to finish. Pressured by her family to leave the ship, Alia becomes a candidate for the Transcendence, a collective group of immortal posthumans who are attempting to evolve into a form of godhood, in effect leaving their humanity behind. After travelling the galaxy and observing several posthuman life forms, Alia travels to Earth to meet the Transcendence. Alia learns the Transcendence is attempting to redeem the past suffering of all humans, first by witnessing every single one as Alia witnessed, then by living as every single human and experiencing everything that they experienced. However, since observing is not seen as sufficient for redemption, the Transcendence ultimately desires to erase all suffering in the past, thereby ensuring that every human that could have existed does so. Lastly, if that is seen as too great a task, the Transcendence is prepared to reach back in time and stop humans from ever existing, thereby "erasing" the suffering that they intend to redeem. Upset about the goals of the Transcendence, Alia makes her way back to the Nord, only to find that it has been attacked in an attempt to get her to go back and face the Transcendence by a group who believes the Redemption is a mistake. Upon returning to the Transcendence, Alia agrees to find a human who can join the Transcendence long enough to debate the Redemption and help them find the best course of action. To do so, Alia projects herself into the past, to the time of Michael Poole. She appears to him as his dead wife, but changes into her true form, that of a small, hairy primate, a form evolved for low gravity environments. Alia convinces Michael to face the Transcendence. After an initial period of adjustment Michael makes contact with the Transcendence. Able to see both sides of the argument, Michael forgives the Transcendence for their meddling, but asks that they stop their efforts. Michael is returned to his own time, where he successfully completes the refrigeration project. The Kuiper anomaly, first introduced in Coalescent, disappears, and is revealed to be related to Alia's connection with Michael, having first appeared in the solar system at the time of Michael's birth. In the far future, the Transcendence collapses and the Witnessing program is shut down. |
3322653 | /m/095s2l | Closed Chambers: The Rise, Fall, and Future of the Modern Supreme Court | Edward Lazarus | 1998 | {"/m/05h83": "Non-fiction"} | The subject matter is familiar, but Closed Chambers argues that the breakdown had less to do with Warren Court precedents or abortion (the latter being exceptionally divisive, but rarely on the court's docket), but rather a fundamental split over the death penalty. This split was later widened over disagreements concerning civil rights litigation. Lazarus presents the zealotry of the abolitionists at the Legal Defense Fund, compounded by the actions of Justices Marshall and Brennan, as a major and mounting frustration even for the moderate Justices of the court. This frustration eventually lead even the center of the court - Justices White and Powell - to align with Justice William Rehnquist in seeing behind almost every repeat habeas petition the LDF's unwavering desire to abolish the death penalty, a position that even the moderate justices had rejected. If true, this would mean that an organization that set out to abolish the death penalty actually succeeded in making it more capricious, less well-overseen and more commonly used. Lazarus also argues that a tightly-organized network of conservative law clerks exercised substantial power over the Justices during his time as a law clerk. |
3322963 | /m/095sr1 | Crispin: The Cross of Lead | Edward Irving Wortis | 2002-06 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature", "/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"} | In 1377 England, a 13-year-old boy, known only as Asta's Son, lives as a peasant in a small village. His village is part of the territory of the feudal Lord Furnival. As the lord has been away for years fighting in a war in France, the village has long been under the direct control of the steward, John Aycliffe. When his mother dies, Asta's Son is left alone as he has no other known relatives. Shortly afterwards, John Aycliffe falsely accuses him of theft, and declares him a Wolf's Head, one who may be killed on sight. Asta's Son turns to the village priest, his only friend, who gives to him a lead cross that belonged to his mother, and reveals that his true name is Crispin. The priest promises to reveal to Crispin the truth of who his father was, but before he can, Aycliffe's men murder him, forcing Crispin to flee the village by himself, pursued by the steward. Having lived his whole life as a poor peasant, Crispin has no knowledge of the outside world, and no useful skills. He is saved from starvation by a traveling jester named Bear, who forces Crispin to swear an oath to become his servant. Realizing that Crispin is still being hunted by Aycliffe, Bear asks to view the writing on the lead cross that Crispin still carries. Bear refuses to tell the illiterate Crispin what the words say, although Crispin realizes that it is very important. Bear jerkey with Crispin, criticizing his lack of knowledge and his subservient personality. Crispin is likewise initially put off by Bear's seemingly treasonous and blasphemous attitudes about freedom for the common man from both noble and religious control. During their travels together, however, Bear begins to teach Crispin various skills and Crispin slowly begins to gain confidence in himself. A true bond of friendship begins to develop, and Bear eventually releases Crispin from his oath of servitude. Instead, he asks if Crispin will become his apprentice, which he happily agrees to. Posing as a father and son, the two travel towards the city of Great Wexly. Although it is the capital city of Lord Furnival's lands, Bear insists that he has important business to complete there. |
3324738 | /m/095wqp | The Real Life of Sebastian Knight | Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov | null | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The narrator, V., is absorbed in the composition of his first literary work, a biography of his half-brother the famous Russian-born English novelist, Sebastian Knight (1899–1936). In the course of his quest he tracks down Sebastian's acquaintances from Cambridge, and interviews friends and acquaintances, including friends Helen Pratt and P.G. Sheldon, the poet Alexis Pan, and the painter Roy Carswell. In the course of his biography V. also reviews Sebastian's books (see below) and attempts to refute the views of the "misleading" biography by Knight's former secretary Mr. Goodman, The Tragedy of Sebastian Knight. Goodman maintains that Knight was too aloof and cut off from real life. V. concludes that, after a long-running romantic relationship with Clare Bishop, Sebastian's final years were addled by a love affair with another woman—a Russian whom he presumably met at a hotel in Blauberg, where Sebastian spent time recuperating from heart ailments in in June 1929. V. leaves for Blauberg, where, with the help of an unpredictable private detective, he acquires a list of the names of four women who were staying at the hotel during the same time period as Sebastian: Mademoiselle Lidya Bohemsky, of Paris; Madame de Rechnoy, also of Paris; Helene Grinstein, of Berlin; and Helene von Graun, who, despite her German name, spoke Russian and also lived in Paris. V. is intent on tracking down each of the women to interview them. After dismissing the possibility of Helene Grinstein, his search leads him to Paris, and the list narrows to two candidates: Mme de Rechnoy and Mme von Graun. V. first suspects Mme de Rechnoy of being the mystery woman based on a compelling description from her ex-husband, Pahl Palich Rechnoy. Mme de Rechnoy has left her husband and can not be located, leaving V. unsatisfied. However, after meeting Mme von Graun's friend, Mme Nina Lecerf, and hearing stories of von Graun's unflattering affair with a Russian, V. becomes convinced that Helene von Graun is the woman in question. Nina invites V. to visit her in the country, where Helene will be staying with the Lecerfs. V. accepts, and, worried that he will miss his prey, writes a brief letter to Helene announcing his intention to meet her there. At the country house V. finds that Helene von Graun has not yet arrived. He mentions his letter to Nina, which angers her. Through a series of subtle exchanges, V. learns that it is Nina Lecerf herself, and not Helene von Graun, who was Sebastian's final romance. Nina was, in fact, the Mme de Rechnoy who V. had originally suspected, but never met. The final chapters of the narration deal with The Doubtful Asphodel, Sebastian's final novel, which is centered on a dying man and his slow decay. V.'s description of then novel reveals similarities and coincidence not only with Sebastian's life, but with V.'s own investigative adventures. V. tries to account for Sebastian's final years, including a last, cryptic letter from Sebastian asking V. to visit him at a hospital in France. As V. makes the trip to France, his ties to his own life become increasingly visible for their tenuousness: his employer strains his ability to travel, he struggles to remember necessary details such as the hospital name, he even lacks sufficient money to travel efficiently. V. finally arrives at the hospital and listens to his sleeping brother's breathing from a separate room, only to discover that the sleeping man is not his brother, but an English man. Sebastian Knight had died the night before. The novel concludes with a philosophical reconciliation of Sebastian's life, and a final implication that V. himself is Sebastian Knight, or at least an incarnation of his soul. Nina’s and V. differing attitudes and expectations of the situation make it an interesting quest to analyse the motivations behind their use of language. The intentional change of V.’s behaviour and Nina’s up and down mood result in speech behaviour that is expressed through different emotional attitudes not the least visible in their body language. While the expectations of each other are disguised by Nina’s betrayal, V.’s final coming of age about Nina finishes an emotional tension that built up constantly. The situative context and history between the two persons in a drama like combination has its literary predecessors in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, mark the homonym of Sebastian’s second name Knight, Shakespeare’s Viola and Sebastian appear with Nabokov as V. and Sebastian. On Chekhov’s influence, Nina’s lap dog has already been mentioned. |
3327156 | /m/095_q8 | The Love Suicides at Amijima | Monzaemon Chikamatsu | null | null | Koharu is a 19 year old prostitute at the Kinokuni House in Sonezaki, who is being competed for by Kamiya Jihei (a struggling 28 year old married paper merchant) and Tahei (the wealthy and arrogant merchant nicknamed the Lone Wolf for his lack of family and possibly friends). She loves Jihei and does her best to avoid Tahei, but one night she has a samurai customer over at Kawachi House. She makes her way through the streets of the pleasure quarter but doesn't quite avoid Tahei. Tahei follows her in and boastingly propositions her. The samurai shows up, head encased in a deep wicker hat to preserve his anonymity. Tahei peers in and is frightened away by the samurai's fierce eyes. The samurai is then examined by Koharu's maid. Satisfied that he is not Jihei, she leaves the two alone to do what they will. The samurai reproaches the proprietress and Koharu: he had come all the way there, at considerable trouble to clear the overnight visit with his superiors, and they have treated him shamefully and not made his visit pleasant at all, with a poor welcome and a gloomy Koharu. Koharu begins talking to him, but asks him such morbid questions about suicide that the samurai is positively nonplussed by such morbidity. They move to a room by the garden so the samurai "can at least distract ourselves by looking at the lanterns" since Koharu's conversation is certainly not distracting. Jihei creeps around outside that room, resolving that he will signal her somehow and the two will run off and commit suicide together, like Koharu had promised him. The samurai guesses as much as some suicidal pact had been agreed upon between Koharu and Jihei and that this pact is the reason for her unhappiness; he begs her to confide in him. She gratefully does, and confesses that while she had indeed promised to kill herself with Jihei since he was financially incapable of ransoming her and her contract had more than five years left to run - if another were to ransom her, the shame would be intolerable - but that she had promised hastily and did not really feel like dying. Would the samurai agree to be her customer for a year and so thwart Jihei? The samurai agrees. Jihei overhears everything and is infuriated by her treachery. Her request is the final straw, and he begins positioning himself to stab Koharu to death. His short sword penetrates the shōji, but does not reach Koharu. The samurai reacts almost instantly, seizing Jihei's arms and tying him to the wood lattice. Along comes Tahei, who sees Jihei standing there in the shadows and begins beating him, calling Jihei a thief and convicted criminal. The samurai rushes out, and when Tahei cannot specify what exactly Jihei stole, hurls Tahei under Jihei's feet to trample to his heart's content. Tahei then ignominiously flees. The samurai looses Jihei and the hood of his cloak. Jihei instantly recognizes the samurai as his brother Magoemon, a flour merchant, nicknamed the Miller. Magoemon reproaches Jihei, laying out the stress on his marriage, his finances, his business, and his extended family that his infatuation with this fickle prostitute has caused, all because Jihei was naive enough to take her at face value. Jihei contritely admits his fault and announces that any relationship between him and Koharu is over. He returns to Koharu the 29 letters and oaths of love she sent him, and asks Magoemon to take back his corresponding 29 tokens. Magoemon retrieves them all, and a woman's letter besides. Seeing that it is from Jihei's wife, Kamiya Osan, he stashes it away and promises Koharu that none but him shall read it before he burns them all, on his honor as a miller. Jihei kicks Koharu as they leave, and on that note, Act 1 ends. Act 2 opens with a charming domestic scene of Jihei sleeping in the kotatsu, while Osan tends to the paper shop and their children. The maid Tama returns with the daughter Osue on her back and news that Magoemon and his aunt (Osan's mother) were imminently on their way for a visit. Osan wakes Jihei, who begins industriously working through his accounts on an abacus, so as to look busy when the two arrive. They make a great fuss on their arrival, accusing Osan and Jihei of various faults; Magoemon seizes Jihei's abacus and hurls it to the ground as emphasis. Shocked, Jihei inquires as to what could be the problem, saying he hadn't even been to the pleasure quarter since that fateful night and had not so much as even thought about Koharu. The aunt denies his word; her husband, and Jihei's uncle, Gozaemon, had heard much gossip in the pleasure quarter that some great patron was about to ransom Koharu and he was certain that the great patron spoken of was none other than Jihei. When Jihei hears this, he quickly explains that the patron must be Tahei; he had been unable to redeem Koharu in the past like he wanted because Jihei had always blocked his attempts, but now that Jihei had washed his hands of Koharu, there was nothing to stop him. Surely he was merely taking advantage of the situation. Magoemon and the aunt are relieved to hear this. But Gozaemon might not be as convinced, so they ask Jihei to sign an oath on sacred paper that he will sever all relations with Koharu. Minds at peace, they leave to tell the uncle the good news. Jihei's mind is not at peace however. He cannot forget Koharu and is weeping hot tears. Osan gives him a speech on her grievances, neglected by her formerly loving husband for no fault of her own, their business and by extension their children endangered by his fecklessness and distraction. Jihei corrects her: his grief is truly about his shame that since Koharu will allow herself to be ransomed, Tahei will crow to everyone about his victory of Jihei. Osan tries to comfort him, pointing out that if that is the case, Koharu will probably kill herself first. Jihei will have none of this, however. To prove it, Osan reveals that she had sent Koharu a letter (the same letter read and burnt by Magoemon) begging her to somehow contrive to end the relationship with Jihei; Koharu had quite obviously fulfilled her promise to do so, and so Osan worries that Koharu will keep her other promise to kill herself should anyone but Jihei ransom her. Osan asks Jihei to save Koharu, since she does not want Koharu dead as a result of her request. Jihei points out that the only way would be to put down as a deposit at least half Koharu's ransom in cold hard cash, but that he simply does not have that money. Osan produces more than half the requisite money, money she had been saving to pay a major wholesaler's bill and had raised by selling off her wardrobe - the money is necessary to keep the business afloat but "Koharu comes first." The rest of the money can be raised if they pawn all their finery as well. In that finery, they set out about their mission of mercy. They are intercepted at the gate by Gozaemon, come to demand that Jihei divorce Osan. Speaking venomously all the while, he checks to see whether Osan's dowry of fine clothes was still there. They are not in the dressers. He discovers them in the bundle, and insists at once that they are going to be sold to redeem Koharu. Jihei threatens to commit suicide then and there if Gozaemon continues to press him to sign the bill of divorcement. Gozaemon relents and leaves. He takes with him Osan as Act 2 ends. That night, Jihei leaves the House, saying he is leaving for Kyoto. Out of sight, he turns back, but narrowly misses Magoemon as he searches for Jihei. Magoemon is deeply worried about a lovers' suicide. He learns from the proprietress that Jihei had already left, mentioning a trip to Kyoto. Concerned, he asks whether Koharu is still there. Somewhat comforted by the fact that they say Koharu is upstairs sound asleep and convinced no lovers' suicide could happen that night, he leaves to search elsewhere. Jihei is deeply touched to see that his brother is still seeking to help him and save his life, ingrate and good for nothing though Jihei is. But he is determined to go forth with the suicide, and retrieves Koharu from an unguarded side-door. The two leave the pleasure quarter, travelling over many bridges. They stop at Amijima, at the Daichō Temple. A spot near a sluice gate of a little stream with a bamboo thicket is the spot- "No matter how far we walk, there'll never be a spot marked 'For Suicides'. Let us kill ourselves here." Koharu implores Jihei to kill her and then himself separately; she had promised Osan not to lead Jihei into a lovers' suicide and if their bodies were discovered together, then everyone would be certain Koharu had been lying or broke her promise. To forestall this objection, Jihei and Koharu cut their hair off- now that they are a Buddhist monk or nun, no one would hold the vows of a previous life against them. Jihei's short sword fails to pierce her windpipe with the first stab, but the second one kills her. After her death, he hangs himself from a tree by jumping off the sluice gate. Fishermen discover his body the next morning when it is washed down the stream into their nets. |
3327922 | /m/0961df | Star Quest | Dean Koontz | 1968 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | "In a universe that had been ravaged by a thousand years of interplanetary warfare between the star-shattering Romaghins and the equally voracious Setessins, there seemed now but one thing that might bring the destruction to an end. That would be the right catalyst in the hands of the right people. The right catalyst could well be the individualist rebel, Tohm... he who had once been a simple peasant and who had been forcibly changed into a fearfully armored instrument of mechanical warfare—the man-tank Jumbo Ten. But the right people? Could they possibly be the hated driftwood of biological warfare—those monsters of a cosmic no-man's land—the Muties?" ro:Star Quest |
3329196 | /m/0963t5 | Outside Providence | Peter Farrelly | 1988-04 | {"/m/012jgz": "Autobiographical novel"} | Largely an autobiographical tale, the novel revolves around Timothy "Dildo" Dunphy, a ne'er-do-well from the city of Pawtucket, Rhode Island, which borders Providence. After Dunphy falls in with a bad element at home, his father, a widower, exiles him to the fictional Cornwall Academy (a thin guise for Kent School located near Kent, Connecticut). Over time, Dunphy struggles with issues including class structure, loyalty, first love, and his ongoing issues with his father. Ironically, Dunphy finds that his fellow prep-school students merely represent a wealthier, more polished class of delinquent than the friends he has left at home. The novel was Farrelly's fledgling effort, and served as his thesis when he graduated from the creative writing program at Columbia University. |
3329518 | /m/0964bt | Mad in America | null | 2002 | null | Part One describes early treatments like a spinning chair which could reach 100 revolutions per minute, the Tranquilizer Chair which immobilized patients, and water therapies. Whitaker then describes moral treatment, dating back to 1793 and the French Revolution and established in the U.S. by Quakers in 1817, in which lay superintendents treated the mentally ill in small homes with great kindness and had good outcomes: About 35 to 80 percent of patients were discharged within a year, the majority of them cured. Pennsylvania Hospital reported that about 45 percent of patients were discharged as cured and 25 percent discharged as improved. In Worcester State Hospital, 35 percent were chronically ill or had died while mentally ill. Dr. George Wood, a visitor, reported in 1851: Part Two describes the rise of eugenics which did away with moral treatment in favor of forced sterilization of the mentally ill, and led to newly invigorated fields of psychiatry and neuroscience whose experts practiced insulin coma, metrazol convulsion, forced electroshock, and lobotomy. Part Three describes the invention of the neuroleptic drug chlorpromazine (Thorazine) by Rhône-Poulenc in France, and its purchase by Smith, Kline & French (today known as GlaxoSmithKline). The drug "produced an effect similar to frontal lobotomy", according to early reports by the company's lead investigator. Whitaker says that pharmaceutical advertising, articles published in the scientific literature, and stories in the media of "miracle drugs" transformed Thorazine into a healing drug. Whitaker says that marketing money from pharmaceutical companies began to flow to the American Medical Association in 1951, a year after Thorazine was synthesized, because of the Durham-Humphrey Amendment to the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act which "greatly expanded the list of medications that could only be obtained with a doctor's prescription". In Part Three, Whitaker also describes the American (but not for example British) propensity to classify patients as "schizophrenic", as well as the error (confusion of schizophrenia with the yet-to-be-discovered encephalitis lethargica) in the original classification by Emil Kraepelin which psychiatry chose to not revisit and fix. Whitaker then describes three pathways that dopamine may take in the human brain, and quotes first-person accounts of the effects of antipsychotic drugs on individuals. He calls a 1996 New York Times advertisement by a consortium of pharmaceutical companies a "bald-faced lie": the group sought to say that the cause of psychosis and schizophrenia is an abnormal dopamine level and that their drugs worked by altering the level of dopamine. Whitaker then criticizes some American studies, and points out the work of George Crane at the National Institute of Mental Health to get tardive dyskinesia recognized, and he contrasts the dosages that British doctors were comfortable in prescribing (300 milligrams per day of Thorazine) with what American psychiatrists prescribed (1,500 up to perhaps 5,000 milligrams per day). He sees irony in the fact that The New York Times reported on Soviet forced use of neuroleptic drugs (which Florida Senator Edward Gurney called "chemicals which convert human beings into vegetables") in "psychiatric jails" but called the same drugs "widely acknowledged to be effective" when reporting on American schizophrenic patients. Whitaker describes the demise of modern-day moral treatment in a short history of Loren Mosher's Soteria Project, funded by the U.S. while Mosher was chief of schizophrenia at NIMH. He attributes the results in a World Health Organization 1979 study of outcomes for schizophrenia patients (which found better outcomes in undeveloped countries like India, Nigeria and Colombia than in developed countries like the United States, England, Denmark, Ireland, Russia, Czecholslovakia and Japan) to doctors in the developed world who maintained their patients on medications. He then describes fifty years of American scientists doing experiments on schizoprenia patients: to intentionally exacerbate their symptoms and study the results. He compares the doctors' behavior, unfavorably, to 1947 after American trials of Nazi doctors ended in the Nuremberg Code for ethics in human experimentation. Part Four is Whitaker's description of drug trials for the newer atypical antipsychotics. He says that many of these trials were stacked in favor of the drug being proposed by eliminating the placebo, or by comparing multiple doses of the new drug against a single, very high dose of the old one. He says that the pharmaceutical companies and the press used their influence to make claims for these drugs (some claims that the Food and Drug Administration had explicitly asked them not to make). Risperidone and olanzapine, for example, were both claimed to have fewer side effects than the first generation of antipsychotics. Whitaker also tells the stories of patients whose deaths were caused by drug trials but were not mentioned to the public. Whitaker calls it a type of medical fraud that we tell schizophrenics that they suffer from too much dopamine or serotonin activity and that drugs put these brain chemicals back in "balance". He writes, "Little is known about what causes schizophrenia. Antipsychotic drugs do not fix any known brain abnormality, nor do they put brain chemistry back into balance. What they do is alter brain function in a manner that diminishes certain characteristic symptoms....". |
3329683 | /m/0964lh | Into the Land of the Unicorns | Bruce Coville | 1994 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Cara Diana Hunter and her grandmother, Ivy Morris, realize they were being followed on their way home from the library. They duck into a church, but their pursuer follows. Cara is terrified, but her grandmother seems to expect this. Ivy gives Cara her special amulet and instructs her to run to the top of the church tower. She tells Cara to find the Old One and tell her "the Wanderer is weary." In order to do so, she must wait until the stroke of twelve, and leap off the top of the church while clutching the amulet and say, "Luster, bring me home." Cara does, and ends up in a magical forest in a different world. This world is called Luster and it is the home of the unicorns. Cara makes several friends on her way to find the Old One, who is actually the Queen of the unicorns, in order to deliver her grandmother's message. |
3329879 | /m/0964yx | Ernie's Work of Art | null | null | null | The book begins with Oscar insulting Ernie's "getup", and Ernie explaining "beneath this stripey shirt, there beats the heart of an artist." Eventually Bert and the Count arrive, as Oscar insults the brightness of Ernie's painting. The Count counters, counting the "lovely colors". Once Prairie Dawn arrives (oddly as a brunette), Bert and Prairie begin suggesting ways that Ernie can improve his painting. Big Bird arrives on a unicycle with Roosevelt Franklin, both thinking there must be a party going on. Despite Prairie's best attempts to get Big Bird to stop, he collides with all of them, hurling Ernie's head through the canvas. Ernie is aghast with horror at the sight of his ripped painting, covered with Roosevelt's ice cream. Oscar arises from his can, wondering what the what caused the ruckus, only to discover that he now loves Ernie's artwork. Ernie gives the painting to Oscar, titling it "The View From Oscar's Trash Can". |
3330322 | /m/0965nt | The Great War in England in 1897 | William Le Queux | null | {"/m/090ts5": "Invasion literature"} | Le Queux's novel depicts Britain being invaded by coalition forces led by France and Russia, who make several early advances, but the brave English patriots fight on and eventually manage to turn the tide, especially after Germany enters the war on the side of the British. By the end of the story, the invasion goes the other way as the victors divide the spoils: Britain seizes Algeria and Russian Central Asia, thus decisively winning The Great Game, while Germany annexes more of mainland France in addition to Alsace-Lorraine, thus leaving the enemies crushed and both the British and German empires the dominant forces of Europe. |
3330816 | /m/0966c3 | Illusions | Richard Bach | 1977 | {"/m/012lzc": "Self-help", "/m/070wm": "Spirituality", "/m/0xdf": "Autobiography", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/017fp": "Biography"} | With some similarity to Nevil Shute's 1951 novel, Round the Bend, Richard Bach's mystical adventure story revolves around two barnstorming pilots who meet in a field in midwest America. The two main characters, who are doing what each one really wants to do, take on a relationship of teacher-student about the illusions that make reality. If that sounds like the point where Jonathan left off, it could be true: for Illusions may reflect what has been going on in the author's mind since the phenomenal success that changed his life. Illusions is a companionship and enlightenment story. Donald Shimoda is one of the two main characters in Illusions. He is a messiah who leaves his job of being a messiah (and also of being a mechanic at a garage) after deciding that people value the showbiz-like performance of miracles and want to be entertained by those miracles more than to understand the message behind them. He meets Richard, a fellow barn-storming pilot and begins to pass on his knowledge to him, even teaching Richard to perform "miracles" of his own. Donald and Richard go on a talk show at one of their stops, and Donald answers most of the questions. People listening to him don't like his speaking, and Richard gets a little worried. Of the lessons taught Richard by Don, one of the most important is that reality is based on perspective. The novel features quotes from the "Messiah's Handbook", owned by Shimoda, which Richard later takes as his own. A most unusual aspect of this handbook is that it has no page numbers. The reason for this, as Shimoda explains to Richard, is that the book will open to the page on which the reader may find guidance or the answers to doubts and questions in his mind. It is not a magical book; Shimoda goes on to explain that one can do this with any sort of text. The messiah's handbook was released as its own title by Hampton Roads publishing company, inc. The book itself mimics the one described in Illusions, along with more quotes based on the same philosophies displayed in Illusions, (ISBN 1-57174-421-5) (ISBN 978-1-57-174421-0). |
3330927 | /m/0966ld | The Hermaphrodite | Julia Ward Howe | 2004 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The novel's protagonist, Laurence, is a hermaphrodite whose unsettled father, Paternus, decides to raise the child as a male, though "he" displays normative gender characteristics of both sexes. Laurence is sent off to college, where he excels in his studies, particularly the writing of poetry, a skill that inflames the passions of an older widow, Emma. Laurence, however, is not attracted to her, and even displays asexual tendencies. On the night of his graduation, Emma professes her love to him and, being told the truth of Laurence's hermaphroditism, goes into a deep state of shock, and subsequently dies. Though it was Laurence who had stalled the consummation of their relationship, he nonetheless reacts emotionally, and returns home to his cold father. Here, Paternus displays the true level of repulsion he feels towards his child, as well as his regret that Laurence will never beget a male heir. He offers Laurence his inheritance in a premature bulk sum, if he allows Paternus to effectively disown him. Laurence vehemently rejects the offer, instead offering the money to his younger (and importantly gender-neutral) brother, Phil, with the hope that his brother will share his wealth upon their father's death. |
3331541 | /m/0967y0 | Bernice Bobs Her Hair | F. Scott Fitzgerald | null | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The story concerns Bernice, a wealthy girl from Eau Claire, Wisconsin, who goes to visit her cousin Marjorie for the month of August. Marjorie feels that Bernice is a drag on her social life, and none of the boys want to dance with Bernice. Bernice overhears a conversation between Marjorie and Marjorie's mother where the younger girl complains that Bernice is socially hopeless. The next day, Bernice threatens to leave town, but when Marjorie is unfazed, Bernice relents and agrees to let Marjorie turn her into a society girl. Marjorie teaches Bernice how to hold interesting conversations, how to flirt with even unattractive or uninteresting boys to make herself seem more desirable, and how to dance. Bernice's best line is teasing the boys with the idea that she will soon bob her hair and they will get to watch. The new Bernice is a big hit with the boys in town with her new attitude, especially with Warren, a boy Marjorie keeps around as her own but neglects. When it becomes clear that Warren has shifted his interest from Marjorie to Bernice, Marjorie sets about humiliating Bernice, tricking her into going through with bobbing her hair. When Bernice comes out of the barbershop with the new hairdo, her hair is flat and strange. The boys suddenly lose interest in her, and Bernice realizes she's been tricked. Marjorie's mother points out that Bernice's haircut (which at the time was only seen on "liberated" women) would cause a scandal at an upcoming party held in her and Marjorie's honor. Bernice, deciding it would be best to leave the town before the party the next day, packs her trunk in the middle of the night and decides to leave on a train at 1 a.m. Before she goes, she sneaks into Marjorie's room and cuts off her cousin's two braids, taking them with her on her run to the station and throwing them onto Warren's front porch. |
3331872 | /m/096885 | Kipps: The Story of a Simple Soul | H. G. Wells | 1905 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The protagonist of Kipps is Arthur "Artie" Kipps. In Book I ("The Making of Kipps") he is raised by his aged aunt and uncle in New Romney, on the southern coast of Kent. He attends the Cavendish Academy ("a middle-class school," not a "board school") in Hastings, in East Sussex. "By inherent nature he had a sociable disposition," and Kipps befriends Sid Pornick, the neighbor boy. Kipps falls in love with Sid's younger sister Ann, and Ann gives him half a sixpence as a token of their love when at the age of fourteen he is apprenticed to the Folkestone Drapery Bazaar, run by Mr. Shalford. But the Pornicks move away and Kipps forgets Ann. He becomes infatuated with Helen Walshingham, who teaches a wood carving class on Thursday nights. When Chitterlow, an actor and aspiring playwright, meets Kipps by running into him with his bicycle, their encounter turns into an inebriated evening that leads to Kipps's being "swapped" (dismissed). But before he leaves Mr. Shalford's establishment, Chitterlow brings to his attention a newspaper advertisement that leads to an unsuspected inheritance for Kipps from his grandfather of a house and £26,000. In Book II ("Mr. Coote the Chaperon"), Kipps fails in his attempt to adapt to his new social class while living in Folkestone. By chance he meets a Mr. Coote, who undertakes his social education; this leads to renewed contact with Helen Walshingham, and they become engaged. But the process of bettering himself alienates Kipps more and more, especially since Helen has in view taking advantage of Kipps's fortune to establish herself and her brother in London society. Chance meetings with Sid and then Ann (now a house servant) lead to a decision to abandon social conventions (and his engagement to Helen) and marry his childhood sweetheart. In Book III ("Kippses"), the attempt to find suitable lodging precipitates Kipps back into a struggle with the "complex and difficult" English social system. Kipps and Ann quarrel. Then they learn that Helen's brother, a solicitor, has lost most of their fortune through speculation. The loss of most of Kipps's money leads to a happier situation, however, when Kipps opens a branch of the Associated Booksellers' Trading Union (Limited) in Folkestone, and they have a son. The success of Chitterlow's play, in which Kipps had invested £2000, restores their fortune, but they are content to remain shopkeepers. |
3332015 | /m/0968hf | In the Forests of the Night | Amelia Atwater-Rhodes | null | {"/m/039vk": "Gothic fiction", "/m/0kflf": "Vampire fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature"} | The book is set in and around the author's home town of Concord, Massachusetts and in the realm of Nyeusigrube. The book centers around Risika who born in 1684 as Rachel Weatere, a God-fearing seventeen-year-old who lived with her father, half-sister, Lynette, and her twin brother, Alexander. Alexander lives in fear as he believes he is of the Devil as he is able to hear peoples thoughts and cause things to happen, including making fire rise up and down which causes an accident with their half-sister, who was burned by the fire. Aware of her twin brother's powers and his dislike for them, Rachel tries to do her best to comfort him. One day, an unknown strangers appears at their home, who is later revealed as Aubrey, and gives Rachel a black rose, which pricks her finger drawing blood. That night, Rachel hears her twin creep past her room and she follows him to find him confronting two vampires, Ather and Aubrey, who had came to transform Rachel against her will into a vampire to get back at Alexander for interfering with Ather when she tried to feed on Lynette. In an attempt to stop Ather from harming her brother Rachel confronts her but Aubrey grabs her brother and drags him off, while exposing a knife. Rachel tries to go after them but Ather grabs her instead and begins her transformation. Three hundred years later, the now vampire Risika has a run-in with Aubrey after accidentally trespassing onto his territory in an attempt to feed, he leaves her another black rose and a note stating, "Stay in your place, Risika." Fearing Aubrey, but not letting it on, she burns the note and leaves it where Aubrey can find it, and does not visit the Bengal tiger which she has named Tora, in fear that Aubrey would use Tora to hurt her. Eventually Aubrey learns of Tora's existence and in an attempt to get Risika to lay low, he kills the tiger. Wounded once more, Risika takes on the tiger's strips in her hair and finds a note with the name "Rachel" written on it and covered with tears. Enraged and thinking the note a joke she calls out to whoever left the note but no one answers. She then takes off, transforming into a hawk, to confront Aubrey, and a fight breaks out between the two and Risika realizes she can defeat him and transforms herself into a Bengal tiger and pins Aubrey to the ground. In desperation and not wanting to die, Aubrey offers Risika his blood, which opens his mind to Risika. Accepting this, Risika transforms back to herself and takes Aubrey's blood but before allowing him to leave she takes the knife he carries, which she had found out nearly 300 years ago contains magic from one of the witch's clans, and slashes him in his collarbone, avenging the scar he had left on her not too long after she had been transformed and tells him to remember the events of that day and warns him that even though she has taken his blood it did not make up for the death of Tora or Alexander. After Aubrey leaves, Alexander reveals to Risika that he is still alive and that he was the one who had left her the note. Believing he could help his sister, Risika informs him that she is happy as she is and the story ends. |
3335770 | /m/096fxh | The It Girl | Cecily von Ziegesar | 2005 | {"/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature"} | After being kicked out of Constance Billard, Jenny enrolls at the posh Waverly Academy located in Upstate New York. Jenny hopes to leave her old, unsophisticated, embarrassing past behind and reinvent herself as “New Jenny.” Initially, "New Jenny"'s debut seemed to get off on a rocky start as Waverly mistakenly had Jenny down as a boy, due to a computer error. While the administrators try to sort out Jenny's roommate situation, Jenny retrieves her luggage to the boys' dorm where it was sent. There she meets the handsome Brandon Buchanan and the charmingly sloppy Heath Ferro. Jenny is more taken with Heath than Brandon due to Brandon's metrosexual tendencies, unaware of Heath's reputation as a man-slut. Quickly, a room has been found for Jenny in Dumbarton hall. To her pleasure, her new roommates at are Callie Vernon and Brett Messerschmidt, two of the most popular girls on campus. Jenny occupies the third bed in the triple that used to belong to Tinsley Carmichael, who was expelled the previous year for getting caught with E on school campus. Callie and Brett were also with Tinsley when she was caught with the E, but strangely enough, only Tinsley was punished. Callie and Brett are suspicious of each other, each believing the other one snitched on Tinsley and is therefore untrustworthy. Callie is dating Easy Walsh, her adorable artsy boyfriend, but their relationship has hit a rut. After spending summer vacation together in Barcelona, Callie told Easy that he loved her and was crushed when he didn't say it back, especially since Callie had been planning to have lose her virginity to him after he declared his love for her too. She is desperate to recapture the passion the two had sophomore year but feels Easy pulling away from her. Meanwhile, Brett is secretly relieved that Tinsley has been expelled as Tinsley knows Brett's most embarrassing secret: the Messerchimdts are not New England old money, but in fact, hopelessly tacky New Jersey nouveau rich. Still, Brett is wary of Callie and does not trust her to talk about her crush on the new student advisor, Eric Dalton who seems equally interested into Brett. Even though Brett already has a boyfriend, Jeremiah Mortimer, she is eager to dump him for the more worldly Eric Dalton. Dalton invites her to his parents' home and she quickly spills her embarrassing life story but to her delight, Dalton finds her life story endearing. Seeing this relationship could take a turn for the romantic, Brett breaks up with Jeremiah via voice mail. Later that night, the first party of the year is held in one of the dorms and Jenny is blissfully unaware of the gossip already swirling about her: Jenny is a stripper from New York City who takes her clothes for less than a dollar at a notorious club known as Rooster. Unaware, Jenny accepts Heath's invitation to go into the school chapel alone. Jenny allows Heath to kiss her for awhile but is dismayed when he passes out in her lap. Afterwards, Jenny simply walks him to his dorm and leaves him but the next day, Heath brags about how hot and heavy he and Jenny got in the chapel. Embarrassed, Jenny leaves dinner early to go back to her room. Eager to fix her problem with Easy, Callie becomes convinced sex will make Easy love her and invites him to her room, unaware of Jenny trying to sleep. Jenny realizes the couple are about to have sex and is unsure about what to do when Easy accidentally knocks over some objects, hitting Jenny accidentally. Jenny is discovered and Easy is annoyed with Calllie for being inconsiderate to her roommate. Frustrated, Callie leaves the room to go to the bathroom and while she is gone, Easy and Jenny talk. Easy is surprised at his attraction to Jenny but their conversation is interrupted by the dorm supervisor's husband, Mr. Pardee. Easy makes his escape as Callie returns. Realizing she would get punished and possibly expelled for having Easy in her room, Callie lies and convinces Mr. Pardee that Easy was in fact, visiting Jenny and not her. Although skeptical, Mr. Pardee accepts the explanation and leaves. Callie then begs Jenny to go along with the ruse but Jenny is still unsure, despite her attraction to Easy. Easy and Jenny are each called in separately to meet with their student advisor, Eric Dalton. Jenny chooses not to make any comment about the incident, not wanting to get in trouble but not wanting to get Callie in trouble either. Mr. Dalton decides the matter will be resolved in a disciplinary hearing. After Jenny, Easy is brought in and it is revealed though Easy hates Waverly with all its rules and regulations, his father promised that if Easy graduated from Waverly, he would receive an apartment in Paris and be allowed to fulfill his dream of being an artist. After his meeting with Dalton, Callie insists on meeting. She quickly briefs him on her scheme and is pleased when Easy agrees, unaware of his feelings for Jenny. Jenny and Easy flirt with each other in their art class. The whole campus quickly finds out and are surprised when Callie is not angry at Jenny for "stealing" Easy. Unaware of Callie's plan, co-captain of the field hockey team, Celine Colista pressures Callie to select Jenny to be the target of the year's hazing ritual at the field hockey match against St. Lucius. Callie fears that Jenny will be embarrassed and then lash out by refusing to go along with the plan and tries to stop Celine but Jenny quickly agrees, eager to fit in with the new field hockey team she has just joined. Jenny also manages to reach out to Brett who admits to feelings for Dalton. Brett slowly comes to view Jenny as a friend and is tempted to warn her about the hazing ritual, facing an extreme backlash if she does so, but it is too late. Jenny performs the embarrassing cheer on her own, expecting the rest of the team to join and is initially mortified when she realizes the prank, but quickly turns the cheer around, even getting back at Heath Ferro. The rest of the team participates in the cheer, making Jenny one of the most popular girls in the school. The popular groups meet up at Heath Ferro's party and Easy feels distance growing between him and Callie. He leaves her with Heath Ferro and others who are playing drinking games to be alone. He joins Jenny and the two admit their feelings for each other. After the match, Brett meets up with Dalton who rebuffs her advances, much to her dismay. The next day, the girls are forced to play a scrimmage, despite being hungover and tired from the party. Tensions between Callie and Brett rise and the two almost get into a full on fight over who sold Tinsley out. Quickly, the two realize Tinsley took all the blame and make up. Practice quickly ends and Brett receives a message from Eric who decides to pursue an affair with her. On her way back to Waverly, Brett bumps into Jeremiah who confronts her about their break up. Brett brushes Jeremiah off, elated with her new relationship. However, Callie's relationship with Easy is quickly deteriorating. Suspecting Easy's affections waning, Callie attempts to seduce him in the rare book room in the library but becomes frustrated when Easy does not reciprocate. Likewise, Easy becomes frustrated when Callie tries to grill him on his future comments at the disciplinary hearing. The two fight and Easy breaks up with Callie. The next day, at the disciplinary hearing, Easy is found guilty but is let off easy as he is a legacy child. Jenny is pleased with the outcome and celebrates with her roommates, the three of them quickly becoming fast friends. As the three celebrate, Dean Marymount interrupts, announcing Tinsley Carmichael's return. . |
3335785 | /m/096fy5 | Abel's Island | William Steig | 1976-05 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | The story is set in the fictional town of Mossville, which is inhabited by civilized anthropomorphic animals, such as mice, rabbits, toads and so on. As the book begins, Abel, a mouse, is enjoying a picnic with his wife Amanda, but they are interrupted by a fierce rainstorm and are forced to take shelter in a cave nearby. The two are separated when Abel braves the storm to retrieve Amanda's scarf, blown away by a gust of wind. The storm washes Abel into a river and he is swept downstream until he is stranded on an island. Abel attempts to escape the island several times, but fails, and finally realizes that he must survive on the island by himself. He finds a log and makes it his home in the winter. To ease his loneliness, he creates his family out of clay and talks to them. Poor Abel has to live through the hardest times, including battling an owl and surviving through a harsh winter. Later in the novel, another stranded victim from the river, a frog named Gower, comes and bestfriends Abel. Later, he leaves promising that he will send for help when he gets back home. However, weeks pass and no one comes. Gower either forgot (due to his lack of memory) or never made it back. Abel then decides to swim against the fierce river after the water level has dropped sufficiently. Abel eventually makes the hard trip back and returns to Mossville. |
3335856 | /m/096g1c | Tatooine Ghost | Troy Denning | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The action takes place in four years after the events of Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi and directly follows the Star Wars Expanded Universe book The Courtship of Princess Leia. Han Solo and Princess Leia are recently married. The plot outline is that the Alderaanian moss-painting Killik Twilight was stolen. The painting contains a Rebel code vital to the New Republic's survival, and Han Solo, Chewbacca, C-3P0, and Princess Leia are then sent to retrieve it at an art auction. On the way, Leia finds out some startling things about the past of the Skywalker family when she finds the diary of her grandmother, Shmi. |
3340663 | /m/096pby | Cocktail Time | P. G. Wodehouse | 6/20/1958 | {"/m/01z4y": "Comedy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The story begins when Uncle Fred knocks off Sir Raymond Bastable’s top hat with a Brazil nut fired through the window of the Drones Club from a catapult. Sir Raymond naturally assumes that the culprit was a young Drone, but is unsure how to respond. A letter to the Times would open him to ridicule, especially as he is about to stand for Parliament. Uncle Fred suggests writing a novel exposing the iniquities of the younger generation. The eventual novel, “Cocktail Time”, which Bastable publishes under a pseudonym, becomes a succès de scandale after being condemned by a bishop. Afraid of being unmasked as the author, Bastable allows his ne’er-do-well nephew Cosmo Wisdom to take the credit, and the royalties, of the book. But, with his friend Gordon “Oily” Carlisle, and Oily’s wife Gertie, Cosmo plots to blackmail Sir Raymond, and to this end writes a letter revealing the true author of “Cocktail Time”. Much of the rest of the book is concerned with various characters’ attempts to get hold of the letter. The action moves to Dovetail Hammer, Berks, where Uncle Fred is staying with his godson Johnny Pearce. Johnny is in love with Belinda Farringdon, but needs £500 in order to marry her. Uncle Fred resolves to help, but for the time being is more concerned with retrieving the letter. It so happens that Sir Raymond Bastable is also living in Dovetail Hammer, with his sister Phoebe Wisdom, Cosmo’s mother, and Sir Raymond’s butler, Albert Peasemarch, as tenants of Johnny Pearce. Albert is secretly in love with Phoebe. Oily travels to Dovetail Hammer and attempts to blackmail Sir Raymond, but Uncle Fred manages to extract the letter by posing as Inspector Jervis of the Yard. Cosmo then discovers that the movie rights of the book could be worth a fortune, and he decides he’d like to be its author after all. So he needs to get the letter back, and proceeds to Dovetail Hammer. Uncle Fred unwisely gives the letter to Albert Peasemarch for safekeeping, but Albert gives the game away after one too many pints at the Beetle and Wedge. So Cosmo gets the letter back. But then Gertie coshes him and grabs the letter. Oily and Gertie hide it in an imitation walnut cabinet, but this is taken away to be auctioned. Oily and Cosmo bid against each other for the cabinet but, needless to say, Uncle Fred had previously removed the letter. He then engages in a little mild blackmail himself, and extracts £500 from Sir Raymond in return for the letter. This is passed to Johnny, who can now marry Belinda. Sir Raymond gets the movie rights to “Cocktail Time”, and marries his longtime admirer Barbara Crowe, while Albert marries Phoebe. Sweetness and light all round. |
3345384 | /m/096xmy | Mansfield Park | Jane Austen | 1814-07 | {"/m/01jym": "Bildungsroman", "/m/01qxvh": "Romance novel", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The main character, Fanny Price, is a young girl from a large and relatively poor family, who is taken from them at age 10 to be raised by her rich uncle and aunt, Sir Thomas, a baronet, and Lady Bertram, of Mansfield Park. She had previously lived with her own parents, Lieut. Price, and his wife, Frances (Fanny), Lady Bertram's sister. She is the second child and eldest daughter, with 7 siblings born after her. She has a firm attachment to her older brother, William, who at the age of 12 has followed his father into the navy. With so many mouths to feed on a limited income, Fanny's mother is grateful for the opportunity to send Fanny away to live with her fine relatives. At Mansfield Park, Fanny grows up with her four older cousins, Tom Bertram, Edmund Bertram, Maria Bertram and Julia, but is always treated as something of a poor relation. Only Edmund, the second son, shows her real kindness. He is also the most good-natured of the siblings: Maria and Julia are vain and spoiled, while Tom is an irresponsible gambler. Over time, Fanny's gratitude for Edmund's thoughtfulness secretly grows into romantic love. Her other maternal aunt, Mrs. Norris, the local parson's wife, showers attention and affection on her Bertram nieces, particularly Maria, but is frequently unpleasant and mean-spirited toward Fanny. A few years after Fanny arrives, Aunt Norris is widowed, moves into a cottage of her own, and becomes an ever-more constant presence at Mansfield Park. Sir Thomas offers the parsonage to a Dr. Grant, who moves in with his wife. When Fanny is 16, the stern patriarch Sir Thomas leaves for a year to deal with problems on his plantation in Antigua. He takes Tom along in hopes that the experience will sober him up. Meanwhile Mrs. Norris has taken on the task of finding a husband for Maria Bertram and succeeds in introducing her favorite niece to Mr. Rushworth, a very rich and rather stupid man. Maria accepts his marriage proposal, subject to Sir Thomas's approval on his return. About this time, the fashionable, wealthy, and worldly Henry Crawford and his sister, Mary Crawford, arrive at the parsonage to stay with Mrs. Grant, their half-sister. After a year in Antigua, Sir Thomas sends Tom home while he continues business alone. Although his wife is indolent almost to the point of disengagement, Sir Thomas feels confident about his family situation, relying on the officious Mrs. Norris and steady, responsible Edmund to keep life running smoothly. The arrival of the lively, attractive Crawfords disrupts the staid world of Mansfield and sparks a series of romantic entanglements. Mary and Edmund begin to form an attachment, despite her original preference for Tom as the heir of Mansfield Park. Although Edmund worries that her often cynical conversation may mask a lack of firm principle, and Mary is unhappy that Edmund wants to become a clergyman, their mutual attraction grows. Fanny fears that Mary has enchanted Edmund, and that love has blinded him to her flaws. (Also, of course, she is in love with him herself.) Meanwhile, during a visit to Mr. Rushworth's ancestral estate in Sotherton, Henry deliberately plays with the affections of both Maria and Julia, driving them apart. Maria believes that Henry is falling in love with her and treats Mr. Rushworth dismissively, provoking his jealousy. Although nobody is paying much attention to Fanny, she is highly observant and witnesses Maria and Henry in compromising situations. Encouraged by Tom and his friend Mr. Yates, the young people decide to put on Elizabeth Inchbald's play Lovers' Vows; however, Edmund and Fanny both initially object, believing Sir Thomas would disapprove and feeling that the subject matter of the play, which includes adultery, is not appropriate. Eventually Edmund reluctantly agrees to take on the role of Anhalt, the lover of the character played by Mary Crawford. Besides giving Mary and Edmund plenty of scope for talking about love and marriage, the play provides a pretext for Henry and Maria to flirt in public. When Sir Thomas unexpectedly arrives home in the middle of a rehearsal, the theatricals are abruptly terminated. Henry, whom Maria had expected to propose to her, leaves, and she feels crushed, realising that he does not love her. Although she neither likes nor respects Mr. Rushworth, she goes ahead and marries him, and they leave for Brighton, taking Julia with them. Meanwhile, Fanny's improved appearance and gentle disposition endear her to Sir Thomas, who begins treating her a bit less distantly. With Maria and Julia gone, Fanny and Mary Crawford are naturally thrown into each other's company. Out of affection and because she knows it will please Edmund and his father, Mary goes out of her way to befriend Fanny. Henry returns to Mansfield Park and decides to amuse himself by making Fanny fall in love with him. However, Fanny is steadfastly if secretly in love with Edmund, and the tables are turned when Henry actually falls in love with Fanny. To further his suit, he uses his family connections to raise Fanny's brother William to the rank of naval lieutenant, to Fanny's great joy. However, when he proposes marriage, Fanny rejects him out of hand, partially because she disapproves of his moral character, and also because she loves someone else. Sir Thomas is dismayed and startled by her refusal, since it is an extremely advantageous match for a poor girl like Fanny. He reproaches her for ingratitude, and believing it is all female timidity on Fanny's part, encourages Henry to persevere. To bring Fanny to her senses, Sir Thomas sends her home for a visit to Portsmouth, hoping that the lack of creature comforts there will help her set a higher value on Henry's offer. She sets off with William, who is briefly on leave, and sees him off in his first command. At Portsmouth, she develops a firm bond with her younger sister Susan, but is taken aback by the contrast between her dissolute surroundings and the environment at Mansfield. Henry visits her to try to convince her that he has changed and is worthy of her affection. Although Fanny still maintains that she cannot marry him, her attitude begins to soften, particularly as Edmund and Mary seem to be moving toward an engagement. Henry leaves for London, and shortly afterward, Fanny learns that scandal has enveloped him and Maria. The two had met at a party and rekindled their flirtation, and Maria has left her husband for him. A national scandal sheet gets wind of the affair, Maria is exposed as an adulterous wife, Mr. Rushworth sues for divorce, and the proud Bertram family is devastated. To make matters worse, Tom has taken ill, and Julia, fearing that her father will essentially lock her up, has eloped with Tom's flighty friend Mr. Yates. In the midst of this crisis, Fanny returns to Mansfield Park with her sister, Susan, now joyfully welcomed by all the family. A repentant Sir Thomas realizes that Fanny was right to reject Henry's proposal and now regards her as his daughter. During an emotional meeting with Mary Crawford, Edmund discovers that Mary does not condemn Henry and Maria's adultery, only that it was discovered. Her main concern is covering it up, and she implies that if Fanny had only accepted Henry, there would have been no affair. Edmund, who had idolized Mary, feels that her true nature has been revealed to him. He tells her so, returns to Mansfield, and goes ahead with plans to be ordained a minister. While he is despairing of ever getting over Mary, Edmund comes to realize how important Fanny is to him. He declares his love for her, and they are married, and eventually they move to the Mansfield Park parsonage, where they live close to those they love best. Tom recovers from his illness, a steadier and better man for it, and Julia's husband, Mr. Yates, turns out to be not so empty-headed after all. Henry Crawford refuses to marry Maria, who is banished by her family to live "in another country," where she is joined by her aunt Mrs. Norris. Fanny becomes the effective mistress of Mansfield Park. |
3345895 | /m/096y6s | Sahara | Clive Cussler | null | {"/m/017rf8": "Techno-thriller", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/08sdrw": "Adventure novel"} | The book starts with a scene just a week before the surrender of Confederate forces of Robert E. Lee in 1865. The Confederate Navy ship CSS Texas is being loaded at a dock with crates supposedly filled with documents. The ship's captain Tombs has been ordered to take the ship past a Union blockade and to any neutral harbour where she should dock until summoned by a courier. At the last minute the secretary of the Confederate navy and an admiral arrive and mention that he will be taking a prisoner on board. Tombs is shocked when the prisoner arrives under heavy guard with Confederate soldiers in Union uniforms. The ship gets under way and is battered by the Union navy trying to attempt to pass the blockade into the open sea. To make matters easier, Tombs brings the prisoner onto the deck, and the Union soldiers stop firing and salute. The plot then moves to 1931, when a lady, Kitty Mannock, is flying over the Sahara in quest of a new aviation record. A severe sand storm fouls her carburettors and her plane crash lands in the desert. While her landing is on level ground, the plane reaches the edge of a ravine and tips over. Even though a search is launched she is not found. The plot then moves to 1996. A convoy of tourists are crossing the Sahara on a fleet of Land Rovers when they reach a scheduled stop at a village in the country of Mali. They find it is unusually deserted, but as they are refreshing themselves at the village well they are attacked by red-eyed savages who kill and eat them. Only the tour guide escapes with his life. Meanwhile working in Egypt on an archaeological mapping of the Nile, Dirk Pitt is able to rescue Dr. Eva Rojas, a scientist working for the World Health Organization, from a mysterious attacker. Shortly thereafter, Eva flies to Mali with an international team of scientists to investigate a mysterious disease that has been reported from various desert villages. At the same time, Pitt and his best friend Al Giordino are hurriedly flown to a research vessel outside the coast of Mali. There they are informed by their boss, Admiral James Sandecker, of an algal bloom, in this case a red tide, that is growing unnaturally fast, and threatens to consume the world's oxygen supply and extinguish almost all life. The growth speed is suspected to be fueled by some type of pollutant. Dirk, Al and Rudi Gunn are ordered to cruise up the Niger River to search for the pollutant, and determine where it enters the river. They do this aboard the Calliope, a high-performance super-yacht, equipped with comprehensive scientific laboratories, several weapon systems, and an array of communication equipment. The cruise is all well until reaching Benin, where they are forced to engage the Benin navy, which is completely destroyed. The continued trip is calm. They identify the pollutant, and at last find the spot where it appears in the river—but there is no chemical facility in the vicinity, and in fact no sign of anything entering the river. By now, the Malian armed forces are on their way, along with the Malian dictator General Zateb Kazim, who wishes to seize the yacht for his own use. After dropping Gunn off to make a run for the Gao airport, Pitt and Giordino let the yacht self-destruct after jumping overboard and swimming to the houseboat of the ruthless French businessman Yves Massarde. On his yacht, they manage to contact admiral Sandecker about Gunn's escape before being captured by Massarde. A UN rescue team picks Gunn up at the airport. After some interrogation at the houseboat, Pitt and Giordino manage to steal Mr Massarde's helicopter, which they fly north to Bourem, dumping the chopper in the river. Here they find (and steal) General Kazim's ancient car, an Avions Voisin. They drive the Voisin north, into the desert, toward the chemical waste processing facility Fort Foureau, the only facility that could possibly leak the pollutant into the river. En route to the detoxification facility, Pitt and Giordino run into an American nomad who is searching for a supposed sunken Civil War ironclad. They hide the car and sneak into the facility, only to be captured by Mr. Massarde's security guards, but not before they understand that the processing facility is just a disguise for an underground waste dump sitting right above an underground river, which flows under the sand to the Niger. Massarde decides to send them to Tebezza, a secret gold mine shared with General Kazim, where prisoners dig for gold under appalling conditions. Here they also find the WHO team, which had been coming too close to the truth about the diseases they were investigating, as well as the French engineers that were contracted to build the processing facility. Dirk and Al manage to escape from the mine, driving 300 km to the east, trying to reach the Trans-Sahara Route. When the gas runs out, they have to walk. They find a cave painting of a Civil War-era monitor, which local artists could not have drawn in such detail without having seen it. They also find a lost 1930s-era airplane, which they rebuild into a sand yacht. They determine that the crashed airplane had been flown by legendary record-breaking Australian pilot Kitty Mannock, whose disappearance was worldwide news at the time, overshadowed only by that of Amelia Earhart. Mannock's body is lying with the plane, along with her diary, which details her attempts at walking out, her discovery of "an odd ship in the sand", her taking shelter inside the ship, and her eventual return to her plane in a vain hope for rescue. Mannock had survived for ten days, and by her diary they were able to know how long she walked from the plane, and in which direction, giving them an area to search for the lost ironclad. Using the sand yacht they built from Mannock's plane, they finally reach the Trans-Sahara Route and are picked up by a passing truck on the way to Adrar, Algeria. They quickly reach Algiers, from where they inform Admiral Sandecker about the appalling situation in Tebezza. The UN team that rescued Rudi Gunn earlier is dispatched to Alger to pick up Pitt and Giordino, and is then flown to Tebezza. They successfully attack Tebezza and close it for good, but not before an alarm is sent to General Kazim. An aircraft from the Malian air force is sent there to investigate, and destroys the UN aircraft just as the team returns from the mine. They are now stranded, and decide to make a run for the real Fort Foureau, a French Foreign Legion fortress that gave the waste processing plant its name, and plan to later hijack a waste train to carry the team and the rescued prisoners to safety in Mauritania. Unfortunately, while at the fortress their presence is discovered and the trains are stopped. Giordino and a commando use a stripped attack buggy to reach a US Delta unit in Mauritaina, while the Malian army attacks the fortress with everything they have. After severe losses for both sides, the Delta unit comes to the rescue aboard a train, quickly defeating the Malian army and killing General Kazim. Now Pitt and Giordino borrow an attack helicopter and go to take over the Fort Foureau facility. They also force Mr. Massarde to lie out in the desert sun naked for three hours, after which he drinks several litres of water which was secretly polluted from the waste dump. They then let him board his chopper and leave, knowing that he will not live a week. In the end, the waste dump is cleaned up, the water pollutant is removed and the red tide growth rate decreases. The rescued Tebezza prisoners are treated for malnutrition and various injuries. The ironclad is dug up and the lost airplane is restored and placed in a museum. Dirk Pitt also ships general Kazim's Avions Voisin to his own car collection. A subplot involved a conspiracy theory regarding Abraham Lincoln, which suggested that Abraham Lincoln was captured by Confederate forces and was indeed the prisoner brought on board the ironclad CSS Texas, with the "Abe Lincoln" that was assassinated being actually an actor hired by Edwin M. Stanton. This was cut out of the film adaptation. |
3347935 | /m/0970nk | The Wedding | Danielle Steel | 2000-04 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/01qxvh": "Romance novel"} | Allegra Steinberg, daughter of movie producer Simon Steinberg and television writer Blaire Scott, is a successful entertainment lawyer who seems to have the perfect life. She has a satisfying career and is surrounded by people she loves, including her boyfriend, Brandon, her sister Samantha, an aspiring model, and her best friend, Alan Carr, a Hollywood heartthrob. While on a business trip in New York, she meets writer Jeff Hamiliton, and although there is chemistry between the pair, Allegra does not pursue the attraction. However, after she discovers that Brandon has been cheating on her, she meets up with Jeff, and before long, the couple are engaged and planning a wedding at her parents Bel Air home. As their September ceremony looms, Allegra finds herself faced with many business, romantic and personal problems, including a pregnancy in the family, the death of a client and the return of her father. The wedding becomes a chance for forgiveness, hope and reconciliation. |
3349248 | /m/09735n | Chthon | Piers Anthony | 1967 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | The novel is set around 400 years after humans have achieved interstellar travel. Many different planets have been settled and a strange malady called the chill is sweeping the galaxy. The chill affects whole planets in regular waves and kills over half the population unless they flee the planet immediately on experiencing the symptoms. The protagonist, Aton Five, is from a powerful farming family on the planet Hvee. The Five family has fallen on hard times since the death of Aton's mother, which led to Aton's father, Aurelius, abandoning his farm for a time to seek solace on other planets. Aton is expected to become a successful farmer and restore the fortunes of his family. This allows his father to secure a betrothal between Aton and the daughter of another powerful family. However, Aton meets a strange and extremely beautiful woman in the forest named Malice. He develops an obsession for her and, ignoring his father's warning that she is a legendary and dangerous siren called a minionette, leaves Hvee to search for her, abandoning his betrothed. Aton encounters Malice but she is disguised and he does not recognise her. He tells her of his mixed feelings of love and hatred for the minionette, and of the agonising futility of his search. His anger and misery draw Malice close to him but, once Aton recognises Malice, his attempts to romance her and make love to her push her away, further inflaming Aton's obsession. Aton returns to his father on Hvee and promises to tend the farm and marry his betrothed if his father can rid him of his obsession. His father sends him to a retreat planet where he is cared for by a beautiful slave girl named Coquina. The pair fall in love and realise that Coquina was Aton's bethrothed from Hvee. Coquina had left Hvee and put herself into slavery following the shame of Aton's abandoning her and their families had secretly set up this reunion. Aton promises to marry Coquina but then almost kills her after having a vision of Malice. Deemed to be beyond salvation, Aton is given a life sentence in the underground prison of Chthon. Chthon is a garnet mine in which the inmates trade garnets for food. An upper level to the prison houses the less dangerous criminals where the garnets are fashioned. Escape from the upper level is impossible since all of the underground tunnels have been sealed off. The garnets are actually mined in a lower level reserved for criminals too dangerous to live peacably in the upper level. There are rumours that escape from the lower level is possible through uncharted labyrinthine caverns. When the inmates in the upper level learn that Aton's crime was to love a minionette, he is deemed too dangerous to remain, but willingly goes to the lower level since his only interest is in escaping and finding Malice. Once in the lower level, Aton reasons that he is unlikely to survive an escape attempt alone so he manipulates the inmates into a failed revolt against the upper level. The upper level cuts off food supplies in retaliation forcing the entire inmate population to attempt escape. One by one, the inmates are killed by an unseen monster known as the chimera until only a few remain. In the final stretch of the escape, a mucus starts to build up in the throats of the survivors, sapping their strength and will until all but Aton succumb to a form of zombification. Aton learns from the zombies that the caverns of Chthon are so complex that they have formed intelligence. The zombies are now servants of Chthon, but Chthon requires willing agents and promises Aton sanity in return for his service. Aton insists he needs to find Malice and Chthon releases him. Unknown to Aton, Chthon considers mankind to be evil and is planning its destruction through agents such as Aton. On reaching the surface, Aton meets a man who claims he is searching for Chthon so that he can appropriate the garnet mines for himself. In reality, this man is Bedside, the only other person to have escaped Chthon but now a willing agent. Bedside goes with Aton as he travels to Malice's home planet of Minion. Aton finds that the female population of Minion, the minionettes, are all identical to each other and are semi-telepathic. Their beauty and youth can be maintained eternally by negative emotions, whereas positive emotions cause them pain and sufficiently intense love kills them. Aton realises that this was why Malice was so attracted to him when he was most despondent and frustrated. Aton returns to Hvee and finds and confronts Malice, where he comes to realise that he has been blinding himself to the truth and suppressing memories. He finally accepts that Malice is his real mother, conceived when Aurelius was filled with sadness following the death of his previous wife. Malice has been attempting to instil her culture on Aton, with its inverted emotions, so that he could be brought back to Minion. As the son of a minionette, Aton is himself semi-telepathic and delights in negative emotions such as the fear and pain of his fellow inmates as they were devoured by the chimera in Chthon. This perverse aspect to his nature was why he had been unable to love Coquina and had been imprisoned in Chthon. Aton is repulsed by this aspect of himself and Malice realises that trying to bring out his Minion nature would only push him back towards Chthon. Her compassion (in her terms) for him cannot allow this so she ceases her attempts and allows him to love her in "normal" terms, sacrificing her life in an effort to save him. Aton sinks into madness after Malice's death but is cared for by Coquina under heavy sedation while his mind repairs itself. Bedside insists on taking Aton back to Chthon and Coquina is forced to wake him. Aton confronts Bedside and Bedside suggests that Chthon can stop Aton's internal conflict between his Minion and human natures. Bedside goads Aton into a violent outburst, but Aton stops short of murder and realises that Malice's sacrifice and Coquina's care have worked and that he is finally able to overcome his Minion nature. He returns to Coquina only to find that she is dying of the chill which has recently struck Hvee. She chose to continue caring for Aton rather than leave the planet to save herself. Bedside has followed Aton and makes a final offer that Chthon will save Coquina in return for Aton's service. Aton agrees. Chthon, meanwhile, realises that humanity is not wholly evil and its view of mankind had been skewed by the criminals and madmen that had been imprisoned within the caves. Also, in curing Coquina, Chthon finds that the chill is an unintended side effect of a message sent by a superior intellect across the galaxy. |
3352265 | /m/0978bf | Vendetta for the Saint | Leslie Charteris | 1964 | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery"} | This story is set on the Island of Sicily, where the Saint is confronted with the Italian Mafia. The story shows a slightly older, more mature Saint. Although still a formidable opponent for any criminal, he will not storm into action but choose his moments more carefully. At the beginning, Simon Templar is on holiday in Naples when a small uproar on a lunch table draws his attention. An English tourist attempts to greet an Italian businessman as an old friend, but the Italian refuses to acknowledge the greeting and claims never to have met him. When the bodyguard of the businessman attacks the Englishman, the Saint intervenes and immobilizes the bodyguard. The Italians make their retreat and the Saint and the Englishman make their introductions to each other. The Englishman, Euston, claims that the Italian Businessman was his old friend Dino Cartelli. When Euston takes his leave, the Saint gives the incident no second thought. The next morning, the Saint's attention is drawn by an obituary in the local newspaper of an English tourist by the name of Euston. Apparently the man had an unfortunate accident. Remembering the previous day's incident, the Saint is unable to accept this and starts an investigation into the identity of the businessman. He discovers that Dino Cartelli was known as a faithful bank employee, who was brutally murdered by bank robbers. Apparently, his face and hands were mutilated beyond recognition. He also learns that the businessman with the bodyguard goes by the name of Alessandro Destamio. The next day, a limousine stops at the hotel and the Saint is courteously invited to have a meeting with Mr. Destamio. He is flown to Destamio's private island, and Destamio introduces himself as a businessman with many enemies who takes his privacy very seriously. When back in Naples, the Saint is attacked by a street robber. He simply neutralizes the man, but both he and the robber are brought to a police station for questioning. The Saint receives an extremely cool reception by the police officials, who ask him why he has mutilated an Italian citizen. Luckily for the Saint, a higher ranked inspector by the name of Ponti shows up, who discards the Saint without hesitation and even recommends him a good restaurant for lunch. After leaving the station, the Saint goes to the indicated restaurant because he realizes the recommendation by Ponti was a hidden invitation. There the two men meet. Ponti reveals to the Saint the true nature of his troubles: he faces war with the notorious Mafia. They will try to hunt him down and the police cannot be trusted. Ponti will be his only ally. The next move of the Saint is to visit the family of Destamio, including the lovely Gina Destamio. At night, he visits the mausoleum of the Destamio family, but before he can investigate the grave inscriptions he is clubbed unconscious. The Saint finds himself captured in a castle, at the mercy of the Mafia. Before Destamio can question him he is brought to the head of the Mafia, who is seriously ill. It appears Destamio aims to be his successor, but he has to defeat other candidates who wonder why Destamio has brought the Saint to their headquarters. It appears that Destamio claims to be from a worthy family, which the Saint might dispute. After being brought back to his cell, the Saint manages to untie his ropes and climbs out of the antique dungeon. Pursued by several gangsters, he descends from the castle hill and starts running through the Italian countryside. During the chase, the Saint has brief encounters with locals who help him, but their fear of the Mafia is all-apparent. A local barber manages to conceal him and tells him to leave as soon as possible. Bus passengers on the Palermo bus stay clear of him, realizing he is on the Mafia's hit list. The Saint manages to reach Palermo and contacts Ponti. Then the tables can be turned. Ponti has mobilised a secret military strike force, ready for battle and very grateful to learn from the Saint the location of the Mafia headquarters. The Saint joins the small army when they attack the castle. Although the castle is surrounded, the Mafia succeeds in breaking through the perimeter with a bullet-proof car. The army commander and the Saint and Ponti start the pursuit. When they cross through Palermo, they discover they have chased the car too long and the head men must have sneaked out. When driving back, the Saint leaves the car and sends Ponti to call reinforcements. The Saint enters the house were the Mafia top men have gathered. He is able to corner them, but before he can thoroughly question Destamio he is again surprised by one of the guards. After that the army troops arrive and although several top men are arrested, Destamio again escapes through a back garage. The Saint realizes he can only go to one other place and sets off for the Destamio mansion. There he finally confronts Destamio, who is trying to gather his personal belongings before going under. Confronted by the Saint, he admits his real name is Dino Cartelli. He offers the Saint a bribe in return for his freedom. The Saint lets him go, straight into the hands of arriving police troops. |
3352452 | /m/0978mv | Valley of the Lost | Jennifer Rowe | 2002 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | After having reached the Maze of the Beast and finding the amethyst, they continue their journey off to the Valley of the Lost to retrieve the seventh and final gem, the diamond. The seven gems are the lost gems from the Belt of Deltora, which had been stolen by the Shadow Lord to overthrow Lief's country, Deltora. The three travel along the river Tor, passing villages that have been raided by pirates. When they stop for a rest, they see a pirate ship. Realizing that it was the ship that a boy named Dain was captured aboard upon, they steal a rowboat in an attempt to rescue him. After Dain and a polypan climb into their boat, the polypan rows against the flooding currents of the river away from the pirates and toward shore. The polypan jumps out of the boat before the boat reaches the shore, and Lief, Barda, Jasmine, and Dain are floating adrift the violently overflowing river. They drift over a sand bar and arrive at the edges of Tora, a great city that Dain had been trying to travel to. They enter the city, and Dain is significantly weakened by the magic of the purifying entrance. They meet two Resistance members, Doom and Neridah after finding the city deserted. Neridah travels with the trio to the Valley of the Lost to find the seventh gem. Upon entering the valley, they meet the Guardian, who doesn’t use physical force, but games to protect the diamond. The Guardian enchants them to enter his castle, and asks them to play a game with him for the diamond. The winner of the game will keep the diamond, but the loser will have to be kept in the valley forever. Scared by this, Neridah runs away, leaving the three behind to play the game. Lief, Barda, and Jasmine manage to find all of the clues and guess the name before the time is up, and realize that the Guardian’s name is Endon, the king of Deltora. They also find out that Doom had been there before and won the game, but did not take the gem because of his shock when he realized that the Guardian was actually the king. Lief, Jasmine, and Barda find out the gem is not the real diamond, and leave the castle to find Neridah had stolen it. The diamond curses those who gain the gem by theft, and Neridah dies by tripping on a rock and drowning in a stream. After the trio retrieves the gem, the Valley of the Lost disappears and all of the creatures in it are replaced by people, who reveal themselves to be the people of Tora. They had been turned into their form because they broke a vow that they had sealed by magic. The Guardian turns into Fardeep, a mere man from Rithmere, but not Endon. The name Endon was actually the Shadow Lord’s idea, and was intended to trick any winners of the game. Knowing that they have all seven gems, the three travel with Dain back to Del to find the king who will put on the Belt to banish the Shadow Lord from Deltora. |
3352461 | /m/0978n5 | Maze of the Beast | Jennifer Rowe | 2001 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | Lief, Barda, and Jasmine had retrieved the emerald from Dread Mountain. They travel along the River Tor to get to the Maze of the Beast, where they will get the amethyst. The gems they are taking are part of a Belt of Deltora, which will defeat the Shadow Lord that has invaded Deltora. During their travel, they encounter a pair of children nearly drowning in a stream. They save the children, but they reveal themselves to be Ols, creatures created by the Shadow Lord that can transform themselves to become another living creature. These creatures overrun the west side of Deltora to keep the gems hidden. Just before Barda is about to die, a boy Dain attacks the Ols and saves them. In the process, Dain injures his arm and several ribs. This causes Lief to sympathize for the boy, and take him to the Resistance, a group of people who rebel against the Shadow Lord. Arriving at the entrance to the Resistance's hideout, Dain faints from the pressure and forces the three to guess the password before they are marked as Ols and killed. Lief finds a note and realizes that the password is the first letter of every word on the note. They enter the Resistance and Doom, a man they have encountered before, tests them by putting them in a prison for three days. The test is supposed to find out if they are Ols because Ols can only hold their shape for three days. As three days pass, Doom does not let up and keeps them imprisoned. Dain frees them from the cave in exchange for their agreeing to take him to Tora. When Lief, Barda, and Jasmine reveal that they are not going to Tora, they split apart to make them less recognizable. Lief, Dain, and Barda take a boat that takes them down the river to the Maze of the Beast. They realize that Jasmine was also on the boat. The boat is raided by pirates, and Dain is taken prisoner. After reaching the Maze, Barda is revealed to be an Ol by the real Barda. Unfortunately, they are captured by pirates and are dumped into the Maze. After finding the location of the gem, Barda and Jasmine separate from Lief to lead the Beast away and Lief stays to carve the gem out of a column. They regroup when Lief was done, and escape the cave through a blowhole. The blowhole blows just after they escape, which takes the life of two pirates. The three then start off their journey to the Valley of the Lost. |
3352472 | /m/0978p6 | Return to Del | Jennifer Rowe | 2002 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | The main characters of the book are Barda, Lief and Jasmine, who have retrieved all seven of the magic gems from their perilous Guardians and lairs. They now have the topaz, ruby, emerald, lapis-lazuli, diamond, opal and amethyst gems. The Belt is whole and made, but the hardest part of the journey is yet to come—they need to find the heir of Adin, the true heir to Deltora's throne. There is, however, another problem. Lief's father tells him that they would find the heir with the Belt, for it will show the way, but the Belt shows them the way but shows no sign of recognition of the heir. The party knows there is a problem and they have to do something about it. They also know that they need to recruit a member of each of the seven tribes as well. The seven tribe members are Lief of Del for the topaz, Manus of the Ralad people for the ruby, Steven (and Nevets) of the Plains people for the opal, Fardeep of the Mere for the lapis lazuli, Gla-Thon of the Dread Gnomes for the emerald, Zeean of Tora for the amethyst, and Glock of the Jalis for the diamond. In addition to this, they now need to awaken the Belt's hidden powers and find the heir to the throne of Deltora. However, along the way, their friend Steven and his brother Nevets tell the three to go across a field of hidden grippers, which are plants composed of deep holes with venomous teeth inside to avoid the Grey Guards positioned in the road searching all the caravans passing by. Lief and Jasmine escaped relatively unharmed, but Barda suffers severe damage. They are forced into a small cabin when they find the remains of a man, woman, and small child bearing a note from King Endon with the royal seal at the bottom. When the gang finally reaches the Resistance stronghold, Barda wakes up long enough to tell the three that the letter was false and planted there by the Shadow Lord because when Endon escaped with Sharn, he did not have the royal seal with him as it had always been held with Prandine. Barda's condition worsens, until he has almost died when all seven tribes are reunited. Lief realizes that Dain is the heir as the Belt is showing that the heir is somewhere in the room. To help prove this, Lief realized that Dain's name is an anagram of 'Adin'. Dain is then kidnapped by Ichabod just when Lief was supposed to hand over the Belt, and the Belt falls on Barda who then starts to make a recovery. Everyone heads to Del to rescue Dain and falls into an elaborated trap where the puppet master is revealed at last - no other than Dain himself. Dain is a Grade 3 Ol and he has been fooling them all along. Lief manages to kill him with the Belt and then Lief, Jasmine, Barda, and Doom escape to Lief's old home, where the second secret is revealed - Doom is actually Jasmine's father. Everyone is then arrested by Grey Guards except for Lief who then, with Kree, goes to the punishment place in the palace to try and save them. When he is there, he suddenly remembers a passage from a book that his father showed him: "Only the Belt of Deltora, complete as it was first fashioned by Adin and worn by Adin's true heir, has the power to defeat the Enemy." He rearranges the gems in the socketed Belt so that their initials spell Deltora (the order would be Diamond, Emerald, Lapis Lazuli, Topaz, Opal, Ruby, and finally Amethyst), and the Belt's powers flare to life, saving the country. Lief realizes then that he is the heir and the very last secret is shown, that Endon and Jarred switched places because no one could suspect that a king and queen of Deltora could work as a simple blacksmith and wife. Endon, Lief's father, dies a peaceful death now that Deltora has been rid of the Shadow Lord at last. |
3353389 | /m/097b0_ | Hunger | Knut Hamsun | 1890 | {"/m/0xdf": "Autobiography", "/m/017fp": "Biography", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The novel's first-person protagonist, an unnamed vagrant with intellectual leanings, probably in his late twenties, wanders the streets of Norway's capital in pursuit of nourishment. Over four episodes he meets a number of more or less mysterious persons, the most notable being Ylajali, a young woman with whom he engages in a mild degree of physical intimacy. He exhibits a self-created code of chivalry, giving money and clothes to needy children and vagrants, not eating food given to him, and turning himself in for stealing. Essentially self-destructive, he thus falls into traps of his own making, and with a lack of food, warmth and basic comfort, his body turns slowly to ruin. Overwhelmed by hunger, he scrounges for meals, at one point nearly eating his own (rather precious) pencil. His social, physical and mental state are in constant decline. However, he has no antagonistic feelings towards 'society' as such, rather he blames his fate on 'God' or a divine world order. He vows not to succumb to this order and remains 'a foreigner in life', haunted by 'nervousness, by irrational details'. He experiences a major artistic and financial triumph when he sells a text to a newspaper, but despite this he finds writing increasingly difficult. At a point in the story, he asks to spend a night in a prison cell, posing as a well-to-do journalist who has lost the keys to his apartment; in the morning he can't bring himself to reveal his poverty, even to partake in the free breakfast they provide the homeless. Finally as the book comes to close, when his existence is at an absolute ebb, he signs on to the crew of a ship leaving the city. |
3353451 | /m/097b4g | Mysteries | Knut Hamsun | 1892 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | In this intensely psychological Modernist novel, the community of a small Norwegian coastal town is "[shaken]" by the arrival of eccentric stranger Johan Nagel. An eccentric stranger who proceeds to shock, bewilder, and beguile its bourgeoisie inhabitants with his bizarre behavior, feverish rants, and uncompromising self-revelations. |
3356450 | /m/097gbt | Jedi Apprentice: Deceptions | Judy Blundell | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction"} | Family of former fellow student and rival to Obi-Wan Kenobi, Bruck Chun's father comes to Coruscant to investigate the events leading to Bruck's death. A trial commences to determine if there is need to have criminal charges brought against Obi-Wan. Meanwhile the Jedi are having trouble with an experimental pilot program as their ships are constantly being sabotaged. Obi-Wan is eventually found innocent of any wrongdoing, and the saboteur is found to be a spy using a false identity provided by someone working in the senate but the saboteur escapes. 12 years later Obi-Wan and Anakin Skywalker are sent on their first mission together to determine if the citizens of a bioship are being brainwashed into staying there. They discover that the ship's leader is none other than Bruck Chun's brother. Bruck's father Vox is found to still be working for Offworld corporation(now under the name Broken Circle). Vox causes fake malfunctions in the ship so it will stop at certain planets which a short time later come under the thumb of Offworld. They discover a plot by vox to cause an evacuation of the ship so as to allow himself and Offworld to plunder the vast treasury of the bioship. His plan fails as his ally(the same saboteur from 12 years ago) steals the treasury for himself and shoots vox. Offworld ships open fire on the bioship and Anakin gets into a starfighter along with Jedi Knight Garen and they manage to fight off the attack. |
3358984 | /m/097l2x | Roderick Hudson | Henry James | 1875-11-20 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Rowland Mallet, a wealthy Bostonian bachelor and art connoisseur, visits his cousin Cecilia in Northampton, Massachusetts, before leaving for Europe. There he sees a Grecian figure he thinks a remarkable work of art. Cecilia introduces him to the local sculptor, Roderick Hudson, a young law student who sculpts in his spare time. Mallet—who loves art but is without artistic talent himself—sees an opportunity to contribute: he offers to advance Roderick a sum of money against future works which will allow Roderick to join him in moving to Italy for two years. In Rome, Mallet believes Roderick will be exposed to the kind of artistic influences which will allow his natural talent to fully mature. Roderick is galvanized by the offer, but he fears his highly protective mother's disapproval and urges Mallet to meet with and reassure her. Mallet does so, eventually overcoming the woman's doubts. At the meeting, Mallet is also introduced to Mary Garland, a distant poor cousin of the Hudsons who has been living with them as a companion to Mrs. Hudson. Mallet finds himself unexpectedly attracted to the young woman—to her simplicity, her lack of affectation, her honesty. During a farewell picnic attended by many of the Hudsons' friends and family, Mallet realizes he has fallen in love for the first time in his life. But, because of his natural reserve and imminent departure for two years, he fails to declare his feelings, yet still harbors hopes that something may yet come of the relationship. That hope is crushed when, on the voyage across the Atlantic, Roderick reveals that just before leaving he asked Miss Garland to marry him and she accepted. "...You came and put me into such ridiculous good-humor," Roderick tells Mallet, "that I felt an extraordinary desire to tell some woman that I adored her." Mallet listens to all this with the feeling that fortune has played an elaborately-devised trick on him; that just as he had finally found love, it had been stolen away because of his own act of generosity. After a rough start in Rome, Roderick begins to flourish in the arts community, building a reputation as an original talent and a charming, if ill-mannered, character. Meanwhile Mallet attempts to suppress his feelings for Mary Garland by cultivating a relationship with Augusta Blanchard, another expatriate American artist living in Italy. When Roderick decides to visit Switzerland or Germany, Mallet travels with him part way before going on to visit friends in England. There Mallet writes to Mrs Hudson to inform her of the situation. She replies saying she is pleased the situation has gone so well. However, when Rowland finally hears from Roderick, he begs him for money to cover the debts he incurred while gambling at Baden-Baden. The two men return to Rome where, one fateful day, Christina Light enters Roderick's studio to peruse his artwork. Christina has grown up on the Continent, tended by to her ambitious mother and the mother's aging Italian escort, the Cavaliere. She is, by general agreement, one of the most startlingly beautiful young women in Europe, and her mother is determined to marry Christina to a wealthy and titled gentleman. The impoverished Roderick is nonetheless instantly infatuated with Christina, eventually obtaining approval to sculpt her bust and thereby ingratiating himself with the family. Although the prematurely world-weary Christina professes not to like Roderick, she admires his bluntness. Mallet finds himself in a wrenching emotional bind – attempting to prevent Roderick from consummating his love with Christina so as to protect Mary Garland from emotional injury; knowing all the while that doing so will foreclose forever any possibility that he himself can marry the only woman he has ever loved. Later Mallet encounters Christina and Roderick at the Colisseum. He saves Roderick from falling to his death attempting to catch an out-of-reach flower for Christina. Mallet subsequently happens to meet Christina alone and urges her to give up her flirtation with Roderick, revealing to her that Roderick is engaged. Rowland writes a letter to Cecilia about Roderick's fall. Later Roderick decides not to complete his sculpture for Mr Leavenworth, leading Rowland to be annoyed with him. Rowland visits Madame Grandoni and meets Christina there. He then decides to leave for Florence, but decides to make up with Roderick and bring his mother and his betrothed over to Italy to save him. While doing some sightseeing, Miss Garland admits to being afraid of changing. They walk into Christina and Roderick says she might not marry the Prince after all. Roderick then does a sculpture of his mother. Mrs Hudson thinks she owes something to Rowland for all he has done. Upon completing the bust, Roderick says he will not marry Miss Garland. Rowland and Gloriani witness another of Roderick's tantrums. Later, Mrs Grandoni says Miss Blanchard is marrying Mr Leavenworth, although she is in love with Rowland. She then throws a party and Christina turns up uninvited to observe Miss Garland and be vituperative. The next day the latter admits she takes Christina to be fake. Later after the Prince has left, the Cavaliere visits Rowland and entreats him to advise Christina, as she has no father to turn to. After checking on Roderick because his mother has received a note from him saying he didn't want to be disturbed, he goes to the Lights' and talks to Christina. She says she doesn't like the Prince but likes Roderick as a friend. She has however married the Prince... Roderick admits to his mother he is unable to work and is crippled with debts. Upon Rowland's counsel, they move to cheaper accommodation in Florence. When his morale isn't improving, his mother suggests moving back to Northampton, Massachusetts. Instead, Rowland persuades them to move to Switzerland. There, he seems a little closer to Miss Garland; Rowland asks him about Christina and he eschews the question. Later, they walk into Sam; then Rowland chances upon Christina and the Prince; Roderick comes along and he is stupefied with her beauty. He then wants to join her in Interlaken as she has asked of him. He begs Rowland, his mother, and Miss Garland for money. Rowland admits that he is in love with Miss Garland. Finally, Roderick dies in a storm while on his way to Interlaken; Rowland and Sam find his dead body the next day. Mrs Hudson and Miss Garland return to Massachusetts. |
3359649 | /m/097mb5 | The Year of Our War | Steph Swainston | 2004-04 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | The novel is set in the Fourlands, a country in danger of being overrun by large hostile Insects, and follows the exploits of Jant, also called "the Messenger" or "Comet". As a half-breed of two humanoid species Jant is the only person who can fly, which makes him an indispensable part of the Emperor's Circle of about 50 immortals, an elite group of (mostly) warriors who do not age (but, despite the name, are capable of being killed). Swainston spins an intricate story which covers, among other things, the intrigues among mortals and immortals from the various humanoid races of the Fourlands, a full-scale assault by the Insects (previously held at bay behind an Insect wall), and Jant's exploits in the "Shift", an alternate world which he enters as a side effect of his addiction to a lethal drug. So far, two sequels, No Present Like Time (2005) and The Modern World (2007) have been published. A fourth book, Above the Snowline, was published in 2010. |
3361223 | /m/097ptg | Howards End | E. M. Forster | 1910 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The book is about three families in England at the beginning of the 20th century: the Wilcoxes, rich capitalists with a fortune made in the Colonies; the half-German Schlegel siblings (Margaret, Tibby, and Helen), who have much in common with the real-life Bloomsbury Group; and the Basts, a struggling couple in the lower-middle class. The Schlegel sisters try to help the poor Basts and try to make the Wilcoxes less prejudiced. The Schlegels frequently encounter the Wilcoxes. The youngest, Helen, is for a short period intensely attracted to the younger Wilcox brother, Paul; each rejects the other for his or her own reasons. The eldest, Margaret, becomes friends with Paul's mother, Ruth Wilcox. Ruth's most prized personal possession is her family house at Howards End. She wishes that Margaret could live there, as she feels that it might be in good hands with her. Ruth's own husband and children do not value the house and its rich history, because such abstractions, while being very dear to Margaret, are lost to them. As Ruth is terminally ill, and Margaret and her family are about to be evicted from their London home by a developer, Ruth bequeaths the cottage to Margaret in a handwritten note delivered to her husband from the nursing home where she has died, causing great consternation among the Wilcoxes. Mrs Wilcox's widowed husband, Henry, and his children burn the note without telling Margaret about her inheritance. However, over the course of several years, Margaret becomes friends with Henry Wilcox and eventually marries him. The more free-spirited Margaret tries to get Henry to open up more, to little effect. Henry's elder son Charles and his wife try to keep Margaret from taking possession of Howards End. Gradually, Margaret becomes aware of Henry's dismissive attitude towards the lower classes. On Henry's advice, Helen tells Leonard Bast to quit his respectable job as a clerk at an insurance company, because the company stands outside a protective group of companies and thus is vulnerable to failure. A few weeks later, Henry carelessly reverses his opinion, having entirely forgotten about Bast, but it is too late, and Bast has lost his tenuous hold on financial solvency. Bast lives with a troubled, "fallen" woman for whom he feels responsible and whom he eventually marries. Helen continues to try to help young Leonard Bast (perhaps in part out of guilt about having intervened in his life to begin with, as Leonard had not wanted it and Henry had explicitly stated beforehand that he advised no one) but it all goes terribly wrong; because of Bast's wife's adulterous connection with Henry, Henry will not countenance helping them. It is later revealed that ten years previously, as a young woman, she had been Henry's mistress in Cyprus, but he had then carelessly abandoned her, an expatriate English girl on foreign soil with no way to return home. Margaret confronts Henry about his ill-treatment, and he is ashamed of the affair but unrepentant about his harsh treatment of her. Because of Margaret's impending marriage into the Wilcoxes and situations such as these, the Schlegel sisters drift apart somewhat. In a moment of pity for the poor, doomed Bast, Helen has an affair with him. Finding herself pregnant, she leaves England to travel through Germany to conceal her condition, but eventually returns to England when she receives news of her Aunt Juley's illness. She refuses a face-to-face meeting with Margaret in an effort to hide her pregnancy but is fooled by Margaret – acting on the advice of Henry – into a meeting at Howards End. Henry and Margaret plan an intervention with a doctor, thinking Helen's evasive behavior is a sign of mental illness. When they come upon Helen at Howards End, they also discover the pregnancy. Margaret tries in vain to convince Henry that if he can countenance his own affair, he should forgive Helen hers. Mr. Bast arrives having been tormented by the affair wishing to speak with Margaret. He is not aware of Helen's presence. Henry's son, Charles, attacks Bast for the dishonor he has brought to Helen, and accidentally kills him when striking him with the flat edge of a sword, Leonard grabs onto a bookcase, which falls on top of him, and his weak heart gives out. Charles is charged with manslaughter and sent to jail for three years. The ensuing scandal and shock cause Henry to reevaluate his life and he begins to connect with others. He bequeaths Howards End to Margaret, who states that it will go to her nephew – Helen's son by Bast – when she dies. Helen reconciles with her sister and Henry and decides to raise her child at Howards End. Margaret is usually viewed as the heroine of the story because, in staying married to Henry despite the scandal, she acts as a uniting force, bringing all the characters peaceably together at Howards End. Henry is sometimes viewed as a hero because he triumphs over his inability to connect with the situations of others. In the end, the open-minded intellectuality of the Schlegels is reconciled or balanced with the practical economy of the Wilcoxes, each learning lessons from the other. |
3361760 | /m/097qh2 | Molloy | Samuel Beckett | 1951 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The plot, what little there is of it, is revealed in the course of the two inner monologues that make up the book. The first monologue is split into two paragraphs. The first paragraph is less than two pages long; the second paragraph lasts for over eighty pages. The first is by a former vagrant named Molloy, who is now living "in [his] mother's room" and writing to "speak of the things that are left, say [his] goodbyes, finish dying." He describes a journey he had taken some time earlier, before he came there, to find his mother. He spends much of it on his bicycle, gets arrested for resting on it in a way that is considered lewd, but is unceremoniously released. From town to anonymous town and across anonymous countryside, he encounters a succession of bizarre characters: an elderly man with a stick; a policeman; a charity worker; a woman whose dog he kills running over it with a bike (her name is never completely determined: "a Mrs Loy... or Lousse, I forget, Christian name something like Sophie"), and one whom he falls in love with ("Ruth" or maybe "Edith"); He abandons his bicycle (which he will not call "bike"), walks in no certain direction, meeting "a young old man"; a charcoal-burner living in the woods, whom he murders with a hard blow to the head; and finally a character who takes him in, to the room. The second is by a private detective by the name of Jacques Moran, who is given the task by his boss, the mysterious Youdi, of tracking down Molloy. He sets out, taking his recalcitrant son, also named Jacques, with him. They wander across the countryside, increasingly bogged down by the weather, decreasing supplies of food and Moran's suddenly failing body. He sends his son to purchase a bicycle and while his son is gone, Moran encounters a strange man who appears before him. Moran murders him (in manner comparable to Molloy's), and then hides his body in the forest. Eventually, the son disappears, and he struggles home. At this point in the work, Moran begins to pose several odd theological questions, which make him appear to be going mad. Having returned to his home, now in a state of shambles and disuse, Moran switches to discussing his present state. He has begun to use crutches, just as Molloy does at the beginning of the novel. Also a voice, which has appeared intermittently throughout his part of the text, has begun to significantly inform his actions. The novel ends with Moran delineating how the beginning of his report was crafted. He reveals that the first words of the section were told to him by this nascent voice, which instructed him to sit down and begin writing. 'It is midnight. Rain is beating against the window.' It was not midnight. It was not raining. Thus, Moran forsakes reality, beginning to descend into the command of this "voice" which may in fact mark the true creation of Molloy. Due to the succession of the book from the first part to the second the reader is led to believe that time is passing in a similar fashion; however, the second part could be read as a prequel to the first. |
3365383 | /m/097vzg | The Changing Land | Roger Zelazny | 1981 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | The novel picks up several months after the events in the last chapter of Dilvish, the Damned. The Castle Timeless, one of several fortresses belonging to Dilvish's arch-enemy, Jelerak, is currently inhabited by the "mad" demi-god Tualua. Tualua is undergoing one of the "changes" common to his kind, which in this case causes the land surrounding the castle to be subject to all sorts of chaotic, unpredictable, and often-deadly effects. A number of wizards, hoping to tap into Tualua's massive powers, attempt to pass through this maelstrom and reach the castle. Watching events from the outside are members of the Society of Magic. Dilvish, determined to avenge himself against Jelerak, appears and attempts to breach the magical barriers, hoping to find his arch-enemy inside. Accompanied by his companion Black, a demon-like being in the shape of a black metal horse, they rescue a wizard, Weleand, from being drowned in an acid pit. Soon after they meet a young Elven girl, Arlata, frozen by one of magical winds. Weleand unfreezes her by transferring the condition to Black, and escapes. Dilvish is then captured by one of the caretakers of the castle, Baran of the Extra Hand, and thrown into the dungeon with several captured wizards. Escaping the dungeon, Dilvish wanders the castle, eventually finding Semirama, a woman from long ago resurrected by Jelerak to be one of the caretakers (along with Baran). Semirama has managed to build a rapport with the demi-god Tualua. Black manages to sneak into the castle in his human form, and encounters Jelerak, who was disguised as Weleand, about to sacrifice an unconscious Arlata as a means to gain control of Tualua. Meanwhile the escaped wizards manage to disable the maintaining spell which keeps the castle anchored in normal time, causing everyone in the castle to become temporarily unconscious, and soon the entire castle and its inhabitants are rapidly accelerated into the far future, so far that they reach a point where the world is created anew. During the denouement, Baran is killed by one of the wizards, and both Jelerak and Tualua are claimed by the Elder Gods, the former as their prisoner and the latter as one of their own. Semirama, her resurrection canceled by the Elder Gods' apprehension of Jelerak, collapses into dust, her soul now inhabiting the alternate universe of mirrors in the castle, where she meets up with an ancestor of Dilvish's, Selar. Dilvish is initially enraged by the denial of his desire for vengeance, but then realizes that Jelerak will receive justice at the hands of the gods, and decides to go back to his homeland with Arlata, who as it turns out is the granddaughter of one of Dilvish's former loves in that land. With the help of a Society member, the survivors escape through a magical transport mirror. |
3365544 | /m/097w73 | A Shadow on the Glass | Ian Irvine | 2/11/1998 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | "A Shadow on the Glass" starts with the chronicler Llian telling the greatest of all the Great Tales—the Tale of the Forbidding—in a surprising and dangerous new fashion, revealing previously unknown claims. The Master of the College of the Histories, Wistan, quickly understands the ramifications of the telling and makes it his goal to suppress all knowledge of the tale and get rid of Llian so as to protect the College and preserve the commonly accepted version of history. His opportunity comes when Mendark, Magister of the High Council of Santhenar asks for someone to go out and find a woman named Karan, who had stolen a relic (The Mirror of Aachan) from his nemesis Yggur the mancer. Karan had helped Maigraith, a powerful but troubled mancer, into Yggur's fortress of Fiz Gorgo using her talent as a sensitive. This was done on behalf of Maigraith's liege, Faelamor, leader of the Faellem. Karan and Maigraith succeeded in gaining entry and even in finding the evil Mirror. Yggur barges in and Maigraith uses her Art to hold him off, but eventually is overpowered and imprisoned. Karan escapes and eventually meets up with Tallia (Mendark's chief lieutenant) but is frightened of her and runs away to eventually meet up with Llian, who had been saved from Yggur's Whelm by Shand. Faelamor, using her unmatched powers, rescues Maigraith from Yggur and they soon set out to retrieve the Mirror. Karan and Llian venture to the hidden Aachim city of Shazmak, and Karan is overjoyed to meet up with her old friend Rael. She is relieved to see that his father—the leader of the Aachim, Tensor—is away. Tensor returns, however, having learnt from Mendark that Karan had the Mirror. His arrival and subsequent questioning of Karan regarding her possession of the Mirror (which is in fact hidden inside a plaster cast on her broken arm) forces her to undergo a trial, in which she links with Llian in order to deceive the Syndics (judges). Tensor persuades the syndics to allow stronger questionning of Karan, which forces her to flee Shazmak with Llian. Rael is killed in the process. Karan and Llian (intermittently separated and together) journey to Sith and on to Thurkad, pursued part of the way by Tensor and by Whelm. Karan is captured by Thyllan when she arrives in the capital city of Thurkad, and all of the great powers merge in a Great Conclave, to decide who should get the Mirror. Tensor, believing he and the Aachim should have the Mirror (as it was theirs of old), yet seeing that this will not happen, as the conclave—blinded by the will to save Thurkad—gives the Mirror to Thyllian, cracks and uses a forbidden potency spell that lays the whole Conclave low. Tensor escapes with the Mirror and Llian, who alone of all the people gathered was unaffected by the potency. The book ends with the reader unsure as to whether Karan, Maigraith or Faelamor survived the potency. |
3369066 | /m/0980zp | Sharpe's Tiger | Bernard Cornwell | 6/2/1997 | {"/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"} | Up to this time Cornwell had been going back through the period of the Napoleonic Wars to find new incidents into which to place his hero. Rather than do this, he adopts a "prequel" approach and uses an earlier campaign period in the history of the British Army, that of colonial India. The novel opens with Richard Sharpe serving as a private with the British army, then invading Mysore and advancing on the Tippoo Sultan's capital city of Seringapatam. Sharpe is contemplating desertion with his paramour, widow Mary Bickerstaff. His sadistic company sergeant, Obadiah Hakeswill, deliberately provokes Sharpe into attacking him, and engineers the virtual death sentence of 2,000 lashes for the private. But Sharpe is rescued by Lieutenant William Lawford after 200 lashes are inflicted, in order to effect a rescue mission behind the Tippoo's lines. Lawford and Sharpe are ordered to pose as deserters to rescue Colonel Hector McCandless, chief of the British East India Company's intelligence service. Although Lawford is nominally in command, Sharpe quickly dominates the lieutenant by force of personality and, without authorization, brings Mary on the mission. Joining the Tippoo's army, they discover that the Tippoo has set a trap for the invading British by mining the weakest (and thus most inviting) portion of Seringapatam's walls. Before Sharpe and Lawford can discover a way to transmit a warning to the British, they are betrayed by Sergeant Hakeswill. Hakeswill has been captured in battle and the Tippoo orders him made a human sacrifice for victory, but Hakeswill secures the Sultan's mercy in exchange for revealing Sharpe's and Lawford's identity as spies. Sharpe and Lawford are imprisoned as the British army prepares to assault the booby-trapped wall of the city. Mary helps Sharpe to escape, and Sharpe blows up the mine before the main British army can enter the trap. As the Tippoo tries to flee the city, Sharpe finds him in a dark tunnel, kills him, and steals his rich jewels. Sharpe throws Hakeswill to the Tippoo's tigers, but the recently fed animals ignore Hakeswill, and Sharpe's enemy survives to plague him in later adventures. |
3369181 | /m/098147 | Sharpe's Triumph | Bernard Cornwell | 2/26/1998 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"} | The tale begins with Sharpe witnessing a massacre of British troops in a fort by the traitor Major Dodd, for which he blames himself. After being hired by Colonel McCandless, whom Sharpe had befriended a couple of years earlier (Sharpe's Tiger), Sharpe travels to Wellesley's army, where he witnesses its siege of the city of Ahmednuggur, whose garrison is commanded by Dodd. Throughout these events, Sharpe is unknowingly pursued by Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill, who has framed him for attacking a British officer and been given the authority to arrest him. During the battle at Ahmednuggur, Sharpe and McCandless attempt to find and capture Dodd, who manages to escape. During the search, Sharpe rescues the wife of a French officer in Dodd's service, named Simone Joubert. McCandless decides to use Joubert for a prisoner exchange, and a chance to view Scindia's army, commanded by Anthony Pohlmann. While in the enemy camp, McCandless' horse is stolen, and he is wounded attempting to save it. He and Sharpe later leave and attempt to inform Wellesley of the enemy army's decision to march to Borkardan. Pohlmann, however, decides to lay a trap for the British army at Assaye. After returning to Wellesley's army, Hakeswill confronts Sharpe and McCandless, who prevents Sharpe from being arrested. Obadiah then begins planning his next move. As the British army marches toward Borkardan, Wellesley discovers the trap Pohlmann has laid for him, and decides to attack his army head on, despite being vastly outnumbered. In the early stages of the fight, Wellesley's aide is killed, and Sharpe takes his place. Dodd is also present at the battle, commanding his regiment, the Cobras. The battle is hard fought, but Wellesley's troops carry the day. At the climax of the fight, Wellesley is unhorsed and surrounded by enemies whom Sharpe fights off alone, thus saving the general's life. Pohlmann's army retreats into Assaye itself, and McCandless orders Sharpe to follow him into the city to once again attempt to capture Dodd. Dodd however, makes his escape along with much of Pohlmann's gold. While in the city, McCandless encounters Obadiah, who kills him. Following the battle, Sharpe speaks to Wellesley, who promotes him to the rank of Ensign. Obadiah is now unable to arrest Sharpe because of his rank. Sharpe then throws Obadiah out a window and leaves him under the foot of one of Pohlmann's elephants. The British army then marches off to pursue Scindia's retreating army, the events of which are detailed in the next book, Sharpe's Fortress. |
3369229 | /m/09816n | Sharpe's Fortress | Bernard Cornwell | 11/19/1998 | {"/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"} | It is 1803 and Sir Arthur Wellesley’s army is closing on the retreating Mahrattas in western India. Marching with the British is Ensign Richard Sharpe, newly made into an officer and wishing he had stayed a sergeant. Spurned by his new regiment, he is sent to the army’s baggage train and there finds corruption, romance, treason and enemies old and new. Sergeant Hakeswill wants Sharpe dead, and Hakeswill has powerful friends while Sharpe has only an orphaned Arab boy as his ally. And waiting with the cornered Mahrattas is another enemy, the renegade Englishman, William Dodd, who does not envisage defeat, but only a glorious triumph. For the Mahrattas have taken refuge in Gawilghur, the greatest stronghold of India, perched high on its cliffs above the Deccan Plain. Who rules in Gawilghur, it is said, rules India, and Dodd knows that the fortress is impregnable. There, behind its double walls, in the towering twin forts, Sharpe must face his enemies in what will prove to be Wellesley’s last battle on Indian soil. |
3369281 | /m/09818r | Sharpe's Prey | Bernard Cornwell | 4/23/2001 | {"/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"} | The year is 1807, and Richard Sharpe is back in England, where his army career is at an end. Without love, destitute, and relegated to the job of quartermaster, Sharpe is on the streets of London, trying to contemplate a new life away from the army. Then an old friend quite unexpectedly invites him to undertake a secret mission to the Danish capital, Copenhagen. Denmark is officially neutral, but Napoleon is threatening an invasion in order to capture the powerful Danish fleet, which could replace the ships France lost in its defeat at Trafalgar. The British, fearing such enhancement of French power, threaten their own preemptive invasion. Sharpe, whose errand seemed so simple, is trapped by the treachery that will end only when the city, which thought itself safe, is subjected to a brutal and merciless bombardment. |
3369317 | /m/0981bt | Sharpe's Rifles | Bernard Cornwell | 1988-12 | {"/m/02p0szs": "Historical fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"} | The story recounts Sharpe's exploits in the retreat to Corunna. Sharpe's battalion, acting as rearguard to the army, are cut down by a squadron of French regular cavalry. From then on the story follows the small band of surviving riflemen (from the 95th Rifles) as they try to foment an uprising in the city of Santiago de Compostela. Sharpe's Spanish ally is Major Don Blas Vivar and they are fighting the Don's brother, the Count of Mouromorto. Patrick Harper is introduced as well as the core group of the surviving company for the first time. Running along in the background is the other Irishman in the series, Captain Hogan, who appears for the first time at the very end of the novel. In this book, Sharpe sees Captain Murray's heavy cavalry sword as clumsy and cumbersome, yet in India he wishes he had such a heavy sword to butcher people with. During his time in India he used a claymore which he found less cumbersome than the cavalry sword. |
3369325 | /m/0981cz | Sharpe's Trafalgar | Bernard Cornwell | 4/3/2000 | {"/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"} | The year is 1805, and Richard Sharpe is heading from India to England aboard the cargo ship Calliope. Also on board is the lovely Lady Grace Hale, whose presence promises to provide intrigue and distraction to an otherwise uneventful voyage home. Uneventful the voyage is not, for the Calliope is captured by a formidable French warship, the Revenant. The French warship is headed to its own fleet, carrying a stolen treaty that, if delivered, could provoke Indians into a new war against the British. The arrival of Admiral Horatio Nelson's well-led fleet results in a breathtaking retelling of one of the most ferocious and one-sided sea battles in European history, in which Nelson, and Sharpe, vanquish the combined naval might of France and Spain at Trafalgar. |
3369411 | /m/0981kh | Sharpe's Eagle | Bernard Cornwell | 2/9/1981 | {"/m/02p0szs": "Historical fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"} | The following is a description of the key plot elements of the novel of Sharpe's Eagle. Although much of the novel's complexity is omitted in the TV version, the major plot elements are the same. For a summary of the TV movie, see the link listed above. Prior to the Battle of Talavera, Richard Sharpe and his small group of thirty Riflemen are attached to the newly arrived South Essex Regiment. Commanded by the cowardly and bullying Lieutenant Colonel Sir Henry Simmerson, the South Essex is a raw, inexperienced unit that has been drilled mercilessly with frequent use of the lash. More suited for ceremonial parades than genuine combat against the veteran armies of France, Sharpe takes it upon himself to shape the inexperienced and poorly-trained redcoats into full-fledged soldiers. His real problem turns out to be the officers, most of whom appear to be in the lap of Simmerson, including his nephew, the arrogant Lieutenant Christian Gibbons, and his best friend, Lieutenant Berry. The situation is further complicated by the rivalry that emerges between Sharpe and Gibbons for the affections of Josefina Lacosta, a Portuguese noblewoman abandoned by her husband after he fled to Brazil. Only two appear to have any real experience: Captain Lennox, a veteran of the Battle of Assaye, where Sharpe himself won his commission; and Captain Leroy, an American Loyalist who fled with his merchant family to England during the American War of Independence. Making his way to the town of Talavera, General Wellesley dispatches the South Essex, alongside Sharpe's Riflemen and the engineers of Major Hogan, to blow up the bridge at Valdelcasa, so as to protect the army's flank as they march. Assisted by a Spanish regiment of equal number, the Regimento de la Santa Maria, the seemingly straightforward mission becomes a disaster when both Simmerson and the Spanish cross the bridge to engage four squadrons of French dragoons. A combination of arrogance, poor training, flawed leadership and elementary tactical errors results in the two regiments being routed by the French, with hundreds of men killed and wounded, Lennox brought down by the enemy, and the loss of the King's Colour. As a dying request, Lennox asks Sharpe to take a French Eagle, 'touched by the hand of Napoleon' himself, so as to erase the shame of losing their own standard. Distinguishing himself during the skirmish after rallying several broken companies of the South Essex against the French and capturing one of their cannon, Sharpe finds himself gazetted Captain. However, he still must do much to confirm this rank in the company of an officer corps still largely drawn from the aristocracy and the ranks of English gentlemen who look down on Sharpe's low birth. Even worse, Sir Henry has made Sharpe the scapegoat of his follies, and intends on ruining Sharpe's career via his political connections at Horse Guards. Only by capturing an Eagle can Sharpe stay in the army, let alone keep his promotion. The Rifleman also makes an enemy of Gibbons and Berry when he takes Josefina under his protection, and the two begin a relationship. Later in the novel, when Josefina is raped by Gibbons and Berry, Sharpe swears vengeance, murdering Berry in a nighttime skirmish against the French. At the height of the Battle of Talavera, Sharpe must decide whether to fulfill Lennox's request or avoid this insane task. In true heroic form Richard Sharpe rises to the challenge and avenge the loss of the colour with the capture of a French Imperial Eagle during the height of the battle. Leading the Light Company and his Rifles into the fray, Sharpe and Harper manage to break a French regiment and take an Eagle, while Simmerson is replaced on the field by Sharpe's old friend William Lawford as Commander of the South Essex. Slaying Gibbons in the aftermath (who had attempted to murder Sharpe for his prize), Sharpe parts with Josefina as she returns to Lisbon, while he officially takes his place as Captain of the Light Company of the South Essex, the regiment's honour restored. |
3370316 | /m/0982w7 | The Witches of Chiswick | Robert Rankin | 2003 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The start of "The Witches of Chiswick" trilogy, The Witches of Chiswick is a time travelling adventure story set in the 19th and 23rd Centuries. Working in a dystopian 23rd century, William Starling finds a painting, The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke by Richard Dadd from the 19th Century with the image of a digital watch hidden within it. When he reports these findings to his superiors, William is told the painting is to be destroyed. After saving the painting, his best friend Tim tells him about a cabal of witches who control their world. To seek the truth, William takes a drug which confers the ability to tap into ancestral memories. After learning of events occurring in the 19th century, William and Tim are attacked by a Babbage robot sent from the past, and William escapes to the past via the robot's time machine. Stuck in the 19th century in Victorian London, William is greeted by Hugo Rune, who explains to Will that he is his direct descendant. Will learns that 19th Century history is a lie: Charles Babbage's difference engine was a huge success, providing the growing British Empire with robots, digital watches, airships, and even the first rocket to the moon. After returning to London, Will and Hugo take on a case for Sherlock Holmes - to discover the true identity of Jack the Ripper to learn more about the witches' cabal. Hugo becomes the Ripper's next victim. Will, bemused, finds a box in Hugo's trunk containing Barry, the Sprout Guardian. Will uses Barry to return to the future to enlist the aid of Tim. Will and Tim return to the past, meeting an invisible H.G. Wells, the Elephant Man (Joseph Merrick), the Brentford Snail Boy, and even another Will from an alternate future. After finding Hugo's true residence in the Buttes Estate, Will and Tim set out to save the 19th Century and the future from the influence of the Witches of Chiswick. Will and Tim finally confront the leader of the witches, Count Otto Black. At the same time a fleet of martian invade earth to prevent the British Empire expansing to the red planet. They are aided by their agent the Elephant Man (Joseph Merrick). Hugo Rune is revealed to have faked his death, not for the first time, and returns to aid Tim and Will. Will discovers that Count Otto is actually a Babbage robot, controlled by the Will from the alternate future. Driven mad, the alertnate Will has become evil and committed the Jack the Ripper killings. "Anti-Will" faces Hugo Rune, travels back in time to prevent the Babbage Difference Engine from being recognized, then returns to the circus to finish his goal of controlling the world. When Hugo Rune confesses that 'he' cannot stop the "anti-Will", William realise why he was brought here and that he can sacrifice himself to defeat his duplicate. Will lunges for "anti-Will" and the pair are destroyed due to the temporal paradox. History is changed, the Victorian era never develops the computer and in the future Will and Tim are born and lead normal lives. |
3371154 | /m/0983xw | Point of Impact | Stephen Hunter | 1993-03 | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller", "/m/0594kx": "Conspiracy fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Bob 'The Nailer' becomes involved in a plot by dirty big-government types and the story is about how he is first approached and used by them, and their subsequent attempts to end his life. Disenchanted with warfare when invalided out of the Marine Corps in the 1970s, Bob retreats to a small town in Arkansas, where he lives in a trailer and devotes himself to firearms. Here he is approached by representatives of RamDyne, a black-bag government organization whose personnel commit off-the-record atrocities as needed. The RamDyne people, masquerading as employees of Accutech, a high-end ammo manufacturer, enlist Bob's help. He detects their untruthfulness and confronts them, at which point they "reveal" to him their true motives: foiling an attempt on the life of the President of the United States at the hand of the same Soviet sniper who ended Bob's military career. Bob agrees to work for them but in the end, is framed into the crime of attempted assassination. He escapes the frame and finds himself friendless, pursued by every law enforcement agency in the nation, pursued by RamDyne, and suffering two nearly fatal bullet wounds. The major portion of the book details how he escapes the frame, wins absolution for the crime of which he was accused and wins the love of a woman. |
3371191 | /m/0983_9 | Pale Horse Coming | Stephen Hunter | 2001 | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller"} | Sam Vincent, an attorney in is hired by Davis Trugood, a Chicago lawyer to verify the death of the Trugood's client's manservant in Thebes, Mississippi, a desolate shantytown cut off from civilization and surrounded by swampland and seemingly impenetrable piney woods. While in Thebes, Sam is roughly arrested for challenging the legality and authority of Thebes' law enforcement and is imprisoned by the local Sheriff. Earl Swagger travels to Thebes with the intent of rescuing Sam after he fails to hear from his friend for several weeks. He succeeds in securing Sam's freedom but is himself captured and incarcerated as the only white man among the inmates of the nearby Thebes penitentiary, a former timber plantation and current forced labor camp for negro convicts and run by ruthless and inhumane white supremacists. The mysterious and unnamed warden instructs his jailers to torture Earl, suspecting him to be a federal investigator interested in the secret workings of the camp. The other inmates apply their acquired hatred of white men to Earl, who must defend himself not only from the guards, but also from his fellow prisoners. Earl escapes by faking his death with the help of an old prison trusty, promising to return and destroy the prison and the evil it represents. He assembles a group of six legendary gunmen (who are based on Elmer Keith, Jack O'Connor, Audie Murphy, Charles Askins, Bill Jordan, and Ed McGivern) with the promise of real action for a just cause and readies them for an assault on Thebes. (Counting Swagger, that brings the number of gunmen to seven, a probable allusion to both The Magnificent Seven - a classic Western film - and Aeschylus' play Seven Against Thebes.) While Earl makes his plans, the inmates at Thebes start to pass along the mysterious phrase, "Pale Horse Coming." Seeking to quell the inmates' stirrings and avoid a potential rebellion, the prison's tyrannical captain of the guards systematically tortures the prisoners in an effort to learn the origins of the phrase. Sam Vincent, ever reluctant to resort to force to settle any matter, including the issue of Thebes, continues to investigate the mysteries surrounding the prison and makes some horrifying discoveries. After narrowly escaping a threat against his and his family's lives, Sam contacts Earl and finally gives Earl his blessing to "fire for effect." It is said that Vincent is never seen without a tie. As the assault on Thebes begins, Davis Trugood, having arrived undetected in Thebes, enters the old plantation house and confronts the warden. The reader learns that Davis Trugood is the warden's estranged half-brother and that warden hates Davis for being their father's son by a black woman. Earl and his team succeed in destroying the prison, vowing to never again mention Thebes or their dealings there to each other or anyone else. They go their separate ways and Earl returns home to Arkansas and his wife and son. The fictional events of this novel allude to the infamous Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male. However the copyright page of the book bears the boilerplate disclaimer that all events are fictional. |
3373435 | /m/0987ls | Tara Road | Maeve Binchy | 8/28/1998 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | It is the story of two women, one from Ireland and one from America, who trade houses without ever having met. They're both looking for an escape from their problems, but by running away, both come to discover a great deal about themselves. The book mostly concentrates on the life of Ria Lynch, the Irish woman, who has met her future husband Danny Lynch. The two end up getting married, much to Ria's shock and delight, and start a family together while Danny's career takes off. Many years into their marriage, Danny begins spending less and less time at home with his wife and children. Ria believes another baby is the solution, and is shocked to find out that indeed her husband is going to be a father...but to a child from an affair he has been having with another woman. Her husband's unfaithfulness is the event that leads Ria into her decision to switch homes with the lady from America. Tara Road was made into a film in 2005. |
3373848 | /m/098854 | Execution | null | null | null | Based in part on McDougall's experience as an officer with Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, Execution follows the fictional Canadian 2nd Rifles during the Italian campaign of 1943. Led by the flamboyant Brigadier Ian Kildare (a modern miles gloriosus, or braggart soldier), the Canadians land on Sicily where they meet with little resistance from the Italian Army, composed mostly of hapless conscripts who want no part in the war. Despite Kildare's strict orders for his men to shoot Italian deserters on sight, the Canadians take kindly to a pair of buffoonish? Italian deserters, more notable for their culinary skills than military prowess. Impetuously, Kildare orders the Canadians to execute the Italians. The Canadians are caught between the obligation to follow orders and the sense that executing the two Italians in cold blood is ethically unjustifiable—not to mention it being a violation of the Geneva Convention. The brutal execution of the two Italians forces the Canadians to confront the ethics of warfare, now that "the enemy" is no longer a distant and faceless target. Major Bunny Bazin, the most battle-hardened and philosophical of the Canadians, voices the novel's central theme when he states that "execution is... the ultimate degradation of man." Here the term "execution" works both literally (the killing of the Italians as a brutal act) and as a metaphor (war as a form of mass execution). The novel's main protagonist, Lieutenant (later Major) John Adam (a semi-autobiographical foil for McDougall), is an efficient soldier and leader, who nevertheless finds "the vulture fear" inhabiting his soul after the execution of the Italians. Bound to protect and lead his men as they march through Italy, from Ortona to the Hitler Line near Monte Cassino, Adam finds himself struggling to maintain the composure fitting a commander, as an inner "horror" gnaws at his conscience (Adam's reflections occasionally resemble those of Marlow in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness). Eventually, Adam and his men stumble on a chance to redeem themselves when one of their own comrades, Rifleman Jones, a mildly retarded but efficient infantryman, is sentenced to be executed for treason by his own army, after he falls in with a ring of corrupt soldiers who murder an American. Although everyone, including a newly promoted General Kildare, knows that "Jonesy" is a scapegoat for the real murderers, the execution must go ahead out of political expediency. Led by Adam, the men wage a tenacious campaign to have Jonesy freed, but all efforts eventually fail. When Jonesy is led out to be executed, the officer in charge of the execution faints, and Adam is forced to command the firing squad himself. Execution ends with Adam and the other men regaining a measure of their lost confidence, although Major Bazin dies on the battlefield. |
3375102 | /m/0989n3 | Never Mind Nirvana | null | null | null | Never Mind Nirvana is set in the Seattle music scene and chronicles the misadventures of a former musician who becomes a prosecutor. Stylistic quirks include real characters from the Seattle scene interacting with fictional characters. "One of the many pleasures of Never Mind Nirvana is in its rightness of local details.... Lindquist's penchant for the truth pays off, for his novel gives us a Seattle we can recognize." (Claire Dederer, Seattle Times) Blurbs on the book were written by Peter Buck of R.E.M., filmmaker Peter Farrelly, and authors Bret Easton Ellis and Tama Janowitz. |
3376479 | /m/098cbd | Washington Square | Henry James | 1880-12-01 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Dr. Austin Sloper, a wealthy and highly successful physician, lives in Washington Square, New York, with his only surviving child, Catherine. Catherine is a sweet-natured young woman who is a great disappointment to her father, being physically plain and, he believes, dull in terms of personality and intellect. Sloper's beloved wife died a week after giving birth to Catherine. A three-year-old son had died two years earlier. His sister, Lavinia Penniman, a meddlesome and perverse woman, is the only other member of the doctor's household. One day, Catherine meets the charming Morris Townsend at a party and is powerfully drawn to him. Morris courts Catherine, aided by Mrs. Penniman, who loves melodrama. Dr. Sloper strongly disapproves, believing him to be after Catherine's money alone. When Catherine and Morris announce their engagement, he looks into Morris's background by visiting his sister and learns that he is a parasitic spendthrift. The doctor forbids his daughter to marry Townsend, whom he considers to be a 'selfish idler' and Catherine cannot bring herself to choose between loyalty to her father and devotion to her fiancé. Dr. Sloper understands Catherine's predicament and pities her a little, but also finds an urbane entertainment in the situation. In an effort to resolve the matter, he tells her that he will disinherit her if she marries Morris; he then takes her on a twelve month grand tour of Europe. During their time abroad, he mentions Catherine's engagement only twice: once while they are alone together in the Alps, and again on the eve of their return voyage. On both occasions, Catherine holds firm in her determination to marry. After she refuses for a second time to give Morris up, Sloper sarcastically compares her to a sheep fattened up for slaughter. With this, he finally goes too far: Catherine recognizes his contempt, withdraws from him, and prepares to bestow all her love and loyalty on Morris. Upon her return, however, Morris, whom aunt Lavinia has now, at least emotionally, virtually adopted as her son, breaks off the relationship when Catherine convinces him that her father will never relent. Catherine, devastated, eventually recovers her equanimity but is never able to forget the injury. Many years pass; Catherine refuses two respectable offers of marriage and grows into a middle-aged spinster. Dr. Sloper finally dies and leaves her a sharply reduced income in his will out of fear that Townsend will reappear. In fact, Morris – now fat, balding, cold-eyed, but still somewhat attractive – does eventually pay a call on Catherine, hoping to reconcile; but she calmly rebuffs his overtures. In the last sentence, James tells us that "Catherine,... picking up her morsel of fancy-work, had seated herself with it again — for life, as it were." |
3377902 | /m/098g1q | Bad Dreams | Pierre Christin | 1983 | null | Earth, the 28th century - the alarm is raised when a spatio-temporal transport is stolen from Galaxity astroport. The Chief of the spatio-temporal service orders spatio-temporal agent Valerian to return from his holidays in Arcturus to investigate. Arriving at Galaxity, he is informed of serious disturbances to the Dream Service. Traveling to the Dream Chambers, he discovers that all of the dreams have been corrupted somehow such that they turn into nightmares – a dream of the countryside is ruined by carnivorous plants, a dream of the crystal caves of Aldebaran becomes a torment when the caves melt. The man responsible is Xombul, the head of the Dream Service and one of the technocrats of the First Circle who govern Galaxity. He is the one who has stolen the spatio-temporal transport. A search of Xombul's home uncovers a book of sorcery written by Alberic The Old, a wizard from the 11th century. A report from the temporal relay in that time period confirms that that is where Xombul has gone. Following Xombul, Valérian arrives at the spatio-temporal relay station in 11th century France. He finds Galaxity's contact, Geoffrey, an innkeeper, nursing a sore head. Xombul had surprised him before heading for the Forest of Arelaune. Following on a horse borrowed from Geoffrey, he arrives at the forest but loses the trail in the fading light as the sun sets. He chooses to make his bed on one of the giant leaves that litter the forest floor. Waking up the next morning, he discovers he is trapped – the giant leaf has wrapped itself around him. A young peasant girl finds him and, taking his sword, climbs up to the roof of the forest to clear the branches above Valérian. The sun, now able to penetrate beneath the canopy of the trees, causes the leaf to shrivel and Valérian is free. The young girl introduces herself as Laureline and offers to act as his guide. Valérian explains that he has lost the trail and Laureline suggest he visit the powerful wizard, Alberic the Old. Traveling across a barren landscape, they come to a poisonous marsh. In the centre lies Alberic's castle. Using reeds to enable them to breathe the clear air above the marsh, they cross on a raft. But, a dead branch bursts one of the poisonous bubbles as they land and they are knocked unconscious. Regaining consciousness a week later, they slip inside the castle but soon become lost in a labyrinth of passages. Attacked by guards, they become separated and Valérian comes to a chamber where he finds Xombul. Xombul tells Valérian that he is fed up with how weak humanity has become and he has decided to break the people out of their apathy – first by introducing nightmares into the dream programmes and now by bringing back an army of beasts, created by transforming people using a magical spell, to terrorise the people of Galaxity into making him their emperor so that he can wage a war of conquest across the galaxy. Taking Valérian to the dungeons he shows him the people he has transformed into beasts – Alberic The Old, his servant and the various peasants who live in the forest. Also languishing in a cell is Laureline. Casting his transformation spell, she is turned into a unicorn. Locking Valérian in a cage in a workshop, Xombul leaves for Galaxity with his menagerie of monsters. Using an underground passage to avoid the marsh, Xombul's plans are interrupted when one of the monsters gets stuck. When freeing the creature causes the marsh water to leak into the passage, Laureline, still a unicorn, uses the confusion to escape. Valérian, meanwhile, has also managed to escape and is reunited with Laureline, who has retained the ability to talk. Pursuing Xombul, Valérian and Laureline find him and his entourage encamped in the forest. When Xombul's party continue their journey the next morning, they are trapped by Valérian and Laureline in spider's webs. Xombul admits defeat and agrees to transform everyone back to human form. However, in the confusion following everyone's return to their normal appearance, Xombul changes himself into a falcon and escapes. Valérian moves to follow and says goodbye to Laureline, who he is forbidden to take with him to the 28th century. Laureline reveals that, as a unicorn, she was able to read minds and that she knows Valérian's secret and that Valérian is required to take her with him to prevent contamination of the time-line. Valérian sighs, but does not seem too unhappy about it. Before they leave, Alberic gives Valérian a ring that acts as a protective charm against his spells. Arriving at the spatio-temporal relay, Valérian finds that Xombul has sabotaged his spatio-temporal transport. While Valérian makes repairs, he connects Laureline to the station's mnemotechnical equipment to prepare her for her voyage to the future. Completing the repairs, they make the space-time jump but arrive too late – Xombul is wreaking havoc with his monsters. Meeting Jirad, the assistant to the Chief of the Spatio-Temporal Service, they travel to the Dream Chambers where Xombul has erected two dream projectors to spread his nightmare. Entering the building, they find Xombul sitting on a donkey about to be crowned Emperor of the Galaxy. Xombul casts a spell but Valérian's protective charm reflects it back onto the donkey which returns to its normal state – that of the Chief of the Spatio-Temporal Service! At the same time, Jirad manages to switch off the dream projectors and everything returns to normal. Taking the spell book from Xombul, the Chief casts a spell and Xombul is changed into a bird and put into a cage. As the sun sets, the Chief welcomes Laureline to Galaxity. |
3378086 | /m/098ghq | Well-Schooled in Murder | Elizabeth George | 10/25/1990 | {"/m/0lsxr": "Crime Fiction", "/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | Teacher John Corntel asks his former Eton schoolmate Lynley for help when the 13 year old schoolboy Matthew Whateley has disappeared. Initially Lynley refuses, until Deborah St James finds the naked body of the boy in a churchyard in Stoke Poges. Lynley and Havers start their investigation at Matthew's school Bredgar Chambers, an elite boarding school in West Sussex. They find a letter from Matthew to Jeannie Bonnamy, a daughter of Colonel Bonnamy. Matthew has visited them three days before his death to dine and play chess with the colonel. When Jeannie brought Matthew back to school, they saw 6th form student Chas Quilter in a school minibus, returning from a visit to Cecilia Feld, a girl in Stoke Poges. Chas didn't want anyone to find out about his relationship with Cecilia, and the fact that he was the father of Cecilia's child, which has Apert syndrome. Cecilia herself was transferred from Bredgar Chambers to another school when she was pregnant. Chemistry teacher Emilia Bond tried to burn child pornography photos that belonged to John Corntel; she was in love with Corntel, but found out he was collecting those photos. This explains why Corntel didn't patrol in spite of being duty master. That same evening 6th grader Clive Pritchard nabbed Matthew Whateley to torture him, because Matthew had made a tape recording of Clive bullying schoolboy Harry Morant. When Clive found Matthew dead he felt responsible, unaware that the cause of death was carbon monoxide poisoning. During the investigation there's an attempt to kill Jeannie Bonnamy with a rake. Chas Quilter hangs himself. The investigators find out that Matthew's biological parents were Mrs Pamela Byrne and Edward Hsu, a Chinese former pupil at Bredgar Hall who killed himself after this scandal. Giles Byrne felt financially responsible for the child of his late wife. As a board member he obtained a scholarship for Matthew at Bredgar Chambers. Giles' 18 year old son Brian turns out to be the culprit. He killed his half-brother in the fume cupboard in the chemistry lab. He then transported the body to Stoke Poges in the school minibus Chas Quilter was driving. His motive was to win Chas Quilter's lifetime loyalty. Brian also tried to kill Jeannie Bonnamy for the same reason. Brian Byrne and Clive Pritchard are arrested. In a subplot Barbara Havers visits her demented mother, and finds her father dead. Another theme is Lynley's aristocratic descent (he is sometimes referred to as "Lord Asherton")—shown through his working relationship with his working class colleague Barbara Havers from Acton and his unrequited love for Lady Helen Clyde. |
3378770 | /m/098hr5 | Generals Die in Bed | Charles Yale Harrison | null | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | This Canadian World War I narrative starts in Montreal, where an unnamed soldier of 20 years old is among those Canadian soldiers preparing to deploy confront the Germans on European soil, mainly in France and Belgium. Though the story begins with the narrator's close relationships with fellow soldiers, named Brown, Cleary, Fry, Broadbent and Anderson, and almost seductive experience of deployment, it soon shifts to scenes of the infamous World War I trenches; here, the conditions are unsanitary at best, as the soldiers are constantly exposed to lice, gigantic rats, and flesh-rotting rainfalls. The unnamed narrator is incrementally disillusioned towards the war, particularly when given no choice but to question its purpose and its socio-economic implications. While he once thought of war as glorious, the narrator is forced to reassess his own patriotic ideals as his friends begin to die; this begins with the rather banal death of Brown. Later in the text, the narrator finds himself disturbed when he bayonets a German soldier during a raid; this trauma is magnified by the narrator's subsequent camaraderie with the brother of the dead soldier. The narrator becomes further unhinged at the death of another friend; it is at this point that the narrator begins to acknowledge the horrors of war. As the plot continues, he is allowed to leave the front for a break in England, a 10 day period during which a prostitute does everything in her power to help him forget the war. However, everyday incidents –- such as a burlesque show that marginalizes the cost of war by adapting the imagery of war for public amusement –- remind the anonymous soldier of the ideological separation between the "home front" and the trenches. Upon his return to the trenches, the Canadians suffer a heavy loss when a raid on the Germans goes awry; at this point, Broadbent is the lone survivor of the narrator's friends. To sufficiently motivate the troops for another raid, a Canadian general tells a dubious tale of the Germans sinking a hospital ship; during this bloody confrontation, the narrator wounds his foot, and Broadbent dies after his leg is nearly severed from his body. Shortly thereafter, the War ends. At this point, the soldiers learn that the ship sunk by the Germans was, in fact, carrying weapons. The illumination of the truth brings with it the realization that war is a game of strategy fought between generals, and soldiers are unwitting participants. |
3379021 | /m/098j75 | The City of the Moving Waters | Pierre Christin | 1970 | null | Part One: The City of Shifting Waters After completing a mission on Venus, Valérian and Laureline are on leave. Laureline is beating her partner in a game of 3D chess when they are summoned by the Chief of the Spatio-Temporal Service. Valérian appears more eager than usual to respond to his call. The Chief informs them that Xombul, the renegade technocrat of the First Circle of Galaxity, who attempted to take over Galaxity in Bad Dreams, has escaped captivity and fled into the Earth's past – the year 1986 – a time period agents have been forbidden to visit since the foundation of Galaxity. A nuclear explosion at the North Pole that year caused the polar ice cap to melt engulfing most of the Earth's cities. Valérian is ordered to pursue Xombul while Laureline is to remain at Galaxity until needed. Valérian arrives in 1986, in New York in the Statue of Liberty just as it collapses under a wave and Valérian is thrown into the Hudson. He is rescued by a group of looters on a boat who take him to their base in Macy's department store. Left alone, Valérian is able to make his escape and heads for the top of the Empire State Building in the hope of being able to see something from the higher ground. That night, he spies a light in the top floor of the United Nations. Reaching the United Nations, Valérian discovers a group of robots ransacking the UN's scientific archives. He makes to go after them but they take the lift to the ground floor – below the level of the water. Seeking underwater diving equipment to follow them, he is recaptured by the looters. They take him to their leader, Sun Rae, who has headquartered himself in the Plaza Hotel. He has commandeered a cargo ship and he and his group are filling it with as much loot as they can get their hands on before the final tsunami sweeps the city away forever. Valérian is put to work helping the looters load the ship. Some days later, as the looters struggle to secure the ship from the rising winds, Valérian tries to make his escape. Hiding in the hold of the ship he is surprised to encounter Laureline who takes him to her hideaway in Greenwich Village. Once there, Laureline explains how she got to New York: traveling to the spatio-temporal relay in Brasilia she borrowed an aircraft and made her way to New York. She also tells Valérian that a conference at the University of Brasília has brought all the great scientific minds of the planet together there and they are now trying to save what they can of civilisation. Valérian and Laureline return to the cargo ship and offer Sun Rae a deal: help them and he can have whatever scientific knowledge they also recover from the robots. He agrees and a team is put together to dive to find the robots. The team search the flooded subway tunnels and soon find the robots, following them to their base in Washington Heights. Entering the base, Valérian, Laureline and Sun Rae discover the robots are taking orders via a videoscreen from Xombul. Valérian, Laureline and Sun Rae are spotted and captured by the robots. Xombul orders the robots to bring them with them to his base in the west. Leaving in a hovercraft, the final deluge strikes New York and it's only thanks to Sun Rae's skill that they manage to make their escape from the city via the Washington Bridge. Heading west, Laureline is shocked by the devastation but Valérian reminds her that it's out of this disaster that Galaxity will be born. The hovercraft continues west towards Xombul's base... Part Two: Earth in Flames Transferring from the hovercraft to a tiltwing aircraft, Valérian, Laureline and Sun Rae are brought to Yellowstone National Park and a secret underground laboratory built by the US Army. There, they are greeted by Xombul, who introduces them to Schroeder, a scientist from the base that Xombul has kept prisoner. Xombul offers his captives a partnership – Sun Rae will command Xombul's troops and Valérian will be his right hand man. When both men hesitate, Xombul leads them all to a cave deep in the mountain. On the way, Schroeder pretends to stumble and slips an object into Valérian's hand. In the cave is vast machine – the Molecular Induction Minaturiser – capable of reducing any living object in size. Xombul places Laureline in the machine, proposing to keep her miniaturized form as a hostage to ensure Valérian's co-operation. The process begins and Xombul, absorbed in operating the machine, relaxes his attention. Valérian activates the device which emits a strong pitch, knocking out Xombul and his robots, who are connected to him by a mental link. Laureline has been miniaturized, but Schroeder explains that since the process wasn't completed, the effect will be temporary. Valérian prepares to leave with Laureline and the captive Xombul but Sun Rae decides to stay to see what he can salvage from the laboratories. Reaching the surface, Valérian, Laureline and Schroeder find that the robots outside have not been affected by Xombul's incapacitated state and they attack. In the confusion, Xombul escapes and Valérian, Laureline and Schroeder are forced to flee. While on the run, Laureline returns to her normal size. Evading the robots they come to an abandoned army base, where they find a jeep as well as weapons and ammunition. Returning to the base, they manage to ambush and destroy a robot patrol and to damage the aircraft. In response the aircraft releases bubble-prisons, one of Schroeder's inventions, which ensnare the trio and start to drift back to the base. At that very moment, there is a volcanic eruption. The bubble-prisons keep all three safe from the lava that flows across the ground. Brought back to the base they find Sun Rae. He tells them that Xombul returned to the base and blasted off in a rocket. Schroeder explains that the rocket was to ferry the President of the United States to a secret space station in orbit around the Earth in the event of a nuclear war. They are able to watch Xombul at work on the station with the material stolen from the United Nations but they have no apparent means of following him. Searching the lab, Valérian is astonished to discover what appears to be a prototype space-time machine. Schroeder informs him that he and some colleagues built it but couldn't get it to work. Examining the machine, Valérian realizes that he can make it operational with a few modifications. Before departure, he and Laureline knock Schroeder and Sun Rae unconscious so that they can't see what happens next. Activating the space-time machine, they jump successfully to the space station. Valérian confronts Xombul: the secrets he stole from the United Nations were for the same space-time machine Valérian has just used to get to the station – he never realized Schroeder had the prototype in the lab in Yellowstone – and Xombul has built a prototype of his own. Xombul plans to build a fleet of similar space-time machines and conquer the galaxy. Despite Valérian's protestations that the machine doesn't work, Xombul steps inside and activates his machine, which explodes killing him. Schroeder and Sun Rae come round to discover they are now just outside Brasilia. Valérian tells Schroeder he is a time traveler and that Schroeder shouldn't give up on his attempts to build a space-time machine. However, to preserve the time line, Valérian has removed the modifications he made. Valérian and Laureline make for the space-time relay in Brasilia as Schroeder addresses the gathered scientists at the University. Meanwhile, in the back streets of the city, Sun Rae plots a takeover. |
3380081 | /m/098kxl | Peter and the Starcatchers | Ridley Pearson | 2004 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | The story is an adventure on the high seas and on the faraway Mollusk island. An orphan boy named Peter and his pretty, mysterious new friend, Molly, overcome bands of pirates and thieves in their quest to keep a magical secret safe and save the world from evil. Characters include the scary but somehow familiar Black "Stache" Moustache and ferocious crocodile Mister Grin to the sweet but sophisticated Molly and fearless Peter. Molly and Peter take a voyage with Alf, James, Thomas, Prentiss, Tubby Ted, Slank and Little Richard from a filthy, crime-ridden port in Old England across the turbulent sea. Aboard the Never Land is a trunk that holds the "greatest treasure on earth," thought by its pursuers to be gold or jewels but revealed to be "starstuff." The trunk is moved from place to place through storms and sea battles: once in a dry, guarded cabin, next in a ship full of greedy pirates, and then out in the open sea. |
3380230 | /m/098l75 | Lungbarrow | Marc Platt | null | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | His mind occupied with thoughts of his coming regeneration, the TARDIS accidentally returns the Doctor to Gallifrey and the House of Lungbarrow, where for over 673 years his 44 cousins have been trapped, but mysteriously only six of them are still left. Meanwhile, Chris Cwej is having strange dreams of the past, when the family cast the Doctor out. The Doctor is accused of the murder of the head of the House, but finds many allies in the form of former companions Ace, Romana, K-9 and Leela, who have become embroiled in a Celestial Intervention Agency plot to overthrow Romana's presidency. The secrets of the past are catching up to the Doctor, in particular the secret linking him to a figure from Gallifreyan history known only as the Other. |
3381920 | /m/098p74 | Ramona the Pest | Beverly Cleary | 1968 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Ramona Quimby is excited because she is starting kindergarten. She is a year older than in Beezus and Ramona and trouble still seems to follow her. Athough Ramona does not mean to be a pest, she still manages to create trouble without trying to. Miss Binney is her teacher, and Ramona likes her a lot, especially when she praises Ramona's interesting drawing and nice fat letter 'Q's. There's a girl in her class named Susan with long, springy curls. Ramona really wants to pull on one of those curls and watch it bounce back and forth, but when she finally does she gets sent to the bench until recess is over. Another new person in her class is Davy. Ramona chases him at recess, trying to catch and kiss him, which she finally manages to accomplish when she participates in the Halloween parade when she is "the baddest witch in the whole world." Ramona tries to do her best in kindergarten but it isn't easy, especially during seat work, when she has to sit quietly and keep her eyes on her own work. She's just too interested in seeing what everyone else is doing. Still, kindergarten is going well until the day the substitute teacher arrives. Ramona won't go to class without Miss Binney, so she hides behind the trash cans with Ribsy the dog. When Beezus finds her and takes her to the principal's office Ramona is forced to go to class any way. Then one day Susan calls Ramona a "pest", Ramona retaliates by pulling Susan's curls, and Miss Binney sends her home until she can behave. Ramona decides that Miss Binney doesn't like her any more, and she refuses to go back. Nothing anyone says to her can change her mind until she gets a letter from her teacher signed "Love and Kisses", and Ramona is happy to return to kindergarten. |
3382736 | /m/098qgd | The Princess Casamassima | Henry James | 1886-10-22 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Amanda Pynsent, an impoverished seamstress, has adopted Hyacinth Robinson, the illegitimate son of her old friend Florentine Vivier, a Frenchwoman of less than sterling repute, and an English lord. Florentine had stabbed her lover to death several years ago, and Pinnie (as Miss Pynsent is nicknamed) takes Hyacinth to see her as she lies dying at Millbank prison. Hyacinth eventually learns that the dying woman is his mother and that she murdered his father. Many years pass. Hyacinth, now a young man and a skilled bookbinder, meets revolutionary Paul Muniment and gets involved in radical politics. Hyacinth also has a coarse but lively girlfriend, Millicent Henning, and one night they go to the theater. There Hyacinth meets the radiantly beautiful Princess Casamassima (Christina Light, from James' earlier novel, Roderick Hudson). The Princess has become a revolutionary herself and now lives apart from her dull husband. Meanwhile, Hyacinth has committed himself to carrying out a terrorist assassination, though the exact time and place have not yet been specified to him. Hyacinth visits the Princess at her country home and tells her about his parents. When he returns to London, Hyacinth finds Pinnie dying. He comforts her in her final days, then travels to France and Italy on his small inheritance. This trip completes Hyacinth's conversion to a love for the sinful but beautiful world, and away from violent revolution. Still, he does not attempt to escape his vow to carry out the assassination. But when the order comes, he turns the gun on himself instead of its intended victim. |
3382973 | /m/098qrx | The Bostonians | Henry James | null | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Mississippi lawyer and Civil War veteran, Basil Ransom, visits his cousin Olive Chancellor in Boston. She takes him to a political meeting where Verena Tarrant delivers a feminist speech. Ransom, a strong conservative, is annoyed by the speech but fascinated with the speaker. Olive, who has never before set eyes on Verena, is equally fascinated. She persuades Verena to leave her parents' house, move in with her and study in preparation for a career in the feminist movement. Meanwhile, Ransom returns to his law practice in New York, which is not doing well. He visits Boston again and walks with Verena through the Harvard College grounds, including the impressive Civil War memorial. Verena finds herself attracted to the charismatic Ransom. Basil eventually proposes to Verena, much to Olive's dismay. Olive has arranged for Verena to speak at the Boston Music Hall. Ransom shows up at the hall just before Verena is scheduled to begin her speech. He persuades Verena to elope with him, to the discomfiture of Olive and her fellow-feminists. The final sentence of the novel shows Verena in tears — not to be her last, James assures us. |
3383836 | /m/098rwk | First to Fight | Dan Cragg | 1997 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | First to Fight has one main plot, the story of a platoon from the 34th Fleet Initial Strike Team (FIST) to the planet Elneal, interlaced with three subplots. The first subplot revolves around new Marine Joseph F. Dean as he experiences his first deployment. Another is that of Staff Sergeant Charlie Bass, recently demoted from Gunnery Sergeant and transferred to the 34th FIST for assaulting a civilian contractor after the in-combat failure of an electronic device the man was responsible for, which failure cost half the men of one of the companies of the 31st FIST. The third subplot is the sadistic dream of a tribal leader whose plan to achieve rule over Elneal is stymied by the presence of the Marines on Elneal. Dean and his friend Neal are assigned to the third platoon of Company L, 34th FIST on Thorsfinni's World.The 34th FIST is assigned to a humanitarian relief effort on the backwater planet of Elneal.Is a planet that is completely useless except for its deposits, which are being mined by Consolidated Enterprises, and is mostly populated by nomadic tribes, third platoon receives a new platoon leader, who privately sees the platoon as a bunch of worthless men in need of shaping up, even though the company commander claims third platoon is the best in the entire FIST., it becomes clear that the tribes have formed an alliance to rid the planet of the Confederation and Consolidated Enterprises. Dean's platoon is stationed in an isolated village in order to defend it, retain order and deliver aid to the locals as originally planned before the Marines' arrival. But while things seem calm and peaceful, He tries to convince the platoon leader to take defensive measures before the situation deteriorates, but to no effec, and to get him out of his hair orders him to take the platoon's new UPUD . Bass reluctantly takes a patrol a ways into the desert to test the device, they realize that the rest of the platoon is attacked . The small patrol is too far away to come help in good timt have been wiped out, and, believing another full-out assault is in the works, orders a withdrawal to Company L headquarters . Stranded, Bass leads the patrol through the desert towards New Obbia. |
3385082 | /m/098ts0 | One for the Money | Janet Evanovich | 8/26/1994 | {"/m/0lsxr": "Crime Fiction", "/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | Stephanie Plum, an unemployed lingerie sales women, applies for a filing job with her cousin Vinnie, a bail bondsman. Vinnie's assistant, Connie, tells her the job is taken, but suggests she start apprehending some clients who have skipped out on their bonds, starting with Joe Morelli, vice cop and onetime sexual acquaintance of Stephanie. He is wanted for murder one. Stephanie is in financial trouble, and wants to take the job, as she will get a percentage of the $100,000 bail bond, so she blackmails Vinnie into employing her, by threatening to reveal his use of a duck for sexual gratification. In trying to find Morelli, Plum attracts the attention of a heavyweight boxer involved in the murders of several women. |
3385085 | /m/098tsc | Two For the Dough | Janet Evanovich | 1/10/1996 | {"/m/0lsxr": "Crime Fiction", "/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | While Stephanie is looking for Kenny, his friend is fatally shot in the head, which complicates the case. Lula, the hooker introduced in the previous book, One For the Money, gets a job as a file clerk at Vinnie's Bail Bonds company, but decides that being Stephanie's sidekick is more interesting than filing. Stephanie talks to Spiro Stiva, the son of the owner of the local funeral home and a childhood friend of Mancuso. Stiva asks Stephanie to help him find the 24 bargain basement caskets that have mysteriously gone missing...along with various body parts. As the book continues, Stephanie begins finding embalmed body parts in her apartment along with threatening notes. Then, a number of weapons go missing from a military installation. Eventually, Stephanie and Grandma Mazur find themselves locked in the basement of Stiva's Funeral Home and end up setting the place on fire. Stephanie's Jeep Wrangler, Sahara model, stolen outside of the Eternal Slumber funeral home on Stark Street, and most likely wound up in a chop shop. |
3385088 | /m/098tt1 | Three to Get Deadly | Janet Evanovich | 2/14/1997 | {"/m/0lsxr": "Crime Fiction", "/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | Stephanie is on the trail of beloved Moses Bedemier, a mild-mannered, predictable man who runs an ice-cream parlor/candy store in the Burg. Mo is an upstanding citizen with ties to almost every family in Jersey. Unfortunately, he gets ticketed by an overly-excited fresh-out-of-the-academy cop for carrying a concealed weapon, and then doesn't show up for his court date. No one wants to help Stephanie haul "Uncle Mo" (as he is widely known) to jail, so her detective work is frustratingly slow. "Mo would never do anything wrong," Stephanie is told by the Burg residents. Since her neighbors and family refuse to help her, she calls on her mentor Ranger, her sidekick (and aspiring bounty hunter) Lula, and Joe Morelli, vice cop and former lover. As Stephanie attempts to resume her relationship with Morelli, they are constantly interrupted - first by criminals, then by Stephanie's accidental dye job that makes her look like Ronald McDonald. When Stephanie begins stumbling across the bodies of dead drug dealers, including four buried in the candy store basement, she suspects that mild-mannered Mo has become a vigilante. Was that why Mo carried a concealed weapon? Stephanie must figure out if Mo has begun cleaning up the streets in a one-man killing spree. |
3385794 | /m/098w7c | Empire of a Thousand Planets | Pierre Christin | 1971 | null | Valérian and Laureline are ordered to Syrte-the-Magnificent, capital of the Empire of a Thousand Planets to investigate whether the empire is a potential threat to Galaxity, the capital of Earth in the 28th century. Exploring the markets, Valérian buys Laureline an old gold watch which she hangs around her neck. Attracted by a gathering, they discover that one of the Authorities, the strange masked soothsayers who, it is said are the real power on Syrte, is holding a consultation. Suddenly, in the middle of the session, the Authority notices the watch around Laureline's neck. He asks her what the watch is for. When she replies that it is to tell the time, the crowd erupts in laughter. The Authority departs suddenly leaving a bemused Valérian and Laureline. Returning to the spaceport, Valérian and Laureline's boat is attacked and they are taken prisoner. They are transported to one of the Authority's temples. An Authority appears before them and asks if they are Terrans. He knows they are from Earth because of the watch – all Syrtiens have an innate biological ability to tell the time and would have no use for such a device. He tells them that the Authorities revenge against Earth will be dreadful. Valérian and Laureline give the guards the slip and exploring the temple are amazed to discover sophisticated machinery and laboratories. Finding a hangar they escape the temple in an aircraft but are pursued. The pursuit breaks off when they enter a cloud and Valérian and Laureline soon find out why as their aircraft is battered by an ice storm. Ditching the aircraft, they begin their journey back to Syrte on foot where they meet a group of fishermen who agree to bring them to the city on their boat. Reaching Syrte, Valérian and Laureline attempt to gain entry to the Imperial Palace by dressing as nobles but they are refused entry by the guards. Meeting a merchant called Elmir, he offers to get them into the palace in return for them sharing information about what they find inside with him. Elmir organises for them to hide inside a consignment of Schamil clams warning them not to allow the clam to close completely over them or they will be affected by its hallucinogenic properties. Once inside the palace, Valérian emerges safely from his clam but is horrified to discover Laureline's has broken into pieces. Searching for Laureline, Valérian enters the opulent hall where the festival is going on and is amazed to see her sharing a cupola with the emperor, Prince Ramal. The festival ends and as the crowds make their way to the exit, Valérian makes for the wing where the Authorities are housed. He finds the Authorities gathered in a chamber, their masks removed, drinking a strange phosphorescent liquid chanting “So that we may live and the Earth dies!”. Suddenly a portcullis closes behind him and he is a prisoner. Taken to the interrogation room, the Authorities use their machines to extract information about Valérian's astroship and about the Earth. The next morning, the door to the interrogation room opens and Laureline leads Prince Ramal into the room – she has heard about Valérian's capture and has convinced the Prince to agree to release him. The Authorities object but the Prince insists on keeping his promise. Leaving the palace, Valérian and Laureline head into the slums of the city to the address Elmir left them. Arriving at the house, they are amazed to discover that Elmir is, in fact, the Grand Master of the Merchant's Guild. He brings them to a secret meeting of the guild members. After Valérian and Laureline have told their story, Elmir and the other merchants fill them in on the Authorities rise to power – they arrived on Syrte a hundred years ago and used their superior knowledge of medicine and psychology to make their name on Syrte. They used their ever increasing power to suppress scientific knowledge and replace it with their religion. The resulting impact on trade has prompted the guild to act – they have discovered that the Authorities base of operations is located on a barren asteroid called Slomp. They want Valérian and his astroship to lead a fleet to assault the base. Valérian agrees and a few days later Elmir manages to escort them safely to the spaceport and their astroship. They take off accompanied by the guild spaceships. The fleet swells its numbers by calling on further guild ships from the other planets in the empire. Approaching Slomp, Elmir reveals why he wanted Valérian and his astroship – he knows Valérian and Laureline are aliens from Earth and also that their astroship is capable of jumping in space-time. He hopes that ability will give them the upper hand. When the Authorities attack the fleet in their spaceships, Valérian executes a series of spatio-temporal jumps and destroys the Authorities' ships. Arriving at Slomp, the fleet lands and the Guild troops led by Elmir head for the base. The hills on Slomp look like faces and Elmir explains that they are the remains of the indigenous inhabitants of Slomp. Flowing from their eyes like tears is the strange phosphorescent liquid Valérian saw the Authorities drinking in the Imperial Palace on Syrte. The Authorities' base turns out to be a crashed spaceship. Outside, slave laborers are hard at work gathering the phosphorescent tears. Surrounding the base, the troops launch a surprise attack and, aided by the slaves, easily overcome the guards. As they close in on the spaceship, a voice from a loudspeaker requests Valérian to enter the ship alone. Reaching the flight deck of the spaceship, he is greeted by the Authorities. They remove their helmets to reveal themselves as horribly scarred, ancient humans. They were part of a space expedition that left Earth many centuries ago. An accident during flight caused them to crash on Slomp where they used the phosphorescent liquid to extend their lives beyond the normal human span. Eventually, they captured a Syrtien spaceship and made their way to Syrte to take over. Their plan was to assemble an armada to attack Earth as revenge against the planet for making no effort to rescue them. However, the technology of Valérian's astroship is vastly superior to theirs – he destroyed their entire squadron – and they have now realised that any attempt at revenge is doomed to fail. Accordingly, they have chosen to commit suicide instead – the spaceship is rigged to explode. Valérian leaves and the spaceship blows up. Elsewhere, throughout the empire, the other Authorities destroy their temples taking their own lives in the process. Returning to Syrte with the fleet and the freed slaves, Elmir is delighted – the Empire will be back to normal again. He is surprised then when Valérian tells him that, with the Authorities gone, there has been an uprising on Syrte – the fishermen and the peasants have risen up, helped by the scientists and academics who went into hiding during the Authorities' purges. Valérian explains that the reason as to why the Authorities took over so easily was that the empire was already in decline and that the Authorities were the only thing keeping the imperial system going. Sensing an opportunity, Elmir asks Valérian if he could use the spatio-temporal jump to get back to Syrte ahead of his rival merchants so that he can stake a claim in the new provisional government. Valérian agrees and, later, parts company with Elmir outside the Imperial Palace. Valérian and Laureline return to their astroship intending to request Earth to send a trade mission to Syrte to assist them. |
3388166 | /m/098_6d | The Ancestor Cell | Stephen Cole | null | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | Following on from the events of The Banquo Legacy, the Timelords have cracked the base code the Eighth Doctor programmed into Compassion's randomiser and intercept her at her next destination. Threatened with enslavement, Compassion activates her built in weapons system and destroys the approaching WarTARDISes, while the Doctor fights for control of her navigation systems. The resulting "hiccup" expels Fitz and the Doctor into the vortex. The Doctor is captured while escaping from the Edifice, a massive bone structure that has appeared in the skies above Gallifrey, and taken to Gallifrey where he is accused of being an agent of Faction Paradox. The Doctor is forced to aid the Time Lords in the capture of Compassion to aid in the forthcoming War. Meanwhile, Fitz appears before a group of disenchanted, young Time Lords who are holding rituals based on the occult texts of Faction Paradox and finds himself unable to escape. Getting further embroiled in the group's activities, Fitz witnesses the creation of a copy of former President Greyjan the Sane and is then the unwitting donor of material used to pull the original Fitz Kreiner, now in the guise of Faction Agent Father Kreiner, from a Klein bottle universe into the modern day Gallifrey. During her Reaffirmation Ceremony, Lady President Romana is challenged by Greyjan and placed under house arrest, with only Fitz as company. With the aid of Compassion, they are able to escape and witness Faction Paradox corrupting Time Lord history, followed by the Doctor's fall to the Faction. Travelling to the Edifice with Father Kreiner and a Faction Agent known as Tarra, Kreiner reveals he is not truly working for the Faction and pleads with the Doctor to undo the past so he never becomes Father Kreiner, an act the Doctor cannot agree to. The Doctor reveals that not only has he not fallen to the Faction but the Edifice is, in fact, his old TARDIS, which was not actually destroyed at Avalon. Together he and Kreiner are able to dispose of Tarra before Grandfather Paradox appears on the Edifice to confront the Doctor. The Doctor battles the Grandfather, and decides that the only way to prevent Faction Paradox from destroying Gallifrey's past is a drastic move: he chooses to use the energy that is holding the TARDIS together to destroy Faction Paradox and Grandfather Paradox, but also destroy Gallifrey in the process. With the whole of Time Lord history seemingly being erased from existence, Compassion is able to rescue the Doctor, Fitz and the remains of the Doctor's old TARDIS, placing them on Earth for safekeeping, until the TARDIS can regenerate itself over the course of the next century and the Doctor, now suffering from amnesia, can recover. At the end of the novel, the Doctor is stranded on Earth for a hundred years; Fitz is left to his own devices in the late 20th century, with only a time and place to meet the Doctor once the TARDIS is once again active; and Compassion is released from her bonds to both the Time Lords and the Faction, free to roam time and space as she sees fit. |
3388262 | /m/098_fd | Obasan | Joy Kogawa | 1981 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Set in 1972, Obasan centres on the memories and experiences of Naomi Nakane, a 36 year old schoolteacher living in the rural Canadian town of Cecil, Alberta, when the novel begins. The death of Naomi's uncle, with whom she had lived as a child, leads Naomi to visit and care for her widowed aunt Aya, whom she refers to as Obasan (Obasan being the Japanese word for "Aunt" in this context). Her brief stay with Obasan in turn becomes an occasion for Naomi to revisit and reconstruct in memory her painful experiences as a child during and after World War II, with the aid of a box of correspondence and journals sent to her by her Aunt Emily, detailing the years of the measures taken by the Canadian government against the Japanese citizens of Canada and their aftereffects. With the aid of Aunt Emily's box, Naomi learns that her mother, who had been in Japan before the bombing of Pearl Harbor, was severely injured by the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima; a finding which changes her perspective of the 'War in the Pacific', and rekindles the heartbreak she experienced as a child. Naomi's narration thus interweaves two stories, one of the past and another of the present, mixing experience and recollection, history and memory throughout. Naomi's struggle to come to terms with both past and present confusion and suffering form the core of the novel's plot. Although Obasan is fiction, the events, Parliamentary legal documents, and overall notion of racism mirror reality. Through the eyes of fictional characters, Kogawa tells the story of Japanese-Canadians during the Second World War. |
3388363 | /m/098_nb | The Case of Sergeant Grischa | null | null | null | The Russian soldier Grischa escapes from a German prison camp and attempts to return to the family home. After his escape he becomes involved with a group of outlaws, including a young woman, Babka, who dresses as a man and has been prematurely aged by her traumatic experiences. Grischa and Babka become lovers. When he leaves, she gives him the identity tag of a former lover, Bjuscheff, so that if he gets caught he will be mistaken for a deserter and not be sent back to the prison camp. She follows him at a distance in case he ever needs her help. Grischa is eventually captured. Being illiterate, he does not realise that calling himself Bjuscheff worsens his plight, as he has been unable to read the notices saying that all deserters must hand themselves in to the occupying German army within three days or face execution as spies. Only when he is condemned to death does he realise what has happened, and he reveals his true identity. The local German authorities send for his former prison guards, and having confirmed his true identity, they send for advice to Schieffenzahn, the chief administrator on the eastern Front. Schieffenzahn orders that the original error must be ignored, for the sake of discipline. Grischa is therefore sentenced to be shot. There follows a power struggle between the local military authorities and the administrators. The old general sees it as a point of honour not to give in to Schieffenzahn's order. Although he fails to convince Schieffenzahn face to face, the latter thinks better of it afterwards and rescinds the execution order. However, a heavy snowfall has brought down the communication wires, and the telegram of reprieve is never sent. In the meantime, Babka hatches a plan to poison the prison guards, whilst Lieutenant Winfried, the general's nephew, tries to find alternative ways of getting Grischa out of prison. Both plans fail because Grischa himself is tired of the struggle and refuses to leave, preferring to face execution rather than continue as a pawn in the larger game. The book is a satire, focusing on the way in which innocent men are sacrificed in war, one irony being that the authorities spend more time and energy on the niceties of Grischa's case than they do on trying to save their own soldiers from their fate. |
3388556 | /m/098_yt | If Not Now, When? | Primo Levi | 1986 | null | The story follows a number of Jewish partisans and resistance fighters as they struggle to survive and sabotage the German war machine behind Nazi lines during World War II, starting in the western Soviet Union (Byelorossiya) and ending in Milan. The book's chief protagonist, Mendel Nachmanovich Dajcher, worked as a watch repairer before joining the Red Army, where he fought in the artillery. While he is at war, his wife and shtetl are massacred by a German Einsatzgruppe. In the midst of battle, he loses his regiment, becomes disoriented and is overtaken by the front, separated from and unsupported by Soviet forces. His life thereafter is an odyssey through the "partisanka", the motley partisan movement, which includes Russians, Jews, Lithuanians and Poles. About halfway through the book, Mendel and his companion from the first chapter, Leonid, fall in with a group of Jewish resistance fighters called the gedalistas, after their leader: Gedale. With them, Mendel traverses Poland and, overtaken by the victorious Soviets, enters defeated Germany. From there, the group aims for Italy, dreaming of making the aliyah to Palestine to take part in the Zionist project of reclaiming a Jewish homeland. |
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