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3390889 | /m/0993hc | World Without Stars | Pierre Christin | 1972 | null | Valérian and Laureline are in the Ukbar system assisting human colonists who have settled on its four planets. Their job almost complete, they are now on a farewell tour of inspection. Arriving at Ukbar I, Valérian delivers his farewell speech at a reception in honour of the two agents from Galaxity. Later, one of the colonists invites Valérian to sample one of the first products of their new world – an alcoholic beverage distilled from algae. Proceeding to Ukbar II, Valérian delivers the same speech and again is invited to sample some of the locals' homemade booze. Laureline is alarmed when a somewhat intoxicated Valérian takes the astroship wildly off course on the way to Ukbar III. On Ukbar III, Valérian stumbles through the speech before being offered to try out the alcohol made on this planet. Returning to the astroship, Valérian falls over and Laureline at last realises he is drunk. Refusing to allow Laureline to pilot the ship, he makes a mess of the landing on Ukbar IV. Emerging from the ship, Valérian and Laureline discover the colony is deserted. Everyone is gathered in the observatory – a rogue planet has been spotted and it's on a collision course with the Ukbar system. With the cargo ships dismantled, there is no way to evacuate the colonists. Valérian makes another speech, promising to deal with the situation and then takes off with Laureline for the planet. While Valérian sleeps off the drink, Laureline makes the space-time jump to the planet. Exploring the surface they find it to be a lifeless, airless, barren rock but their curiosity is piqued by some phosphorescent lakes. Taking a launch from the astroship, they dive into one of the lakes and are astonished when the emerge on the other side – it is a hollow planet! Light is provided by the planet's nucleus and there is a small rocky moon in orbit. Searching for a place to land they see a strange sight – houses pulled by animals. Suddenly a section of the ridge one of the houses is travelling along gives way. Valérian swoops in with the launch and saves the house and its inhabitants from falling. Landing, a man introduces himself as Mutahar of the Lemm people of the planet Zahir. They are nomads who travel in the shadow of the moon collecting explosive flogums which they sell to the cities Malka and Valsennar. Suddenly a great wind rips through the camp. Mutahar explains that this is caused by the war between Malka and Valsennar – they use the flogums as weapons in the fight. Laureline checks the measuring devices in the launch – the detonation of the flogums during the battles is what is causing Zahir to tumble through space. The pair realise there is only once course of action open to them – stop the war. The pair split up – Valérian travels with the Lemm men to Malka, since women are forbidden from entering the city while Laureline travels with the Lemm women to Valsennar since men are forbidden from entering that city. Reaching Malka, Valérian parts company with the Lemm and gains entry through the city's considerable fortifications via the sewer system. Exploring the back streets, Valérian is surprised to see only men – cooking, cleaning, looking after the children. Soon he finds out where the women are when a formidable group of riders, all female, round up a group of the men. They are to be conscripts in the war with Valsennar – Valérian and the rest of the men are put through intensive military training. Later, resting in the barracks, the other men tell Valérian that they are at war with Valsennar because that city is ruled by men – a perversion of the natural order: men are inferior. Few men survive the battles and those that do are sent to the Palace of Supreme Femininity for reproductive duties. Elsewhere, Laureline reaches Valsennar and, like Valérian, parts company with the Lemm. Unlike Malka, Valsennar is a beautiful city with canals, gardens and sumptuous palaces. Wandering the back streets, Laureline meets an old lady, Nadjika, who persuades her to enter the emperor's beauty contest. Despite making a mess of the cooking, weaving and singing elements of the competition, the emperor, Alzafar, takes a shine to her and declares her the winner. She is brought back to the Palace of Resplendent Virility to join his harem. On the way they pass the emperor's war fleet. Laureline notices that all the soldiers are women – the emperor explains that women do all the work in Valsennar including fighting. The day of the battle comes and the war fleet of airships and flying elytrons (insects) takes off from Malka led by Queen Klopka the Ravishing. At the same time the war fleet of Valsennar takes off with the flagship of Emperor Alzafar and his court bring up the rear where they can enjoy the spectacle of the fight. The battle is engaged near the sun and Valérian is soon caught up in the bloody combat. In an attempt to impress the queen, taking an elytron flogum carrier he destroys several of Valsennar's ships and makes a successful bombing run on the Palace of Resplendent Virility before making to attack the emperor's flagship. This throws everyone on board into a panic – no one has ever attacked the emperor's ship before – except Laureline who grabs a crossbow and shoots the attacker down. Seconds later, she is horrified to see that it's Valérian. Valérian manages to save himself by jumping onto a drifting ship. Returning to Malka, Valérian is given his own apartments in the Palace of Supreme Femininity while Laureline is now the emperor's favorite in the surviving wing of the Palace of Resplendent Virility. Calling Valérian on her radio, Laureline is delighted to find Valérian is unharmed. They decide that they must kidnap the two monarchs and bring them together to find a way to end the conflict. Valérian knocks out Queen Klopka with a stunner and Laureline drugs Emperor Alzafar's drink. Meeting at the launch, they decide the best thing to do is to show the queen and the emperor the universe outside Zahir in the hope that they will then understand the peril they are in. They are disturbed when Klopka and Alzafar come round and begin fighting with each other. Pulling them apart, Valérian and Laureline calm them down and put them both in the launch. When they pass through into the outside of Zahir, Klopka and Alzafar see the stars for the first time. They are so shocked they go into a dead faint straight away. Bringing them to the astroship Valérian uses the hypnotic instruction machinery there to describe the universe to Klopka and Alzafar. Now aware of the danger they are in, they agree to put their differences aside and work to save Zahir and Ukbar. Valérian hatches a plan. The Malka, the Valsennar and the Lemm people all work together to gather as many flogums as possible and place them around the planet according to Valérian's instructions. At the right time, Valérian executes a series of spatio-temporal jumps detonating the flogums at the right time such that Zahir enters a safe orbit and becomes the fifth planet of Ukbar. The settlers of Ukbar and the Zahirians open up contact with a view to trade. On Zahir, society is rocked to discover that Klopka has married Alzafar and other marriages follow, leading to the collapse of the chauvinistic divisions between the two sides. Their mission completed, Valérian claims that he is not against the matriarchy system and to prove it he tells Laureline to get on with taking them back to Galaxity while he gets drunk on Zahirian alcohol. |
3391638 | /m/0994p_ | The Tragic Muse | Henry James | null | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Nick Dormer wants to pursue a career in painting instead of his family's traditional role in British politics. This upsets his family and particularly his lady friend, Julia Dallow, a beautiful but demanding woman deeply involved in political campaigns. But Nick's old Oxford friend Gabriel Nash encourages him to follow his desire to become an artist. Despite his misgivings Nick goes through an election campaign and wins a seat in Parliament. He proposes marriage to Julia but they agree to wait. Meanwhile, Nick's cousin Peter Sherringham, a rising young man in the British diplomatic service, encounters a young actress, Miriam Rooth, in Paris. He falls in love with Miriam, who shows great energy but is a woefully raw talent. Peter introduces Miriam to French acting coach Madame Carre, and Miriam begins to improve her acting technique greatly. Nick at last tires completely of politics and resigns from Parliament. He thus loses a large bequest from his political patron, Mr. Carteret. Nick becomes a full-time painter, and when Miriam comes to London in search of theatrical success, she sits to Nick for her portrait as "the tragic muse." Julia finds the two together in the studio. Although nothing improper is going on, Julia suddenly and bitterly realizes that Nick is dedicated to art and will never return to politics. Miriam eventually triumphs as an actress, especially as Juliet. Peter proposes marriage to her, but she refuses and instead marries Basil Dashwood, her business manager. Peter accepts a diplomatic assignment in Central America. He returns to London on leave and becomes engaged to Biddy Dormer, Nick's sister. The novel ends with a suggestion that Nick and Julia may eventually marry, after all. |
3393405 | /m/09979v | Esperanza Rising | Pam Muñoz Ryan | 2000 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The story takes place in Aguascalientes, Mexico on a ranch called El Rancho de las Rosas. It follows Esperanza Ortega, daughter of Ramona and Sixto Ortega, a rich rancher and landowner. The night before Esperanza's thirteenth birthday Esperanza's father is murdered by bandits. Esperanza, her mother, Grandmother Abuelita and their servants are devastated by the news. Later that night Esperanza dreams of her father and the other men and boys on the ranch singing "Happy Birthday" in Spanish to her. Politics and family problems force Esperanza and her mother to leave Mexico for California, leaving behind her beloved Abuelita. After a long and tedious train ride the group arrives in Los Angeles and then travel by truck to the San Fernando Valley where they meet a girl named Isabel, her parents Juan and Josefina, and Isabel's baby brother and sister, Lupe and Pepe. Due to her privileged background, Esperanza is hated by some of the workers, and she finds it difficult to adapt to her new life. She and her mother now share a shack with Alfonso and his family as the owners of the camp do not allow single mothers to have their own shacks, only men. At one point a dust storm runs through the camps forcing the adults to leave the fields and return home. Due to the dust storm Mama becomes ill with Valley Fever, an infection of the lungs by dust spores, and pneumonia. She spends several months in the hospital and in order to pay Mama's medical bills, Esperanza must earn money by working in the fields. After many months Mama eventually recovers and is released from the hospital to be with her friends and family. Miguel steals the money Esperanza had and went down to retrieve Abuelita, and Esperanza finally feels happy with her life and is happy to be surrounded by the people she loves. |
3394973 | /m/0999k7 | Welcome to Alflolol | Pierre Christin | 1972 | null | Valérian and Laureline are departing the Earth colony Technorog following a tour of inspection. Passing through the protective shield that surrounds the planet, Laureline is suddenly enveloped in a blue flame and rendered cataleptic. Recovering she reveals that she could hear what sounded like a cry for help. Checking their tracking instruments, they find an alien spacecraft falling towards Technorog. It strikes the protective shield and bounces into the asteroid belt that rings the planet. Valérian and Laureline spacewalk to the alien ship which they find deserted. Suddenly, Laureline is again rendered cataleptic and this time floats out of the spacecraft and into the asteroids. Following, Valérian finds Laureline surrounded by a group of strange aliens. The lead alien, unable to bring Laureline round, moves to open her spacesuit. Valérian intervenes. The lead alien introduces himself, using telepathy, as Argol, He-Who-Has-The-Gift-Of-Speaking-In-Minds. His family's maternal ancestor, Garol, She-Who-Has-The-Gift-Of-Taking-Over-Minds, has fallen gravely ill. In an attempt to get help she has taken over Laureline's mind but is now too sick to free her. Argol's wife, Orgal, She-Who-Has-The-Gift-Of-Making-Things-Move-Through-Space, used her telekinetic powers to bring Laureline to them. Valérian offers to bring them back to his astroship to see if he can cure Garol's illness. On the way, Argol introduces the rest of his family: his son Lagor and daughter Logar, who haven't yet discovered their gifts, and the Goumon, their pet. He explains that they come from the planet below them which is called Alflolol and that they have been away exploring other worlds. Valérian tells him that the planet below him is called Technorog and belongs to Earth. Argol laughs and says his people have just been away on a little trip. Valérian estimates their “little trip” has lasted 4,000 years. Algol explains that his people live for hundreds of thousands of years. Reaching the astroship, Valérian takes them to its medical unit where he manages to stabilise Garol's condition. Laureline recovers, much to the delight of the Goumon which has taken a shine to her. Valérian contacts the Governor of Technorog requesting permission to return to the planet. As the astroship flies over the surface of their planet, the Alflololians are dumbfounded by the activities of human settlers – the salt extraction plants on the ocean, the mines, the factories and the hydroponic plantations. They are even more dismayed when they discover that the humans have built their capital, Technorogville, on top of where they had their campsite. Landing, the guards that greet them demand that the Alflololians are put through sanitary control. Laureline goes with them while Valérian goes to the Governor's office. He explains to the Governor that Technorog's original inhabitants have returned and that, under Galaxity's laws, they have the right to return to the land that is theirs. The Governor wants to refer the matter to Technorog's council before making a decision. Suddenly, the door opens and Laureline arrives with the Alflololians. At the same time, alarms start going off all around the city – chaos has broken out as the automatic control systems have broken down. Laureline admits that the Alflololians had been having a bit of fun before they came to the Governor's office which they have come to claim as their own since it lies on the exact spot they lived on before they departed. Left with no choice, the Governor leaves them to it and Algol and his family begin celebrating their return. The party lasts for several days and, eventually, Valérian and Laureline, exhausted, fall asleep in the corridor outside. Waking up, the pair find the Alflololians have gone. Algol has left a message – the city doesn’t agree with them and they have set out for their traditional hunting grounds. The Governor arrives with the rest of the council. He orders Valérian and Laureline to lead an expedition to bring them back – at least, up to now, they knew where the Alflololians were and what they were doing. Now, they present a threat to industrial production. The Governor provides the best men and equipment but they prove no match for the harsh environment and soon, their equipment destroyed, the last of the able-bodied men are forced to turn back leaving Valérian and Laureline alone in the jungle. Making camp, they soon fall asleep but, suddenly, Laureline is grabbed by a huge tentacled beast and borne away into the jungle. Valérian gives chase and follows them out of the jungle to the shores of Magnet Ocean. Left with no choice, Valérian draws his gun and prepares to fire, hoping he won't hit Laureline. Suddenly, from out of nowhere, the Goumon appears and attacks the creature. Valérian drags Laureline out of the water as Argol and the rest of the family arrive but she has fallen sick – the creature is a Shalafut-Personality-Splitter. Suddenly, Logar stands over Laureline and cures her. Algol is delighted – his daughter has found her gift – he tells her she will henceforth be known as Logar, She-Who-Saves-From-Nasty-Beasts. He invites Valérian and Laureline to accompany them on their boat where his son, Lagor, will be taught how to kill his first Furutz, one of the vicious sea creatures that inhabits the ocean. On the boat, on the hunt, they close in on a herd of Furutz swimming near the salt extraction plants when suddenly a squadron of aircraft fly over them. Valérian's radio crackles into life and the Governor's voice orders them to withdraw from the area as it is restricted. Algol warns them to get clear – a panicked herd of Furutz can cause untold damage. The Governor ignores them and opens fire. The Furutz are enraged and attack the salt extraction plants causing spectacular damage. Somehow, in the middle of the devastation, Lagor manages to make the kill and the Alflololians drag the huge beast onto the shore. The Governor and his men land. The situation has gotten worse – a hundred Alflololian families have now arrived and are demanding to be allowed to return to their home. Laureline is horrified to discover that the Governor plans to put them on a reservation. Valérian is left in charge of administering the new arrangement. The reservation is on the edge of the desert near some factories on the worst hunting grounds on the planet. There is little game and all the food is contaminated by the pollution from the factories. Hunting becomes impossible when the sirocco winds blow from the desert. With the Alflololians on the brink of starvation, Valérian convinces the council to give them food-aid. But there is a price – the Alflololians must work for their food. This is the last straw for Laureline who leaves Valérian and, throwing her lot in with the Alflololians, heads off to the hydroponic plantations with them. Fed up, Valérian sets up camp in the desert. Some days later, he receives an urgent call from the Governor – a catastrophe has occurred at the hydroponic plantations. Arriving there, he discovers that all the foodstuffs have been transformed into pretty flowers. Algol informs him that his son has discovered his gift and will now be known as Lagor, He-Who-Has-The-Gift-Of-Making-Ugly-Things-Beautiful. Unfortunately, the flowers are not edible and the planet is now on the brink of starvation. The Governor has a new plan: the Alflololians will be split up – some to the mines, some to the factories, some to the power plants. Valérian refuses to comply with his new orders. The Governor threatens to inform Galaxity about Laureline's rebellious behaviour – if Valérian doesn’t co-operate, Laureline will be dismissed from the Spatio-Temporal Service and will finish her days in the mines. Reluctantly, Valérian complies. Several days later, Valérian begins a tour of inspection to see how the Alflololians are getting on. Arriving at a factory, he discovers that the spaceships they have been making have all been transformed into colourful sculptures. The situation is similar in the other factories – the atomic weapons factory can only make pocket-knives while at the biology centre, everyone has hay-fever. Moving on to the mines, he discovers that the drilling rigs are paralysed. Flying over the power plants he finds a huge fire raging. Reaching Technorogville, he finds it plunged in darkness due to a system-wide power cut. Entering the Governor's office, the council are in a state of despair – production has ground to a complete halt. Finally they agree that the Alflololians should be allowed to roam free on their own world. Heading to the reservation to pass on the good news, Valérian is surprised to discover the Alflololians leaving in their spaceships. The only ones left are Algol and his family, who cannot leave because their ship is too badly damaged. Laureline is with them – she explains that the Alflololians had had enough and have chosen to return to travelling. Valérian offers Algol a lift in his astroship and Laureline finally makes up with him. Leading the flotilla of Alflololian ships through the protective shield, they say their farewells to the Governor who warns them never to come back. The Alflololian ships go their separate ways. Valérian takes Algol and his family to Galaxity, promising them there will be plenty to eat and drink and their celebrations will be appreciated. The high ranking officials of Galaxity await them as ambassadors and prepare a reception for them. |
3395442 | /m/099b9_ | Keepers | Gary A. Braunbeck | null | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/03npn": "Horror", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | The main character is a shy, lonely, middle-aged man named Gil Stewart. He lives a relatively clean, good, quiet life in Cedar Hill, Ohio, where he owns and runs an antique novelty and collectibles store and also helps to take care of his institutionalized nephew Carson (in a group home), who has Down's Syndrome. One evening, while returning home from work, he finds an elderly man on the side of the road wearing a bowler hat. The man's hat gets blown away, and as he runs after it, he gets hit by a car. While that is happening, Gil notices two black mastiffs that seemed to be chasing the man and later witnessing the accident. Gil tries to help him, but the man dies. What disturbed Gil were three things: *The man, an apparent stranger, knew Gil by name *Not only did the two mastiffs look like they knew what they were doing, but they also seemed satisfied at the old man's death. *The man-in-the-bowler-hat says the final words "The Keepers are coming" When he finally arrives home, he encounters an old, wounded and mangy dog lying in his front lawn, which subsequently crawls under his house. As he is deciding what to do with the dog (between taking it to a local shelter, the vet, or simply letting it die in peace where it is), he unexpectedly receives a package delivered by an obscure shipping company. To his surprise, the package was apparently sent from Beth, a woman he loved long ago but who mysteriously disappeared and was presumed dead. Gil soon receives a phone call from Carson's group home: Carson is missing. Gil now is bothered by the following mysteries: *Who sent that package? Was it from Beth? If so, where was she all these years? *Where did Carson go? *Where did that dying dog come from? *How and why did the dying man know Gil's name? *Why are those mastiffs roaming around town? Those questions are answered after going through a bizarre and slightly surreal experience. He is forced to remember many of his repressed experiences of his childhood and young adult years, which, in a convoluted way, are linked to the mysterious incidents involving the old man on the road, the mastiffs, Carson's disappearance, and the mysterious dying stray dog. The feel of the book is very dark and somber. The majority of the book is composed of flashbacks, with the climax occurring during the present day, when he met the old man and the strange dogs. Even though the novel borders on fantasy, real-life issues are dealt with, namely animal abuse, lost pets, aging, and loneliness. note: the names of Gil's immediate relatives are never provided *Gil Stewart - the protagonist of the story. Introduced as a mild mannered bachelor, which the reader later discovers he was also a shy, "nerdy" teen. Seems to have a special bond with animals, ever since he was a boy. *Beth - Gil's close friend and first love. Was Gil's first "girlfriend". Even after their relationship ended, they continued to be friends, and he never gave up his feelings for her. Along with her aunt Mabel, owned several dogs. Mysteriously disappears one night after a tearful and emotional conversation with Gil. *Gil's Father - a depressed, angry, and alcoholic World War II veteran. An avid movie buff. Dies in a work-related accident while Gil is still in his late teens. *Gil's Mother - Emotionally distant from Gil. An opera fan. Dies a couple of years after Gil's father passes away, in what Gil speculated was suicide. *Gil's Sister - was never very close to Gil until she became pregnant with Carson. Eventually dies of a latent heart condition, after which Gil becomes Carson's legal guardian. *Mabel - Beth's aunt. Works as a nurse at an assisted living facility. Raised Beth as her own child after Beth's mother relocates to London. Is described by Gil as "sad looking." *Marty "Whitey" Weis - a resident at Mabel's workplace. Uses a wheelchair due to diabetes complications. Develops a close friendship with Gil. His wit and mild cynicism adds a humorous touch to the gloomy feel of the novel. Misses his daughter, an aspiring actress based in Los Angeles who rarely calls him. *Cheryl - one of Gil's employees at his novelty store. Has a deep appreciation for her boss and is mystified by his loneliness. *The Bowlers - Led by an individual which Gil refers to as "The Magritte Man", a group of mysterious men in derby hats chasing Gil around town. *The Twin Mastiffs - roam throughout town and appear to stalk Gil, and are apparently owned by "The Bowlers". *Long-Lost - a bizarre-looking character from one of Carson's comic books. What Gil finds disturbing is that Carson claims he can speak to him. |
3396079 | /m/099chw | The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop. | Robert Coover | null | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | J. Henry Waugh is an accountant, albeit an unhappy one. However, each night after he comes home from work, Henry immerses himself in a world of his choosing: a baseball league in which every action is ruled by the dice. The novel opens with the excitement of a perfect game in progress. Henry, as owner of every team in the league, is flush with pride in the young rookie, who is pitching this rarest of rare games: Damon Rutherford, "son" of one of the league's all-time greats. When the young hurler completes the miracle game, Henry's life lights up. Giddy with happiness, Henry pushes himself and his league to the limits as he plays game after game so that he can see the young boy pitch again. As fate would have it, the rookie Rutherford is killed by a bean-ball, a rare play from "the Extraordinary Occurrences Chart" in the game that Henry has invented and has used to see fifty-six "seasons" to conclusion. That Henry is also fifty-six marks a turning point in Henry's life. The "death" of the young pitcher on the table-top affects the real-life Henry in ways unimaginable. As Henry's personal life spirals out of control, he finally arrives at the solution that will save his league, his creation, and, ultimately, his sanity. |
3399022 | /m/099j78 | The Shrouded Planet | Randall Garrett | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | The original three stories are bracketed by narrative which lays the foundations for them and details the passage of time between them. Elder Grandfather Kinis peCharnok Yorgen finds himself the subject of alien abduction. Strange beings calling themselves Earthmen conduct him to a place above the clouds. They tell him that they have come from the Great Light to improve Nidor. Kinis peCharnok must commence building a new School of Divine Law, where the Earthmen will teach Nidorians the Law and the Scripture, not to mention science and engineering. Only the best and brightest, the fittest and most favored, will be accepted as students. 48 years, 3 Cycles of Nidor, pass. Kiv peGanz Brajjyd enrols at the school, on his way to the priesthood. He marries the irreverent Narla geFulda Sesom. He studies biology, especially the insect pest known as the hugl. Then a new hugl begins appearing, stripping the crops, stripping even dead animals of their flesh. The old Way of dealing with hugl, spreading Edris powder, does not work on these insects. Kiv has the answer - he knows that the hugl breed in ponds. They leave the water to gather food for the next breeding cycle, but out of the water their hard shells resist Edris powder. In water the larvae are vulnerable. Kiv tries to persuade the authorities, who are also the priesthood, to dictate a new way of using Edris, but he is up against millennia of tradition. The old Way indicates that more Edris must be used, but if it does not work there will be none to protect crops that the new hugl have not yet reached. In the end more Edris only poisons the crops. Desperate for a solution, and with the encouragement of the Earthman known as Jones, Kiv looks for support in Scripture, and finds it. Strike at the root, not at the branch. The larvae are the root. Having once failed to persuade a single Elder, Kiv bursts in on the entire High Council with his words. The ploy works, the new Way wipes out the hugl. But tradition has been violated. There is little or no need for Edris powder, so those who made a livelihood from it are impoverished. Kiv is a man to be reckoned with, and when he graduates his path to the Council seems clear. So why does he feel something is wrong ? Kiv and Narla's daughter, Sindi geKiv Brajjyd, has an odd independent streak. She does not show proper deference to her elders. She too enrols at the School, where she meets Rahn peDorvis Brajjyd. She falls in love with him, even though marriage within a clan goes against tradition and the Way of the Ancestors. Rahn's family lost its livelihood thanks to Kiv. Kiv, now high in the priesthood, tries to arrange a marriage with a member of the Yorgen clan. He is uneducated, fond of wild living, and not particularly enthusiastic about Sindi. She realizes that he is interested in someone else, a Yorgen. This relative may in fact be carrying his child, which would get them both stoned to death in an earlier time. Depressed, Rahn flees the School, pursued by Sindi. High in the mountains, in the night rains, she finds his transport, a deest, but no sign of Rahn. Then she sees him, a captive of Earthmen, on a patch of strangely flat ground with odd buildings on it. Watching from concealment she sees the Earthman Jones, who supposedly had gone to the Great Light, never to return, take Rahn inside a building. Rahn then appears, being carried through the air by the Earthmen, who leave him by his deest. Sindi tends to Rahn, finding that he remembers nothing of his encounter with the Earthmen. They return to the School, to find that Jones' replacement, Smith has persuaded the Elders to allow the Yorgens to marry, because of the girl's condition, clearing the way for Sindi and Rahn to marry as well. Sindi resolves to keep her secrets, until it is the right time. Norvis peRahn Brajjyd grows up and enrols in the School, as his parents and grandparents did before him. Advised by the Earthman Smith he finds a growth hormone that doubles the yield of the staple crop, the peych-bean. Suddenly he finds himself expelled, the credit for the hormone going to a blockhead, Dran peNiblo Sesom, apparently with the connivance of Smith. Cast out by his grandfather Kiv, with no source of income, unable to speak his own name, he signs on as a sailor using the name Norvis peKrin Dmorno. His natural abilities mean that he quickly becomes indispensable, being promoted to first mate under the Captain Del peFenn Vyless, with the promise of his own ship, if he re-enlists. Del peFenn is even more irreligious than most sailors. His father used to make a lot of money from Edris powder shipments, before the Elder Kiv peGanz Brajjyd eliminated the need for it. All too aware of what Del peFenn would think of Kiv's grandson, Norvis declines. He goes ashore to find that some of the Elders have been using his hormone to favor their own farms at the expense of others. He organizes a meeting, under his real name, to address impoverished farmers. However, in attacking the Elders he is accused of blasphemy and stoned, barely escaping with his life by swimming a lake. His assailants assume he has drowned. Norvis abandons his old identity as too dangerous. Returning to Del peFenn he formulates a plan. He will make hormone more cheaply than the Elders can and sell it to the farmers. The plan backfires when a glut of peych starts an economic depression. In the ensuing troubles, Del's ship is burned and some of his men are killed. The hapless Dran peNiblo Sesom, who had grown rich making and selling the hormone under the protection of the Elders, is lynched by a mob. Norvis is not finished. He and Del now take on the Elders to stop the use of the hormone and persuade farmers to plough the excess crop into the ground, as fertilizer. To do this they form the Merchant's Party, the first political party on Nidor. Through agitation, and occasional strongarm tactics, they force the Elders to follow their plan, ignoring tradition. At the end Norvis is the Secretary of the new Party. Del is its charismatic, anti-priesthood leader. Nidorians who have suffered in the troubles flock to them. They have become a new authority on Nidor. Norvis sees a new dawn, and a way to get rid of the Earthmen and all their works. Starting with Smith... The saga continues in The Dawning Light. |
3400450 | /m/099l2t | The Spoils of Poynton | Henry James | null | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Widow Adela Gereth tells the sensitive and tasteful Fleda Vetch that she's afraid her son Owen will marry the coarse Mona Brigstock. Owen soon becomes engaged to Mona and wants to take over Poynton, the family home filled with Mrs. Gereth's carefully collected furniture and other art objects. He would like Fleda to help get his mother to leave the house with a minimum of fuss. Mrs. Gereth moves to Dicks, the smaller family house. Fleda visits the house and is unhappy that Mrs. Gereth has furnished it with the best pieces from Poynton. Owen says that Mona is angry with the "theft" of the valuable heirlooms. Meanwhile, Owen is becoming more attracted to Fleda instead of the crude Mona and eventually declares his love for her. Fleda insists that he honor his engagement to Mona unless she breaks it off. Mrs. Gereth finally returns the fine furniture to Poynton. After a few days Owen and Mona are reported to be married, and they go abroad. Fleda gets a letter from Owen asking her to select any one piece from Poynton as hers to keep. Fleda goes to Poynton but finds it completely consumed by fire. |
3401254 | /m/099m5m | The Last Light of the Sun | Guy Gavriel Kay | 2004 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | Bern Thorkellson, a young Erling man living on Rabady Island has stolen a horse belonging to the island's governor, who has died. Attempting to find a way to flee the island, Bern seeks the assistance of the local Volur seer, who offers to make him invisible if he has sex with her. The seer's trickery is revealed by a young acolyte who assists Bern to escape from Rabady. Elsewhere, in Cyngael, a Jaddite priest named Ceinon discovers Alun ap Owyn and his older brother Dai, two Princes of Cadyr, about to carry out a cattle raid at Brynnfell, the house of Brynn ap Hywll, a renowned fighter and leader of another Cyngael province. The princes are persuaded by Ceinon to forget the raid and to accompany him to Brynn's house, where Dai ap Owyn becomes strongly attracted to Brynn's daughter Rhiannon who in turn is enamoured of Alun. In an attack by Erling raiders, Dai is killed and his soul is taken by a fairy to the fairy queen, and even wtinessed by Alun who begins a relationship with one of the faeries. Among the Erlings who participated in the attack is Bern's father, Thorkell Einarsson, who alone is spared among the Erling captives, and becomes a retainer in Brynn's household. Bern Thorkellson himself travels to Jormsvik, a fortress for elite Erling mercenaries with some parallels to the Viking Jomsvikings of Jomsborg, with the intent of seeking admittance to the ranks of the mercenaries, which is traditionally done by way of defeating another Erling from the fortress in single combat. On his arrival at Jormsvik Bern narrowly escapes being killed even before he can issue his challenge, but is hidden by a prostitute, Thira, who lives in the settlement outside the walls of the fortress. Defeating a Jormsvik captain, Bern is accepted as a member of the mercenaries and joins a raiding part heading from Vinmark to Anglcyn under the patronage of Ivarr Ragnarsson. Ivarr's famed grandfather was killed by Brynn ap Hywll and is hoping to avenge his grandfather's death and he persuades the Jormsvik Erlings to participate in the venture by falsely assuring them that Anglcyn's defences remain vulnerable. Anglcyn is ruled by Aeldred, who in his youth saved the kingdom from Erling conquest. Equally interested in the broader aspects of nation-building, Aeldred has begun to collect manuscripts and foster scholarship. One of the scholars he wishes to attract to his court is Ceinon, who is unwilling to give up his role as leader of the Jaddite faith among the Cyngael. Although he is a great hero to his people and endeavours to be a good Jaddite, Aeldred suffers from periodic debilitating fevers and spiritual confusion as he had encounters with the half-world of faeries in his youth, and cannot reconcile his knowledge of the faerie-world with the tenets of his acknowledged religion. Aeldred and his wife have four children: Aldred's heir, Aethelbert; two daughters Judit and Kendra; and a younger son, Gareth. The Erlings attack Anglcyn, killing one of Aeldred's lifelong friends, but are defeated by Aeldred's fyrd, or army. Bern and Thorkell have a brief reunion, but Bern rejoins the Erlings who set sail for the land of the Cyngael, to attack Brynfell, kill Brynn ap Hwyll and regain the sword of Ivarr Ragnarsson's grandfather, although Ivarr himself is killed. Alun determines to warn Brynn and his family, deciding to seek a way through the enormous spirit wood that separates the Anglcyn settlements from the lands of the Cyngael in the west. The forest is a place of great dread for Cyngael, Anglcyn and Erling alike. On this journey Alun is joined by Thorkell, and then by Aethelbert. The ancient god creature that dwells in the forest suffers the three men to pass through after Thorkell pledges that they will kill nothing on their journey. In the wood Alun meets the faerie he first met the night of his brother Dai's death and persuades her to travel to Brynfell to warn Brynn of the approaching Erlings. It is decided to determine the conflict between the Erlings and the Cyngael by a contest of single combat. Thorkell who offers himself as the champion of the Cyngael, is slain; but while Brynn suspects Thorkell of having sacrificed himself he honours the wager and allows the Erlings to depart. After the combat Alun uses the sword of Ivarr's grandfather to kill the souls of mortals that had been taken as the faerie-queen's lovers and later discarded, including the soul of his own brother Dai. With the discovery of the psychic link between himself and Kendra, Alun's own relationship with the faerie is ended. |
3401577 | /m/099mmg | Zotz! | Walter Karig | null | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | Ancient Eastern languages professor Jonathan Jones (Tom Poston) finds a magic amulet. Via the amulet, Jones obtains powers to cause pain or slow movement, and even kill. He immediately suffers the consequences of his discovery: Jones realizes that when he points at another living creature, it causes a great pain (this is a metaphor of the age of nuclear weapons, as the novel was written two years after atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki). In the movie, Jones tries to warn the Department of Defense and get rid of the amulet, but is taken for a madman. Then the Soviet Union gets interested and the adventures begin. The film begins with the Columbia Pictures logo talking to William Castle and ends with the logo saying, "Zotz all," a play on the words "That's all." |
3402135 | /m/099nhf | Arabella | Georgette Heyer | null | {"/m/02p0szs": "Historical fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/01qxvh": "Romance novel"} | Arabella, the beautiful daughter of a country vicar, sets out to London to have a season and make an advantageous marriage. On her way there, her carriage has an accident and she has to stop over at the hunting box of Robert Beaumaris, the Nonpareil of the town and one of the wealthiest men in England. Mr Beaumaris suspects the 'accident' to be a ruse on the part of someone chasing him for his fortune. Overhearing him make a remark to this effect, Arabella impulsively pretends to be an heiress. Mr. Beaumaris, knowing this to be untrue is amused by her daring to put him in his place, and decides to encourage his friend's belief in this falsehood. He is bored by Society and views the town cynically. He is also amused by the fact that society will follow whomever leads, irrespective of the wisdom of the person's behavior. Arabella requests that Mr Beaumaris and his friend Lord Fleetwood not reveal her "fortune". She continues on her journey to London to stay with her godmother, Lady Bridlington, blithely believing that nothing will come of this interlude. However, Lord Fleetwood is not very discreet, and the town soon believes Arabella to be an heiress. To amuse himself, Mr Beaumaris decides to make Arabella the rage of the town by flirting with her and driving her out in his carriage. Arabella is aware that his intentions are not serious, but plays along because to be admired by him makes her a social success. Arabella feels that she cannot make a good match when all the town falsely believe her to be wealthy and knowing that Mr Beaumaris can have no designs on her supposed fortune and is only amusing himself with her, she is most comfortable in his company. She enchants him with her unusual behaviour (which includes foisting a climbing boy and a mongrel on him) and the fact that she does not appear to fancy him. Mr Beaumaris eventually falls in love with Arabella and proposes. Arabella, not knowing him to be aware of her deception from the start, tearfully refuses, realising that she is indeed in love with him, but cannot reveal her deception without risking his love. Meanwhile, Arabella's brother Bertram has come to town on 100 pounds that he won. The wealthy friends he makes soon lead him into debt and Arabella decides she must accept Mr Beaumaris's proposal in order to pay off Bertram's debts. Mr Beaumaris guesses the cause of her sudden reversal and is amused, knowing her to be in love with him, despite the appearance of the situation. She insists they elope together since she's desperate and he agrees, but instead takes her to visit his grandmother's house. Once they arrive, she reveals that she is not a wealthy woman, he reveals that he knew all along and that he went to visit her family. All is resolved by the fact that his fortune is so massive, the lack of hers will never be noticed, and the lack of fortune for her brothers and sisters will be explained away by an eccentric uncle who left the money to Arabella. |
3402171 | /m/099nkk | The Grand Sophy | Georgette Heyer | 1950 | {"/m/01qxvh": "Romance novel"} | For the past several years Sophia Stanton-Lacy (known as Sophy to everyone) has lived away from England, following her diplomat father Sir Horace around Europe while the Napoleonic Wars raged on. Now that the Battle of Waterloo is over and Napoleon has once again been exiled, her father receives a temporary post in South America. Instead of taking his daughter along, he asks his sister Lady Ombersley to watch over his "little Sophy" and help find her a husband. However, "little Sophy" is nothing like anyone expected. 5'9" in her stockings, she is outgoing, chic, and quite independent, taking the town by storm with her unconventional manner. Though most of her cousins take to her on sight, her autocratic cousin Charles Rivenhall, forced by his father's debt to shoulder the family finances, resents the disruption of what has become, in all but name, his household by his lively and confident cousin. With Charles encouraged in domestic tyranny by his spiteful fiancee, Miss Eugenia Wraxton, Sophy and Charles begin a battle of wills. Soon after her arrival, Sophy realizes that all is not well in the Rivenhall household and proceeds to solve the various problems of the family with her trademark flair, saving her cousin Hubert from a moneylender, and arranging through an involved and hilarious scheme her cousin Cecilia's extraction from her infatuation with (and later engagement to) a poet and marriage to the eligible Lord Charlbury, the man favored by her brother and parents and ultimately, the man she discovers that she, Cecilia, loves. Slowly, much to the consternation of them both, Sophy and Charles find themselves falling in love, with Sophy's devilry lightening his dictatorial tendencies. In the end, at the successful conclusion of her incredibly audacious scheme to unite Cecilia and Charlbury and free Rivenhall from his obligations to his fiancee, Rivenhall proposes, with Sophy accepting. |
3402603 | /m/099p2g | The Foundling | Nette Hilton | 1948 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/01qxvh": "Romance novel"} | The Duke of Sale is tired of being the Duke of Sale. He just wants to be a nobody from "Nowhere in Particular". He lives with his uncle, Lord Lionel. Lord Lionel and his team of servants baby the Duke and treat him like a child, when in reality he is almost twenty-five years old. The Duke does not want to be forced into marriage or be told what to do. He sets out on a wild adventure to find out who he really is. The Duke is encouraged by his cousin Gideon to set out on the adventure and to fire his posse of servants. A bit later, he is out riding heading to the house of his future wife Harriet, when he sees a young boy who is hurt on the side of the road. Tom becomes a friend and nusiance to the Duke for the rest of the novel. He soon finds out his other cousin Matthew is in a bit of a fix. Matthew supposedly sent letters to a very beautiful foundling named Belinda, and promised to marry her. When he decided not to marry her after all, her caretaker got angry and threatened Matthew. The Duke pretends to be Matthew and goes to visit this caretaker. He gets kidnapped and finds himself in a major jam. Next thing he knows, the Duke is riding around with Tom and Belinda trying to figure out how to get them safely home and out of trouble. He also has his own problems to worry about, including his fight with Lord Lionel and his impending marriage with Lady Harriet. In the end, the Duke accepts his marriage to Harriet, discovering that he truly does love her. Belinda, who is the naive foundling who only cares about a diamond ring and purple dress, also finds her true love. The Dukes tale resolves very happily. |
3402653 | /m/099p4w | Sprig Muslin | Georgette Heyer | 1956 | {"/m/02p0szs": "Historical fiction", "/m/01qxvh": "Romance novel", "/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/03xwcv": "Regency romance", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | Sir Gareth is a noted Corinthian and has been a confirmed bachelor ever since his betrothed died prematurely, seven years ago. He decides for practical reasons to marry an old friend, Hester, who is unfashionable and plain, not to mention "on the shelf" at the age of 29. However, he soon meets a young, run-away girl and determines to resolve her problems satisfactorily. Unfortunately, this particular runaway is possessed of an extremely lively imagination, and gets them both into a little more trouble than he had bargained for. The piece is reminiscent of Charity Girl, also about a wiser and more experienced man helping a young girl to find her feet while avoiding becoming romantically entangled with her. |
3402689 | /m/099p68 | Sylvester, or the Wicked Uncle | Georgette Heyer | 1957 | {"/m/01qxvh": "Romance novel"} | Sylvester, the wealthy Duke of Salford, is considering marriage. After discussing his prospects with his beloved ailing mother, who thinks he is too arrogant towards women, he travels to London to discuss the matter with his godmother, Lady Ingham, who tells him of her granddaughter, Phoebe, whose late mother was a close friend of the dowager Duchess of Salford. He departs for a hunt in the countryside and meets Phoebe's father. Impressed by the man's hunting, Sylvester consents to being his guest but is disgusted to find that he is the only person that has been invited to stay and therefore feels his hand is being forced. As the visit progresses he regrets his visit and considers Phoebe to be insipid and talentless. Phoebe's step-mother is a bully and tactlessly tells Phoebe that Sylvester has come to make her an offer of marriage. Terrified of being made to marry Sylvester and getting no sympathy from her father, Phoebe calls upon a childhood friend, Tom Orde, to help her run away to live with her grandmother, Lady Ingham, in London. Phoebe is unaware that Lady Ingham is the person who suggested Sylvester marry her. Tom has left a note for his mother who rushes round to Phoebe's parents with the news of their flight which is mistakenly taken for an elopement. Sylvester is very happy to have the excuse to return to London and comes across their carriage which has had an accident and in which Tom has broken his leg. Sylvester, decides to help them. They book in to the nearest inn, where he realizes that Phoebe is extremely smart and capable, though very impertinent. He is very angry when he learns why Phoebe has run away but decides to take her to her grandmother to punish Lady Ingham (whom he presumes will not want Phoebe living with her) for having sent him to Phoebe's family in the first place. Sylvester stays with Tom at the inn while he is recovering then visits Phoebe in London with the intention of being charming to her to make her sorry for slighting him. Phoebe meets Lady Ianthe, the silly widow of Sylvester's twin brother, who is convinced that Sylvester is evil because he is executing his brother's will exactly: her young son, Edmund, must live with Sylvester at the family home of Chance. Phoebe is struck by the parallels between the real Sylvester and the arrogant parody of him in a book which she has written and which is about to be published. She attempts to change her manuscript, but her publishers say that it is too late to do so. When her novel The Lost Heir is published, it fascinates London because of the perfect satirization of the members of high society who try to find the identity of author. Lady Ianthe, Sylvester's sister-in-law, declares that the author must know that Sylvester is so evil and takes the fairy-tale novel seriously. Phoebe, in protesting this absurdity, accidentally lets slip that she is the author. Naturally, Lady Ianthe cannot keep her peace, and soon all London society is agog. Sylvester, having decided to scotch the rumour, is so hurt by Phoebe's portrayal of him that he loses the command of feelings and insults Phoebe in public which causes a scandal and confirms Phoebe as the author. Lady Ingham decides to take Phoebe away to France with Tom Orde as their escort. Unfortunately, Lady Ianthe and her new husband, foppish Sir Nugent Fotherby, are going to France on their honeymoon with Edmund, her son, from the same port. Lady Ianthe has got the idea of taking Edmund away to France from a plot in Phoebe's novel. Phoebe tries to intervene and boards the schooner with Tom where they are 'kidnapped' by Fotherby, who orders the skipper to set sail. Edmund is sea-sick and Lady Ianthe is ill so Phoebe and Tom take over the care of the small child. Phoebe writes to Lady Ingham and Sylvester from France, but Sylvester catches up with them at an inn near Paris before he receives the letter. At first he is overjoyed to see Phoebe but then blames her for helping Lady Ianthe to kidnap Edmund but Sylvester needs Phoebe to look after Edmund on the journey back to England. Sylvester complains of all the scrapes which Phoebe has embroiled him in and, in turn, Phoebe accuses Sylvester of ruining her reputation beyond salvation. Sylvester, having realise that he loves Phoebe clumsily proposes marriage but Phoebe is outraged by the perceived sarcasm. Sylvester runs to his mother for help and she realises that he has truly fallen in love. She arranges to meet Phoebe to explain that Sylvester's arrogance has arisen from the grief he suffered after the loss of his twin brother and how much he loves Phoebe. Sylvester is summoned and again declares himself upon which Phoebe is only too happy to accept his proposal. |
3402699 | /m/099p7n | The Silent Cry | Kenzaburō Ōe | null | null | The novel tells the story of two brothers in the early 1960s: the narrator Mitsusaburo (one-eyed, a married English professor in Tokyo) and his younger brother Takashi, who has just returned from the US. Mitsusaburo and his wife, Natsumi, have been through a series of crises. They have left their physically and mentally handicapped baby in an institution, while Mitsusaburo's friend has committed suicide (painting his head crimson, inserting a cucumber in his anus and hanging himself). Natsumi has become an alcoholic. Mitsusaburo leaves his job and they all travel to the brothers' home village, set in a hollow in the forest on Shikoku. The brothers' family had been one of the leading families in the village. Takashi is obsessed with the memory of their great-grandfather's younger brother, who had led a peasant revolt in 1860. Mitsusaburo remembers the affair differently, believing that the leader of the rebellion had betrayed his followers. They similarly disagree over the death of their older brother, S, who had been killed in a raid on the Korean settlement near the village. Takashi revels in his warrior's death, while Mitsusaburo recalls him as volunteering to be killed in retaliation for the death of a Korean in an earlier raid. Their sister, also mentally retarded, had committed suicide while living with Takashi. Takashi has agreed to sell the family's kura-yashiki — a traditional residence-storehouse — to 'the Emperor', a Korean originally brought to the village as a slave-worker but who has now gained a position of economic dominance, turning the village's other kura-yashiki into a supermarket which has put the smaller shops out of business. Secretly, he has also agreed to sell the Emperor all the family's land. Takashi begins to organise the youths of the village into a group, beginning with football training. When Mitsusaburo discovers Takashi's deception, he isolates himself from the others, but his wife sides with Takashi. Mitsusaburo goes to live in the kura-yashiki, while Takashi moves his group into the family's main building. Takashi uses his group to begin an uprising against the Emperor, looting the supermarket and distributing the goods among the people. Takashi also begins a sexual relationship with Natsumi, and sends one of his followers to tell Mitsusaburo. The people eventually become disenchanted, however; eventually a girl is killed. Takashi claims that he tried to rape her and then murdered her. He is abandoned by his group and waits for the villagers to come and lynch or arrest him. Mitsusaburo, however, does not believe his story and says that Takashi is using the girl's accidental death as a way to engineer his own violent death. Takashi admits to Mitsusaburo that their sister killed herself after he ended an incestuous relationship with her. After Mitsusaburo scorns Takashi's belief that he will be killed, Takashi shoots himself, writing as a final statement, 'I told the truth'. The Emperor comes and begins demolishing the kura-yashiki. A secret basement is discovered in which the brother of the great-grandfather had spent the rest of his life hiding after the failure of his rebellion. Mitsusaburo and Natsumi decide to try to live together again, along with their handicapped baby and Takashi's unborn child, which Natsumi is carrying. Mitsusaburo decides against a return to his old job, instead taking up an offer to work as a translator with a wildlife expedition to Africa. |
3402723 | /m/099p9s | Bath Tangle | Georgette Heyer | null | {"/m/02p0szs": "Historical fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/01qxvh": "Romance novel"} | After the death of the Earl of Spenborough all are shocked when they discover that the late Earl has appointed Ivo Barrasford, Marquis of Rotherham, and formerly engaged to Lady Serena Carlow to be Serena's guardian. Though Lady Serena may rage against it, there is no way out and therefore Serena moves to Bath with her stepmother where she meets up with her old love from six years past. They rekindle their romance and become engaged. Rotherham, when he hears of the engagement, proposes to a girl who is only after his title. When he sees his ward and her chosen, he realizes that they had all made a mistake and tries to make his betrothed cry off. However, when he had thought he had succeeded, Serena stepped in and ruined all his plans. A row between guardian and ward ensued with Rotherham storming off to make sure that his engagement over. Eventually he reveals to Serena that he loves her and she admits that she loves him too. Her betrothed enters just as she is in Rotherham's arms, but is not bothered as he has by now fallen in love with Serena's stepmother. The story ends happily with everyone ending up with people suited to them. |
3403127 | /m/099pt6 | The Masqueraders | Georgette Heyer | 1928 | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/01qxvh": "Romance novel", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | In order to escape exposure as former Jacobites, Robin and his sister have exchanged clothes, and Prudence appears to be a tall youth by the name of Peter Merriot escorting his younger, beautiful sister Kate. This scheme was conceived by their father, whom they call "The Old Gentleman." On their way to London, Prudence and Robin encounter Gregory Markham kidnapping a beautiful heiress named Letitia, who intrigues Robin. Prudence knocks out Markham with her sword hilt, and a friend of Letitia's father, Sir Anthony Fanshawe, arrives on scene to discover that the elopement has already been frustrated. Prudence finds herself oddly drawn to Sir Anthony, whom her brother dubs “the Mountain” owing to his massive frame. She slowly realizes that Sir Anthony is far more observant and quick witted than his exterior would suggest. "Peter" and "Kate" take London's society by storm – Robin becomes the celebrated beauty of town and Prudence, under the patronage of Sir Anthony, is inducted into the high circles of the London Gentlemen. The pair is invited to a masked ball, and while “Kate” lies ill at home, Robin disguises himself and attends the ball, introducing himself to Letitia as “The Unknown” in order to woo her. Promising to return in her hour of need, he vanishes. The Old Gentleman, Prudence and Robin’s father, appears on the London scene as the long lost Viscount Barham and proceeds to rapidly ingratiate himself into high society, despite the fact that his claim is, as yet, unproved. Overhearing Prudence disparage his manners, the much frustrated Mr. Rensley, the current Lord Barham who stands to be ousted from his title by the Old Gentleman’s claim, challenges her to a duel. This is foiled by Sir Anthony who manages to wound Mr Rensley before the duel takes place. Startled by his unaccountable intervention, Prudence begins to wonder if Sir Anthony suspects her masquerade. Prudence is invited to dine with Sir Anthony alone, and it is revealed that, despite his air of oblivion, the observant Sir Anthony has guessed that "Peter" is actually a woman. Having fallen in love with her, he asks her to marry him. Prudence refuses to marry him until her father’s claim is proved, therein elevating her to a status worthy of his hand. Sir Anthony agrees to wait but informs Robin, the Old Gentleman and Prudence that, whatever the outcome, he will carry her off and marry her when that time comes. Markham, meanwhile, has obtained a document that could send the Old Gentleman to the gallows by proving he is a Jacobite. In an attempt to blackmail him, Markham exchanges the document for a letter that could expose Letitia's father as a traitor. He threatens Letitia, who is an heiress, with the letter and induces her to run away with him again. This event, despite Markham’s belief, was orchestrated by the subtlety of the Old Gentleman, who is known for his great intelligence and cunning. The Old Gentleman dispatches Robin, disguised as a highwayman, to kill Markham and thwart the elopement, thereby disposing of the nuisance Markham and inspiring Letitia to fall deeper in love with her Unknown rescuer. Robin tells Letitia that the next time she sees him, he will claim her as his bride. When questioned by the authorities, Letitia gives a false description of the "highwayman" in order to protect her love. Unfortunately, she unwittingly provides an exact description of Peter Merriot. Prudence is arrested by officers of the law, and reflects that any deviation from the exact plans of the Old Gentleman, such as her presence on the night of the elopement, results in disaster. Sir Anthony, informed of her arrest, rescues her from the officers of the law and they gallop cross-country to the residence of Sir Anthony’s sister. There, “Peter” dons a gown and becomes the dazzling Miss Prudence Tremaine of Barham. Having spent so long alone in his company following the escape, Prudence must now marry Sir Anthony and, happily, she consents to wed the man she loves. Following “Peter’s” disappearance, suspicion is cast over both the Marriots, and so "Kate" flees to France until the battle over his father's inheritance is resolved. The Old Gentleman proves conclusively that he is Tremaine of Barham and Robin returns from France, causing a sensation as Mr. Robin Tremaine, heir to the Viscounty of Barham. Calling on Letitia’s father, the future Viscount is readily accepted as a future son-in-law. Robin reveals himself to Letitia as the Unknown of her dreams, and she consents immediately to be his bride. Watching Robin, Letitia, Prudence and Sir Anthony together on his newly acquired estates, the Old Gentleman reflects that he had exactly planned everything to this end, and remarks, quite truthfully, that he is a Great Man. |
3403142 | /m/099ptx | Beauvallet | Georgette Heyer | 1929 | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/05nd8cc": "Elizabethan romance", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/01qxvh": "Romance novel", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | The year is 1586 and 35-year-old Sir Nicholas Beauvallet (great great great grandson of Simon Beauvallet – Simon the Coldheart (1925)) is one of the most infamous pirates of the Elizabethan era. With the blessing of the Queen, Beauvallet sails the seas with the intention of plundering any Spanish ships that come his way. It is while thus occupied that he meets and falls in love with Doña Dominica de Rada y Sylva. He returns Doña Dominica and her father to Spain and vows that he will come back to claim her with total disregard of the danger that the Spanish Inquisition poses to a Protestant in a Catholic land. |
3403157 | /m/099pvy | Powder and Patch | Georgette Heyer | 1930 | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/02p0szs": "Historical fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/01qxvh": "Romance novel", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | Philip Jettan, a handsome and sturdy but tongue-tied youth, is rejected by his true love because he is not foppish enough. He resolves to improve himself and travels to Paris, where he becomes a sensation. Once he returns, however, Cleone realizes she wants the old Philip in place of the "painted puppy" she has received. |
3403210 | /m/099px_ | The Dante Club | Matthew Pearl | null | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | The Dante Club begins with the murder of fictional Chief Justice Judge Healey, who had avoided taking a position to stop or support the escaped slaves of the South. Found by his chambermaid near a white flag atop a short wooden staff, Healey had been hit in the head and then left in his garden to be eaten alive by strategically placed maggots and stung by hornets. Holmes, who examines the body for the police, recognizes the correlation between the murder and the punishments seen in Dante's Inferno. Then Reverend Talbot, who was paid by the Harvard Corporation to write against Dante, was found dead in an underground cemetery, buried up to his waist upside down, his feet burnt and buried over money that he had accepted as a bribe. Members of the Dante Club, a group of poets translating The Divine Comedy from Italian into English, notice the parallels between the murders and the punishments detailed in Dante's Inferno. The club, including Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., and James Russell Lowell, sets out to solve the murders, fearing that the truth will ruin Dante's burgeoning reputation in America, thus making their translation a failure, as well as the obvious problem that they would be virtually the only suspects if they reported this information to the police. Then, Phineas Jennison, both a wealthy contributor to the Harvard Corporation and friend to the translators (a "schismatic"), is sliced open exactly down the middle—all killed in extreme fashion and undeniable resemblance to the punishments of people in Dante's Inferno. Eventually, the murderer is discovered to be a former Civil War Soldier Dan Teal, a man who worked at Ticknor and Fields. Driven partly mad by the trauma of his war experiences, Teal hears Dante Club member George Washington Greene giving sermons on Dante to other soldiers, and becomes convinced that Dante alone understood the need for perfect justice in the world. With protecting Dante as his sole motivation, Teal takes it upon himself to release Hell's punishments as indicated by Dante, in order to purify the city. Teal finds each of his victims when learning of their involvement in the stopping of the translations, which become their respective sins. The club eventually tries to capture him, with the aid of Boston's first African-American policeman Nicholas Rey, the only other person who saw the connection, while attempting to punish Harvard Treasurer Dr. Manning and Pliny Mead ("the traitors"). Mead was a student of the Dante course who helped betray his teacher by cooperating with Manning. He later fled when the club attempted to punish him for his involvement in stopping the translation of the Inferno. They later encounter him as he tries to round up the translators, to punish them for not embracing his "work." Dr. Manning—saved by Longfellow, Holmes, Rey, Lowell, and Fields—realizes the situation as he recovered from his attempted punishment of being buried naked in ice. He sees Teal on the street with a gun to Longfellow, and Manning ends the murderer's life, thus returning the city to normal. |
3404174 | /m/099qxy | Skinny Legs and All | Tom Robbins | null | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/05hgj": "Novel", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | The opening scene of Skinny Legs finds newlyweds, Ellen Cherry Charles and Randolph "Boomer" Petway III, driving cross-country in an Airstream that has been welded into the shape of a giant turkey by Cherry's betrothed. During her journey to seek freedom as an artist, Cherry loses precious objects and observes Boomer attain greater artistic recognition. Through a metaphorical belly dancer, Skinny Legs and All confronts the veils of society; and the pain, pleasure and freedom derived as they are lifted. Irony, opposites and parallels, in relationships, art, artists, sex, politics and religion expose the danger of deeper issues in humanity; regarding outmoded gender and cultural roles and rituals, insecurity, guilt, indulgence, gluttony, occultism, war, violence, hypocrisy, greed, and psychosis. The reader is introduced to an array of off-beat and whimsical characters, including the estranged couple of artist/waitress Ellen Cherry and welder/accidental artist Randolph "Boomer" Petway; Spike Cohen and Roland Abu Hadee (a Jew and an Arab who co-own a Middle-Eastern restaurant across from the UN building in New York); fundamentalist preacher Buddy Winkler; a doe-eyed belly dancer named Salome; Detective Jackie Shaftoe; Raoul Ritz, the libidinous doorman turned rock star; pretentious art gallery owner Ultima Sommerville; a mysterious performance artist known as Turn Around Norman; and Verlin and Patsy Charles, Ellen Cherry's parents. A host of inanimate objects (Can o' Beans, Dirty Sock, Spoon, Painted Stick and Conch Shell) also play a key role in the novel, and even biblical "harlot" Jezebel and Dan Quayle make cameo appearances. |
3406082 | /m/099v4q | Tintorettor Jishu | Satyajit Ray | null | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/028v3": "Detective fiction"} | A famous painting by the Italian maestro Tintoretto is gifted to the Niyogi family by the aristocratic Italian Cassini family. However, not everyone is aware of the value of the painting. One of the family members(disguised) steals it, and international buyers are interested in it. Feluda chases the criminals all the way to Hong Kong. There was a surprise waiting for him there. Eventually, Feluda (with the help of a relative stranger,who turns out to be a Niyogi family member) succeeds in solving the mystery. The native princes play an interesting part in the history of British India. Though under the protection of the British Raj, they had a certain amount of power within their domain. Apart from patronizing cricket in India, many of them were involved in promoting social and cultural activities in India. In 'Tintorettor Jishu' we meet the (fictional) ex-Maharaja of Bhagwanagarh, Mr. Bhudev Singh. Another ex Maharaja Suraj Singh appears in 'Golapi Mukta Rahashya'. The young prince of Rupnaryangarh plays an important role in 'Eber Kando Kedarnathe'. However, the maharajas and the princes are more prominent in the 'Tarini Khuro' series, another creation of Satyajit Ray. |
3408983 | /m/099_19 | In Dreams Begin Responsibilities | Delmore Schwartz | null | null | The story tells of an unnamed young man who has a dream that he is in an old-fashioned movie theater in 1909. As he sits down to watch the film, he starts to realize that it is a motion picture documenting his parents' courtship. The black-and-white silent film is of very poor quality, and the camera is shaky, but nonetheless he is engrossed. Soon the young man starts to get upset. He yells things at the screen, trying to influence the outcome of his parents' courtship and the other people in the audience begin to think he is crazy. Several times the character breaks down. In the end he shouts at his parents when it appears they are going to break up, and he is dragged out of the theater by an usher who reprimands him. The animadversion is important to the story, as it reveals a bit of the character's insecurity. In the end, the character wakes up from his dream and notes that it is the snowy morning of his twenty-first birthday. |
3409167 | /m/099_d5 | Destiny's Road | Larry Niven | 5/15/1998 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | At the start of the novel, the main character, Jemmy (he changes his name several times over the course of the novel) is around age 10. The novel then proceeds to skip through time in the various sections of the book including his teenage and young adult years, ending when he is in his forties. At first, he lives in his birthplace, Spiral Town, at one end of the Road – no one there knows what lies beyond a short distance down the Road. Jemmy's adventures begin as a late adolescent when he kills someone working for the merchants in self-defense and is forced to flee Spiral Town. He winds up a distance down the road in a fishing community where he changes his name and appearance, and becomes a cook. He marries into the population. When a different caravan comes through town from Spiral Town, they arrange with the village elders to hire Jemmy as a chef. He proceeds on the caravan to the Neck, the isthmus which joins the peninsula to the mainland from which the caravans come. No locals, like Jemmy, are permitted on the mainland. At the Neck, Jemmy is told he must return to his town on the next caravan – the same one he fled Spiral Town from. He instead flees by sea. Taking refuge on a boat left over from the time of Landing, he floats around the peninsula to a point beyond the Neck. There, in a storm, he goes ashore and is found by prisoners at the Windfarm – sentenced prisoners who farm speckles. All speckles come from the area and are rendered infertile by irradiation; the monopoly is rigorously maintained. The others use clothing that Jemmy has salvaged to plot an escape, led by the violent Andrew. They break out and evade pursuit. Andrew has planned all along to kill Jemmy, but Jemmy literally gets the drop on him and kills him in self-defense. Jemmy leaves the other prisoners, taking money they have found and a supply of speckles, and flees once again. Twenty-seven years later, Jemmy is a pit chef at a beach resort along the Road. His wife is burned in an accident and he is forced to leave his place – a place, as it turns out, of hiding. He finally reaches his lifetime's goal of seeing the other end of the Road, and Destiny Town. There, he is able to access the Cavorite's computer library and learn the true history of Destiny, a discovery which hardens him. After his wife dies, Jemmy takes his father-in-law's widow Harlow back to the site of the prisoners' hideout, where he had planted fertile speckles. They still survive, and he takes some, sharing the secret with Harlow. They then return to the beach resort, of which Jemmy, by his wife's death, is now part owner. The two contrive to join a caravan, and Jeremy returns as a merchant's chef, unknown to his former townsfolk, to Spiral Town. During the trip, Jemmy makes his attempt to break the speckles monopoly. All along the Road, he distributes gumdrop candy covered with dyed speckle seeds to children. After distributing the candy, he sows speckle seeds in potassium-rich areas such as manure piles and graveyards. The next time the merchants try to withhold speckles, they will be in for a surprise. |
3411198 | /m/09b2mn | What Maisie Knew | Henry James | null | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | When Beale and Ida Farange are divorced, the court decrees that their only child, the very young Maisie, will shuttle back and forth between them, spending six months of the year with each. The parents are immoral and frivolous, and they use Maisie to intensify their hatred of each other. Beale Farange marries Miss Overmore, Maisie's pretty governess, while Ida marries the likeable but weak Sir Claude. Maisie gets a new governess, the frumpy, more than a little ridiculous, but devoted Mrs. Wix. Both Ida and Beale soon busy themselves with other lovers besides their spouses. In return those spouses — Sir Claude and the new Mrs. Beale — begin an affair with each other. Maisie's parents essentially abandon her, and she becomes largely the responsibility of Sir Claude. Eventually, Maisie must decide if she wants to remain with Sir Claude and Mrs. Beale. In the book's long final section set in France, the older (probably teenaged) Maisie struggles to choose between them and Mrs Wix, and concludes that her new parents' relationship will likely end as her biological parents' did. She leaves them and goes to stay with Mrs. Wix, her most reliable adult guardian. |
3411516 | /m/09b31b | Star Trek: The Motion Picture | Gene Roddenberry | 1979-12 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | The original historic 5-year mission is over. All of the Enterprises original crew have pursued other jobs, only to be called back into action. The USS Enterprise has been refitted and the original crew must deal with an incredibly destructive power that threatens the Earth and the human race. |
3413129 | /m/09b5j4 | Chesapeake | James A. Michener | 6/12/1978 | {"/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"} | The storyline, like much of Michener's work, depicts a number of characters over a long time period. Each chapter begins with a voyage which provides the foundation for the chapter plot. It starts in 1583 with American Indian tribes warring, moves through English settlers throughout the 17th century, slavery and tobacco growing, pirate attacks, the American Revolution and the Civil War, Emancipation and attempted assimilation, to the final major event being the Watergate scandal. The last voyage, a funeral, is in 1978. * Voyage One: 1583 * The River * Voyage Two: 1608 * The Island * Voyage Three: 1636 * The Marsh * Voyage Four: 1661 * The Cliff * Voyage Five: 1701 * Rosalind's Revenge * Voyage Six: 1773 * Three Patriots * Voyage Seven: 1811 * The Duel * Voyage Eight: 1822 * Widow's Walk * Voyage Nine: 1832 * The Slave-Breaker * Voyage Ten: 1837 * The Railroad * Voyage Eleven: 1886 * The Watermen * Voyage Twelve: 1938 * Ordeal by Fire * Voyage Thirteen: 1976 * Refuge * Voyage Fourteen: 1978 |
3413460 | /m/09b62z | Paradise | Toni Morrison | 12/24/1997 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The novel tells the story of the tension between the men of Ruby, Oklahoma (an all-black town founded in 1950) and a group of women who lived in a former convent seventeen miles away. After an opening chapter named after the town, the other chapters are named after some of the female characters, but are not simply about the women. Each chapter includes flashbacks to crucial events from the town's history in addition to the backstory of the titular character. The women in the Convent are Connie (Consolata), Mavis, Gigi (Grace), Seneca, and Pallas (Divine). These women all receive chapters. The townswomen who receive chapters are Pat (Patricia), Lone and Save-Marie. The focus on the women characters highlights the ways the novel portrays the gender differences between the patriarchal rigidity of the townsmen and the clandestine connections between the townswomen and the women at the Convent. The narration serves as an alternative voice to the actions in which the townsmen provide. |
3413901 | /m/09b6vj | Shadow Fox | null | null | {"/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02p0szs": "Historical fiction", "/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature"} | A walk in the Black Forest for twins Jacob and Erin turns into an adventure through time when they meet Shadow, a red fox with an unusual set of talents. They are welcomed to his underground laboratory, Hora Cella, and witness the power of Nikola Tesla's time travel device, the Wall of Light. On their first journey through the Wall of Light, they travel to Boston in 1775, to help Paul Revere and the Sons of Liberty spread the word that British Redcoats are on the march. Shadow has discovered seven gaps in the story of Paul Revere's midnight ride. If those gaps are not filled, the American Revolution may never be fought, and liberty as we know it will cease to exist. Travel through time with them and follow Paul Revere, William Dawes, and Samuel Prescott, ordinary men who choose to act for the cause of liberty. Meet Dr. Joseph Warren, one of the leaders of the Sons of Liberty, as he sets the famous ride in motion. Watch Robert Newman and John Pulling as they attempt to place signal lanterns in the steeple of the Old North Church. But, look out for Pratt! If he has his way, you could become trapped in a time when King George III rules, and there is no liberty and justice for all. |
3414300 | /m/09b7ds | Ladder of Years | Anne Tyler | 1995 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | This is a novel about a woman, Delia Grinstead, who finds her own self-identity and battles with familial relationships. As a spontaneous act of deep sadness and anger, she walks out on her family during a beach vacation. Not only does she put herself in a dire financial situation, she also places herself in a psychologically damaging situation with her family and husband. The narrative follows her as she deals with entering the workforce and considering what is most important in her life. As she deals with these issues, she comes to terms with herself. |
3414953 | /m/09b8lc | The Green Ray | Jules Verne | 1882 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/08sdrw": "Adventure novel", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The heroes are trying to observe the green ray in Scotland. After numerous unsuccessful tries caused by clouds or distant boat sails hiding the sun, the phenomenon is eventually visible, but the heroes, finding love in each other's eyes, don't pay attention to the horizon. |
3415174 | /m/09b8z1 | Chander Pahar | Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay | null | {"/m/08sdrw": "Adventure novel"} | It is the story of a young Bengali man’s adventures in Africa in the years 1909-1910. Shankar, the protagonist, is a 20 year old man, recently graduated from college and about to take up a job in a jute mill, a prospect he absolutely loathes. He yearns for adventure, wild lands, forests and animals. He wants to follow the footsteps of famous explorers like Livingstone, Mungo Park, Marco Polo, all of whom he has read about and idolizes. By a stroke of luck, he secures a job as a clerk in Uganda Railways through a fellow villager already working there and goes to Africa without a second thought. There, he spends a few months laying rail tracks but soon encounters the first of many dangers of Pre-World War I Africa—man-eating lions. Later he takes up a job as station master in desolate station. Here he encounters the another hazard in Africa: the poisonous black mamba. He also rescues and looks after the middle-aged Portuguese explorer and gold prospector, Diego Alvarez. The encounter with Alavarez influences him deeply. Alavarez tells him of his earlier exploits and adventures, how he and his companion Jim Carter had braved deep jungles and mountains of Richtersveld to find the largest diamond mine. However, they were thwarted by the legendary Bunyip, a mythical monster which guards the mines which killed Carter. Shankar gives up his job and accompanies Alvarez as he decides to venture out once more and find the mines again. They meet with innumerable hardships, a raging volcano being the greatest challenge. Eventually they get lost in the forests where Alvarez is killed by a mysterious monster, the same that had taken Carter’s life, the Bunyip. Shankar sets out to reach civilization. He finds the Bunyip's cave and the diamond mines by accident. He enters the cave but eventually gets lost. With great difficulty, he gets out, marking his way with "pebbles" and taking some back with him as memento, not knowing each is a piece of uncut diamond. He finds the remains of the Italian explorer, Attilio Gatti, and learns that the cave he found earlier really was the diamond mine. Gatti, as Shankar learns from a note by him, had uncut diamonds in his boots. The note said that whoever reads the note can take the diamonds as long as he buries his skeleton, with Christian rites. Shankar does so, and keeps the old diamonds. He becomes lost in the deserts of Kalahari and nearly dies of thirst. Fortunately he is rescued by a survey team, and taken to a hospital in Salisbury, Rhodesia, from where he sets sail for home. He ends the book saying that he will return to that cave one day with a large team, and continue the legacy of Alvarez, Carter and Gatti. |
3415257 | /m/09b90w | Wow! City! | null | null | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | Wow! City! describes the excitement of the author's daughter, Izzy, as they walk through a large city. |
3415281 | /m/09b928 | Shhhhh! Everybody's Sleeping | null | null | null | Shhhhh! Everybody's Sleeping is a bedtime story that discusses fictional bedtimes for people of different professions (farmer, baker, etc.). |
3416057 | /m/09b9zw | The Negotiator | Dee Henderson | 1989 | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Late 1989: Texan oil tycoon Cyrus V. Miller reads a report he had commissioned into dwindling oil supplies in the free world and concludes that the oil fields of the Middle East must be brought under American control. Separately, a high-ranking General in the Soviet Army comes to a similarly depressing conclusion about oil access and plans a covert mission to invade Iran and take over the massive oil supplies there. Meanwhile, the President of the United States, John Cormack, meets with his Soviet counterpart Mikhail Gorbachev to draw up plans for a $100 billion arms reduction bill - the Nantucket Treaty. With the help of a disaffected Arabist, Colonel Robert Easterhouse, Miller and his shipping tycoon counterpart Melvyn Scanlon devise a plan to inspire Islamic fundamentalists to massacre the six hundred ruling members of the Saudi royal family during jamboree celebrations; after that, American forces will go into Saudi Arabia to restore the only surviving royal - a Westernized puppet named Prince Abdullah - to power and thus secure the oil for the United States - and for Miller and Scanlon's companies. However, Easterhouse warns that Cormack won't be prepared to jeopardize the Nantucket Treaty by sending troops into the Middle East; he must be ousted from power and replaced by his vice-president, Michael Odell, who opposes the treaty. Miller teams up with three disgruntled arms manufacturers who will be ruined financially by the treaty and hires a recently released from prison, hardcore sex criminal and ex-CIA-officer-turned-mercenary Irving Moss to devise a plan to destroy the President and therefore the treaty. The plan begins when the President's son, Simon, is kidnapped while spending a year studying abroad at Oxford University. Cormack puts Odell in charge of the kidnapping case. Odell wants Quinn, the world's most successful hostage negotiator, to handle the case, but he has retired to Spain and is not interested in working for the government. His old CIA friend David Weintraub coaxes him out of retirement, and Green Beret Quinn agrees to come to London if they allow him to handle the negotiations his way. He is joined, against his wishes, in his designated London flat by female FBI agent Sam Somerville and CIA officer Duncan McCrea. The leader of the kidnappers, Zack, makes contact and demands a $5 million ransom for Simon's safe return. Quinn refuses, telling the police and FBI it is dangerous to agree to a kidnapper's first demand. After two weeks of negotiation, they agree on a $2 million ransom, in diamonds. Meanwhile, a maverick FBI agent does his own investigations and leads a raid on a house where he believes the President's son is held; but it turns out that all he has done is ruin an attempt by the British police to arrest a top international drug smuggler. A fake news report that the police are closing in spooks the kidnappers; Quinn decides to steal the diamonds, evade the police and FBI and set up the ransom drop himself. He and Simon are released at different points of a deserted road. As Simon runs towards Quinn and the police, he is killed in an explosion. President Cormack is devastated when he learns of his son's death. The possibility of the president being removed under the terms of the 25th Amendment is brought up. A postmortem shows that Simon was killed by a bomb hidden in the belt given to him by his kidnappers. The bomb was set off by a miniature detonator - minidet - found, and only found, in the Soviet space programme. The Russians are blamed and the Nantucket Treaty is effectively finished. Quinn is arrested by the police but let go for lack of evidence. He decides to go after the kidnappers himself, and Sam - who has become Quinn's lover - is sent by the FBI to follow him. Quinn thinks one of the kidnappers was a Belgian mercenary, due to his ease with a gun and the smell of his Bastos cigarettes. He identifies him as “Big” Paul Marchais and finds him with a bullet in the head at a fairground in Belgium. He finds his partner, South African mercenary Jan Pretorius in bar in the Netherlands, also with a bullet in his head. Returning to London, Quinn is contacted by Zack who arranges a meeting at a cafe in Paris. He tells Quinn he was paid $500,000 to kidnap Simon - the ransom was a bonus. The man who hired him was a fat American who always stayed in darkness so he couldn't be identified. Zack brought in Marchais and Pretorius and was forced to take on a fourth man, Corsican Dominique Orsini. It was Orsini who gave Simon the belt that killed him. After that, he fled to Europe. Zack hands over the diamonds but is killed in a drive-by shooting which Quinn and Sam only narrowly escape from. Quinn sends Sam to his home in Spain while he travels to Corsica. He confronts Orsini but is forced to kill him in self-defense. He flies back to London where he is drugged and kidnapped by a Russian agent, Andrei the Cossack. He is taken to the Russian embassy where KGB chief General Kirpicenko shows Quinn photos of Miller, Scanlon and the three arms manufactures who had been identified after paying an unexpected trip to a Russian air base. It is believed they met with General Koslov, head of Soviet Southern High Command, and he gave them the minidet. Kirpicenko tells Quinn to return to Washington, D.C. to flush out the conspirators. Sam flies back to Washington and Quinn sends her a letter, knowing that the White House has her phones tapped and her mail on intercept. Quinn by then is in Vermont, after entering the U.S. via Canada with help of forged travel documents, and renting a secluded cabin in the wilderness. In the intercepted letter to Sam, the White House committee read that Quinn knows who Simon's killers were and is holed up some place safe writing it all down. One of the members of the committee, in cahoots with Miller from the start, panics. Quinn soon finds Sam and tells her to be on the lookout. Sam soon tells Quinn that David Weintraub has been in touch, and Quinn agrees to meet him. The 'David Weintraub' who appears is actually Irving Moss impersonating him. He has brought with him Duncan McCrea, who turns out to be a fellow sadist and a former protégé of Moss. Moss also has a score to settle with Quinn, who responded to one of Moss' gruesome torture interrogations in Vietnam by caving in the front of Moss' face with a single punch. It was McCrea who pushed the remote control that set off the bomb that killed Simon. Quinn and Sam are taken at gunpoint back to Quinn's cabin where Moss reads Quinn's report. He tells Quinn that he and Duncan followed Quinn and Sam across Europe, spying on them (for a time) via a bug in Sam's handbag, and killing the mercenaries before Quinn could reach them. Moss, finding out that the report is fake, takes Quinn outside to shoot him, but Andrei, who has been bivouacking in the snow for several days observing Quinn, shoots him before he could execute Quinn. Quinn then takes Moss's gun, returns to the cabin and shoots McCrea as he is about to rape/torture Sam. Searching the corpses reveals Moss's address book, which eventually yielded a coded telephone number which Quinn identifies (with Sam's help) as belonging to a very senior politician. Mimicking Moss's voice, he demands a bonus payment for all the 'unforeseen trouble' he had to deal with, and arranges a meeting with the man at the 'usual place', which turns out to be near the Vietnam War Memorial. It turns out to Hubert Reed, the Secretary of the Treasury, who publicly supported the Nantucket Treaty, but secretly opposed it as he had invested his fortune in armament companies; the trustees of his blind trust had not moved the investments. He offers Quinn the $5 million Swiss bank draft (payable to the bearer) he had brought for Moss, and Quinn hands over the report he has written. But the real report is sent to the President, who then chooses not to resign and tells the world in a special broadcast the next evening what really happened to his son and why. The conspirators are later arrested by American and Soviet authorities or commit suicide, and the President orders the FBI manhunt for Quinn to be permanently called off. By then, Quinn flies off to Spain with Sam, who has accepted his marriage proposal. A newspaper he briefly reads, made redundant earlier by the President's speech, mentions a $5 million anonymous donation to the Vietnam Veterans Paraplegic Hospital, and the “accidental” death of Treasury Secretary Reed, by drowning. |
3416567 | /m/09bbqh | HaJaBaRaLa | Sukumar Ray | 1921 | {"/m/0l67h": "Novella"} | The story starts with a boy suddenly waking up from sleep and finding that the handkerchief he placed just beside him before sleeping has turned into a cat. He starts talking to the cat, who speaks nonsensically about a handkerchief and a semicolon before disappearing over the hedge. He tells him to go find Kakeshwar, in a series of calculations that eventually tell him that he is in a tree. The boy finds Kakeshwar doing calculations in a slate and doing some mathematics that appears very unusual to the boy. This includes division that is purely illogical and fallacious. After arguing over math, a goat appears and narrates his life about eating paper and other artificial things. Hijibijbij appears and laughs after denouncing three names for all his family at three inquiries. Then many animals appear, and confusion results. The boy wakes up from his odd dream and finds the cat, which does not talk. |
3417912 | /m/09bfbq | Spock Must Die! | James Blish | null | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | The Klingon Empire manages to imprison the Organians and begin another war with the Federation. Captain Kirk and the crew of the USS Enterprise find themselves far behind enemy lines. Dr. McCoy expresses his fear that he was killed the first time a transporter disassembled his original body and created a replacement in a new location. Scotty attempts to create a new method of teleportation that uses tachyons. He later uses this experimental method to send a duplicate of Mr. Spock to Organia via a souped-up transporter beam, without having to travel through Klingon space. Something goes terribly wrong, resulting in two Spocks returning. One of them has to be destroyed...but which one? The novel is notable for an elementary public exposure of tachyon theory. For a similar duplication of Captain Kirk, see the Original Series episode "The Enemy Within". |
3419274 | /m/09bhzb | In the Cage | Henry James | null | {"/m/0l67h": "Novella"} | An unnamed telegraphist works in the branch post office at Cocker's, a grocer in a fashionable London neighborhood. Her fiancée, a decent if unpolished man named Mudge, wants her to move to a less expensive neighborhood to save money. She refuses because she likes the glimpses of society life she gets from the telegrams at her current location. Through those telegrams, she gets "involved" with a pair of lovers, Captain Everard and Lady Bradeen. By remembering certain code numbers in the telegrams, she manages to reassure Everard at a particular crisis that their secrets are safe from detection. Later she learns that, after the death of Lady Bradeen's husband, Everard will marry her, though he no longer seems that interested in her. She finally decides to marry Mudge and reflects on the unusual events she was part of. |
3425068 | /m/09bst8 | The Feast of All Saints | Anne Rice | 1979 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02p0szs": "Historical fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | This novel is about the gens de couleur libres, or free people of color, who lived in New Orleans before the Civil War. The gens de couleur libres were the descendants of European settlers of Louisiana, particularly the French and Spanish and people of African descent. It was a common practice for the early caucasian settlers to free these children by their slave mistresses. Their mistresses however, were not all enslaved, some were free women of color whose families had been free for several generations. The novel takes place in the 1840s, at which time there was a large population of free people of color living in New Orleans. The story centers on Marcel, a young man who has one white parent and one parent who is half white and half black. His mother, Cecile, is the mistress of Philippe Ferronaire, a rich French plantation owner. Cecile has borne Ferronaire two children, Marcel and his sister Marie. Marie is very light skinned and able to pass as white, but Marcel, who is blonde and blue eyed, but with ethnic hair and darker skin, cannot. The other two major characters in this novel are Christophe, a famous author who returns from Paris to start a school for the young gens, and Anna Bella, Marcel's childhood friend. Anna Bella loves Marcel, but as he is unprepared to offer her marriage (and too young) she becomes the mistress of Vincent Dazinncourt, who is the brother of Philippe Ferronaire's white wife. They have a child together, but split after Marcel, who had been planning to be sent to Paris, learns that his father has betrayed him and wanders to his father's plantation to confront him. In disgrace, he is sent to live with his aunt among many Creole planters on the Cane River. It is here that Marcel learns some of his (African Diasporan) history, including the Haitian Slave Revolt and the fact that his mother was stolen off the street by his adopted aunt during that time. While Marcel is learning history, his father is in New Orleans drinking himself to death, which he eventually does, depriving the family of their source of income. Marie, who was set to marry Marcel's best friend Richard, is now told that she will follow in her mother's footsteps and take a white protector in order to get money for the family and send Marcel to Paris (Marcel is unaware of all of this). Marie confides this to her slave maid, Lisette. Lisette is also Phillipe Ferronaire's daughter (which Marie does not know) and was promised her freedom by him, but as he did to Marcel, he reneged on his promise. In revenge, Lisette takes Marie to the house of a voodooiene, where she is drugged and raped by five men. Marcel comes home to find that his sister has been raped, Richard has been locked in the family attic (to prevent him from taking revenge on the men, and then, certainly, being tried and convicted of murder and executed) and Vincent Dazincourt has already confronted two of the men, challenged them to duels, and killed them both. The issue from Dazincourt's perspective is that the five men knew Marie's identity, and therefore knew that she was related by blood to the Ferronaire/Dazincourt family, but raped her anyway. The gens de couleur libre members of the extended family cannot avenge Marie's rape but he can. Marie takes refuge with a local madam, Dolly Rose. Lisette commits suicide to avoid Dazincourt's vengeance. Dazincourt find and kills a third man in a duel, but the other two escape from New Orleans before he can call them out and kill them. Richard, who is finally let out of the attic, tells his family that he will marry Marie or face exile with her. The novel ends with Marie and Richard sailing to France (where they will stay until the gossip dies down) and Marcel deciding to become a photographer in order to earn his living (with the implication that once he has some success he will marry Anna Bella). |
3426793 | /m/09bvkv | Beyond This Place | A. J. Cronin | 1953 | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/01qxvh": "Romance novel", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Paul Mathry, a student about to graduate and embark upon a teaching career, finds out that his father was convicted for murder, a secret that his mother had hidden from him since his childhood. Driven by an intense desire to see his father, Paul sets out to visit him in prison, only to find out that visitors are never allowed there. From there, he meets the primary witnesses in the case that convicted his father, not all of whom are supportive to Paul's cause. He encounters several dead ends but he persists, with the help of a store girl named Lena and a news reporter. His persistent campaign finally bears fruit. Rees Mathry, Paul's father, goes on appeal and is vindicated. The novel ends with Paul's father, a hardened, cynical man, seeing a fleeting hope for self-renewal and a purposeful life. |
3428648 | /m/09bz3k | Spock, Messiah | null | null | null | When an experiment with telepathic implants goes wrong, Mr. Spock renounces his life on the Starship Enterprise to become the Messiah of the planet Kyros. In so doing, he launches a holy war on the rest of the world. |
3428688 | /m/09bz7r | The Price of the Phoenix | null | null | null | Captain Kirk's dead body is beamed aboard the Enterprise after a house fire on an unnamed planet in which he has died trying to save a baby. Spock beams down to the planet in order to confront its ruler, Omne. Unexpectedly, Omne reveals that he has pioneered the “Phoenix process”, a modification of Transporter technology to create a duplicate of a living person – and he offers Spock a recent copy of Kirk, recorded shortly before his death. Spock has reservations as to the authenticity of this supposed Kirk and is given leave for a brief mind meld. Although Spock verifies that it is indeed Kirk’s mind he is melding with, he is still unable to dismiss his reservations and so calls this Kirk “James”, in contrast to the form of his captain’s forename that he usually uses. Even so, Spock accepts Omne’s offer of this resurrected Kirk, although Omne makes it plain that his price will be extremely high and in effect require Spock to betray the Federation. It soon transpires that Spock was right to be suspicious regarding James’s identity, as the original Kirk is indeed alive and well, having sustained only minor though visible injuries in the house fire before being beamed to safety and replaced by an incomplete Phoenix-duplicate. He determines to rescue both Kirk and James, and in this he has the assistance of the female Romulan Commander whom Spock and Kirk bested in the TV episode “The Enterprise Incident”. Omne has been employing Romulan guards on his planet, but the Commander is sympathetic enough to Spock and Kirk to switch sides. Spock fights Omne bare-handed and defeats him after a brutal battle in which both parties are gravely injured. He forces a mind meld on Omne in order to purge him of all memory of his experiences with Kirk; but before this psychic surgery is complete, the crippled Omne succeeds in shooting himself in the head. (One of Omne’s affectations is that every visitor to the planet, barring a few privileged Romulans, may go armed only with locally-manufactured gunpowder weapons after the fashion of the Wild West.) Realizing that Omne would have done this only because he trusted the Phoenix device to resurrect him, Spock, Kirk, James and the Commander retreat to the Enterprise. There they hastily draw up plans both to establish a new life for James and to deal with Omne’s inevitable reappearance. James is surgically altered to pass for Romulan and is to accompany the Commander back to the Empire. She explains that there are colony worlds where men are “very properly considered the weaker sex and not permitted to fight”, and he is to be represented as one of these. (This is not the authors’ only experimentation with non-traditional gender roles. In a short story “The Procrustean Petard”, Kirk temporarily changes sex.) However, before James and the Commander depart, Omne transports himself aboard the Enterprise. The Phoenix device has indeed recreated him, and he is in perfect physical condition. A short fistfight follows in which Omne beats everyone present, Spock still being injured despite earlier recourse to the Vulcan healing trance (previously seen in “A Private Little War”), and captures James, holding him hostage with a gun at his head. He announces his intention to return to his planet with James, where it will be impossible to pursue him. Surprisingly, Kirk chooses this moment to warn Omne to mend his ways, which Omne dismisses with incredulity and scorn. Kirk then gives the signal for Mr. Scott, supposed by Omne to have been unaware of his presence, to transport the weapon out of Omne’s hand, and using this moment of surprise the Commander snatches James away and Kirk, equipped with one of Omne’s own guns, outdraws him. Killed a second time aboard the Enterprise and supposedly out of range of his Phoenix device, Omne is supposed to be dead; but there is ample room for doubt in view of the technology Omne has already shown. There is, however, no more to be done for the present. Omne’s planet is for all present purposes impenetrable, and if he will come back from the dead yet again, that eventuality must be addressed when it arises. |
3428785 | /m/09bzjg | Planet of Judgment | Joe Haldeman | 1977-01 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | The crew of the Starship Enterprise detects a rogue planet (dubbed Anomaly) orbited by a miniature black hole. This seems to contravene all scientific laws. Assuming that the system is artificial, Captain Kirk leads a landing party to the planet's surface, where they become trapped. The crew find themselves at the center of a galactic conflict, in which an alien race is threatening to invade Federation space. Dr. McCoy, Mr. Spock, and Captain Kirk must participate in a series of trials that will determine not just their survival, but that of the Federation. |
3428859 | /m/09bzqq | Gridiron | Philip Kerr | 1995 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Ray Richardson and his top team of architects have developed a super-smart building for Yue-Kong Yu's business, the Yu Corporation. It is very much self-standing. It can clean itself, uses holograms as greeters in the reception, controls the lifts, toilets, and offices, and digitizes everyone's voice on entry, to allow them to use voice activated services in the building such as lifts and doors. The whole system was given the name Abraham. Another key feature of Abraham was its ability to replicate itself, to adapt to modern office needs and objectives. This, however becomes a problem, when, before office work even starts in the Gridiron, Abraham start creating a new program named Isaac. This is deleted by computer programmers Yojo and Beech, with Beech actually reluctant to do so. Shortly after this, however, members of the Gridiron team begin to be suspiciously killed. These seem to be the fault of the protesters against the building who are outside, and Cheng Peng Fei is arrested on suspicion of one of the murders. Then, a routine inspection of the Gridiron involving Ray Richarson and his entire team (including Jenny Bao), ends in the whole group being locked in, and two policemen from LAPD Homicide coming to inspect the murder of Sam Glieg. After several more deaths from the team, Bob Beech discovers that during the self-replication that Abraham started, another program was created in the process, namely, Ishmael. This program escaped the deletion process by integrating itself with a video game which was on the Gridiron's system. Ishmael now believes that he is in a game, and the objective is to kill all human players before one escapes, or before time runs out. The majority of the team are killed, leaving Mitch, Jenny, Helen, and Frank to escape the Gridiron moments before it destroys itself (time has run out). Ishmael, however, had e-mailed himself to an unknown location, thus saving himself from the destruction of the building. |
3429982 | /m/09c0mp | The Blue Sword | Robin McKinley | 1982 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The story introduces Angharad Crewe, usually referred to as Harry, the daughter of a recently deceased nobleman from the Homeland. The orphaned Harry crosses the ocean to join her brother Richard in Istan, the Homeland's remotest colonial town and military outpost in the Royal Province of Daria. Soon after her arrival, the outpost receives a visit from Corlath, king of the native hill-folk who still view the land as their own, the ancient country they have always called Damar. Corlath has come to warn the "Outlanders" of an impending invasion from the North, a land full of demonic tribes that has recently and uncharacteristically united under the leadership of Thurra, a powerful demon-wizard. But Corlath's warning fails to influence Sir Charles, the Homeland's District Commissioner, and Corlath leaves angry that he tried reasoning with the Outlanders. Corlath and his men ride away into the desert; however his "kelar," a magical element of the royal bloodline, incites him to return and kidnap Harry. Corlath knows he has to comply with the kelar's compulsion, but he is nonetheless ashamed that he must abduct a young woman, and an Outlander. He commands his people to treat Harry as an honored guest. Harry's confusion and fear soon give way to wonder when she discovers, to her surprise, that she, too, has abnormally strong kelar. Harry, called Harimad by the Damarians, adjusts quickly and well to life with the king and his people, as Corlath and Mathin help her learn their customs and history. She is learning the language and feel at home by her kelar, and soon adopts the customary dress and horseback-riding skills of a born Damarian. Despite this, Harry is somewhat puzzled at her connection with the people of Damar, as she had been born and raised in the Homeland. Based on her connection with the legendary heroine Lady Aerin, called Dragon Slayer and venerated as a fierce warrior, whom Harry has seen in vision, Corlath decides that Harry will enter the Laprun trials, an annual competition for the position of King's Rider. Mathin teaches Harry to ride and to fight like a warrior, which she does and is even able to push him off of his horse while fighting her. When she takes part in the Laprun trials she does extremely well, becoming the Laprun-minta, or first of the Laprun. This is seen as a good omen for the Damarian people because the Laprun-minta is a female warrior, and there have been very few since the age of Aerin. Corlath makes her a King's Rider and gives her a blue sword named Gonturan that belonged to Lady Aerin, and Harry becomes known as the Damalur-sol, or lady hero. Corlath decides to take a desperate stand against the Northerners with his small army and the nineteen King's Riders. First he chooses to visit the ageless seer known as Luthe, who tells Harry she has a choice ahead of her and that he hopes she will make the right decision. Luthe, like Corlath and Mathin, will tell her little of Aerin—but he surprises Harry with the observation that she is very like the ancient heroine, whom he'd known long ago. As the Riders discuss their battle plans, Harry points out that Corlath, still angry at the Homelanders, is ignoring the threat posed by a small pass near the Homelander border. He brushes her off, but Harry, torn between loyalty to her Homeland and a new-found love for Damar, knows the Homelanders will be better able to defend the pass if they are forewarned. Despite Corlath's direct orders to the contrary, she decides to leave and bring them word herself. While there, Harry learns from her friend Jack Dedham, that she and her brother are both part Damarian, through their great-grandmother on their mother's side of the family. Harry amasses a small fighting force of friends and allies, both Damarian and Homelander. Together they attempt to hold the pass, only to find that Thurra is bringing the majority of his force through there, rather than where Corlath predicted. The two armies engage in a fierce, bloody battle. Harry briefly clashes swords with Thurra himself on the slope below the pass and barely survives; she knows that when they meet again, it will be her death. Harry, acting under the compulsion of her kelar, climbs the mountain, falling into a vision-laced trance, and calling for help from Aerin and Corlath. Harry begins shouting in the Old Tongue of the Hillfolk, and Gonturan throws off sparkling, eddying waves of light which cause the mountainside to shear and break away, rumbling into the valley below to crush Thurra and his army. After she regains her strength, she returns to Corlath, fearing his disapproval—not only because she disobeyed his direct orders, but also because she lost the sash she wore as King's Rider. She knows that Corlath will be forced to honour her as the savior of Damar, but she is afraid that he will personally hate her for disobeying him and proving him wrong. Harry has realized that she is in love with the Damarian king, and desires not only his respect but his love. While she has been gone, however, Corlath, aware that he has fallen in love with her, has been tormented by the thought that Harry had forsaken her loyalty to him and the desert entirely. When she returns from the pass they express these concerns to one another, and finally confess their love. During the celebrations after this public declaration, however, he reveals that her teacher, Mathin, has been mortally wounded. Distraught by the news, she rushes to his side and eventually Corlath helps her heal him, along with many other members of Corlath's army. Upon returning to the capital city of Damar, Harry and Corlath are married. Harry's brother Richard, who chose to accompany her back to Damar, marries a Damarian woman named Kentarre the following spring. Harry and Corlath eventually have four children. During this time period, formal diplomatic relations open between the Homeland and Damar, in part due to Harry's efforts. |
3433040 | /m/09c55p | A Tale of Two Cities | Charles Dickens | 1859 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"} | Mr. Jarvis Lorry and Miss Lucie Manette travel to Saint Antoine, a suburb of Paris, and meet Monsieur Defarge and Madame Defarge. The Defarges operate a wine shop they use to lead a clandestine band of revolutionaries; they refer to each other by the codename "Jacques," which Charles Dickens drew from the Jacobins, an actual French revolutionary group. Monsieur Defarge was Doctor Manette's servant before his incarceration, and now takes care of him, so he takes them to see the doctor. Because of his long imprisonment, Doctor Manette entered a form of psychosis and has become obsessed with making shoes, a trade he had learned while in prison. At first, he does not recognise his daughter; but he eventually compares her long golden hair with her mother's, a strand of which he found on his sleeve when he was incarcerated and kept, and notices their identical blue eye colour. Mr. Lorry and Miss Manette then take him back to England. Five years later, two British spies, John Barsad and Roger Cly, are trying to frame French émigré Charles Darnay for their own gain; and Darnay is on trial for treason at the Old Bailey. They claim, falsely, that Darnay gave information about British troops in North America to the French. Darnay is acquitted, however, when a witness who claims he would be able to recognise Darnay anywhere is unable to tell Darnay apart from a barrister present in court, Sydney Carton, who looks almost identical to him. In Paris, a wheel on the despised Marquis St. Evrémonde's carriage hits and kills the baby of a peasant, Gaspard. The Marquis throws a coin to Gaspard to compensate him for his loss. Defarge, a witness to the incident, comforts Gaspard. As the Marquis's coach drives off, the coin thrown to Gaspard is thrown back into the coach by an unknown hand, probably that of Madame Defarge, enraging the Marquis. Arriving at his château, the Marquis meets with his nephew and heir, Darnay. (Out of disgust with his family, Darnay shed his real surname and adopted an Anglicised version of his mother's maiden name, D'Aulnais.) The following scene demonstrates the differences between Darnay's personality and his uncle's: Darnay has sympathy for the peasantry, while the Marquis is cruel and heartless: "Repression is the only lasting philosophy. The dark deference of fear and slavery, my friend," observed the Marquis, "will keep the dogs obedient to the whip, as long as this roof," looking up to it, "shuts out the sky." That night, Gaspard, who followed the Marquis to his château by riding on the underside of the carriage, stabs and kills the Marquis in his sleep. He leaves a note on the knife saying, "Drive him fast to his tomb. This, from JACQUES." After nine months on the run, he is caught, and hanged above the village's fountain, poisoning its water, which angers the peasants greatly. In London, Darnay gets Dr. Manette's permission to wed Lucie; but Carton confesses his love to Lucie as well. Knowing she will not love him in return, Carton promises to "embrace any sacrifice for you and for those dear to you". On the morning of the marriage, Darnay reveals his real name and who his family is, a detail which Dr. Manette had asked him to withhold until then. This unhinges Dr. Manette, who reverts to his obsessive shoemaking. His sanity is restored before Lucie returns from her honeymoon and the whole incident kept secret from her. To prevent a further relapse, Lorry and Miss Pross destroy the shoemaking bench and tools, which Dr. Manette had brought with him from Paris. It is 14 July 1789. The Defarges help to lead the storming of the Bastille. Defarge enters Dr. Manette's former cell, "One Hundred and Five, North Tower". The reader does not know what Monsieur Defarge is searching for until Book 3, Chapter 9. It is a statement in which Dr. Manette explains why he was imprisoned. As time passes in England, Lucie and Charles begin to raise a family, a son (who dies in childhood) and a daughter, little Lucie. The perennial bachelor Lorry, who believes that such things are beyond "a man of business", finds a second home and a sort of family with the Darnays. Stryver, who once had intentions to marry Lucie, marries a rich widow with three children and becomes even more insufferable as his ambitions begin to be realised. Carton, even though he seldom visits, is accepted as a close friend of the family and becomes a special favourite of little Lucie. Darnay, being called by a former servant who has been unjustly imprisoned, decides to come back to France to free him. But shortly after his arrival, he is denounced for being an emigrated aristocrat from France and imprisoned in La Force Prison in Paris. Dr. Manette and Lucie—along with Miss Pross, Jerry Cruncher, and "Little Lucie", the daughter of Charles and Lucie Darnay—come to Paris and meet Mr. Lorry to try to free Darnay. A year and three months pass, and Darnay is finally tried. Dr. Manette, who is seen as a hero for his imprisonment in the hated Bastille, is able to have him released; but, that same evening, Darnay is again arrested. He is put on trial again the following day, under new charges brought by the Defarges and one "unnamed other". We soon discover that this "other" is Dr. Manette, through his own account of his imprisonment. Manette did not know that his statement had been found and is horrified when his words are used to condemn Darnay. On an errand, Miss Pross is amazed to see her long-lost brother, Solomon Pross; but Solomon does not want to be recognised. Sydney Carton suddenly steps forward from the shadows much as he had done after Darnay's first trial in London and identifies Solomon Pross as John Barsad, one of the men who tried to frame Darnay for treason at the Old Bailey trial. Carton threatens to reveal Solomon's identity as a Briton and an opportunist who spies for the French or the British as it suits him. If this were revealed, Solomon would surely be executed, so Carton's hand is strong. Darnay is confronted at the tribunal by Monsieur Defarge, who identifies Darnay as the Marquis St. Evrémonde and reads the letter Dr. Manette had hidden in his cell in the Bastille. Defarge can identify Darnay as Evrémonde because Barsad told him Darnay's identity when Barsad was fishing for information at the Defarges' wine shop in Book 2, Chapter 16. The letter describes how Dr. Manette was locked away in the Bastille by Darnay's father and his uncle for trying to report their crimes against a peasant family. Darnay's uncle had become infatuated with a girl, whom he had kidnapped and raped. Despite Dr. Manette's attempts to save her, she died. The uncle then killed her husband by working him to death. Before he died defending the family honour, the brother of the raped peasant had hidden the last member of the family, his younger sister. The letter also reveals that Dr. Manette was imprisoned because the Evrémonde brothers discovered that they could not bribe him to keep quiet. The paper concludes by condemning the Evrémondes, "them and their descendants, to the last of their race". Dr. Manette is horrified, but his protests are ignored—he is not allowed to take back his condemnation. Darnay is sent to the Conciergerie and sentenced to be guillotined the next day. Carton wanders into the Defarges' wine shop, where he overhears Madame Defarge talking about her plans to have the rest of Darnay's family (Lucie and "Little Lucie") condemned. Carton discovers that Madame Defarge was the surviving sister of the peasant family savaged by the Evrémondes. The only plot detail that might give one any sympathy for Madame Defarge is the loss of her family and that she has no (family) name. Defarge is her married name, and Dr. Manette does not know her family name, though he asked her dying sister for it. At night, when Dr. Manette returns shattered after spending the day in many failed attempts to save Charles' life, he has reverted to his obsessive search for his shoemaking implements. Carton urges Lorry to flee Paris with Lucie, her father, and Little Lucie, "as soon as his, i.e Carton's place in the coach is filled". That same morning, Carton visits Darnay in prison. Carton drugs Darnay, and Barsad (whom Carton is blackmailing) has Darnay carried out of the prison. Carton has decided to pretend to be Darnay and to be executed in his place. He does this out of love for Lucie, recalling his earlier promise to her. Following Carton's earlier instructions, Darnay's family and Lorry flee Paris and France. In their coach is an unconscious man who carries Carton's identification papers, but is actually Darnay. Meanwhile, Madame Defarge, armed with a pistol, goes to the residence of Lucie's family, hoping to catch them mourning for Darnay, since it was illegal to mourn an enemy of the Republic; however, Lucie and Little Lucie, Dr. Manette, and Mr. Lorry are already gone. To give them time to escape, Miss Pross confronts Madame Defarge and they struggle. Pross speaks only English and Defarge speaks only French, so neither can understand what the other is saying but each instinctively understands the other's intentions. In the struggle, Madame Defarge's pistol goes off, killing her; the noise of the shot and the shock of Madame Defarge's death cause Miss Pross to go permanently deaf. The novel concludes with the guillotining of Sydney Carton. As he is waiting to board the tumbril, he is approached by a seamstress, also condemned to death, who mistakes him for Darnay but, upon getting close, realises the truth. Awed by his unselfish courage and sacrifice, she asks to stay close to him and he agrees. Upon their arrival at the guillotine, she and Carton are the last two and Carton comforts her, telling her that their ends will be quick but that there is no Time or Trouble "in the better land where ... [they] will be mercifully sheltered", and she is able to meet her death in peace. Carton's unspoken last thoughts are prophetic: "I see Barsad, ... Defarge, The Vengeance [a lieutenant of Madame Defarge], ... long ranks of the new oppressors who have risen on the destruction of the old, perishing by this retributive instrument, before it shall cease out of its present use. I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss, and, in their struggles to be truly free, in their triumphs and defeats, through long years to come, I see the evil of this time and of the previous time of which this is the natural birth, gradually making expiation for itself and wearing out. "I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful, prosperous and happy, in that England which I shall see no more. I see Her with a child upon her bosom, who bears my name. I see her father, aged and bent, but otherwise restored, and faithful to all men in his healing office, and at peace. I see the good old man [Mr. Lorry], so long their friend, in ten years' time enriching them with all he has, and passing tranquilly to his reward. "I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of their descendants, generations hence. I see her, an old woman, weeping for me on the anniversary of this day. I see her and her husband, their course done, lying side by side in their last earthly bed, and I know that each was not more honoured and held sacred in the other's soul, than I was in the souls of both. "I see that child who lay upon her bosom and who bore my name, a man winning his way up in that path of life which once was mine. I see him winning it so well, that my name is made illustrious there by the light of his. I see the blots I threw upon it, faded away. I see him, fore-most of just judges and honoured men, bringing a boy of my name, with a forehead that I know and golden hair, to this place—then fair to look upon, with not a trace of this day's disfigurement—and I hear him tell the child my story, with a tender and a faltering voice. "It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known." Lucie and Darnay have a first son earlier in the book who is born and dies within a single paragraph; it seems likely that this first son appears in the novel so that their later son, named after Carton, can represent another way in which Carton restores Lucie and Darnay through his sacrifice. |
3433051 | /m/09c574 | The Magnificent Ambersons | Booth Tarkington | null | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The novel and trilogy trace the growth of the United States through the declining fortunes of three generations of the aristocratic Amberson family in an upper-scale Indianapolis neighborhood, between the end of the Civil War and the early part of the 20th century, a period of rapid industrialization and socio-economic change in America. The decline of the Ambersons is contrasted with the rising fortunes of industrial tycoons and other new-money families, which did not derive power from family names but by "doing things." As George Amberson's friend (name unspecified) says, "don't you think being things is 'rahthuh bettuh' than doing things?" The titular family is the most prosperous and powerful in town at the turn of the century. Young George Amberson Minafer, the patriarch’s grandson, is spoiled terribly by his mother Isabel. Growing up arrogant, sure of his own worth and position and totally oblivious to the lives of others, George falls in love with Lucy Morgan, a young though sensible debutante. But there is a long history between George’s mother and Lucy’s father, of which George is unaware. As the town grows into a city, industry thrives, the Ambersons’ prestige and wealth wanes and the Morgans – thanks to Lucy’s prescient father – grow prosperous. When George sabotages his widowed mother's growing affections for Lucy's father, life as he knows it comes to an end. |
3433133 | /m/09c5c0 | Plain Truth | Jodi Picoult | 4/3/2001 | {"/m/0lsxr": "Crime Fiction", "/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/05hgj": "Novel", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | The book tells the story of how a dead infant found on an Amish farm shakes the entire community. As the police investigate the death, they discover that the baby was not stillborn, but died shortly after birth. Police find cloth fibers in the infant's mouth and throat, including bruises on the mouth, which leads them to conclude that he was suffocated. An eighteen-year-old, unmarried Amish girl, Katie Fisher, is charged with murder of her new-born son. Ellie Hathaway, a top defense lawyer and a distant relative of Katie, reluctantly accepts the case after a confrontation with her aunt (the relative who connects her with Katie by marriage). As part of the bail conditions of the pre-trial hearing, Ellie has to remain on the farm with Katie prior to the trial--a period that lasts several months. A doctor determines that the infant was born prematurely and could have died from natural causes due to listeriosis, a bacterial infection which Katie contracted from drinking unpasteurized milk. During that time, Ellie begins a relationship with her former lover Coop (a legal psychologist whom she trusts with Katie's interviews), whom she had previously left years before. On the first day of Katie's trial, Ellie finds out she is pregnant with Coop's baby. Coop asks Ellie to marry him immediately, but she defers. After the jury deliberates for several days, Katie cops a plea and is sentenced to one year of electronic monitoring, allowing her to stay at the farm while wearing an electronic bracelet. Katie's mother, Sarah Fisher, gives Ellie the scissors which have been used to cut the umbilical cord, revealing that she knew Katie was pregnant and had gone to her the night she gave birth, though Katie didn't know it. Ellie has an ethical obligation as an attorney to provide this evidence to the police, but opts not to, based on Sarah's plea to her--mother to mother. The novel ends with Coop picking up Ellie at the farm to begin their life together. |
3433251 | /m/09c5mc | Winds of Change | Mercedes Lackey | 1994-08 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Winds of Change is the story telling of the training of the Heir of Valdemar Elspeth in real magic. |
3434390 | /m/09c7hn | The Sacred Fount | Henry James | null | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | As he waits for the train to take him to a weekend party in the country, the narrator notices that Gilbert Long seems much more assured and lively than before. He also sees Mrs. Brissenden (nicknamed "Mrs. Briss") as much younger-looking than her husband, though she's actually ten years older. The narrator begins to theorize that Long and Mrs. Briss are getting their vitality, vampire-like, from the "sacred fount" of their sexual partners' energy. At first the narrator theorizes that the source of Long's newfound assurance and intelligence is a certain Lady John. Later he changes his mind, as he constantly discusses his ideas with others at the party, particularly an artist, Ford Obert. The narrator notices that another woman at the party, May Server, seems listless and starts to wonder if she may be the lover providing vitality to Long. Eventually the narrator begins to construct enormously elaborate theories of who is taking vitality from whom, and whether some people are acting as screens for the real lovers. In a long midnight confrontation with Mrs. Briss which concludes the novel, she says that the narrator's theories are ridiculous, and that he has completely misread the actual relationships of their fellow guests. She finishes by telling him he's crazy, and that last word leaves the narrator dismayed and overwhelmed. |
3434631 | /m/09c7q1 | Thinner | Stephen King | 11/19/1984 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/03npn": "Horror", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Billy Halleck, an arrogant, obese lawyer in Connecticut, has recently fought an agonizing court case in which he was charged with vehicular manslaughter. While he had been driving across town, his wife Heidi distracted him by giving him a handjob, causing him to run over an old woman who was part of a group of traveling Gypsies. Billy is acquitted thanks to the judge, who is a close friend of his. However, as Billy leaves the courthouse, the old woman's ancient father, Taduz Lemke, strokes Billy's cheek and whispers one word to him: "Thinner." The word, and the old man's behavior, startle Billy. From this point on, Billy quickly loses weight; the loss becomes more and more rapid and he realizes that Lemke has cursed him. He also learns that the judge who gave the unfair verdict was also cursed by the old man — scales start growing on his skin. The town police chief who helped soft-pedal the charges against Billy is cursed with a horrifyingly extreme case of acne. Both men eventually commit suicide. With the help of his friend Richie "The Hammer" Ginelli, a former client and Mafia figure, an emaciated and desperate Billy tracks the Gypsy band north along the seacoast of New England to Maine, where the stage is set for a confrontation between himself and Lemke, resolving the issue of the curse and the blood-debt owed by Billy. After Richie terrorizes the Gypsy camp, Lemke agrees to meet with Billy. Lemke has brought a pie with him and adds blood from Billy's wounded hand to it, saying that the curse can be transferred to someone else but not destroyed. The weight loss will stop for a short time and then resume unless another person eats the pie, which will strike him/her with the curse and allow Billy to regain his health. Lemke begs Billy to eat it himself and die with dignity, but Billy instead takes it home, discovering along the way that Richie has been murdered by the Gypsies. He intends to give the pie to Heidi, whom he has come to blame for his predicament; the next morning, though, he finds that both she and his daughter Linda have eaten from the pie. Realizing that both of them are now doomed, he cuts a slice for himself so that he can join them in death. |
3434979 | /m/09c873 | Birds of the Master | Pierre Christin | 1973 | null | Valérian and Laureline's astroship has crashed in the middle of a graveyard of spaceships on an unknown asteroid. Swept over a waterfall, they are rescued by a motley group of various aliens gathering seaweed. Suddenly, overhead, a flock of birds gathers over the ship. The crew fly into a panic upon sight of these “Birds-Of-Madness” and Valérian and Laureline are ordered to work with the others in gathering the seaweed. One of the crew is a human but he refuses to talk to Valérian. The hold fully loaded, the boat begins the journey back to its port. On the way, they get into a conversation with a young alien called Sül who tells them that all the others are mad – they think only of gathering as much food as possible for their Master. Arriving at the village, they join a flotilla of boats that travels across the viscous marshes and along a series of fjords until they reach a cove – from here they must continue on foot. Laden with the produce, they reach the Village of the Fruits where they join a caravan carrying exotic fruits. When Valérian asks Sül who the Master is, Sül laughs – nobody has ever seen him but he calls all those he wants into his service. Some are brought here, others are born here. Many have been here so long they have no memory of their past lives. The caravan continues across a vast distance, joined by more and more caravans all bringing their produce to the Master and watched by the birds-of-madness, until they reach his city at the head of an immense valley. The bottom of the valley, the domain of the Master, lies shrouded in mist. They are brought to the great kitchens where they are put to work preparing klaar to feed the master. When the klaar is ready, they are brought to a huge, beautifully decorated basin. The klaar is poured into the basin where it will flow to the Master. The others will be allowed to dine on the leftovers. Suddenly, a man, starving, detaches himself from the crowd and tries to take some of the klaar for himself. The birds-of-madness attack biting him. Sül tries to intervene but is bitten himself. The man now thinks he is a bird while Sül's hatred for the Master now manifests itself as fully fledged rage. Having sated themselves on the remnants of the klaar, the rest of the crowd turn on Sül and the man and, despite Valérian and Laureline's attempts to stop them, carry the two of them away. Valérian and Laureline follow but are too late and Sül and the man are thrown into a pit where all those driven insane by the birds are cast. Valérian tries to talk to the crowd, to make them see what they are doing is wrong but to no avail – the crowd hurl stones at them and Laureline is knocked unconscious. Valérian drags her away to safety. That night, Valérian and Laureline return to the pit once the crowds have moved on. They rescue Sül and the rest of the madmen. As they try to make their escape on a chariot, the alarm is raised and they are pursued. The follow the Pathway of the Klaar towards the Master's lair. Eventually they pass into the forbidden lands and their pursuers give up the chase. Continuing to follow the Pathway of the Klaar, they are attacked by the birds-of-madness. Valérian and Laureline take shelter in a cave while the others form a shield around the entrance. This is not enough and Valérian and Laureline are bitten also. The attack passes and they find that they are almost at the bottom of the valley. A strange glow emanates from the mists. Reaching the source of the glow, they find the Master – a large amorphous grey blob. Laureline hits upon a plan – if they destroy the Pathways of Klaar, the Master will starve. Valérian begins firing but suddenly he breaks down on the ground – his mind has been attacked by the Master, presenting him with terrible images of war and destruction. Laureline takes up the gun but is also struck down, terrified by images of her body being torn to pieces by machinery. Similarly, Sül and the rest of the madmen are taken down one by one by the Master's superior mental powers. Laureline realises that problem is that they attacked one at a time. Gathering the others together, they hold hands and use their combined strength to overcome the Master's influence. Suddenly, the Master rips himself free and flees into the sky followed by the birds-of-madness and the mist. Realising they are free, the others consider settling in the Master's domain and living off the klaar. Valérian points out to them that it is not right to replace one dictator with another and they agree to return to the villages to free the others. Later, a large group of people work to free Valérian's astroship from the marsh in the graveyard of spaceships. The astroship blasts off with just one passenger, Sül, the rest having decided to stay on the asteroid. They wonder where the Master has gone to, blissfully unaware that he has attached himself to hull of their ship... |
3436881 | /m/09cbtf | Peace Breaks Out | John Knowles | 1981-03 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | This book follows the story of Pete Hallam as he returns to the school and becomes a history teacher as well as a coach. It is a story of the aftermath of World War II and the loss of innocence of young men. It starts by Pete Hallam returning to the school he graduated from, war-torn and emotionally scarred. He now is a teacher at Devon School and detects a subtle but deep hate between two members of the class in the first session alone. |
3442022 | /m/09cmhy | Sassinak | Anne McCaffrey | 1990-03 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01qxvh": "Romance novel", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Sassinak and her family live on a newly colonized world and are celebrating the end of the production year when all the colonies goods will be exported to other worlds. But the carrier never comes, and instead the planet and its people are soon under attack by pirates. The colonists put up a futile defense against the pirates' superior firepower, numbers and skill at their task. Sassinak witnesses the death of both her parents and her two siblings before she is taken off planet to become a slave. At the slave depot she is sold, but is counseled by another slave called Abe - who is ex-Fleet. He teaches her Discipline and imbeds a message in her mind that will only be remembered when she is confronted with a Fleet officer. She is sold once again when her skills have improved enough for her to work as a navigator on a ship. The ship that she is on is captured by Fleet and she is rescued, the imbedded message comes out and Fleet is able to attack the slave depot and free all the slaves. Abe adopts Sassinak and she begins her quest to go to the Academy, where all Fleet officers receive their training. After prep-school she enters the Academy and excels but is always conscious that she wants to hunt pirates when she gets her stars and her own ship. On her graduation night Abe takes her out for dinner, but Abe is killed. Sassinak suspects it is an assassination. She goes on her first deployment without any family, adopted or no and is an orphan once more. |
3443785 | /m/09cqr2 | 2150 AD | null | 1976-06 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/037mh8": "Philosophy", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The story starts with Jon having an astral dream. He is transported through time with the help of one of his soul mates, Lea and other level nines, into the Macro perspective life. He first finds himself in a field naked—and with both legs. He had lost one leg in the Vietnam War, and used a prosthesis ever since. He runs, and eventually encounters a beautiful woman, Lea. Lea explains that she is Jon's soul twin (his mate will be a beautiful brunette called Carol) and that he has been brought forward to the year 2150 where life is easy, sunny and enriching. He later learns he has to attain a level 3 of Macro perspective for him to be able to stay in 2150. She takes him to a group of buildings around a lake, and connects his soul to a new, whole, adult body based on his body in 1976 that the members of the Macro Society had produced for him to inhabit while his soul was in 2150. He is given a chance to meet a group of people who will act as his family in 2150. He is also introduced to a computer system that exists to help people increase their awareness by answering questions and showing personal information, such as their past lives and the macro philosophy. Any question he has is answered by the computer while he sits in a chair - as everything anyone may need is freely granted to the macro-men and macro-women, who don magnificent untiring bodies, superhuman intelligence and unfailing love and tolerance. His best friend and room mate, Karl, thinks Jon is having an escapist fantasy during REM sleep. He worries about Jon, but they arrange a bet: if possible, Jon will attempt to learn some of the Macro Powers practiced by the people in 2150, and demonstrate them in 1976. Over the next days, Jon is able to attain Macro Contact with a partner in his group; this has unlocked some of his Macro powers. He convinces Karl of their reality when he levitates his dream journal around their apartment. Jon discovers that he can see auras as well. Jon decides to use the powers he learns in 2150 to improve the world in 1976. He selects a woman he finds in the student union, Neda. He uses his powers to persuade her mother to let her move into an apartment in his building, and then he uses his ability to see auras (as well as the pressure points to stimulate change in the phenotype as well as regeneration) to change her appearance to match the personality he sees within her. Karl and Neda eventually fall in love and get married. Later, in 1976, Jon interrupts a couple of motorcycle thugs (who had previously raped and killed 2 female students on the campus) while they intend to rape a teenage girl. Using his powers, Jon attacks them, knocks them down, and helps the girl to leave. Then Jon heals the thugs and takes them back to his apartment building, where he places them in an empty apartment. He uses a post-hypnotic suggestion to prevent them from leaving. The result of all this is that he is unable to make it to 2150 that night, because he was selfish in the use of his powers. He must resolve this problem before he can return to 2150. Working with Neda, Jon instructs the motorcycle thugs in Macro philosophy, and eventually releases them when they have changed. This results in Jon returning to 2150, awakening with a level 2 awareness level. Jon and his partner-mate Carol (in 2150) decide to go to Micro Island, a location where micro-men go on living their wild and hopeless lives under two dictators and where souls desiring a micro life in 2150 can be born to experience and study it. People from the Macro society often go to Micro Island as benevolent missionaries and tutors of Macro philosophy, though they know that micro-men are aggressive and may kill them. Jon and his mate Carol are welcomed by the leaders of Micro Island, two former Macro society members who regressed from their awareness levels and decided to use their powers for control and their own self-interest. They take Carol as a hostage to compel Jon to give them the secrets of Macro knowledge. During this time of mental torture, Jon learns that in a past life he helped stone someone to death and he must face his Karmic debt, allowing the Micro-islanders to stone him just as they did to Carol so everything will be settled, and they will find peace in "loving acceptance". Back in 1976, Jon realizes that he has learned all he can in this lifetime, so he chooses to evolate and dies by committing suicide in his sleep. |
3445721 | /m/09cv89 | Elantris | Brandon Sanderson | null | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | The book focuses on three principal characters whose experiences are strongly intertwined with and often direct the course of the plot. Much of the book occurs in groupings of three chapters each, one for each of the three main characters. *Raoden, the prince of Arelon, is taken by the Shaod (The profound physical transformation through which one becomes Elantrian. Elantrians look different than they were before the transformation. They cannot die or be killed, except by drastic measures, such as burning or beheading. Their bodies do not repair themselves. They do feel pain, which gradually increases as injuries accumulate. They do not need to eat, but still have hunger pains.) at the beginning of the book, and is whisked off to live in the cursed city of Elantris, once, with its inhabitants, the wonder of the world. Persons transformed by the Shaod are treated as dead by those outside Elantris. Raoden's story line centers on his efforts to improve the Elantrian way of life beyond the anarchy to which it succumbed when Elantris fell. *Sarene, Raoden's political bride whom he has never personally met, arrives in Arelon held by a legally binding contract that says she is married to the prince, even if he is dead. Widow of a supposedly dead prince and a new member of the mostly ill-suited Arelon nobility, she struggles to find out just what is going on, and to help the downtrodden common people, even the people of Elantris. Sarene's story line deals with her attempts to stabilize and improve the monarchy, and to prevent Hrathen's intended revolution. *Hrathen, a Derethi gyorn (high-ranking priest), also soon arrives in Arelon, with a mandate to convert the country to the Shu Dereth religion within three months time, or his religion's armies will come to wipe out the city. Hrathen's story line focuses on his efforts at political maneuvering to sway the Arelene aristocracy and place a converted Derethi on the throne, and on his struggles to come to terms with the religion he is supposed to believe. The story threads intertwine with each other (Sarene's and Hrathen's from almost the beginning of the book) and merge in the culmination of the book's climax. |
3446997 | /m/09cxc2 | Al Capone Does My Shirts | Gennifer Choldenko | 2004 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Moose Flanagan and his family have just moved to Alcatraz Island so that his father can take a job as a prison guard and his sister Natalie can go to a special school. Moose misses his old baseball team, and he struggles for recognition in his new school and meets a new girl. His sister, Natalie, who has autism, is rejected from the Esther P. Marinoff, School, crushing her parents' hopes for Natalie's education. Moose takes care of Natalie after school because his mother,Helen teaches music lessons, and he must find a way to deal with Natalie's screaming fits and constant needs (including lemon cake and buttons). Complicating Moose's life even more is Piper, the daughter of the prison warden. Piper lures Moose into her scheme to make money by collecting laundry from their classmates with the promise that Al Capone is, among the convicts assigned, to laundry duty on Alcatraz. Gradually, Moose learns to like life on Alcatraz, even finding ways to help Natalie fit in with the other children on the island; Moose makes a friend in school and finds a way to play baseball. and he is able to convince his mother that he really does have his sister's best interests in mind. After the Flanagans have tried repeatedly, and unsuccessfully to enroll Natalie in the Esther P. Marinoff School, Moose secretly writes a note to Al Capone, asking him to help Natalie. Piper slips the note into a letter to Al Capone. And a few weeks later, Natalie is accepted to a brand-new wing of the school for older autistic children, to the delight of the entire Flanagan family. Moose also helps out his sister with her obsession of collecting and counting buttons. Moose is a very loving and older brother. The last paragraph or so tells of how Moose got a note in his newly- washed shirt that says "done". |
3447189 | /m/025sr10 | The Haunted Storm | Philip Pullman | null | null | Unease and suspicion divide a small village following violence and death. Matthew Cortez is physically involved in the investigation, finding his spiritual problems have a greater depth of reality. Only in the final disastrous confrontation in a ruined Mithraic temple does he, at last, glimpse the possibility of peace. Described by Antonia Fraser as an "honest and enterprising attempt to interweave the eternal and immortal longings of youth into the texture of a contemporary story" |
3450117 | /m/09d1_z | The Honest Whore | Thomas Dekker | null | null | The play, set in a Milan that is, in common Elizabethan fashion, mostly a thinly-disguised London, presents three plots. In the subplot, the Duke of Milan has feigned the death of his daughter Infelice; his goal is to thwart her love affair with Hippolito, the son of an old enemy. This plot follows the standard romantic formula: Hippolito remains constant to the supposedly dead beloved. The two are finally reunited when a doctor who had aided the Duke in the trick repents and informs Hippolito of the truth. He is reunited with and marries her at Bethlem Royal Hospital—the pretense at Italian color having been all but abandoned. The second subplot concerns Candido, a citizen and linen draper. He is recently married, and his new wife is upset: her tongue, she says, "wants that virtue which all women's tongues have, to anger their husbands." In the play, she perpetrates various schemes to arouse her husband's ire. At last she manipulates him into wearing an apprentice's clothes in his own shop. He tolerates an assault without complaint, and she succeeds in having him taken to Bethlem, which he also tolerates calmly. Seeing that he cannot be roused to anger, his suddenly contrite wife hastens to petition the Duke to free him. This plot appears to have been the most popular during the period; it provided the subtitle and running title of many editions before 1635. In the title plot, a prostitute named Bellafront falls in love with Hippolito. Devoted to the memory of his beloved, Hippolito spurns her. Bellafront is motivated to examine her sin, repents, and attempts again to woo Hippolito. He again rejects her. She announces that she is returning to her father in the country; however, in the next act she appears at Bethlem, seemingly insane. Finally, after playing a key role in the reconciliation of the Duke to his daughter and new son-in-law, she drops her madness, which she announces was feigned, and asks to be married to Matheo—a rake who was the first to seduce her. The Duke forces this marriage, and even Matheo assents, albeit rather cavalierly. |
3450274 | /m/09d29_ | Ambassador of the Shadows | Pierre Christin | 1975 | null | Valérian and Laureline are travelling to Point Central with Earth's new Ambassador. Shortly before they arrive, the Ambassador calls them into his quarters for a meeting. He informs them that he intends to take advantage of the fact that it's Earth's turn to preside over the council at Point Central – he intends to bring order to the galaxy by proposing a federation with Earth as the keystone and police. He reminds the two young agents of the importance that he is protected. He also entrusts Laureline with the source of their funds while they are on Point Central – a Grumpy Converter from Bluxte, a small hedgehog-like creature that can defecate multiple copies of anything it eats. The astroship lands at Point Central and the three Terrans spacewalk to the Earth's segment. Entering, they are greeted by the assembled dignitaries that occupy the segment. The Ambassador begins his opening speech but, suddenly, the partition wall melts and a group of armed aliens burst in, opening fire with cocoon guns from Xoxos. The cocoons envelop everyone present rendering them unconscious except for Valérian and Laureline who react in time to put their spacesuit helmets back on. Laureline is trapped by one of the cocoons so Valérian is forced to pursue the aliens, who have taken the Ambassador, alone. Following them to their ship, he is captured and the ship blasts off into space. Freeing herself from her cocoon, Laureline is dismayed to discover Valérian has gone. There is one other survivor of the attack – Colonel Diol, the assistant head of protocol. Suddenly there is a ring on the main lock chamber of the segment. Diol is horrified – each race usually stays in its segment and only communicates with the others via the screens. Three small aliens enter and introduce themselves as the Shingouz. They have come to offer their services to the Ambassador as vendors of information. Laureline shows them the devastation wrought by the attack and asks them what they know. Using the Grumpy, Laureline pays them in Ebaba pearls and they suggest she tries asking the Kamuniks, allies of Earth. For a further payment of pearls they give her a map of Point Central. The map has a large unmarked white section. When she complains that the map is incomplete, the Shingouz tell her no such map exists. Laureline leaves the Earth segment with Diol and heads for the Kamunik segment. The passageways between the segments are home to the Zools – mute beings whose planet was destroyed thousands of years ago and who now act as maintenance personnel for Point Central. The Kamuniks tell Laureline that the Suffuss have reported a large gathering of Bagoulins in their segment. Bagoulins are mercenaries and would be the sort to use cocoon guns. The Suffuss's segment is unusual compared with the others – it is a place of ill-repute that attracts the denizens of many of the other segments. Laureline is offered a chance to try out a simulation of Earth. Taking up the offer, she pulls a gun on one of the apparently human males provided. The Suffuss reveal their true nature – they are shape-shifters. Laureline asks them for help in spying on the Bagoulins. They agree, in return for payment in aphrodisiac tablets from Txil. The Suffuss surrounds Laureline and takes the shape of a Bagoulin female. Entering the room where the Bagoulins are celebrating, Laureline has arrived just in time – the Bagoulin shaman shows an image of a spacecraft landing on their home planet. The Ambassador and Valérian are taken out and sealed into a pair of translucent spheres before being cast into the Lake of Perfumed Waters. Out of the lake rises a Groubos spacecraft now carrying Valérian and the Ambassador. Laureline and Diol depart in search of the Groubos. On the way, the Shingouz call them on one of the video screens. They inform them that what they need to do is capture one of the jellyfish-like Zuur pilots who keep the Groubos informed of events. Taking an armored maintenance machine from the Green Canal, Laureline and Diol enter the Groubos' segment. They capture one of the Zuurs and resurface. Laureline places the Zuur on her head and is presented with a series of images – the Groubos' spacecraft meeting another spacecraft and Valérian and the Ambassador are transferred to the new ship. The images end abruptly when the Zuur, which can only survive out of water for a few minutes, explodes. Having reached a dead end, a dejected Laureline and Diol buy some shellfish from a fisherman. He suggests that they visit the Gniarfs-Dreamers who can project a person's mind into the mind of their choice. Laureline pays them a visit and they hook her up to one of her machines. Soon she has made contact with Valerian's mind. Still on the alien spacecraft, Valérian has managed to free himself from his sphere and then frees the Ambassador. The ship is deserted apart from the two of them. The Ambassador is anxious to get back to Point Central to deliver his speech – there are ten thousand Earth warships waiting to surround Point Central at his order to enforce the proposed federation. The spacecraft lands on an island in the middle of an ocean. They are greeted by what appear to be primitive humanoids. They explain that they built the first segment of Point Central but have since evolved and have lost interest in taking part in galactic politics. They have even forgotten their own name and the name of their planet and know themselves only as Shadows. They tell the Ambassador that they will not allow any one race to exert full control over Point Central and that they have the power to annihilate Earth's fleet if needed. The children of the island take Valérian and the Ambassador to the House of Wisdom. Suddenly the dream is interrupted. Laureline moves on, taking Diol and the Grumpy, who by now is almost burnt-out from the effort of having to transmute so many things, and makes for the Shadows' segment which must be located in the blank section of the map she bought from the Shingouz. On the way, Laureline is surprised to see the Zools congregating for some gathering. Finally finding the entrance she arrives at the Island of the Shadows. Reaching the House of Wisdom, she finds Valérian and the Ambassador. The Ambassador is a changed man from his experience with the Shadows and now proposes to deliver a message of peace to the council. Heading back, there are now more and more Zools gathering in the passageways. Reaching the Hall of Screens, the Ambassador enters to make his speech. Laureline is approached by one of the Shingouz. With the Grumpy dying, she has no more money but convinces the Shingouz to give up his information anyway. The Zools, fed up with corruption on Point Central, have decided to clean up matters, restore the moral code of the council and expel the profiteers. A group of Zools arrive to arrest the Shingouz. He tells Laureline not to worry – there will always be a place for people with the right information, like him. The Ambassador emerges from the council looking upset. They would not allow him to make his speech and the council has suspended Earth's membership for 100 years: their segment is to be blown up. Laureline takes charge and orders the war-fleet to assist in Earth's withdrawal. Heading for Earth, Valérian wants to activate the main motors but Laureline is putting them to another use – regenerating the Grumpy. |
3452658 | /m/09d7c3 | Be More Chill | Ned Vizzini | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature"} | Be More Chill is written in the first person, from the perspective of high school student Jeremy Heere. Jeremy is a teenage loser, who can't get with any girls and is frequently tormented by bullies, usually Rich, a short-statured, but well-built popular teen. After hearing from Rich about the "squip"--a quantum computer in pill form that can communicate directly with your brain once ingested—Jeremy purchases the pill at the back of a Payless Shoes store, and transforms from a klutzy loser to a member of the social elite. |
3456121 | /m/09dd91 | Linda Condon | Joseph Hergesheimer | null | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Linda Condon is raised by her single mother, who denies the girl any information about her absentee father. Mother and daughter live together in a seemingly endless succession of hotels in various regions of the United States, and Linda receives little formal education. While Stella Condon frequently goes out with men of dubious reputation, her daughter, who is always loyal to her shallow and superficial mother, spends her early adolescent days alone in her hotel room or with other guests in the artificial and phony atmosphere of the lobby. Stella Condon does have a suitor, a self-made millionaire and widower of Jewish descent called Moses Feldt, but she explains to Linda that she is not going to repeat past mistakes by getting married again. However, when Stella Condon realizes the onset of old age and her vanishing beauty, she consents to a marriage of convenience with Feldt. From one day to the next Linda's itinerant life is replaced by life in a palace-like New York mansion together with her mother, Feldt and his two daughters. Already at the early age of 15 Linda experiences a "sense of looking on, as if morning, noon and night she were at another long play. [...] Probably it would continue without change through her entire life." Through Feldt's daughter Judith and her boyfriend Markue, Linda, not yet 18 years of age, is launched into New York society. At a party she meets Dodge Pleydon, a sculptor many years her senior who is fascinated by the young girl despite, or maybe because of, her frozen charm and subdued behaviour. Her first kiss, which she gets from Pleydon later that night, does not mean a lot to her, so she is hardly moved when he announces his intention to go abroad for an indefinite period of time. Her life takes a decisive new direction when, after attending a concert, she is approached by her father's sister, who has recognized her immediately because, as she claims, Linda is taking after her father. Naturally curious to learn more about the paternal branch of her family, Linda accepts her aunt's invitation to visit her and her sister in Philadelphia and to stay in the house where her father, now dead, was raised. Her decision to go there leads to an ever-increasing estrangement from her mother. In Philadelphia, Linda is introduced to her aunts' 45 year-old nephew Arnaud Hallet, a lawyer and confirmed bachelor who immediately falls for the girl just like Pleydon before him. Caught between the two men, who both propose to her, Linda eventually decides to marry Hallet, with the fact that he has "a hundred thousand dollars a year" certainly adding to his attraction. Seven years later, Arnaud and Linda Hallet have two children, Lowrie and Vigné. Remembering her own unhappy childhood spent in hotels, Linda realizes how different from herself her children are being brought up. However, she feels inadequate as a wife and especially as a mother. She sees that both Lowrie and Vigné have inherited their love of books from their father, while she herself has never taken up reading. Also, she regrets not being able to play the piano. And although she is only in her late twenties, she imagines her beauty is fading without finding solace in the "vicarious immortality of children". She believes she has "lost her youth without any compensating gain of knowledge". Several years pass until Lowrie becomes a law student at university. Vigné follows in her mother's and maternal grandmother's footsteps by getting married at the age of 18. Linda admires her daughter, who with perfect ease has picked an eligible young man, and whose "radiant happiness" is something she has never experienced herself. When she learns that a public statue created by Pleydon has been destroyed she suddenly feels sympathy and maybe even more for the sculptor, who has always considered her his muse. Considering that Arnaud Hallet has "had over twenty years of her life, the best", Linda leaves him without a word to go and live with Pleydon. Once at his studio, she realizes that there is no way she could stay with that ageing, sickly man whose love for her could never be more than platonic. On the following day, she returns to her husband without ever telling him about her intended betrayal. At the end of the novel, three years after her aborted decision to live with Pleydon, her son Lowrie marries a college-educated suffragette while Linda Hallet herself, while grieving over Pleydon's death, starts dyeing her hair in a fruitless struggle against time. |
3456243 | /m/09ddkc | Badenheim 1939 | Aharon Appelfeld | 1978 | {"/m/06nbt": "Satire", "/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"} | Badenheim is a primarily Jewish resort town in Austria that hosts a yearly arts festival, organized by Dr. Pappenheim. Slowly, the Nazi regime, represented by the "Sanitation Department", begins shutting down the town and preparing to move its residents to Eastern Europe. The citizens begin blaming each other and losing their minds. Despite impending doom, others remain optimistic and refuse to see the coming Holocaust. |
3457639 | /m/09dh32 | The Elephant Man | Bernard Pomerance | null | null | The Elephant Man opens with Frederick Treves, an up-and-coming surgeon, meeting his new employer Carr-Gomm, the administrator of the London Hospital. Ross, the manager of a freak show invites a crowd on Whitechapel Road to come view John Merrick, the Elephant Man. Treves happens upon the freak show and is intrigued by Merrick's disorder. He insists that he must study Merrick further; Ross agrees, for a fee. Treves then gives a lecture on Merrick's anatomy, making Merrick stand on display while Treves describes his condition to the audience. The freak show travels to Brussels after being driven out of London by the police. Merrick tries to converse with three freak show "pinheads," or people suffering from microcephaly and mental retardation. The "pinheads" go onstage to sing "We Are the Queens of the Congo," but the police will not allow Merrick to perform, because they consider his condition "indecent." Ross decides that Merrick is more trouble than he's worth, steals his savings, and sends him back to London. When Merrick arrives in London, his appearance incites a crowd to riot. The train's conductor and a policeman are able to fetch Treves to calm the situation. Treves takes Merrick to the London Hospital and interviews a woman, Nurse Sandwich, for the position of Merrick's caretaker. Sandwich assures Treves that she has cared for lepers in Africa and is quite prepared for anything. However, when she sees Merrick taking a bath, she bolts from the room and refuses to take the job. Bishop How visits Merrick and declares him a "true Christian in the rough." He tells Treves he would like to educate Merrick in religion. Carr-Gomm argues with Bishop How about the importance of science versus the importance of religion. Carr-Gomm announces that, due to a letter he had printed in The Times, the people of London have donated enough money to allow Merrick to live at the hospital for life. Treves tells Gomm that he is glad Merrick now has a place where he can stay without being stared at, and is determined that Merrick should lead a normal life. When two attendants, Will and Snork, are caught peeking into Merrick's room, Will is fired and Snork is given a severe warning. Treves believes that it is important to enforce these rules, but Merrick worries what will happen to Will and his family. Merrick grew up in the workhouses, and wishes that no one had to suffer that fate. Treves says that it's just the way things are. Treves hires Mrs. Kendal, an actress, to converse with Merrick. He feels that it is important for Merrick to meet women, and that Mrs. Kendal can use her acting skills to hide any revulsion that she might feel. While looking at photographs of Merrick, Mrs. Kendal asks about his penis, which is undeformed. Treves nervously explains that Merrick has a bone disorder, meaning that his penis — which contains no bone — is not afflicted. Mrs. Kendal notes that if Treves is embarrassed so easily then Merrick must be very lonely indeed. When Mrs. Kendal meets Merrick, she requires all of her self-control in order to disguise her horror at Merrick’s appearance. After several minutes of strained conversation. Mrs. Kendal mentions Romeo and Juliet. Merrick amazes Mrs. Kendal with his thoughtful and sensitive views on Romeo and the nature of love. Mrs. Kendal says that she will bring some of her friends to meet Merrick, then shakes his hand and tells him how truly pleased she is to meet him. Merrick dissolves into tears as Treves tells Mrs. Kendal that it is the first time a woman has ever shaken his hand. Mrs. Kendal's high society friends visit Merrick and bring him gifts while he builds a model of St. Phillip's church, having to work with his one good hand. He tells Mrs. Kendal that St. Phillip’s church is an imitation of grace, and his model is therefore an imitation of an imitation. When Treves comments that all of humanity is a mere illusion of heaven, Merrick says that God should have used both hands. Merrick's new friends — Bishop How, Gomm, the Duchess, Princess Alexandra, Treves, and Mrs. Kendal — all comment upon how, in different ways, they see themselves reflected in him. However, Treves notes that Merrick’s condition is worsening with time. Merrick tells Mrs. Kendal that he needs a mistress, and suggests that he would like her to do that for him. Mrs. Kendal listens compassionately, but tells Merrick that it is unlikely that he will ever have a mistress. Merrick admits that he has never even seen a naked woman. Mrs. Kendal is flattered by his show of trust in her, and realizes that she has come to trust him. She undresses and allows him to see her naked body. Treves enters and is shocked, sending Mrs. Kendal away. Ross comes to the hospital to ask Merrick to rejoin the freak show. Ross's health has drastically worsened, and he tells Merrick that without help he is doomed to a painful death. He tries to convince Merrick to charge the society members who visit him. Merrick refuses to help Ross, finally standing up to him after suffering years of abuse at his hands. Ross makes one final pathetic plea to Merrick, who refuses him, saying that's just the way things are. Merrick asks Treves what he believes about God and heaven. Then he confronts Treves, criticizing what he did to Mrs. Kendal and the rigid standards by which he judges everybody. Treves realizes that he has been too harsh with Merrick and tells him that although he will write to Mrs. Kendal, he does not believe she will return. After Merrick leaves the room, Treves says that it is because he doesn’t want her to see Merrick die. Treves has a nightmare that he has been put on display while Merrick delivers a lecture about his terrifying normality, his rigidity, and the acts of cruelty he can commit upon others "for their own good". Carr-Gomm and Treves discuss Merrick’s impending death. Treves displays frustration at the fact that the more normal Merrick pretends to be, the worse his condition becomes. He confronts Bishop How, telling him that he believes Merrick’s faith is merely another attempt to emulate others. It comes out that the real source of his frustrations is the chaos of the world around him, with his patients seemingly doing everything they can to shorten their own lives. No matter how hard he tries he cannot help them, just as he cannot help Merrick. He finally begs for the Bishop to help him. Merrick finishes his model of the church. He goes to sleep sitting up, a posture which he must adopt due to the weight of his head. As he sleeps he sees visions of the pinheads, now singing that they are the Queens of the Cosmos. They lay him down to sleep normally, and he dies. Snork discovers his body and runs out screaming that the Elephant Man is dead. In the final scene, Carr-Gomm reads a letter he has written to The Times, outlining Merrick’s stay at the hospital, his death and his plans for the remaining funds donated for Merrick’s care. When he asks Treves if he has anything else to add, a distressed Treves says he does not and leaves. As Carr-Gomm finishes the letter Treves rushes back in, saying that he’s thought of something. Carr-Gomm tells the doctor that it is too late: it is over. |
3459450 | /m/09dlhc | On the False Earths | Pierre Christin | 1977 | null | India, the nineteenth century. British forces from the East India Company are attacking a fort. Among them is Valérian, who suddenly breaks from the pack, to the surprise of his compatriots who warn that his actions are “not part of the program”. Deep inside the fort, he follows the Maharajah who activates an alien communications device and transmits a message that there is an external influence at work. The unknown person at the other end responds that the program is to be modified. Valérian knocks out the Maharajah and his guards and forwards the co-ordinates the transmission is coming from to Laureline. Pursued by both the British soldiers and the Indians, he is cornered on the ramparts of the fort. Shot, he plunges into the moat but there is to bottom and falls straight through the water into open space. On the astroship, Laureline looks on in horror as Valérian dies. She tells her companion, Jadna, that she'll never get used to this. Jadna, a historian, is completely unruffled by the turn of events and orders Laureline to prepare for the next incursion. London, England. Valérian, dressed as a nineteenth century gentleman, waits on a deserted street corner. Slowly, the streets fill up. One person in particular attracts Valérian's attention, getting out of a carriage. His name is Sir Percy. Valérian drags him into an alley. Sir Percy complains that this is not part of the program before Valérian knocks him out. Posing as Sir Percy, Valérian enters a gentleman's club. Searching the club for his objective, he comes upon a private room where he is expected. At the head of the table is the prime minister, William Ewart Gladstone and surrounding him are his cabinet. Before Valérian can do anything else, one of the club's servants enters to warn them that their visitor is not part of the program. Valérian draws his gun but is happy to let Gladstone activate another one of the alien communications devices, this time concealed in an ornate clock. While Valérian gathers a new set of co-ordinates, the device responds with new orders and he is attacked. He flees the club on a bicycle and is soon pursued not only by the members of the club but also all the bystanders on the street. He cycles clear of the but suddenly finds he has run out of land and cycles over the edge into space. Laureline is upset at seeing Valérian die once more. But, again, Jadna orders her to get ready for the next intervention. San Francisco, Chinatown, 1895. Valérian is walking through the streets. He is suddenly surprised to see a man driving past in a Harley Davidson – a blatant anachronism. He continues on his way to the docks where he observes a group of men entering a building for a meeting. Laureline and Jadna are watching what's happening from the astroship. He enters the building, finds the communications device and transmits the co-ordinates. The device orders immediate destruction of the exterior menace. Valérian retreats but is shot and falls to the ground outside the building. Laureline's view is restricted and she switches to the observation satellite – we can see that “San Francisco” is floating in space like an island, surrounded by a force-field to keep the atmosphere in. Zooming in, Laureline sees the men catch up to Valérian and kill him. Jadna observes that each new location moves them to a recreation of a point slightly further on in time and estimates that the next location will be near the beginning of the twentieth century. She asks Laureline to prepare another one. A launch leaves the astroship and flies to another of these strange islands in space – this time a recreation of Paris. The launch opens and Valérian emerges and walks into town. There are more anachronisms – a pinball machine in a café and a thug with a Tommy gun who shoots Valérian dead. Back on the astroship, Laureline and Jadna watch this and realise that their adversary has caught on to their activities. Another Valérian must be dispatched. Entering the cargo bay, there are hundreds of capsules, each containing a Valérian clone in suspended animation. At the top of the bay lies the real Valérian, also in suspended animation. Reviving the next Valérian, number 210, Laureline has to explain to it that it isn't the real Valérian and that it has only a lifespan of three hours. They have been made so that Laureline and Jadna can complete their mission. The latest Valérian is given psychological conditioning to prepare him for his mission and is then sent in a launch to the recreation of Paris. This time he's ready for the man with the machine gun and kills him before leaping into a car where the communications device is located under the dashboard. Valérian gets the co-ordinates before the driver swerves the car off the edge and out into space. Jadna is sure that this set of co-ordinates will lead to their, still unknown, adversary. Laureline makes the spatio-temporal jump and they materialise amid a collection of recreations of monuments from Earth, including the pyramids, the Vatican and the Blue Mosque. The astroship crashed to the ground amid a recreation of one of the battles of the First World War. Laureline is knocked unconscious. French troops attack the astroship. Jadna goes to the cargo bay and revives all the Valérian clones as well as the original Valérian, puts them in German uniform and sends them out to fight. The real Valérian is exhausted due to loss of the blood he had to give to make all the clones and, while the others go over the top, he heads off in search of someplace to sleep. Jadna goes back to check on Laureline but is communicated with telepathically by the alien creator of all these artificial Earths who invites her to join him. Using a jet pack Jadna crosses the battlefield to the alien's ship where she is, at last, greeted by her quarry. The Alien explains that it comes from a planet that has no history and whose society has remained unchanged since the beginning of time. Accordingly he has been fascinated by the Earth's rich history. Initially, he tried to visit the Earth's past but was driven away by the Spatio-Temporal Service who feared he was trying to upset the timeline. Instead, he decided to make recreations of various key moments in Earth's history to improve his understanding. He shows Jadna his vast library of books, films and photographs all from Earth as well as his machines for creating each artificial Earth and the androids who populate it. Jadna explains that she was sent, along with Valérian and Laureline, to determine whether these were being used to plan an invasion of Earth. The Alien tells her that his ship has run out of power and that he is at her mercy. He offers to show her more of his collection of documents. Regaining consciousness, Laureline is horrified to discover that the real Valérian has gone and the clones with him. Leaving the ship, she is faced with a vista of devastation – the corpses of the Valérian clones piled high on the battlefield around her. Searching the corpses to see if the real Valérian is among them, she is close to despair when she finds the real Valérian alive and well asleep in a bombed out house. They head for the Alien's ship where they find the Alien and Jadna deep in conversation. Laureline demands that their astroship be released. Jadna accuses Laureline of being uncouth. Laureline retorts that all the periods of history the Alien examined showed Earth's past at its worst – a past that will eventually lead to the events of 1986 seen in The City of Shifting Waters. Leaving Jadna with the Alien and telling her that she can call Galaxity when she's ready to return, Laureline and Valérian take off in the astroship. Valérian is still in need of recuperation so Laureline, like all women, a creature of contradiction, takes him to the real 1881 for a holiday. |
3459528 | /m/09dlp_ | Heroes of the Equinox | Pierre Christin | 1978 | null | Valérian, accompanied by Laureline, is one of four representatives from different races dispatched to the planet Simlane. Landing their astroship at Simlane's astroport, Valérian discovers he is the last to arrive. They are greeted by the members of the Simlane Great Assembly and taken to the city, which is crumbling and falling into ruin. The entire population is made up of old men and women. The head of the assembly explains that the people of Simlane are sterile and that every hundred equinoxes a new generation must take over. The best of the men of Simlane are sent to conquer the Island of Children but this time all that have left have either never returned or have returned mutilated in some way and no children have been forthcoming. So the leaders of Simlane have resorted to seeking champions from other worlds in order to repopulate the planet. Arriving at the Great Theatre, Valérian meets the other champions – Irmgaal of Krahan, Ortzog of Bourgnouf and Blumflum of Malalum. Each in turn demonstrates their powers: Irmgaal cleaves a great rock in two with his flaming sword, Ortzog uses his mighty chains of freedom to smash a pillar, Blumflum destroys another pillar by growing vines around it that strangle it. Beside them Valérian looks rather pathetic when he uses his sharp shooting skills to shoot the top off one of the remaining pillars. The four champions are brought to the pier to set off for Filene, the Island of Children where they must reach the summit. The challenge will last three days – on the first day they will confront material forces, the second monsters from the animal kingdom and on the third traps of the spirit. Laureline asks what happens after the third day, she is told that nobody knows since those who succeed never return – children in their image arrive in vessels pushed by the last wave of the equinox. Just then all four champions fly away from Simlane towards Filene. Reaching Filene, each champion chooses a different route to follow to the summit of the mountain. Valérian is challenged by rockfalls and narrow crevices, Irmgaal by stifling mists and lava flows, Ortzog by deadly cold that almost freezes him solid and Blumflum by the blazing sun of a searing desert. But, while Irmgaal's sword hacks through the molten rock, Ortzog's chains shatter the ice and Blumflum's seeds create an oasis in the desert, Valérian loses his footing a tumbles to the bottom of a rocky crevasse. The following morning Irmgaal finds himself in a jungle facing a dragon-like monster, Ortzog fights off a herd of giant armoured buffalo and Blumflum has to deal with giant birds. Still trying to climb out of the crevasse, Valérian has to deal with a pack of rats. Dawn breaks on the third morning and the final stage of the competition begins. While Valérian is still climbing, Irmgaal, Ortzog and Blumflum all reach the summit at the same time. Before them lies a beautiful palace. A fight breaks out between all three as they struggle to be the first to reach it. They are stopped by an old man who introduces himself as the Examiner. He reminds them that the challenge of the third day will be a spiritual not a physical test. The Examiner brings them to the Dome of Imaginary Revelations where each champion is asked to speak about how they see Simlane's future should they succeed and father the next generation. As each champion speaks, images of the world they would build appear in the dome. Irmgaal goes first and promises to bring space travel to Simlane with which they will use to spread Simlane's civilising influence across the Galaxy. As he delivers his speech, we see images of mighty armies and powerful space fleets conquering worlds and crushing all opposition. Ortzog goes next, he intends make Simlane more efficient – tourists will be herded on specially marked itineraries, luxury buildings will be demolished to make way for heavy industry and intensive agriculture. All this will be run by a powerful centralised bureaucracy which will promote equality for all. Simlane will spread its influence through protective interplanetary agreements with deserving worlds. Blumflum now takes the stand. He will create a world or harmony where everyone will leave the cities to crumble and return to a simpler life closer to nature where all will submit to a benevolent religion of meditation. The images displayed, however, show a planet ravaged by starvation and poverty. At last, Valérian, exhausted, reaches the summit of the mountain. The Examiner asks him about his vision of Simlane's future. Valérian explains that he has no clear idea, that it's not up to him to determine her future and he would hope that everyone would try to be happy in their own way. The trials over, the four champions are brought to the Palace of the Supreme Mother. They are given apartments and told that the winner will be declared in the morning. The next day the winner has been announced. To everyone's astonishment, it is Valérian. A whirlwind descends and sweeps the other three champions away back to Simlane. Valérian is led into a chamber where he meets the Supreme Mother of Filene a giant blonde woman. She explains to Valérian that she chose him because he was happy to leave the children to determine their own future. She explains that she rejected the previous champions because they were too interested in impressing tourists than how their children would turn out. She shows Valérian a room where the previous successful champions live out their lives – they have all shrunk to just a few inches in height. The Supreme Mother takes Valérian in her arms. Back at Simlane, the Irmgaal, Ortzog and Blumflum have washed up on the shore. Laureline, worried about Valérian, sets sail to the island in search of him. Arriving at the harbour in Filene, she sees a huge flotilla of ships ready to set sail. She manages to climb to the top of the mountain with little difficulty, unlike the four champions before her, and as she reaches the Palace, the doors open and thousands of toddlers, all bearing some resemblance to Valérian, pour out and make their way to the boats in the harbour. Laureline is greeted by the Examiner and demands to be brought to see Valérian. The Examiner obliges – Valérian is in the room with the previous successful candidates. Like them, he has shrunk to only a few inches in height. Laureline is furious that Valérian has been unfaithful to her. The ships arrive at Simlane and disgorge their cargo of children. The old people of Simlane are delighted with the children and can die in peace. Laureline takes Valérian with her and takes off in the astroship for Galaxity. Valérian begs Laureline, who is still angry at Valérian's actions, to call Galaxity's medical service so he can be restored to his normal size. |
3462473 | /m/09dsjx | Creation | Gore Vidal | 1/1/1981 | {"/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"} | The story follows the adventures of a fictional "Cyrus Spitama", an Achaemenid Persian diplomat of the 5th century BCE who travels the known world comparing the political and religious beliefs of various nation states of the time. Over the course of his life, he meets many influential philosophical figures of his time, including Zoroaster, Socrates, the Buddha, Mahavira, Lao Tsu, and Confucius. Cyrus, who is the grandson of Zoroaster and who survives his murder, grows up at the Achaemenid court as a quasi-noble, and becomes a close friend of his schoolmate Xerxes. Because of Cyrus' talent for languages, the Achaemenid King, Darius I, sends him as an ambassador to certain kingdoms in India, but Cyrus is more interested in the many religious theories he encounters there than in establishing profitable trade relations for Darius. After coming to power, Cyrus' former schoolmate, now King Xerxes I, sends Cyrus to China, where he spends several years as a captive and "honored guest" in one of the warring states of the Middle Kingdom, and spends a great deal of time with Confucius. Upon returning home, Cyrus witnesses the defeat of Xerxes and the end of the Greco-Persian wars. Cyrus then goes into retirement, but is called upon by Xerxes' successor, Artaxerxes I, to serve as ambassador to Athens and witness to the secret peace treaty between Pericles and himself. The story is related in the first person as recalled to his Greek great-nephew Democritus. Cyrus's recollection is said to be motivated in part by his desire to set the record straight following the publication by Herodotus of an account of the Greco-Persian wars. |
3462541 | /m/09dspq | Young Bond Book 4 | Charlie Higson | 9/6/2007 | {"/m/06wkf": "Spy fiction", "/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature"} | The book starts with a prologue on Lagrimas Negras (black tears), an island haven for criminals in the Caribbean. The boss, El Huracán, informs his lunch guests that one of them has broken the rule against contacting the outside world. Robert King is tricked into confessing, then made to run La Avenida de Muerte (The Avenue of Death), a deadly obstacle course. He is killed by a jaguar less than halfway through. Following the events in Double or Die, James Bond travels to Mexico with his Aunt Charmian, who is visiting the ruined Mayan city of Palenque. In the fishing village of Tres Hermanas, Angel Corona, a young Mexican pickpocket who closely resembles James, steals Charmian's bag. James chases and corners him. Corona is subdued and soon arrested by the local police. While Jack Stone, an American flying ace and friend of Charmian's flies Charmian to Palenque (as a storm is on the way and she has to leave that night). James is left in Tres Hermanas with Stone's children, where he quickly finds problems: Stone's daughter, Precious, is a spoiled, self-centered girl about the same age as James, while her younger brother, Jack Junior or JJ, is immature and annoying. During a devastating hurricane, some gangsters led by Mrs Glass enter the Stone house and steal the safe. James knocks one of the gunmen, Manny, out of the window. The youngsters hide from the gangsters and the storm in an underground ice house. After the storm, James takes the Stone children to town in Jack Stone's Duesenberg, which is wrecked by a sudden flood. JJ is nearly killed, but is rescued by Garcia, James's sailor friend. When JJ and Precious are captured by the remaining four robbers, James passes himself off as Angel Corona to join the gang and Garcia tags along. The names of the other criminals are Strabo, Whatzat and Sakata. The Japanese gangster Sakata befriends James and teaches him ju-jitsu. Mrs. Glass takes the group to an old oil field in order to get tools and explosives to open the safe. She tells Precious what her plans are: Jack Stone had lost money after the end of the war and had become a smuggler to regain money; one of his clients was an ex-U.S Navy officer who had stolen some important documents about the U.S. Navy's Pacific fleet. Sakata had been sent to retrieve the plans, which would be very valuable to the Japanese in the event of a war. However, the documents are not in the safe, so presumably Stone had not removed them from his plane. Meanwhile Whatzat and Garcia die during an escape attempt. James learns from Mrs.Glass that Whatzat name was Charlie Moore. When JJ's injured leg becomes severely infected, Sakata, prompted by James, leaves the gang and takes JJ to hospital in Vera Cruz. Mrs. Glass and Strabo make a new plan to flee to Lagrimas Negras and sell the documents to the ruler of the island, El Huracán. James and Precious escape and camp out for a while. Precious has undergone a change in character; she is no longer rude and self-centered, and even develops affections for James, which she expresses by waiting for him to fall asleep and then kissing him. Then Manny shows up in a car. He is very sick, as he has had brain damage following his fall at the Stone Mansion. He slips in and out of confusion. Finally, James and Precious knock him out of the car as he sleeps and escape. They head for Pelanque, but are unable to stop Mrs Glass escaping with the documents, though Strabo is killed by army ants. The Pelanque Ruins are mentioned in the chapter titled "Pelanque" where James and Precious fall asleep in the tall tower. Mrs. Glass goes to Lagrimas Negras alone. James and Precious follow on a ship. Manny follows them and gives chase. He is killed by El Huracán's guards and James and Precious are employed as servants on Lagrimas Negras. James discovers that when the guests of Lagrimas Negras run out of money, they are forced to work as slaves on El Huracán's farm. James also hears that running La Avenida de Muerte is the only way to get off Lagrimas Negras, though no one has ever survived it. Precious steals a map of the obstacle course from a bathroom she is cleaning and she and James start training. They trick El Huracán into letting them run the course which he does reluctantly, as he was hoping James would stay on as his successor. James and Precious successfully traverse many obstacles, helped by their advance knowledge. Finally they reach a massive water tank containing a vicious crocodile that will almost certainly kill them, as there is no way out. However, James has left some explosives in the maintenance tunnel and blows out the wall. He is knocked unconscious by the landing. He wakes up on a rock with Precious, who passionately kisses him while they wait to be collected. El Huracán keeps his promise to release them and the book ends with James and Precious leaving Lagrimas Negras with Jack Stone. They share a private moment watching the sunset, during which Precious admits to James that she loves him (despite she understands he must return to Britain after the stories events). |
3464070 | /m/09dwkb | Watch and Ward | Henry James | 1878-05-29 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Wealthy and leisured Roger Lawrence adopts twelve-year-old Nora Lambert after her father kills himself in the hotel room next to Lawrence's. Roger had refused financial assistance to the man, and he feels remorse. Nora is not a pretty child but she soon starts to develop, as does Roger's idea of eventually marrying her. Unfortunately for Roger, once Nora matures into a beautiful young woman, she is attracted to two other men: worthless George Fenton and the somewhat hypocritical minister, Hubert Lawrence (Roger's cousin). After various adventures Nora winds up in the clutches of Fenton in New York City, but Roger comes to her rescue. Roger and Nora marry in a conventional happy ending. |
3464137 | /m/09dwmf | Confidence | Henry James | null | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | While sketching in Siena, Bernard Longueville meets Angela Vivian and her mother. Later, Bernard's friend and self-proclaimed "mad" scientist Gordon Wright calls Longueville to Baden-Baden to pass judgment on whether he should marry Angela. Bernard recommends against it, based on his belief that Angela is something of a mysterious coquette. So Gordon marries the lightweight (in both senses) Blanche Evers. After a couple years Longueville again meets Angela at a French beach resort and realizes he loves her. They get engaged, and Angela tells Bernard that she had refused Gordon when he proposed to her. Eventually Angela manages to reconcile Gordon and Blanche, who were becoming estranged due to a supposed extramarital affair Gordon had. Everybody lives happily ever after. |
3467188 | /m/09f0lm | Nothing Lasts Forever | Roderick Thorp | 1979 | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller"} | Nothing Lasts Forever is a sequel to Thorp's 1966 novel The Detective. It follows Detective Joe Leland, who is visiting the Klaxon Oil Corporation's headquarters in Los Angeles, where his daughter Steffie Leland Gennaro works. While he is visiting, a German terrorist gang led by a person named Anton "Tony" Gruber takes over the entire building. Leland remains undetected and fights off the terrorists one by one, aided outside the building by LAPD Sergeant Al Powell. In the year 1975, author Roderick Thorp saw the film The Towering Inferno. After seeing the film, Thorp had a dream of seeing a man being chased through a building by men with guns. He woke up and took that idea and turned it into the The Detective sequel, Nothing Lasts Forever. |
3467227 | /m/09f0m_ | Ravage | null | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction"} | In the storyline, a civilization much more advanced than ours falls to its knees when electricity suddenly disappears. Chaos, disease, and famine ensue, which readers witness through the adventures of a small group of survivors led by François Deschamps. The group leaves Paris and starts a journey toward Provence where the survivors will create a new patriarchal society with Deschamps as their leader. |
3467831 | /m/09f1fj | La Nuit des temps | null | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction"} | When a French expedition in Antarctica reveals the ruins of a 900,000 year old civilization, scientists from all over the world flock to the site to help explore and understand. The entire planet watches via global satellite television, mesmerized, as the explorers uncover a chamber in which a man and a woman have been in suspended animation since, as the French title suggests, 'the night of time'. The woman, Eléa, is awakened, and through a translating machine she tells the story of her world, herself and her husband Paikan, and how war destroyed her civilization. She also hints at an incredibly advanced knowledge that her still-dormant companion possesses (who is not her love Paikan, but the scientist Coban, whom she hates), knowledge that could give energy and food to all humans at no cost. But the superpowers of the world are not ready to let Eléa's secrets spread, and show that, 900,000 years and an apocalypse later, mankind has not grown up and is ready to make the same mistakes again. "Ils sont là ! Ils sont nous ! Ils ont repeuplé le monde, et ils sont aussi cons qu'avant, et prêts à faire de nouveau sauter la baraque. C'est pas beau, ça ? C'est l'homme !" " They're here! They're us! They repopulated the world, and they're just as dumb as before, and ready to blow up the house again. Isn't it great? It's Man." |
3468166 | /m/09f1ys | Killobyte | Piers Anthony | 1993 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | The novel cuts between Walter Toland, a former police officer, and Baal Curran, an angst-ridden teenage girl. Both are playing Killobyte from their own home, hooked to the network through a telephone modem. Walter notices Baal's name on a list and initially assumes she is a man. Indeed, each of them first poses as the other sex. Walter is learning the game as he goes, having neglected to read the instruction manual. He narrowly survives attacks by gunslingers, snakes, and runaway vehicles. Each time he destroys an enemy, he receives a point, and a door to a new setting appears. Eventually he must solve a more complicated problem when he finds himself in a women's prison, evading execution and a possible mole. In the meantime, Baal enters a fantasy setting in which a knight must rescue a princess from an evil sorcerer in a castle guarded by a dragon. She first goes through the adventure as the knight and fails. When she tries again, this time in the role of the princess, Walter has entered the setting as the sorcerer. He captures Baal under the ruse that he is the hero, but when she makes sexual advances at him, he tells her the truth, too honorable to take advantage of her even if it is only within a game. They begin telling each other about their real lives. In his days as a cop, he had an affair with a battered woman he was protecting, and the jealous husband ran him down with a car, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down. He still has sexual feelings but is unable to perform. Baal, a plain girl despite her voluptuous appearance in the game, has Type I diabetes and is depressed from having recently broken up with her boyfriend, who couldn't handle her disease. She pursued the game as a way of flirting with suicide. They discover that he may be capable of sex within the game, but they are interrupted by a hacker who has infiltrated the software. Calling himself Phreak, the hacker targets specific individuals and locks them in the game so that he can harass them. Walter receives an error message every time he attempts to return to the real world. Aided by his police training, he remains calm and talks to Phreak, even though he knows his real body is in danger of eventual dehydration. Baal temporarily quits the game after agreeing to meet Walter later in the game's next section, where they would use signals to identify each other, since they would have a different appearance. After unsuccessfully trying to get the police involved, she contacts the game's company, who want Walter to stay in the game as bait so that they can capture Phreak, who has eluded authorities for years. They give Baal a patch that will lock Phreak in the game along with Walter, so that they can force him to give the code that will free Walter. We learn that Phreak is a 15-year-old boy whose father was part a snake handling sect and died of a rattlesnake bite. The mother eventually died, and Phreak is convinced that she was also killed by snakes, which he believes lurk in the shadows waiting to pounce on him. He lives in his aunt's house, secretly using his own telephone line to hack into games, but he avoids experiencing the games directly for fear of being traced, despite the temptations of online sex. Baal reenters the game world. Unfortunately, the next section is especially violent and unpredictable, modeled after Beirut. She poses as an Israeli spy, he as a Druze, and after several dangerous adventures they find each other, but not before Phreak catches up with them. Baal successfully sets the patch on Phreak, locking him in the game, though he has now locked her inside as well. They all end up in a prison together, and Walter tries to force the information out of Phreak, while Baal makes motions to seduce him, but he resists their methods. Walter bombs the prison, causing their virtual deaths (so that they will no longer be imprisoned when they reappear). Walter believes that if his character dies again, he will die for real, for the electric shocks are interfering with his pacemaker and causing heart palpitations. Baal, meanwhile, is in danger of insulin shock if she does not exit the game soon. Phreak is traumatized by the game's simulated death and is terrified of experiencing it again, but he will not volunteer that information to Walter, whom he decides to kill. They all end up in a special section called Potpourri, which mixes elements of various other sections. Baal is able to track the approximate locations of Walter and Phreak. Walter and Baal decide they are in love and want to marry if they manage to survive their current ordeal and meet in the real world. They chase Phreak across Potpourri, evading various obstacles he places in their path. Baal goes into insulin shock and her game body becomes still. Walter finally corners Phreak on a train and threatens to encase him in a box with snakes. Phreak finally relents. Baal wakes up in a hospital, recovering from the insulin shock. She tries calling Walter, whose number she has memorized, but she gets no answer. She has her ex-boyfriend drive her across the country, and it gives him a chance to assuage his guilty conscience as he is comforted that she has found love again. Phreak has manipulated police records so that there is a phony arrest warrant on Walter, but the friends he met in Killobyte show up and refute the charges. A small party is held where Walter and Baal meet face-to-face at last. |
3468868 | /m/09f307 | David Elginbrod | George MacDonald | 1863 | null | A novel of Scottish country life, in the dialect of Aberdeen. A story of humble life, centering in two saintly personalities, a dignified and pious Scottish peasant, and his daughter. A vein of mysticism runs through the story, and mesmerism and electro-biology are introduced. |
3468890 | /m/09f318 | Alec Forbes of Howglen | George MacDonald | null | null | The 'Howglen' described in the novel is probably a reference to George MacDonald's childhood home in Huntly, Scotland, 'The Farm.' The 'Glamour' river, on which the town of the novel is situated, has been immortalized in the names of modern day streets in Huntly, as well as a children's park near the site of the old MacDonald family Mill. |
3468944 | /m/09f34f | Ceres Storm | null | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction"} | In the distant future on a terraformed Mars, Daric discovers that he is a clone of a former Emperor of Earth named Darius. Daric is kidnapped by Kay-Tee agents in an attempt to bring him to earth to open Darius' complex that was sealed long ago. He escapes and begins a journey that takes him to an asteroid, Triton and Pluto's moon Charon. |
3468945 | /m/09f34s | The Elect Lady | George MacDonald | null | null | The story is centered upon three main characters: Andrew, a poor, scholarly, godly man; Dawtie, a simple servant girl who cares for animals; and Alexa, the landlord's daughter and the landlord himself. |
3468963 | /m/09f366 | At the Back of the North Wind | George MacDonald | 1871 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | The book tells the story of a young boy named Diamond. He is a very sweet little boy who makes joy everywhere he goes. He fights despair and gloom and brings peace to his family. One night, as he is trying to sleep, Diamond repeatedly plugs up a hole in the loft (also his bedroom) wall to stop the wind from blowing in. However, he soon finds out that this is stopping the North Wind from seeing through her window. Diamond befriends her, and North Wind lets him ride on her back, taking him on several adventures. Though the North Wind does good deeds and helps people, she also does seemingly terrible things. On one of her assignments, she must sink a ship. Yet everything she does that seems bad leads to something good. The North Wind seems to be a representation of Pain and Death working according to God's will for something good. On their adventures, North Wind brings Diamond to the country she lives in, a country without pain and death. Yet, he is brought only to a shadow of the real country at the back of the North Wind. The real country is open for him only after his death. At the end of the book, Diamond dies, finally able to see the country. |
3469049 | /m/09f3fd | Straight and Crooked Thinking | null | null | {"/m/02jfc": "Education", "/m/05qfh": "Psychology"} | *No. 3. proof by example, biased sample, cherry picking *No. 6. ignoratio elenchi: "red herring" *No. 9. false compromise/middle ground *No. 12. circular cause and consequence *No. 13. begging the question *No. 17. equivocation *No. 18. false dilemma: black and white thinking *No. 19. continuum fallacy (fallacy of the beard) *No. 21. ad nauseam: "argumentum ad nauseam" or "argument from repetition" or "argumentum ad infinitum" *No. 25. style over substance fallacy *No. 28. appeal to authority *No. 31. thought-terminating cliché *No. 36. special pleading *No. 37. appeal to consequences *No. 38. appeal to motive |
3470714 | /m/09f6mb | Aunts Aren't Gentlemen | P. G. Wodehouse | 1974-10 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The story begins with Bertie finding himself with pink spots about the thorax, so he flies off to E. Jimpson Murgatroyd (the sombre bird of Harley Street who despotted Tipton Plimsoll in Full Moon). After getting mixed with Orlo Porter fleeing from a policeman and a crowd, Bertie is sentenced by the doc to a quiet life in the country. Thus Bertie goes to Maiden Eggesford in Somerset, with its two leading men, Jimmy Briscoe and Pop Cook, their respective horses, Simla and Potato Chip, and their dark rivalry. Aunt Dahlia, a friend of Jimmy Briscoe, has bet on Simla only to find that it isn't a snitch. Bertie is annoyed to see old enemy Major Plank in residence with Vanessa Cook and her Pop Cook, who takes an instant dislike to Bertie when he is found tickling a passing cat which is a favorite of his horse Potato Chip. Things get hot when Aunt Dahlia gets a neighbourhood poacher to steal the cat in the hope to impede his horse friend, embroiling Bertie in the to-do. Meanwhile, after a rift between Vanessa and Orlo Porter, the girl decides to plight her troth to the blighted Bertie, whose Code is to never refuse a girl asking for marriage. How Bertie is saved from the Charybdis of marrying Vanessa and being torn with bare hands by Orlo and the Scylla of being whipped by Pop Cook, without compromising his position with Aunt Dahlia, is solely due to the quick thinking of Jeeves. |
3470731 | /m/09f6nr | The Tent Dwellers | Albert Bigelow Paine | null | {"/m/014dsx": "Travel"} | The book chronicles a three-week fishing trip through central Nova Scotia, and is an excellent account of the unspoiled Nova Scotia wilderness that existed at the time, which has been largely diminished since. The group encounters moose (which Eddie tries to capture and bring back alive), beaver, and numerous trout, the first of which is now very scarce in the region, and legions of mosquitos, moose flies, black flies, noseeums, and midges, all of which are regrettably abundant to this day. Many of the areas described in the book, then virtually unexplored and uncharted, are now well known to back-country campers in Kejimkujik Park and the Tobeatic Wilderness Area. The descriptions of the central Nova Scotia woods contained in the book are beautifully written and uncannily accurate, and while the trout which brought Paine and Breck to Nova Scotia are less abundant, due in part to acid rain and increased fishing pressure, they still provide good sport for anglers. http://www.troutnovascotia.ca/issues.htm http://www.ilec.or.jp/database/nam/nam-56.html Paine, a wealthy New England socialite, initially had some difficulties with the lack of modern amenities in camp life, but soon came to love the rugged beauty and solitude of the woods. As advice to other potential campers, he has this to offer: "...if you are willing to get wet and stay wet - to get cold and stay cold - to be bruised, and scuffed, and bitten - to be hungry and thirsty, and to have your muscles strained and sore from unusual taxation: if you will welcome all these things, not once, but many times, for the sake of moments of pure triumph and that larger luxury which comes with the comfort of the camp and the conquest of the wilderness, then go! The wilderness will welcome you, and teach you, and take you to its heart. And you will find your own soul there; and the discovery will be worth while!" |
3470865 | /m/09f6xt | Mike | P. G. Wodehouse | 9/15/1909 | {"/m/02yq81": "Comic novel", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/01z4y": "Comedy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Mike's family are excited to see him off to Wrykyn; his sisters are hopeful of him breaking the record and getting into the school team his first year, although his brother Bob and Saunders, the pro, are sceptical. On the train down to Wrykyn, Mike is joined by a stranger; seeing the lad get off the train without his bag, Mike throws it out onto the platform, but the boy returns at the next stop, having left to get chocolate. It turns out that he is "Gazeka" Firby-Smith (so called because he looks like one), head of Wain's house, which Mike is to join. He hears Bob and "Gazeka" talk of Wyatt, Wain's stepson, and when Mike is left to find his way to the school by himself, he meets and befriends Wyatt. Wyatt shows Mike to his dorm, which the two of them are to share and which has removable bars on the windows, and introduces him to Burgess, the cricket captain. Mike shows what he can do in some nets, and impresses Burgess; he is soon on the list for the third team. His early success, along with Bob's clumsy attempts at looking after him, leave him in a rather anti-authoritarian spirit. Bob warns him about Wyatt, who he feels is something of a loose cannon, but soon, having been forbidden by Wyatt to join him on a night-time prowl rounds the gardens, Mike is exploring the house, raiding Mr Wain's dining room and playing gramophone records. Trevor and Clowes, two boys in Donaldson's house, are worried about Mike and Wyatt, sure they – Mike and Wyatt – will soon get themselves into serious trouble. They warn Bob, but he tells them not to worry, as he has asked Firby-Smith to keep an eye on Mike. Wyatt is involved in a fight between twenty or so boys – a gang from Wrykyn town – which ends up with a policeman falling into a pond. When the policeman exaggerates the incident to the headmaster, claiming several hundred boys had thrown him into the water, the headmaster punishes the whole school by cancelling a forthcoming unofficial holiday. In retaliation, Wyatt organises a mass walk-out, taking most of the school with him on a day out at a nearby town, in what becomes known as "The Great Picnic". Next day, the head makes much of Wrykyn town out-of-bounds to the boys, claiming an outbreak of chicken-pox, a punishment the boys think lenient. They later realise this is not the punishment at all; while the younger boys are caned, the older boys are all given "extra" during a cricket match against the M.C.C.; with three of the first team unable to play, Wyatt persuades Burgess to let Mike play. Mike plays well in a close match, against a team that includes both Mike's brother Joe and the pro Saunders, advancing his cricketing career at the school nicely, but Firby-Smith, in addition to being patronising, gets Mike run-out in a house game, which leads Mike to insult his head of house. An angry Firby-Smith insists that Mike be punished, but Bob soon calms the waters. Grateful to his brother, when Mike finds he has squeezed Bob out of the team, he feigns an injury to give up his place, knowing that should Bob play well he may not get another chance that year. Mike's Uncle John visits, and insists on examining Mike's wrist; he hears the story, and when they see Bob has indeed scored well, he tips Mike generously. Soon after, a boy strays into the town, and brings the chicken-pox back to the school. The outbreak takes out one of the first-team players, giving Mike another chance; he plays reasonably in a poor game. Bob tells him he thinks the first-team place is now Mike's, but next day Mike misses early morning fielding practice for the house, incurring Firby-Smith's rage once more. Wyatt gives Mike some wise words, but when Burgess hears Firby-Smith's story, he decides to pass Mike over in favour of Bob. Bob is happy, until a letter from his sister reveals all about Mike's injury-faking. Bob discusses the issue with Burgess, to little avail. Neville-Smith, a bowler who has taken the other place in the team, plans a party at his house (he is a day boy) in celebration of his placement, and Wyatt sneaks out of school to attend. On his way out he is spotted by a master, who reports it to his father Mr. Wain; the housemaster waits in Mike's room until Wyatt returns, and tells him he is to leave the school at once, to take a job in a bank. Mike takes his place in the team, and persuades his father to find Wyatt more interesting work, via his connections in Argentina. Wrykyn go into the match against their biggest rivals, Ripton, short on bowling but with both Jacksons. The wicket is sticky from rain and Ripton notch up a good score, and taking the field reveal they having a strong bowler of googlies. After a bad start, Wrykyn's fortunes look up when the brothers bat together. Bob gets out, but has given Mike time to settle in; with the tail of the team accompanying him, he deftly collars the bowling; in a hugely tense finale, Wrykyn scrape to victory. Home for the holidays, Mike has a letter from Wyatt, who is enjoying himself hugely in the wild and exciting new world. Mike has been at Wrykyn for another two years and is due to become cricket captain next term, but during the Easter holidays, his father, enraged by a report saying Mike's performance in school has been even poor last term, removes him from Wrykyn and sends him instead to Sedleigh, a far smaller school. Arriving at Sedleigh in a bitter mood, he first meets first Mr Outwood, the head of his house. Mike then meets a well-dressed boy with a monocle, who introduces himself as Psmith. He is an ex-Etonian whose family lives near Mike's, and like Mike is a new boy. They decide to avoid cricket and instead join Mr Outwood's archaeological society. They move into a study, to the distress of Spiller, the boy who expected to take it over; they impress Mr Outwood, but a feud starts with Spiller and his friends, battling to regain his study. Having made friends with a boy called Jellicoe, the three take a dormitory together, and on the first night their room is attacked by Spiller and his cronies, who they chase away successfully. Next day, they meet Adair, school cricket captain and all-round hero, and house-master Mr Downing, both of whom are disappointed by the new boys' refusal to play cricket. Both Psmith and Mike claim ignorance of cricket: a decision which Mike comes to regret somewhat as time goes by. Bored by their archaeology trips, they wander off one day, and Mike runs into an old cricketing friend, who offers him a place in a local village team – Lower Borlock. Mike enjoys the games – scoring 75 his first game – but keeps his village cricket career a secret. One day, after breaking up a meeting of the Fire Brigade – a Sedleighan club – with a clockwork rat and Sammy the dog, Mike is unfairly put in detention by Mr Downing – head of the Fire Brigade. Stone and Robinson, earlier friends of Spiller, approve of Mike's prank and come to tea. Mike reveals his cricketing history – not just Lower Borlock but Wrykyn – and the Outwood house captain suddenly puts two and two together: M Jackson of the sporting papers is Mike Jackson sitting in front of him. Mike is persuaded to play in an upcoming house match as revenge against Mr Downing who unfairly favours his-own house. Surprise him he does, playing superbly and destroying Downing's bowling. After lunch, under pressure from Stone and Robinson, the captain agrees not to declare, but to carry on as revenge against Downing and the house he always favours. The scheme is a huge success, with Mike ending the day on 277 not out, and Downing's not getting an innings at all. Downing was completely thumped and is, unfairly, in a foul mood with Mike next day. Meanwhile Jellicoe, who has borrowed money from both Mike and Psmith and seems in a miserable mood, borrows from Mike again. At an Old Boys match, Dunster – an Old Boy – accidentally incapacitates Jellicoe when the youth is hit in the ankle with a cricket ball. Jellicoe is over-wrought. He meant to leave the school grounds that day to pay a debt but can not now and Jellicoe fears that he is certain to be sacked. Jellicoe tells Mike he owes the money to a pub landlord. Mike knows the fellow from his village cricketing. Mike agrees to deliver the five pounds that night although it means breaking out of school on a borrowed bike. He makes his way to the inn, only to find the whole affair was a joke by Barley the landlord. Returning to school, Mike successfully replaces the borrowed bike but knocks something in the bike shed. Mike is spotted climbing a drainpipe and chased off. Mike escapes to rest in the cricket pavilion. Near the cricket pavilion, he meets Adair, sent out to fetch a doctor for a sick boy. Mike then returns to his house, Outwood's, for another attempt to get in but is spotted by Downing, now waiting outside for Adair's return. Being chased by a furious Downing, Mike thinks quickly and recalls Downing's popular fire drills. Mike has enough of a lead that he makes it to the school fire bell and rings it like mad. The entire horde of boys are drawn outside and Mike escapes in the confusion. Next morning, Sammy the dog (Mr. Downing's dog) turns up, covered in red paint. Downing is enraged and proceeds to investigates. First, Downing finds that a boy from Outwood's was seen abroad that night. Second, Downing spots some spilled red paint in the bike shed, with a footprint in it. He gets Psmith to show him round Outwood's house, searching for boots with red paint on them; he finds one of Mike's with paint on it, and goes to the headmaster. But, Psmith has switched the shoe for a clean one in a clever sleight-of-hand. Psmith returns to his study, and locks the original shoe in a cupboard, just before Downing arrives for another search. He demands Psmith fetch Outwood, but Psmith refuses, and Downing is forced to go for him; Psmith switches the shoe again, lowering the paint-stained one out of the window on a string, putting a different one in the cupboard and another up the chimney. Downing returns with Outwood, smashes the cupboard and rummages up the chimney, covering himself with soot and only finding two clean shoes. Downing is scuppered, but the next day, when Mike attends class in his gym shoes, Downing's suspicions are enhanced. Meanwhile, Stone and Robinson, not pleased with Adair's proposal to hold an early-morning cricket practice, decide they can safely skip it. Adair has other ideas, and fights Stone, bullying them both into playing. He then visits Mike and pulls the same trick; Psmith redirects their fight outside. Adair, despite being the better boxer, is ruled by anger and loses a fast and vicious battle, which ends with Mike knocking him out cold. The fight clears the air between them. Psmith, also has a surprise, and persuades Mike to play in the forthcoming M.C.C. match by saying that he himself will be playing. Psmith was shamming dislike of cricket himself and was a very good bowler at Eton. On the other hand, Adair will not be playing having sprained a wrist in the fight during an unfortunate encounter with Mike's elbow. The match is rained off and Mike and Adair, now friends, decide to try to get a game with Wrykyn instead. Downing, still on Mike's trail, presents his evidence and requests a confession. While Mike is being grilled by the headmaster, Downing gets his confession – from Psmith. While Downing is reporting this to his superior, Adair arrives with the news that Dunster, the old boy who was visiting that weekend – and who had accidentally injured Jellicoe – has written to Adair and confessed to painting the dog red. Sedleigh get to play Wrykyn, and after a nervous start, they scrape a well-earned victory, mostly thanks to sterling work from Mike, Psmith and Adair, and the school's fortunes begin to look up. |
3471116 | /m/09f7hc | Psmith in the City | P. G. Wodehouse | 9/23/1910 | {"/m/02yq81": "Comic novel", "/m/01z4y": "Comedy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/09kqc": "Humour"} | Playing cricket for a team run by Psmith's father, Mike meets John Bickersdyke for the first time when he walks behind the bowler's arm, causing Mike to get out on ninety-eight. Shortly afterward, Mike's father regretfully informs him that, having lost a large amount of money, he will have to sell the house, and won't be able to send Mike to Cambridge as he had hoped. Mike hears that Psmith is in the same position, as he is sent off to London. Mike, feeling very lonely, homesick and sorry for himself, rents a horrid room in Dulwich, and next day presents himself for work at the New Asiatic Bank. He is put to work under Mr Rossiter in the Postage Department, replacing a youth named Bannister, and is befriended by Mr Waller, a kindly employee of the bank, who takes him to lunch; on his return, he is joined by Psmith, also a new employee, in the same department as Mike. They go for a stroll, and Psmith reveals that he has been placed there on a whim of his father's, having annoyed Bickersdyke while he was staying for the weekend. Mike is worried that their employer has it in for them both and that they are powerless, but Psmith announces he plans to toy with Bickersdyke outside of work, being, like their employer, a member of the Senior Conservative Club. He also insists that Mike move in with him in his flat in Clement's Inn. That night Mike feels much happier for having an ally. Trying to find a means of pacifying their manager Mr Rossiter, they find out from Bannister that he is a devotee of association football and a fan of Manchester United. For a few weeks Psmith uses this knowledge to ingratiate himself with Rossiter, before moving on to Bickersdyke. He haunts the man at their club, his position in the workplace unassailable thanks to his friendship with Rossiter, and disrupts a political meeting, part of Bickersdyke's campaign to become an Member of Parliament, turning it into a near-riot. Bickersdyke is angry at Psmith, but powerless. Psmith continues to cultivate Mr Rossiter, and Mike gets used to his work. After a while, a new man starts, and Mike is moved on to the Cash Department, under Mr Waller. One day, hearing Psmith call Mike "Comrade", Waller reveals that he is an ardent socialist, and Psmith agrees to come and hear him speak, dragging Mike along. When a spectator goes to throw a stone at Waller, Mike intervenes, and a fight starts, which soon involves Psmith and a mob; the friends flee. Returning that evening for tea, Mike has an awful time, but Psmith acquires Waller's book of the proceedings of the "Tulse Hill Parliament", including some particularly fiery words from Mr Bickersdyke. One day, worried by his son being ill, Waller fails to spot a forged cheque. To save the man's job, Mike takes the blame, and is fired and roasted by Bickersdyke. After work, Psmith trails Bickersdyke to a Turkish bath and threatens to leak Bickersdyke's anti-royalty speeches from the Tulse Hill book. Bickersdyke, furious, agrees to keep Mike on at the bank. Soon after, he is narrowly elected to Parliament, rendering the threat of the book useless, and Mike is moved to a new department, Fixed Deposits, a much less pleasant spot, with Psmith replacing him under Mr Waller. As spring and sunshine arrive, Mike begins to long for the outdoors and his beloved cricket. One day, he is called by his brother Joe, who is playing for their county at Lord's. They are a man short, and need Mike to play; he agrees, asking Psmith to tell his new boss he has to "pop off"; the boss tells Mr Bickersdyke, who, as usual, is furious. Mike, convinced his job is over, resolves to play his heart out. Psmith leaves work early, to take his father to the match. Mr Smith is shocked that the bank does not approve of people leaving to play cricket; Psmith persuades him that rather than working at the bank, he should study for the Bar. They arrive at the game just as Mike, playing well, reaches his century. After the match, Psmith tells Mike of his plans to study Law at Cambridge, and also that his father, needing an agent for his estate, is willing to take Mike on, having first paid for him to go to the 'varsity too, to study the business. Mr Bickersdyke, relaxing in his club, overjoyed at the thought of finally being able to sack Psmith and Mike, is further enraged when Psmith sympathetically announces their retirement from business. |
3471289 | /m/09f7th | Psmith, Journalist | P. G. Wodehouse | 9/29/1915 | {"/m/02yq81": "Comic novel", "/m/01z4y": "Comedy"} | Mr Wilberfloss, editor of Cosy Moments magazine, is forced by ill-health to go away to the mountains for ten weeks of rest, leaving his subordinate Billy Windsor in charge. Pugsy Maloney, the office boy, brings in a cat he has rescued from some ruffians in the street, which he says belongs to his cousin, gang leader Bat Jarvis. Psmith, accompanying his friend Mike on a cricketing tour, is complaining that he finds New York a little dull, especially with his companion frequently called on for cricketing duties. They meet Billy Windsor, dining in the same restaurant, when the cat escapes its basket, and Psmith helps soothe an irate waiter. Invited back to his place, there they meet and befriend Bat Jarvis, come to retrieve his cat. Perusing Cosy Moments, Psmith tells Windsor they must sack the current writers and rebuild the paper in a more exciting style, and volunteers to act as unpaid subeditor. Wandering lost, Mike and Psmith find themselves in "Pleasant Street", a slum neighbourhood. Upset by the poverty they see, Psmith resolves to dedicate the energies of Cosy Moments to the issue. Next day, Mike heads off to Philadelphia, and Psmith arrives at the offices to find them besieged by angry contributors, whom he soothes and takes out to lunch. Returning, he sees Kid Brady, who has been complaining to Windsor that he cannot get a fair chance in the crooked world of New York boxing; they resolve to make the magazine his manager, and use it to boost his career. They begin work, attacking the owner of the tenements and pushing Kid Brady, amongst other stirring pieces, and are soon visited by a Mr Francis Parker, a well-dressed representative of the tenement owner, who offers them bribes to stop the articles. That night, they are approached by an associate of Bat Jarvis, who tells them a large price is being offered to get rid of the duo, which Jarvis, grateful to them for returning his cat, has turned down. On their way home they are dogged by suspicious types. Kid Brady, his career now on the up thanks to the paper, has his first big fight and wins handsomely. After the fight, the Cosy Moments boys hire Brady as "fighting editor", to protect them. He is needed soon after, when, in an alley outside the stadium, they are set upon by a gang of thugs. They chase them off, capturing one, a man named Jack Repetto, who reveals he is a member of Spider Reilly's "Three Points" gang. His comrades begin shooting, ruining Psmith's hat, but flee when the police arrive. Finding the paper's distribution hit by thugs, Psmith realises they must up their game, and plans to use the tenement's rent-collector to track the owner. Pugsy Maloney tells them about an incident at "Shamrock Hall", neutral ground under protection of Bat Jarvis, where Dude Dawson insulted a prominent member of the Three Points' girl and used a crude racial epithet, after which Spider Reilly shot Dawson in the leg. The resulting inter-gang warfare leaves Cosy Moments unpestered for a time, and Psmith and Windsor head off to await the rent-collector in one of the tenement apartments. The man, named Gooch, arrives, and they are trying to shake his employer's name out of him when Maloney reports the arrival of Spider Reilly, Repetto and other gang members. Sending Reilly to fetch Dude Dawson, Psmith and Windsor repair through a hatch to the roof with the rent-collector, holding out there until gang warfare draws their attackers away. They leave a man guarding the skylight, but Psmith finds a ladder, and they cross it to the next building and escape. Windsor got the rent-collector to divulge a name, that of Stewart Waring, a candidate for City Alderman and former Commissioner of Buildings. After a pick-pocket nearly makes off with their signed proof of Waring's involvement, Psmith posts it back to the paper. Next day at the office, Brady is forced to leave their service to begin training for a fight, and Psmith hears that Windsor has been arrested for hitting a policeman, who was trying to arrest him as part of a raid on a gambling den. Psmith relates a similar experience, and they realise the gang has used the police to get them out of the way while they search for the paper. With Brady away training and Windsor in prison for a month, Psmith decides it is time to call in a favour from Bat Jarvis. He takes Mike, returned from his match, to visit the cat-lover. Pretending Mike is an English cat expert, they win Jarvis round, and he and his henchman Long Otto stand guard on the office the following day. Repetto and two other Three Pointers burst in, and are chased off with a warning from Jarvis to leave Cosy Moments alone. Later, Francis Parker appears again, and persuades Psmith to send Jarvis away so they can talk; a message arrives from Windsor asking Psmith to come help him, and Psmith jumps into a taxi, only to find himself kidnapped at gunpoint by Parker. They drive out into the country, but get a flat tyre; while it is being fixed, Kid Brady comes along, out jogging, and distracts Parker long enough for Psmith to overpower him and escape. Next day, Paker invites Psmith to a meeting with Waring, but Psmith refuses, insisting the great man come to him. He also receives a telegram from Wilberfloss the editor, saying he will return the following day. Wilberfloss arrives with the old contributors, enraged at the changes in the paper; he threatens to contact the owner, but Psmith reveals that he himself owns the paper, having bought it a month previously. Waring appears, and threatens Psmith, but is forced to give him $5,000 to improve the tenements, plus three to replace his hat; Psmith restores Wilberfloss and the staff of Cosy Moments to their positions, Billy Windsor having been offered his previous job at a paper back at a fine salary. Some months later, back in rainy Cambridge, Psmith hears that Waring lost his election, and that Kid Brady has won his chance at a title-fight, while Mr Wilberfloss has regained the paper's old subscribers. |
3473718 | /m/09fdgf | The Reverberator | Henry James | 1888-06-05 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | George Flack is the Paris correspondent for an American scandal sheet called The Reverberator. Francie Dosson, a pretty but not always tactful American girl, confides to Flack some gossip about the Proberts, the Frenchified (but originally American) family of her fiancée, Gaston Probert. Predictably to everybody except Francie, the nasty gossip winds up in The Reverberator, much to the horror of the stuffy Proberts. Francie makes no attempt to hide her role in giving Flack the juicy details. Gaston is initially dismayed by his fiancée's indiscretions. But with the somewhat surprising support of his sister Suzanne, he decides to accept Francie, who never tries to shift the blame to Flack. Gaston stands up to the outraged members of his family and marries his fiancée. |
3473952 | /m/09fdwm | The Other House | Henry James | null | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Julia Bream dies after giving birth to her only child, a daughter named Effie. Julia had a horrible stepmother, so she extracts a promise from her husband Tony never to marry again as long as Effie is alive. Several years pass. Julia's old school friend Rose Armiger is in love with Tony, though she is ostensibly engaged to Dennis Vidal. In an effort to overcome the promise Tony made to Julia, Rose drowns little Effie so Tony will be free to remarry. The crime is discovered but family and friends decide to hush things up. Family physician Dr. Ramage convinces the authorities that Effie died of natural causes, Rose is sent off with Dennis Vidal, and all the people involved become, legally, accessories after the fact to murder...and they get away with it. |
3476270 | /m/09fjyp | Dance Dance Dance | Haruki Murakami | 1994-01 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The novel follows the surreal misadventures of an unnamed protagonist who makes a living as a commercial writer. The protagonist is compelled to return to the Dolphin Hotel, a seedy establishment where he once stayed with a woman he loved, despite the fact he never even knew her real name. She has since disappeared without a trace, the Dolphin Hotel has been purchased by a large corporation and converted into a slick, fashionable, western-style hotel. The protagonist begins experiencing dreams in which this woman and the Sheep Man — a strange individual dressed in an old sheep skin who speaks in a monotonous rush — appear to him and lead him to uncover two mysteries. The first is metaphysical in nature, viz. how to survive the unsurvivable. The second is the murder of a call-girl in which an old school friend of the protagonist, now a famous film actor, is a prime suspect. Along the way, the protagonist meets a clairvoyant and troubled 13-year-old girl, her equally troubled parents, a one-armed poet, and a sympathetic receptionist. |
3476920 | /m/09fkyw | Clovis Dardentor | Jules Verne | 1896 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel", "/m/08sdrw": "Adventure novel"} | The novel tells the story of two cousins, Jean Taconnat and Marcel Lornans, travelling from Cette, France to Oran, Algeria, with the purpose of enlisting in the 5th regiment of the Chasseurs D'Afrique. On board the Argelès, the ship to Oran, they meet Clovis Dardentor, a wealthy industrialist, who is the central character of the novel. Jean and Marcel, whose desire to travel to Africa arises from their pursuit of financial independence, find out that Clovis —an unmarried man, with no family— has left no heirs to his fortune. Yet Marcel, well-versed in the Law, knows that any person who were to save Clovis' life either from a fight, from drowning, or from a fire, would forcibly have to be adopted by Clovis. The cousins come to a plan: They will find a way to save Clovis' life, so that he will indeed be legally required to adopt them. Ironically, it is Clovis who finally saves the cousins' lives: Marcel is saved from a fire, and Jean is saved from drowning. Eventually, while Jean continues to look for the opportunity to save Clovis' life, Marcel falls in love with Louise Elissane, the prospective daughter-in-law of one of Clovis' acquaintainces, the unpleasant Desirandelle family. Louise becomes a key character in the novel, for it is she who saves Clovis Dardentor's life. Fortunately for the cousins, in the end, Louise is adopted by Clovis, and marries Marcel. |
3480452 | /m/09frmx | The Head of Kay's | P. G. Wodehouse | 10/5/1905 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Set at the fictional school of Eckleton, the story centres around the house of "Kay's", the riotous boys therein, its tactless, unpopular master Mr. Kay, and Fenn, the head boy. The story features practical jokes, fighting between the boys and with the locals in the nearby town, politics amongst the houses of the school, a trip to an army-style camp, and plenty of cricket and rugby. |
3480553 | /m/09frv8 | Love Among the Chickens | P. G. Wodehouse | 1906-06 | {"/m/02yq81": "Comic novel", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/01z4y": "Comedy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Jeremy Garnet, hearing that his old friend Ukridge has called while he was out, and fearing that the peace he needs in order to plan his next book is about to be disturbed, decides to leave London for a time. But he is too late. Ukridge arrives, with his wife Millie in tow and immediately starts explaining his new get-rich-quick scheme, involving producing hen's eggs on a farm in Dorset. Giving in to Ukridge's forceful personality, Garnet agrees to accompany him to the farm; there will, Ukridge assures him, be plenty of golf and sea-bathing available. On the train to Dorset, they are joined in a compartment by a pretty, brown-haired girl named Phyllis and her elderly Irish father. By coincidence, Phyllis is reading a copy of Garnet's new novel, given to her by Molly MacEachern. They arrive at the house, meet hired man Beale and his wife, and settle in. Next day a consignment of hens arrives, and they spend some busy days putting up fences and building coops; Ukridge buys various supplies on credit, and begins to arrange to supply eggs to various outlets. One day, chasing an escaped hen, Garnet tumbles into a garden containing the girl from the train, her father Professor Derrick, and a friendly young navy lieutenant named Tom Chase, whose familiarity with Phyllis irks Garnet. They recapture the chicken, and Garnet is invited to lunch, stays to play croquet afterwards, and his love for Phyllis is sealed. Soon the Ukridges invite their new neighbours over for dinner, but the cat gets stuck up the chimney and they are unable to cook. Fed cold food, and upset by Ukridge's small talk, especially on the topic of Irish Home Rule, the Professor storms out, and Garnet finds himself in his beloved's father's bad books. The chickens become ill, and Garnet, on his way to fetch help, runs into Phyllis, who shows him some friendliness. Later, bathing at the beach, he spies the Professor, fishing from a boat. He hatches a plan, bribes a local, Harry Hawk, to upset the Professor's boat, and saves him from the sea, restoring the man's faith in him. He visits Phyllis, but is interrupted in his wooing by Chase, who hints that he is wise to Garnet's boat plot, and thrashes Garnet at tennis. With the chicken farm struggling, a local informs Derrick of Garnet's boat plot, and he finds himself once again despised. He buries himself in the farm and his writing, but after a week he comes across Phyillis alone, and explains his actions to her. He declares his love, and she returns it, revealing that Chase is in fact engaged to her sister Norah, but adds that her father, loathing Garnet, would never consent to them marrying. On Ukridge's advice, they beard the man in the sea, and Garnet announces his love for Phyllis, but only makes Derrick angrier. Garnet finds himself up against the Professor in the final of a local golf tournament, which, he has learned, the Professor has long been desperate to win. He plays a bad game, and wins the Professor round, giving him the match but winning his consent. Returning to the farm, he finds the Ukridges disappeared, apparently bolted to London to flee their creditors. A swarm of said creditors arrive, and begin ransacking the farm; they have turned to the chickens when Ukridge returns, bearing wealth courtesy of Millie's Aunt Elizabeth. He berates the assembled throng, and sends them off with fleas in their ears. Later, Garnet finds Ukridge on the beach, and hears of his plan - to start up a duck farm... |
3481006 | /m/09fsp5 | Conversations in Sicily | Elio Vittorini | 1941 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Silvestro Ferrauto is a Sicilian working as a typesetter in Milan, who beset by strange feelings of hopelessness, decides to visit Sicily after receiving a letter from his father which reveals that the father has abandoned Ferrauto's mother. Ferrauto has not visited Sicily since leaving at the age of 15 and ends up on the train to Sicily apparently without conscious thought. Ferrauto then has various conversations with a number of Sicilians on the way to, and in, Sicily. His return to Sicily and his new understanding of his mother from an adult point of view seems to calm his hopelessness. In a drunken state he seems to have a conversation with his dead brother, or at the age he was when he was alive. The novel closes with his father sobbing in the kitchen whilst the mother scrubs his feet. |
3481173 | /m/09fsyz | The Prince and Betty | P. G. Wodehouse | 5/1/1912 | {"/m/02yq81": "Comic novel", "/m/01z4y": "Comedy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The story tells of how unscrupulous millionaire Benjamin Scobell decides to build a casino on the small Mediterranean island of Mervo, dragging in the unwitting heir to the throne to help. Little does he know that his stepdaughter Betty has history with the young man John Maude, and his schemes lead to a rift between the newly-reunited pair. |
3481418 | /m/09ftc5 | Land Beyond the Map | Kenneth Bulmer | 1965 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | Roland Crane, a wealthy map collector and dilettante archaeologist, is visited by Polly Gould, a cousin of an army friend who has disappeared. She is obsessed with locating a map of Ireland, torn down the middle, that her cousin discovered just before he vanished. This same map had formerly been in the possession of Roland and his family, and transported them into a strange alternate dimension. Polly believes the map holds the key to recovering her cousin, and that Roland can help her find it. Roland reluctantly agrees to help. The two travel to Ireland and begin their search, soon learning that someone else, a mysterious and sinister man, also seeks the map. The mystery deepens when they witness the apparent abduction of another man by a strange "eye" in the sky. Finally they are offered the map at an enormous price by an old man who speaks of having used it to travel to another place, full of both treasure and terror. He fears to go back himself, as his son-in-law was trapped there. Accepting the challenge, Roland and Polly buy and follow the map, and when they reach the place place corresponding to the tear in the map, they are transported into the alternate dimension hinted at. Though this novel bears some thematic similarities to Bulmer's later Keys to the Dimensions series, it is otherwise unrelated. |
3485468 | /m/09g0nk | The Outcry | Henry James | null | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | To cover the gambling debts of his daughter Kitty Imber, the widowed Lord Theign is planning to sell his beautiful painting Duchess of Waterbridge by Sir Joshua Reynolds to American billionaire Breckinridge Bender. Hugh Crimble, a young art critic, argues against the sale, saying that Britain's art treasures should stay in the country. He is supported by Theign's perceptive daughter, Lady Grace. When the newspapers get wind of the potential sale of the Reynolds, they raise a patriotic stink, which delights the bumptious, good-humored Bender. Meanwhile, Crimble has found another painting in Theign's collection that he suspects is a rarity by Mantovano. (James thought this was a completely fictitious name, but it turned out there really had been an obscure painter called Mantovano.) Eventually, Crimble's hunch about the Mantovano turns out to be correct. Theign decides to donate the Mantovano to the National Gallery and not to sell the Reynolds to Breckinridge. His woman friend Lady Sandgate also donates her family's Sir Thomas Lawrence painting to the Gallery, which unites her and Theign forever. |
3485805 | /m/09g17q | Cycle of Nemesis | Kenneth Bulmer | 1967 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | The novel begins in a near future world of ray guns and robots, but ends up marching all over time. Khamushkei the Undying, a horror out of space, destroyed an ancient civilization on earth, but ended up locked away in a Time Vault. After seven millennia, the vaults seals are giving way, and five average citizens are caught up in a race to reseal the vault - even though they know it will cost one of them her life. |
3486521 | /m/09g2hx | The United States elevated to Glory and Honor | null | null | null | The book is a transcript of a sermon given to the Connecticut General Assembly, on May 8, 1783. At the time, Stiles was the President of Yale College. The sermon draws parallels between the United States and the Biblical nation of Israel. Stiles refers to the US as an "American Israel, high above all nations which He hath made, in numbers, and in praise, and in name, and in honor", suggesting that the American people are like the Chosen People of Israel. |
3486671 | /m/09g2wh | Death and the Penguin | Andrey Kurkov | 1996 | null | The novel follows the life of a young aspiring writer, Viktor Alekseyevich Zolotaryov, in a struggling post-Soviet society. Viktor, initially aiming to write novels, gets a job writing obituaries for a local newspaper. The source of the title is Viktor's pet penguin Misha, a King Penguin obtained after the local zoo in Kiev gave away its animals to those who could afford to support them (a true story). Kurkov uses Misha as a sort of mirror of (and eventual source of salvation for) Viktor. Throughout the story, Misha is also lost, unhappy and generally out of his element, literally and figuratively. One of the striking themes of the novel is Viktor's tendency to go from justifiably paranoid appraisals of his increasingly dangerous position to a serene, almost childish, peace of mind. As such there are many elements of existentialist thought in the text. Viktor's work is accepted enthusiastically by the editor-in-chief of the paper but Viktor soon finds that his obituaries are being used as a hit list for enemies of some unknown organization for which the paper is just a front. Shortly thereafter, he is left to look after Sonya, daughter of his mysterious friend Misha (referred to as Misha-non-penguin in the text to differentiate him from Misha the penguin). He and the child develop a tenuous though tenable relationship which serves to further highlight Viktor's isolated existence. After Misha-non-penguin leaves Sonya a large sum of money, Viktor hires a nanny (Nina) who is the niece of his only other friend Sergey. Over time, a physical yet passionless relationship develops between Viktor and Nina and the "family" is crystallized. Ironically, the deepest emotional relationship amongst all four individuals is between Viktor and his penguin. After settling into a more or less normal life with Sonya and Nina and a lucrative side job of attending funerals of former obituary subjects with Misha, Viktor's illusion of security is undermined. He finds that an anonymous man (referred in the text only as "fat man") has been following Sonya and Nina and asking them endless questions posing as an old friend. When he tracks down his follower he finds that the fat man has become the new obituary writer and he, Viktor, has become the new obituary subject. At the same time, Misha has fallen ill and needs a heart transplant. Anonymous sponsors foot the bill but Viktor has decided that Misha is to be returned to his natural habitat in Antarctica. He donates $2000 to the upcoming Ukrainian expedition to Antarctica on condition that they take Misha. However, after finding that he is a marked man, Viktor decides to let the mafia take care of the penguin and he himself takes the ticket to Antarctica. The book ends with Viktor successfully fleeing to Antarctica. The novel is not about mafia intrigue but rather about one man and his pet/avatar as they are caught up in situations they do not understand. As such, the actual power of his obituaries and the circumstances surrounding the ensuing deaths are only hinted at, often in the context of Viktor's own musings. |
3488641 | /m/09g68t | Teacher Man | Frank McCourt | null | {"/m/016chh": "Memoir"} | Frank McCourt's pedagogy involves the students taking responsibility for their own learning, especially in his first school, McKee Vocational and Technical High School, in New York. On the first day he nearly gets fired for eating a sandwich, and the second day he nearly gets fired for joking that in Ireland, people go out with sheep after a student asks them if Irish people date. Much of his early teaching involves telling anecdotes about his childhood in Ireland, which were covered in his earlier books Angela's Ashes and 'Tis. McCourt then taught English as a Second Language and took some African-American students to a production of Hamlet. He talks about when he was training as a teacher and didn't know anything about George Santayana, but was able to give a well-prepared lesson on the war poets Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon. Other highlights include his connection between how a pen works and how a sentence works (in explaining subjects and grammar, an area which he struggled with himself) and his use of realia like the students' excuse notes and cookbooks. He taught from the time he was twenty-seven and continued for thirty years. He spent most of his teaching career at Stuyvesant High School, where he taught English and Creative Writing. During the time of the book McCourt went to Trinity College to try to take his doctorate, but he ended up leaving his first wife because of the strain. |
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