Id
stringlengths 3
44
| Code
stringlengths 7
10
⌀ | Title
stringlengths 1
220
⌀ | Author
stringlengths 4
59
⌀ | Data
stringlengths 3
10
⌀ | Genres
stringlengths 20
352
⌀ | Summary
stringlengths 11
32.8k
⌀ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
4131884 | /m/0bkvrb | Shoeless Joe | W. P. Kinsella | 1982 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Ray Kinsella lives and farms in Iowa where he grows corn with his wife Annie and their five-year-old daughter Karin. Kinsella is obsessed with the beauty and history of American baseball, specifically the plight of his hero, Shoeless Joe Jackson, and the Black Sox Scandal of the 1919 World Series. When he hears a voice telling him to build a baseball field in the midst of his corn crop in order to give his hero a chance at redemption, he blindly follows instructions. The field becomes a conduit to the spirits of baseball legends. Soon, Kinsella is off on a cross-country trip to ease the pain of another hero, the reclusive writer J. D. Salinger, as part of a journey the Philadelphia Inquirer called "not so much about baseball as it's about dreams, magic, life, and what is quintessentially American." |
4137395 | /m/0bl2cf | Day Watch | Vladimir Vasilyev | null | {"/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/03npn": "Horror"} | Walking the streets of Moscow, indistinguishable from the rest of its population, are The Others. Possessors of supernatural powers and capable of entering the Twilight, a shadowy world that exists in parallel to our own, each owes allegiance either to The Dark - the Day Watch - or The Light - the Night Watch. (this story is told from the point of view of Alisa Donnikova) In the prologue, a woman named Natasha goes to a witch to have her cast a spell to make her husband fall back in love with her. After she strikes a deal with the witch, members of the Night Watch suddenly arrive and arrest the witch while Natasha looks on, confused. The story shifts to Alisa Donnikova, a young but powerful Dark Other, who leaves her house to attend a meeting with her comrades in the Day Watch. The team is on a mission to apprehend and recruit an uninitiated Other, the practicing Dark witch from the prologue who has so far eluded the bureaus responsible for finding and initiating unlicensed practitioners of magic. It seems a routine operation. But when they arrive, the Night Watch team has already made the arrest. A fierce battle ensues, during which Alisa almost dies. Drained of her powers, she is sent to recuperate at a youth camp near the Black Sea. There she meets Igor. The chemistry between them is instant and irresistible, and Alisa finds herself falling in love. But then comes a shattering revelation: Igor is a Light Magician. Alisa remembers him as one of those involved in the battle that left her crippled. Had they known what they were, they would have not entered their relationship. But now that they know, Igor (who reacts with rage, feeling he was tricked) challenges Alisa (who reacts with a more depressed note of sadness) to a duel. Alisa allows Igor to choose the site of the battle: off-shore, in the sea. Alisa chooses not to fight back, allowing Igor to magically push her under the water and drown her. She calls Zabulon for help but is shocked to find out Zabulon has planned her death all along. While this is going on, Makar, a boy that had become infatuated with Alisa, swims out to rescue her and also drowns. Note: The first scene of this story forms the basis for the opening of the film Night Watch. In the movie, it is Anton (not Natasha) who goes to the same witch to have her kill what he thinks is his wife's child with her adulterous lover (it turns out to actually be his own child). Both scenes play out in much the same way from there, but the arrival of the Day Watch and subsequent battle does not occur in the movie. (this story is told from the point of view of Vitaly Rogoza) A man named Vitaly Rogoza awakens while walking through a park late at night with no memory of his past or who he is. Following an internal instinct, he is able to protect himself from a werewolf and board a train to Moscow. Once in Moscow, still following instinct, he registers his presence as a Dark Other with the Day Watch and proceeds to stumble into a series of seemingly accidental encounters with the Night Watch, often resulting in a Night Watch member dying. He kills Tiger Cub in self-defense as she seeks revenge for him setting a trap that (legally) kills a Night Watch investigator trespassing in his hotel room. While this is taking place, a Day Watch splinter group named the "Regin Brothers" stages an attack on the Inquisition to steal a powerful artifact named "Fafnir's Talon". Only four Regin Brothers survive and they head to Moscow. Members of the Night Watch and the Day Watch both learn that the Regin Brothers will be landing in a plane at Moscow International Airport. At the airport, both groups set up camps; the Night Watch tries to delay the plane's landing while the Day Watch seeks to assist it. Vitaly wanders away from the main group of Day Watch agents and inadvertently stumbles upon the Regin Brothers and two powerful Night Watch members, Gesar and Svetlana. Gesar kills one of the Regin Brothers who attempts to flee, but Vitaly accidentally winds up in possession of the talon. He steals power from Svetlana and creates a portal that allows him to escape to a forest outside Moscow. After meeting up with some youths camping in the forest, Vitaly returns to Moscow. Instead of returning to the Day Watch offices with the talon, however, his instincts lead him to Maxim from the first novel, who is now a member of the Inquisition. At Maxim's behest, Vitaly relinquishes the talon. Soon thereafter, the Inquisition calls a meeting to determine what is going on and who, if anyone, should be held responsible. Anton is called to attend but Zabulon encourages him to commit a small act of "betrayal" by not going, with the promise that he will be able to live freely with Svetlana and avoid bloodshed. After Vitaly and Anton have a car accident (deliberately staged by Anton) on the way to the meeting, Svetlana concludes that Anton and Vitaly are engaged in a duel that will result in Anton's death. When Vitaly arrives before Anton at the meeting alone, she assumes the worst and strikes him with all of her considerable power, leaving her dangerously drained (like Alisa above). Vitaly absorbs Svetlana's power, although his clothes and MiniDisc player are destroyed. Anton then appears and gives Vitaly his own MiniDisc player as a replacement. The Inquisition concludes that Vitaly is a mirror and not an Other in the ordinary sense; thus he does not come under the terms of the Treaty and is free to pursue his own destiny. Vitaly was able to neutralize Svetlana by his presence and restore the balance between the Night Watch and Day Watch. Svetlana is sufficiently reduced in power that she and Anton are now theoretically able to live as equals, as Zabulon promised. Vitaly leaves the courthouse, listening to music, and dissipates into the Twilight, his purpose fulfilled. (this story is told in third-person, though the action continually switches its focus between the first novel's narrator, Anton, and a second-level Dark Other, Edgar) The third story revolves around a trial by the Inquisition to investigate the events of the first two stories. The first part of the story deals with various involved parties travelling to Prague (where the trial will be held), the second part involves the characters meeting in a number of different configurations and talking, the third part involves the trial itself. All of the surviving major characters of the first two stories are on their way to Prague, which is the new location of the Inquisition after the Regin Brothers destroyed the old one. Edgar, a medium high level operative, is going to plead the Day Watch's case. Edgar assures the 3 remaining Regin Brothers that the Day Watch will protect them. Anton is going as a prosecutor for the Night Watch. Igor is already there being put up (but not held in custody) by the Inquisition. In Prague, Anton meets an American Air Force pilot who is also a Light Mage. The pilot is proud of his work (bombing Kosovo). Anton is appalled that anyone can perform such evil acts and still align themselves with good. Anton and Edgar meet over beer and discuss dark vs. light philosophy. Edgar is clearly not a terribly enthusiastic Dark Other, but he's doing his job nevertheless. Anton then goes to visit Igor while Edgar, left to his own devices, uncovers a lot of evidence to indicate that Zabulon is setting him up to be killed in order to facilitate the resurrection of Fafnir. He's understandably frightened and angered. Meanwhile, Anton, eager to distract the suicidal Igor, gets him roaring drunk on Vodka and attempts to draw him into a strategy session to try to figure out what the Day Watch is up to, with some success. They wonder whose destiny it was that Olga changed at the end of Night Watch and here it is revealed that, though Svetlana's child—foretold by Gesar to be a girl—would always have been a powerful light Other, the changes mean that her birth has been timed to make her daughter a Light Messiah. Gesar arrives and pleads with Igor to stick around for at least another 20 years. Igor is non-committal. The next day, the trial begins. The Regin Brothers are tried first and are found guilty only of lesser crimes: though they transported Fafnir's Talon, they didn't participate in the theft. They are stripped of all but the very smallest of their magical powers and sent on their way. The focus of the trial then shifts the events of the novel's first story. A number of minor charges against Gesar and Zabulon are dismissed under technicalities. Anton accuses Zabulon of indirectly arranging the duel between Igor and Alisa and blames Zabulon for the death of Makar, the young boy who drowned trying to save Alisa. Edgar and Zabulon challenge the Night Watch operatives to present proof, but neither Anton nor Igor can do so. In order to get to the bottom of the case, the Inquisition temporarily resurrects Alisa, who implicates Zabulon in her demise, stating that Igor was not responsible for her death. Igor is cleared of all charges. However, when Alisa is sent back to the Twilight, Igor follows her, dying himself. Zabulon is ecstatic, admitting that he had indeed planned to sacrifice Alisa in order to remove Igor, saying that Igor was the only one that could have trained the upcoming Light Messiah. Since Zabulon's plan involved an even trade—Alisa for Igor—he has not violated the treaty, and the Inquisition clears him of charges. As Svetlana leaves, she tells Zabulon, "May no one ever love you." Gesar sends Anton to find her, while the rest of the individuals at the trial depart the scene. Edgar approaches a member of the Inquisition, Witezslav, who invites Edgar to "try on" an Inquisitor's robe. Edgar reluctantly takes the robe from Witezslav while mentioning that Svetlana's "curse" is pointless because Zabulon doesn't need anyone to love him anyway. Note: This story is the only one in the pentalogy without a first-person narrator. |
4139603 | /m/0bl5zm | A Judgement In Stone | Ruth Rendell | 5/2/1977 | {"/m/0lsxr": "Crime Fiction", "/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | Eunice is taken on as a housekeeper by a family of four. She has kept her illiteracy a secret and is obsessed by continuing to keep it so. Unknown to her new employers, she has already murdered the father for whom she had been caring, and has falsified her references. Her inability to adapt to her place in society is masked by the cunning with which she conceals the truth about herself. Misinterpreting every act of kindness she is offered by her employers, she eventually turns on them, stealing the guns that are normally kept locked away. With the aid of a fellow social misfit, she murders the entire family. But Eunice's illiteracy prevents her from recognizing and disposing of a written clue that was left behind. Eventually a tape recording of the shooting made by one of the victims is discovered. Eunice is charged with the crime, and is mortified when her illiteracy is revealed to the world during the court proceedings. |
4139669 | /m/0bl61d | Make Death Love Me | Ruth Rendell | 1979 | {"/m/0lsxr": "Crime Fiction", "/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | Bank manager Alan Groombridge is bored with his tedious career and dull home life; he dreams of one day stealing enough money from his employers so he can afford himself total freedom for a single year. He seizes the opportunity when the bank is robbed at gunpoint; however, the dream soon turns sour when the consequences of his reckless actions begin to take hold. |
4140289 | /m/0bl700 | 'Tis Pity She's a Whore | John Ford | null | null | Giovanni, recently returned from university study in Bologna, has developed an incestuous passion for his sister Annabella, despite their blood relationship, and the play opens with his discussing this ethical dilemma with Friar Bonaventura. Bonaventura tries to convince Giovanni that his desires are evil despite Giovanni's passionate reasoning, and eventually persuades him to try to rid himself of his feelings through repentance. Annabella, meanwhile, is being approached by a number of suitors, including Bergetto, Grimaldi and Soranzo. She is not interested in any of them, however, and when Giovanni finally tells her how he feels (obviously having failed in his attempts to repent), she requites his love immediately. Annabella's tutoress Putana encourages the relationship. The siblings consummate their relationship. Hippolita, a past lover of Soranzo, verbally attacks him, furious with him for letting her send her husband Richardetto on a dangerous journey she believed would result in his death so that they could be together, then declining his vows and abandoning her. Soranzo leaves and his servant Vasques promises to help Hippolita get revenge on Soranzo, and the pair agree to marry after they murder him. However, Richardetto is not dead but also in Parma with niece Philotis, and is also desperate for revenge against Soranzo. He convinces Grimaldi that in order to win Annabella, he should stab Soranzo (his main competition) with a poisoned sword. Unfortunately, Bergetto and Philotis, now betrothed, are planning to marry secretly in the place Richardetto orders Grimaldi to wait, and Grimaldi mistakenly stabs and kills Bergetto instead, leaving Philotis, Poggio and Donado distraught. Annabella resigns herself to marrying Soranzo, knowing she has to choose someone and it can not be her brother. She subsequently falls ill and it is revealed that she is pregnant. Friar Bonaventura then convinces her to marry Soranzo before her pregnancy becomes apparent. Meanwhile Donado and Florio go to the cardinal's house, where Grimaldi has been in hiding, to beg for justice. The cardinal refuses due to Grimaldi's high status and instead sends him back to Rome. Florio tells Donado to wait for God to bring them justice. Annabella and Soranzo are married soon after, and their ceremony includes masque dancers, one of whom reveals herself to be Hippolita. She claims to be willing to drink a toast with Soranzo, and the two raise their glasses and drink, on which note she explains that her plan was to poison his wine. Vasques comes forward and reveals that he was always loyal to his master, and in fact he poisoned Hippolita. She dies spouting insults and damning prophecies to the newlyweds. Seeing the effects of anger and revenge, Richardetto abandons his plans and sends Philotis off to a convent to save her soul. When Soranzo discovers Annabella's pregnancy, the two argue until Annabella realises that Soranzo truly did love her, and finds herself consumed with guilt. She is confined to her room by her husband, who plots with Vasques to avenge him against his cheating wife and her unknown lover. On Soranzo's exit, Putana comes onto the stage and Vasques pretends to befriend her in order to gain the name of Annabella's baby's father. Once Putana reveals that it's Giovanni, Vasques has a bandit tie Putana up and remove her eyes and mouth as punishment for the terrible acts she has willingly overseen and encouraged. In her room, Annabella writes a letter to her brother in her own blood, warning him that Soranzo knows and will soon wreak his revenge. The friar delivers the letter, but Giovanni is too arrogant to believe he can be harmed and ignores advice to decline the invitation to Soranzo's birthday feast. The friar subsequently flees from Parma to avoid further involvement in Giovanni's downfall. On the day of the feast, Giovanni visits Annabella in her room, and after talking with her, stabs her during a kiss. He then enters the feast, at which all remaining characters are present, wielding a dagger on which his sister's heart is skewered, and tells everyone of the incestuous affair. Florio dies immediately from shock. Soranzo begins to attack Giovanni, but Giovanni manages to stab and kill him. Vasques intervenes, wounding Giovanni before ordering the Banditti to finish the job. Following the massacre, the cardinal orders Putana to be burnt at the stake, Vasques to be banished and the church to seize all the wealth and property belonging to the dead. Richardetto finally reveals his true identity and the play ends with the cardinal saying of Annabella "who could not say, 'Tis pity she's a whore?" |
4142576 | /m/0blccg | Teleny or The Reverse of the Medal | Oscar Wilde | 1893 | {"/m/0f0jjz": "Pornography", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The story begins with Des Grieux attending a concert with his mother; he experiences strange and suggestive visions during one piano performance – by the beautiful Hungarian Teleny. Des Grieux becomes fascinated by the man and by the sporadically and frequently sexual telepathic connection he feels with Teleny, and this feeling becomes a mixture of curiosity, admiration, and desire, which quickly leads to jealousy. Des Grieux knows that Teleny attracts many men and women before their relationship begins. Eventually they meet and share their experiences of their unexplained bond which quickly leads to a passionate affair. Des Grieux feels very torn about loving and desiring a man and attempts to genuinely sexually interest himself in a household servant, but in so doing indirectly leads to her death. Thus shaken, he vows not to fight his feelings and allows Teleny to introduce him to an underground sexual society of male desiring men. Their love continues through a blackmailing attempt and their emotional struggles, until Teleny declares a need to leave for a time, ostensibly for a concert performance. During this time Des Grieux goes to Teleny's apartments only to find Teleny in bed with Des Grieux's mother, who had offered to pay Teleny's debts in return for sexual favours. The two part badly; Des Grieux nearly commits suicide and remains isolated in the hospital for many days. When he leaves he goes to Teleny only to find that his lover has stabbed himself in remorse, and is bleeding to death. Des Grieux forgives Teleny; they re-declare their love, and Teleny dies. |
4144579 | /m/0blh4t | Flush: A Biography | Virginia Woolf | null | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05h83": "Non-fiction"} | This unusual biography traces the life of Flush from his carefree existence in the country, to his adoption by Ms. Browning and his travails in London, leading up to his final days in a bucolic Italy. Woolf ostensibly uses the life of a dog as pointed social criticism, ranging across topics from feminism and environmentalism to class conflict. |
4145470 | /m/0bljtd | Calico Captive | Elizabeth George Speare | 1957-01 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"} | In August 1754 Miriam Willard, along with her older sister Susanna, her sister's husband James Johnson, and their three children; two-year-old Polly, four-year-old Susanna, and six-year-old Sylvanus, are kidnapped from Number Four, a fort in Charlestown. Miriam and her family are forced to march north by their Indian captors, never knowing whether they will be killed or taken into slavery. Throughout the journey Miriam finds she cannot keep her mind off Phineas Whitney, her sweetheart planning to attend Harvard College. On the way north Susanna gives birth to a girl and names the infant Captive. The rugged trail is made far more difficult for Miriam by the miserable crying of Captive, the damp cold and hunger, and the sight of her exhausted sister. Fortunately, a horse named Scoggins is captured for Susanna so that she does not have to walk and carry the infant. Eventually the group reaches the Indian village where, upon surviving a half-hearted gauntlet while being forced to dance and sing, they are adopted into the tribe. After many months the Indian tribe’s Sachem decides to sell his English captives to the French in Montréal, Quebec. However, Susanna's master forces her to stay behind and Sylvanus, who has taken a liking to the Indian culture, willingly chooses to go on a hunting trip with the Indians. Upon arriving in Montréal Miriam finds to her horror that they are all to be privately purchased off to separate owners and held on ransom. James is thrown in jail for a short time but is finally forced to retrieve money from the English governor to pay for his family’s release. Polly captures the interest of the mayor's wife, who is unable to have a child of her own, while little Susanna is sold to another French household and Miriam meets the prominent Du Quesne family. Although working as a servant, Miriam quickly finds herself living a life she has never imagined. She meets an amiable French girl named Hortense and the two quickly become friends. One day Miriam is asked by Madame Du Quesne to teach her daughter, Felicité, to read and write proper English. Miriam finds she is intrigued by Felicité’s friendliness and wealthy lifestyle. Meanwhile, James makes a petition to the French governor and is allowed to return to English territory and ask for money and a passport. Susanna is eventually released by her Indian captors and joins Miriam. Meanwhile James goes to Boston to get money in order to buy the liberty of the rest of his family. The two sisters are invited by Felicité to join her at a ball wherein Miriam unintentionally draws the attention of Pierre Laroche, a grandson of a wealthy nobleman. Miriam dances with the young man, which angers and embarrasses Felicité, who had her heart set on marrying Pierre. The Du Quesne family, feeling disgraced and insulted and because they believe James broke his bond and escaped from captivity, throws out Miriam and Susanna. After several hours in the snowy streets Hortense finds the two and informs them they can stay with her family. Miriam realizes that the Hortense family cannot support three more occupants and conjures a plan to make some money. She decides to use her talent for dressmaking to craft a fashionable dress for Madame Du Quesne and Felicité. The plan works, although she is told to keep her services a secret. However, the governor’s wife, Marquise De Vaundreuil, finds out Miriam had designed the Du Quesne dresses and hires her. When James finally returns the French governor has been replaced. The new authority refuses to recognize the agreement. Worse yet, Polly, who was unable to adjust to her new family, runs away and is eventually allowed to stay with her mother. Instead of earning their freedom Susanna, James, Polly and Captive are thrown in jail. Miriam, as a dressmaker for a notable family, is spared jail time. Miriam eventually succeeds in gathering her courage and asks Marquise De Vaundreuil about her relatives. Marquise De Vaundreuil promises she will talk with her husband. Meanwhile, Pierre asks Miriam to marry him although, after much consideration, she realizes she truly does not love him. Marquise De Vaundreuil keeps her promise to speak with her husband and eventually Miriam, Susanna, James, Polly and Captive are released from prison. They board a small sailing vessel to cross the Atlantic to Plymouth, England and from there they sail back to America, finally as free people. Two years later Sylvanus is brought home by a redeemed Indian captive. Another redeemed prisoner from Montréal brings home little Susanna. Phineas Whitney, after graduating from Harvard, marries Miriam. |
4147414 | /m/0bln2b | Dissolution | Richard Lee Byers | 2002-07 | {"/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | Pharaun and Ryld journey to a tavern, where Ryld plays sava (a chess-like game) while Pharaun goes to the basement, where various female drow captives are available for males to do with as they see fit with. Pharaun talks with one of them who reveals the name of several elopers. While he is there, Ryld is attacked by other males whom he has taught. Afterwards, the two companions talk about the quest and decide the males are eloping because of the unusually harsh rule of the females in the last few weeks. Pharaun reveals that he has reason to believe that Lolth is gone and as such the females cannot use divine spells anymore, and are limited to scrolls and magic items. Ryld, though skeptical at first, eventually believes him. They learn of an uprising among the lower class creatures led by a mysterious prophet, and decide to pretend that they support the elopers. They kill a group of Drow to prove their "dedication" to the cause and are reluctantly taken in. They learn that the mastermind behind the rebellion is an evil illithid lich (called an "alhoon" or an "illithilich"), and that when he sends a mental signal, all the lower creatures will attack. While this is all happening, Gromph Baenre is sending various demons to attack Quenthel Baenre, all taking the guise of various aspects of Lloth, e.g. a demon spider, a demon of chaos, a darkness demon, and others. While this happens, a group of students at Arach-Tinilith decide that Lloth is disfavouring Quenthel, and resolve to kill her. She learns of this plan and has the offending students killed. Another subplot involves an ambassador from the neighbouring city of Ched Nasad being refused the right to leave by Triel Baenre. She eventually attempts to leave and is stopped by a traitor in her household. She then escapes the city, but is caught and taken to Triel. She realizes someone has turned Triel against her and is tortured by Jeggred Baenre, Triel's draegloth son. Eventually the lower races get the signal to rebel. Pharaun escapes from the Illithid and gathers the forces of Menzoberranzan to fight. A battle ensues, where much of Menzoberranzan is marred. At the end, the general populace realizes the weakness of the priestesses, and Pharaun, Ryld, Quenthel, Jeggred, and the ambassador, Faeryl Zauvirr, are sent to Ched Nasad to see if they are also afflicted. |
4147879 | /m/0blnsb | Ask the Dust | John Fante | 1939 | {"/m/016lj8": "Roman \u00e0 clef", "/m/05hgj": "Novel", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Arturo Bandini is a struggling writer living in a residential hotel in Bunker Hill, a rundown section of Downtown Los Angeles. Living off the zest of oranges, he unconsciously creates a picture of Los Angeles as a modern dystopia during the Great Depression era. His published short story "The Little Dog Laughed" impresses no one in his seedy boarding house except for one 14-year-old girl. Destitute, he wanders into the Columbia Buffet where he meets Camilla Lopez, a waitress. Bandini falls in love with Lopez, who is herself in love with co-worker Sam. Sam despises Camilla, telling Bandini if he wants to win over Camilla, he has to treat her poorly. Bandini struggles with his own poverty, his Catholic guilt, and with the his love for an unstable and deteriorating Camilla. Camilla is eventually admitted to a mental hospital, and moved to a second one, before escaping. Bandini looks for her, only finding her as she awaits for him in his apartment. He decides to take her away from Los Angeles, and arranges to live in a house on the beach. He buys her a little dog and they go to the new place. He leaves her there, to get his belongings from his Los Angeles hotel room. When he returns, she's gone. He tracks her down to the desert home of Sam, who is ill and dying. Before Bandini arrives, Sam has thrown Camilla out and she wanders into the desert. Bandini looks for her with an agonizing fear that he won't find the women he loves and he doesn't. He returns to Sam's shack, looks over the empty desert land. He takes a copy of the novel he had recently published, dedicates it to Camilla, and throws it into the desert. |
4149673 | /m/0blr__ | The Naked Ape | Desmond Morris | null | {"/m/0h5k": "Anthropology", "/m/06ms6": "Sociology"} | The Naked Ape, which was serialized in the Daily Mirror newspaper and has been translated into 23 languages, depicts human behavior as largely evolved to meet the challenges of prehistoric life as a hunter-gatherer (see nature versus nurture). The book was so named because out of 193 species of monkeys and apes only man is not covered in hair. Desmond Morris, the author, who formerly was the Curator of mammals at London Zoo, said his book was intended to popularise and demystify science. Morris made a number of claims in the book, including that not only does Homo sapiens have the largest brain of all primates but also the largest penis, and is therefore "the sexiest primate alive". He further claimed that our fleshy ear-lobes, which are unique to humans, are erogenous zones, the stimulation of which can cause orgasm in both males and females. Morris further stated that the more rounded shape of human female breasts means they are mainly a sexual signalling device rather than simply for providing milk for infants. Morris attempted to frame human behavior in the context of evolution, but his explanations failed to convince academics because they were based on a teleological (goal-oriented) understanding of evolution. For example, Morris wrote that the intense human pair bond evolved so that men who were out hunting could trust that their mates back home were not having sex with other men, and that sparse body hair evolved because the "nakedness" helped intensify pair bonding by increasing tactile pleasure. |
4154655 | /m/0bm1zy | Up a Road Slowly | Irene Hunt | null | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | When seven-year-old Julie's mother dies, she is sent to live with her Aunt Cordelia. Cordelia is an unmarried schoolteacher, and lives in a large home several miles outside town. Her brother, Haskell lives in a converted carriage house behind the main house. Haskell is an alcoholic, with, like his niece, aspirations to be a writer, although he never manages to produce a manuscript. At first, Aunt Cordelia appears stern and strict to the grief-stricken Julie, but as she grows to young adulthood, Julie comes to love her, and to see her aunt's house as home. She becomes so attached to Aunt Cordelia that even when she has the chance to move back with her father, she declines. The story follows Julie from the age of seven to seventeen, from elementary school through her high school graduation, and documents the ordinary events in the life of a child: first love, the cruelty of children, jealousy, and struggles with schoolwork. At the same, as Julie develops. She also encounters problems in the lives of the adults around her, including mental illness and alcoholism. |
4155606 | /m/0bm3n3 | Not Without Laughter | Langston Hughes | 1930 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel", "/m/05qgc": "Poetry", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Not Without Laughter portrays African American life in the 1910s, focusing on character development rather than plot. However, The main storyline focuses on Sandy's "awakening to the sad and the beautiful realities of black life in a small Kansas town." The major intent of the novel is to portray Sandy's life as he tries to be the best he can be, aspiring to folks like W. E. B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington. |
4155651 | /m/0bm3pw | Kitten with a Whip | null | null | null | The wife of politician David Stratton is away in San Francisco, visiting relatives there. Stratton comes home one night but not to an empty house -- a young woman, Jody, is waiting inside. Jody tells him a tale of woe, so David offers to help. But the truth is, she has just busted out of a juvenile detention home, where she stabbed a matron and started a fire. And she is far from alone, because three young men suddenly materialize to torment David, who is afraid of a public scandal that could end his career. If he tries to get away and contact the cops, Jody threatens to accuse David of rape. The young men and Jody enjoy a wild party, but also begin to quarrel until one is cut with a razor. The body is dumped from a car. Jody and David end up hiding in a motel. But when the punks return, a chase occurs and their car crashes, killing all. Jody, too, ends up at death's door, but absolves David of any blame. |
4156452 | /m/0bm507 | Legs | William Kennedy | 1975 | null | The book chronicles the life of the gangster Jack 'Legs' Diamond. It is told from the perspective of Jack's lawyer, Marcus Gormen. Through Gormen's eyes, Kennedy is able to elicit sympathy for the criminal, transposing this sympathy into the context of America during the 1920s and 30s: excess, collapse, destitution, and analysis of right and wrong, good and evil. |
4156849 | /m/0bm5ts | Shriek: An Afterword | Jeff VanderMeer | 2006 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | Ambergris, named for "the most secret and valued part of the whale," is a fantastical urban milieu, explicitly modern and apparently pre-industrial (despite the presence of guns, bombs, and motor vehicles). Ambergris is characterized by grocery stores, post offices, cafés, and vendors (The "Borges Bookstore" bears note). The city was built over the land (and quiet protests) of the fungally-adept "graycaps," humanoids of uncertain disposition. The inhabitants of Ambergris enjoy a fascination with squid, and celebrate an anarchic annual Festival of the Freshwater Squid. |
4157299 | /m/0bm6p9 | Texar's Revenge, or, North Against South | Jules Verne | 1887 | {"/m/08sdrw": "Adventure novel"} | Texar and Burbank are bitter enemies, Burbank's northern view of slavery as an evil being an unpopular stance with Texar and the rest of the community, deep in the Confederate States of America. On top of this disagreement, though, Texar is angry at Burbank for past legal troubles Burbank has brought upon Texar, and, despite Texar inventing a perfect alibi that allows him to escape conviction, Texar feels the need for vengeance and eventually becomes a prominent and powerful member of the Jacksonville community. Using this newfound power, Texar turns the townsfolk against Burbank and leads a mob that destroys the Burbank plantation, known as Camdless Bay. Burbank's daughter Dy and caretaker Zermah are both kidnapped by a man claiming to be Texar and are purportedly taken to a place in the Everglades called Carneral Island. En route, and after enlisting the help of the United States Navy, they find a separate group searching for Texar in response to crimes that apparently happened in the same time as the ones at Camdless Bay but in a distant location. This opens up the realization that there is one real Texar and one who is not, and the search continues now, not only for Dy and Zermah, but for the answer to this mystery. |
4163162 | /m/0bmk60 | If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things | Jon mcgregor | 2002 | null | If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things eschews a traditional narrative structure, instead moving from one resident of an unnamed English street to another, describing their actions and inner world over the course of a single day. These characters are not named, and are described by an omniscient third person narrator. These sections are intercut with another character, a young woman who has recently discovered that she is pregnant, who narrates in the first person and whose story covers several days. She regularly refers ambiguously to a day in the past when something terrible happened, and it gradually becomes clear that the rest of the novel is set during this day. |
4167319 | /m/0bmsk7 | The Holy | Daniel Quinn | null | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Aaron, a wealthy amateur scholar, hires sexagenarian private investigator Howard, whom he meets at a chess club in Chicago to which they both belong, to investigate the gods Baal, Ashtoroth and Moloch, that were worshipped for centuries in Israel during a period of antiquity when the God of Abraham had fallen into disfavor. As Aaron says to Howard while proposing the task, referring to story of Exodus of the Old Testament: Although Howard initially turns down the case, thinking Aaron is either crazy or a fool, Aaron is dogged, and increases his offer of reward until Howard eventually relents. However, Howard only agrees to work on the problem for one month to test whether any inroads can be made into the peculiar case. It is indeed a problem — how to even begin investigating a trail that is centuries cold. Howard turns to a psychic for help, who using a Tarot card reading, sets Howard on a path which leads him to a young boy named Tim from Indiana, in whom the gods have taken an interest. Tim's father, who was in the midst of a mid-life crisis, has recently disappeared. Howard helps Tim in his quest to locate and determine what has become of his father. In their quest they are dogged by supernatural events that are eventually revealed as the workings of the gods who may be "false," but who are, neverthlesss, real. |
4168295 | /m/0bmtzf | Some of Your Blood | Theodore Sturgeon | 1961 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/03npn": "Horror", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The book opens with a prologue addressed directly to "The Reader," informing the reader of the fictional basis of the novel. The novel presents as a case file of Dr. Philip Outerbridge and attempts to "falsely" emphasize the fictional basis of the novel. The novel takes place in the middle of an unnamed war. The novel focuses on George Smith, an American soldier, transferred to the military psychiatric clinic, where Outerbridge works. Smith was brought to the clinic due to a confrontation with a superior officer. Smith was labeled psychotic and told to recount his story in the third person. Smith's autobiography takes up about half of the book, describing his childhood as the son of the town drunk. Smith is imprisoned for shoplifting, and eventually joins the army as a means of escaping an uncomfortable situation with his lover, Anna. The rest of the book consists of documents relating to Outerbridge's treatment of Smith,therapy sessions and correspondence between Outerbridge and his superior, the increasingly impatient Colonel Williams. Outerbridge believes Smith to be the most dangerous man in the hospital and deduces Smith to be a non-supernatural vampire who drinks blood at times of emotional crisis. The novel ends with an explanation of various potential and unrealized outcomes. |
4168704 | /m/0bmvlj | Everyday Use | Alice Walker | null | {"/m/0707q": "Short story"} | The story centers around one day when the older daughter, Dee, visits from college after time away and a conflict between them over some heirloom family possessions. The struggle reflects the characters' contrasting ideas about their heritage and identity. Throughout the story Dee goes back and forth on being proud and rejecting her heritage. For example, when she decides at dinner that she wants the butter churn, she shows that she respects her heritage because she knows that her uncle carved it from a tree they used to have. However, she wants it for the wrong reason, saying that she will use it only for decoration. Another example is when she wants the quilts that Mama has. She states that she wants them because of the generations of clothing and effort put into making the quilt, showing her appreciation for her heritage. The fact that she changes her name, though, from Dee to Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo disrespects her heritage because "Dee" is a family name that can be traced back many generations. The story is narrated by the mother. |
4168853 | /m/0bmvtt | Gene | Stel Pavlou | null | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | In dealing with genetic memory, Pavlou has drawn on both the nature of lineage, and the nature of self. Several characters all stem from the same source, and so as their memories become unlocked during the course of the novel, they each identify with being the same person at a distant point in history. The question of identity then becomes fundamental to the plot. If each character shares the same memories are they a reincarnation of that original person, or merely an echo? The novel is further complicated in that it is told backwards, using a Police procedural as the structure of the novel, memories are unlocked in the form of flashbacks, each flashback delving further and further back in time over the course of 3000 years. Told in alternating first person and third person, the novel is divided into a prologue and seven "books", the seven trials of Cyclades. The opening page begins with the first 27 lines of the Human Genome. Thereafter the prologue lays out the death of Cyclades during the Trojan War, and makes it clear that his death is merely the beginning of the journey. Told in first person, Cyclades, a Greek warrior, is mortally wounded. A Sybil forces him to have sex to continue his line, whereupon he dies for the first time in the book. Book One, shifts to third person and jumps to the year 2004. In New York City Detective James North has been called to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to deal with a mentally unstable man who has run amok amid the exhibits. |
4170327 | /m/0bmy24 | Swallows and Amazons | Arthur Ransome | 12/1/1930 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/08sdrw": "Adventure novel"} | The book relates the outdoor adventures and play of two families of children. These involve sailing, camping, fishing exploration and piracy. The Walker children (John, Susan, Titty and Roger) are staying at a farm near a lake in the Lake District of England which is mostly a combination of Windermere and Coniston, during the school holidays. They sail a borrowed dinghy named Swallow and meet the Blackett children (Nancy and Peggy), who sail a dinghy named Amazon. The Walkers camp on an island in the lake while the Blacketts live in their house nearby. When the children meet, they agree to join forces against a common enemy - the Blacketts' uncle James Turner whom they call "Captain Flint" (after the character in Treasure Island). Turner, normally an ally of his nieces, has withdrawn from their company in order to write his memoirs, and has become decidedly unfriendly. Furthermore when the Blacketts let off a firework on his houseboat roof, it is the Walkers who get the blame. He refuses even to listen when they try to pass on a warning to him about burglars in the area. In order to determine who should be the overall leader in their campaign against Captain Flint, the Blacketts and the Walkers have a contest to see which can capture the others' boat. As part of their strategy the Walkers make a dangerous crossing of the lake by night, and John is later cautioned by his mother for this reckless act. The Walkers nevertheless win the contest - thanks to Titty who seizes the Amazon when the Blacketts come to Wild Cat Island. During the same night Titty hears suspicious voices coming from a different island, and in the morning it transpires that Turner's houseboat has been burgled. Turner again blames the Walkers, but is finally convinced that he is mistaken and feels he was wrong to distance himself from his nieces' adventures all summer. Titty and Roger investigate the other island, where they discover Turner's stolen property hidden by the thieves. The following day there is a mock battle between Turner and the children, after which Turner is tried for his crimes and forced to walk the plank on his own houseboat. Afterwards the children present Turner with his recovered sea chest, which contains the memoirs on which he had been working. James Turner appears in some ways to be modelled on Ransome himself. The story, set in August 1929, includes a good deal of everyday Lakeland life from the farmers to charcoal burners working in the woods; corned beef, which the children fancifully refer to as pemmican, and ginger beer and lemonade, which they call grog, appear as regular food stuff for the campers; island life also allows for occasional references to the story of Robinson Crusoe. |
4171130 | /m/0bm_1b | Confessions of a Mask | Yukio Mishima | 1948 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The main protagonist is referred to in the story as Kochan. Being raised during Japan’s era of right-wing militarism and Imperialism, he struggles from a very early age to fit into society. Like Mishima, Kochan was born with a less-than-ideal body in terms of physical fitness and robustness, and throughout the first half of the book (which generally details Kochan’s childhood) struggles intensely to fit into Japanese society. Due to his weakness, Kochan is kept away from boys his own age as he is raised, and is thus not exposed to the norm. This is what likely led to his future fascinations and fantasies of death, violence, and sex. In this way of thinking, some have posited that Mishima is similar. Kochan is a homosexual, and in the context of Imperial Japan he struggles to keep it to himself. In the early portion of the novel, Kochan does not yet openly admit that he is attracted to men, but indeed professes that he admires masculinity and strength. Some have argued that this, too, is autobiographical of Mishima, himself having worked hard through a naturally weak body to become a superbly fit body builder and male model. In the first chapter of the book, Kochan recalls a memory of a picture book from when he was four years old. Even at that young age, Kochan approached a single picture of a heroic-looking Caucasian knight on horseback almost as pornography, gazing at it longingly and hiding it away, embarrassed, when others come to see what he is doing. When his nurse tells him that the knight is actually Joan of Arc, Kochan, wanting the knight to be a paragon of manliness, is immediately and forever put off by the picture, annoyed that a woman would dress in man’s clothing. The word ‘mask’ comes from how Kochan develops his own false personality that he uses to present himself to the world. Early on, as he develops a fascination with his friend Omi’s body during puberty, he believes that everybody around him is also hiding their true feelings from each other, everybody participating in a ‘reluctant masquerade’. As he grows up, he tries to fall in love with a girl named Sonoko, but is continuously tormented by his latent homosexual urges, and is unable to ever truly love her. |
4171519 | /m/0bm_rr | Murphy | Samuel Beckett | 1938 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The plot of Murphy follows an eponymous "seedy solipsist" who, urged to find a job by his lover Celia Kelly, begins work as a male nurse at the Magdalen Mental Mercyseat in north London, and finds the insanity of the patients an appealing alternative to conscious existence. Murphy, gone to ground in London lodgings and then in the hospital, is pursued by a ragtag troupe of eccentrics from his own country, each with their own often-conflicting motivations. Neary, a practitioner of eastern mysticism, seeks Murphy as a love rival and then as compatible friend in the absence of all others. Miss Counihan's attachment to Murphy is romantic. Among Wylie's motivations, Miss Counihan is perhaps the strongest. And Cooper, Neary's simpleton servant and fixer, joins the trail for money, alcohol, and to serve his master. Among other things, Murphy is an example of Beckett's fascination with the artistic and metaphorical possibilities of chess. Near the novel's end, Murphy plays a game of chess with Mr. Endon, a patient who is "the most biddable little gaga in the entire institution". But Murphy cannot replicate his opponent's symmetrical and cyclical play, just as he is unable to will himself into a state of catatonic bliss. He resigns "with fool's mate in his soul", and dies shortly afterwards. Beckett relates the game in full English notation, complete with a comically arch commentary. Moving between Ireland and England, the novel is caustically satirical at the expense of the Irish Free State, which had recently banned Beckett's More Pricks Than Kicks: the astrologer consulted by Murphy is famous 'throughout civilised world and Irish Free State'; 'for an Irish girl' Murphy's admirer Miss Counihan was 'quite exceptionally anthropoid'; and in the General Post Office, site of the 1916 Rising, Neary assaults the buttocks of Oliver Sheppard's statue of mythic Irish hero Cúchulainn (the statue in fact possesses no buttocks). Indeed, the censor is roundly mocked: Celia, a prostitute whose profession is described tactfully in a passage by the author, who writes that "this phrase is chosen with care, lest the filthy censors should lack an occasion to commit their filthy synecdoche." Later, when Miss Counihan is sitting on Wylie's knee, Beckett sardonically explains that this did not occur in Wynn's Hotel, the Dublin establishment where earlier dialogue took place. The novel also contains a scabrous portrait of poet Austin Clarke as the dipsomaniac Austin Ticklepenny, given to unreciprocated 'genustuprations' of Murphy under the table; against Oliver St. John Gogarty's advice, Clarke declined to sue. Murphy indeed cannot go insane to achieve freedom. What he turns to instead is nothingness, and his ashes are properly spread amidst the grime of a bar after immolating himself with the assistance of gas in his bedroom at the hospital. Celia also discovers the beauty of nothingness, as she loses her love, Murphy, and her grandfather's health declines. Beckett seamlessly converts comedy to terror of non-existence, as he does in his later work, Waiting for Godot. Among the many thinkers to influence Murphy's mind-body debate are Spinoza, Descartes, and the little-known Belgian occasionalist Arnold Geulincx. |
4174520 | /m/0bn57n | Deep Water | Patricia Highsmith | null | {"/m/0lsxr": "Crime Fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | In the small town of Little Wesley, intellectual publisher Victor Van Allen decides to discourage his wife Melinda’s many lovers by hinting to them that he may have killed her previous beau, Malcolm McRae. However, the game turns sour when strangers begin to grow wary of him, thus denting his social esteem and also blurring the line between fiction and reality; after a while, Vic wonders if he may really have blood on his hands. pt:Deep Water |
4174672 | /m/0bn5jt | The Lake of Souls | Darren Shan | null | {"/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/03npn": "Horror", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | The Lake of Souls takes place right after Killers of the Dawn. Darren cannot cry. He feels numb, but with the help of the bearded Lady, Truska, he eventually does so. Mr. Tiny then appears and tells Harkat that if he wants his nightmares (which have returned) to stop, he must walk through a portal that Mr. Tiny makes. Harkat refuses to let Darren go with him. Debbie Hemlock and Police Chief Alice Burgess want to start an army to combat the Vampets, but have to get the approval of the Vampire Princes first, so they are only mentioned briefly. Darren later decides that he should go with Harkat, much to Harkat's dismay. Darren and Harkat then walk through the mysterious portal, and are thrown into a strange, gray world. Darren and Harkat are forced to complete many diffucult tasks. They first hunt down a black panther and collect a map inside it. Darren finds that the panther's teeth have been marked with letters. They start rearranging the teeth, with Harkat using up all the teeth to get SLAM DARK HUT, and then again to find it reads HARKAT MULDS. Harkat dismisses it as an utter waste of time, as Mr. Tiny loves to meddle with time. Harkat keeps the teeth, saying that they might be useful as they are sharp. Next they have to steal 'gelatinous globes' from the world's biggest toad. They arrive to see the toad standing in the middle of a lake surrounded by crocodiles. Darren and Harkat zip through the lake, grab a few globes, then run off. Darren and Harkat eventually meet up with Lady Evanna. Her appearance is completely unexpected, and she does not wish to tell the two how or why she is there. She helps them get across the lake where they meet a man who calls himself Spits Abrams. Spits is a former pirate and heavy drinker, and although Darren and Harkat do not trust him very much, they decide that Mr. Tiny put him in that world for a reason, and decide to take him with them. They soon reach a small area filled with 'people' called Kulashkas (since they are chanting "kulashka" more than any other word.) They are required to steal vials of 'holy liquid'. Darren and Harkat enter the village, Spits being afraid, to find the 'holy liquid' to be the venom from the fangs of a huge creature called the Grotesque. The Grotesque is apparently the Kulashkas' god. Darren and Harkat rush to two vials containing the venom and are attacked by the Grotesque. Harkat raises the vial as the Grotesque attempts to kill him, and the Grotesque backs off. The Kulashkas arrive, pointing spears at Darren and Harkat, trying to drive them back. They are driven closer to the Grotesque and Darren drives them back with his vial. The chief of the Kulashkas starts trying to speak to them in a non-understandable language, with Darren saying that he can't understand them. The chief starts gesturing that they are free to leave, but must return the vials to the altar which carried them. Darren starts to do so, but a drunken Spits arrives,and cuts the kulashkas with his knife as Darren throws one vial at the Grotesque, which explodes, hurting the Grotesque and those nearby it, revealing the liquid to be highly explosive. Harkat sees floorboards underneath them and starts stomping on them. Darren joins in, with Spits saying, "What in the devil's name are ye..." before crashing through the floorboards. They end up in a tunnel, following it until they reach a room. There is a fridge, which Spits asks about, as he did not have fridges in his time. There are also postcards, signed by Mr. Tiny. Harkat is bothered by the postcards, but does not explain why. They then leave the room, Spits taking a few extra bottles of whiskey. They soon reach the Lake. It is seen to be covered with dragons and Darren and Harkat figure out that they should make bombs, filling the 'gelatinous globes' with the Grotesque venom and throwing it at the dragons. They finally get up close to the Lake and Spits says that when Mr. Tiny brought him here, he told him that there was a spell on the Lake forbidding dragons to be closer than eight metres to the Lake unless a living person fell into the Lake. Then Spits quotes on how many people are in the Lake of Souls. He starts talking about how the crew on the Prince o' Pariah, the ship he used to serve, loved his meals, revealing that he is a cannibal. Spits says that he plans to stay by the Lake of Souls, feeding off the people who lived there. He is persistently told not to feed on the souls and is accidentally knocked away from the eight metre zone. A dragon soon breathes fire at him and he is seen burning, running around not able to see, and then falls into the lake, breaking the spell. While being ruthlessly attacked by a dragon, Harkat pulls up his former identity, revealed to be Kurda Smahlt. The world freezes and Mr. Tiny appears to congratulate him, explaining that Harkat was created to help protect Darren for Mr. Tiny's own reasons, Mr. Tiny selecting Kurda to become Harkat because he wanted someone who was Darren's friend while he was alive to give the resulting Little Person that extra edge. He also tells them, since Kurda and Harkat are of the same soul, only one could survive. It is decided that Harkat will remain alive, since Harkat would then possess the memories of both him and Kurda while Kurda remaining would remove Harkat's memories. Back at the Cirque du Freak, Harkat removes the panther's teeth and starts juggling the letters around, and just when he reaches HARKAT, he stops, apparently shocked, then rearranges it to find it reads KURDA SMAHLT. Darren then realizes that Harkat's name is an anagram and that the answer was in front of them all along, saying that if they spent more time on the teeth they might not have had to go through all the tasks. Harkat also takes out the postcards, pointing the time and date it was sent, noting that it was all dated twelve, twenty, thirty, and fifty years later. Harkat then reveals his theory: that the barren land they had visited was the future. It is also told by Lady Evanna that no matter who wins the War of the Scars, either Darren or Steve would become the Lord of the Shadows who is a ruthless ruler of the night. |
4178539 | /m/0bndt8 | Hawksong | Amelia Atwater-Rhodes | 2003-07 | {"/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/03npn": "Horror", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The book centers on two different kinds of shapeshifters: the avians and the serpiente. The avians have birds for second forms and their royal line consists of golden-eyed hawks. Their leader is the Tuuli Thea, or queen. The queen's pair bond is called her alistair. Avian culture is uptight and strict, and it centers on, "avian reserve," the ability to keep complete control of one's emotions at all times. Avians do not lose their temper and they do not cry, no matter what the situation. The serpiente have the second form of a snake. Their royal line is the Cobriana, cobra shapeshifters descended from Kiesha, and their king is called the Diente. Their queen is the Naga. Serpiente wear sensual oufits and are free with their emotions, even in situations where some control might be appropriate. They are passionate and sometimes violent, the complete opposite of the avians. The two groups have been at war beyond living memory, so that nobody even remembers how the fighting started. The reason behind the war starting is given in Falcondance. All they know is that they hate each other and they will keep fighting until one of them is destroyed. The book takes place in roughly 705 BCE and is the romantic story of Danica Shardae, the heir to the Tuuli Thea. The novel opens with Danica walking the latest bloody battlefield and her discovery of the fallen Gregory Cobriana, who is the younger brother of the current Arami (Prince, soon to be Diente/King), Zane Cobriana. Despite her guards’ warnings, Danica stays by Gregory’s side, holding him, and singing the Hawksong, a lullaby, until the young prince passes. After Zane learns what Danica did for his brother, he sends his sister to the avians: the serpiente want peace. After a trip to the wise tiger shapeshifters, the Mistari, Zane and Danica secretly agree to marry despite their families’ objections over the Mistari idea as well as their own hesitations. Danica has feelings for Andreios (Rei), her best friend, a crow and the leader of the Royal Flight and the highest commander in the avian army. Zane also has a relationship with the head of his palace guard, a white viper named Adelina. But over the course of the novel Zane and Danica grow fond of each other and eventually fall in love, but not before Adelina joins up with Karl, a member of the Royal Flight, to end the union between Zane and Danica. Adelina accidentally kills Zane’s mother and while attempting to assassinate Danica, who is critically wounded. However, she survives while Zane stays at her side. Their love continues from Zane's view, in Snakecharm. |
4179072 | /m/0bnflt | The Dragon Masters | Jack Vance | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Aerlith is a planet of rocks and wilderness orbiting a distant bright star known as Skene which appears as "an actinic point" in the daytime. The sky is described as being black rather than blue. The planet's rotation is slow, taking several days. It is so slow that dawn and dusk are accompanied by storms that follow the boundary between day and night around the planet. The night has an affect on the "Dragons" of the title, making them more vicious and unmanageable. This means that all movement of the armies must take place during daylight. Humans live in valleys where the soil is good. Occasionally they make war on each other across the hills, passes and fells between their valley homes. Their technology is limited to steel and gunpowder. They also use semi-precious stones for decoration. From time to time, often after many years, a spaceship appears and abducts as many humans as can be caught. The settlements are also bombarded, ensuring that humanity will not rise above its present technological level. During one such raid, a charismatic leader named Kergan Banbeck captures a group of the alien raiders, who are accompanied by their human servants. Without their masters, the humans go mad and destroy the ship. The aliens, many-limbed lizard-like creatures known as "grephs", become prisoners of the humans they came to kidnap. Many years later, Kergan's descendant, Joaz Banbeck, is troubled by two things. He believes the grephs will return soon, and his neighbor, Ervis Carcolo of the ironically named Happy Valley, is forever plotting against him. The captive grephs have been bred over the years into fighting creatures known as dragons, ranging from the man-sized "Termagant" to the gigantic "Jugger". As each new variety has been bred over the years, the fortunes of war have shifted between the Banbecks and the Carcolos. Now there is an uneasy peace. There is a third group of humans, the "Sacerdotes", mysterious ascetics who walk naked in all weathers. They are characterized by very long hair, pale complexions, and the golden torc each wears around the neck. Only males are seen. They trade for what they need and seem to possess advanced technologies. They believe that they are beyond human, calling the rest of humankind "Utter Men", who will eventually disappear and leave the universe to them. Joaz Banbeck tries without success to convince Ervis Carcolo and the Sacerdotes of the need to prepare for the next visit by the grephs. Ervis Carcolo, far from cooperating, attacks Banbeck Vale, only to have his army routed by Joaz's ingenious tactics. Joaz is able to confine a Sacerdote and ask him questions, only to have the man apparently die. Taking his torc and making a wig from the man's hair, Joaz attempts to examine the Sacerdotes' cave home. They are definitely working on something big. Returning home, he is confronted by the Sacerdote he had thought dead, who demands the return of his torc and walks silently away. Subsequently, Joaz has a dream in which he talks to the sacerdote leader and tries to convince him to help. The leader, known as the Demie, refuses, claiming that to involve himself in the affairs of Utter Men is to destroy the detachment necessary to their lifestyle. Joaz suspects they are building a spaceship. Ervis Carcolo attacks again. Once again, Joaz defeats him, but at that moment, the grephs reappear. Happy Valley is destroyed and Banbeck Vale is obviously next. Besides the power of the ship itself, the grephs have humans whom they have bred, just as the men of Aerlith have bred their dragons. The "Heavy Trooper" is physically equal to the Termagant, and a "Giant" matches the monstrous Jugger. Some of the humans have been bred to track people by smell, and still others are used like horses, like their dragon counterparts, the Spiders. The grephs attack, tentatively at first. Their troops are astonished by the dragons who so resemble their masters. The fighting is bloody and Joaz moves his people into caves and tunnels for safety. The grephs decide simply to bombard the Vale since they cannot take the people. Joaz has anticipated this, and lures them to a spot where he believes the sacerdotes' workshops are located. Carcolo, almost with his last remaining energy and backed by his now demoralized troops, assaults the ship from an unguarded quarter. Joaz coincidentally decides on a similar tactic, and is amazed to find Carcolo already inside. Together they free many people, but cannot gain control of the ship. The destruction of the Vale seems inevitable, until Joaz's scheme pays off. The Sacerdote cavern is blown open, and the Sacerdotes are forced to use the engine of their spaceship to project a beam of energy at the alien ship, disabling it. Joaz and his troops complete the rout and capture the ship. However, the Sacerdote ship is destroyed. The Demie is driven out of his detachment by what Joaz has forced him to do. He upbraids Joaz for causing the destruction of the work of centuries just to save himself. Joaz refuses to apologize, and when Carcolo, now a prisoner, absurdly continues to assert his claim to the ship, Joaz has him executed. At the end, Joaz surveys the ruins of his home. He picks up a small round object, a semi-precious stone carved to be a globe of Eden or Tempe or even Earth, the mythical home of humans. He plans to find the other worlds where humans live, if he can repair the alien ship. For now, he must rebuild the homes of his people. He tosses the globe back on the rockpile and walks away. |
4181780 | /m/0bnmbx | Downbelow Station | C. J. Cherryh | 1981 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/01smf2": "Military science fiction"} | Space is explored not by short-sighted governments, but by the Earth Company, a private corporation which becomes enormously wealthy and powerful as a result. Nine star systems are found to lack planets suitable for colonization, so space stations are built in orbit instead, stepping-stones for further exploration. Then, Pell's World is found to be not only habitable, but already populated by the gentle, sentient (if technologically backward) Hisa. Pell Station is built. The planet is nicknamed "Downbelow" by the stationers, who also start to call their home "Downbelow Station". When Earth's out-of-touch policies cause it to begin losing control of its more distant stations and worlds, it builds a fleet of fifty military carriers, the Earth Company Fleet, to enforce its will. This leads to the prolonged Company War with the breakaway Union, based at Cyteen, another hospitable world. Caught in between are the stationers and the merchanters who man the freighters that maintain interstellar trade. Set in the final days of the war, Downbelow Station opens with Earth Company Captain Signy Mallory and her warship, Norway, escorting a ragtag fleet fleeing from Russell's and Mariner Stations to Pell. Similar convoys arrive from other stations destroyed or lost to Union, leading to an enormous crisis. The flood of unexpected refugees strains station resources. Angelo Konstantin, Stationmaster of Pell, and his two sons, Damon and Emilio, struggle to cope with the situation. Fearing Union infiltrators and saboteurs, Pell dumps all the refugees in a Quarantine Zone, causing massive dislocations of Pell's own citizens. While conferring with Pell's administrators, Mallory encounters a delegation from the Earth Company, led by Segust Ayres, Second Secretary of Earth's Security Council. Offended by her brusque, arrogant manner, Ayres declines her offer of transportation to the front and charters a freighter instead. Unbeknownst to Mallory, Ayres' mission is to open peace negotiations with Union. Mallory also drops off a Union prisoner of war, Josh Talley, whom she had rescued from a brutal interrogation by panicked security forces at Russell's. However, on the voyage to Pell, her sexual exploitation of him had been only marginally less abusive. Faced with indefinite confinement on Pell, Talley requests Adjustment, the wiping of much of his memory, in return for his freedom. When questioned by Damon Konstantin, he requests Adjustment to escape the indefinite imprisonment, so Konstantin reluctantly gives his permission. Upon later review of his file, Damon learns that Talley had already undergone the treatment once before at Russell's, Still feeling guilty for agreeing, he and his wife Elene Quen befriend the post-Adjustment Talley, an act of kindness that will have monumental, unforeseen consequences. Jon Lukas, Angelo Konstantin's brother-in-law and only rival for power, is worried about the course of the war. The Fleet has received little or no support from an indifferent Earth and is gradually losing a war of attrition. He secretly contacts Union, offering to hand Pell over. Union responds by smuggling in a secret agent named Jessad. Meanwhile, the last ten surviving Fleet ships gather for the most critical operation of the war. All of Mazian's recent strategic maneuvers and raids have been leading up to this point. If they can take out Viking Station in one coordinated strike before their enemy's growing numerical superiority can overwhelm them, there would be a wide, barren region between Earth and Union space, one which would make further conflict vastly more costly for Union. Seb Azov, the Union military commander, has no choice but to gather his forces at Viking to await Mazian's anticipated attack. However, he has an ace up his sleeve. He has pressured Ayres into recording a message ordering Mazian to break off while peace is being negotiated. When Mazian strikes, Ayres' broadcasted order does indeed force him to abort and the Fleet retreats to Pell in confusion. Mazian meets with his captains and gives them the choice of accepting a peace treaty that essentially concedes victory to Union or rebelling against Earth and continuing to fight. They all remain loyal to their leader. One of Mazian's first acts is to place Pell under martial law. The Fleet is now forced to defend Downbelow Station, its only reliable base and supply source. Union forces attack and destroy two ships out on patrol. While Union suffers casualties as well, it can replace its losses, unlike Mazian. Counting one carrier lost earlier in the debacle at Viking, he has just seven ships left. Under cover of the panic on the station caused by the battle in space, Lukas makes his move, killing and supplanting his hated rival, Angelo Konstantin. To escape rioting refugees, Elene Quen is forced to board Finity's End, one of the most respected merchanter ships. The freighters flee the battle zone, but Quen convinces most of them to band together, for safety and to maximize their leverage whatever happens. Damon survives his uncle's assassination attempt and links up with Talley. Together, they manage to hide from Lukas; in fact, Talley discovers he is surprisingly good at it. Eventually, they are contacted by Jessad, and Talley finds out why. He and Jessad are the same kind: azi, artificially bred and, in Jessad and Talley's case, trained especially for espionage and sabotage. They are discovered by Fleet marines; Jessad is killed, while Konstantin and Talley are captured and taken to Mallory. She receives orders from Mazian to quietly dispose of Konstantin. Lukas does the Fleet's bidding with far less scruples, so Konstantin is superfluous, even dangerous. Mazian is preparing to disable and abandon Downbelow Station. He has another goal in mind: to take over Earth itself in a surprise coup d'etat. The wrecking of Pell would create a firebreak with Union, playing the role he had originally intended for Viking. Mallory has different ideas. Mazian has gone too far for her to stomach. She abruptly undocks from Pell and deserts. Mallory finds the Union forces and persuades Azov to unleash them against her former comrades. Talley is instrumental in convincing Azov of Mallory's truthfulness. Mazian can't afford a costly fight, so the Fleet sets off for Earth prematurely. Azov needs to pursue him, but is unwilling to leave Norway intact behind him. The tense standoff is broken by a timely arrival; Quen returns with the united merchanter fleet and claims Pell for the newborn Merchanter's Alliance, with Norway as its militia. Without the authority to deal with this new development and unwilling to fight the merchanters, Azov leaves to deal with Mazian. The end of the Company War is at last in sight, much to the relief of the Konstantins, the merchanters and the residents of Downbelow Station. |
4183147 | /m/0bnprq | Last Human | Doug Naylor | 1995 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | Six million years after the first human is born on the plains of Africa, Dave Lister - the last surviving human in the universe - wakes in a transport ship taking him to prison colony Cyberia, the worst place in the universe, having been found guilty of serious crimes against the GELF state and sentenced to the worst imprisonment imaginable, having been hindered by his inability to comprehend the over-complicated legal system of the GELF - and his choice of clothing, including a tie depicting a naked woman in birthing stirrups. After his welcome by the foul and grotesque Snugiraffe, the prison commandant, he is implanted and introduced into the cyber network of Cyberia where he will be forced to live out his life in a hellish dream world of his own creation. Naturally he spends a great deal of time considering where it all went wrong... Dave Lister awakes out of Deep Sleep on the transport ship Starbug, disoriented and confused. The mechanoid Kryten welcomes him back; he has been in stasis for twenty years and, not unnaturally, is suffering a spot of amnesia. He meets the rest of the crew, Kristine Kochanski, the Cat, and Rimmer. Kochanski is so happy to see him that she takes him straight to her quarters to make love. Despite still having no memory of her, Lister is caught up in the moment and happily obliges. Rimmer, meanwhile, has been able to procure a solidgram body from a derelict ship for himself allowing him to touch, eat and be three-dimensional again. Rimmer enjoys the new feelings, and spends hours looking at his restored body in a mirror. On their way through the 'Omni-Zone' - the pathway between the seven parallel realities - back to their home ship Red Dwarf, the crew are surprised to come across a derelict space craft that is the exact duplicate of Starbug. Searching the ship, the crew find the duplicate Cat's disembodied head, Kryten's murdered body with his hand missing and Rimmer's destroyed light bee. They then find the duplicate Kochanski who has been viciously attacked and is barely alive. She makes Lister promise to find his duplicate self before she succumbs to her terrible injuries. The crew soon find themselves on a GELF populated planet where the duplicate Lister was likely to have headed. Arriving, the crew find that the GELF tribe are sterile and sperm is a highly valued commodity. Of course, Lister and Cat have a 'secret store' and the crew start trading for much needed supplies. Meanwhile, Kryten finds himself in the middle of a huge protest asking the magistrate what happened to the duplicate Lister after learning he was arrested here. The magistrate explains that the duplicate Lister destroyed property and murdered several people including the magistrate. Kryten is confused, as the magistrate is clearly not dead only to learn that mystics predict crimes and the persons involved are arrested before they happen. Kryten suddenly understands what the protest is about and tells the others. Now knowing the duplicate Lister has committed no crime, Lister resolves to find him. The crew are sent to another GELF tribe, the Kinatawowi, to get equipment they need in order to break the duplicate Lister out of Cyberia. Unfortunately, the Kinatawowi aren't sterile which causes offence when Lister and Cat offer their sperm as payment. Eventually, a deal is made; the crew will get a bunch of ramshackle droids and a virus that destroys electricity in return for Lister marrying the chief's daughter. Unfortunately, the bride wants to consummate the union immediately and the crew quickly make a run for it while the GELF promise revenge. On Cyberia, the attempt to break the duplicate Lister out begins. Although it is mostly successful, the virus causes the prison's artificial gravity to fail. Lister is caught in the floating lake water and drowns, only to be revived by his duplicate self. The two begin their escape from the prison's forces however something doesn't sit right with Lister. His duplicate, after retrieving his belongings, enjoys the fight to an alarming degree and when the two make their getaway in a vehicle the duplicate turns around when he learns that they will outrun them in order to get in some more killing making Lister realise the whole venture has been misguided. Later, as the two Listers sit around a campfire, the duplicate pulls out the hand of the duplicate Kryten holding a piece of paper from his belongings. Lister realises with horror that the duplicate Lister killed the rest of his crew and manages to knock him out and bind him with rope. However, as Starbug approaches the evil Lister throws himself into the campfire to escape his bonds and attacks. Soon, Starbug has left with the wrong Lister while the other is left buried on the planet. An Earth long ago, in a universe far away. The Earth World President, John Milhous Nixon has learned that thermonuclear tests conducted too close to the surface of the sun have fatally weakened the star's structure, thus causing an eventual decay that will see the entire solar system die in four hundred thousand years - which will be very bad for the economy, and Nixon's re-election prospects. The only hope is to move the human race to another world in another galaxy; and to that end, a genome has been created that will rewrite DNA and thus turn an inhospitable, barren world into a world where the human race can live. A mission has been organised by Dr. Michael Longman (and his clones, Dr. Longman and Dr. Longman), including numerous GELFs to assist in the process and Michael McGruder, a heroic star soldier who has accepted this mission in the hopes that he may be able to find and contact his father, the long-lost hero of an ill-fated mining ship, revived to be that ship's hologram... Arnold J. Rimmer. The real Lister, having been rescued from his makeshift grave, is trapped in Cyberia charged with orchestrating the break-out (it is made clear that it was in fact he, and not the alternate Lister, who was the subject of the "Cyberia" section and the flash-forward in "Time Fork"). Having survived his alternate self's assault and attempted murder, he is now trapped in a soul-destroying hell of his own creation, where all the places and people remind him not only of the worst places in his life, but of everything he's lost, stolen by his alternative self - his girlfriend, his ship, his life. After five months of this hell, trapped in a grungy dystopian city surrounded by prostitutes that look like Kochanski, soul-sapping advertisements about his parentless upbringing, endless showings of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang at the cinema and - perhaps worst of all - encyclopedia salesmen, he is brought out of Cyberia and given an offer; to be part of an experimental terraforming and recolonisation program. The inmates bodies will be used to terraform an inhospitable planet into a comfortable environment. All of the inmates on Cyberia are innocent, as only people without any malice or rage are able to be used for this hence people being wrongly arrested on the GELF colony (not knowing that the alternate Lister was actually guilty of murder when he was incarcerated there as they were charging him on smuggling cases where they knew he was innocent). Unable to stand being imprisoned in his personal hell, Lister agrees. Meanwhile, the crew of Starbug have found that the piece of paper in the duplicate Kryten's hand contained coordinates to a ship where important scientific research has been conducted. As it is a long trip to the ship, the Mayflower, the crew are placed into stasis for the journey. Kryten awakes early, in order to prepare the crew, and notices several disconcerting differences in Lister’s medical records. They’ve got the wrong Lister. And to make matters worse, in his checking of the alternate Starbug's crew records, a cursory examination of the alternative Lister’s file reveals that, following a traumatic and abusive upbringing at the hands of his manic-depressive foster mother (as opposed to the kinder, but poorer, foster parents of the proper Lister) had developed into a ruthless, sociopathic criminal. Before he can digest the alarming news, Kryten is startled by the evil Lister who has also awoken early. Just as he attempts to take out Kryten, a GELF ship sent by Lister's bride attacks. Boarding, the GELF demand what is theirs and the evil Lister tells Kryten to just give them what they want, something which Kryten is more than happy to do. The evil Lister realises too late that this means him, and he is dragged out of the airlock. As Kryten muses on this lucky turn of events he realises that Starbug is on fire. The rest of the crew wake just as Starbug plunges into the lava bed of the planet they were heading for. Before Starbug can burn up, it then ends up in an ocean created by the Mayflower. With Starbug damaged, the crew board the Mayflower and find several hundred vials of diverse viruses including positive ones that bestow luck on the infected for a time. Kochanski, after infecting herself for a short while, manages to find more luck virus as well as other vials that will come in handy. Kryten, meanwhile, finds a DNA machine and turns himself human. As part of his agreement in volunteering for the terraforming program, Lister is granted the use of a symbi-morph named Reketrebn to fulfil his desires with her shapeshifting and telepathic abilities. Reketrebn is defective, however, and intends to save herself for her boyfriend. Lister isn't interested in using her for romantic purposes and asks her to turn into Kryten so he can get information out of him before having her turn into him so she can feel the pain he feels from losing Kochanski to his evil self. After this, Reketrebn agrees to help Lister. On the planet, Lister meets Michael McGruder who was kept in deep sleep aboard the Mayflower. McGruder tells Lister that he wants to meet his hero, Rimmer, who is also his father. Thinking he will never see Rimmer again, Lister doesn't correct him. He then learns of a powerful force known as 'The Rage' created by the feelings of fury from the wrongly convicted inmates. To prevent it from killing everyone, the inmates form a circle and The Rage will move between them before choosing one person to inhabit for a few seconds, killing them. Lister joins the circle, and for the time he is consumed with The Rage all his dark feelings are brought to the fore and Lister begs it to consume him. However, it chooses another and kills him before leaving. Kryten initially revels in his humanity, but quickly grows disenchanted with the experience and decides to turn back. Doing so is easier said than done as Longman, having used the DNA machine too many times leaving him barely human, has stolen the mechanoid data. Thanks to the luck virus, Kochanski defeats Longman and Kryten is restored to his regular form. The crew then use the luck virus to find the coordinates of the planet where Lister is and head there. Reaching the planet, Lister is reunited with the rest of the crew and McGruder finally meets his father but is devastated when told he is hardly a hero but a maintenance technician. Starbug loses power once it lands, and the planet will soon be passing through the Omni-Zone into another universe where it will be allowed to thrive. Rimmer walks through a cave when he finds Michael being attacked by the evil Lister. His confusion about how the evil Lister made it there despite being removed by the Kinatowowi is put on hold, when suddenly the radiation gun the evil Lister possesses drops close to him. However Rimmer can't pluck up the courage to grab it, and the evil Lister throws imprisons him in the hold aboard Starbug with Kryten, who found the dead bodies of the four Kinatowowi who boarded earlier (the evil Lister had never left the ship, having killed his escorts before going into hiding to heal from the wounds they inflicted on him). The evil Lister emerges from the ship and locates the rest of the crew demanding the solar-powered escape pod to allow him to leave the planet. As well as this, he shoots Lister in the genitals with the radiation gun rendering him sterile. Meanwhile, The Rage is approaching again. Aboard Starbug, Kryten comes up with a plan to escape the ship using Rimmer's light bee. Although Rimmer is hesitant due to the chance the bee could be destroyed, he talks himself round and agrees to take the risk. The gambit works, and the two escape the ship. The Rage is near, however the crew come up with a plan to kill The Rage by infecting it with the same virus that was used to break into Cyberia. Kryten plans to infect it by throwing himself into The Rage, despite the fact that he won't come back. However the evil Lister attacks again, but Rimmer bravely comes forward to defend his shipmates wearing a jet-pack. McGruder is proud to see his father acting with courage, and Rimmer starts to enjoy himself feeling his neuroses slipping away. Unfortunately, this comes to a premature end when the evil Lister shoots Rimmer's light bee causing Rimmer to deactivate and the heavily damaged bee falls to the ground. The Rage is nearly upon everyone, and there's no time left to infect it with the virus. Everyone forms the circle required to prevent The Rage from killing everyone, however Lister warns that one of them will still die. The evil Lister doesn't intend for it to be him, and infects himself with the luck virus. The Rage hits, and everyone begs for it to possess them. However, thanks to the positive virus, the evil Lister is the one who is 'lucky' enough to get his wish to have The Rage consume him. He takes on the full force of the entity, which finally kills him leaving only his bones behind. Even though The Rage has passed, it must still be destroyed before the planet passes through the Omni-Zone. Suddenly Rimmer's light bee, hovering using the last of its power, uses morse code to communicate with the crew and offer to take the virus and infect The Rage with it. After saying a final goodbye to his son, who now knows that while Rimmer may not have been the hero he was raised to believe in he is still a man to be proud of, the light bee flies into The Rage and infects it with the virus stopping its destruction and allowing the souls of the inmates who created it to rest in peace. The planet starts to pass through the Omni-Zone, and the remaining crew take shelter in the caves for three weeks as the planet is pounded by storms. Emerging, everyone finds a pleasant, hospitable world growing, waiting for them. As Kryten, Cat, McGruder and Reketrebn leave to search for Rimmer's light bee in order to give him a funeral, Lister and Kochanski stare over the world. Lister sadly comments that this would be the ideal place to raise a family and help to restart the human race – a dream now impossible thanks to his alternate self. Kochanski tells him that all hope shouldn't be lost, as he could still father children if he's very lucky... and Kochanski still has some of the luck virus. Taking it, Lister and Kochanski head into the grass and get to work. |
4183785 | /m/0bnqym | Yoda: Dark Rendezvous | Sean Stewart | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | The Clone Wars have raged across the galaxy for almost two years, when the Grand Master of the Jedi Order, Yoda, receives a message from Separatist leader Count Dooku. In the message, Dooku concedes to Yoda that things have gotten far out of hand; What began as a political play to keep the Senate honest had turned into a bloodbath, and the time for a truce has come. Dooku invites Yoda to meet him on the planet Vjun, where they would organize the cease-fire. After conferring with his fellow Jedi Masters from the Council, principally Mace Windu, Yoda judges that even if the meeting at Vjun were a feint, the chance to end the war far outweighs the perils of a trap. Yoda decides to send a decoy impersonating himself to a different planet, while he secretly slips off to Vjun. He contracts a famous actor and Yoda impersonator, Palleus Chuff, to pull off the bluff. Disguised as Yoda, Chuff leaves on a very public mission to Ithor. When Chuff's fighter is captured by Dooku's minion Asajj Ventress, who is unaware of the switch, the apparent loss of Yoda comes as a sad blow to the morale of the Republic. Jedi Masters Jai Maruk and Maks Leem journey towards Vjun, accompanied by their Padawans, the under-achieving Tallisibeth Enwandung-Esterhazy (or "Scout") and Whie. They make their way slowly, travelling under the false identities of a refugee family, with Yoda disguised as their faithful R2 unit. During one Spaceport layover, Ventress (accompanied by the bumbling but brave Chuff) catches the quintet, and unleashes a dangerous new type of battle droid. While the other Jedi fight the droids and Ventress, Yoda seeks to rescue Chuff. Unfortunately, both Jai Maruk and Maks Leem fall to the terrible droids and Ventress' lightsaber. Yoda, however, diverts Ventress' attention before she gets a chance to kill the young Padawans, and the three Jedi (with Chuff in tow) escape. Meanwhile on Vjun, Count Dooku awaits Yoda in the Château Malreaux, the manor of the long since waned aristocratic clan Malreaux. As the group of Jedi land on Vjun they are forced to separate: Yoda goes to meet with Dooku, and the Padawans follow mysterious disruptions in the Force felt by Whie. Soon, Ventress captures the Padawans. She reveals to Whie that the Château is in fact his house, and the insane house-woman was his mother, Lady "Whirry" Malreaux. Meanwhile, Yoda meets with Dooku, and discovers that Dooku's summons is indeed a feint. The two masters engage in a tense debate about the ways of the Force, and reminiscence about Dooku's childhood in the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. In the end, Yoda encourages his former apprentice to leave the dark side and Darth Sidious forever. Dooku, hands shaking, is on the verge of answering when an assistant informs him of Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi's arrival in the mansion, dispatched there by the Jedi Council, on behalf of Palpatine. Convinced that the legendary duo are replacements for him, Dooku is overcome by jealousy and throws his assistant out the window. Yoda is forced to save Whirry from falling to her death, and then parry Dooku's follow-up lightsaber attack. Even though Dooku wounds him, Yoda, unfazed, does not yield to the dark side. Yoda recovers, and a short lightsaber battle ensues. Before leaping from the window to escape, Dooku tells Yoda of a missile approaching from space, aimed at the house, and everyone in it. Yoda stops the missile, inevitably allowing Dooku and Ventress time to escape. |
4183807 | /m/0bnq_2 | The Book of Ebenezer Le Page | Gerald Basil Edwards | 3/16/1981 | {"/m/012jgz": "Autobiographical novel"} | Ebenezer was born in the late nineteenth century, and dies in the early 1960s. He lived his whole life in the Vale. He never married, despite a few flings with local girls, and a tempestuous relationship with Liza Queripel of Pleinmont. He only left the island once, to travel to Jersey to watch the Muratti. For most of his life he was a grower and fisherman, although he also served in the North regiment of the Royal Guernsey Militia (though not outside the island) and did some jobbing work for the States of Guernsey in the latter part of his life. Guernsey is a microcosm of the world as Dublin is to James Joyce and Dorset is to Hardy. After a life fraught with difficulties and full of moving episodes, Ebenezer dies happy, bequeathing his pot of gold and autobiography (The Book of Ebenezer Le Page) to the young artist he befriends, after an incident in which the latter smashed his greenhouse. |
4184734 | /m/0bnssw | All Things Betray Thee | Gwyn Thomas | 1949 | null | Set in the new town of Moonlea, a fictionalised version of Merthyr Tydfil, it is told from the viewpoint of a travelling harpist, Alan Hugh Leigh, who is looking for his friend, the singer John Simon Adams. But his friend has become a populist leader among the ironworkers, who are involved in a bitter industrial conflict. The novel may be read as an allegorical treatment of the 1831 Merthyr Rising. |
4185938 | /m/0bnvs0 | The Country and the City | Raymond Williams | 1973 | null | In The Country and the City, Raymond Williams analyzes images of the country and the city in English literature since the 16th century, and how these images become central symbols for conceptualizing the social and economic changes associated with capitalist development in England. Williams debunks the notion of rural life as simple, natural, and unadulterated, leaving an image of the country as a Golden age. This is, according to Williams, “a myth functioning as a memory” that dissimulates class conflict, enmity, and animosity present in the country since the 16th century. Williams shows how this imagery is embedded in the writings of English poets, novelists and essayists. These writers have not just reproduced the rural-urban divide, but their works have also served to justify the existing social order. The city, on the other hand, is depicted in English novels as a symbol of capitalist production, labor, domicile, and exploitation, where it is seen as the “dark mirror” of the country. The country represented Eden while the city became the hub of modernity, a quintessential place of loneliness and loss of romanticism. In the novels of Hardy and Dickens, there seems to be a feeling of loss, and at the same time a sense of harmony among the lonely and isolated souls. For Williams, “the contrast of the country and city is one of the major forms in which we become conscious of a central part of our experience and of the crises of our society” (p. 289). What kinds of experience do the ideas appear to interpret, and why do certain forms occur or recur at this period or at that? To answer these questions, Williams argues that “we need to trace, historically and critically, the various forms of the ideas” (p. 290). It is this historical perspective that makes Williams's work essentially important for it rejects a simple, dualistic explanation of the city as evil in search of peace and harmony in the countryside. Instead, Williams sees the country as inextricably related to the city. In search of the historical, lived form, Williams distinguishes two of his best-known categories: “knowable communities” and the “structure of feeling.” Over the centuries, Williams describes the prevailing structure of feeling—traces of the lived experience of a community distinct from the institutional and ideological organization of the society—in the works of poets and novelists. In the same vein, Williams sees most novels as “knowable communities” in the sense that the “novelist offers to show people and their relationships in essentially knowable and communicable ways” (p. 163). In sum, Williams notably said: “It was always a limited inquiry: the country and the city within a single tradition. But it has brought me to the point where I can offer its meanings, its implications and its connections to others: for discussion and amendment; for many kinds of possible cooperative work; but above all for an emphasis—the sense of an experience and of ways of changing it—in the many countries and cities where we live” (p. 306). |
4186834 | /m/0bnxd7 | Black Blade | Eric Van Lustbader | 1992-07 | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller"} | In New York City, a series of murders begin. In Washington, a plot conceived at the highest levels of American government is at work to bring the nation of Japan to its knees. In Tokyo, a power struggle is nearing its final stages for control of the Black Blade Society, an ostensibly political cabal whose motives may encompass far more than politicis. |
4187921 | /m/0bnz6w | A Political Romance | Laurence Sterne | null | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/01qxvh": "Romance novel"} | This, though necessary, is not sufficient to account for the multifariousness of the work. The scheme of the allegorical satire not only overlaps with the narrative scheme of the romance or history, but with the epistolary novel as well, the parody of which is but the first external frame inside which many other genres are parodied. The story of the squabble is just half the work. The other half is a "subjoined" key to the allegory and two other letters. And "subjoining" a key, which is in the end no key at all, represents, literary speaking, a "scandal" as shameful as the topical misdeeds that are told. Inexorably, the focus of the scandal shifts from the allegorical history of facts to the allegorical romance of their reading. |
4189699 | /m/0bp0m1 | The Legend of Huma | Richard A. Knaak | 1988 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | The book narrates the adventures of Huma Dragonbane, a Knight of the Crown, his meeting with Kaz the Minotaur, the discovering of the dragonlances, and the defeat of Takhisis during the Third Dragon Wars. Huma and the rest of his unit patrol through a desolate village. Huma's commander, Rennard, orders the investigation of the nearby woods due to a rumor of goblin activity. During the ensuing confrontation Huma is separated from his unit. While searching for his comrades he comes across goblins tormenting a captive, the minotaur Kaz. Kaz and a weary Huma set off to rejoin the knights. A patrol attacks them, thinking Kaz the enemy. A silver dragon attacks them, but Huma convinces her to spare the minotaur. Huma and Kaz are reunited with Rennard and the company sets off for their headquarters. They encounter a battle between the forces of Paladine and the forces of Takhsis. Huma is struck in the battle and loses consciousness. He awakens in an infirmary being tended by a woman who introduces herself as Gwyneth. Huma is appointed captain of the watch, and encounters his old friend, Magius, a powerful magic user. Magius tells Huma to trust him, but has to leave while Huma returns to the knights' encampment. The knights are engulfed in a battle with the forces of Takhisis and Huma and Kaz are thrown into a magical darkness. Magius leads Huma and Kaz through the battle to his Citadel, but later prevents them from leaving. Magius tells Huma that he is a renegade mage that took the test in the Tower of High Sorcery. The Citadel is discovered by Galan Dracos and comes under attack by the forces of Takhisis. Magius tells Huma that a mountain represented by a tapestry in the Citadel is important and that Huma should journey into Ergoth toward this mountain. Huma and Kaz flee the Citadel. Huma and Kaz are separated. Huma fights off dreadwolves and warriors and becomes lost in the forests of Ergoth. He is helped by an Ergothian commander who brings him to the Ergothian camp. The Ergothians tell Huma that the lands around Ergoth have been ravaged by the plague. While the camp is traveling Huma comes upon a ruins of a town and is captured by servants of Morgion. The Ergothians rescue Huma who then encounters Magius, and the two escape into the night. Magius and Huma come across the knight Bouron who is attached to an outpost of the Knights of Solamnia. Bouron and his commander Taggin welcome Huma. Taggin captures Kaz and puts him on trial. Taggin releases Kaz to Huma and allows Huma to continue on his journey to the mountains accompanied by a retinue of knights. Magius, Kaz and Huma traverse the paths in the mountains and Huma is separated from the others. Huma is led to a temple built into the side of the mountain and encounters Gwyeneth. Gwyeneth tells Huma that he will face challenges before he can claim the prize that he has come for. Huma enters the mountain and faces Wyrmfather, an ancient, serpentine dragon. Huma hides in Wyrmfather's treasure room, discovering an evil magical sword called the Sword of Tears. Huma kills Wyrmfather with the Sword of Tears and is teleported through a magical mirror in the treasure room to Solomnia. Huma returns to Vingaard Keep to find that the head of the knights, Grand Master Trake, has died. Huma is to attend a meeting that will determine whether Bennett, Trake's nephew or Lord Oswald, the High Warrior and Huma's mentor, will become the next Grand Master. During the meeting Rennard tells everyone that Oswald has become mysteriously ill. At night Huma discovers the guards near Lord Oswald have been put into a magical sleep, then encounters Rennard dressed as a servant of Morgion, trying to poison Lord Oswald. Huma and Rennard fight, but Rennard escapes. Lord Oswald thanks Huma for his help and sends him back to the mountains of Ergoth. Huma encounters Rennard inciting villagers to violence. The two fight until Rennard is mortally wounded. Huma is then teleported back to Wyrmfather's treasure room. Huma finds the Sword of Tears, lying among the treasure. He takes it with him and looks for an exit from the mountain. Huma encounters Gilean, a grey clad mystic, who tells him to leave the sword behind. Huma struggles for control as the sword tries to control his mind, eventually prevailing, discarding the sword. Huma is granted access to the workshop of Duncan Ironweaver. Duncan tells Huma that he is the creator of the Dragonlance and allows him to pass into a room where Huma has a vision of the knightly, benevolent god Paladine, on a platinum dragon. Paladine hands huma the Dragonlance. Huma exits the chamber and finds Gwyeneth, who tells him that Kaz and Magius are nearby. Huma finds Kaz and Magius and with the help of a silver dragon that Gwyeneth sent for, they are able to prepare the lances for transport to Vingaard Keep. En route to Vingaard the group is attacked by Crynus and Char. Huma and the silver dragon kill Char and Crynus is defeated with the help of Kaz and the silver dragon. Warriors of Takhisis attempt to steal the lances, but are prevented from doing so by Kaz. Magius is captured and taken back to Galan Dracos. Huma rejoins the knights to find that there are many Dragonlances already there. He finds Duncan Ironweaver, who tells him he had many. Many good dragons show up and are fitted with the new lances, and go into battle against the evil dragons of Takhisis. |
4193788 | /m/0bp7r5 | Making Money | Terry Pratchett | 2007 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Moist von Lipwig is bored with his job as the Postmaster General of the Ankh-Morpork Post Office, which is running smoothly without any challenges, so the Patrician tries to persuade him to take over the Royal Bank of Ankh-Morpork and the Royal Mint. Moist, content with his new lifestyle, refuses. However, when the current chairwoman, Topsy Lavish, dies, she leaves 50% of the shares in the bank to her dog, Mr Fusspot (who already owns one share of the bank, giving him a majority and making him chairman), and she leaves the dog to Moist. She also made sure that the Assassins' Guild would fulfill a contract on Moist if anything unnatural happens to the dog or he does not do as her last will commands. With no alternatives, Moist takes over the bank and finds out that people do not trust banks much, that the production of money runs slowly and at a loss, and that people now use stamps as currency rather than coins. His various ambitious changes include making money that is not backed by gold but by the city itself. Unfortunately, neither the chief cashier (Mr. Bent, who is rumoured to be a vampire but is actually something much worse) nor the Lavish family are too happy with him and try to dispose of him. Cosmo Lavish tries to go one step further — he attempts to replace Vetinari by taking on his identity — with little success. However all the while, the reappearance of a character from von Lipwig's past adds more pressure to his unfortunate scenario. Moist's fiancée, Adora Belle Dearheart, is working with the Golem Trust in the meantime to uncover golems from the ancient civilization of Um. She succeeds in bringing them to the city, and to everyone's surprise the "four golden golems" turn out to be "four thousand golems" (due to a translation error) and so the city is at risk of being at war with other cities who might find an army of 4000 golems threatening. Moist discovers the secret to controlling the golems, and manages to order them to bury themselves outside the city (except for a few to power clacks towers and golem horses for the mail coaches) and then decides that these extremely valuable golems are a much better foundation for the new currency than gold and thus introduces the golem-based currency. Eventually, an anonymous clacks message goes out to the leaders of other cities that contains the secret to controlling the golems (the wearing of a golden suit), thus making them unsuitable for use in warfare (as anyone could wear a shiny robe). At the end of the novel, Lord Vetinari considers the advancing age of the current Chief Tax Collector, and suggests that upon his retirement a new name to take on the vacancy might present itself. |
4195095 | /m/0bp9v0 | The Kindness of Women | J. G. Ballard | 1991 | {"/m/012jgz": "Autobiographical novel", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The Kindness of Women is semi-autobiographical, and discusses Jim's departure from China, where he had been born and had been interned, to visit England, other parts of Europe and the USA. Jim is obsessed with two themes throughout the book: sex, and death. Sexual encounters (and there are a lot) are described in the most clinical, cold terms. The act of sex becomes a dispassionate observation of the male and female genitalia. Too often Jim is unaroused, and has to be "worked on" by his female partner. It is as unsettling to read as the dissection of his female cadaver at Medical school. Death haunts the pages of this book. When Jim leaves the Japanese camp at the end of the war, he is 15 years old and alone. He witnesses a murder of a Chinese clerk at a railway station, a slow, casual murder, committed by a Japanese soldier in the immediate aftermath of the Atomic bomb. Jim cannot intervene; he knows he, too, could be killed in just as casual a manner. As he walks away towards Shanghai, Jim's life has changed forever. Jim tries and fails to find a niche in post-war England. Failing to complete his studies as a medical student, he decides to be a pilot. But his motives are strange: convinced that World War 3 is around the corner, he wants to be one of the bombers, carrying his own "pieces of the sun" to annihilate and, more importantly, to recapture the light he saw at the railway station, where the Chinese clerk died. He finds happiness in his wife and children but, as a young father and husband in the 1960s, he becomes aware of a certain trend towards violence and the ever-intrusive camera lens. This leads him to believe that the world has become desensitized to the violent images they see on the TV screens day after day: Kennedy's assassination in particular, and the images being screened from Vietnam. He sees people morbidly interested in car crashes. Watching and filming instead of helping becomes the norm. The title refers to women who helped him after the death of his wife, but Jim's view of life is distorted and strange. This makes him ideal material for LSD experiments, but he soon dismisses this. His view of humanity is that of a constant need to view lives and violence, and indeed, sex, through a camera, via TV. And just look at Big Brother. This avuncular, puppy-eyed father who brought up three children on his own, and who loved every moment of it, has shown Jim to be a man verging on madness. But, is he Jim? This is the problem and the genius of the book. Where truth and fiction meld and become one. Ballard has declared that the book is the story of his life "seen through the mirror of the fiction prompted by that life". |
4202824 | /m/0bprg2 | Planet of Twilight | Barbara Hambly | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The story takes place on Nam Chorios, a backwater world in the Outer Rim which infamously was the center of the Death Seed Plague centuries ago. It is now home to a fanatic religious cult which is plotting to use a new weapon system of quasi-intelligent crystals as unstoppable, unmanned starfighters to attack the New Republic. Leia Organa Solo unofficially goes on a trip to meet with Seti Ashgad, the leader of the Rationalist Party. Luke Skywalker is there after receiving a message from Callista, an old flame. Luke's ship is shot down and Leia is kidnapped by the ancient and corrupt Beldorion the Hutt. After a series of adventures the two escape and end the political conspiracy between the Rationalists and the New Republic. |
4202925 | /m/0bprr3 | MedStar II: Jedi Healer | Steve Perry | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction"} | MedStar II: Jedi Healer is about Jos Vondar, a medical doctor on the planet Drongar. The story takes place 2 years after the Battle of Geonosis. While the Clone Wars wreak havoc throughout the galaxy, the situation on the far world of Drongar is desperate as Republic forces engage in a fierce fight with the Separatists. Despite the all-enveloping armor and superior genetic pedigree, the soldiers of the Republic are still flesh and blood. In the steaming jungles of Jasserak, on the planet of Drongar, the doctors and nurses of a small med unit are devoted to patching together the beleaguered troops of the Republic. This eccentric lot of surgeons is overworked, and even the Jedi healing abilities of Padawan Barriss Offee are tested to the limits. The conflict and casualties continue to grow, and an unthinkable option becomes the inevitable solution to this terrible problem. |
4204715 | /m/0bpvkt | Spies | Thea von Harbou | 4/1/2002 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense", "/m/059r08": "Psychological novel", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Narrating in the form of a bildungsroman, an elderly man, Stephen Wheatley, reminisces about his life during the Second World War as he wanders down the now modernised London cul-de-sac that he once called home. Now a young boy, Stephen, regularly bullied at school and bored with his home life, is informed by his best friend Keith Hayward, a snobbish and domineering neighbour, that Keith's mother is an undercover operative working for the Germans. As the two boys spy on Mrs. Hayward from a hiding place in the bushes they notice her unusual daily routine: leaving Keith's house with a picnic basket full of food, tapping on Auntie Dee's (Mrs. Hayward's sister, next-door-neighbour and best friend, who's husband, Uncle Peter, is away in the RAF) window, and walking through to the end of the cul-de-sac where she disappears into the nearby town. When the boys follow her, they cannot find her in any of the shops; and when they get back to their hiding place, Mrs. Hayward is already ahead of them, walking back into Keith's house. When snooping in Keith's mother's room, they find her diary which contains a small 'x' marked on a day of every month(however this is in reference to her menstrual cycle). The boys' naïveté leads them to believe that 'x' is another secret agent that Mrs. Hayward has meetings with each month. One day, the boys realise that Keith's mother does not turn right into the town every day, but instead turns left into a grimy tunnel that leads to a disused field. Later that night, Stephen goes through the tunnel and finds a box in the field that contains pack of cigarettes. When Keith opens the packet, a slip of paper pops out with a single letter written on it: X. One night Stephen sneaks out to the tunnel and goes to the box once again. Inside his time were some clean clothes. As he is looking through them, somebody appears behind him. Stephen is to scared to turn around and holds his breath hoping that he isn't noticed. Still holding a sock, Stephen runs away as soon as he cannot hear the sound of breathing behind him. His family are outside looking for him and are furious. The next day, when Keith is doing homework, Mrs. Hayward visits Stephen in his hiding place in the bushes and tells him that she knows he is following her, and that he should stop now before he gets hurt. Despite her warnings, Stephen, not telling him about Mrs. Hayward's warnings, shows Keith the sock and tells him that they need to uncover the truth before Keith's mother's next meeting with 'x'. The boys go to the field and re-open the box, where they do not find the clothes but instead a The next day, the boys revisit the field where they find the box empty. A few feet ahead of them they see something hiding under an iron sheet - a vagabond. Keith and Stephen take bars and smash at the sheet until finally realizing they may have killed the vagabond. They run and bump into Keith's mother in the tunnel. She holds back Stephen and tells him since he is not going to stop spying on her, he will have to do her favours for the man in the field. Stephen realises that Mrs. Hayward is not a German spy, but in fact helping the vagabond whom she has taken under her bosom. While taking eggs and milk to the vagabond, he tells Stephen that he is dying, and gives him a cloth to give to Mrs. Hayward to show his love for her. Later that night he sees police taking the vagabond away on a gurney; his face badly mutilated. Fifty years later, Stephen ties up the loose ends: explaining that the vagabond was in fact Uncle Peter who had gone AWOL and was carrying out an affair with Keith's mother while dying from war wounds. As well as this, it turns out that there was a German spy living in the cul-de-sac: Stephen's father, although he was actually working for the English. A subplot is also included in the novel, where Stephen finds comfort in Barbara Berrill – a girl Stephen's age living in his neighbourhood – who is used as a plot device for revealing very important information that helps Stephen understand the mysteries he is uncovering. |
4205955 | /m/0bpxrd | Shock | Robin Cook | 2001 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel", "/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense", "/m/01qxvh": "Romance novel", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Using the help of a hacker friend, Joanna and Deborah try to break into the online records of Wingate Clinic, but are met with failure as it was a very well-protected system. They then decide to get the inside information by first getting in posing as prospective employees. They use Social Security Number of recently deceased women to forge their identity and get employed in the clinic. Joanna (under the alias of Prudence Heatherly) gets the work as a word processing employee while Deborah (under the alias of Georgina Marks) get a job of a lab assistant. In order to get access to the high security data, they steal the Access Card of Wingate Clinic's owner, Spencer Wingate by giving him an overdose of liquor. Using the Access Card, they gain (un)authorized entry into the Server Room, from where the records are managed. Unfortunately for them, as all movements into the Server Room as well as the changes made in the file system are logged, their identity gets revealed. In parallel, they find out that while Joanna was subjected to organ theft, the Clinic illegally performs ovary culture (on stem cells) on all the stolen eggs as well as uses many workers as surrogate mothers. From here starts the chase where the Wingate Clinic's officers try to kill the women and they try to save their lives and bring Wingate's ill-deeds to the knowledge of the world. The novel has an open-ending, leaving the readers to guess what happens to the villains in the end. |
4206153 | /m/0bpy44 | The Secret of Sinharat | Leigh Brackett | 1964 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/09kqc": "Humour"} | For the first seven chapters, Queen of the Martian Catacombs and The Secret of Sinharat are almost word-for-word identical; the differences are inconsequential to the plot. In Chapter 1, a brief paragraph is inserted to situate the reader in the Leigh Brackett Solar System and to excuse the presence of non-Terran humans on planets like Mars through the concept of a prehistoric "seeding" - not mentioned elsewhere in Brackett's novels. In Chapter 5, an explicit reference to the events of Brackett's story The Beast-Jewel of Mars (Planet Stories, Winter 1948) has been cut, perhaps on the assumption that readers of the novel would not know or be interested in the earlier story. The Arabic word khamsin is consistently replaced by "storm wind", perhaps on the grounds that readers might not be familiar with the word (or mistake it for a Martian technical term). *Chapter 1 - Eric John Stark, fleeing from Venus where he has been running guns to native opponents of a Terro-Venusian mining concern (mining and mineral extraction companies recur as villains in Brackett's stories), has come to Mars to fight as a mercenary in a private war in the Martian Drylands on behalf of Delgaun, lord of the Martian city of Valkis. He is finally pinned down by agents of Earth Police Control. Their leader, Simon Ashton, offers him a deal: lifting of his sentence, if he agrees to act as a spy on Delgaun, whom Ashton claims is plotting a major war together with a barbarian leader called Kynon, of the Dryland tribe of Shun; a war that Ashton says will be disastrous for the drylanders. Stark agrees to go to Valkis as Ashton's agent, and return to report to him in the Martian city of Tarak. *Chapter 2 - Stark enters Valkis late at night and sees the drylanders gathering there. He meets Delgaun and several other mercenaries that Delgaun has hired. One of them is Luhar, an old enemy of Stark from Venus. They challenge each other, but Delgaun separates them. At dawn, Kynon of Shun enters Valkis. *Chapter 3 - Delgaun, Stark and the mercenaries go to see Kynon. In the public square of Valkis, Kynon demonstrates a technology which he claims to have recovered from the lost secrets of the Ramas, an ancient race of Martians who had acquired a form of immortality. Kynon, using two crystal circlets and a glowing rod, appears to transfer the consciousness of an old Martian man into a young Terran boy. The old man collapses and dies. Kynon returns with Delgaun and the others to the council room in the palace. *Chapter 4 - Stark accuses Kynon of an elaborate charade in which the boy was coached in his part and the old man was killed by poison. Kynon admits it, but justifies it as a necessity for uniting the drylanders against the City-States of the Dryland Borders, who are depriving them of water resources. Together with the men of Valkis and the other Low-canal cities, they will conquer the City-States and become fully independent of Terra. Stark goes to his quarters and sleeps through the day. At dusk he goes to the council-room, and finds Delgaun there with Kynon's female companion, Berild. Delgaun asks Stark to bring back one of Kynon's trusted captains, Freka, who is indulging in "a certain vice"; he needs to be back before Kynon sets out at midnight for his desert headquarters. On his way, Stark is stopped by Fianna, Berild's serving girl, who warns him that he is going into a trap set by Delgaun. Stark accepts the warning, but continues anyway. *Chapter 5 - Stark comes to Kala's, a broken-down dive in a mostly uninhabited part of Valkis. He finds Freka there, indulging in shanga, a radiation-induced temporary atavistic regression to a bestial state. Stark realizes that an empty room near Freka probably contains the trap set for him. When he is refused entrance to the room, he leaves Kala's and waits outside. He is followed by Luhar, who had been waiting in the empty room for a chance to attack Stark. Stark jumps Luhar; the fighting goes back into Kala's, where the shanga addicts and Kala herself become involved. Stark knocks Freka out, is stabbed by Luhar, knocks Luhar out, and returns with Freka to Delgaun's palace. Delgaun is surprised and angry; Berild is pleased. *Chapter 6 - At midnight, Kynon leaves Valkis with the drylanders and mercenaries. Kynon orders Stark and Luhar to remain apart from each other. Delgaun remains behind. Luhar and Freka confer. The caravan proceeds across the desert for three days, and on the fourth day they are hit by a sandstorm. *Chapter 7 - Luhar and Freka take advantage of the storm to jump Stark and leave him for dead. He finds himself together with Berild. When the storm blows out, they are lost in the desert. They proceed on foot. After four days, running out of water, they come to a wilderness of rocks. From chapter 8 on the two versions diverge. *Chapter 8 - Stark and Berild are dying of thirst. Berild leads Stark three miles out of their way to a ruined monastery. She miraculously discovers a long-buried well. After they have drunk and slept, Stark suggests to Berild that she is actually a surviving immortal Rama, and knew the location of the well from memory. Berild dismisses the accusation. They stay in the ruins two days, and then leave. *Chapter 9 - Stark and Berild arrive at Sinharat, the old city of the Ramas, where Kynon has made his headquarters. They find Kynon's army and his mercenaries camped in the desert outside the city. Stark enters Sinharat looking for Luhar, and fatally attacks him when he finds him. Delgaun is also mysteriously there. Kynon arrests Stark and places him in a subterranean cell in Sinharat under Freka's guard. Before Freka can kill Stark, Fianna appears and shoots him. Stark disposes of Freka in a pit in the catacombs. Fianna explains that Delgaun and Berild are both Ramas, and that while Kynon wants empire, Delgaun and Berild want to control Mars - without Kynon - through their mercenary outlander clients. *Chapter 10 - Stark and Fianna proceed to a crypt below Sinharat where Berild is waiting. Kynon is there with her, but drugged and under Berild's hypnotic control. Berild offers to become Stark's lover and to make him a Rama, by exchanging his mind with Kynon's, and disposing of Delgaun after the war. Stark agrees, and Berild produces the real crowns of the Ramas, and puts them on Stark's and Kynon's heads. *Chapter 11 - Stark awakes to find himself in Kynon's body. His own body is still there, alive but with Kynon's mind still under hypnosis. Berild locks Kynon, in Stark's body, in a small cell. Stark-as-Kynon goes with Berild to address the armies assembled at Sinharat from a high ledge in the city. Delgaun is there. Instead of leading them to war, Stark reveals the charade of the false Rama crowns. Berild stabs Stark in the back. Stark reveals Berild's treachery to Delgaun. Delgaun throws Berild from the ledge and attempts to unseat Stark from his steed and flee. Stark, though wounded, grasps Delgaun and throttles him, while Delgaun stabs him repeatedly. Stark kills Delgaun and loses consciousness. Fianna runs to him. *Chapter 12 - Stark awakes and finds himself with Fianna. He is back in the crypt below Sinharat, in his own body. Kynon is next to him, dead. Fianna reveals that she is also a Rama, unknown to Berild and Delgaun. She expresses remorse for her past evil and destroys the rod and crowns of the Ramas. Stark and Fianna leave together and find Sinharat deserted. Fianna decides to stay in Sinharat for a while before she decides what to do. Stark departs for Tarak to meet Simon Ashton. *Chapter 8 - Stark and Berild are dying of thirst. Berild leads Stark three miles out of their way to an old ruin, where they both collapse. At night, Stark wakes to see Berild tracing her steps to the site of a long-buried well. They uncover it together, drink, and sleep. The next night, Stark suggests to Berild that she must be a witch to have discovered the well. Berild explains that she knew the secret of the well's location from her father, who had crossed the desert in this place years ago. Stark accepts her explanation, but is privately unconvinced. They stay in the ruins two days, and then leave. *Chapter 9 - Stark and Berild arrive at Sinharat at dawn and find Kynon's caravan encamped outside. The Dryland armies have not yet arrived, but only Kynon and his mercenaries are in the city itself, which the drylanders regard as taboo. Stark and Berild enter Sinharat looking for Luhar, but Kynon prevents Stark and Luhar from fighting. Berild kills Luhar with a knife. Kynon does not punish Berild, but warns Stark not to fight with Freka, who has gone back to the desert, and condemns the infighting that threatens his plans. Berild lies to Kynon about how she and Stark reached Sinharat, pretending that they had more water than they did. Kynon dismisses Berild and Stark. *Chapter 10 - Stark awakes at dusk and finds Fianna there. She warns him that his life is in danger from Delgaun, when he arrives. Stark refuses to flee. Fianna leads Stark to a chamber where Berild is waiting. She warns him against Delgaun, and expresses her resentment at Kynon. Drums beat announcing the late arrival of Delgaun and his allies to Sinharat, and Stark and Berild part. As Stark leaves, he meets Fianna, who hints that Berild may be a Rama. *Chapter 11 - Kynon unveils the banner of the Ramas before the massed armies of the Drylands and the Low-canals in front of Sinharat. Stark confronts Delgaun as a fellow-follower of Kynon, and forces Delgaun to accept him as comrade-in-arms. Later, in council, Delgaun backs down before Kynon, and they proceed to plot the conquest of the City-States. Kynon warns his confederates not to reveal that they do not really have the secret of the Ramas. Days pass. Freka returns from Shun with more fighters, but Kynon keeps him and Stark from fighting. Later, Stark goes into Sinharat and finds Berild reading an ancient wall-inscription in an unknown language. Stark follows her as she goes to a high window. *Chapter 12 - Stark accuses Berild of being a Rama. Berild dismisses his statement with smooth explanations, but Stark does not accept them. Stark deduces that Delgaun must also be a Rama. Berild leaves suddenly. Stark goes later, and is attacked by Freka who is under the influence of shanga. As they are fighting, Kynon and his fighters discover them. Stark is accused of murdering Freka, and the Shunni demand his blood. Stark is knocked out as he tries to blurt out the truth of Kynon's charade. He awakes in an underground cell, guarded by a Shunni warrior. (This portion of the expansion is a rewrite of the middle of Chapter 9 of Catacombs.) *Chapter 13 - Fianna appears, shoots the Shunni, and frees Stark. Fianna reveals that she, Berild, and Delgaun are all surviving Ramas, though she is dependent upon them for the Sending-on of Minds. She leads him into the catacombs, where Stark disposes of the guard's body in a pit and takes his sword. Fianna describes Delgaun and Berild's plans for empire, and explains that they intend to dispose of Kynon by putting Delgaun's mind into Kynon's body. She asks Stark to help her prevent it, and leads him to Berild's chamber. There they find Kynon in bonds, and Berild preparing the real crowns of the Ramas for the Sending-on of Minds. *Chapter 14 - Stark enters, attacks Delgaun and kills him with the sword. Berild drops the crowns and draws a knife. Fianna frees Kynon, who throttles Berild as she slashes him. Stark tells the wounded Kynon to stop the march of the Drylanders. He and Fianna help Kynon out to the open stairway that leads up to Sinharat. From there, Kynon addresses the tribes, telling them of Delgaun and Berild's treachery and his own lie about having the secret of the Ramas. Then he collapses and dies. The mercenaries and the armies break up and leave. Stark returns to Sinharat and finds Fianna. She explains that she has hidden the crowns of the Ramas, unable to destroy them. She invites Stark to return to Sinharat late in his life, offering to make him a Rama then. He refuses. Fianna says that she will stay in Sinharat. Stark departs for Tarak to meet Simon Ashton, looking back at Sinharat as he goes. |
4210216 | /m/0bq3y5 | Human Punk | null | null | null | Set against a soundtrack of Clash, Sex Pistols, X-Ray Spex, Ruts and Ramones records, sixteen-year-old Joe sets about enjoying his new-found freedom, which in the summer of ’77 means hard-drinking pubs and working-men’s clubs, local Teds, soulboys. disco girls and a job picking cherries with the gypsies. A joyride to Camden Town in North London takes him to see his first band, but it is a late-night incident back on the streets of Slough that changes his life forever. The second part of the book takes place in 1988 and finds Joe in China, receiving bad news in a letter from home. He buys a black-market ticket and takes the Trans-Siberian Express back to England. During this journey he reflects on the events that have filled the intervening years, eventually returning to that night in 1977. Siberia passes in a series of recollections and romance with a Russian woman, Joe arriving in Moscow during the days of Mikhail Gorbachev, continuing to Berlin where he crosses the Wall in the early hours. More trains take him on to Slough. The third section of Human Punk captures the main characters as they reach middle-age. They are older, but little wiser. Slough has changed, but not too much, the spirit that drove Joe and his friends as boys stronger than ever. He makes his living in a range of ways, one of which involves the buying and selling of secondhand records. His punk beliefs remain solid. Life bounces along until a face from the past emerges from the haze of a misty morning and forces him to stop and confront his memories once more. |
4210501 | /m/0bq48z | London Blues | Anthony Frewin | null | {"/m/0lsxr": "Crime Fiction", "/m/02n4kr": "Mystery"} | Tim Purdom is born in 1937 in a small village on the Kentish coast as the illegitimate son of a young woman who dies in her early forties. After her death in 1959, Purdom decides to move to London as he does not have any sense of belonging to his home town any more. He finds cheap accommodation in Bayswater and work in a snack bar in Soho. Purdom is not only a jazz fanatic (his favourite musician is Thelonious Monk) but also an intellectual who reads books and who is interested in what is going on in the world, both politically and culturally. His intellectual pursuits do not go together with his lifestyle or his job. However, without any formal education or money, he is reduced to the kind of life he is leading; but, unambitious by nature, he is quite content with it for the time being. Very early during his stay in London Purdom is confronted with petty crime through his contact with guests and workmates. When he is offered some extra money by one of the older regulars he tags along with him and suddenly finds himself in a place where "dirty pictures"—which were illegal at the time—are taken. He is then approached by the owner of some adult bookshops and encouraged to become a pornographic photographer himself. The customers like his pictures, which are sold under the counter, and Purdom makes some good money. He is initiated into the world of private parties where old blue movies of foreign origin are shown to middle-aged upper middle class men in the company of young, attractively made up women. At one of those parties, where he works as the projectionist, he meets a man who later turns out to be Stephen Ward, one of the key figures in what will later be referred to as the Profumo affair. Ward supplies Purdom with a good many "models" for his photographic sessions. Eventually Purdom buys an 8 mm amateur movie camera and starts shooting pornographic movie shorts himself. His short-lived career is already over in early 1963 when he is told by his employer that the industry has moved on and that cheap Scandinavian imports are now in demand, which are also in colour rather than black and white. Purdom keeps on working at the snack bar and in addition is commissioned to do some serious photography about London for foreign magazines. He has become a respectable citizen with a new girlfriend who does not know anything about the shady business he has left behind. It is then that he feels he is being haunted by his past. |
4212295 | /m/0bq7d1 | Parable of the Sower | Octavia E. Butler | 1993 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/026ny": "Dystopia"} | Set in a future where government has all but collapsed, Parable of the Sower centers on a young woman named Lauren Olamina who possesses what Butler dubbed hyperempathy – the ability to feel the perceived pain and other sensations of others – who develops a benign philosophical and religious system during her childhood in the remnants of a gated community in Los Angeles. Civil society has reverted to relative anarchy due to resource scarcity and poverty. When the community's security is compromised, her home is destroyed and her family murdered. She travels north with some survivors to try to start a community where her religion, called Earthseed, can grow. |
4212330 | /m/0bq7gw | Parable of the Talents | Octavia E. Butler | 1998 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/026ny": "Dystopia"} | Parable of the Talents (1998) (the sequel to Parable of the Sower) tells the story of how, as the U.S. continues to fall apart, the protagonist's community is attacked and taken over by a bloc of religious fanatics who inflict brutal atrocities. The novel is a harsh indictment of religious fundamentalism, and has been compared in that respect to Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. |
4212929 | /m/0bq8cy | Those Who Trespass | Bill O'Reilly | null | {"/m/0lsxr": "Crime Fiction"} | The antagonist is a tall, "no-nonsense" television journalist named Shannon Michaels, described as the product of two Celtic parents, who is pushed out by Global News Network, and systematically murders the people who ruined his career. Meanwhile, the protagonist, a "straight-talking" Irish-American New York City homicide detective named Tommy O’Malley, is charged with solving the murders that Michaels has committed, while competing with Michaels for the heart of Ashley Van Buren, a blond, sexy aristocrat turned crime columnist. Some reviewers have said that Michaels and O'Malley are "thinly veiled versions" of O'Reilly. Michaels' first victim is a news correspondent who stole his story in Argentina, and got him into trouble with the network. He then stalks the woman who forced his resignation from the network and throws her off a balcony. After that he murders a television research consultant who had advised the local station to dismiss him by burying him in beach sand up to his neck and letting him slowly drown. Finally, during a break in the Radio and Television News Directors Association convention, he slits the throat of the station manager. After this, he is pursued by O'Malley and Van Buren, where he attempts to lose them by crossing a runway in front of a speeding jet. Although he makes it, his car's right back tire is cut by the jet's wing, causing the car to spin, flip over, and be subsequently melted by the exhaust from the jet, which explodes. Michaels dies in extreme agony, as his contacts (used to hide his identity) burn into his eyes and a chunk of the car crushes his head in. |
4213188 | /m/0bq8sp | Best Friends | Jacqueline Wilson | 3/4/2004 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature"} | Gemma and Alice have known each other all their lives, but when Gemma reads Alice's diary at a sleepover, it eventually leads her to discover Alice is moving. Because of their distance, Gemma and Alice struggle to stay friends, with the possibility of each other making new friends. The story's theme throughout the whole story is that true friends will be together until the end. Gemma and Alice have been best friends since birth. They were born on the same day, in the same hospital and have been inseparable ever since. Complete opposites (Gemma is athletic and messy, while Alice is graceful and tidy), they have a bond that is unbreakable and every year on their birthday they share the same wish: “We wish we stay friends forever and ever and ever.” Everything seems ruined when Alice's father gets a new job hundreds of miles away and the whole family has to move. Now Alice and Gemma have to navigate the rough waters of adjusting to life without each other. Alice has another friend Flora. Flora is really posh. Only Gemma hates Flora. Once Gemma visits Alice at the same time as Flora does. Gemma brings a cake and when she there she's there she throws it in Floras face. The book ends with a birthday card from Alice. |
4214046 | /m/0bq9qs | The High Window | Raymond Chandler | 1942 | {"/m/0lsxr": "Crime Fiction", "/m/028v3": "Detective fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel", "/m/03xj9g": "Hardboiled"} | Private investigator Philip Marlowe is called to the house of wealthy widow Elizabeth Bright Murdock to recover a missing Brasher Doubloon, a rare and valuable coin. Mrs. Murdock suspects her son’s estranged wife Linda Conquest, a former singer, of stealing it. On his way back to his office, Marlowe is followed by a blond man in a coupe. Mrs. Murdock’s son Leslie Murdock visits Marlowe and tries to learn why his mother hired him. Murdock lets slip that he owes nightclub owner Alex Morny a large sum of money. Marlowe learns that Linda Conquest had two friends: Lois Magic and a Mr. Vannier; Magic is now Mrs. Alex Morny. Marlowe visits Mrs. Morny at home and finds Vannier with her, who acts suspiciously. Marlowe is still tailed by the blond in the coupe, and confronts him. He is George Anson Phillips, an amateurish private detective, who is thinking of enlisting Marlowe’s help on a case that is out of his league. Marlowe agrees to meet him at his apartment later. Marlowe visits a rare coin dealer, Mr. Morningstar, who confirms that someone tried to sell a Brasher Doubloon; Marlowe plans to buy it back the next day, and after leaving overhears the dealer trying to call Phillips. Marlowe keeps his appointment with Phillips but finds him dead; the police arrest the drunk next door for the murder, although he insists he is innocent. The police give Marlowe an ultimatum to reveal all he knows. At his office, Marlowe receives a package with no address that contains the coin. He calls Mrs. Murdock and is floored when she says the coin has already been returned. Marlowe returns to the coin dealer, but finds him dead also. Then Alex Morny’s henchman calls and invites Marlowe to visit Morny at his nightclub. Linda Conquest turns out to be singing there. Morny demands to know why Marlowe visited his wife, but Marlowe is unfazed and Morny realizes he is not Marlowe’s quarry. Morny offers to hire Marlowe to find dirt on Vannier, giving him a suspicious receipt for dentist chemicals that Vannier lost. Marlowe also talks to Linda, and decides she is probably not involved with the theft. Returning to the Murdocks, Marlowe is told a story he doesn’t believe: Leslie Murdock hocked the coin to Morny for his debts, then changed his mind and got it back. Marlowe leaves in disgust, but begins to suspect a dark secret involving Merle, the timid family secretary, and Mrs. Murdock’s first husband, Horace Bright, who was Leslie’s father and who died falling out of a window. The police say the drunk has confessed to the murder of Phillips, but Marlowe discovers he is covering for his landlord, a local leader who doesn’t want the police snooping around because his fugitive brother is nearby. The landlord is paying for the drunk’s legal bills in exchange for his taking the rap. Marlowe gets a call that Merle is at his apartment having a nervous breakdown; he rushes home and she claims to have shot Vannier, although her story doesn’t hold water. Marlowe visits Vannier’s home, finds him dead, and discovers a photo of a man falling from a window. Morny and Magic arrive, and Marlowe hides while Morny tricks his wife into leaving her fingerprints on the gun near the body. He tells her he is sick of her and will force her to take the rap, but after they leave Marlowe puts the dead man’s prints on the gun instead. Marlowe visits Mrs. Murdock again, and reveals what he has figured out: Horace Bright once tried to force himself on Merle, and she either pushed him or allowed him to fall out of a window to his death. The stress of it made her become detached from reality. Vannier knew and was blackmailing the family. Mrs. Murdock coldly admits it is true, and says she regrets ever having hired Marlowe to get the coin back. Marlowe makes it plain that the feeling is mutual. He then speaks to Leslie Murdock, and reveals what he knows about him: he and Vannier had a plot to duplicate the coin using dental technology. They had Lois Magic hire a dimwitted private detective to sell the fakes. The detective got scared of the assignment and mailed the coin to Marlowe. When Vannier learned Marlowe was on the case, he killed the detective and the dealer to cover his tracks. He threatened to ruin Leslie if their scheme ever got out, so Leslie killed him. Leslie confirms it, but Marlowe says it is not his business to turn him in and leaves. Marlowe tells Merle he knows it was Mrs. Murdock who pushed her husband out of the window, and then blamed Merle for it. He drives her back to her parents’ home in Iowa. The police discover Vannier’s role in the counterfeiting plot and his murders of Phillips and the coin dealer, but rule Vannier’s death a suicide. Marlowe's last act in the novel is to remove Merle from the toxic environment of Mrs. Murdock's employment. He drives her cross country away from Los Angeles to the home of her parents. As he watches her and her family on the porch driving away he says: "I had a funny feeling as I saw the house disappear, as though I had written a poem and it was very good and I had lost it and would never remember it again". |
4216841 | /m/0bqgj6 | Raja Gidh | Bano Qudsia | 1981 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Seemin Shah, hailing from an upper-middle-class family, falls in love with her handsome class fellow Aftab in the MA Sociology class at Government College Lahore. Seemin is a modern and attractive urban girl and attracts most of her male class fellows, including the narrator Qayyum and the young liberal professor Suhail. Aftab belongs to a Kashmiri business family. Though he also loves her, he can not rise above his family values and succumbs to his parent's pressure to marry someone against his wishes and leave for London to look after his family business. Now the long story of separation begins. |
4219449 | /m/0bqmhh | The White Hotel | D. M. Thomas | 1981-01 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | The book's first three movements consist of the erotic fantasies and case-history of one of the novelist's conception of Sigmund Freud's female patients, overlapping, expanding, and gradually turning into almost normal narrative. But then the story takes a different course with the convulsions of the century, and becomes a testament of the Holocaust, harrowing and chillingly authentic. Only at the end does the fantasy element return, pulling together the earlier themes into a kind of benediction. The book begins with a long poem, full of erotic imagery and near-incoherent description. Following this is a prose version of the story that we learn is written by a young woman who is a semi-successful opera singer who comes to Sigmund Freud for analysis as she suffers from acute psychosomatic pains in her left breast and her womb. Her character and the pseudonym Anna G. might draw on examples of real case studies (Freud's "Wolfman" also appears as a peripheral character in the novel), but the novel is indeed fictional. Thomas lets the reader in on Freud's analysis, as well as his ambiguous feelings towards his patient. At several stages, Freud is ready to throw up his hands and tell her that he won't continue his treatment as he feels she is not forthcoming enough to make any real progress. He always relents, however, because he senses that "Lisa" (the opera singer's real name) has enough redeeming attributes to warrant his time. As the novel progresses, the reader learns more and more about Lisa's past and the seminal childhood incident (occurring when she is 3-years-old and vacationing with her parents in Odessa) that estranged her from her mother, and more particularly, from her father. This provides the central motif of the novel as well as Lisa's Cassandra-like ability to see the future through her dreams and her imaginative powers. The novel also makes use of epistolary form with postcards from the fictional hotel guests included as part of the narrative. Many attempts were made to make the novel into a film. These included attempts by Bernardo Bertolucci with Barbra Streisand and by David Lynch with Isabella Rossellini, as well as by Emir Kusturica and Terrence Malick. |
4220629 | /m/0bqpr5 | People of the Talisman | Leigh Brackett | 1964 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | *Chapter 1 - Eric John Stark, outland mercenary, and his companion Camar the thief, are travelling in the wilderness that surrounds the northern polar cap of Mars, trying to get to Camar's home city of Kushat. Camar has been mortally wounded in a guerrilla campaign and wants to return home before he dies. Unable to make it, he confesses that he has stolen the holy talisman of Ban Cruach from Kushat, which keeps the city safe. It is hidden inside a boss on his belt. Stark promises to take the talisman back to Kushat for Camar. Examining the talisman, he presses it to his forehead and receives visions of a tower, a city in the ice, and a pass - the memories of Ban Cruach. Soon after he puts the talisman back in the belt, he is approached by the riders of Mekh, a barbarian tribe that lives in the hills between him and Kushat. *Chapter 2 - The riders of Mekh arrest and plunder Stark, except for his clothes and Camar's belt. They lead him to their camp in a valley several days northward. There they bring him before the masked and fully armored lord Ciaran. Ciaran interrogates Stark and announces his plan to besiege Kushat. Stark is uncooperative and demands to see Ciaran's face. Ciaran turns him over to Thord, his previous capturer. *Chapter 3 - Stark is tied to a scaffold and scourged by Thord. When Thord comes near him, Stark bits his hand hard enough to break his thumb. When Thord tries to kill Stark for this, Ciaran kills Thord for disobedience. Stark feigns unconsciousness, despite being prodded by spears. When he is cut down, Stark gets a spear, kills several riders, and escapes on a mount. After riding for three days through a snowy wasteland marked by a series of towers, he reaches Kushat, a city standing in front of a pass through a scarp. *Chapter 4 - Stark enters Kushat and meets Thanis. He his challenged by Lugh, whom he warns about the imminent attack by Mekh. Lugh leads Stark to the guard captain, who dismisses Stark's claims, but is persuaded to pass the warning on to the nobility. He gives Stark into the custody of Thanis, who takes him to her home. Stark sleeps, only to be wakened by Thanis' brother Balin, who tells him that soldiers have come, and warns him not to speak of the talisman. A nobleman, Rogain, enters with a group of soldiers and questions Stark about the invasion. Rogain at last agrees to put Kushat in arms. After Rogain and his men leave, Balin and Thanis explain that they found the talisman in Camar's belt, and they agree not to return it to the men of Kushat. Stark goes to sleep again. Just before dawn he wakes and goes up on Kushat's wall. *Chapter 5 - In the morning, the clans of Mekh, led by Ciaran, attack Kushat. Despite resistance, Mekh takes the Wall and breaches its gate. Stark, who had been fighting on the wall, goes down to face Ciaran in single combat. As they fight, Stark tears Ciaran's mask off, revealing her to be a red-haired woman. *Chapter 6 - Despite this revelation, in the moment of victory, Ciaran is able to retain the loyalty of her followers. As the soldiers of Kushat charge and are beaten back, Stark manages to escape the mêlée. Stark hides in Kushat until the looting commences. *Chapter 7 - *Chapter 8 - *Chapter 9 - *Chapter 1 - Eric John Stark, outland mercenary, and his companion Camar the thief, are travelling in the wilderness that surrounds the northern polar cap of Mars, trying to get to Camar's home city of Kushat. Camar has been mortally wounded in a guerrilla campaign and wants to return home before he dies. Unable to make it, he confesses that he has stolen the holy talisman of Ban Cruach from Kushat, which keeps the city safe. It is hidden inside a boss on his belt. Stark promises to take the talisman back to Kushat for Camar. Examining the talisman, he hears tiny, unintelligible voices that alarm him. Soon after he puts the talisman back in the belt, he is approached by the riders of Mekh, a barbarian tribe that lives in the hills between him and Kushat. *Chapter 2 - *Chapter 3 - *Chapter 4 - *Chapter 5 - *Chapter 6 - *Chapter 7 - *Chapter 8 - *Chapter 9 - *Chapter 10 - *Chapter 11 - *Chapter 12 - *Chapter 13 - *Chapter 14 - *Chapter 15 - The Talisman expansion is far more ambitious than the one of The Secret of Sinharat; for one thing, the resulting story is about a third longer than Sinharat. Despite the comprehensiveness of the revision, the treatment of the earlier chapters, where more of the original text is retained, is sometimes clumsy and the motivation of the changes is sometimes unclear. In at least one place there is a significant editorial faux pas -- a passage in which an important character is introduced is omitted, and the character is later referred to by name without the connection between name and person having ever been made explicit. The murderously insane aliens of Talisman are a very unusual invention for Brackett, and it may be that the hand of Hamilton is seen at work here. Ban Cruach also loses much of his mythical glamor in Talisman, which is something of a let-down, though it does work as a "twist" conclusion. |
4224473 | /m/0bqwln | Thr3e | Ted Dekker | 2003-06 | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller", "/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | Kevin Parson, a 28-year-old seminary student, has his life turned upside-down when a killer named Richard Slater decides to stalk him. If he can "confess his sin", Slater will stop killing. Kevin is shown as being a purely innocent character with no idea why anyone would want to hurt him, and the story that follows involves an FBI agent that he may be falling for and a very old friend named Samantha Sheer. de:Thr3e – Gleich bist du tot |
4225822 | /m/0bqy_q | To the Last Man | Zane Grey | 1921 | {"/m/0hfjk": "Western", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The story follows an ancient feud between two frontier families that is inflamed when one of the families takes up cattle rustling. The ranchers are led by Jean Isbel and, on the other side, Lee Jorth and his band of cattle rustlers. In the grip of a relentless code of loyalty to their own people, they fight the war of the Tonto Basin, desperately, doggedly, to the last man, neither side seeing the futility of it until it is too late. And in this volatile environment, young Jean finds himself hopelessly in love with a girl from whom he is separated by an impassable barrier. |
4226227 | /m/0bqzv2 | Coot Club | Arthur Ransome | 1934 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/08sdrw": "Adventure novel"} | The Callum children spend their Easter Holidays in Norfolk with a family friend, Mrs Barrable, who is staying on a small yacht called the Teasel, moored near the village of Horning. There they encounter the Coot Club, a gang of local children comprising Tom Dudgeon, twin girls 'Port' and 'Starboard' (Nell and Bess Farland), and three younger boys — Joe, Bill and Pete (the Death and Glories). A noisy and inconsiderate party of city-dwellers (dubbed the 'Hullabaloos' by the children) hire the motor cruiser Margoletta and threaten an important nesting site (one of many monitored by the Coots) by mooring in front of it. Despite warnings "not to mix with foreigners", Tom stealthily loosens the Margolettas moorings to save the nest and hides behind the Teasel to save his father's reputation. Mrs Barrable does not give Tom away to the Hullabaloos and instead asks him to teach the Callums to sail. Tom, Port, and Starboard join the crew of the Teasel, and together with Mrs Barrable and her pug William, the children teach Dick and Dorothea the basics of sailing up and down the Broads. Dick shares the Coot Club's keen interest in the local birdlife, and Dorothea uses the voyage as fodder for her new story, "Outlaw Of The Broads" based on the Hullabaloos vow to catch Tom. They chase the crew of the Teasel all over the Broads, eventually managing to crash the Margoletta in the perilously tidal Breydon Water — necessitating a dramatic rescue by the Coots. |
4226931 | /m/0br06x | Comet in Moominland | Tove Jansson | 1946 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | Moomintroll and his friend Sniff go into the forest and find a mysterious path. They follow it and meet the Silk Monkey. They go pearl fishing, and then discover a cave. However, they get scared when they visit the cave later and see a comet drawn with the pearls, which the Muskrat tells Moomintroll may destroy the valley. So they sail to the observatory in the Lonely Mountains to ask the Professors if the comet will destroy the Earth. They are attacked by crocodiles who are distracted by their trousers. They then meet Snufkin, who joins them, and Sniff has a run-in with a giant lizard after he tries to steal its garnets. The boat gets stuck in a cave and they almost fall into a dark hole when they are rescued by a Hemulen with butterfly net. They find the observatory, and the scientists tell them the exact time that the comet will arrive. Moomintroll saves the Snork Maiden from a deadly bush, then she and her brother Snork join them on their way back to Moominvalley. They buy gifts in a store, then attend a dance in the forest. The comet heat dries up the sea, and the group has to cross on stilts. On the way they meet another Hemulen, who follows them home. Moominmamma has baked a welcome home cake. The family flees to a cave, along with the Muskrat, Silk Monkey, and the Hemulen. However, the comet misses Moominvalley. The friends rejoice. |
4227282 | /m/0br0s0 | Finn Family Moomintroll | Tove Jansson | 1948 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | Moomintroll, Sniff and Snufkin discover the Hobgoblin's Hat on a mountain-top, unaware of its strange powers. An egg shell discarded into the hat becomes five clouds the children ride and play with. Next day the clouds have disappeared and nobody knows where they came from. Moomintroll hides inside the hat during a game of hide-and-seek and is temporarily transformed beyond recognition. Once they discover the magic powers of the hat and use it for a few transformations, the family resolves to get rid of it and throw it into the river. But Moomintroll and Snufkin recover it at night and hide it in the cave by the sea, where the Muskrat gets horribly scared when his dentures transform into something that is never mentioned in the novel. The Moomin Family travel to the Island of the Hattifatteners on a found boat, and the Moominhouse is transformed into a jungle when Moominmamma absent-mindedly drops a ball of poisonous pink perennials into the hat. At night the jungle withers, and it is used as firewood to cook the huge Mameluke that the children previously caught while fishing. Thingumy and Bob arrive clutching a large suitcase containing the King's Ruby, which they stole from the Groke. After a court case (presided over by the Snork) the Groke agrees to exchange the ruby for the Hobgoblin's Hat. Thingumy and Bob steal Moominmamma's handbag to use as a bed, but return it when they realise how upset she is. The Moomins hold a party to celebrate the finding of Moominmamma's handbag, during which the Hobgoblin arrives (with a new hat) demanding the King's Ruby, but is refused by Thingumy and Bob. To cheer himself up, the Hobgoblin grants everyone at the party a wish. Although not everyone gets exactly what they wished for, the Hobgoblin is delighted when Thingumy and Bob wish for a duplicate ruby to give him - the Queen's Ruby. (As it turns out, the Hobgoblin can grant the wishes of others, but not his own.) |
4227671 | /m/0br19t | Moominsummer Madness | Tove Jansson | 1954 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | A nearby volcano causes a massive wave to flood Moominvalley. While escaping the flood the Moomin family and their friends find a building floating past, and take up residence there. They believe it is a deserted house until they realise someone else lives there, Emma, who explains that it is not a house but a theatre. The moomins start to understand about the scenery, props, and costumes they have found. The theatre drifts aground and Moomintroll and the Snork Maiden decide to go and sleep in a tree. When they wake next morning the theatre has floated away again and they are alone. Meanwhile Little My accidentally falls overboard, and by some strange coincidence is rescued by Moomintroll's adventurous friend Snufkin who is setting off to seek revenge on a grumpy Park Keeper. He tears down all the 'Do not walk on the grass' notices, fills the lawns with electric Hattifatteners and sets free twenty-four small woodies who immediately adopt him as their father. The coincidences continue as Moonmintroll and the Snork Maiden meet Emma's deceased husbands niece, the Fillyjonk, and all three get arrested burning the signs that Snufkin tore up. Meanwhile in the theatre, Emma helps Moominpappa write a play and the family decide to stage it. The woodies find a playbill for the play and cajole Snufkin into taking them to the theatre. The Hemulen who has arrested Fillyjonk, Moomintroll and the Snork Maiden also finds a playbill and leaves his cousin to guard the prisoners while he heads off to see the play. The cousin is persuaded of their innocence and lets them out to go to the play too, where everyone is reunited and ends up on stage, the play itself collapsing into a big reunion party. When the floods recede everyone gets to go home. |
4228194 | /m/0br20y | The Star Fraction | Ken MacLeod | 1995 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The world is controlled by the US/UN, a sort of semi-benign meta-dictatorship which doesn't rule directly so much as enforce a series of basic laws on a vast number of microstates. Many of the microstates are in a near-constant state of low-intensity warfare. Among the laws enforced on them is a prohibition on certain directions of research, such as intelligence augmentation or artificial intelligence; precisely what is prohibited is of course secret, and as violation of the prohibitions will result in the swift and efficient death of everyone directly involved, scientific research is a dangerous proposition at best. The main characters - a trotskyist mercenary, a libertarian teenager from a fundamentalist microstate, and an idealistic scientist - find themselves caught up at the center of a global revolution against the US/UN. The revolution was planned, and partially automated using financial software, in order to break out when a certain set of conditions were reached. The stakes are raised at the end of the book, when it is revealed that the autonomous financial software has evolved into an intelligent form, which might cause the paranoid US/UN to make a 'clean break' with the earth, knocking the planet back to the stone age with the orbital defense lasers. |
4235234 | /m/0brf20 | The Twins at St. Clare's | Enid Blyton | 1941 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | The two girl twins Patricia and Isabel O'Sullivan, having just finished school at the elite school called Redroofs, are expected to move on to senior school. While most of their friends at their old school are moving to the equally elite Ringmere, the twins' parents are reluctant to send them to an expensive school as they are afraid the twins might become spoilt and snobbish. Furious at their parents' refusal to send them to the school of their choice, the twins are determined to be as difficult as possible at St. Clare's. The twins soon find out that keeping their nose high will bring them trouble. They meet Miss Roberts, a strict but fair teacher, who is also their form mistress, and keeps the form quite well under control. They meet other first form girls with whom they share a dormitory, such as Hilary Wentworth, Doris Edwards, Janet Robins, Vera Johns and Sheila Naylor. Soon, they are called "the stuck up twins" by the rest of the form. They immediately like the head girl Winifred James, who is the pride of St. Clare's. The twins find it irritating that they are among the most junior girls in school (being only 14 and a half), while in Redroofs they were head girls. The twins are especially at odds with their French mistress, Mam'zelle. She is very hot tempered, and is frustrated that they make so many mistakes. Mam'zelle frequently uses the word "abominable" for the twins' work, and thus the twins secretly begin to call her "Mamzelle Abominable". The twins miss their favourite sports of field hockey and tennis because only lacrosse is played at St Clare's. However, Pat turns out to be quite good at lacrosse. She is selected by sports captain Belinda Towers despite having defied her earlier. The twins soon make good friends with the other girls and play pranks on others in the school. Most pranks are directed at Miss Kennedy, their new history teacher for the term, who is a very timid and insecure teacher, though highly qualified. One of the pranks for Miss Kennedy is discovered by Miss Roberts and she punishes the whole form because of it. The class stops playing tricks on Miss Kennedy when the twins accidentally overhear her talking to a friend about giving up her job, despite needing the money to help her sick mother, because she cannot control the class. After an uneasy start, the twins generously help Kathleen Gregory and Sheila Naylor at times of trouble and win their loyal and sincere friendship and praise. They are soon liked by Miss Theobald, the headmistress, who considers them very dedicated pupils. But the twins' friend Kathleen has something to hide. She finds a wounded dog and nurses it back to health in secret. The dog escapes from the boxroom where he is kept and is discovered by Miss Theobald. However, Kathleen is allowed to keep the dog and all is well. By the end of term, the girls are completely settled in and are enjoying St. Clare's. |
4237276 | /m/0brh_p | The O'Sullivan Twins | Enid Blyton | 1942 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | The newly sensible Pat and Isabel O'Sullivan depart for their second term at St Clare's, with their Cousin Alison joining them. Alison's character is airheaded and ditzy, but she is basically a decent and kind-hearted person. Other new characters include Lucy Oriell and Margery Fenworthy. Lucy is the archetypal school story girl — bright, kind and popular — although she is portrayed well, without the one-dimensional flatness this type of character can often have. Her father is a painter and Lucy herself is a talented artist. Margery is sulky, sullen, rude, antisocial and the other girls suspect she is older than them, nearer to sixteen years old. Events include a midnight tea party for second former Tessie, which is discovered by Mamzelle through the machinations of another second former, Erica. Erica causes trouble for the first and second formers throughout the year, and is finally trapped in a fire which results in a thrilling rescue by Margery, who becomes a heroine. Lucy's father is involved in an accident rendering him unable to paint, and therefore unable to pay St Clare's school fees, but she is helped by the twins and her new friend, Margery. There is also excitement when Janet puts beetles into Mamzelle's spectacle case and then the girls pretend they can't see them, leaving Mamzelle to believe she is going mad. Characters in this book; * Pat O'Sullivan * Isabel O'Sullivan * Alison O'Sullivan * Margery * Lucy * Tessie * Nora * Erica (antagonist) * Winifred James * Belinda Towers * Hilary Wentworth * Mam'zelle * Doris Elward * Miss Roberts * Matron * Janet Robins * Miss. Theobald * Kathleen Gregory * Shelia Naylor * Rita George * Miss Lewis * Winnie |
4239055 | /m/0brm80 | The Wishing Game | null | null | null | Jonathon Palmer is a shy teenager at a traditional British boys boarding school in the 1950s. He has three friends: bookworm Nicholas and twins, Stephen and Michael. Unfortunately, his friends live in a separate dormitory, leaving Jonathon exposed to regular bullying at the hands of sadistic James Wheatley and his cronies Stuart and George. There is only one boy who is not bullied with James Wheatley - Richard Rokeby. Richard is a loner but has confidence and scathing wit. Jonathon gradually befriends dark and dangerous Richard, who in turn encourages Jonathon to be brave and stand up to the bullies (both students and faculty members). Richard begins to turn Jonathon against his three friends. One night, Richard suggests that the boys play a game with a Ouija Board that he has brought to the school from his aunt's house. The twins refuse and leave. Nicholas refuses to let Richard scare him, so he remains. Following that evening, bad things begin to happen that Jonathon believes he has caused. Both James Wheatley's cronies leave the school - Stuart with his family to the U.S. and George to the hospital after a brutal injury on the rugby field. This leaves James Wheatley vulnerable. James Wheatley becomes paranoid and becomes too afraid to go to sleep. Driven mad, he ends up running out of the school in his pyjamas and is killed in a hit and run. Jonathon believes that it was his fault and begins to fear Richard Rokeby. It is on the last night of the school year that police are called to the school grounds. The headmaster has a heart attack. The cruel Latin professor has gone insane and has beaten his wife to death. The closeted History teacher has hanged himself. Michael has fallen to his death trying to stand up to Richard. The police break in to a locked room where Richard and Jonathon are. Both boys are dead and one police officer has to break a window for air, as he is suffocated by an indescribable smell in the room. Nicholas ends up taking the blame for all of it, despite being innocent. Many decades later, an adult Nicholas tells his story to a journalist. However, he tells the journalist that if he publishes the story, Nicholas will ensure that his life is ruined. Nicholas claims that, like Richard and Jonathon, he also acquired dark powers during their "wishing game" with the Ouija Board. The journalist deliberates for a few moments before throwing the tape recordings of Nicholas's story into the fire. |
4240802 | /m/0brqz8 | The Girl with the Golden Eyes | Honoré de Balzac | null | null | The story follows the decadent heir Henri de Marsay, who becomes enamored of the titular beauty, Paquita Valdes, and plots to seduce her. Though he succeeds, he becomes disillusioned when he discovers she is also involved with another lover, and plots to murder her. When he arrives to kill her, he discovers she's already dead by the hand of her lover - his half-sister. She declares that Paquita came from a land where women are no more than chattels, able to be bought and used in any way. In the last lines of the story, de Marsay laughingly tells a friend that the girl has died of consumption. |
4241101 | /m/0brrwy | Epic | Conor Kostick | null | {"/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature"} | Epic follows the life of a boy named Erik and his involvement in a game called Epic. Epic is a virtual game, but is considered by all the inhabitants of New Earth as much more. A generic fantasy game, Epic echoes World of Warcraft and Everquest, but the entire population of New Earth play the game, as its rewards directly affect their income, social standing and careers. Epic is used to control violence, which, in their society, is illegal and is treated with extreme severity. A growing injustice has emerged in the world, as the game of Epic has progressed to a point where, since the game's currency is used as money in the real world, it is nearly impossible for poor people to actually advance in the game, unless given money by those who inherited wealth and powerful equipment, or finding treasures. Poor citizens of New Earth play their entire life, slowly building up their characters to try to become powerful enough to go to a university to study Epic, or - if they choose - to study fields of real life. If a community wishes to redress a perceived injustice, they may challenge Central Allocations or C. A., which is a powerful, select group of nine individuals that controls all of the world's resources and funds the most powerful characters in the game world. All of the members of C. A. are extremely rich, which results in them having nearly unbeatable characters in the game, especially to the great number of weak players in the game. The challenges are held in a special arena where the various players can attack each other. The challenges are simply a fight to the last man between the two opposing teams. If you win against the Central Allocations team, then you get what you want, be it a new law, a medical procedure, or a material object. If you lose, though, then you lose everything your character owns (including items and money) and you have to begin all over again. Dying in the game outside of the arena where challenges are held also yields the same results, so dying is a disaster, meaning that however many hours you have played are completely wasted, and you have to begin again from scratch. The story opens with Erik determined to obtain revenge for the unjust treatment of his parents. Unknown to Erik, his father, Harald, was exiled because he hit another person (Ragnok, a future member of Central Allocations). Ragnok was trying to assault Harald's wife in a way that is never explained fully in the book, but seems to have some sexual implications. Having escaped from exile, Harald had hidden in a small out-of-the-way community with his wife, during which they have Erik. In order to help his local friends, Harald challenges Central Allocations hoping to remain unknown to them, but his character is identified and he is exiled once more. Before these events, Erik had become fed up with the game, squandering many lives of his avatars in fighting Inry'aat, the Red Dragon, who guards a massive treasure hoard. Most of these attempts are spent trying to figure out a quick way to defeat the dragon. As an expression of his discontent with the world, Erik had gone against convention in making a human female avatar, which he named Cindella and had deliberatly chosen an almost unknown character class, swashbuckler. He put all of his ability points into beauty, which most players consider a waste, as beauty has no benefit in battle. This, incidently, is the cause for the bland, gray characters that predominate in Epic. But curiously, the tale takes a twist and Erik inherits much wealth from his investment in beauty as the game itself begins to respond to his unique avatar. As a result and freed by the plight of his parents from having to play the game in the usual, risk-avoiding grind, Erik dares to dream he can kill the red dragon and with its wealth, challenge the power of C. A. With his friends' help and one of his strategies from studying Inry'aat, the red dragon is indeed slain, and as a result Erik and his friends become some of the richest and most famous characters in all of Epic. Each of the group gains about four million bezants, which amounts to more wealth than they could earn in over a thousand years of normal play. This victory propels the teenagers into a series of unexpected encounters including with an evil vampyre; the Executioner of C. A.; a sinister Dark Elf and the Avatar of the game itself. The Avatar and the vampyre play a central role in the plot, as they are the opposing sides of the persona that the game itself inexplicably developed. The Avatar represents the game's desire to end its existence and save the people of New Earth, while the vampyre reflects its desire to simply continue existing. They balance each other out in the final conflict of the book, leaving Erik to revolutionise his world by ending the game of Epic. |
4242187 | /m/0brvc1 | Harry Kitten and Tucker Mouse | George Selden | null | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | The book tells the story of the young mouse who becomes Tucker, and the kitten who becomes Harry, the two friends of Chester Cricket in The Cricket in Times Square. Tucker, we learn, was born in a box of Kleenexes and other odds and ends on Tenth Avenue, and fled his nest at a young age to avoid sanitation workers. He takes his name from "Merry Tucker's Home-Baked Goods", a bakery on Tenth Avenue. He meets Harry Kitten, who took his name from two children he heard talking. One said "Harry-you're a character!" and the kitten decided he too wanted to be a character. The two become friends and search New York for a home of their own. Their wanderings take them to the basement of the Empire State Building and to Gramercy Park, among other places. Eventually, they settle down in a disused drain pipe in the Times Square subway station. |
4242534 | /m/0brw1w | Moominland Midwinter | Tove Jansson | 1957 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | While the rest of the Moomin family are in the deep slumber of their winter hibernation, Moomintroll finds himself awake and unable to get back to sleep. He discovers a world hitherto unknown to him, where the sun does not rise and the ground is covered with cold, white, wet powder. Moomintroll is lonely at first but soon meets Too-ticky and his old friend Little My (who takes delight in sledging down the snowy hills on Moominmamma's silver tea tray). The friends build a snow horse for the Lady Of The Cold and mourn the passing of an absent-minded squirrel who gazed into the Lady's eyes and froze to death. However, a squirrel is spotted alive by Moomintroll at the end of the book, and it seems that it may have come back to life. As the haunting winter progresses, many characters (notably the Groke, Sorry-oo the small dog, and a boisterous skiing Hemulen) come to Moominvalley in search of warmth, shelter and Moominmamma's stores of jam. |
4242947 | /m/0brx7c | The Unexpected Man | Yasmina Reza | null | null | A man and a woman sit opposite each other in the detached intimacy of a train compartment on a journey from Paris to Frankfurt. He is a world famous author, she carries his latest novel in her bag and ponders the dilemma of reading it in front of him.... As both the woman and man ponder their situation in the compartment they bring past events and philosophies up in separate monologues. Finally in the ending of the play, they speak conversationally, and in the last line of the show the woman calls the author by his name, the one thing she was so afraid to find out, if he was like how she envisioned. |
4243480 | /m/0br_v2 | White Jazz | James Ellroy | 9/1/1992 | {"/m/0lsxr": "Crime Fiction", "/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/05hgj": "Novel", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | Dave Klein is a Lieutenant in the LAPD's Administrative Vice unit and an attorney. Unlike The Big Nowhere and L.A. Confidential, the book is told with one "protagonist" instead of three, reminiscent of the first novel, The Black Dahlia. It is told from Klein's stream of consciousness. After the reader is updated on LA's status, (Johnny Stompanato's death, Mickey Cohen, a probe set up on organized crime's influence in boxing, the political Battle of Chavez Ravine which was the relocation of Chavez Ravine's residents in order to build the Los Angeles Dodgers Stadium, etc.) through the newspaper clippings, Dave Klein is introduced. He and his partner George "Junior" Stemmons are setting up a raid on a house with a bookmaking operation running inside. Klein and Stemmons are later ordered to protect the witness in the boxing probe. However, Mickey Cohen called Klein earlier and told him 'Sam G' ("G for Giancana") wanted the witness dead. Klein kills the witness, who has a mental disability, by throwing him out of a high window, making it look like an accident. The press headlines the story, "Federal Witness Plummets to Death," with a sidebar: "Suicide Pronouncement: 'Hallelujah, I Can Fly!'" When Klein finally returns to his house, he reminisces on his life so far. Born David Douglas Klein, he is of German descent. His father Franz, arrived at Ellis Island. He was raised by both parents, and has a sister named Meg. However, the father was abusive towards his sister, and Klein, while still at a young age, threatened to kill his father if he hurt her again. After the children become adults, their parents die in a car accident. Klein and his sister shared an "attraction" to one another, and after their parent's death, they almost slept together. Klein joins the LAPD in 1938. In 1942, he enlists in the U.S. Marines and serves in the Pacific. and returns to the Department in 1945. Klein also studies law at University of Southern California. However the GI Bill won't cover the costs for school. Klein must run other jobs, from collecting on loans, (earning him the name, "the Enforcer"), to mob work. Klein rises through the police rank to Lieutenant, passes the bar, and secures his police pension. However, Klein isn't released from mob work, which included several murders. Two personal murders were of the "Two Tonys", Tony Brancato and Tony Trombino, who hurt Meg. He hides in the backseat of one of their cars and shoots them both in the back of the heads. In an attempt to get out of mob work, he begs the dying Jack Dragna to let him go. Dragna doesn't, and Klein suffocates him. Wilhite, of the corrupt Narcotics Squad, calls Klein later that night and ask him to investigate a burglary. The burglary is at the house of J.C. Kafesjian, sanctioned drug dealer of the LAPD. The crime scene consists of dead dogs, missing their eyes and poisoned with stelfactiznide chloride (a chemical solution used in dry cleaning), smashed records, and torn pedal pushers covered with semen. Klein investigates as a favor to Wilhite. In order to get liberal Democratic candidate Morton Diskant to drop out of the election for city councilman, Klein is ordered to blackmail Diskant. Klein receives assistance from Fred Turentine, and Pete Bondurant (who later appears in American Tabloid and The Cold Six Thousand). While the operation doesn't go smoothly, they successfully blackmail the married Diskant with another woman, and Diskant later drops out of the race. Klein investigates the Kafesjian case with police work, forensic information, and other leads. Klein later gets a side job from Howard Hughes, to obtain information on an actress named Glenda Bledsoe that would violate her full-service contract. Since there is a morality clause in her contract, Klein merely needs to find proof that Bledsoe is an alcoholic, criminal, narcotics addict, communist, lesbian, or nymphomaniac. Hughes' reasons were she moved out of one of Hughes's guest houses, and left script sessions without permission. Klein sees through to the real motive for Hughes wanting her out. As Klein puts it: "'Guest home' meant 'fuck pad' meant Howard Hughes left to choke his own chicken." During surveillance of Glenda, he finds out she, Touch Vecchio, Rock Rockwell, and George Ainge are planning a fake kidnapping. |
4244711 | /m/0bs20r | Summer Term at St. Clare's | Enid Blyton | 1943 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | The story starts with the twins Pat and Isabel O'Sullivan looking forward to enjoying their first summer term at St. Clare's. Their mother is happy to see them looking forward to school. One day, they go to play tennis with a friend, and meet a girl who has mumps. The twins, to their dismay, are put in quarantine, and are not allowed to go back to school at the beginning of the term. When they arrive back the following week, they are heartily welcomed by their friends. Five new girls have joined their form. There is an American girl called Sadie, who is obviously quite rich and elegant. The twins discover that their cousin Alison has already made friends with her. There is a wild-looking girl called Carlotta, who is half Spanish. There is a naughty but very likeable girl Bobby (Roberta), who quickly becomes friends with Janet. There is another girl called Prudence, who is quite pretty but has no sense of humour. The last new girl is Pam, who is very hard working but also very shy. The girls soon discover that Miss Roberts is on the war path. She is the first form head and is determined that her girls should do well and be promoted in next form. The twins also get to know the new girls. Prudence turns out to be nasty, spiteful, and dishonest. She takes a strong dislike to Carlotta, and discovers that Carlotta once belonged to a circus. She reveals Carlotta's secret to the other girls, hoping it will make them despise her, but it only serves to make Carlotta even more popular. Prudence also manipulates the shy Pam under the false disguise of a friendship. As a result, Pam is initially disliked by all of the girls except Carlotta and Isabel, who take pity on her when they realise that she is afraid to tackle Prudence as she does not want to be on her own. Encouraged by the two older girls, Pam eventually stands up to Prudence and ends their forced friendship, becoming friends with Carlotta instead. Bobby initially doesn't seem to care for anything or anyone until Miss Theobald tells her that she is cheating her parents badly. After learning this, Bobby starts working hard, too, though she occasionally plays tricks. The American girl, Sadie, is like Alison, always caring about her looks. She also hates sports and all outdoor activities (although, unlike Alison, she actually enjoys swimming). However, she is good tempered and laughs at being teased. The girls soon find out that Sadie is an heiress. Sadie's father died and left a will giving away all his money to his sisters, but Sadie's mother won it back through lawsuits. During the term, while Prudence is spying on Carlotta, Sadie is kidnapped, and Carlotta - who finds her tied up, gagged and blindfolded in the back seat of a motor car - goes after her, and stages a fake road accident, during which she manages to rescue her with the help of her circus' friends. The term ends happily for most, with Prudence leaving because everyone hates her for her part in Sadie's kidnap (she could have alerted Sadie to the fact that she was in danger when she and Pam met a strange man lurking around the school entrance but was too busy trying to get Carlotta into trouble to realise this, and ignored Pam's warning to report the man to Miss Theobald), Sadie herself bouncing back strongly from her kidnapping ordeal and preparing to go back to America, and the other girls looking forward to going into second year except Prudence, who is leaving. |
4246198 | /m/0bs46z | The Devil's Teardrop: A Novel of the Last Night of the Century | Jeffery Deaver | 1999 | {"/m/0lsxr": "Crime Fiction"} | On New Year's Eve morning, 1999, in Dupont Circle, Washington, D.C., a killer referred to as 'the Digger' guns down tens of innocent people at the metro station. A man, Gilbert Havel, sends a letter to the Mayor Gerald Kennedy demanding twenty million dollars cash to be dropped off at a park near Interstate 66 in bags. The letter goes on to explain that if his demands are not met the Digger will continue to strike at secret locations - at 3 p.m., 6 p.m. and at Midnight. Kennedy decides to deliver the money to the extortionist to ensure no more innocents are harmed and to make sure the town doesn't lose faith in the Mayor as election time is nearing. Agent Margret Lukas, the agent responsible for the case, wants to either put tracking on the bags, or take the extortionist down when he comes for the money. However, Havel is killed in a hit-and-run incident before he can make it to the drop-off point. All that Agent Margret has now is a letter, a dead body, and the knowledge that since the Digger had not been called off he will continue to carry on the remaining attacks. Assisting her in the investigation are officer Len Hardy and Detective Cage. At his home, retired FBI Document Examiner Parker Kincaid is spending time with his daughter and son and studying a letter that supposedly written by late President George Washington. It is when he is debating the authenticity of the letter that his ex-wife, Joan, comes and tells him that she wants the custody of their children. To Parker's dismay Joan's social worker will be at his house the next day. Parker receives an unwanted call from Cage, an old friend, and Cage tells Parker that he needs Parker's help with a letter based on the subway shootings. Sensing this as a bad idea because of his children, Parker declines. After some time pondering about the shooting and all the innocent children like his own that had died and ensuring his son Robby that 'the Boatman' (a suspect from Parker's past case that tried to break in Robby's window) won't show up, Parker shows up under Lukas' investigation site. Parker studies the letter and concludes that although the writer seems dumb or foreign by the mistakes he makes, that it is on purpose and the extortionist is actually intellectual. He also makes note of a strange stroke done over the letter 'i' which he dubs the 'Devil's Teardrop'. In scans conducted by Hardy and Parker there is an imprint on letter caused by being under another piece of paper. The imprint has '-tel' which the team concludes that the second attack site must be a hotel. <This plot summary is only partially complete. You can contribute by adding more elements of the story.> |
4246983 | /m/0bs5b9 | The Professor and his Beloved Equation | null | null | null | The narrator's housekeeping agency dispatches her to the house of the Professor, a former mathematician who can remember new memories for only 80 minutes. She is more than a little frustrated to find that he loves only mathematics and shows no interest whatsoever in anything or anyone else. One day, upon learning that she has a 10-year-old son waiting home alone until late at night every day, the Professor flies into a rage and tells the narrator to have her son come to his home directly from school from that day on. The next day, her son comes and the Professor nicknames him "Root". From then on, their days begin to be filled with warmth. |
4248247 | /m/0bs70t | The Gathering | Isobelle Carmody | 1993 | {"/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The novel is narrated by Nathanial Delaney, a teenage boy with a self-confessed Hamlet complex and social ineptitude, which can be credited to his lack of a stable environment; he and his mother have been moving frequently since the divorce of his parents. Their most recent home is the seaside town of Cheshunt, an apparently quiet community that Nathanial immediately dislikes, citing the town's bitter wind and abattoir stench as the primary reasons. His resentment causes tension between him and his mother, and their relationship becomes more strained as the story goes on. Many themes are portrayed in this novel including good vs evil, inner struggle, human nature, conformity vs individuality, friendship and cooperation. Nathanial soon discovers that there is more to dislike about the town than the smell. The school, Three North High, is victimised by its brutish student patrol, which is under the orders of the principal. Mr Karle "invites" Nathanial to join the school's youth group, The Gathering. He believes strongly in cooperation, and hence does not encourage individualism. Nathanial declines to join The Gathering, which becomes an issue with the school patrol. While walking his dog one night, Nathanial accidentally stumbles on a meeting of a group of three students from Three North: Danny Odin, Indian Mahoney and Nissa Jerome. A fourth member is not present, a school prefect, Seth Paul. The group are known as The Chain, and they tell Nathanial they have been brought together by the "forces of light" to fight a deep evil in Cheshunt, an evil headed by Mr Karle (whom they refer to as "The Kraken"). When Nathanial is caught and questioned by The Chain, they are all informed by the group's prophetic guide, Lallie, that Nathanial is the final of the chosen members of their clan and his arrival heralds the beginning of their battle. Throughout the novel Nathanial overcomes his cynicism and begins seeing signs of The Dark everywhere, most centrally in the past; in studying the history of Cheshunt he uncovers many parallels between his situation and past events. Throughout the story he also gradually learns that each of his fellow members have deep personal demons, and his role in The Chain and the Binding of the Dark becomes clear in the final chapters, where the grand showdown between The Dark and The Light takes place. |
4249784 | /m/0bsb4y | Le Phare du bout du monde | Michel Verne | 1905 | {"/m/08sdrw": "Adventure novel"} | Vasquez, Moriz, and Felipe are the three lighthouse keepers stationed at the Staten Island lighthouse off the southern tip of Argentina. Two of them are murdered by a band of newly arrived pirates led by one Kongre. Vasquez is the only survivor, and spends several months until the dispatch boat Sante Fe is due to return, surviving off the pirates' hidden stores of food in a cave. After the Century, an American ship from Mobile, Alabama, crashes on the island due to the light having been put out by the pirates, Vasquez bands with the sole survivor of the wreck — First Officer John Davis — to stop the pirates from escaping into the South Pacific. They manage to scavenge a cannon from the wreckage, and shoot the pirates' ship, the Maule, as it is about to leave the bay they are situated in. The shell only causes minor damage, however, and the pirates' carpenter is able to fix it in only a few days. The night before the ship is about to attempt to leave again, Vasquez swims to the Maule at its mooring and plants a bomb in the rudder. This causes, yet again, only minor damage, and is fixed in only one day. The next day however, Carcante, the second-in-command of the pirate ship, spots the Sante Fe on the horizon. Fortunately for the pirates, it will not arrive till night, and the Sante Fe can't possibly get into the bay without light from the lighthouse. This will give them the perfect chance to slip out and sail around the southern side of the island, which they know quite well by now. Vasquez and Davis, however, return to the lighthouse and turn the light back on. The troop of pirates tries to regain the lighthouse and kill the two, but they find the bolted iron door to the staircase too reinforced to break down. Kongre, the band's leader, orders Carcante and the carpenter to climb the side of the lighthouse and murder Vasquez and Davis at the top, but they are shot as soon as their heads peek over the banister. Kongre and the remaining pirates realize it is all over for them, and flee to the interior of the island. Most surrender afterward, a few starve, and Vasquez watches as Kongre commits suicide. Vasquez returns home with the Sante Fe after making sure the island is safe for the new lighthousemen. |
4250982 | /m/0bsd3y | The Last of the Sky Pirates | Chris Riddell | 9/1/2002 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | Rook Barkwater lives in the network of sewer-chambers beneath Undertown, in which a society of librarians has established itself, secretly opposing the cruel Guardians of Night. Rook, a lowly under-librarian, dreams of becoming a librarian knight—one of the select few to travel into the Deepwoods and gather information which may lead to the discovery of the cure to stone-sickness (an affliction which has destroyed the buoyant rocks, making skysailing impossible). Rook does not expect his dreams ever to come true—his best friend, Felix Lodd, seems a much more likely candidate—but, to everyone's surprise, Rook is chosen to be a knight, along with Stob Lummus and Magda Burlix. Rook, Magda and Stob make their way along the Great Mire Road, a shryke-controlled bridge that has been built to traverse the marshy Mire in place of sky ships. While on the way, Rook helps an imprisoned sky pirate, Deadbolt Vulpoon, to escape. Finally, the librarian knights arrive in the Eastern Roost, a large shryke-city. Employing the help of a male shryke, Hekkle, who is friendly to the librarians, the three make their way across the Deepwoods, eventually arriving at the Free Glades. After arriving there, Rook, Stob and Magda are joined by Xanth Filatine, a disguised Guardian of Night who is secretly channeling information to the Guardians so that they may ambush the librarian knights as they travel. During Rook's studies, he learns to create a skycraft, which is a small, flying one-person vehicle. Xanth breaks his leg in a skycraft accident, and cannot embark upon his treatise-voyage, the journey for which the knights have been studying. Rook also makes a raid on the Foundry Glade, along with Felix Lodd's sister Varis Lodd (who saved Rook from slavers when he was very young) and the slaughterer Knuckle. The purpose of this raid is to free the banderbear slaves that are kept there. During this raid, Rook takes a poisoned arrow to the chest to save a banderbear's life. Rook embarks on his treatise-voyage. His goal is to find the Great Convocation of Banderbears. Rook befriends a young banderbear named Wumeru, and he follows her, against her will, to the Convocation. The banderbears discover his presence and are about to kill him when the banderbear who Rook saved in the Foundry Glade stands up for him. Rook is then introduced to Twig, the main character from the second Edge Chronicles trilogy, now an old man. Twig reveals that his sky ship, the Skyraider, has not yet succumbed to stone-sickness. Along with a crew of banderbears, the two set out to attack the fortress of the Guardians of Night: the Tower of the same name. Their purpose is to free Cowlquape Pentephraxis, an old friend of Twig's. While Twig and the Skyraider keep the Guardians busy, Rook sneaks into the tower on his skycraft and frees Cowlquape. As he is about to fly free, a rope becomes snagged and the skycraft is stuck. Xanth, the traitor, confronts Rook. The two had become good friends during their time together in the Free Glades, a fact that Xanth apparently had not forgotten. Xanth cuts the rope quickly, allowing Rook to fly away safely with Cowlquape. The Skyraider, meanwhile, had succumbed to stone-sickness, and was slowly dropping over the Edge. Rook and Cowlquape mourn the end of Twig, who had been struck by a crossbow-bolt and had decided to go down with his ship. However, at the last minute, Twig's caterbird, who had sworn to watch over him for always, catches him and flies towards the rejuvenating waters of Riverrise. Whether they make it in time is left as a cliffhanger. |
4251622 | /m/0bsfbp | Midnight Over Santaphrax | Chris Riddell | 10/5/2000 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | In trying to save his father Cloud Wolf from the vortex he was trapped in during the Mother Storm, Twig learns that Sanctaphrax is about to be destroyed by the Mother Storm which will replenish the waters of the Edge by returning to Riverise, a legendary garden and waterfall from which all life came. He and the crew of the Edgedancer are then scattered across the Edge by the collapse of the vortex, with no memory of the voyage into open sky. Pieces of the destroyed Edgedancer rain down upon Undertown, killing and injuring many. Among the dead are three important Leaguesmen. A dazed Twig is rescued from the Stone Gardens by the Professor of Darkness and taken to Sanctaphrax where he is made the new Sub-Professor of Light and kept safely away from the other academics. Meanwhile, Cowlquape, a young boy studying in Sanctaphrax and the son of a wealthy, yet cruel, Leaguesman, hears rumours about the new apprentice and realizes it is the same Captain Twig who had left the city a month before. Cowlquape is at the lowest of the hierarchy in Sanctaphrax, and as such is bullied often by richer upper-class students such as Vox Verlix, an evil, scheming student. Upon learning that his father, the Leaguesman, was among those killed by the sky ship's debris, Cowlquape is confronted by Vox, who says that unless Cowlquape's father can pay his fees he will be kicked out of Sanctaphrax. Miserably, Cowlquape wanders the battlements and saves Twig from jumping off the balcony and killing himself. Twig regains his memory and, in gratitude to Cowlquape, appoints him as his new apprentice. Together they embark across Undertown to find Twig's missing crew. They travel across Undertown, the Mire (in a ship), the Deepwoods and Riverrise. They find three of the crew in Undertown, one in the Deepwoods, and finally the Stone Pilot, who is the only one who retained her memory of what happened in the Weather Vortex (due to her Stone Pilot's Hood). She tells Twig that his father became a piece of the Great Storm and that Sanctaphrax needs to be released before the Mother Storm itself reaches it so the storm can reach Riverrise so life in the Edge goes on. Twig and Cowlquape fly to the Stone Gardens, and then run to Undertown, where all the academics were evacuated from Sanctaphrax, including the Professor of Darkness, who won't let Twig and Cowlquape release Sanctaphrax. He pushes Twig from the platform and tries everything to stop Cowlquape. He even makes Cowlquape the Supreme Rector, but Cowlquape releases Sanctaphrax, that flies away with the Professor of Darkness. The two explain everything to the academics and the Undertowners. The Mother Storm reaches Riverrise. In the meanwhile, a giant stone is growing in the Stone Gardens, the academics take the stone and it becomes the new Sanctaphrax, ruled by Cowlquape. Twig gets a new sky ship and the book ends with him leaving to venture towards Riverrise to recover his crew, saying goodbye to Cowlquape, who wishes Twig luck. This is the last book of the Twig Saga. |
4252228 | /m/0bsgch | Empty World | Samuel Youd | 1977 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/0hc1z": "Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | 15 year old Neil Miller is orphaned following a car accident and goes to live with his grandparents in Winchelsea, England. Neil suffers post traumatic stress from the car accident and stays detached from his peers despite their occasional attempts to involve him. News travels of a new disease, called the Calcutta Plague due to its origin, which accelerates the aging process in human beings. The plague is uniformly fatal, and although initially only affects those of already advanced years (claiming an old teacher at his school and both his grandparents,) it quickly progresses until it takes the life of a 2 year old girl that Neil finds and attempts to look after. During this time Neil notes that he has contracted the plague, but after a brief fever it leaves him unaffected. The death of the girl (and earlier her 4 year old brother) leaves Neil the sole survivor of Winchelsea, and after deciding that Winchelsea is becoming dangerous - due in part to packs of wild dogs - he leaves for London, taking first a manual Mini which he has difficulty driving, followed by an automatic Jaguar. Arriving in London he meets his first fellow survivor - the mentally unbalanced Clive, who although friendly towards Neil, during the night vandalizes his car to the point of destroying it, steals his mother's ring that Neil had kept, and then abandons him in central London. After finding the body of another survivor who has committed suicide barely hours before Neil found him, he is again despondent, but finds evidence of other survivors which brings him into contact with Billie and Lucy. Billie is openly hostile towards Neil, and it is implied that she has suffered in some way either during the plague or directly after it, but Neil becomes friends with Lucy and starts a romantic relationship with her - much to Billie's disgust. During this time Neil notes that the dogs have been supplanted by even more dangerous rats, and at least one big cat has escaped from a local zoo and although unseen is heard outside their flat. To this end Neil arms himself with a pistol and ammunition taken from a sporting goods shop. Billie and Neil continue to argue over an unspecified period of time, with Lucy gradually taking Neils side in arguments, until eventually during a foraging expedition Billie attempts to kill Neil by stabbing him in the back with a kitchen knife. The attack is shown to be premeditated as when Neil tries to defend himself with the gun he finds that it has been unloaded. Neil is injured, but overpowers Billie and returns to Lucy, where they lock Billie out and decide to move on to a previously discussed farmhouse. Billie arrives back at the house and pleads with both Lucy and Neil to let her back in, but they decide that they could never trust her again, and leave her outside. In the last paragraph of the book Neil abruptly changes his mind, feeling that he would never get over the guilt of leaving Billie to die, and with Lucy goes downstairs to open the door and let her back inside. |
4252732 | /m/0bsg_h | Slawter | Darren Shan | 6/5/2006 | {"/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/03npn": "Horror"} | The book is set about a year after Lord Loss takes place. When the story takes place Dervish, who has just returned from his battle with Lord Loss, a horror movie producer named Davida Haym offers Dervish a chance to work on the set of her new movie, "Slawter". Grubbs soon finds out that Davida has made a deal with Lord Loss that if she gets Dervish and Grubbs to work on the movie, she can film them live giving her the movie of her life. But when Dervish, Grubbs, Bill-E and a psychologist named Juni Swan try to escape, they encounter a barrier which sends them into a dream world. In this dream world, Bill-E has been captured by the Lambs so they can learn the secrets of how his Lycanthropy was cured. Dervish and Grubbs invades the Lambs complex and demand the return of Bill-E Spleen. The Lambs refuse so they invade the complex and rescue Bill-E. Grubbs then realizes there are too many coincidences, the fact that the complex was an exact replica of Hannibal Lecter's cell,for instance. He wakes up and finds himself in a small room in one of buildings that make up the town Slawter. Dervish and Bill-E are also in the room with him and he uses special magic to wake them up. The three of them then run into the town trying to warn people to get away by saying there is a gas leak and the town will explode soon. No one heeds their warnings and Davida sets the Demons upon the unwilling cast and crew, but Lord Loss then betrays her and kills her. Most of the actors don't fight back — thinking this is a plot change — but soon realize it's not and are killed. The three of them run and try to lure a demon closer to the invisible force field that surrounds the town so they can try to kill it on the barrier to cause it to crack for a while so they can escape and bring as many people with them as possible. To do this they leave Bill-E in an alley to attract a weak demon. Finally, one does come, after a girl named Bo Kooniart (who they previously disliked and whose father was in on Davida Haym's plot), a girl called Karin and three boys see them and run to them while being chased by a giant bee-like demon. Dervish and Grubbs subdue it but suddenly Juni reappears and kills it. To get another, Grubbs, Bo, Karin and a boy all lure a demon into chasing them, but are unlucky when Lord Loss finds them. Artery and a new cockroach-demon called Gregor are with him and the children run. Karin is soon killed off by Lord Loss's literal kiss of death. Grubs and Bo eventually find the edge but Dervish is not there. Suddenly Dervish and Juni appear from under an invisibility shield and distract Lord Loss so Grubbs can move Gregor to the barrier. Juni is about to kill the demon before she is struck by Gregor's leg. Grubbs manages to open a window by killing Gregor but has to battle Lord Loss and Artery. Dervish attacks Lord Loss with the people he helped get through. Bill-E pulls a merely unconscious Juni through. Grubbs then sees that Demons can get through so he creates another barrier that only humans can get through. Grubbs then has to battle multiple demons to buy time for the people here. He realises he has power that he never knew he had, even the power to injure Lord Loss so Dervish can get out. Grubbs then runs out after Dervish and the window closes. An unlucky few are still trapped inside and Lord Loss then slaughters them brutally.He promises to get his revenge on Dervish, Grubbs and Bill-E. They realise that Bo did not make it out of the bubble surrounding Slawter as she went to try to save her father. They then see Davida's assistant director Chuda sitting there and Grubbs almost kills him but Bill-E stops him. Then Juni kills him with magic she never knew she had until fighting in the bubble. Later, they find that Juni has gone, and left a note saying that she had to be alone for a while after what she had done, and didn't want to be contacted. Back at Dervish's house, Dervish tells Grubbs about what his future would be if he did have magic. This causes Grubbs subconscious to hide his magic, even though Dervish said it was impossible. When Dervish scans Grubbs for magic powers he thinks he has none, but in truth, Grubbs had hid them without knowing. Later he decides to check if he did have powers, and managed to switch the light on and off without using the switch and make his reflection disappear. To have the power to conceal his powers from Dervish and to use magic in the real world away from any demons can only mean one thing— Grubbs is a magician. |
4253753 | /m/0bsjy_ | A World Restored | Henry Kissinger | null | null | A World Restored explains the complex chain of Congresses that started before the end of the Napoleonic wars in 1814 with the Congress of Vienna, and extended into the 1820s, as a system expected to give Europe peace and a new order after the violent struggles of the previous quarter century. At the same time, the book introduces the reader to the political biographies of two important characters of the time. The first and main character is Prince Metternich, the Austrian Chancellor at that time. As the statesman of an old and fragile multilingual empire, Metternich had to deal with the task of organizing the alliance against Napoleon, while at the same time being a forced ally of France. After Napoleon was defeated, Metternich became the organizer of the Congress system, through which he would seek the survival and advancement of Austria. An 18th century styled rococo figure, old-fashioned even in his own era, but described as having superlative diplomatic skills, Prince Metternich pursued a peace for Europe, based on restored monarchical principles, and on solidarity among the monarchs of Europe. The French Revolution of 1789, and the subsequent Napoleonic invasion and rule of much of Europe, had implanted new liberal revolutionary ideas that were never to be eliminated. At the same time nationalism was rising over much of the world. The Habsburg Empire was a complex political entity, with many ethnic groups and languages coexisting within it, and these forces threatened the survival of the Empire. Metternich expected to lead an alliance against France, pressing only enough to depose Napoleon, who had shown complete unwillingness to accept a moderate peace, but preserving a strong France under a restored Bourbon monarchy as a counterweight to the power of Russia. From 1812, moderation would be Metternich's guiding principle in the path to European order, as he carried Austria from the forced French alliance during Napoleon's invasion of Russia (in which an Austrian corps under Karl Philipp Schwarzenberg took part), into neutrality during the campaign of Spring 1813, and finally as a leading member of the anti-French alliance which defeated France in 1813-14. In the process, Metternich avoided breaking any of his treaties with his counterparts, since only established order among states would permit fragile Austria to survive. Metternich was very skillful in this and gained the confidence of all rulers at the many European congresses that followed. In his view, solidarity among monarchs would restrain the danger of liberal revolutions and diverse national upheavals around Europe. The other great character is British Foreign Secretary at the time, Viscount Castlereagh. As the only British politician to understand Meternich's ambitions and reasoning, and the need for an organized European order, he was strongly criticized in Britain, for getting too involved in continental politics in the name of British interests. After the Congress of Vienna, he was forbidden to attend any more European congresses. Castlereagh would later commit suicide for unrelated reasons in 1822. From that moment on, Britain would start her long period of splendid isolation, based on her supposed insular invulnerability and on the belief that Peace was a simple consequence of Napoleon's defeat. For Austria, a continental power, the reality was different. Any Napoleon could emerge at any time, and a strong European concert of conservative monarchs, based on principle, was necessary to prevent dangers before they arose. Although the Congress system worked only for a few years, the concept and principles on which it was based allowed the longest period of peace among states in history, with only few and minor interruptions. Ironically, it was such a long peace that the faith in it and the forgotten consequences of war ended in an arms race followed by a new and much larger catastrophe in 1914. |
4253857 | /m/0bsk60 | Girl of the Limberlost | Gene Stratton-Porter | null | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The novel is set in Indiana. Most of the action takes place either in or around the Limberlost, or in the nearby, fictional town of Onabasha. This Bildungsroman is structured as girl-meets-boy, girl-loses-boy, girl-undertakes-an-adventure-to-win-boy-back. The novel's heroine, Elnora Comstock, is an impoverished young woman who lives with her widowed mother, Katharine Comstock, on the edge of the Limberlost. Elnora faces cold neglect by her mother, a woman who feels ruined by the death of her husband, Robert Comstock, who drowned in quicksand in the swamp. Katharine blames Elnora for his death, because her husband died while she gave birth to their daughter and could not come to his rescue. The Comstocks make money by selling eggs and other farm products, but Mrs. Comstock refuses to cut down a single tree in the forest, or to delve for oil, as the neighbors around them are doing, even though the added income would make their lives easier. Elnora is just beginning high school, where her unfashionable dress adds to her difficulty blending in with the other students. She is determined to earn an education, which her mother derides as useless; Mrs. Comstock wants Elnora to remain at home and work as a drudge on their farm. Lack of money for tuition and books nearly derail her continued enrollment. Her few comforts are the fact that she knows she can excel in school, especially in math and her study of nature; the kindness of her neighbours, Wesley and Margaret Sinton; that Freckles left her a valuable specimens box in the swamp; and that she succeeds in her enterprising scheme to gather and sell artifacts and moths from the Limberlost, which she can store in Freckles's box without her mother's knowledge. Elnora is smart and witty, and she loves the outdoors; her heart aches for returned love. She soon makes many friends at school. Eventually Elnora wins her mother's love, but only after a few emotional disasters have stricken the Comstock women. Firstly, after succeeding in high school for some years, she feels a yearning to play violin, as her father had done. Margaret Sinton is able to procure for her the very same violin that Robert Comstock used to play, and Elnora becomes proficient at it. She knows that her mother hates the violin, without knowing why, so she must conceal her proficiency. Secondly, when Elnora is in her final year of high school, Wesley and Margaret insist that Katharine accompany them to the high school play. Katharine has no interest in seeing "what idiotic thing a pack of school children were doing." But Katharine is curious about the high school; she enters it to deride it, then finds she admires it; when she hears a violin playing, she enters the school play and discovers Elnora playing "as only a peculiar chain of circumstances puts it in the power of a very few to play." Upon seeing Elnora playing her dead husband's violin to an enthusiastic audience, and realizing that her world has changed irrevocably - "The swamp had sent back the soul of her loved dead and put it into the body of the daughter she resented, and it was almost more than she could endure and live" - Katharine faints. Thirdly, a few days later, Elnora believes her mother understands the necessity for her to graduate so that she can enter college or, at least, teach, either of which she would love to do. She instructs Katharine that she will need new dresses for Commencement and trusts her mother to supply them. Mrs. Comstock, always antagonistically honest, presents her with an old dress. Elnora considers this an unforgivable betrayal, a sign of her mother's disregard and lack of love for her. That night, Elnora must find a good dress elsewhere. Fourthly, Elnora has always concealed from her mother the fact that she can earn money by selling moths. As she works through her final year of high school and hopes to go to college, she finds that there is a single moth she must collect, which will pay the way for her future. In the central conflict of the novel, Elnora sees her mother destroy that moth. When she protests, Mrs. Comstock slaps her. Elnora has always been patient, but now she screams that she hates her mother and rushes out. Mrs. Comstock, finally realizing how essential Elnora is to her stable home life, sets out that night to replace the moth. She worsens the situation, a result which Elnora hides from her, but when the Sintons discover that Mrs. Comstock hit Elnora, Margaret determines on an intervention. She tells Katharine that she has been mourning for a husband who was promiscuous and planning to cheat on her. With this news, Katharine understands how she has neglected a loving, talented daughter. Elnora graduates and is now 19 years old. A young man, Philip Ammon, arrives in town. His uncle, a doctor, advised Phillip has been sent to Onabasha to recuperate from typhoid fever. He stays with Elnora and her mother for a summer and helps Elnora gather moths. The two gradually fall in love; however, he is already engaged to another young woman, Edith Carr, who is wealthy, spoiled, and self-centered. Elnora, to pretend that she is not beinning to fall for Philip, helps him to write letters to Edith Carr and in every way encourages his marriage to his childhood friend. When Philip, after daily, prolonged conversation and fieldwork discovers his romantic interest in Elnora is growing, Mrs. Comstock is the first to notice, but he assures her, "I admire her as I admire any perfect creation." Mrs. Comstock replies, "And nothing in all this world spoils the average girl so quickly and so surely." Philip Ammon is forced to return to Chicago when his father is ill, and begs of Elnora a farewell kiss; she refuses him and returns to her mother, broken-hearted. Philip and Edith have an argument at what was supposed to be their engagement party. Edith insults him terribly and calls their engagement off (not for the first time). She has heard Philip talk about a wonderful young lady he met in the Limberlost. Philip leaves home and proposes to Elnora. On the very afternoon that he gives Elnora an engagement ring, Edith drives up, with some friends, to the Comstocks' home, in an unasked-for visit. When Edith demands to speak to Elnora privately and swears that Elnora will never take Philip from her, Elnora is cool and polite. When Edith's group leaves, Elnora secretly takes off, giving Edith the chance to prove that Philip would marry no one else. Philip becomes ill with worry about Elnora, and Edith's friend Hart persuades her to admit that she is wrong and that Philip will marry no one except Elnora. In the denouement, it is implied that Edith will marry Hart, just as Philip will marry Elnora. |
4255235 | /m/0bsmqj | Vox | Paul Stewart | 9/4/2003 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | The novel begins by saying that in the time since Rook's mission to the Deepwoods, the Edge has become a very strange place with many suspicious activities. The Guardians of Night are awaiting a Storm which they believe will soon strike. The Shrykes, the evil avian-humanoid creatures of the Edge, are amassing as if for war, in greater numbers than before. The Goblins in Undertown also seem much more aggressive than usual, with numerous goblin assassins being sent to kill the titular character, Vox, who is too obese to leave his Palace of Statues to which he retreated after being betrayed by the evil Guardians of Night. To cap all this, strange sighings of demonic creatures are being reported by Librarian Knights on patrol duty; these creatures are seen emerging from the rubble wasteland which is a derelict part of Undertown named Screetown. Rook Barkwater, meanwhile, is on patrol duty in the morning, noting the sweltering weather, when he is struck by a fireball from beyond the Edge and is sent hurtling to earth. He awakens, battered and bruised, but alive, only to find his skycraft, the Stormhornet is destroyed and its "spirit has been released" meaning he can no longer fly unless he has the ability to create a new craft. Rook almost despairs and hopelessly climbs Screetown, pursued by the aforementioned evil predatorial creatures, one of which, a Rubble-ghoul, almost kills him, until he is rescued by his old friend Felix Lodd, Varis' brother, whom Rook and all the other librarians believed to have been dead in Screetown, as rumour had it nobody could survive in such a place. Felix is pleased to see Rook and takes him back to his hideout for the night, having formed a gang of rebels called "the Ghosts of Screetown." Meanwhile, the Most High Guardian of Night, Orbix Xaxis, has captured two young Librarians and sends them to their deaths with mocking taunts. As the Librarians are eaten alive by the Rock Demons as a punishment for disrespecting the Guardians, Xanth Filatine realizes he has been disobeyed - he told the executioner he couldn't have those two prisoners. Rook journeys through Undertown the next morning after bidding farewell to Felix, seeking a way back to the sewers, only to be caught by goblin guards on duty. Rook meets a young gnokgoblin named Gilda, whom he saves from the guards. Rook then is taken prisoner, named "Number Eleven" in the slavesale, (he is almost bought by the Guardians of Night) but is fortunately taken by goblins and taken to the Palace of Statues instead. There, he meets Hesteria Spikesap, an old cook and potioneer, along with Speegspeel, an ancient goblin butler, who seems very sinister and paranoid that the statues in the palace are possessed. Rook is almost brainwashed by an evil ghost-waif named Amberfuce, but he resists the waif's penetration and keeps his identity. Rook is given bizarre tasks by Speegspeel and Hesteria, such as "feeding the baby," in actuality a gigantic cog-wheel system filled with phraxdust; an extremely volatile substance capable of generating massive electrical energy. Rook accidentally saves Vox Verlix himself from a goblin assassination, and then happens to meet Cowlquape Pentaphraxis who ought to have been leader of New Sanctaphrax but was betrayed by Vox and thrown from power. The two Most High Academes discuss what went wrong, with Vox blaming Cowlquape, but Cowlquape, despite everything, still respects Vox's amazing mind, which was why he became Academe in the first place. Vox tells Cowlquape that the Mother Storm is returning to the Edge again, which has been in a severe drought for so long, and that she will regenerate the waters. Vox warns Cowlquape, who is on the Librarian's side, that the sewers will flood in the Storm, and tells him to evacuate the sewers and save the Librarians. Vox has a cunning plan to kill his enemies - the Guardians of Night, the Shrykes and the Goblins - in one swoop: with the Storm. He tells Rook to go off to the Shryke nesting grounds and pretend that he will betray the Librarians, to get the Shrykes into the sewers. Then Vox gets his waif Amberfuce to brainwash one of the goblins who tried to kill him and send him back to goblin leader General Tytugg and tell him to attack the Librarians too, in two days' time at eleven p.m. The Librarians work fervently to build ships and rafts to evacuate the sewers and leave just in time. Alquix Venvax, an ancient professor, remains behind to distract the goblin and Shryke armies. He does not want to leave, as he has remained there all his life and helped build the place. Magda Burlix has been looking for Rook in Screetown ever since he crashed as she did not believe he was dead, however she was captured by Guardians of Night and taken to their Tower of Night for torture and interrogation. Xanth Filatine, one of her friends from the Free Glades, happens to be her interrogator, although he soon repents of all his evil ways and saves her from his evil masters, taking the deadbolt holding Midnight's Spike - an electrical conductor atop the Tower of Night - thus preventing the Spike from being held aloft. Xanth and Magda escape through the sewers and meet Venvax, bidding him farewell when they realize he cannot leave. The goblin and Shryke armies capture and kill Venvax; and engage in a massive, climactic battle which ends with both armies being devoured by Rock Demons when they have chased Xanth and Magda into the sewers. Rook realizes that Vox intended to double-cross the Librarians themselves and set off the Storm anyway, so he runs back to the Palace of Statues in time to see the butler Speegspeel set off the Storm. Rook fights and kills Speegspeel; but Rook himself releases the Storm by mixing his sweat with the phraxdust accidentally. The Storm destroys Undertown and the Ghosts of Screetown evacuate all the inhabitants. The Guardians of Night are killed when the Storm strikes Midnight's Spike, which cannot be held aloft - so Orbix Xaxis sacrifices himself as a human conductor. Rook teams up with the Librarians, and admits he set off the Storm, which could have been prevented. However, the Librarians forgive him, eager as they are to leave the sewers. Rook realizes the greatest adventure of his life has begun. |
4255637 | /m/0bsn8p | Games People Play | null | 1964 | {"/m/05qfh": "Psychology"} | In the first half of the book, Berne introduces transactional analysis as a way of interpreting social interactions. He describes three roles or ego states, known as the Parent, the Adult, and the Child, and postulates that many negative behaviors can be traced to switching or confusion of these roles. He discusses procedures, rituals, and pastimes in social behavior, in light of this method of analysis. For example, a boss who talks to his staff as a controlling 'parent' will often engender self-abased obedience, tantrums, or other childlike responses from his employees. The second half of the book catalogues a series of "mind games" in which people interact through a patterned and predictable series of "transactions" which are superficially plausible (that is, they may appear normal to bystanders or even to the people involved), but which actually conceal motivations, include private significance to the parties involved, and lead to a well-defined predictable outcome, usually counterproductive. The book uses casual, often humorous phrases such as "See What You Made Me Do," "Why Don't You — Yes But," and "Ain't It Awful" as a way of briefly describing each game. In reality, the "winner" of a mind game is the person that returns to the Adult ego-state first. One example of these games is the one named "Now I've got you, you son of a bitch," in which A is dealing with B, and A discovers B has made a minor mistake, and holds up a much larger and more serious issue until the mistake is fixed, basically holding the entire issue hostage to the minor mistake. The example is where a plumber makes a mistake on a $300 job by underestimating the price of a $3 part as $1. The customer won't pay the entire $300 unless and until the plumber absorbs the $2 error instead of just paying the bill of $302. Not all interactions or transactions are part of a game. Specifically, if both parties in a one-on-one conversation remain in an Adult-to-Adult ego-state, it is unlikely that a game is being played. |
4257233 | /m/0bsqqk | The War of The Roses | Warren Adler | 1981-04 | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/05hgj": "Novel", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | The novel begins quietly, introducing us to Jonathan and Barbara as they are introduced to each other for the first time. Fast forward some years, and they are living the good life in a Washington, D.C. suburb. They have the dream house, filled with a lifetime’s worth of antiques they’ve collected, two children (Eve and Josh), a dog, and a cat. Jonathan’s law career could not be better, and they had recently hired an au pair to aid in the upkeep of the house and the children as Barbara has embarked in a gourmet business endeavour. She has received a small amount of acclaim for her pâté. Somewhere along the road to building to this ideal family unit, Barbara fell out of love with Jonathan. She realizes it as Jonathan has what is believed to be a heart attack. Suddenly, it would not be so bad if he died. She would not be distraught. Jonathan, on the other hand, only thinks of his wife as he is rushed to the hospital and cannot understand why she did not come to his bedside as he waited for the prognosis. Upon returning home, Barbara tells him their marriage is over. It’s been over for some time and he never realized it. Divorce. Barbara hires the best divorce attorney in town. Smart enough not to represent himself, Jonathan puts an attorney of his own on a retainer. Jonathan would like the divorce to go smoothly. He offers Barbara a generous monthly allowance, as well as half of everything they have. That’s not enough. She wants it all, the house and all its contents. She has earned it, putting the house together and making it home they both wanted. She raised his children in the house. It belongs to her. Jonathan had to work to provide for her, the family, and the home. He cannot let her have it so easily. He opts not to move out, citing an old legal precedent which permits a couple to live under the same roof while going through a divorce. Barbara is less than thrilled at the prospect of having him continue to live there. Despite the warnings of their attorneys, both take it upon themselves to make the other miserable. It begins with small acts of sabotage, but soon escalates. Only the children are off limits, everything else, from careers to prized possessions, is fair game. Their previous life together, a life of love, vanishes as aggression and territoriality engulfs both Jonathan and Barbara. |
4257657 | /m/0bsrb8 | Deus Irae | Roger Zelazny | 1976 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | After 1982, the world experienced a devastating nuclear war. Fallout and radiation has caused widespread mutations to human and animal populations alike. Akin to gnosticism, there is a new messianic religion. The members of this religion, known as the Servants of Wrath or SOWs, worship the creator and detonator of the war's ultimate weapon, Carleton Lufteufel (from the German words "Luft," meaning "air," and "Teufel," meaning "Devil"), ex-chairman of the Energy Research and Development Agency of the United States of America - ERDA/USA. In Charlotteville, there are ample debates between the Servants of Wrath and the diminishing congregations of Christians left in existence. The Servants of Wrath faith is based on an "anger-driven" traditional perception of godhood, compared to Christian survivors, and it is from this that the book derives its name- deus irae, Latin for "God of Wrath". Tibor McMasters is an armless, legless cyborg phocomelus artist who has been commissioned to paint a mural of Lufteufel, though nobody knows where Lufteufel lives, or what he looks like. The Servants of Wrath leadership ask McMasters to find Lufteufel and paint his mural. En route, we learn about the absence of widespread national communications systems after the widespread destruction of nuclear warfare. McMasters and other seekers encounter mutant lizards, birds and insects who have evolved sentience, as well as the "Big C", a decaying artificial intelligence which also survived the war, and consumes humans for their trace elements to sustain its survival. While trying to remove the shrapnel from his forehead Lufteufel loses consciousness from loss of blood, at which point his intellectually challenged "daughter", Alice, tries to remove some of the blood with a shirt leaving a bloody imprint. Alice keeps the shirt as it is the only remaining likeness of his face, leaving her with the only true shroud of the God of Wrath, equivalent to Catholic legends about Saint Veronica and the Shroud of Turin. Alice is later visited by Lufteufel's "spirit" after his death. He does not speak, but Alice sees that his spirit is finally at peace after he helps Alice by "lifting the fog in her brain", removing her disability. She is not the only human to experience a theophany related to Lufteufel's passing, however, for another survivor has a vision of a "Palm Tree Garden" equivalent to the Judaeo-Christian Garden of Eden. This implies that Lufteufel may have been a gnostic demiurge, an evil earthbound deity which believes itself omnipotent, but whose abilities are constricted compared to "higher levels" of divinity. However, McMasters has no knowledge of Lufteufel's death or related alleged visions related to his death. He is tricked by his (Christian) companion Pete into using an elderly dying alcoholic vagrant for the likeness of Lufteufel for the commissioned church mural, which is prominently featured in leading Servants of Wrath institutions. The mural's survival is a tacit argument that religious belief is often based on mythological accretions, which may not be valid interpretations of decisive events in the history of that faith. |
4258322 | /m/0bss5d | Four Fires | Bryce Courtenay | null | null | The Maloney family live in a Victorian town, Yankalillee, in the Wangaratta-Wodonga area. The family is in many ways dysfunctional, but they are also fiercely loyal to each other and their friends and supporters. They start the novel far down the social ladder, but strive to rise up it, in spite of those who seek to keep them down. |
4258433 | /m/0bss9y | The Playboy: A Comic Book | null | null | null | Set in Brown's hometown of Châteauguay, Quebec in Canada in 1975 when Brown was 15, the story opens in church, with Brown's angel-demon (Brown's id) cajoling him into buying a Playboy magazine he had seen for sale. He works up the courage to do it at a convenience store at a considerable distance from his house, hoping that at that distance he won't be caught. After bringing the magazine home and masturbating over it, he disposes of it by hiding it under a plank of wood in the woods near his house. His building obsession battles his guilt, though, and eventually goes back for it, a binge and purge situation which repeats itself several times throughout the story, even into adulthood, when he alternately hunts down back issues of Playboy and disposes them over the guilt he feels or his fear of being found out by a girlfriend. His obsession so overcomes him that, even when his mother passes away while he is at camp, his first thought at returning home is to retrieve the Playboy he has hidden in the woods. As an adult, he hunts down back issues, and becomes something of a connoisseur of Playmates, memorizing dates and names. His obsession interferes with his relations with women, however—he admits that, while seeing one girlfriend, he could only maintain an erection for her by fantasizing about his favourite Playmates, and that he preferred masturbation to having sex with her. The story finishes with himself drawing the story we are reading. Though he knows his friends will be reading about it shortly, he still feels embarrassment, and is unable to talk about it with them face-to-face. |
4261283 | /m/0bsxmh | Guilty Pleasures | Laurell K. Hamilton | 1993 | {"/m/03npn": "Horror", "/m/0fdjb": "Supernatural", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/03xj9g": "Hardboiled", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | In Guilty Pleasures, Anita is blackmailed by Nikolaos, the vampire master of the city, into investigating a series of vampire murders. During the course of this investigation, Anita begins her relationship with Jean-Claude, another master vampire, and receives two of the four marks necessary to make her Jean-Claude's "human servant." Ultimately, Anita identifies the murderer, but by that point has sufficiently antagonized Nikolaos and her underlings that she is forced to confront them. Ultimately, with help from Jean-Claude and Edward, a human associate who specializes in assassinating supernatural targets, Anita kills Nikolaos and many of her followers, making Jean-Claude master of the city. |
4263550 | /m/0bt0cy | The Novice | Trudi Canavan | 2002 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | Sonea, formerly a slum girl—or "dwell"—begins her studies as a novice at the Magicians' Guild as part of the summer intake. Sonea does not have life easy, particularly with her rival and fellow pupil, Regin, who does his best to make Sonea's life at the Guild a living hell. She tries to ignore him at first but it only gets worse as Regin begins to circulate rumours about Rothen (her mentor) and her having a relationship. Though they truthfully deny this, Lorlen is forced to move Sonea to the Novice's Quarters to quell the rumours. Sonea, unable to take the bullying, studies hard and is promoted to the winter intake. The studies are harder and the students more mature, so the bullying does not continue in her new class. However, nor do the children befriend her, except for a slow-learner named Porril. Later, Regin is also promoted to Sonea's class, and with his old classmates from the summer intake continues to bully her. He frames her by putting one of her classmate's gold pens in her box, and she is accused of stealing. However, she can not prove her innocence since if she were 'truth-read' (her mind read by another magician), then the truth would come out about Akkarin's (the High Lord's)use of black magic, putting herself and those she cares about in danger. Meanwhile, Administrator Lorlen hopes to discover some way to counter Akkarin's powers in black magic (considered evil and forbidden in the guild), by studying the High Lord's past travels across the Allied Lands. Lorlen sends Lord Dannyl (now Second Ambassador to Elyne) to seek out information about the ancient magic which he may have studied. Dannyl is assisted by Tayend, a librarian from Elyne, who was also Akkarin's past helper. Tayend at first is terrified of magic, but it later turns out this is because he is afraid his homosexuality will be revealed. This is frowned upon in Elyne. Dannyl finds out Tayend's secret late in the story when healing him, and though surprised at first, eventually admits he too is homosexual, and the two begin a relationship. Lord Rothen's son, Dorrien, is a healer working in the countryside near Sachaka. He visits his father and befriends Sonea. He learns of the bullying and later sets a trap to catch Regin trying to frame Sonea by putting something from the library into her box. Dorrien teaches Sonea levitation, and the two gradually begin to become attracted to each other. On the day he leaves, Dorrien kisses Sonea for the first time. The High Lord, becoming suspicious about what he knows, eventually force-reads Administrator Lorlen's mind and discovers that Sonea, Rothen, and Lorlen are all aware of his use of black magic. He gives Lorlen a ring that enables the High Lord to hear and see everything Lorlen does as well as privately mind-speak to him. Akkarin decides to claim guardianship over Sonea to ensure that as long as she remains "hostage", Rothen and Lorlen cannot reveal anything that will jeopardize Sonea's safety whilst she will also stay quiet in order to protect them. In the city, a number of murders have plagued the slums: deaths that have the hallmarks of black magic. Administrator Lorlen is kept abreast of the murders by a family friend in the city's guard and suspects the High Lord's involvement, as does Sonea. Akkarin learns that Sonea's weakest subject is Warrior Skill and Lord Yikmo is made to be her teacher. Later, Yikmo discovers that Sonea is cautious with her powers since she is both against violence and aware that her powers are stronger, by how much she does not know, than the other students, and does not want to hurt them, even if they continue to harass her. Despite Sonea's position as the High Lord's favourite, Regin's harassment of her only intensifies. He and other novices begin ambushing her in the halls and torturing her with magic. Sonea shields herself from these attacks but always ends up unable to hold them off indefinitely. However, her power continues to grow as she fends off stronger and stronger attacks from larger numbers of pupils. Eventually, Yikmo and Lorlen find her being attacked, and, though she begs them not to tell Akkarin, they feel they must. However, it becomes clear that The High Lord is already aware of this and has done nothing to stop Regin's bullying, since he has noticed how much it is increasing her power. Dorrien comes back for another visit and Lorlen tells Rothen to discourage him from having a relationship with Sonea. Sonea, fearing for Dorrien's safety, decides to put an end to any relationship there may have been. At Lord Dorrien's suggestion, Sonea challenges Regin to a formal duel in the Arena. She works hard to train for the battle, which through skill (rather than brute strength) she wins 3 to 2, and her healing of the unconscious Regin after the battle only reinforces her newly-won respect from her peers and teachers. The Higher Magicians are shocked however at the extent of power Sonea has displayed. At the end of the story, Sonea witnesses the High Lord kill a man from Sachaka. The High Lord Akkarin explains the man was an assassin sent to kill him, but Sonea is not sure what to believe. |
4263569 | /m/0bt0f9 | The Magicians' Guild | Trudi Canavan | 2001 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | Each winter in Imardin, the capital city of Kyralia, the streets are purged of the "dwells", the city's poor under-class, by magicians who drive away the inhabitants of the city's slums. Although young gang members gather to throw rocks at them, the magicians are protected by a magical shield—until Sonea, a young dwell, hurls a rock through their barrier and injures the magician Lord Fergun. Fearing a rogue magician, the Guild begins searching for Sonea. Benign Lords Dannyl and Rothen lead the search into the slums, worried that Sonea's increasingly uncontrolled magic will harm her and those around her. But Sonea both distrusts the Guild for their apparent lack of compassion for the poor dwells and fears their reprisal for her accidental injury of Lord Fergun. She flees with her friend Cery, eventually seeking the aid of the shady Thieves, who see the value of having their own magician and take her under their care. With Cery, she sneaks into the Magician's Guild in an attempt to gain knowledge of how to control her magic, and observes a black-robed magician covered in blood performing a strange rite on a servant. However, her attempt is unsuccessful, and Sonea continues to lose control of her powers, setting fire to her surroundings repeatedly, before Lord Rothen at last locates her. Lord Rothen and the sinister Fergun fight for her mentorship, though Sonea herself is uninterested in training and only wants to return home to her friends and family. Lord Fergun attempts to sway Sonea to betray the Guild and thus "prove" that dwells are not fit to enter the Guild and goes so far as to kidnap and threaten Sonea's friend, Cery, but Fergun's plans are discovered and he will have to stand trial. In order to prove Fergun's guilt, Sonea submits to a mental examination, or 'truthreading' by Administrator Lorlen, who, finding the memory of the black-robed magician, reveal it to be Lord Akkarin, head of the guild, practising black magic – which is forbidden in Kyralia. Sonea decides then to join the Guild and train her magical potential. |
4263584 | /m/0bt0gp | The High Lord | Trudi Canavan | 2003 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | A year has passed since Sonea had challenged Regin to a public duel and she beat Regin by one bout. Since that victory, she has finally won the respect she deserves, not only as a novice with exceptional power, but also the High Lord's favorite. But even with this new respect, she still has one challenge left to face: Akkarin. Still unable to shake off the memory she has after the duel, she continues to avoid Akkarin. Ceryni, Sonea's old friend, now has a powerful position with the Thieves. He has a task which he must perform which could cost him his life. But that task is not a secret. A strange woman, called Savara, with great skill knows of this task and wishes to help Cery, however he will not accept her aid as he does not trust her. Akkarin surprises Sonea by showing her a book, which is an autobiography of Coren, a famous architect. This book reveals that Coren himself had discovered and no doubt used black magic. Sonea is amazed at this knowledge but is suspicious why he has shown this information to her. Akkarin is pleased that Sonea has read the book and gives her another one which is nearly 500 years old. From reading it, Sonea discovers that many centuries ago black magic was referred to as 'higher magic.' The book tells of a novice who desired power and used the higher magic to obtain more power by killing many magicians and absorbing their power. The Guild, in the end, suffered greatly from confronting the novice. They decided to store the knowledge of higher magic and rename it black magic. They sealed the knowledge, hoping that no one would take advantage of that power, but only use it in the greatest need and the knowledge was hidden in a secret passage of the University. The author also tells of a threat from Sachaka, that the Sachakans will have vengeance for losing an ancient war. Only the Head of Warriors knew of this secret weapon, however the knowledge was later lost. As Sonea starts to absorb this new information, Akkarin takes her into the city in disguise. Sonea realises that the Thieves are in on a secret with Akkarin as they use their 'private road.' Sonea and Akkarin come to a room face to face with a captured Sachakan slave who was sent to see how weak the Guild was. Akkarin starts to search the man, and finds a gold tooth with a red gem inside it; the gem is a blood gem, used by their masters to see and hear what the holder sees, hears and does. Akkarin then tells Sonea that he will teach her to read a mind of an unwilling person. Struggling at first, Sonea discovers the name of the Sachakan. She also discovers that Akkarin was a slave. Amazed and shocked, Sonea starts seeing memories of a group called the Ichani, powerful magicians that have been labeled as outcasts by the Sachakan King. Sonea is then taken outside while Akkarin stays inside and kills the man using black magic. Back at the Guild, Sonea starts to question everything she knows and has been told. She misses a class, instead finding solitude at a stream in the forest, a secret place that Dorrien had shown her. To her surprise, she is met by Akkarin as it was also where Akkarin and Lorlen used to go when they were young. Akkarin begins telling Sonea about his past, about how he entered Sachaka and was captured by an Ichani named Dakova who easily overpowered Akkarin. Whilst in servitude, Akkarin and his fellow slaves, all latent magicians, constantly had their power absorbed by Dakova. For five years, Akkarin was a magical source of energy for Dakova, but everything changed when Dakova was attacked by a fellow Ichani. Though Dakova won, he was left weak. He borrowed slaves from his brother Kariko. After some time Dakova found a previous enemy of his and decides to kill him. Upon arriving at an abandoned mine, the floor gives way and Akkarin falls down, only to be saved by another Ichani. The Ichani made a deal with Akkarin to spare his life if he killed Dakova, Akkarin agrees and is taught black magic by the Ichani. Akkarin headed back with wine laced with a sleeping drug. While Dakova drank the wine, Akkarin then killed the slaves, but when he came to Takan he could not take his dormant power because they had helped each other at times of need. When he came to Dakova, he took his power as quickly as possible, killing him in the process. With the deed done and now free, Akkarin then started his long journey home without food thinking he would die on the journey back to the guild but Takan followed him with a supply of food and drink and became Akkarin's servant. Sonea wondered why he had told her and asks him, his only answer is that someone else needs to know. As the gong strikes Akkarin ends the tale and tells Sonea to get back to her classes. Meanwhile Lord Dannyl has been instructed by Akkarin to infiltrate a group of Elyne nobles, led by a powerful Dem, attempting to illicitly learn magic. Having managed to enter the Dem's circle of trust by having them learn the "false secret" of his relation with Tayend, he begins teaching Farand, a young man whose powers have been unleashed but who has not learnt Control. Slowly, Dannyl gains more trust from the Dem. When Dannyl enters Farand's mind, he realises the Elyne King used Farand for eavesdropping. Farand had overheard the King order a political assassination, because of this Farand was prevented from joining the Guild by the King. Back at the Guild, Sonea is unable to sleep. She is continuously replaying what Akkarin had told her, and wondering why he told her. She even starts to believe that black magic isn't necessarily evil, only the wielder of the magic can determine that. She starts to wonder what would happen if Akkarin was to die and no one would be able to carry on the secret struggle with the Sachakan spies. She decides to tell Akkarin that she wants to learn black magic. The next day when Sonea tells Akkarin that she wants to learn, he refuses, he starts to change her mind saying that if she is caught, she will be executed. However her mind is made up, Akkarin refuses but says that he has another use for Sonea. He informs her that, if she was willing, she can be a source of power for him. He says he will only teach her black magic if the Ichani invade Kyralia. Even though she isn't helping in the way she thought she would, she is still pleased to assist Akkarin. Lord Dannyl visits Farand once more to assure everyone that he has learnt Control. When in Farand's mind, Dannyl starts questioning him. Before Dannyl can get any answers, Farand is aware of what Dannyl is doing and breaks the connection. Revealing him as a traitor, Farand tells everyone that more magicians are on their way, but don't know Dannyl's location. However Dannyl informs the group of rebels that that won't be the case. Farand perceives Dannyl's and the other magician's conversation and agrees with him. The other nobles are apprehended, Farand and the Dem surrender. At night, Sonea is worried about Akkarin, since he is not back for hunting the latest spy. (This is the first indication that, where she shortly before hated Akkarin and wanted him dead, now she starts to be positively concerned for him.) Once he returns, Sonea realises that the fight must have been terrible, and that Akkarin lost. She and Takan follow him to his bedroom and Akkarin starts filling in the details about the new spy. Akkarin believes that this new spy is another slave, but Takan tells Akkarin that she must be an Ichani, as she is cunning and strong. Takan once again tells Akkarin to teach Sonea black magic for help in case he dies, Akkarin finally agrees that he will teach Sonea tomorrow night. Cery is surprised that Akkarin lost to the latest spy, and vows to find her again. Savara enters Cery's room saying that if Cery had trusted her, she could have dealt with the new spy, unlike Akkarin. Savara then continues, saying that she knows the spy and wishes revenge for a past act. However she realises that now that Akkarin knows about the new spy, she cannot intervene without revealing herself, something she does not wish to do. Cery promises that she can hunt the next spy. The next day, while Lorlen and Lord Sarrin discuss building plans, Lord Osen informs them that there has been a massacre last night, a magician and his family have been murdered. All the victims had shallow cuts, which weren't fatal wounds. Osen also reports that there was a major battle between some unknown magicians. Lorlen decides that someone should go to the location of the fight and see if it had been magical. At night, Sonea makes her way to the underground passage to start her training in black magic. Akkarin informs Sonea that all living things have a natural barrier. With black magic, the idea is to break the barrier and draw their magical power from them. Sonea, under Akkarin's instructions, starts to learn how to take power, with Takan as her source. Once she is done, she heals him and is given some more books on black magic to read. While heading back to Imardin, Dannyl and Farand start talking about the future, and what consequences he and the other rebels would have to face. Realising that he is tired, Dannyl tells Farand to get some sleep, as he starts to leave Dannyl notices that Farand's lips are blue and comes to the conclusion that he has been poisoned. Dannyl then calls on Lady Vinara using telepathy, she informs him of how to purge the poison. Dannyl barricades the door to prevent anyone stopping him from healing Farand. Akkarin takes Sonea to show her how to defeat the spies, the Thieves inform them of where she is but when they reach her rooms she is not there. They look around, hearing footsteps Sonea hides in an alcove. The spy enters and talks to Akkarin before they start attacking one another. The spy moves closer to the alcove and Sonea tries to stay hidden, the combat is causing damage to be building and Sonea is forced to use her shield. She finds a ring in the alcove, one worn by an elder of a noble house. A heavy blow is struck and the alcove collapses, however Sonea creates a hollow with her shield, she then realises the spy is not a slave but a powerful Ichani. A hole is formed as the hollow begins to collapse, Sonea then sees that the Ichani is moving backwards and will soon detect her. Sonea drops her shield and the Ichani's passes over her undetected, she then slashes the Ichani's neck with a piece of wood and drains her power, killing the woman. Akkarin and Sonea then return to the Guild. The Magicians Guild have learned that Akkarin and Sonea are using black magic and believe they may be responsible for the murders. They are tried and convicted of using forbidden magic, but not of the murders. Akkarin is sentenced to exile in Sachaka, Sonea is allowed to remain but refuses saying that, if alone, Akkarin will be killed. Unsure about Akkarin's explanation of an imminent Ichani invasion they are both exiled. Akkarin and Sonea are forced to hide in the wastes of Sachaka where they are pursued by a pair of Ichani but manage to elude them. Meanwhile the Ichani invade Kyralia, easily overcoming the (reinforced) border defenses and slaughtering over twenty Guild magicians. They then advance on the capital Imardin, but are slowed by an ambush. It seems that only Akkarin and Sonea will be able to hold back the Ichani invasion as the Guild magicians are no match for them. Whilst in Sachaka, Sonea develops feelings for Akkarin, but tries to hide them. However Sonea awakes Akkarin from a nightmare and accidentally senses his feelings for her - seeing herself through his eyes, she sees a far more beautiful and alluring woman than she ever saw when looking in the mirror. Akkarin is hesitant because he argues he is 13 years older than Sonea, but Sonea doesn't seem to care. They kiss, and later sleep together. As eventually comes out, Akkarin's recurring nightmare was about a woman fellow slave, with whom he had been in love during his captivity in Sachaka, and whose death he witnessed and was unable to prevent. Finding a new love with Sonea lays this ghost, and Akkarin ceases to have such nightmares. The two then return to the borders of Kyralia where they encounter Dorrien, who isn't too happy to see them there, he escorts them back to the border but they are ambushed by one of the Ichani (called Parika), who is eventually killed by Sonea using Healing Magic, and Akkarin drains his energy. The Ichani have no knowledge of Healing Magic, and are surprised when Sonea heals a cut in fron of them. The three return to Dorrien's small home and discuss possible plans, they seem to decide one. Whereby Sonea and Akkarin will secretly return to Imardin, their city. Akkarin and Sonea return to Imardin and enlist the aid of the Thieves, including Cery, Sonea's old friend and slum dwellers in fighting the Ichani who now roam the city searching for victims to strengthen them. Sonea and Akkarin search the slum dwells for any magical potential and take it to strengthen their power, however, unlike the Ichani, they do not kill their helpers. The night before, Cery gives Akkarin and Sonea some changes of clothes, including full length, black, magician robes. Sonea and Akkarin are able to pick off many of the Ichani one by one, while another is killed with the help of Regin, Sonea's old Novice enemy. One Ichani is then killed by the Thieves and another by the Guild. Eventually only three Ichani remain. But Lorlen is badly wounded, and tells Akkarin that he understands why he did what he did, he asks if Sonea is ok, and then he dies and Akkarin takes his ring. Unfortunately, the three Ichani left have been absorbing the magic from various magically constructed buildings, and increasing in strength. Before the remaining Ichani can absorb the magic held in the Guild buildings (including the Arena, which has masses of power around it), Akkarin and Sonea force the three into a final battle at the Guild. A climactic battle ensues and the Ichani begin to tire. However, the lead Ichani, Kariko, lays a trap and a knife springs out of the ground and stabs Akkarin through the chest. As Akkarin is unable to fight, he persuades Sonea to make use of and channel his energy to supplement her dwindling reserves and with that combination of force, Sonea manages to destroy the last three Ichani. However, in doing so, all of Akkarin's life force is absorbed by Sonea, and he dies. 'He had given her too much power. He had given her everything.' Sonea deeply grieves for him and becomes extremely depressed, locking herself in her old room at Rothen's lodgings and losing the will to live - totally exhausted, physically and emotionally, and though never having been formally married to him, feels herself very much as Akkarin's widow. Whilst Dannyl and Tayend, his assistant and lover, return to Elyne, the Higher Magicians debate about whom to appoint to various positions in the Guild and appoint Rothen as the Head of Alchemic Studies. Lord Osen will probably replace the late Lord Lorlen. Lord Balkan is expected to replace Akkarin. The Higher Magicians are reconciled to the need to have a recognised Black Magician, since otherwise the Guild and the country would be completely helpless before further invasions - and Sonea is the only possible candidate, since it seems the books left behind by Akkarin do not provide enough information on how to do it. At first they intend to impose on her the condition of not being allowed to leave the Guild premises. However, arguing against that restriction, Rothen explains to them that she joined the guild in order to help the poor, and they reconsider. They rule that if she is to venture out beyond the guild premises, she must be accompanied by an escort, and she must not venture beyond the city slums in which she seeks to aid the poor. In a matter of months the Guild builds a hospital for the slums, a reversal of the long-standing discriminatory policy whereby the Healing magic was only available to the Aristocratic Houses. Though Sonea has done only three years of training out of the five required of a novice, it is obviously out of the question to treat her as anything but a full-fledged magician; instead, Dorrien (who is still in love with her) and Lady Vinara volunteer, and are formally assigned, to complete Sonea's training as a Healer. She is also to wear black robes from then on, and the High Lord is to wear white. In the final scene, Sonea spots her Aunt in the queue at the slum hospital with a baby in her arms and tells Rothen to call her over in the office. Her Aunt tells her what the problem is and Sonea gives her the prescriptions for the baby's fever. Sonea then hesitantly tries to explain to her Aunt that she would like her to come live in the guild with Sonea because she is in need of her help. At first, Sonea's aunt is confused, as is Rothen, but when Sonea taps her belly, Sonea's Aunt understands and they make explanations to Rothen. Sonea is fearful; she is carrying Akkarin's baby and didn't plan for it to happen. Sonea's Aunt smiles and soothingly assures her that she will indeed look after her, at least for a while, to help guide and prepare her for what is to come. As already disclosed by the writer, Sonea would give birth to a son named Lorkin, who is a major character in the sequel "The Ambassador's Mission". |
4264212 | /m/0bt1hn | The Last Days of Louisiana Red | null | 1974 | null | A satiric look at 1960s politics, The Last Days of Louisiana Red follows investigator Papa LaBas as he tries to figure out who murdered Ed Yellings, the proprietor of the Solid Gumbo Works. In the story, Labas finds himself fighting the rising tide of violence propagated by Louisiana Red and the militant opportunists, the Moochers. Eventually, Labas learns that the murder has been a conspiracy to dethrone the Gumbo business because Ed was trying to create medicine that would stop heroin addiction. |
4265685 | /m/0bt426 | Dùn Aluinn | null | null | null | It is about the horror of the Highland Clearances, and the heir of a despotic landlord, Cailean Og, who is disinherited. The most interesting character is the kirk minister who makes a sermon about social rights. For a novel of its period, it is fairly cosmopolitan, and the action ranges to locations as exotic as gold mines in New Zealand. |
4266895 | /m/0bt5tw | Catch Me When I Fall | Sean French | 2005-03 | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller", "/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | Holly Krauss, a successful married woman who runs her own business with best friend Meg, finds her perfect life deteriorating as a result of foolish actions made almost subconsciously, including an alcohol fuelled one night stand and arguments with potentially dangerous men. After a mysterious stranger from one such incident begins imposing himself on her life, first through stalking and then physical intimidation, she wonders if she really is going insane, before inadvertently causing even more trouble by losing £11,000 in a poker game. While good-natured and thoroughly empathetic, her artist husband Charlie is a procrastinator and therefore incapable of providing her with the support she needs. Only when Holly finally attempts suicide does she realise that all of her problems may not be simply a result of her own foolhardiness, but the work of a devious and determined psychopath intent on tearing her life apart... |
4267521 | /m/0bt6qy | The Dream Life of Balso Snell | Nathanael West | 1931 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Balso, the protagonist, comes across the Trojan Horse in the tall grass around Troy and promptly seeks a way to get in: “the mouth was beyond his reach, the navel provided a cul-de-sac, and so, forgetting his dignity, he approached the last. O Anus Mirabilis!” The literary critic Leslie Fiedler reads much into this and sees the whole novel as “a fractured and dissolving parable of the very process by which the emancipated Jew enters into the world of Western Culture.” Inside the Trojan Horse Balso encounters an array of odd characters whom, he realizes, are all “writers in search of an audience”. These characters also represent various religious and artistic ideals. Balso hears their stories systematically, only to discard them one by one, in a strictly nihilist fashion. |
4267719 | /m/0bt6_8 | A Cool Million | Nathanael West | 6/19/1934 | {"/m/0gf28": "Parody", "/m/01z4y": "Comedy", "/m/011ys5": "Farce", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | A Cool Million, as its subtitle suggests, presents “the dismantling of Lemuel Pitkin,” piece by piece. As a satire of the Horatio Alger myth of success, the novel is evocative of Voltaire’s Candide, which satirized the philosophical optimism of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Alexander Pope. Pitkin is a typical ‘Schlemiel’, stumbling from one situation to the next; he gets robbed, cheated, unjustly arrested, frequently beaten and exploited. In a parallel plot Betty Prail, Pitkin's love interest, is raped, abused, and sold into prostitution. Over the course of the novel Pitkin manages to lose an eye, his teeth, his thumb, his scalp and his leg, but nevertheless retains his optimism and gullibility to the inevitably bitter end. Pitkin’s troubles, however, don't end with his death. Even after his death he is exploited as a martyr by the ‘National Revolutionary Party’, a political organization led by Shagpoke Whipple, a manipulative former American president. Pitkin's birthday becomes a national holiday and American youths march down the streets singing songs in his honor. Whipple speaks out against aliens and calling for a rejection of “sophistication, Marxism and International Capitalism.” The novel ends with a series of roaring "hails" from the crowd. |
4272994 | /m/0bth2c | Kindred | Octavia E. Butler | 1979-06 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/02_w8": "Feminist science fiction"} | On June 9, 1976, it is the twenty-sixth birthday of Dana, a young black woman. She and Kevin Franklin, her white husband, move into their new apartment in Southern California. Dana does the majority of the unpacking and settling in; Kevin focuses on his office and then stops helping. Dana gets dizzy, and her surroundings fade away. When she comes to, she finds herself in the early 19th century in Maryland. A young white boy named Rufus is struggling in a river. Dana wades in after him, but he is unconscious by the time she reaches him. She drags him to the shore and resuscitates him. Tom Weylin, Rufus’s father, arrives and points a gun at Dana, terrifying her. Following another dizzy spell, she reappears in her apartment in 1976. Several minutes later, Dana again gets dizzy and disappears. This time, she is whisked back to 1815. Rufus, now a few years older, watches in horror as his bedroom drapes burn. He had set fire to them because he was angry with his father for beating him after he stole a dollar from his father's desk. Dana puts out the fire, talks to Rufus, and escapes from the house before the senior Weylin finds out she is there. She runs to the home of Alice Greenwood and her mother, free blacks who Dana suspects may be her ancestors. A group of young white men smash down the Greenwoods’ door, drag out Alice’s mother's husband, who is a slave, and beat him. They also beat Alice’s mother. After the men leave, Dana comes out of hiding and helps Alice’s mother. Dana steps outside, and a returning white man finds her, beats her, and attempts to rape her. Dana fears for her life. Following another dizzy spell, she returns home to her own time. The next time Dana time travels, Kevin comes with her by holding onto her. Back at the Weylins’, Rufus has fallen out of a tree and broken his leg. Nigel, a young black boy, runs for help, and Weylin comes with his slave Luke. Rufus will not let Dana leave, so everyone returns to the house together. Kevin and Dana stay on the plantation for several weeks and help educate Rufus. But when Dana gets caught teaching Nigel to read, Weylin whips her. Dana returns to 1976, but Kevin does not arrive in time to go with her. After eight days at home, Dana time travels back and finds that Kevin has left the Maryland area and that Rufus has raped Alice Greenwood. Alice’s husband, Isaac, a slave, is beating Rufus badly. Dana convinces Isaac not to kill Rufus, and Alice and Isaac run away while Dana gets Rufus home. She stays in Maryland for two months. Although Rufus lies about how he got injured, Alice and Isaac are caught. Alice is beaten and ravaged by dogs. As punishment for helping Isaac escape, Alice is enslaved. Rufus, who is in love with Alice, buys her. He forces Dana to convince Alice to sleep with him after her body has recovered. After Rufus fails to mail Dana's letters to Kevin, Dana attempts to run away. She is whipped so badly that she becomes frightened and loses the will to run away again. Kevin shows up, as Weylin had written to him, and the couple attempts to escape. Rufus catches them on the road and shoots at them, but they manage to time travel together back to the 1970s. After a few days, Dana time travels alone to Maryland and finds Rufus very drunk and lying facedown in a puddle. Weylin refuses to get a doctor. Over the course of many days, Dana nurses Rufus back to health. Rufus remains weak for weeks. Weylin has a heart attack, and Dana is unable to save him. Rufus blames her for his father’s death and forces her to work in the fields until she collapses. Rufus is, however, much harsher with Alice than he is with Dana. Alice is jealous of the kindness with which Rufus treats Dana. Alice gives birth to her second child with Rufus, Hagar, who is Dana’s direct ancestor. She tells Dana that she plans to run away as soon as she can. She fears that she is getting too used to Rufus, that she doesn’t hate him enough anymore. Weylin’s wife, Margaret, returns and Dana is forced to care for her. Rufus sells off some slaves, including Tess, his father’s former concubine. He also sells Sam, a field hand, as punishment for flirting with Dana. When Dana tries to interfere, Rufus hits her. She slits her wrists in an effort to time travel and is successful. Dana is back at home for many days. She and Kevin quarrel a little about Rufus. Kevin is jealous of his relationship with Dana, which she finds ridiculous. When Dana returns to the plantation, she finds that Alice has attempted to run away. To retaliate, Rufus told her that he sold her children, although he only sent them off to live with his aunt in Baltimore. Alice is sick with grief and kills herself. Racked with guilt and anger about Alice’s death, Rufus nearly follows her in committing suicide. He keeps Dana at his side almost constantly. One day, he tells her that she is so like Alice he cannot stand it. He catches her by the wrists, and Dana struggles free. She goes to the attic, planning to slit her wrists in order to get home, but Rufus follows her and attempts to rape her. Dana stabs him twice with her knife, killing him. She returns home immediately. Her arm is severed and crushed in the spot where Rufus was holding it. According to Octavia Butler in a later autobiographical book, Rufus's body was later found in the walls. |
4275223 | /m/0btm7y | The Day He Himself Shall Wipe My Tears Away | Kenzaburō Ōe | null | null | The novella is set in the summer of 1970. It is narrated by a 35-year-old man (like all the characters he is not named) who is lying in hospital waiting to die of liver cancer, although the doctors do not believe that the cancer is real. Early on in the novel, the narrator associates his cancer with the imperial symbols, calling it, "a flourishing bed of yellow hyacinth or possibly chrysanthemums bathed in a faint purple light". He wears a pair of goggles with green cellophane lenses. The story opens with a late-night encounter between the narrator and a "lunatic", resembling both the narrator's father and a Dharma, who appears at the end of his bed. The lunatic asks the narrator what he is, to which he replies "I'm cancer" and throws his nostril clippers at the lunatic. The remainder of the novel comprises the narrator's recollections of his childhood. The main narrative is periodically interrupted by discussions between the narrator and "the acting executor of the will", who is transcribing the narrator's story. Looking forward to his death, the narrator sings the song, "Happy Days Are Here Again". He fantasises about obtaining revenge on his hated mother by summoning her to attend his death, and in his narrative tries to recreate his earlier "Happy Days" of the latter years of the Second World War. His first reminiscences, however, are of the immediate postwar years, in which he was ostracised by the other children for his poverty and "animal violence". He was caught and humiliated by his mother attempting to commit suicide. He also remembers that by the end of the war he had picked up that his mother's real father had been executed for participating in a revolt against the emperor in 1912. She had then been adopted by a nationalist family working in China. There she met her future husband, who brought her to the village. The narrator's father was 'associated with the military', and was part of an anti-Tojo movement in the Kanto Army to promote General Ishiwara; after the plan failed, he returned to the village on New Year's Day 1943 and shut himself up in the storehouse. There he wore the goggles later used by the narrator and used headphones to listen to a radio. The narrator's parents broke off contact with one another after the father's son by his first marriage deserted from the Japanese army in Manchuria. Both parents sent telegrams to contacts in the army: the mother to help her stepson escape, and the father to preserve the family honour by having him shot. The son was shot. The mother claimed the ashes, and thereafter referred to her husband only as ano hito (あの人) — "that man", or "a certain party". The narrator describes the time spent with his father in the storehouse after this breach as the first Happy Days of his life. They culminated in an attempted revolt led by his father on 16 August 1945, the day after the end of the war. The plan was to kill the emperor (to "accomplish what your father tried and failed to do", as the narrator's father said to his wife), and to blame the act on the Americans, thereby preventing the country's surrender. The father takes his son with him and his co-conspirators as he leaves the valley. The group sing the closing chorale from the Bach cantata (Ich will den Kreuzstab gerne tragen, BWV 56): Komm, o Tod, du Schlafes Bruder, Komm und führe mich nur fort; Da wischt mir die Tränen mein Heiland selbst ab (Come, O death, brother of sleep, come and lead me forth; my saviour himself shall wipe my tears away). The father tells his son that the words mean that the emperor will wipe their tears away. The plot is a failure, and the conspirators are all killed (in the narrator's opinion, "very likely" by American agents in disguise). At the moment of his father's death, he recalls that he saw, "high in the sky... a shining gold chrysanthemum against a vast background of purple light... the light from that flower irradiated his Happy Days". By the time he reaches this part of the story, however, his mother has arrived at the hospital, and it is she who wipes away the tears he sheds. She recalls that her son only survived the massacre of the conspirators because he had already run away. The "acting executor of the will" agrees with the mother, and from her words it appears that she is the narrator's wife. Confronted with his mother's version of events, the narrator retreates further into his own world. He wears a set of earphones as well as the goggles, and listens to a recording of the cantata while singing Happy Days. He imagines himself back at the moment of his father's death, crawling towards a father figure so that, "his blood and his tears will be wiped away". |
4275743 | /m/0btncv | The Katurran Odyssey | null | null | null | The book opens with a prologue wherein a storyteller narrates the history of Katook, the book's hero, a small adolescent male Ring-Tailed Lemur. At the time of the storyteller's tale, Katook's home village of Kattakuk was suffering under an extremely severe and lengthy winter, wherein most lemurs are starving. The High Priest who rules them, an Aye-Aye named Gamic, holds a ceremony and collects offerings of figs to try and appease their god, the Fossah. Katook and his best friend later find the priests and their guards eating the offerings. They are discovered and are nearly caught, but Katook is saved by a mysterious appearance of the Fossah, which makes his eyes blue. Katook is caught, and his now-blue eyes are used as an excuse to exile him from his village to a beach on the edge of the island on which it is located. On the beach, he defends hatching baby turtles from being eaten by birds. In return for this, he is taken by the turtles' mother on her back across the sea to the port city of Acco. After an altercation with thieves, he meets up with Quigga, a vain and proud Quagga who has lost his herd. Quigga joins Katook, with whom he meets the Kolloboo. Because Katook is homesick for his own kind, the Kolloboo tell Katook to search for the scientist Nadab, who is staying with the Golden Monkeys, and who may be able to find creatures similar to him. They give him a map, a compass, and a message to give to Nadab. Travelling to find the Golden Monkeys, Quigga and Katook become lost in a desert, where they hide in some ruins to escape Bone-Crushers until the Patah save them. The Patah bring them to their tent guarded by Glyptodonts and present an elaborate demonstration. As Katook stays with the Patah, he learns of illusions and realizes that Gamic has been fooling the lemurs through trickery to give the appearance of miracles. The Chief's son wishes to have Katook's map and compass, but Katook refuses, saying that it his only way home. The Chief, annoyed, questions Katook's feeling of isolation and influences him to think that he is not wholly alone. The protagonists are separated from the Patah, when the party is attacked by Phorcus. Quigga and Katook escape into a river, where they are saved by river dolphins and healed by the Boskii, who shelter them and suggest that Katook's blue eyes may not be a curse, but may be a blessing. The Boskii then tell him to follow the Butterflies, which lead them to the city of the Golden Monkeys. In the city of the Golden Monkeys, Katook finds Nadab. Instead of offering help, Nadab merely classifies them; later, Quigga is enslaved and Katook becomes the Golden Princess's pet. Katook explains his mission to the Princess, who helps him and Quigga escape. Their escape is narrow, but is implied to be facilitated by the Fossah and destroys many of the things whereof the Golden Monkeys are vain. Afterwards, Quigga reveals to Katook that he does not have an instinctive sense of direction and asks Katook to show him celestial navigation, which Katook has learned from the Patah. The next morning, Quigga sees his own herd in the distance and leaves Katook to join them. Katook is sad until he sees a strange shifting shape in the distance. This becomes the Fossah, who reveals that it has been accompanying and protecting Katook throughout the story. The Fossah then offers Katook the chance to live in a world known as "True Home", a paradise containing the dead and the unborn generations of life; but Katook refuses, deciding to return to save his own family. The Fossah then gives him a seed which he must plant in the ground. Katook is magically transported back to his own village, where he is brought to Gamic and his Indri, guards. Katook persuades the Indriis to let him go and when they do, he finds shelter among rocks, feeling that all hope is lost. As he sleeps, the seed which the Fossah gave him falls from his hands and into the soil. When he awakes, the sun is shining and the baobob trees are once more growing plentiful with figs. Gamic, humbled, joins him there, and the two reconcile, later to bring news of the bounty to the village. An epilogue then concludes the book. |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.