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4918578 | /m/0cv4ql | Air | Geoff Ryman | 2004-10 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | Air is the story of a town's fashion expert Chung Mae, a smart but illiterate peasant woman in a small village in the fictional country of Karzistan (loosely based on the country of Kazakhstan), and her suddenly leading role in reaction to dramatic, worldwide experiments with a new information technology called Air. Air is information exchange, not unlike the Internet, that occurs in everyone's brain and is intended to connect the world. After a test of Air is imposed on Mae's unprepared mountain town, everyone and everything changes, especially Mae who was deeper into Air than any other person. Afterwords, Mae struggles to prepare her people for what is to come while learning all about the world outside her home. |
4918763 | /m/0cv4_z | Flying Colours | C. S. Forester | 1938 | {"/m/02p0szs": "Historical fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense", "/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"} | At the end of the previous novel, A Ship of the Line, after attacking and severely damaging a superior French squadron with HMS Sutherland, Hornblower had to surrender his ship to the French. He and his surviving crew are imprisoned in the French-occupied Spanish fortress of Rosas on the Mediterranean Sea. From the walls of Rosas, Hornblower witnesses an English raid leading to the final destruction of the French ships he immobilized. Soon afterwards, Hornblower is told that he is to be sent to Paris to be tried as a pirate for his previous actions, including the capture of a battery and some coastal vessels using a ruse of war. Hornblower, his first lieutenant, Bush, who is still recovering from the loss of a foot in the fighting, and his coxswain, Brown, are taken away in a carriage by an Imperial aide-de-camp. The carriage becomes stuck in a snowstorm on a minor road close to the river Loire, and part of the escort leaves to get help from Nevers, the next town. Hornblower and Brown overpower the remaining guards and steal a small boat on the river. Taking Bush with them, they set out downstream, but the river is in spate, and the boat eventually capsizes in some rapids. Hornblower and Brown carry Bush towards the nearest building, which happens to be the Chateau de Graçay. The Comte de Graçay, a member of the old French nobility who has lost three sons in Napoleon's wars, and his widowed daughter-in-law Marie, welcome them and protect them from the authorities, who eventually abandon the search thinking them drowned. The party spends the winter as guests of the Comte and prepare for an escape in late spring. During these months, Bush recovers and learns to walk with a wooden leg. Hornblower, Bush and Brown build a new boat to continue their voyage downstream. Meanwhile, Hornblower and Marie have a short but intense love affair. Springtime comes and the river is in perfect condition for travel. Disguised as a fishing party, the escapees make their way to the port city of Nantes. There, they change their disguise to that of high-ranking Dutch customs officers in French service, using uniforms made for them by Marie and the staff of the Chateau. They manage to recapture the cutter Witch of Endor, taken as a French prize the year before. Manning it with a prison work gang, they take the ship out of the harbour and rendezvous with the British blockading fleet. Here, Hornblower learns that his wife Maria had died in childbed; his son, Richard, survived and was adopted by his friend Lady Barbara, widow of Admiral Leighton and sister of Arthur Wellesley, the future Duke of Wellington. Returning to Portsmouth, Hornblower, in common with any other captain who has lost his ship, faces a court martial for the loss of the Sutherland. However, he is 'most honourably' acquitted by the court and finds himself a celebrity for his exploits in the Mediterranean and his daring escape from France. He is received by the Prince Regent (the later King George IV), who makes him a knight of the Order of the Bath and a Colonel of Marines (a sinecure providing worthy officers with extra income). Together with the money from prizes taken while he was captain of the Sutherland and from his recapture of the Witch of Endor, he is finally financially secure and free to court and marry Lady Barbara. sv:Triumf |
4919633 | /m/0cv698 | Wolf's Bane | Joe Dever | 1993 | {"/m/03ff00": "Gamebook", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | Lone Wolf learns that the evil god Naar has created an evil doppelganger of himself, the champion of the forces of good on Magnamund. A cat and mouse game between the two warriors ensues, which leads both across a world claimed by Naar. |
4923084 | /m/0cvcyr | Sole Survivor | Dean Koontz | 1997 | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller", "/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The novel centers around Joe Carpenter, a man who lost his wife and two daughters in a plane crash the year prior. Joe has never been able to fully cope with their deaths, and on the one year anniversary, meets a strange woman named Rose, claiming to be a survivor of the crash even when none were reported. Rose promises to tell Joe the truth, but just not yet. Finally acknowledging that the story of the crash never fully made sense to him, Joe begins seeking answers as to what really happened on that night, discovering that some may be interested in stopping him even if it means taking his life. There is a large number of suicides of family of the crash victims, which for a while convinces Joe that Rose is somehow getting them to kill themselves with a picture of a gravestone. This leads him to a development involving his dead daughter and a laboratory developed girl, CCY 21-21, with healing powers who looks like his daughter and who wants to live the life she was never able to. This girl can heal, and give hope to anyone she touches. The only weakness is that she cannot heal herself if she is hurt. Rose had been keeping this girl safe until her healing powers and full potential have matured, until Rose gets shot by agents who are attempting to kill her, and the girl. Another experiment, SSW-89-58, has the power to telepathically see, and know things through looking at pictures of places, also being able to control the minds of living beings in that area. The plane crash, as it turns out, was a plan to kill Rose because she had smuggled 21-21 out of the compound. 89-58 was forced to take over control of the pilot, in an attempt to kill everyone on the plane. The plane crashed but the girl and Rose escaped, and were on the run. |
4923088 | /m/0cvcz2 | Fear Nothing | Dean Koontz | null | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller", "/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | Fear Nothing, told in the first person, follows 24 hours of Christopher Snow's life, as he discovers and attempts to unravel a mysterious and seemingly endless conspiracy centered around a military compound called Fort Wyvern. The book opens with Christopher Snow going to visit his dying father at the hospital. As Snow enters, the lights are thoughtfully dimmed to protect him in his condition. As Christopher’s father is near to death he manages to say a few words, including the title advice “fear nothing”. Shortly after, Christopher's father dies. Snow discovers before leaving the hospital his father’s body has been switched with that of a drifter. Following the people taking the body to the funeral home, Christopher is nearly found out and a wild manhunt begins. Christopher is chased through to the outskirts of town and only his knowledge of the landscape of night keeps him ahead of his pursuers. When he reaches a dead-end in a deserted hollow, he encounters Mungojerrie, an extremely intelligent and very precocious cat. Later, upon returning home, Christopher finds his father's gun on his bed, and an urgent message on his answering machine to call Angela Ferryman, a nurse and lifelong family friend. Orson, the family dog, is found busy (uncharacteristically) digging holes in the garden. Christopher stops the pet and brings Orson along with him to see Angela, who reveals some of the town’s deep secrets, including a night several years ago when she encountered a strange rhesus monkey in her house, a terrifying creature which is recovered by mysterious military personnel. Before more is revealed, Angela is killed while in another room, and Chris barely escapes when unknown assailants set the house on fire. Christopher sets off on his bicycle, with Orson following, to the home of his best friend Bobby Halloway, a surfer who lives in a cottage on the edge of town, near to the sea. Upon hearing Chris’ story, Bobby urges Christopher to leave the mystery alone and continue life as normal. The friends share some food and a few beers (including the dog). Their meal is interrupted by Sasha, Christopher's girlfriend, who calls with a message from another friend of Christopher. The message sends him and Orson off on a race into the mist of the night, where they are followed by a group of mutated Rhesus monkeys which are led by a shadowy figure of a half-man, half-beast. As Christopher meets with Roosevelt Frost, an ex-football player who now focuses on a talent of communication with animals, Christopher is again warned off his investigation yet feels compelled to unravel this mystery. Frost hints at unusual, uncommonly intelligent animals escaping from the military base. He cryptically mentions that Christopher is protected by the legacy of his mother. |
4923105 | /m/0cvd04 | False Memory | Dean Koontz | 1999 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/03npn": "Horror", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | Martie Rhodes helps her friend Susan Jagger, who suffers from agoraphobia, attend visits to psychologist Dr. Ahriman. Martie's husband, Dusty Rhodes, tries to help his brother Skeet, by providing employment in his roofing business. Skeet was in rehab for drug use, and when he first appears in the story, he is high and tries to commit suicide by jumping off a roof. Dusty decides to take him back to rehab due to drug overdose. Martie suddenly develops a mysterious case of autophobia, fear of oneself, and returns home to find herself frightened by her own reflection. Later, her condition worsens, and soon she becomes afraid of pointed objects, although she is actually afraid of the harm she might cause with them. When Dusty leaves Skeet at the rehab center, he notices a shadow lurking in his brother's room window. From this point on, strange things begin happening to both Dusty and Martie, involving Skeet, Martie's autophobia, and hypnotism. The couple eventually discovers that they've both been progressively brainwashed and programmed to obey Dr. Ahriman, a sexual psychopath who drugs and indoctrinates his patients, then either repeatedly rapes them or orders them to commit murders or suicide for his amusement. Dr. Ahriman orders Susan to commit suicide by slitting her wrists after discovering that she videotaped him raping her. The doctor has also programmed Skeet, which explains his inability to fully recover from drug use and distorted thinking. Dr. Ahriman establishes control, sending patients almost instantly into a detached state of consciousness by stating a name and then reading them a short haiku. He tries to justify this by stating that, by ordering certain patients to commit horrific crimes—mass murders, bombings, random shootings—he can force legislation in order to make the world a "better place." Dr. Ahriman is eventually killed by another patient, who had a fear of Keanu Reeves, based on his character in The Matrix. The woman believes that Dr. Ahriman is one of the Machine agents trying to control her. Dusty and Martie, receiving a substantial inheritance from Martie's friend Susan, slowly begin to restore their shattered lives. |
4923119 | /m/0cvd15 | One Door Away from Heaven | Dean Koontz | 2001 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/03npn": "Horror", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | A shapechanging alien has come to Earth with others of his kind to save us from ourselves. After witnessing the slaughter of his entire family by evil aliens bent on stopping him, he takes off on a cross-country race to save himself. He stops at a farmhouse in the middle of the night to "borrow" some money and clothes, and comes across a sleeping boy about his age. Using a drop of blood from an old bandage, he is able to "become" Curtis Hammond, the exact duplicate of the boy. Seconds after leaving the house, the evil aliens arrive and murder the family, leaving only the dog alive. Curtis and the dog escape, and eventually end up at the location of an alien sighting. UFO buffs Castoria and Polluxia Spelkenfelter, twins, recognize Curtis from the news reports of his murder and decide to help him. Eventually he reveals to them his true nature, and they pledge to assist him in the mission he has come to Earth to complete. Together, twins, boy, and dog set off for Nun's Lake, Idaho, the next stop on the twins' itinerary while they decide what to do next. Michelina Bellsong just got out of prison. She has moved in with her Aunt Geneva in order to make a new start, but things aren't going her way. She feels adrift and without direction, just wanting to get through the day. While sunning in the backyard, she is approached by a precocious but disabled little girl. Leilani Klonk has a deformed hand and a deformed leg, which requires a brace. She is more intelligent and articulate than the average nine year old, and disarms Mickey with her wit. Mickey and Geneva get to know the girl, and find out that her mother is an insane drug addict, and her step-father is a murderer. He killed her older brother Lukipela, and Leilani is next. Leilani believes that no one can help her, as Preston Maddoc is highly thought of by the academic community. Preston and Sinsemilla, Leilani's mother, bounce across the country looking for UFOs and Leilani knows it's only a matter of time before they bounce back to Montana, which is where she last saw her brother. Mickey and Geneva vow to find a way to help Leilani, but Preston finds out and takes off with the family in the dead of night. Mickey discovers them gone and sets out after them, determined to save Leilani. Leilani has mentioned that they are headed to Nun's Lake, Idaho to the site of a supposed close encounter and Mickey races to reach the town and find the girl. Mickey arrives and goes to speak to the man who was "healed" by aliens, and finds out that Leilani's step-father hasn't been there yet. She stakes out the house, wanting to find Preston and follow him to Leilani. Preston is alerted to her presence by the man who was healed, who he then murders. He sneaks out of the house and creeps up on Mickey, knocking her unconscious. He carries her into the dead man's house and ties her up, leaving her there and racing back to the campground. Curtis encounters Leilani at the campground in Nun's Lake and knows she's in trouble. He and the twins approach her while Preston's out and convince her to come with them. As they are running for the twins' RV, Leilani is snatched by her step-father and taken to the house he has hidden Mickey in. His plan is to make Leilani watch him kill Mickey, then torture and kill Leilani. When he gets back to the house, he discovers that Mickey has gotten free of her restraints. He dumps Leilani, takes her brace, and starts searching for Mickey in the maze of old magazines and newspapers. Leilani heads into the maze looking for a way out, and she and Mickey find each other. Preston traps them in a corner and lights the newspapers in front of them on fire, planning to listen as they burn to death. Curtis and the twins, now aided by a disillusioned ex-PI sent by Aunt Gen, arrive at the house. Noah Farrell, the PI, shoots Preston Maddoc as he races through the maze searching for Mickey and Leilani. Preston stumbles away, getting weaker and weaker from blood loss and smoke inhalation. Noah and Cass find Mickey and Leilani and the four of them search for an exit. Curtis, in his natural form, comes to their rescue, and they all escape the house. Preston Maddoc is buried under a pile of burning trash and dies. Leilani, Mickey, Aunt Gen, and Noah join Cass and Polly in their quest to help Curtis fulfill the mission he's been sent here for. |
4923146 | /m/0cvd1w | From the Corner of His Eye | Dean Koontz | 2000 | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | Dean Koontz writes a tale of good and evil, and how the concepts influence people's lives. The book begins with three separate stories that eventually intertwine: a loving relationship between a mother and her genius son, a ruthless killer, and a young woman who takes it upon herself to raise her late sister's baby. |
4923157 | /m/0cvd2k | By the Light of the Moon | Dean Koontz | 2002 | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | An amoral doctor forever changes the lives of Dylan O'Conner, his autistic brother Shepherd, and a comedienne named Jillian Jackson, and instigates a new force for good from his evil acts. |
4923328 | /m/0cvd9t | The Husband | Dean Koontz | 2006 | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller", "/m/02n4kr": "Mystery"} | Mitch Rafferty, owner of a small landscaping business, receives a phone call from someone claiming to have kidnapped his wife Holly. The caller demands that Mitch pay two million dollars or Holly will be killed, and if he informs the police, Holly will be tortured and left to die. When Mitch protests that he doesn't have the money, the caller tells him that if he loves his wife enough, he will find a way. He is told to look across the street and witnesses a man walking his dog get shot in the head. The murder is meant to make Mitch believe that the kidnappers are serious and not individuals Mitch could disobey. Mitch also becomes aware that he is being watched and therefore cannot inform the police of Holly's kidnapping. When the police arrive to tend to the murder, Mitch is questioned by a detective named Sandy Taggart. Mitch does not tell Taggart of the kidnapping, and can sense that the detective believes he may be holding something back. However, Mitch is not arrested and leaves after Taggart officially dismisses him. On arriving home, Mitch finds his house staged to look like he had killed his wife. He finds blood smeared over his clothes in the closet and splattered on the kitchen walls. The phone rings, and the kidnapper verifies Mitch's ideas about the staging. He informs Mitch they have also planted additional evidence that would be difficult for Mitch to locate and remove, but easy for police dogs. The kidnapper then plays a recording of Mitch's session with Taggart, which confirms his earlier belief that the kidnappers have him under surveillance. Mitch is then told to have his cell phone on and remain available for further instructions later in the evening. Unsure if Taggart can be trusted, Mitch lies to the detective when he stops by, claiming Holly had come home with a migraine and was sleeping. Taggart tells Mitch that the victim has been identified as Jason Osteen, Mitch's college roommate, to whom he had not spoken for many years. After Taggart leaves, Mitch takes a lug wrench from the garage to use as a weapon. While in the garage he finds some high-tech spying equipment. Just after this discovery, he is surprised at gun point by one of Holly's captors, and is told to drop the wrench. As the gunman orders Mitch to leave, the lug wrench the captor had picked up gets caught on a stack of Halloween decorations that subsequently get knocked over upon the gunman. During the fall the gunman lands against a wheel barrow that crushes his trachea, breaks his neck, and then he inadvertently shoots himself in the chest. Mitch takes the handgun, another concealed gun from the man’s ankle holster, puts the corpse in the back of his wife's car, and decides to visit his parents. Mitch, realizing that events could worsen, arrives at his parents' house. He has no intention of revealing any information about Holly's abduction, but wishes to ease his mind with what could possibly be a final visit, and end on good terms with his parents. His relationship with his parents is not close, due to their harsh and unconventional views on raising children which includes the “learning room”, a sensory deprivation chamber. Mitch speaks briefly with his father, learns his mother is out for the evening, and comes away disappointed with the encounter. The next phone call from the kidnappers comes at 6:00 p.m. As instructed, Mitch visits his brother Anson without informing him of Holly's kidnapping. During this time, Anson receives a call from the kidnappers and becomes aware of the situation. Anson, who had helped his siblings throughout their childhood cope with their parents, offers to give Mitch the two million dollar ransom amount. Mitch is surprised that Anson is financially able to provide this. Anson tells Mitch of a friend, ex-FBI agent Julian Campbell, and drives Mitch to Julian's residence explaining that Julian may be able to provide suggestions learned throughout his FBI career. After arriving at Julian's huge estate, Anson pulls a gun on Mitch and states that he wouldn't give his money to save Mitch, let alone Holly. Mitch learns Anson has worked with the criminals behind Holly's kidnapping and shorted them on their last criminal enterprise. Now, the kidnappers mistakenly believe that Anson will do anything to help Mitch save Holly. Julian informs Mitch that he has never worked for the FBI and has obtained his wealth through the "entertainment industry." Julian has his two henchmen disarm Mitch and take him outside the city to be disposed of. Mitch manages to kill his executioners with the forgotten gun in the ankle holster and returns to his parents’ house where he finds them dead. Again, the scene has been set up as if Mitch had killed his parents, although this time, Mitch believes Anson to be behind the setup. Mitch confronts Anson at Anson's house, tasers him, and ties him to a chair in the laundry room. He does not reveal that he knows Anson killed his parents and promises to release Anson if he gives Mitch the two million. Anson eventually gives him the combination to a secret safe in the kitchen where he finds 1.4 million dollars in bearer bonds and cash. Mitch, remembering an earlier conversation with his brother, asks Anson how he really made so much money. Anson informs him of an illegal Internet company run by Julian Campbell that downloads untraceable adult and child pornography. Anson takes great delight in telling Mitch this, because he wants Mitch to know that Holly's ransom money is dirty and realizes Mitch will be reminded of this for the rest of his life with Holly. After hearing the story, Mitch is disgusted and leaves him in the dark laundry room instead of releasing him as promised, knowing that Anson does not like the dark and will be reminded of their parents' learning room. Meanwhile, Holly is being held captive in an attic, trying surreptitiously to pry a nail from the floorboards. The nail is something that she regards as a pathetic weapon, and at first, she works at it merely to have something to focus on. She finally pries the nail free and conceals it without really knowing how she can use such a small device effectively against trained killers. Holly has also learned that one of the kidnappers, Jimmy Null, has become suspicious of the others and killed them. He tells Holly how they had all grown dubious of each other and acted so that they would not kill him. He plans to keep all the money for himself. During this time, she also wins the remaining kidnapper's trust by listening to his stories of visions, inventing a vision of her own, and indicating she might travel with him to New Mexico where their visions take place. Jimmy Null then calls Mitch again - speaking with a different voice - and agrees to the 1.4 million in cash offered. Mitch is instructed to meet them at the Turnbridge house, an enormous mansion on which construction was halted. Before Mitch can leave, Taggart arrives with the news that Anson’s name appeared in Jason Osteen’s phone book. Taggert also points out inconsistencies in Mitch's earlier story to him. Mitch initially claims his brother is away, but finally confesses the series of events to Taggart. As they are going to see Anson in the laundry room, Mitch tasers Taggart and runs away. Before fleeing, he tells Taggart that he cannot trust anyone else to save Holly, because he loves her too much and time is running out. After buying rounds for a gun he took from one of the executioners, Mitch is chased on foot from the gun store by the police. He steals an SUV from a gas station and goes to the Turnbridge house where he confronts his enemy. The kidnapper tells Mitch that Holly's moment of decision has arrived, and Holly is able to distract the kidnapper with what he believes is proof of her visions and devotion by appearing to have stigmata. Holly's wounds are in fact secretly self-inflicted from the nail. Mitch takes advantage of the distraction and shoots the kidnapper, who is initially protected with a bullet-proof vest. Null then chases Mitch and Holly with a motorcycle but Mitch is able to eventually kill him by firing at his head. The novel ends with an epilogue. It is at the 32nd birthday of Mitch. We learn that Campbell has been murdered in prison and Anson is currently on death row. Mitch and Holly have two children and will eventually have a third, Mitch's business is booming, and Detective Taggart is now a family friend. it:Il marito (romanzo) |
4923352 | /m/0cvdb4 | Brother Odd | Dean Koontz | 11/28/2006 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/059r08": "Psychological novel"} | The novel begins seven months after Forever Odd. During that time, Odd Thomas has been a guest at St. Bartholomew's Abbey, where he hopes to seek peace and understanding. During his time there, he befriends a white-furred dog who assists him in his further adventures. Odd sees a shade-like bodach. This portends great disaster for the abbey. One of the monks goes missing, and Odd is attacked by a mysterious assailant. As he searches for the missing monk, Odd hears an odd noise in a great snowstorm, and later sees an intricate, shifting pattern of bones against a window. While looking for the body among the disabled children at the school, Odd hears from a man with Down's syndrome named Jacob, about the "Neverwas." Odd, on entering the bell tower to silence a poltergeist who rings bells, sees an apparition that resembles the traditional image of Death. By now the bodachs have multiplied forecasting even greater disaster. Odd plans to bring the monks to the school to protect the children as the storm is limiting their options for saving the children. He is suddenly drawn by a psychic premonition, and discovers the missing monk dead in a cooling tower, acting as a cocoon for another creature made of shifting bones. Rodion Romanovich, the abbey's other guest, meets Odd in the garage to pick up the monks. Odd, suspicious of Romanovich, intends to leave him in the abbey, although he takes one sport utility vehicle (SUV) full of monks before Odd can stop him. On the way there, Romanovich's SUV is turned over by a bone-creature. Brother Knuckles, Odd's confidant, damages the creature with the other plow, saving everyone. Back at the school, Odd and Romanovich are able to determine that Jacob's father, the Neverwas, is John Heineman, a monk at the abbey known as Brother John and a former physicist who experimented with reality. Odd and Romanovich, actually a National Security Agency agent sent to spy on Brother John, venture back into the storm to find John's research lab. When they find him, Brother John reveals that he has created a computer model of the innermost fabric of reality. He believes that reality is created by thought, and has proved it by tuning the room to his thoughts. If he thinks something, it will be, and in that way, he created the bone-monsters and the Death apparition. Odd and Romanovich attempt to convince Brother John otherwise, but instead, he sets his Death spirit on them. As the monks defend the school from the bone-monsters, Romanovich is able to shoot John, killing him and all his creations. Later, Odd decides to leave the abbey, but as he rides down the highway back to his hometown, psychic magnetism pulls him out of the car, where the book ends as he walks down the highway toward the unknown. After three adventures, Elvis Presley, who sometimes assists Odd, finally crosses over. Odd and the dog continue along together, only to be united moments later with the ghost of Frank Sinatra. |
4923418 | /m/0cvdfz | Forever Odd | Dean Koontz | 2005 | {"/m/05qfh": "Psychology", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | After Odd discovers that his childhood friend Danny has been kidnapped, he assumes that Danny's father, who was recently released from prison, has kidnapped him. Therefore, Odd investigates and is led through a water tunnel and into an abandoned hotel by his "psychic magnetism." Inside, he finds his friend tied up and strapped to a bomb. Danny informs him that his dad did not kidnap him. Instead, Danny recounts that, because of his loneliness from a debilitating bone disease, he called a phone sex line and spoke with a woman named Datura. The woman informed Danny of her obsession with the paranormal, leading Danny to inform her about Odd's special abilities. She then kidnapped Danny in order to meet Odd. Odd leaves Danny and finds Datura in her room with two thugs, Cheval Robert and Cheval Andre. She orders Odd to show her ghosts. Reluctantly, Odd takes her to the casino in the hotel where he previously saw many ghosts and one poltergeist. Datura insults a ghost, and the enraged poltergeist flings objects at them. At this point, Odd escapes from Datura, returns to Danny, and disarms the bomb. Odd returns to Datura's room and finds a shotgun, which he uses to kill Cheval Robert. Datura finds him by reverse psychic magnetism; as they are talking, a mountain lion attacks her from behind. An angry Cheval Andre chases Odd through the hotel, before Odd kills Cheval Andre in a sewer. Odd dies in the sewer, and his spirit visits three of his friends. He comes back to life, however, in front of the Blue Moon Café with no idea how he got there. At first he is dismayed at his survival, as his dearest hope is to be reunited with his soulmate, Bronwen "Stormy" Llellywen, in the afterlife. Odd accompanies the Chief Porter to the hotel, where they rescue Danny. Two months later, Odd makes plans to work in a monastery in an attempt to find some peace. |
4923547 | /m/0cvdpj | King & King | null | 2002 | null | "On the tallest mountain above town," the young Prince Bertie still has not married, as is the custom in his kingdom. His mother, a grouchy Queen who is tired of ruling and wishes to pass on the responsibility to her son, insists he must find a princess to marry. The prince tells his mom "Very well, Mother.... I must say, though, I've never cared much for princesses." His mother marches princess after princess through the castle, from places ranging from Greenland to Mumbai, but in spite of their various talents — Princess Aria of Austria sings opera, Princess Dolly from Texas juggles and does magic tricks — they fail to interest the prince (though the prince's page falls in love with the princess from Greenland). After a while, along comes Princess Madeleine escorted by her brother Prince Lee. At the same time, both Bertie and Lee exclaim, "What a wonderful prince!" The princes immediately fall in love, and they begin marriage preparations at once. The wedding is attended by all the rejected princesses and their families; the two princes are declared King and King, and the Queen can finally relax, sunning herself in a lounge chair near the page and the princess from Greenland. The story ends with a kiss between the two kings. The illustrations are created as collages with cut paper and mixed-media art, including ink and paint. |
4925304 | /m/0cvgyx | Sheep | Simon Maginn | null | {"/m/03npn": "Horror"} | A young family moves to rural Wales to renovate a farmhouse and recover from the drowning death of their daughter, Ruthie. While there, the family witnesses a series of terrible mutilations of sheep by an unknown perpetrator. |
4925336 | /m/0cvgzl | Dead Calm | Charles Williams | null | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller"} | A honeymooning couple, John and Rae Ingram, rescue a young man, Hughie, from a sinking boat who claims to have lost his companions to food poisoning. When John goes to inspect the sinking boat, he discovers the captain, Russ, and another woman, Mrs. Warriner, alive and begging for help. Discovering that John has left, Hughie panics, takes Rae hostage, and begins driving her boat away from the sinking ship. On board the sinking ship, John learns that Hughie and Mrs. Warriner and Russ and his wife, Mrs. Bellows, were vacationing when Hughie suffered an agoraphobic reaction while diving with Mrs. Bellows and accidentally killed her trying to climb onto her shoulders. The realization of what he'd done resulted in Hughie suffering a psychotic break. Mrs. Warriner further tells John that Hughie, though a gifted artist, has the mind of a child, his emotional growth having been stunted by his overbearing father and a codependent relationship with an inappropriately affectionate mother. On board the Ingram's boat, Rae is able to surmise this herself from Hughie's behavior and assumes the role of a caring mother figure in order to lull him into a false sense of security, while preparing to kill him with a shotgun John has stashed in their room. Ultimately, John and Russ are able to sufficiently repair their boat and rendezvous with Hughie and Rae. When everyone is reunited, Hughie suffers a flashback and sees Russ as his father and knocks him overboard. Hughie suffers a panic attack in the water and seizes up, and drags Russ below water where they both drown. John gives a sympathetic psychological analysis of Hughie as he, Rae, and Mrs. Warriner see that a new wind has come in that will take them all home. |
4925510 | /m/0cvh48 | The Eiger Sanction | Trevanian | 1972-10 | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Dr. Jonathan Hemlock is an art professor, lecturer and mountaineer. He is also a collector of paintings, most of them obtained from the black market. To finance his collection he works as an assassin for a secret U.S. government agency, the CII. In order to acquire a Pissarro, Hemlock agrees to carry out a couple of "sanctions" (contract assassinations). The first one is easily dealt with in Montreal. For the second, he will need to join a group of climbers who are about to attempt the north face of the Eiger, a particularly difficult challenge. Hemlock goes back into training and eventually climbs the mountain with the team that he believes includes his would-be victim — whose identity he will have to deduce on the mountain itself. Poor climbing conditions disrupt the climb, and lead Hemlock to the discovery that his target is someone other than he had expected. |
4928676 | /m/0cvmc7 | Marley & Me: Life and Love with the World's Worst Dog | John Grogan | 10/18/2005 | {"/m/05h83": "Non-fiction"} | Told in first-person narrative, the book portrays Grogan and his family's life during the thirteen years that they lived with their dog Marley, and the relationships and lessons from this period. Marley, a yellow Labrador Retriever, is described as a high-strung, boisterous, and somewhat uncontrolled dog. He is strong, powerful, endlessly hungry, eager to be active, and often destructive of their property (but completely without malice). Marley routinely fails to "get the idea" of what humans expect of him; at one point, mental illness is suggested as a plausible explanation for his behavior. His acts and behaviors are forgiven, however, since it is clear that he has a heart of gold and is merely living within his nature. During his escapades he makes a two-minute credited appearance in the movie The Last Home Run (filmed in 1996 and released in 1998). The strong contrast between the problems and tensions caused by his neuroses and behavior, and the undying devotion, love and trust shown towards the human family as they themselves have children and grow up to accept him for what he is, and their grief when he finally dies from gastric dilatation volvulus (a stomach torsion condition) in old age, form the backdrop for the biographical material of the story. |
4930119 | /m/0cvpmj | Dr. Futurity | Philip K. Dick | 1960 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | Dr. Jim Parsons is a doctor from 2012 who was born in 1980. Abruptly, he undergoes involuntary time travel to 2405 CE and finds that his profession is treated with disdain. In the future, the population is static, with no natural births; only a death can cause the formation of a new embryo. The result is a society ambivalent toward death, as controlled genetics ensures that each successive generation better benefits the human race as a whole. By killing off the weak and the malformed, poverty and disease are eliminated, and humanity has an optimal chance for survival. Moreover, a single race derived from African Americans and Native Americans controls this future world, as Caucasians have been wiped out or assimilated centuries earlier. After Parsons cures a dying woman (not knowing that this is considered a heinous crime in this time period), Chancellor Al Stenog exiles him to Mars, but the spaceship is intercepted en route, and Parsons is returned to a deserted Earth far in the future. On finding a marker with instructions on how to operate the time travel controls on the spaceship, he is directed to a Native American-style tribal lodge, where he must perform surgery to hopefully restore the life of a cryogenically suspended time traveler, Corith, subsequent to the latter's death from an arrow wound 35 years earlier. Parsons extracts the missile but it later mysteriously rematerializes in Corith's body. To resolve this situation, Parsons travels with Corith's relatives back to Corith's previous assignment in 1579 on the Pacific Coast of North America, where Corith was to kill Sir Francis Drake in order to change history and preserve the Native American way of life, avoiding their subjugation by European colonial powers. While observing the assassination attempt on Drake, Parsons realizes that Drake is actually Chancellor Stenog. It seems that Stenog, in an ironic twist of fate, has taken Drake's place long enough to ensure that Corith's mission fails. Parsons tries to warn Corith, but Corith discovers that Parsons is a white man in disguise and attacks him. In the ensuing struggle, Parsons inadvertently stabs Corith in the heart with one of the arrow replicas that were intended to make it appear that Drake was killed by a Native American of that period. In retribution, Parsons is left stranded by Corith's relatives in 1597, a year in which the European explorers had removed themselves for many years to come. But Parsons is quickly rescued by Loris, Corith's daughter, when she has a change of heart after learning that she is pregnant with Parsons' child. While briefly back in 2405, Parsons realizes that the reason the arrow mysteriously reappeared in Corith's chest after he'd removed it was because he had apparently murdered him for a second time to cover his own tracks. If Corith were to recover, he would have revealed that it was Parsons who killed him, and an unwitting Parsons from slightly earlier would have been left helpless at the hands of Corith's relatives. As he stands over Corith, ready to kill him for a second time, he decides against it and flees. But a nagging curiosity obliges him to return yet again. He sees two unknown people kill Corith with the second arrow to the heart. Parsons discovers that the murderers are the children he had with Loris, traveling back to 2405 from an even more distant future. His children take Parsons forward in time to meet with Loris again, and he struggles with the decision to return to 2012. Eventually he goes back to the same day that he left and to the doting wife who saw him off earlier that morning. He sets about his old life with a new task at hand. The novel closes with him designing the stone marker that will eventually save his life on that desolate future Earth. |
4931424 | /m/0cvrvj | The World Made Straight | Ron Rash | 2006-04 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/01jym": "Bildungsroman"} | In 1970s Western North Carolina, a young man stumbles across a grove of marijuana, sees an opportunity to make some easy money, and steps into the jaws of a bear trap. He is discovered by the ruthless farmer who set the trap to protect his plants, and begins his struggle with the evils of his community’s present as well as those of its history. Before long, he has moved out of his parents' home to live with a onetime schoolteacher who now lives in a trailer outside town, deals a few drugs, and studies journals from the American Civil War. Their fates become entwined as the community's terrible past and corrupt present lead to a violent reckoning with the marijuana farmer and with a Civil War massacre that continues to divide an Appalachian community. |
4931538 | /m/0cvs00 | Brian's Winter | Gary Paulsen | 1996-01 | {"/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature"} | The story deals with Brian, still stranded at the L-shaped lake during the fall and winter, constructing a winter shelter, building snow shoes, being attacked by a bear, and learning how to make a bow more powerful. Eventually, Brian meets a family of Cree trappers, the Smallhorns, who help him return home. Brian also learned that he should "always pay attention to what's happening around him." |
4931891 | /m/0cvsv0 | Magick Without Tears | Aleister Crowley | null | {"/m/037mh8": "Philosophy"} | The book consists of 80 letters to various students of magick. Originally to be titled Aleister Explains Everything, the letters offer his insights into both magick and Thelema—-Crowley's religious and ethical system—-with a clarity and wit often absent in his earlier writings. The individual topics are widely varied, addressing the orders O.T.O. and A∴A∴, Qabalah, Thelemic morality, Yoga, astrology, various magical techniques, religion, death, spiritual visions, the Holy Guardian Angel, and other issues such as marriage, property, certainty, and meanness. The book is considered by many as evidence that Crowley remained lucid and mentally capable at the end of his life, despite his addiction to heroin (prescribed for his chronic emphysema). |
4932118 | /m/0cvt9t | Chicka Chicka Boom Boom | John Archambault | 1989 | {"/m/016475": "Picture book", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | The lower-case letters climb up a coconut tree in alphabetical order, until the tree bends so much that the letters fall to the ground. Capital letters (the older relatives of the letters climbing the tree) come to help them. Again alphabetically, it describes each letter's injury, including: *"D" having skinned-knee *"E" having a stubbed toe *"F" becoming patched up *"H" and "I" getting tangled together *"L" being knotted like a tie *"M" being looped *"N" being stooped *"O" being twisted; alley-oop *"P" having a black eye *"T" having a loose tooth The book is notable for its rhyming structure which is reminiscent of the jazz vocal improvisation technique known as scat singing. An audio book version is also available. It inspired a 2004 sequel, Chicka, Chicka, 1, 2, 3. A board book for toddlers, entitled Chicka, Chicka ABC was published in 1990 and contains the first half of the full story. |
4932898 | /m/0cvvk7 | Voyage of the Shadowmoon | Sean McMullen | 2002 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Voyage of the Shadowmoon follows the crew of the mysterious vessel named Shadowmoon, a spy vessel. Their task is to retrieve Silverdeath, an apocalyptic mechanism that has been hidden for decades. Unearthed by the ambitious Emperor Warsovran, Silverdeath annihilates an entire continent. The Shadowmoon's crew, some of whom are working for different parties, are trying to secure Silverdeath before it can be used again by any of a host of rulers who wish to abuse its destructive abilities. |
4933029 | /m/0cvvry | A Rather English Marriage | Angela Lambert | 12/10/1992 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The book's plot concerns two retired men who are thrown together following the deaths of their wives in the same hospital. Both have served in the armed forces, one, Reggie, being a former officer, the other, Roy, an ex-NCO. The perceived class differences lead to Roy moving in with Reggie and being treated as an unpaid servant. The reader's sympathies are with Roy as he remains humble and faithful to his purpose until Reggie becomes too domineering. Roy re-marries, and Reggie, whose attempt to seduce a younger widow, Liz, has ended in failure, is left alone. |
4933764 | /m/0cvwxb | Enigma | Robert Harris | null | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller", "/m/02p0szs": "Historical fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Jericho is a doctoral student of the mathematician Alan Turing at a Cambridge college. When the war starts Turing and other professors disappear, recruited as code breakers by the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS). Eventually Jericho is also roped in, at the invitation of Atwood who is professor of ancient history at the same college. At Bletchley the code breakers are an eclectic academic set, under pressure to break the Enigma code used by German U-boats wreaking havoc on British and American shipping in the Atlantic. The tension is magnified by internal turf rivalry between the allies over the cryptography effort, with the Americans of the opinion that the chummy common-room efforts of the British operation cannot sustain the decryption speed and volume required to win the Battle of the Atlantic. In the book Turing himself is absent from Bletchley, on a trip to Washington D.C. On a train en route to Bletchley, Jericho happens to meet the attractive Claire Romilly who works as a clerk at one of the huts, temporary buildings on the park grounds housing the growing code breaking effort. Jericho helps Claire finish the Times crossword with ease and the two strike up a friendship. Claire's upper-crust manner reflects what Baxter (a code breaker with leftist views) terms as the organization of Bletchley Park along British class lines. Society debutantes are chosen to handle sensitive transcription whereas the more mundane tasks are delegated to young women from working-class backgrounds. As Jericho gets closer to Claire, he also discovers a back door to breaking the U-boat Enigma code which establishes his reputation among the code breakers. One night Jericho is stunned to see intercepted (but still encoded) signal transcription forms in Claire's bedroom, a serious violation of security procedure. Confronted with the forms Claire reacts in an emotionally wounded manner, which also signals the end of Jericho's romance with her. However Jericho does not report the incident or the security breach. In the following days Jericho desperately attempts to meet Claire once again, and slowly tips himself over the edge of a nervous breakdown. He is sent back to his college to recover. When the Germans change the Enigma naval code book, the Bletchley Park code breakers lose their back door and are forced to bring Jericho back. This is in fact how the book begins. Thereafter the plot unravels to answer a series of questions: What are the papers in Claire's bedroom? Is she a spy? How much can Jericho trust Kramer, an American naval officer and one of Claire's many lovers? What is the role of the supercilious upper-crust investigator Wigram? How much does Claire's room mate Hester Wallace know? Are Jericho's hut colleagues Atwood, Pinker, Puck, Baxter ... jealous of him? Will Jericho break the code for a second time as one of the largest convoys steams across the Atlantic pursued by U-boat wolf packs? Apart from the plot, the book is notable for its grim descriptions of winter in a war-torn Britain. The book, though fiction, is criticised by people who were at Bletchley Park as bearing little resemblance to the real wartime Bletchley Park. |
4935162 | /m/0cvz4q | The Eternal Champion | Michael Moorcock | null | {"/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/03npn": "Horror", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The Eternal Champion is narrated by John Daker, an inhabitant of 20th century Earth. At the beginning of the novel, his sleep is disturbed by dreams of other worlds and a repeated name: Erekosë. After many nights he understands that he is Erekosë and he finds the strength to answer the call. He arrives in a world that is strange to John Daker but somehow familiar to Erekosë (the narrator struggles to reconcile these two viewpoints throughout the book). He is welcomed by the aging King Rigenos of Necranal and his daughter Iolinda, and receives Erekosë's legendary sword Kanajana. The sword emits a deadly radiance that quickly kills anyone who receives even a minor wound from it. (Readers familiar with Elric will immediately recognize Kanajana as an Avatar of Stormbringer by virtue of its dark color and magical lethality.) Rigenos explains to Erekosë that all of humanity is united in a desperate fight against the inhuman Eldren, who have claimed the southern continent Mernadin and are said to be seeking to expand their empire. (The Eldren have some resemblance to elves as depicted in the works of Tolkien and others, but the term is not used). Privately John Daker harbors doubts, but decides that his allegiance must be to his own kind even if the Eldren are not as demonic as Rigenos claims. During this time and throughout the book, the narrator continues to have dreams in which he takes on the identity of many heroes engaged in constant, unending struggle. After secretly betrothing himself to Iolinda, he leads an expedition against the Eldren seaport Paphanaal. The human fleet destroys an Eldren fleet in a naval battle, then takes Paphanaal easily as the only remaining inhabitants are women and children. Erekosë is sickened by the actions of his human allies during the battle and the sack of the city. The only surviving Eldren is Ermizhad, sister of Prince Arjavh the Eldren commander; she is put in Erekosë's keeping during the return to Necranal. After the fleet returns, Erekosë and Iolinda announce their betrothal. Soon a large Eldren force lands near Necranal; it is Arjavh come to rescue his sister. Among the troops is a large contingent of halflings, relatives of Eldren from the Ghost Worlds who have the power to teleport themselves. The Eldren defeat the humans in battle and Erekosë is captured. He tells Arjavh, "Trade me for Ermizhad." During his captivity, Arjavh tells him about the history of his world, which was originally inhabited only by Eldren. After the arrival of humans, fearsome weapons during a war between the races nearly destroyed the planet. The Eldren hid away their weapons and vowed never to use such weapons again - not even to save themselves from total extinction, which would become a very real possibility in the later course of the book. The humans simply forgot how to build such weapons. Erekosë is released with the understanding that Ermizhad will be released in turn, but when he reaches Necranal he finds that she is still a prisoner. She tells him not to worry, then summons the halflings to help her escape. Jealous, Iolinda accuses him (rightly) of sympathizing with the Eldren. Erekosë makes a rash vow in a desperate attempt to prove his love for her: :"I swear I shall kill all the Eldren." :"All?" :"Every single Eldren life." :"You will spare none?" :"None! None! I want it to be over. And the only way I can finish it is to kill them all. Then it will be over--only then!" :"Including Prince Arjavh and his sister?" :"Including them!" :"You swear this? You swear it?" :"I swear it. And when the last Eldren dies, when the whole world is ours, then I will bring it to you and we shall be married." In the course of a year-long campaign to destroy the Eldren, Rigenos is killed, Iolanda becomes queen, and the human army is exhausted. The last Eldren stronghold is Loos Ptokai. Before the siege begins, Arjavh invites Erekosë into the city to rest and see Ermizhad one last time. Erekosë regrets the need to kill these civilized people but feels bound by his vow. He had managed to suppress his dreams during the campaign, but when he falls asleep in Loos Ptokai, they return. This time, however, he dreams that not only the Champion, but all of humanity is trapped in eternal struggle. When he awakes, he decides to make one last attempt at peace. He returns with his army to Necranal, but Iolinda realizes that he has fallen in love with Ermizhad and commands that he be taken prisoner. He escapes and returns to Loos Ptokai. Too soon, the humans mount a new attack against the Eldren city. The Eldren are determined to fight bravely but hopelessly with medieval weapons, even though they have the ancient fearsome weapons available. However, when it is clear that the battle will soon be lost, Erekosë convinces Arjavh to allow him to unearth the ancient machines of destruction if it would preserve the Eldren. After destroying the human army, he proceeds to kill every human being on the planet. Then he returns to Loos Ptokai, marries Ermizhad, and knows peace, at least for a time. There is a very abrupt transition from Erekosë saving the Eldren at the very last moment - where he has the reader's complete symapthy - and his proceeding to destroy the human cites and villages and kill all their inhabitants, even when there is clearly no further threat to the Eldren, even hunting down and killing a few survivors hiding in caves. In effect, he has fulfilled the earlier-mentioned vow ("I will spare none! None! I want it to be over. And the only way I can finish it is to kill them all") - only that it is now directed against the humans instead of the Eldren. The story clearly implies that Erekosë was foredoomed by some higher power to commit genocide, that his only choice was whether he would exterminate the Eldren or the humans, and that once the choice was made he was helpless to stop himself from carrying it through. The nature of that higher power and its motivations remain, however, unclear. The book's ending with this inevitable genocide might be a major reason for its relative lack of popularity. |
4937163 | /m/0cw163 | The Tale of Johnny Town-Mouse | Beatrix Potter | 1918 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Timmy Willie is a country mouse who falls asleep in a hamper of vegetables and is carried to the city. When the hamper is opened, Timmy escapes to find himself in a large house. He slips through a hole in the skirting board and lands in the midst of a mouse dinner party hosted by Johnny Town-mouse. Timmy is made welcome – and tries his best to fit in, but finds the noises made by the house cat and the maid frightening and the rich food difficult to digest. He returns via the hamper to his country home after extending an invitation to Johnny Town-mouse to visit him. The following spring, Johnny Town-mouse pays Timmy Willie a visit. He complains of the dampness and finds such things as cows and lawnmowers frightening. He returns to the city in the hamper of vegetables after telling Timmy country life is too quiet. The tale ends with the author stating her own preference for country living. |
4937242 | /m/0cw19_ | An Age | Brian Aldiss | 1967 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | The story concerns Edward Bush, an artist searching for inspiration in the past. When Bush returns from a long stay in the Cryptozoic, he finds that his nation (presumably the United Kingdom) has been taken over by a totalitarian government. He is immediately drafted into the military and given the mission to kill the scientist Silverstone. As Bush mind travels again to fulfill his mission, he learns of Silverstone's new philosophical and scientific discoveries. Bush and Silverstone meet and decide together to usher in a new era of humanity, one enlightened by the realization that time flows backward. |
4937548 | /m/0cw1qv | Don't Stop the Carnival | Herman Wouk | 1965 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The novel takes place on the fictional island of Amerigo. According to the opening of the musical (a paraphrased excerpt from the novel): This book is said to be loosely based on Herman Wouk's experiences in managing an actual hotel, the Royal Mail Inn, in the early 1960s in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. The hotel was on Hassel Island, located in Charlotte Amalie Harbour. Buffett refers to the development of the musical in his memoir of an aeronautical circumnavigation of the Caribbean shortly after his fiftieth birthday, A Pirate Looks at Fifty. |
4938109 | /m/0cw2nv | Green for Danger | Christianna Brand | 1944 | {"/m/0lsxr": "Crime Fiction", "/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | A murder takes place in a rural British hospital. Inspector Cockrill is tasked to determine whodunit when the head nurse is killed after revealing that the death of a patient under anaesthesia was no accident. Cockrill states at one point, "My presence lay over the hospital like a pall - I found it all tremendously enjoyable." After another murder attempt leaves a nurse dangerously ill he re-stages the operation in order to unmask the murderer. it:Delitto in bianco |
4938261 | /m/0cw2vb | Bloody Jack | null | 9/1/2002 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature", "/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"} | Mary Faber is an orphan in a gang on the streets of Cheapside, London, during the late 18th century. After the death of the gang's leader, she dons boy's clothing and goes to the docks, where she attempts to obtain a position as one of six ship's boys on the British warship H.M.S. Dolphin. Her endeavor is successful due to her ability to read, and she is signed under the alias Jack "Jacky" Faber. After boarding the ship, she meets the other ship's boys, named Tink, Willy, Benjy, Davy, and Jaimy. Jacky and the other ship's boys gain their sea legs and begin their duties on the ship. Jacky meets a seaman, Liam Delaney, who becomes her sea dad. Liam teaches her the ways of the ship and how to play the pennywhistle. After some time on the ship, Jacky finds that she's grown, and needing some new clothes, she makes her own. Jacky's new outfit catches the Captain's eye and is asked to sew up more for the others. As the plot develops, a pirate ship is spotted and a battle begins. The crew boards the enemy ship, and Jacky acquires a pistol from a dead pirate. She sees another pirate preparing to kill one of the ships boys, Jaimy, whom Jacky is starting to have feelings for. Then she shoots the pirate, who is carrying a chest of money, and thus gets the nickname "Bloody Jack". It is in this battle that Benjy, a ship's boy in The Brotherhood, (what Jacky and the other ship's boys call themselves), is killed. The ship heads for Palma to get there ship repaired after the battle. At about this time, Jacky first menstruates, and her upbringing having left her unaware of the details of female physical maturation, she believes that she is ill and about to die. After the ship lands at Palma, the ship's boys go to get a tattoo to show their brotherhood. Jacky then goes to a brothel to find a woman to ask 'for a friend' why she had bled before, where the madam quickly sees through her disguise and informs Jacky of the details of female bodies. The rest of the ship's boys consider Jack a rake after this, as they only know one nominal reason for a visit to a brothel. Then the ship heads for the Caribbean Sea. While Jacky is in the schoolroom, a sailor aboard the ship called Midshipman Bliffil starts to beat Jacky up, and only stops when the teacher yells at him. Jacky is put in the sick ward for her injuries. She convinces Midshipman Jenkins to stand up to Bliffil and teaches him some fighting moves. A crew member Bill Sloat threatens Jacky and her sea dad Liam Delaney tries to protect her, which causes some problems. When Bliffil attacks Jacky again, Jenkins stands up to him. Jacky begins to sleep in the rope locker because The Brotherhood's friendship is strained after recent events, and this is when Sloat tries to sexually assault her. Jacky tries to protect herself by stabbing him with her shiv, but she injures him more than she had meant to, and ends up stabbing him in the stomach and he stumbles overboard. Liam is put on trial for the murder and he is going to be hanged. Jacky intervenes and confesses to stabbing Sloat. She is put in confinement and thinks that she will be hanged instead, but she is set free because she had acted in self-defense. After that she is welcomed back by into the Brotherhood but the feeling is still weird. Jaimy admits to her that he has strange feelings for her, and that is when Jacky asks him to hold up a dress so she can mark it, and Jaimy learns that she is really a girl and that she has feelings for him. Soon after they arrive in Kingston, Jamaica. Jacky and Jaimy go out on the streets, and Jacky wears a dress that she bought. They eat at a café, and Davy and Tink see them. Davy and Tink do not know that the girl Jaimy is eating with is Jacky, and she leaves and changes back into her ship boy clothing. The group then finds a piercing shop, where they all get a gold hoop earring. Jacky and Jaimy exchange rings. Then they set sail again to hunt for the pirates. They soon encounter the pirate LeFievre ("The Fever") at sea. There is a battle, but LeFievre gets away, and the Dolphin is damaged and in the process of sinking. Men are at the bilge pumps trying to keep the ship afloat when land is sighted, and the ship and crew stop for rest and repairs. Davy learns of Jacky's true identity when he discovers her and Jaimy curled up in a hammock together. Soon after, Mr. Tilden the teacher wants to put Jacky on a kite and fly her up so she can see more land, but the winds were blowing so hard that the tree she is tied to is ripped out of the ground and after many hours of flying she lands on an unknown island. She stays there for a few days and uses smoke signals to try to get the attention of HMS Dolphin. A boat crew from the Dolphin comes to rescue her and she finds out that LeFievre and his pirates are on the island with her and waiting to ambush the rescue crew. She tries to lead the rescue crew away but the pirates catch her and hold her for hanging and money. She is hanged, but is so scrawny and skinny that she just hangs there choking. The HMS Dolphin rescue crew lands, Jaimy quickly cuts the rope around her neck, and Jacky survives. Jacky is finally discovered to be a girl. She is guarded by someone everywhere she goes. She is confined from almost everyone on board, including her old mates, but they secretly sneak over to the grating above her room to talk to her. She is told by the captain that she will be enrolled in Lawson Peabody's School for Girls in Boston, and then the book concludes with her stepping off the ship. |
4939886 | /m/0cw5br | Mistress of Spices | Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni | 2/6/1997 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Tilo, the titular "Mistress of Spices," is a shopkeeper and an immigrant from India who helps customers satisfy their needs and desires with spices. Her life changes when she falls in love with an American man. When she was a little girl she could see what other people couldn't see. |
4942424 | /m/0cw9dl | The Lost Language of Cranes | David Leavitt | null | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Rose and Owen find out that their apartment is going co-op. Rose visits her son, who lives in a shabby neighborhood; he says he likes to go to the East Village. One Sunday, she takes a walk, goes to an automat, and bumps into her husband. The latter goes to a gay pornographic cinema, where a man leaves him his number. Philip and Eliot are in bed; Philip gets up to do the dishes. He thinks back to how they met through Sally. Back to the parents, Owen gets back to his apartment, soaked through. Philip and Eliot then wake up; Philip seems keen on flatmate Jerene's research on lost languages. There is then an account of Jerene's childhood up to her coming out to her parents and being spurned by them. Philip and Eliot then talk about their experiences with men. Philip goes on to remember the way he would masturbate a lot and how he tried to ask girls out - and they refused. Finally, he recalls going to a gay pornographic cinema when he was seventeen. Owen calls Alex Melchor and finds out it was a wrong number. Philip asks Eliot to introduce him to Derek and Geoffrey. Later, he goes to his parent's flat to look at Derek's books. Jerene is getting ready for a date. Philip meets Eliot's foster parents for dinner, then they go to a gay bar where Philip walks into old acquaintance Alex Kamarov. Outside, Eliot admits to being unsure about their relationship; nevertheless they return to Eliot's, where he teaches Philip how to shave properly. Philip eventually comes out to his parents. His mother is tersely averse; his father says it is fine, though he starts weeping as soon as the young man has left. In the library, Jerene reads an article about a child who emulates cranes as this was the only thing he would see out of his window from his cot, and his parents weren't about. He was then sent to a psych ward. Eliot doesn't return Philip's calls; when Jerene meets Philip for a drink, she admits there is not much that can be done. Later, Philip talks to his friend Brad. He then gets really drunk out on the town to forget. A few days later, he meets Rob in a bar and they return to the boy's dorm room where they have sex. Subsequently, Philip does not return his calls. Owen calls a gay hotline, then hangs up and calls Alex Melchor, who tells him to call someone else, and then Philip, hanging up before they can talk. Later, the Philip runs into his parents and tells them he's broken up with Eliot. Rose says to Philip that she needs more time to ruminate. Owen calls a gay sex phone-line and starts sobbing. He then goes to a gay bar and meets another man named Frank; they go to the man's flat and have sex. When he gets home, it's half past two in the morning, and Rose is hurt. Owen invites Winston Penn to dinner, and attempts to fix him up with Philip. That night, Rose finally realizes that Owen is gay too. While Philip and Brad get into bed together, Rose and Owen have a big argument. Owen goes off to a Burger King until he calls his son asking for a place to stay for the night. Before Philip goes to find with his father, he passionetly kisses Brad. There and then he confesses to being gay. |
4943209 | /m/0cwbz2 | Wolfbane | Cyril M. Kornbluth | 1959 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The story opens in the town of Wheeling, West Virginia. We first see Roget Germyn, a banker and model Citizen. An Eye forms over him while he is meditating, but he is interrupted and the Eye vanishes. He then returns to a more Earthly concern - whether or not the 'sun' will be regenerated, ending the current period of hunger and cold. Attention then shifts to Glenn Tropile, who lives among the Citizens, but regards himself as one of the feared Wolves. He has even managed to slowly coach his wife, Gala, toward a more Wolfish outlook. Despite this rebellious attitude, he maintains a genuine interest in meditation. Glenn Tropile is exposed as a Wolf while stealing bread. He escapes execution and is collected by a community of Wolves living in the town of Princeton. They find he doesn't entirely fit in there either, but hope he may get collected by an 'Eye', giving them a chance to measure this process in detail. This eventually happens and they find, as expected, that his disappearance was facilitated by the Pyramid on Everest. Glenn Tropile has been sent to the Pyramid's planet. We then learn his fate. To the Pyramids, the human race is nothing more than a useful source of 'Components' for a complex world-machine devoted mostly to feeding these artificial and semi-organic beings. Tropile is suspended in a fluid-filled tank and 'wired in' to the vast computer system. Later, he is linked to seven other humans as a 'Snowflake' - eight minds joined together to facilitate more complex tasks than a single human Component could manage. In this condition, Tropile wakes, manages to retain his sanity, and wakes the other humans. They eventually merge with one another to form a sophisticated collective mind. The freed Snowflake then spies on the Pyramids, finding that they have been traveling for some two million years, and have collected many species as Components, but seem locked in meaningless rituals surrounding an alien creature at the world's North Pole. They later realize that this is the last survivor of the race that created the Pyramids. In the meantime, they have modified the collection process of human Components so that it selects persons known to at least one of the eight people composing the Snowflake (which has become almost as ruthless and inhuman as the alien Pyramids). These humans are intended as 'mice,' disrupters of the planet, and later as an army with which to fight the Pyramids. Roget Germyn is one of them, as is Tropile's wife. Facing a philosophical dead-end, the 'Snowflake' decides to separate its component minds to study the problem. Restored to individual identity, Glenn Tropile becomes horrified at what he has done. However, the majority of the others want to carry on. While they are arguing, one of their number is taken over by the mind of the alien at the North Pole, who warns them that the Pyramids have noticed them and plan to wipe out half the planet to get rid of them. They initially re-merge their personalities as the Snowflake and expedite their plans. Tropile decides he must physically disconnect himself from the Snowflake and leave to lead the humans. They manage to defeat the Pyramids, but not before the remainder of the Snowflake is also destroyed. The humans free many of the other Components and ship them back to Earth. Tropile now finds he is a hero of sorts, but does not fit the role (though he never truly fit any role in which he was placed - Sheep, Wolf, or Component). He also sees that there is a need for someone to wire themselves back in to the alien planet's surviving systems, to re-kindle the 'sun' every five years and perhaps return the Earth to its original orbit. He doesn't want to do it alone, but most of the people he knows are either unwilling or unsuitable. On the last page, though, his wife agrees to join him. He expects that there will later be others, that "[t]he ring of fire [will] grow." |
4943780 | /m/0cwctr | The Space Merchants | Cyril M. Kornbluth | 1953 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/06nbt": "Satire", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/026ny": "Dystopia", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | In a vastly overpopulated world, businesses have taken the place of governments and now hold all political power. States exist merely to ensure the survival of huge trans-national corporations. Advertising has become hugely aggressive and by far the best-paid profession. Through advertising, the public is constantly deluded into thinking that the quality of life is improved by all the products placed on the market. However, the most basic elements are incredibly scarce, including water and fuel. The planet Venus has just been visited and judged fit for human settlement, despite its inhospitable surface and climate; the colonists would have to endure a harsh climate for many generations until the planet could be terraformed. The protagonist, Mitch Courtenay, is a star-class copywriter in the Fowler Schocken advertising agency who has been assigned the ad campaign which would attract colonists to Venus. But a lot more is happening than he knows about. It soon becomes a tale of mystery and intrigue, in which many of the characters are not what they seem, and Mitch's loyalties and opinions change drastically over the course of the narrative. |
4944106 | /m/0cwdgq | The Princess Diaries, Volume II: Princess in the Spotlight | Meg Cabot | 6/26/2001 | {"/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature"} | In this novel, Mia must learn to deal with public life, beginning with a primetime interview Mia is instructed to attend by her Grandmère, despite Mia's protests. When Mia gets a sore throat, she thinks that the interview will be cancelled, but she is drawn out of her sickbed by the entice of a "secret admirer", and cannot avoid the interview. During the interview itself, Mia accidentally says a number of embarrassing things, including that her mother is pregnant with the baby of her fiancé, Mr. Gianini (who is also Mia's algebra teacher). The pregnancy revealed, Grandmère organizes for the Royal Genovian Event Planner to be flown to New York from Genovia to plan an elaborate, elitist wedding. Mia has to deal with the unwanted attention brought on by the interview, along with the knowledge that a secret admirer has been sending her emails. On the day of the wedding, Mia discovers that her mom and Mr. G have eloped in Mexico with the help of her father. Mia herself manages to escape the wedding extravaganza in her bridesmaid gown to attend the Halloween screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show with her friends, where she discovers that her secret admirer is her biology partner Kenny Showalter. Mia is disappointed, as she has been hoping that it would be Michael, her own crush and Lilly's older brother. The book ends with Mia philosophically reflecting that what doesn't kill us makes us stronger, and that she cannot hurt Kenny's feelings and accepts a date with him. fr:Journal d'une princesse tome 2 it:The Princess Diaries: Una corona per Mia |
4944359 | /m/0cwdwc | The Rag and Bone Shop | Robert Cormier | 10/9/2001 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The story is of the brutal murder of a seven year old girl named Alicia Bartlett and the interrogation of a twelve year old boy, named Jason Dorrant, who is her friend and the last known person to see her alive. Trent, an expert interrogator, known to get confessions which seemed impossible to obtain and has never lost a case, is called in for the case. Trent does this "favor" to be in good graces with a senator. Jason Dorrant is a boy who's best described in this quote from the book, "when you're an outsider, and not part of the bunch, you're in a position to see what others don't see."(p. 24) He was a lonely fellow with few acquaintances and perhaps no friends at all. Except maybe Alicia, whom he finds to be one of the most fascinating people. She's like a little old lady, he said. After her death Trent brings in Jason as his main suspect. Trent has never failed to get a confession from someone, and a lot is riding on this particular case for Trent to succeed. Jason is brought into a small white-walled room with no ventilation, a single bulb dangling from the ceiling, and Trent begins this interrogation. Jason is an innocent boy who was told that the information he is providing is voluntary and has no idea about being a suspect in any way. Trent takes the information Jason gives him and twists it into a distorted story that makes Jason look absolutely credible for Alicia's death. At one point Trent makes Jason look like a violent maniac simply because he reads and watches science fiction. You are what you believe you are, and by the end of the novel Jason believes he is a blood-thirsty killer and confesses to a crime he did not commit. Trent, with the confession tape in hand, walks towards a woman expecting to be praised for his handiwork, but she looks at Trent accusingly. She explains to him that Alicia's older brother was taken in for the murder and that there were witnesses. Alicia's brother was the killer, not Jason. She accuses him of making Jason confess. Trent was demoted and never worked as an interrogator again. Sadly, he left Jason fighting himself. Jason can't decide if he is what he knows himself to be or if he is what he was told he was. Did he kill her? No. Could he have killed her? No, but could he kill someone worthy of death? Say, a bully? In a final twist of irony, Jason fulfills the role that Trent gave him, grabbing a butcher knife and heading to the nearest YMCA where bully Bobo Kelton is. |
4945772 | /m/0cwh2h | Solomon's Stone | L. Sprague de Camp | 1957 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | When Montague Allen Stark, with the assistance of friends, attempts to summon a devil, he quite unexpectedly succeeds: Bechard possesses Prosper Nash's body and sends his soul to the astral plane. Nash awakes in a cavalier's body, with no memory, but with the old reflexes. This gets him shortly involved in a fight, and he meets up with Arizona Bill Averoff, who does not remember him, but is the image of his friend Bill Averoff, an avid Western reader. He also learns that the society is in the throes of a war with the Wotanists—or Voties, as they are commonly called (in the original 1940s magazine version, these characters are referred to as "Arries" or "Aryans", and appear to be the astral products of daydreaming German émigrés in the New York of the time). Spending the night reveals his name, as he signs it from habit, and more importantly, the existence of the Shamir. After a failed attempt to steal it, a fellow cavalier drags him back a club, which contains letters that reveal more of his past to him. In particular, he knows Alicia Dido Woodson, the double of Alice Woodson, present when the demon was summoned, but tracking her down reveals that she was kidnapped. An unremembered feud with Athos de Lilly catches up with him, and he ends up in jail, where he hears of a wizard, Merlin Apollonius Stark—the equivalent of Montague Stark—and resolves to get his assistance in obtaining the Shamir. In court the next day, he is offered an enlistment in the army. He receives orders to carry a message but also news from a private detective named Reginald Vance Kramer (apparently the astral self of a daydreaming would-be Philo Vance) that Alicia was kidnapped by Sultan Arslan Bey. Passing off the message to Arizona Bill Averoff, he bluffs his way into the sultan's castle by posing as a representative of the city's Comptroller. He finds that the sultan is Bob Lanby, in reality a bachelor and clerk at the YMCA. When the Romans and Voties attack, he convinces the sultan to send him to convey the harem and treasure to safety. Having gotten the girls to safety (in their opinion, not the sultan's) and taken a share of the treasure, he convinces Merlin Apollonius Stark to help him. He learns that the message was woefully misdelivered, and after an abortive anarchist uprising, New York City is in the middle of a battle in which the Voties have gained the upper hand. With help from Alicia, he does gain the Shamir, but when they are cornered by Voties, he has Alicia use it to escape to the mundane world. Execution the next morning is stopped by an invasion of creatures dreamed up by Montague Stark. Alicia's attempt to contact him was successful. Tukiphat, the owner of the Shamir, demands it of him, and Prosper explains the circumstances. Tukiphat summons Bechard to the astral plane, and sends Prosper back to deal with Bechard's connection there. The Shamir, which could return him, is still on the mundane plane, but so is Alicia, and Prosper has her use it to return herself to the astral plane. He goes to visit Montague Stark, and finds him throwing away his magical books. Prosper takes them: he may never be reunited with Alicia, but he intends to try. |
4949523 | /m/0cwpqx | Miracles on Maple Hill | Virginia Sorenson | 1956 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | Marly's family moves to the country so that her father, a prisoner of war suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, can learn to function once more. They are supported by a neighbor couple, Mr and Mrs. Chris, who make their living with maple syrup. Marly and her brother adapt to living in the country, and eventually become happier there. Their father also improves dramatically. When Mr. Chris has a heart attack during sugaring time, Marly's family steps forward to return the kindness that the Chrises have shown them. They collect the entire crop of sap and boil it down, but they are certain that they lack Mr. Chris's deft touch with making syrup. When Mr. Chris is allowed to return home, it is the moment of truth; was their syrup as good as Mr. Chris? Mr. Chris himself is unable to detect any difference. Marly reflects that the recovery of her father and Mr. Chris, the growing strength of bonds within her family, and the second chances for life and love are the true miracles of Maple Hill. |
4951184 | /m/0cwrpx | Fail-Safe | Harvey Wheeler | 1962 | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller", "/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | An unknown aircraft approaches North America from Europe. American bombers of the SAC are scrambled to meet the potential threat. As a fail-safe protection, the bombers have standard orders not to proceed past a certain point without receiving a special attack code. The original "threat" is proven to be innocuous and recall orders are issued. However, due to a technical failure, the attack code is transmitted to Group Six, which consists of six Vindicator supersonic bombers. Colonel Grady, the head of the group, tries to contact Omaha to verify the fail-safe order (called Positive Check), but due to Soviet radio jamming, Grady cannot hear them. Concluding that the fail-safe order and the radio jamming could only mean nuclear war, Grady commands the Group Six crew towards Moscow, their intended destination. At meetings in Omaha, at the Pentagon, and in the fallout shelter of the White House, American politicians and scholars debate the implications of the attack. Professor Groteschele suggests the United States follow this accidental attack with a full-scale attack to force the Soviets to surrender. Following procedures, the military sends out six Skyscraper supersonic fighters in an attempt to shoot down the Vindicators. The attempt is to show that the Vindicator attack is an accident, not a full-scale nuclear assault. This involves turning on afterburners to increase thrust and speed. Without tanker refueling, the "Skyscrapers" will run out of fuel and crash, dooming the pilots to die of exposure in the Arctic Sea. The Vindicators are too far away, and all six fighters shoot their rockets and fail to hit them. The President of the United States (unnamed but apparently modeled on Kennedy) contacts Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev and offers assistance in attacking the group. The Soviets decline at first; however, they soon decide to accept it. At SAC headquarters, General Bogan attempts to stop the attack. However, his executive officer, Colonel Cascio, wants the attack to continue. Cascio attempts to take over command of SAC, but is stopped by Air Police. However, precious time has been wasted. Meanwhile, the Soviet PVO Strany air defense corps has managed to shoot down two of the six planes. The Soviets accept American help and shoot down a third plane. Two bombers and a support plane remain on course to Moscow. General Bogan tells Marshal Nevsky, the Soviet commander, to ignore Plane #6 (the support plane) because it has no weapons. Nevsky, who mistrusts Bogan, instead orders his Soviet aircraft to attack all three planes. Plane 6's last feint guarantees that the two remaining bombers can successfully attack. Following the failure, Nevsky collapses. As the two planes approach Moscow, Colonel Grady opens up the radio to contact SAC to inform them that they are about to make the strike. As a last-minute measure, the Soviets fire a barrage of nuclear-tipped missiles to form a fireball in an attempt to knock the low-flying Vindicator out of the sky. The Vindicators shoot up one last decoy, which successfully leads the Soviet missiles high in the air. However, one missile explodes earlier than expected; the second bomber blows up, but Colonel Grady's plane survives. With the radio open, the President attempts to persuade Grady that there is no war. Understanding orders that such a late recall attempt must be a Soviet trick, Grady ignores them. The Vindicator's defensive systems operator fires two missiles that decoy the Soviet interceptor missiles to detonate at high altitude. Grady tells his crew that "We're not just walking wounded, we're walking dead men," due to radiation from the burst. He intends to fly the aircraft over Moscow and detonate the bombs in the plane. His copilot agrees, noting "There's nothing to go home to." When it becomes apparent that one bomber will get through Soviet defenses and destroy Moscow, the American President states that he will order an American bomber to destroy New York City at the same time, with the Empire State Building as ground zero; his wife is in the city and would be killed. The Soviet leader is appalled but realizes that this is the only way to prevent a worldwide nuclear war which will probably destroy humanity; 'others' (presumably the Soviet military) would not accept the unilateral destruction of Moscow, and would depose him and retaliate. The bomb is dropped by a senior general within Strategic Air Command, who orders his crew to let him handle the entire bombing run by himself so as to assume all the responsibility; he then takes his own life. |
4954388 | /m/0cwxcg | The Vampire Prince | Darren Shan | 2002 | {"/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/03npn": "Horror", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The book carries on from when Darren Shan was falling down a roaring river in Trials of Death, and he must make his way back to Vampire Mountain, while avoiding Kurda Smahlt and his accomplices. The river, which used to carry the dead bodies of vampires away, goes right through the Vampire Mountain. He was washed down the river, emerging from it alive-a feat that nobody achieved before this- but bruised, battered, and exhausted. He was naked, cold, and barely had energy for walking, and soon collapses. By luck he bumped into two wolves, Streak and Rudi - the "wolf friends" he knew from an earlier encounter. These wolves help him make his way back to Vampire Mountain safely. He must find a way to inform the Vampire Princes (the leaders of the vampires) of Kurda's treachery before they crown him a fellow Prince. Kurda's treason includes hiding Vampaneze inside the mountain, preparing to murder the Princes and attempting to gain control of the Stone of Blood (a powerful stone that can be used to locate any vampire who has touched it) with which he would force the vampires to join the Vampaneze and become a single clan once more. However, with Seba Nile's help, Darren reveals Kurda to the Princes in the nick of time. The Vampaneze are found and savagely murdered. Arra Sails is badly wounded during the fight with the Vampaneze and dies. Vanez Blane loses his other eye, and Darren kills two Vampaneze, but is sickened by his own battle lust. Even though Kurda's intentions were pure, the Princes give him the most terrible punishment possible: execution by impalement of stakes in the Hall of Death in the manner of a traitor and shameful cremation, so that he may not reach Paradise. During his trial, Kurda explains his plans to the vampires, and they see that he wasn't selfish, so they no longer hate him. Darren is supposed to be executed for fleeing the Prince's judgment, but the Princes, wanting to hold true to traditions and spare Darren, decide that he must be made a Prince, thereby putting him above the laws which demand his execution. Mr. Crepsley however is hurt by the loss of his friend and former mate, Arra Sails. |
4954475 | /m/0cwxlk | The Well-Mannered War | Gareth Roberts | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction"} | On the planet Barclow, the Doctor and his companions become embroiled in the political wrangle between humans and Chelonians. |
4954624 | /m/0cwxww | The Sands of Time | Justin Richards | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | Visiting the British Museum, Nyssa is soon kidnapped leaving the Doctor and Tegan to face the consequences of an Ancient Egyptian prophecy. |
4954667 | /m/0cwxz_ | Hunters of the Dusk | Darren Shan | 2003 | {"/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/03npn": "Horror", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | In the seventh book of this series, not long into his years as a Prince, Darren is once again visited by Desmond Tiny (the creator of vampires and Little People). He explains that the three hunters must find and hunt down the Vampaneze Lord if they have any hopes to win the war. He announces that two of them are Darren and Mr. Crepsley, but the third one they must find on their way. The hunters are told by Mr. Tiny that they will cross paths with the Lord of the Vampaneze four times throughout their quest, and have only those four chances to destroy him. They leave and go to Lady Evanna for help as they were instructed by Mr.Tiny. On the way they meet with Vancha March, another Vampire Prince and the last hunter. Vancha's skin is a dark shade of red, due to his constant battle with the sun (he thinks that the sun, like any other enemy of the creatures of the night, can be defeated) and does not like to use weapons, using his bare hands instead. Though, he does use the shurikens that are strapped to his belt when necessary. He prefers to wear only clothes made from animals, and doesn't care for having many manners. He claims to be a ladies man, though Darren perceives him as someone whom all women dislike. The three get to Evanna's house, and she lets them stay with her for a few days so they can discuss what Mr.Tiny said and where they should go next. Leaving Lady Evanna's house, they set their sites back towards the Cirque Du Freak, following Darren's gut feeling as a Vampire Prince and the main hunter. While they are staying there, Darren notices Lady Evanna leaving the Cirque one night and follows her to a nearby forest. He witnesses Lady Evanna meeting with a group of Vampaneze and fears the worst. Darren gets the others, and they prepare an attack. After launching what seemed to be a successful strike on the group of Vampaneze, two of them get away. One being Vancha's brother, and the other being a servant of the Vampaneze. Vancha lets them get away after realizing that one is his brother. However, little to their knowledge, the servant was actually a disguise and it turned out to be the Lord of the Vampaneze! After a few more nights at the Cirque to once again come up with a strategy, they set off to once more try to encounter the Lord and destroy him to end the War of the Scars. Preview the Book. fa:شکارچیان غروب |
4954697 | /m/0cwy01 | Killers of the Dawn | Darren Shan | null | {"/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/03npn": "Horror", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | Mr. Crepsley, Darren, and Harkat go into the tunnels, where they find Vancha. They arm themselves with weapons carelessly discarded by the Vampaneze and seek out Steve. Steve calls the rest of the Vampaneze. There is a battle between the two sides vampaneze and vampires, and soon they face the Vampaneze Lord. The Vampaneze Lord says that he and Mr. Crepsley must fight one another alone with no help from anyone. The Vampaneze and Vampires stop their fighting. At last Mr. Crepsley kills the Vampaneze Lord, but Steve jumps onto his back and causes him to fall over the cliff, where he is hanging over the pit of flaming stakes with Steve. Since he believes the Vampaneze Lord is dead, he agrees to kill himself and stop holding on to Steve in exchange for rest. Mr. Crepsley lets go of Steve and falls into the pit below, giving Darren a smile as they've succeeded in ending the war. Or so he thinks. After he is dead and everyone has safely departed, Steve reveals himself to Darren as the Vampaneze Lord: the one whom Darren or Vancha must destroy for the sake of the world. Mr. Crepsley's death had been in vain, which leaves Darren devastated and feeling empty, so much so he can't even cry. This is a perfect ending leading smoothly onto the 10th book where it goes straight into a recap of Killers of the Dawn. |
4954789 | /m/0cwy5c | Koyasan | Darren Shan | null | {"/m/03npn": "Horror"} | The book is about a young girl called Koyasan, who fears the graveyard in her town where the spirits live. Her younger sister enters the graveyard after dark and her soul is captured. In order to find and retrieve her sister's stolen soul she must battle three spirits and return the soul to her sister's empty body before dawn. |
4955896 | /m/0cwznc | Ruined City | Nevil Shute | null | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The book tells the story of Henry Warren, a City of London financier and head of his firm, Warren Sons and Mortimer. Amid the Depression, Warren continues to make money through hard work floating loans and stock issues—but at a price. Although only in his early forties, he is starting to have health problems—and his wife is having an affair with another man. They separate, and divorce proceedings begin. One night, out of desperation, and telling no one, he orders his chauffeur to drive him to the North of England, as he wants to go on a hiking tour to clear his head and gain some perspective. His chauffeur sets him down many hours north of London. The chauffeur's death in a road accident while making his way back to London means that there is no one who knows where Warren is. Warren soon suffers severe intestinal pain and is taken to a hospital in the fictional Northumberland town of Sharples. The loss of his wallet deprives Warren of any evidence of his identity, and everyone assumes he is one of the many who are on the road, unemployed because of the Depression. Once he regains consciousness, he encourages this misconception. Sharples, once a prosperous town, is so entirely bound up with the shipyard that was its major employer that when the shipyard failed, so did the town. Unemployment is very high, and few shops remain open, the entire town living on the dole. The hospital is still open, however, and Warren is operated on successfully. While recovering he learns of the town's plight, as he starts becoming attracted to the Hospital's Almoner, Alice MacMahon - a law graduate who never practised but who is fiercely loyal to her town. He continues the pose of being indigent, and watches as others die through listlessness and lack of strength. Eventually his convalescence is complete and he is discharged. By this time, he has managed to have money and cheque forms sent to him, and he gives a major gift to the hospital, keeping it quiet. Warren now wants to help the town, both out of affection for Alice and out of belief that something must be done - and as head of his firm he is uniquely able to do so. He quietly buys the shipyard for a song with his own money, but knows of no legitimate way of securing that first order to start the shipyard going again. He sees no other way but to indulge in shady dealings (before this, his name was a byword for honesty). Warren goes to the Balkan nation of Laevatia and begins bribing officials for control of the oil concession—once the concession is secured, the corporation which will result will need tankers to transport the oil. Thanks to the help of a courtesan, a dishonest card dealer, and other colourful characters, he is successful. The new corporation which Warren floats on the London stock market orders the tankers from the shipyard, which Warren also floats on the stock market. To make the float a success he states in its prospectus that the yard will make a profit, although he knows full well, and a letter he has received from the yard's manager reports, that the opposite will be true. This falsification of a prospectus was and is a serious criminal offence - as Warren well knows. The shipyard slowly starts up again, and thus far Warren's plan works well. But when there is a revolution in Laevatia, the house of cards that Warren has built starts to collapse. Questions are asked around the Exchange, the damning letter comes to light, and Warren is arrested. The only way to keep the shipyard out of it is for Warren to take the responsibility entirely on himself. He does, and is sent to prison, where he serves two years and three months. He is completely unrepentant. Meanwhile, his love for Alice only awaits his release before they can be married. As a prisoner, without responsibility, he begins to recover his health and gain perspective on his life. As his good name in the City is ruined, and as he can never return to his former work, he thinks about what to do with the remainder of his life (what he decides is not made clear). He will still be a wealthy man, and still has energy. Upon his release, he travels up to Sharples, telling no one of his coming. There is no resemblance between the bustling, prosperous town he now sees, and the derelict one he remembers. He walks to the shipyard, now busy with rearmament work, and sees a three foot square bronze plaque at the gate. It shows the head and shoulders of a man, in profile, and the words "HENRY WARREN/1934/HE GAVE US WORK". He is much affected. He is recognized, and the entire town, including Alice, hurries to the shipyard to greet him.http://www.allreaders.com/Topics/info_33362.asp |
4956429 | /m/0cw_n0 | Changeling | Roger Zelazny | 1980-06 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | The people had long suffered under Det Morson's power. When at last, the wizard Mor joined the fight, Det and his infamous Rondoval castle were destroyed. But the victory was not complete, for the conquerors found a baby amidst the rubble: Det's son, Pol. Unwilling to kill the child, Mor took him to a parallel world where technology ruled and the ways of magic were considered mere legends. He substituted Pol for a baby of the same age, using a spell to persuade the parents to recognize him as their own. In order to retain the balance between the worlds, Mor took the baby from the other world and brought it back to his own, leaving it with a local artisan, Marak. |
4956449 | /m/0cw_pf | Madwand | Roger Zelazny | 1981 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | Pol Detson, son of Lord Det, has come home, now a powerful sorcerer of unsurpassed natural ability. But Pol is still an untrained talent, a "madwand." To take control of his powers, to rule in his father's place, he must survive arduous training and a fantastic initiation into the rites of society. The story implied that a sequel was necessary to complete the story, but no sequel was ever written. |
4959546 | /m/0cx5hc | Barney's Version | Mordecai Richler | 1997 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The story is written as if it is an autobiography by Barney Panofsky recounting his life in varying detail. At the end of the book he is diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease, explaining his previous memory lapses and footnote corrections by his son Michael. Barney's version of events may be viewed as that of two unreliable narrators, in that his recollections are told from varying mental states and then posthumously edited by his son. Underlying the story of Barney's three marriages is the mysterious disappearance of his friend Boogie. Though there is no body, police suspect murder, and Barney himself is tried but acquitted of murder. An explanation for the mystery is given at the novel's end. |
4963176 | /m/0cxcb_ | The House with a Clock in Its Walls | John Bellairs | null | {"/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/03npn": "Horror", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The book begins when the recently orphaned Lewis Barnavelt moves to the (fictional) town of New Zebedee, Michigan, to live with his mysterious uncle Jonathan Barnavelt. Jonathan turns out to be a mediocre, though well-intentioned, wizard, while his next-door neighbor and good friend, Florence Zimmermann, is a far more powerful good witch. Jonathan's house was previously owned by Isaac and Selenna Izard, a sinister couple who had dedicated their lives to evil magic, and plotted to bring about the end of the world. Before dying, Isaac constructed the titular clock that he hid somewhere inside the walls of the house, where it eternally ticks, still attempting to pull the world into the magical alignment, which would permit him to destroy it. Lewis manages to befriend a local boy named Tarby, who is everything he is not—popular, athletic, thin, and so on—but the two soon begin to drift apart. Lewis tries to win Tarby back by demonstrating how to raise the dead in the local cemetery on Halloween but only succeeds in releasing Selenna from her tomb. An escalating series of encounters with the sorceress' ghost builds to a final confrontation in the basement of Jonathan's house, where Lewis must summon up his courage and prevent her from finishing her husband's work and bringing on Doomsday. As the story ends, Lewis announces that he has found a new friend, a girl named Rose Rita Pottinger. |
4965456 | /m/0cxh14 | The Viceroy of Ouidah | Bruce Chatwin | 1980 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Chatwin's novel portrays the life of a fictional slave trader named Francisco Manuel da Silva, who is loosely based on the life of an historical Brazilian, Francisco Felix de Sousa. He became powerful in Wydah (or Ouidah), the so-called Slave Coast of West Africa, now Benin and Togo. (Note: Chatwin was caught up in the violence of a coup in Dahomey (now Benin) when he was researching the book.) |
4968585 | /m/0cxntx | Brian's Hunt | Gary Paulsen | 2003 | {"/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Brian, who is now sixteen years old, is canoeing through the Canadian wilderness. He realizes that the woods are now his home and he will never be happy in modern society, with its noise, pollution, and fake people. He now spends his time in the wild, hunting, fishing, and home schooling himself. While Brian does not miss human contact, he finds his thoughts frequently turning to Kay-gwa-daush (also known as Susan), the teenage daughter of the Cree family who rescued him at the end of Brian's Winter. Though he has only seen her photograph, her family has described her as an adventurous, self-reliant young woman, and Brian wonders if she might be a kindred spirit. While canoeing, Brian finds a seriously wounded Malamute dog, which he nurses back to health. The dog is clearly domesticated, and Brian begins to worry that whatever maimed the dog may have done the same to her owners. He remembers his Cree friends and decides to go check on them. When Brian reaches their cabin, he finds that it was a bear that had killed the parents and apparently chased Susan into hiding. Brian returns her to her home, radios for help, and buries the family. The authorities arrive to take Susan to relatives in Winnipeg. Brian, along with the dog, stays behind in order to hunt down and kill the bear, knowing very well that the hunt could cost him his life. Brian, using skills he had learned in past books like Hatchet and Brian's Winter, searches for the bear that killed his friends. But soon, the hunter becomes the hunted. Brian finds bear tracks on an island and begins to follow them. He later realizes that he was walking in a circle. The bear is actually hunting Brian. The next day, instead of moving on, he waits for the bear, and after a hard fought battle with the bear, Brian is triumphant. |
4974066 | /m/0cxz7_ | Xavras Wyżryn | Jacek Dukaj | 1997-01 | {"/m/0mz2": "Alternate history", "/m/06n90": "Science Fiction"} | In 1996, a young American reporter, Ian Smith, is sent by his news network to the Soviet republic of Poland, to document guerrilla actions of Polish freedom fighters against the Soviet regime. His task includes interviewing the charimastic leader of Polish Freedom Army, Colonel Xavras Wyżryn. Ian does not realize that during his long trip from Ukrainian steppes to Moscow, alongside hardened veterans of Polish forces, he will experience the horror of war in which there is no good and evil side. Neither does he expect to find himself in the midst of the most reckless of Wyżryn's campaigns - when the Polish forces capture a Soviet atomic bomb and start to smuggle it towards Moscow. |
4974074 | /m/0cxz8p | Flashman | George MacDonald Fraser | 1969 | {"/m/02p0szs": "Historical fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"} | Flashman's expulsion from Rugby for drunkenness leads him to join the Army for what he hopes will be a sinecure. He joins the 11th Regiment of Light Dragoons commanded by Lord Cardigan whom he toadies in his best style. After an affair with a fellow officer's lover, he is forced to fight a duel but wins after promising a large sum of money to the pistol loader to give his opponent a blank load in his gun. He does not kill his opponent but instead delopes and accidentally shoots the top off a bottle thirty yards away, an action that gives him instant fame and the respect of the Duke of Wellington. However, once it was found out what they were fighting over, Flashman is stationed in Scotland. He is quartered with the Morrison family, and soon enough he takes advantage of one of the daughters, Elspeth. After a forced marriage, Flashman is required to resign the Hussars due to marrying below his station. He is given another option, to make his reputation in India. By showing off his language and riding skills in India, Flashman is assigned to the worst frontier of the British Empire at that time, Afghanistan. His adventures include the retreat from Kabul, Last Stand at Gandamak and the Siege of Jalalabad, in the First Anglo-Afghan War. Despite being captured, tortured, and escaping death numerous times, and hiding and shirking his duty as much as possible, he comes through it all alive and with a hero's reputation ... although his triumph is tempered when he realises his wife might have been unfaithful while he was away. |
4974452 | /m/0cxz_j | Lost City | Clive Cussler | 2004 | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller", "/m/05hgj": "Novel", "/m/08sdrw": "Adventure novel"} | The Story begins with a flashback to August 1914, where Jules Fauchard is flying his Morane-Saulnier N, mono-winged aircraft. Fauchard is heading to meet the pope's emissary in Switzerland but as he is coming to the border and the French Alps, a squad of six Aviatik biplanes find him. The planes attack Fauchard and though he destroys four planes he is eventually shot down and killed. His plane lands in a glacial river and Fauchard along with his helmet and strong box are buried in a glacier. Cut to the present day in the Scottish Orkney Islands. A reality television show is being filmed when that evening a group of animals attack the crew and cast. Everyone is killed except for Jodie Michaelson; the only reason she is not killed is because as she was running from the creatures she fell into a deep crevace in the rocks and the animals lost her scent. At about the same time yet another plotline is developing. This part of the story takes place in Monemvassia, The Greek Peloponnese. The storyline follows Dr. Angus MacLean, a research Chemist. MacLean is on the run. He is living in a monastery on a small island in Greece. As MacLean reminisces it becomes clear why he is running. The trouble began when he was hired to research enzymes in France. As the leader of a team of scientists doing enzyme research, the hours were long but the pay was great and MacLean had no complaints. That was until he began asking questions. The owners of the lab decided to send home the scientists, telling them "not to worry." MacLean headed to Turkey to see the ruins. This probably saved his life. When he came home he was greeted with an envelope full of newspaper clippings and a telephone message from one of his former colleagues that asked him if he had been watching the news and urged MacLean to call him back. When MacLean tried to call him back he was informed that the man had been killed in a hit-and-run accident. This leg of the story ends with MacLean being kidnapped by a hit team that had been hired by the company that ran the lab. The story then cuts to the French Alps where a team of scientists is studying a glacier named Le Dormeur. The scientists, Hank Thurston and Bernard LeBlanc are accompanied by Derek Rawlins, a journalist for Outside magazine. As the three scientists are giving Rawlins a tour they get a phone call saying that a body frozen in the ice had been discovered. Two hundred feet below the surface of Lac du Dormeur, Kurt Austin and a beautiful woman named Skye Labelle are inside a submersible searching for remnants of trade routes between Europeans and the Mediterranean civilizations, when Skye is recalled back to land. Skye is an expert in arms and armour. It seems that the authorities need her help to identify the helmet found with the frozen body in the glacier. When Skye arrives where the body is frozen, she sees her arch-nemesis, Renaud. Auguste Renaud is one of the higher-ups at the State Archaeological board of France. He is attracted to Skye but she is repulsed by him. Skye is puzzled by the body. The deceased is dressed in an early twentieth century flight suit but in his possession is a very old helmet. The helmet is a riddle in itself, as it is of very high quality and very distinctive yet it isn't like anything she has ever encountered. Needless to say Skye cannot identify the artifact on the spot. Much to Skye's chagrin, Renaud has called a press conference in the underground laboratory to announce the discovery to the world. During the press conference something terrible occurs. A very large and muscular bald man comes up to Renaud and demands the strongbox found with the body saying, "Give the box to me." Renaud responds saying with a grin, "Not on your life!" To this the bald man says, "No, Not on your life!" and with that he pulls a pistol out of his coat and brings it down on Renaud's hand. The large man then takes off with the box. A few seconds later the group hears a loud explosion as a barrier that holds back the glacial waters is destroyed, water is flowing into the laboratory. Then they are trapped in a flooding tunnel. When Kurt Austin hears the news, he sends a rescue team and the they start an operation. Then, another chopper lands on the shore. Austin had called Joe Zavala on his cellphone. Austin and Zavala got into the submersible and crack a hole in the flooding tunnel from under water. They got everyone safely to shore within the next hour. |
4976216 | /m/0cy19d | Hunter | James Byron Huggins | 1989 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | The story is set in the United States, presumably during the late 1980s or early 1990s. It begins with Yeager in the middle of a personal campaign of assassination, initially gunning down racially mixed couples in parking lots, before escalating to more sophisticated methods against higher-profile targets, including prominent journalists and politicians whom Yeager sees as promoting racial mixing. At the same time, Yeager and his girlfriend are developing connections with a white nationalist group. After several successful and increasingly ambitious attacks, Yeager is found and confronted by a senior agent of the FBI who himself is disgusted with "Jewish control" of the FBI and the American social situation. This agent blackmails Yeager into assisting him with his career by assassinating several Jewish FBI agents and targeting Mossad agents in the United States so that the agent can be appointed as the head of a newly-formed antiterrorist secret-police agency, assume increasing control of the United States, and use his power to challenge and remove Jewish control of the government and media. At the same time, Yeager's white nationalist group is achieving greater and greater prominence through the insertion of one of their members into a Christian evangelist television broadcasting ministry, from which he is broadcasting increasingly racially-conscious and anti-Jewish messages. Yeager's campaign of assassination and terrorism, the actions of copycats and imitators, the white nationalist broadcasting effort, the efforts of the antiterrorist official, and a rapid decline of the U.S. economy all work to push the United States towards increasing racial and social violence and fragmentation. Eventually, Yeager is faced with a dilemma when the government official for whom he has been working finally orders him to kill the undercover evangelist minister, whose efforts oppose the agent's intent to establish order and strike a temporary bargain with the Jews. Yeager attempts to avoid the assignment, and then deliberately appears to bungle the assassination. At this point, Yeager is caught between the intentions of his government confederate, who intends to consolidate his own power and control over the government and reform the system from the top down after suppressing upcoming black nationalist riots; and the white-nationalist group who wishes to stir up the chaos even further, draw white Americans into battle, and eventually overthrow the government. Ultimately, Yeager kills the government agent. Following this, the Jewish-controlled media side with the black rioters, revealing that the government official would have been double-crossed had he attempted to strike his deal. Yeager and the other members of the group, now under increasing government scrutiny, resolve to continue their efforts and to go "underground" to continue the fight against the system. |
4976673 | /m/0cy1_1 | The Dragon Society | Lawrence Watt-Evans | null | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | After the events of the first book, Dragon Weather, Arlian finds himself armed with the knowledge of how dragons reproduce. It is a nasty and terrible business and Arlian wishes to prevent dragons from ever reproducing. Using the magic gathered in Arithei, he continues his quest. He realizes that if he is to fulfill his quest of destroying the dragons he must destroy the entire dragon society which is made up of dragon hearts. Dragon hearts are those who have drunk a mixture of human blood and dragon venom and gain a long extended life and a baby dragon growing in their heart. Arlian and his best friend Black hunt down the dragons in the hope that if Arlian kills a dragon the duke will assist him in destroying the dragon menace. In the end he removes a dragon from the heart of a Lady Rhime which wakes up its mother. The mother dragon comes to Manfort to kill Arlian but instead falls victim to an obsidian spear. This means Arlian is the first man to kill a dragon ever. He receives the full assistance of the duke and named warlord in the coming battle against the dragons. Even with the success of killing a dragon Arlian's task is far from over. |
4977689 | /m/0cy32p | The Day of the Scorpion | Paul Scott | 1968-09 | {"/m/03g3w": "History", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | In this novel an old Raj family comes newly on the scene, the Laytons of Pankot, an imaginary hill station in India. Now an army captain, Ronald Merrick, a self-made man of the lower middle class and the former police official in charge of the Daphne Manners case, begins to insinuate himself subtly into the Layton family. We learn what the Laytons do not know that in a searing session with the incarcerated Hari Kumar, Merrick tortured and molested him. Susan, the younger Layton sister, driven by a sense of her own nothingness, marries Teddie Bingham, a colorless and conventional officer in the prestigious Pankot Rifles regiment. By accident, Teddie and Merrick are roommates, and when his designated best man falls ill at the last minute, Teddie asks Merrick to act as best man. The wedding is held in Mirat, a native state ruled by a Nawab. On the way to the wedding ceremony, someone throws a stone at the car in which Teddie and Merrick are riding. Teddie is injured and has to be patched up. At the wedding reception, the Nawab of Mirat becomes a victim of heightened security when he is denied entrance to his own property as he is an Indian. When the newlyweds are being seen off at the railway station, Shalini Gupta Sen appears and makes a scene, beseeching him. She is later revealed to be begging Merrick to reveal the whereabouts of her nephew, Hari Kumar. Nigel Rowan, an officer serving in the civil service, takes Lady Manners to observe the debriefing of Hari Kumar, who was tortured and jailed after the rape of Lady Manners's niece, Daphne, and who has been held in prison for a year under the Defense of India Act for vague alleged political crimes. The panel, consisting of Rowan and an Indian member, is horrified to learn of Hari's treatment at Merrick's hands. It comes out that Hari has never been informed that Daphne conceived a child and then died. The questioners realize that Hari's statements will be too inflammatory in the fragile political climate of India. They also realize that Hari is innocent, however, and suspect that at some point in the future, he will be quietly released from custody. Teddie and Merrick are sent to the front in Manipur against the Japanese and their surrogates, the Indian National Army (known as "Jiffs" among the British). Teddie, against Merrick's warnings, falls victim to an INA ambush while trying to induce INA soldiers from his regiment to surrender. Merrick does his best to save Teddie, but is unsuccessful, and comes away horribly disfigured. Teddie goes forward, it is implied, because he is concerned about the methods Merrick might employ on the turncoats. Sarah Layton, the older sister, comes to the fore as the morally fine-tuned mainstay of the family. To show the family's gratitude for his efforts, Sarah visits Merrick in Calcutta, where he is convalescing at an Army hospital. Merrick explains to her why he believes himself partly responsible for Teddie's fate. She is horrified by his disfigurement and learns that much of Merrick's left arm is to be amputated. While in Calcutta, Sarah is staying with Aunt Fenny, who is eager to get Sarah matched up with a young man. She gets her husband, Uncle Arthur, to bring several of his junior officers over for dinner. In particular, she is enthusiastic about introducing Sarah to Jimmy Clark. After an unsuccessful evening on the town, Clark takes Sarah to the Indian side of Calcutta, where they attend a fancy party at the home of a wealthy socialite. There, Clark seduces Sarah by challenging her to taste life. On her way back to Pankot, Sarah encounters Count Bronowsky, a White Russian emigre who is the Nawab's wazir or chief advisor, whom she had met during Susan and Teddie's wedding. With him is Nigel Rowan. They are there to meet Mohammed Ali Kasim, a prominent politician who is being released after a period of imprisonment under the Defense of India Act. Kasim learns from his younger son, Ahmed, that his elder son, Sayed, an officer in the Indian Army, has become turncoat and joined the INA and now faces charges of treason. Barbie Batchelor, the friend and paying guest of Mabel Layton discovers the secret of the enmity between Mabel and Mildred one night when both the elderly women are unable to sleep. Mabel also tells Barbie she will never go to Ranpur again until after she's buried, which Barbie interprets to mean that she wishes be buried next to the grave of her late husband, James Layton, in Ranpur. Susan Bingham, Teddie's newlywed and pregnant bride, is unhinged when having received news of Teddie's death she witnesses her aunt Mabel's death. As it is, Susan depends on others to define her role and character. Without Teddie to serve as the anchor for her identity, Susan is lost and afraid to be responsible for a fatherless child. Coming unhinged, she makes a ring of fire with paraffin and places the baby with it, in imitation of a native treatment of scorpions which she witnessed as a child. The baby is rescued unharmed by its nurse. |
4981238 | /m/0cy9ds | Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown | Maud Hart Lovelace | 1943 | null | In this volume in the series, horseless carriages arrive in Deep Valley for the first time when Mr. Poppy, the owner of the Opera House, buys an automobile. Betsy's friend Tib is his first passenger — along with his wife — due simply to her having the boldness to ask for a ride. Although the girls' classmate Winona Root is initially jealous of Tib over this experience, she soon gets over it and invites Betsy, Tacy, and Tib to their first real theatrical experience, a dramatized version of Uncle Tom's Cabin at the Opera House. Betsy befriends the lonely Mrs. Poppy, who welcomes the chance to share the little girls' affection after having lost her only daughter in the years before moving to town. Through this friendship, the girls not only enjoy parties at the Poppy Hotel, but also participate in a theatrical production of Rip Van Winkle that lets Mrs. Poppy reunite Betsy's mother, Mrs. Ray, with her long-lost brother. Betsy and her friends also discover the temptations of dime novels, prompting Betsy to try her hand at writing her own. Eventually, Betsy shares her secret writings with her mother, who successfully encourages her to write fiction of more elevated character. Betsy's parents decide that in order to foster a love of classic literature and make Betsy a better writer, she will be allowed to go alone to the new Carnegie library every two weeks, with spending money for a special mid-day treat to let her stay all day. |
4981278 | /m/0cy9j8 | Betsy and Joe | Maud Hart Lovelace | 1948 | null | Betsy and Joe details the events of Betsy Ray's senior year (1909-1910) at Deep Valley High School in Deep Valley, Minnesota. Betsy had first met Joe Willard in the fifth book of the series, Heaven to Betsy, at Willard's Emporium, a store in the country owned by Joe's uncle. The two of them did not become close friends initially, as they competed in school for top marks in English class and in the annual high school essay competition. Joe's parents had died earlier, causing him to have to spend his time working to support himself and making him, in Betsy's opinion, proud. At the end of the previous book, Betsy Was a Junior, Betsy's classmate, Joe Willard, sent her a postcard requesting to correspond over the summer while he was away working in the harvest fields. Joe soon moved to North Dakota to help run a newspaper, and over the summer while Betsy is away on vacation at Murmuring Lake, Betsy and Joe corresponded, Betsy on her "scented, greensealed" stationery replying to Joe's "typewritten letters." While at Murmuring Lake, Betsy is often visited by her good friend, Tony Markham. Tony tends to run with a wild crowd, so Betsy encourages his visits to keep him with the Crowd. In September, school begins, and Joe makes his first visit to Betsy's home and soon he comes every Sunday night for "Sunday Night Lunch." The first dance of the school year is announced, and to Betsy's dismay Tony asks her first. After Betsy explains the situation to Joe, he makes a blanket invitation for her to go to all the rest of the dances with him. Betsy declines because she feels it would be unfair to Tony to shut him out of her life like that, even though she only likes him as a friend. The fall progresses with Tony and Joe both taking Betsy to various events, and soon it is time for the New Year's Eve dance. Again, Tony asks Betsy first — despite Betsy's having tried to give Joe a chance to invite her first — and Betsy feels she can't say no, so she accepts even though she would rather go with Joe. When Joe finds out, he is angry and says they should stop seeing one another. When school resumes after break, the two of them are no longer friends and scarcely talk to each other. Tony becomes more serious about Betsy. Just before Easter break, Tony tries to kiss Betsy and she tells him she only likes him as a friend. She then goes away for a week to visit friends of her father in the country, the Beidwinkles. At the end of the week, Betsy and the Beidwinkles visit Willard's Emporium, where Betsy and Joe meet again and rekindle their friendship in the place where it began. They spend the day together, and when they both return to Deep Valley they begin "going together." Tony leaves school to go work on Broadway in New York, and Joe and Betsy end the year happily "almost engaged." |
4983958 | /m/0cygn_ | Royal Flash | George MacDonald Fraser | 1970 | {"/m/02p0szs": "Historical fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"} | Royal Flash is set during the Revolutions of 1848. The story features Lola Montez, and Otto von Bismarck as major characters, and fictionalizes elements of the Schleswig-Holstein Question, 1843, 1847 and 1848. It is set in the fictional Duchy of Strackenz, making it the only Flashman novel to be set in a fictitious location. Other characters include Prince Edward, Lillie Langtry, Ludwig I of Bavaria, John Gully, Nicholas Ward, Lord Conyngham, Richard Wagner, Franz Liszt, Oscar Wilde, Henry Irving, Karl Marx, Lord Palmerston, Viscount Peel, Jefferson Davis. The book is loosely based on the plot of The Prisoner of Zenda. Flashman explains that this is because the story was plagiarised from him by its author, Anthony Hope. |
4984228 | /m/0cyh5k | Flash for Freedom! | George MacDonald Fraser | 1971 | {"/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"} | From Dahomey to the slave state of Mississippi, Flashman has cause to regret a game of pontoon with Benjamin Disraeli and Lord George Bentinck. From his ambition for a seat in the House of Commons, he has to settle instead for a role in the West African slave trade, under the command of Captain John Charity Spring, a Latin-spouting madman. Captured by the United States Navy, Flashman has to talk his way out of prison by assuming the first of his many false identities in America. After a visit to Washington D.C. and an unsettling meeting with Abraham Lincoln (still a junior congressman at the time), he escapes his Navy protectors in New Orleans and holes up at a whorehouse run by an amorous madame, Susie Willinck. He is again taken into custody, this time by members of the Underground Railroad. Traveling up the Mississippi River with a fugitive slave ends badly once again, and the rest of the story has Flashman as a slave driver on a plantation, a potential slave himself, and a slave stealer fleeing from vigilantes. Eventually he ends up back in New Orleans at the mercy of Spring. This story is continued in Flashman and the Redskins. At the end of the novel, the editor (Fraser) claims that the escape of Cassy and Flashman across the Ohio River was the inspiration for the anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin, with the names altered and the story focusing on the slave Cassy rather than Flashman. This is similar to a claim made by Flashman that his experiences in Royal Flash were the basis for The Prisoner of Zenda. |
4984343 | /m/0cyhbc | Flashman at the Charge | George MacDonald Fraser | 1973 | {"/m/02p0szs": "Historical fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"} | Flashman meets Queen Victoria's cousin, William of Celle, incognito in a billiards hall and befriends him, before getting him drunk and leaving him in an alley with bootblack on his buttocks for the police to find. However, his reputation as a valiant and down-to-earth soldier leads to Prince Albert assigning Flashman as the boy's mentor. Despite every attempt to avoid it, he finds himself in the Crimea showing William what soldiering is all about. The boy's unfortunate death does not allow Flashman to avoid involvement in the most notable actions of the Crimean War, including The Thin Red Line, the Charge of the Heavy Brigade under James Yorke Scarlett, and the infamous Charge of the Light Brigade. Powered by fear and flatulence, he reaches the Russian guns in front of the other surviving members of the charge and promptly surrenders. He is taken into Russia (now Ukraine) and placed in the custody of Count Pencherjevsky. Here he reunites with Scud East, his old schoolmate, and meets Nicholas Pavlovich Ignatiev, a vicious Russian Captain. Flashman and East overhear plans by senior Russian officers to invade India and end the British Raj. The two men escape from the Count's estate (thanks to a peasant uprising), but Flashman is recaptured by the Russians. Ignatiev takes Flashman with him across central Asia as part of his plans to conquer India. Flashman is rescued from prison by cohorts of Yakub Beg, led by his Chinese paramour. Then the Tajik and Uzbek warriors attack and destroy the Russian fleet with the aid of Flashman (who is drugged with hashish and utterly fearless as a result, for the only time in his life). |
4984388 | /m/0cyhdv | Flashman in the Great Game | George MacDonald Fraser | 1975 | {"/m/02p0szs": "Historical fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"} | Flashman not only encounters Lord Palmerston at Balmoral, but also his old nemesis Nicholas Pavlovich Ignatiev. He escapes assassination narrowly and journeys to Jhansi in India, where he meets Rani Lakshmi Bai, the beautiful queen. He listens to her grievances against the British Raj and attempts to seduce her. Whether or not he is successful is unclear, but immediately afterwards Flashman is nearly garroted by Thuggees. In disguise as Makarram Khan, a Hasanzai of the Black Mountain, he takes refuge in the native cavalry at Meerut. Unfortunately, Meerut is where the Sepoy Mutiny begins. Flashman survives the Siege of Cawnpore and the Siege of Lucknow but ends up imprisoned in Gwalior after an attempt to deliver Lakshmi into British hands. He is released just in time to witness the death of Lakshmi, but then his appearance after two months in prison leads to his misidentification as a mutineer. After being knocked out during the British attack on the Rani's camp, he awakens to something that makes Hugh Rose later wonder that Flashman did not lose his mind - he is gagged and tied to the muzzle of a cannon, about to be executed with other mutineers. Fortunately, quick thinking allows him to communicate with gestures his true ethnicity to his British captors. In an uncharacteristically humane act, he orders the Indian mutineers who were going to be blown away alongside him, to be freed saying "the way things are hereabouts, one of 'em's probably Lord Canning." In this book Flashman often behaves heroically, though his interior thoughts are often - but not always - those of a coward and a cad. |
4984502 | /m/0cyhn8 | Flashman's Lady | George MacDonald Fraser | 1977 | {"/m/02p0szs": "Historical fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"} | Flashman meets Tom Brown at a tavern and is convinced to play cricket at Lord's for a team made up of Rugby Old Boys. His impressive play (performing possibly the first ever hat-trick) leads to more matches, and an encounter with Daedalus Tighe, a notorious bookie. He also meets Don Solomon Haslam, a businessman from the East Indies, who has a lot of money, prestige, and a fascination for Elspeth, Flashman's wife. Due to a wager with Haslam, blackmail from Tighe, and threats from a Duke arising from an affair with the Duke's lover, Flashman is forced to accompany Haslam, Elspeth, and Morrison (his father-in-law) on a trip to Singapore. There Haslam reveals his true identity and kidnaps Elspeth. Flashman must reluctantly chase after them, with the help of James Brooke. This chase takes him to the jungles of Borneo, the nests of pirates, and finally to Madagascar, where he is enslaved and becomes military advisor and lover to Queen Ranavalona I. Escape from the island seems impossible, and with his wife's help he has to overcome his cowardice to evade their pursuers. |
4984601 | /m/0cyhtf | Flashman and the Redskins | George MacDonald Fraser | 1982 | {"/m/02p0szs": "Historical fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"} | In his haste to leave New Orleans and the threat of imprisonment, Flashman agrees to shepherd Susie Willinck and her company of prostitutes to Sacramento, where she intends to set up shop and make a bundle from goldminers. As wagon captain, Flashman is nominally in charge of his and Susie's (now his wife) collection of women, supplies, sex toys and the other forty-niners and invalids looking for a better life but he depends on the guidance of Richens Lacey Wootton to see them through. Unfortunately, Wootton becomes stricken with cholera. Flashman is left to get everyone to Bent's Fort in safety, which Comanches make difficult for him. Eventually, they reach Santa Fe, New Mexico, where Flashman absconds with two thousand dollars made from selling one of the prostitutes, Cleonie, to Navajos. For safety in the wilderness, Flashman falls in with a group of travelers but he discovers them to be scalp-hunters, when they attack a band of Apaches. Flashman joins in but refuses to take any scalps or rape captive women, which saves him when the scalp-hunters are killed by the rest of the tribe on their return. He ends up marrying Sonsee-Array, the daughter of chief, Mangas Coloradas, and becoming friends with Geronimo. Eventually, he escapes and is saved by Kit Carson on the Jornada del Muerto. In 1875, Flashman returns to America with his wife, Elspeth. He meets George Armstrong Custer and Mrs. Arthur B. Candy, the former slave Cleonie, both of whom lead him into disaster. He travels to Bismarck, North Dakota, to meet with Mrs. Candy and pursue a carnal relationship but at her connivance, he is kidnapped by Sioux and kept captive at Greasy Grass. He escapes just in time to see the defeat and death of Custer and to be partly scalped himself by his own illegitimate son from Cleonie, Frank Grouard, who by choice has been living as an Indian. Thus, the book ends with Flashman discovering that he left more behind in America in 1850 than two jilted wives. |
4984678 | /m/0cyhzc | Flashman and the Dragon | George MacDonald Fraser | 1985 | {"/m/02p0szs": "Historical fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"} | In Hong Kong, Flashman is convinced by Phoebe Carpenter, a lovely minister's wife, to take a shipment of opium into Canton, with the promise of a later, more pleasant meeting. On the way he discovers that instead of opium he is carrying guns to the Taiping rebels. In Canton, Flashman manages to convince Harry Smith Parkes that he was trying to stop the shipment. However, instead of being able to head for home as he originally intended, he is put on the intelligence staff in Shanghai. From Shanghai he travels to Nanking and meets the leaders of the Taiping rebels, in order to convince them not to march on Shanghai. Flashman then proceeds to the mouth of the Peiho to join Lord Elgin's staff for his march to Pekin. After being captured by the Imperials, he meets Xianfeng Emperor and becomes the prisoner and lover of Yehonala, the imperial concubine. When the British army arrives at Pekin, he witnesses the destruction of the imperial Summer Palace. But after that event, while heading for home, he is drugged and apparently kidnapped while attempting to fulfill his promise with Pheobe Carpenter. There the story ends, and it is never revealed in any subsequent volume what then became of him. |
4984744 | /m/0cyj0h | Flashman and the Mountain of Light | George MacDonald Fraser | 1990 | {"/m/02p0szs": "Historical fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"} | At the end of events in Flashman's Lady, Flashman is sent to India when the English are anticipating conflict with the Sikh Army, the Khalsa. He is dispatched by Major George Broadfoot to the Punjab, masquerading as a solicitor attempting to settle the Soochet legacy. Flashman becomes entangled in the intrigues of the Punjabi court before being forced to flee at the outbreak of war, then becomes involved in plans by the Punjabi nobility to curb the power of the Khalsa. Returning to the relative safety of the British forces, Flashman arrives just in time to become an unwilling participant in the attack on Ferozeshah. Injured, he attempts to avoid the rest of the war in a sick bed, but is called personally by the Maharani of the Punjab to attend to an urgent mission: smuggling her son Daleep Singh and the Koh-i-Noor diamond out of the country. |
4984820 | /m/0cyj59 | Flashman and the Angel of the Lord | George MacDonald Fraser | 1994 | {"/m/02p0szs": "Historical fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"} | At the start of the novel, Flashman leaves Calcutta before the wrath of a cuckolded husband can find him. He proceeds to South Africa, where by a chance meeting he reunites with John Charity Spring (whom he had worked for as a slaver in Flash for Freedom! and seen shanghaied in Flashman and the Redskins). Spring uses his daughter, Miranda, and her feminine wiles to have Flashman drugged and sent to the United States, where charges against his old aliases still exist. Flashman manages to avoid the authorities, but Crixus (one of the chiefs of the Underground Railroad from Flash for Freedom!) finds him and tries to convince him to join John Brown's attempt to start a slave rebellion. One of Crixus' followers, a black man named Joe Simmons, actually works for the Kuklos, a possible forerunner of the Ku Klux Klan. They also want Flashman to help Brown, but in order to start a civil war. One last doublecross exists: the wife of the leader of the Kuklos works for Allan Pinkerton, who brings Flashman to meet William H. Seward. Seward, considered by many at that time to be the next President of the United States, also wants Flashman to join with Brown, but to slow him down and prevent the raid into the South from ever happening, and therefore prevent civil war. Of course Flashman fails at this, and he becomes an eyewitness to the whole event. |
4984907 | /m/0cyjcz | Flashman and the Tiger | George MacDonald Fraser | 1999 | {"/m/02p0szs": "Historical fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"} | "The Road to Charing Cross" begins with Flashman going to Berlin with Henri Blowitz to help him get a copy of the Treaty of Berlin and publish it before anyone else has it. He also meets Caprice, a beautiful member of the French secret service. Five years later, Flashman is looking for an excuse to leave London and avoid being sent to Sudan with Charles George Gordon. Luckily, a letter from Blowitz arrives inviting him to Paris. He rides the maiden voyage of the Orient Express and makes the acquaintance of a princess, Kralta, supposedly so that she can sleep with him. This turns out to be a ruse on the part of the princess and Otto von Bismarck, and Flashman is forced to join with Rupert Willem von Starnberg, son of the villain from Royal Flash, and save Emperor Franz Josef from assassination by Magyar nationalists. It turns out that Starnberg has plans of his own, and Flashman must save both the Emperor and himself. "The Subtleties of Baccarat" has Flashman at the home of Sir Arthur Wilson with the Prince of Wales, just when the Royal Baccarat Scandal is unfolding. Unlike in most Flashman stories, he is mainly an observer of the event, simply giving bad advice when asked to. However, in a twist, someone he has known for years unexpectedly turns out to be the most important player in the story. At the beginning of "Flashman and the Tiger", Flashman is in South Africa fleeing from the Battle of Isandlwana in a wagon. After his escape, he meets Tiger Jack Moran about ten miles (16 km) away, and both head to Rorke's Drift and the nightmare that awaits them. Later, at the mention of Flashman's name, Moran says "if I'd only known." Years later, in 1894, Flashman finds out what he meant when Moran blackmails his granddaughter in order to sleep with her, revealing to Flashman that he was a cabin boy on Captain John Charity Spring's ship, the Balliol College (see Flash for Freedom!), who was traded to King Gezo as a white slave and has spent much of his adult life avenging himself on the ship's former crew. In an attempt to save her, Flashman finds himself in a scene from "The Adventure of the Empty House", and has to endure the humiliation of Sherlock Holmes analyzing him while he is pretending to be a drunken tramp (Fraser, perhaps to tweak the sensibilities of Holmes' legion of admirers, has Holmes get it all wrong). |
4984960 | /m/0cyjfp | Flashman on the March | George MacDonald Fraser | 2005 | {"/m/02p0szs": "Historical fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"} | Having fled Mexico aboard the Austrian warship carrying the Emperor Maximilian's body home for burial, Flashman is on the run, after mortally offending Admiral Tegethoff by seducing his great-niece en voyage. Flashman meets an old acquaintance, Jack Speedicut (who appears in other of the novels), who enlists him to escort a shipment of Maria Theresa thalers to General Robert Napier's forces in Abyssinia, via Suez. General Napier, overjoyed to find the noted military hero Flashman arrived in Abyssinia, immediately despatches him on a secret undercover mission to recruit Queen Masteeat and her Galla people, who are opposed to Emperor Theodore II of Ethiopia, travelling in the company of her half-sister Uliba-Wark, who is herself scheming to depose Queen Masteeat. Flashman succeeds in enlisting the assistance of Queen Masteeat, but is then captured by Emperor Theodore's forces. The second half of the novel deals with Flashman's relations with the Emperor and covers the final battle with Napier's forces and their allies, after which Theodore commits suicide. Flashman tells Napier at the conclusion that the British government could have avoided the whole sorry adventure if they had simply given Theodore the respect that a monarch deserves by properly responding to his letters. |
4985225 | /m/0cyjz9 | Mr American | George MacDonald Fraser | 1980 | {"/m/02p0szs": "Historical fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"} | Mark Franklin arrives on the Mauretania at Liverpool in 1909 with a copy of Shakespeare's works, an old Mexican charro saddle and two Remington pistols in his battered luggage. A tall and softly-spoken American prospector, who made his fortune in a silver strike in Nevada, he is visiting the 'old country' to see his roots. He goes to London where he meets and has a one-night stand with 'Pip' Delys, a music hall performer. She gives him the name which forms the title of the book. He then buys a house in Castle Lancing, the Norfolk village his ancestors came from in the 17th century. A chance event during a fox hunt, when the fox hides in Franklin's picnic basket, leads to an acquaintance with King Edward VII, and the beginning of an enmity with a neighbour (Frank, Lord Lacy) which lasts throughout the book. Through playing bridge with Edward and his mistress Alice Keppel, Franklin elevates himself greatly in the king's estimation through his easy manners. When the king invites him to Sandringham, Franklin meets Winston Churchill, Jackie Fisher, and Ernest Cassel. This allows Fraser to depict some of the historical background of the build-up to the First World War. He also meets General Flashman, from Fraser's well-known historical fiction series. Flashman is in his late 80s at the start of the book (as he says, "I'm eighty-eight next May, and I attribute my longevity to an almost total abstinence from tea"), and an important sub-plot involves his grand-niece, Lady Helen Cessford, a suffragette. An old partner in crime, Kid Curry, tracks him down and demands half of all his wealth. Franklin refuses, and the stage is set for a midnight gunfight, which Franklin wins with the assistance of his manservant Samson. They bury the body in a field. He falls in love with, and marries, another neighbour, Peggy Clayton. Her brother is an officer in the British Army and is involved in running guns to Ireland during the Curragh Mutiny, using Franklin's money obtained by Peggy from him by deception. Over the years Franklin gradually grows apart from his young wife, at first due to the breach of trust over the money, and then when he discovers her sexual infidelity. The novel ends with the outbreak of war in 1914, and Franklin deciding to return to the U.S., leaving the bulk of his fortune in England for his wife and her family. At the last moment he changes his mind, and the reader is left unsure whether he intends to return to his unfaithful wife, to possibly accompany Samson who plans to serve in the Legion of Frontiersmen under Frederick Selous, or something else entirely. |
4992469 | /m/0cyw58 | 33 Snowfish | Adam Rapp | 3/1/2003 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | 33 Snowfish follows the character of Custis, a 10-year-old orphan living with his "owner" Bob Motley, who sexually abuses him, in a dilapidated house in Rockdale, Illinois. After overhearing that he was to star in a snuff movie, Custis steals a small pistol and escapes through a hole in the wall. While hiding from Motley's crew and begging for quarters in a video arcade at the Joliet Mall, Custis spots Boobie (whose real name is Darrin Flowers), a strange boy with black eyes and a single painted fingernail. Custis decides to follow Boobie into Crazy Lou's Woods, a private woodland supposedly owned by an ex-military cat farmer. Custis and Boobie soon become friends. Custis, having no home, and Boobie, who has an unstable relationship with his parents, set up a makeshift home in the woods with a tent and steal electricity from a nearby paper factory. Soon they are joined by Curl, Boobie's 14-year-old girlfriend who is addicted to drugs and supports herself as a prostitute, and finally Boobie's baby brother, whom Boobie abducts after murdering his parents. The four of them take to the road in a stolen Buick Skylark to flee the police who are searching for Boobie, engaging in dumpster diving, robbery and begging in various Chicago suburbs along the way. |
4992567 | /m/0cywb8 | Goth Opera | Paul Cornell | null | null | As the Fifth Doctor and his companions vacation in Tasmania they get caught up in a scheme by the Time Lord Ruath to resurrect the vampire Yarven (from Blood Harvest). Ruath sends a vampire baby to attack the Doctor and turn him into a vampire, but the child instead attacks and converts Nyssa. Unable to provide Yarven with the Doctor's Time Lord blood, Ruath gives her own blood to Yarven, causing her to die and regenerate into a vampire Time Lord. Nyssa, while trying fight her new vampire nature, is drawn to Yarven's castle, where she learns more about Ruath's plan. Ruath has created a genetically enhanced mist that can turn normal humans into vampires, and kill those who use traditional methods (garlic, crosses, etc.) to protect themselves. Ruath has also invented a Time Freeze, a small Time Loop that can hold the Earth in a perpetual night, leaving the vampires free to roam and feed. Nyssa contacts the Doctor and aids him in entering the castle, which turns out to be Ruath's TARDIS. Ruath captures the Doctor and Tegan. She informs Yarven that his brain, now enhanced by Time Lord blood, will become the controller of the Time Freeze mechanism, and offers the Doctor the change to become her vampiric consort. Yarven, however, decides he doesn't want to sacrifice himself, and places the Doctor in the Time Freze. The Doctor manages to use Ruath's command ring to take control of her TARDIS and force it to materialize on a distant planet, where the rising sun incinerates Yarven and his vampire hordes. The death of the vampire child cures Nyssa of her vampirism. Ruath survives the dawn, but is sucked into the Time Vortex after Nyssa opens the doors to the Doctor's TARDIS while it is in flight. |
4994110 | /m/0cyymr | Happy Baby | null | null | null | Theo is addicted to sadomasochism. He insists on being hurt - whether by one he loves or by a professional dominatrix. Theo is a victim of the child welfare system. Told in reverse chronological order, 'Happy Baby' begins when 36-year-old Theo returns to Chicago after six years away, to visit an ex-girlfriend called Maria. He knows Maria from their years growing up together in a state institution, where Theo was sent aged thirteen after his abusive father was killed and his mother died from multiple sclerosis. Theo then drifts into relationships with women who are willing to abuse him. His need for pain stems from the brutal treatment he received as a child in state custody. He recalls the memory of Mr. Gracie, a pedophile caseworker who regularly raped him when he was aged twelve but also protected him from the other boys. Elliott explores the psychology of child sexual abuse and physical abuse. |
4994522 | /m/0cyz7k | Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison | Charles Shaw | 1952 | {"/m/098tmk": "War novel"} | The narrative deals with the developing relationship between the marine and the nun, especially Allison's growing attraction to Sister Angela. The novel is set earlier in the war than the film, with Allison escaping from the Battle of Corregidor at the time that the Allies are still on the defensive in the Pacific. |
4995921 | /m/0cz0n3 | Fire in the Abyss | null | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | Gordon awakens in 1983 floating in the north Atlantic when all of a sudden a U.S. submarine emerges from the depths and plucks Gilbert from certain death. (The book's cover shows Gilbert on the deck of a modern submarine.) Together with some hundred other "Temporally Displaced Persons," or DTIs, the government term for those it’s kidnapped from other times, Gilbert is illegally incarcerated in a secret installation in Horsefield, New Jersey where authorities conduct experiments designed to extract historical and linguistic secrets from the past. Gilbert is forced to live a pathetic existence of living in a prison and must wear a protective suit just to prevent from being infected with deadly modern day viruses and bacteria. Just when hope seems to have run dry Gilbert discovers that he and the other DTIs have developed a telepathic ring, coordinated by the Ancient Egyptian priestess Tari, a follower of the cult of Isis. In this ring they are able to share their dreams, fears and plans for escape. Together with Tari, a Norse giant, a dancer from ancient North America and many others, Gilbert escapes from his illegal confines. This is a deadly plan as the US government is eager, even willing to kill, to keep the scandalous DTIs a secret from the public. Once on the outside Gilbert, Tari and a handful of others find themselves on-the-run and overwhelmed by culture shock. Dodging murderous government agents and curious laymen Gilbert wanders across the American continent, meeting up with crazed Irish nationalists, an anti-government rock group and even working for a time in a San Francisco S&M parlor, indulging his homosexual desires. One by one Gilbert’s companions are killed off by accident or murder until he alone finally makes an escape back to merry-ole England, where again finds himself an outsider and fugitive. The book, written in the first person, is Gilbert's diary and is intended as proof of the government misdeeds committed against DTI’s. Gilbert makes many sardonic remarks on the life and institutions of the modern world in general and present-day Britain in particular, but also enjoys disabusing moderns who tend to romanticize the Elizabethan Age. Gordon is especially harsh in his mocking of the political paranoia that infected the United States during the Cold War. Gordon, a Scotsman, does manage to have Gilbert, an Englishman, visit the author’s home town of Buckie on the northeastern coast of Scotland. |
4996811 | /m/02vkgbm | Mountains Beyond Mountains | Tracy Kidder | 2004 | {"/m/0xdf": "Autobiography", "/m/017fp": "Biography", "/m/05h83": "Non-fiction"} | The book is written from the point of view of author Tracy Kidder. It is set mainly in Haiti and Boston, Massachusetts. Kidder first met his subject, Dr. Paul Farmer, in Haiti in 1994. At the time, Kidder was researching a story about American soldiers sent to reinstate Haiti's democratically elected government led by president Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Kidder again met Farmer on his flight back to Miami, Florida from Haiti and began to learn small pieces of Farmer's life. Farmer was born in Massachusetts and grew up as one of six children in a poor household in Florida, going on to attend Duke and Harvard, where he earned his M.D and Ph.D. The rest of the book details Farmer's inspiring life and accomplishments, including Farmer's work with the health and social justice organization Partners in Health, especially in Haiti, Peru, and Russia. Kidder describes Paul Farmer as follows: :"And I was drawn to the man himself. He worked extraordinary hours. In fact, I don’t think he sleeps more than an hour or two most nights. Here was a person who seemed to be practicing more than he preached, who seemed to be living, as nearly as any human being can, without hypocrisy. A challenging person, the kind of person whose example can irritate you by making you feel you’ve never done anything as important, and yet, in his presence, those kinds of feelings tended to vanish. In the past, when I’d imagined a person with credentials like his, I’d imagined someone dour and self-righteous, but he was very friendly and irreverent, and quite funny. He seemed like someone I’d like to know, and I thought that if I did my job well, a reader would feel that way, too." The book is primarily a biographical work broken into five parts. PART I: Doktè Paul Introduces Farmer's work at the Brigham in Boston, Massachusetts and at the PIH founded Zanmi Lasante in Cange, Haiti. PART II: The Tin Roofs of Cange Describes Farmer's family background and gives accounts of Farmer from sources close to him. Farmer's dedication to PIH led to his broken engagement with Ophelia Dahl, the daughter of famous author Roald Dahl and actress Patricia Neal. The two remained close confidantes however, with Ophelia continuing work for the PIH organization. PART III: Médicos Aventureros 1995 MDR-TB claimed the life of a close friend known as Father Jack, in Lima, Peru. PIH co-founder, Dr. Jim Kim convinces Farmer to extend PIH into Peru where they fight against the rigid orders of the DOTS program, outlined by the World Health Organization, largely under the financial support of an American benefactor, Tom White. PART IV: A Light Month for Travel Follows Farmer from Haiti to Cuba, Paris, France, Russia, and other locations on his quest to treat infectious disease. PART V: O for the P In 2000, PIH receives news of being awarded a $45 million grant to combat MDR-TB in Lima, Peru along with other organizations. "O for the P" refers to an expression within PIH that is a shortened form of saying “a preferential option for the poor”. |
4996910 | /m/0cz240 | Donnerjack | Jane Lindskold | 1997-08 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | The book combines gods with high technology. Computers have gone independent in a Virtual Reality that contains many elements borrowed from myth and legend. Death features as a major character, and the hero must rescue his lady-love from him. Other actual and virtual myth-figures come into it. It is not connected with Jack of Shadows |
4997821 | /m/0cz3yb | The House on the Borderland | William Hope Hodgson | 1908 | {"/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/03npn": "Horror", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Two good friends, Tonnison and Berreggnog, travel to the remote village of Kraighten in rural Ireland. On the third day of their trip, they stumble upon the ruins of a strangely-shaped house bordering a large lake. They discover the mouldering journal of the Recluse, an unidentified man who recorded his last days in the house before its destruction. The Recluse begins his journal with descriptions of how he acquired the house, along with his daily life with his sister and his faithful dog, Pepper. He confides that he is starting the diary to record the strange experiences and horrors that were occurring in and around the house. The Recluse relates a vision in which he travels to a remote and vast arena, "the plain of silence," surrounded by mountains with representations of mythological beast-gods, demons, and other "bestial horrors" on their slopes. In the center of the plain stands a house almost identical to his own, save that the house in the arena is much larger and appears to be made of a green jade-like substance. Along the way, he sees a huge, menacing humanoid swine-thing. After his vision of the "arena," he becomes fascinated with the pit adjacent to his house (Ireland), and begins to explore it. Shortly after this he is attacked by humanoid pig-like creatures that he names "the swine-things" which appear to have their origin from somewhere in the depths of a great chasm found under the house (accessed through a pit on the other side of the gardens) . The struggle with these creatures lasts for several nights of greater and greater ferocity, yet in the end, the man kills several of the swine things, and apparently drives them off. As he searches for the origin of the Swine-things, the man explores a pit in the gardens were the river ends and flows underground. There he finds a tunnel leading to a great chasm under the house. When rock slides dam the water in the pit, trapping the man, his dog Pepper rescues him. By the time that the two men find the journal, the obstructed water has overflowed the pit to create the lake. The house transports him inter-dimensionally to an unknown place called 'the sea of sleep' where he briefly reunites with his lost love. A short time later, the man notices that day and night have begun to speed up, eventually blurring into a never-ending dusk. As he watches, his surroundings decay and collapse to dust. The dead world slowly grinds to a halt as the sun goes out after several million millennia. Once the world ends, the man floats through space, seeing angelic, human, and demonic forms passing before his eyes. Later, he finds himself back in his own study on Earth, with everything apparently returned to normalcy—with the one exception of Pepper, who is dead. To make matters worse, the malicious swine-beast from his earlier journeys to the 'arena' has managed to follow him back to his own dimension. The creature infects the man's new dog with a luminous fungal disease. Although the man shoots the suffering animal, he also contracts the disease. The manuscript ends with the man locked (from the outside only) in his study as the creature comes through a trap door in the basement, that opened directly over the chasm under the house. Tonnison and Berreggnog search for information on the man and his circumstances. They find that the only knowledge of the house was that it was a place long of evil repute and had mysteriously fallen into the chasm. They leave Kraighten and never return. |
4999964 | /m/0cz6_3 | The Hundred Dresses | Eleanor Estes | 1944 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The book centers on Wanda Petronski, a poor and friendless Polish-American girl. Her teacher, outwardly kind, puts her in the worst seat in the classroom and she does not say anything when her schoolmates tease her. One day, after Wanda's classmates laugh at her funny last name and the faded blue dress she wears to school every day, Wanda claims to own one hundred dresses, all lined up in her closet at her worn-down house. This outrageous and obvious lie becomes a game, as the girls in her class corner her every day before school, demanding that she describe all of her dresses for them. She is mocked, and her father, Mr. Petronski, decides that she must leave that school. The teacher holds a drawing contest in which the girls are to draw dresses of their own design. Wanda enters and submits one hundred beautiful designs. Her classmates are in awe of her talent and realize that these were her hundred dresses. Unfortunately, she has already moved away and does not realize she won the contest. The students who teased her feel remorse and want her to know this, but they are not sure how. They decide to write her an apology letter and send it to her old address, hoping the post office can forward it. |
5003381 | /m/0czcqv | A Dying Light in Corduba | Lindsey Davis | 6/6/1996 | {"/m/0lsxr": "Crime Fiction"} | The Society of Olive Oil Producers of Baetica is throwing a big dinner party in Rome, trying to drum up business for their product. Falco is invited at the request of Claudius Laeta, Vespasian’s top clerk. The food, the garum and the dancing girl make a big impression on Falco. When two guests at a dinner are assaulted, one fatally, Falco realizes that being at the dinner was just the start of another job. The surviving victim, Anacrites, is Falco's rival and Vespasian's Chief Spy. Falco is asked to investigate the attack on Anacrites and its possible connection to an attempt to corner the market on Spanish olive oil. Trying to keep Anacrites safe, he moves him to the one place where no one will look, and if they do, they will regret it; his mother’s house. Soon, Falco is on his way to Hispania to track down some of the guests and that memorable dancer. Laeta hints that someone is looking to corner the market on Hispania’s olive oil production. Suspicion immediately falls on Quinctius Attractus, the host of the festivities that fatal evening. This is an assignment Falco does not take solo; he is bringing his very pregnant companion, Helena Justina. Helena's father Camillus Verus happens to own a small estate in Baetica, and her brother Aelianus has just returned for serving there, so he and Helena have a perfect excuse to show up. And Helena has made it very clear that Falco will be there for the birth of his child. Falco soon discovers, among other things, Quinctius Attractus, owns one of the largest estates in the region, producing massive quantities of olive oil. He also learns that against his initial suspicions, there does not appear to be much interest in cornering any market, at least on the part of the Baeticans. This does not mean the investigation is over; there is still the assault to solve, and pesky dancer is still on the loose. Helena becomes friendly with the daughters of two local magnates, Claudia Rufina and Aelia Annaea. Falco gets to know some of the sons, including Claudia’s brother Constans. Also appearing is Attractus’ son Quadratus, the new quaestor of Baetica. That one item alone keeps Falco on guard. While concluding the interviews of the dinner guests, Falco finally catches up with the dancer, Selia, who promptly tries to kill him with the help of her band. Before she strikes the final blow, she reveals that Laeta sent her too, not to find the killer, but to stop anyone following, a classic double cross. Now Falco knows all, or nearly all. Falco manages to escape, but fails to catch Selia. He rushes home to see if Helena is well. Falco finds Quadratus in his house, injured in a fall from a horse, and discovers that there has indeed been a death; Rufina Constans, Claudia’s brother. He was found dead in an olive press, moving a stone that no human could move alone. Falco suspects something, but the obvious suspect is his guest and claiming an injury. Yet Claudia is convinced it was not an accident, and she asks Falco to investigate. Seeing the site of the death, he is convinced someone else was there when Constans died. Now it is just one more thing he has to prove. Now the chase is on. Falco goes to the Quinctius estate, and finds Selia dead and Quadratus gone. But this death is much more elegant, and soon another Dancer appears; Perella. She is working for the Chief Spy Anacrites, who was still alive when she saw him last, now with the Praetorian guard, but still being nursed by Falco’s mother. Still not trusting Perella, Falco decides to share his information with her, and they piece together the real plot. It is not the Baeticans who want the cartel, it is Laeta, who wants to force Vespasian to take over production, pouring millions into Rome’s coffers, but causing the price of olive oil to go through the roof. Laeta had set up Falco in the hope that he will find enough to cause the Emperor to stave off the threat of anyone else controlling olive oil, and putting Laeta in charge of the new cartel. If Falco dies, instead, well, that is the cost of doing business. Attractus and Quadratus are part of the plan because Laeta needs some legitimacy, and the Quinctii have enough influence to make it at least appear to be on the up and up. Falco also learns that Quadratus was indeed with Constans when he died. It is now time to act. Helena is about to burst, but Falco is still fearful of local medical experts, and so he sends her east by land while he rides to catch Quadratus before he kills someone else, and then hopes to catch up. After visiting a couple of mines in search of Quadratus, he finally catches up with him. It turns out that Laeta did not have as much control over the Quinctii as he thought, and some of the killings were Quadratus’ idea. Quadratus tries to bluff, but he knows it’s too late to recover the dream of all that control. Ignoring Falco, he descends a ladder, slips and falls to his death. Falco can only wonder how much of an accident it was. It’s a girl. Falco makes it before the birth, Helena survives, and only breaks a couple of his fingers. |
5003415 | /m/0czct7 | M*A*S*H: A Novel About Three Army Doctors | W. C. Heinz | null | {"/m/02yq81": "Comic novel", "/m/07s9rl0": "Drama", "/m/01z4y": "Comedy", "/m/098tmk": "War novel"} | Radar O'Reilly, while playing poker, listens in on a conversation between Lieutenant Colonel Henry Blake and General Hamilton Hartington Hammond and announces the forthcoming arrival of two new surgeons. Captains Duke Forrest and Hawkeye Pierce share a jeep to MASH unit 4077. On the way, they also share a bottle and discover that, although they come from different parts of the U.S., they have much in common. Upon arrival, rather than report to the commanding officer, they have lunch in the mess tent, where they run into Lt. Col. Blake anyway. They are assigned to work the night shift, and billeted with Major Jonathan Hobson, a Midwestern preacher and surgeon. The two new surgeons exhibit exceptional surgical skills and commitment to their job, and gain the respect of their colleagues. However, they become annoyed by Maj. Hobson's devotion to prayer, so they complain to Henry, who reluctantly agrees to have Maj. Hobson rebilleted. Seeing that Henry is a bit of a push-over, they also request a chest surgeon for the unit. Friction mounts between the major and the new captains. Major Hobson's prayers begin to annoy everyone and Henry arranges to have him sent stateside. Weeks later, the new chest surgeon, Captain John McIntyre, arrives. He evades everyone's attempts to get to know him, and stays hidden inside a parka stocked with cans of beer and martini olives. For days Hawkeye has a nagging feeling that he's met McIntyre before. McIntyre is a fantastic surgeon, but still won't talk to anyone until Hawkeye suddenly remembers playing football against McIntyre in college. Hawkeye introduces McIntyre to everyone as Trapper John. The Bachelor Officers Quarters (BOQ) tent occupied by the three surgeons, known as The Swamp, becomes a popular hang-out, serving cocktails at 4. One of the regulars is Father Mulcahy, the Catholic chaplain. The boys aren't religious, but they like the Father, calling him "Dago Red" because of his red hair. However, as Duke is an avowed Protestant, he requests a Protestant chaplain. The nearest Protestant chaplain is Shaking Sammy, who lives in an engineering outfit, and is so named because he loves to shake hands. The Swampmen come to dislike him because he tends to send letters to the families of fatally wounded soldiers saying all is well. After one too many of these letters, they lash him to a wooden cross and make him believe they intend to burn him alive. Captain Waldowski, the dentist known as the Painless Pole, who has a pool table and a poker table (open 24 hours), suddenly becomes depressed and decides to commit suicide. (He's chronically depressed and has a fit of depression every month.) Duke gives him a "black capsule" to knock him out, a mock Last Supper is arranged and everybody bids him farewell. The next day he is feeling better and ready for a game of poker. The Swampmen begin to have personal conflicts with Captain Frank Burns, a rich, arrogant surgeon from the day shift. He trained for two years with his father, who was himself not a trained surgeon. However he considers himself a better physician, and officer, than Hawkeye, and constantly harasses enlisted men. When one of his patients dies he claims "it's either God's will or somebody else's fault." He blames Private Boone for the death of a patient, reducing Boone to tears. These actions result in a physical assault by Duke and then by Trapper. The arrival of the new Chief Nurse, Major Margaret Houlihan, at first restores order. However, being Regular Army, she dislikes the Swampmen and sides with Burns. Henry decides to appoint a Chief Surgeon, and the job falls to Trapper, being the best surgeon in the unit. Burns and Houlihan conclude that the Swampmen are evil and Henry their puppet. They prepare a report for Gen. Hammond and later get together in her tent, where Frank stays until 1:30 am. The next day the Swampmen tease Burns and Houlihan about their late-night meeting. Trapper John calls Houlihan "Hot Lips" and Hawkeye provokes Burns into a fight. Henry is finally forced to send Burns stateside. "Henry," Duke comments, "if I get into Hot Lips and jump Hawkeye Pierce, can I go home too?" Ho-Jon, the Korean houseboy working in the Swamp, is drafted into the South Korean army. After being wounded, he arrives at the 4077th for treatment. After rehabilitation, he resumes his position as Swampboy. The Swampmen, who are very fond of Ho-Jon, arrange to have him sent to Hawkeye's old college. To raise funds, Trapper grows a beard, dresses up like Jesus Christ, and autographs thousands of photos which the Swampmen sell for a buck apiece. Trapper receives orders to rush to Kokura, Japan for a medical emergency. Trapper and Hawkeye depart immediately with their golf clubs. The "emergency" turns out to be a routine operation; the anesthesiologist turns out to be "Me Lay" Marston, an old friend of Hawkeye's who works at Dr. Yamamoto's Finest Kind Pediatric Hospital & Whorehouse ("Finest kind" becomes one of Hawkeye's catchphrases). The two Swampmen qualify for a golf tournament and play against a good-humoured British colonel. Trapper, still resembling Christ, attracts a lot of unwanted attention. After the tournament, they have dinner with Me Lay. Me Lay asks the boys to look at a sick baby, whom they take back to the army hospital. When the hospital's commanding officer, Colonel Merrill, tries to get in their way, he is abducted, sedated and blackmailed. Me Lay adopts the orphan baby. Business picks up at the 4077th and Trapper and Hawkeye return immediately to find the unit overwhelmed by casualties. A constant flow of wounded soldiers pours into the hospital for two weeks and all personnel work around the clock performing operations far beyond their training. At the end of the two weeks everyone is exhausted and irritable. The unit's efficiency sags, and the tremendous loss of life begins to take its toll on the surgeons. They turn to heavy drinking and start harassing the nurses, particularly Maj. Houlihan. Fed up, she again complains to the General, who comes down on Col. Blake. The Swampmen intercede on behalf of the Colonel and smooth things over with the General. Summer arrives and the 4077th is hot and overworked. The work slacks off and while Henry is sent to Tokyo for three weeks, Colonel Horace DeLong fills in. Col. DeLong finds Hawkeye at the poker game and demands that he start surgery on a patient in the preoperative ward. Hawkeye says that the patient is receiving blood and that he will do the surgery at 3:00 am. At 2:45, while scrubbing for surgery, Hawkeye explains that the waiting period was necessary for the patient to become fit for surgery. When the Swampmen get bored, to get away for a few days they lead DeLong to believe they need psychiatric evaluation. At the 325th Evac, they escape and the psychiatrist, accompanied by Henry, finds them at Mrs. Lee's (a nearby whorehouse). Meanwhile, General Hammond has assembled a football team composed of ringers and is making tidy profits betting on his squad with other Korean units. The Swampmen organize a team to play against Gen. Hammond's team. They tell Henry to request neurosurgeon Oliver Wendell Jones, once a pro ball player known as Spearchucker. Henry becomes the coach, certain that he'd be a better coach than Hammond. Spearchucker scouts Hammond's team and finds out the general has three pros on his team. They devise a plan to get the running back out of the game, and wear the two tackles out as early as possible. Their plan is successful and they win the game 28-24, although only by using a trick play to score the winning touchdown, and by using Radar's phenomenal hearing to eavesdrop on the opponents' tactical discussions. Time drags for Duke and Hawkeye as they wait for their active duty deployments to expire. They start to disappear for days at a time. To keep them busy, Henry has them train the new recruits, Captains Pinkham and Russell, in the short-cuts of "meatball surgery." The recruits do well, but Capt. Pinkham's wife has a mental breakdown and he is sent home. When the time finally comes for Duke and Hawkeye to go home, everyone crowds into The Swamp for a farewell drink. The two continue to drink and cause trouble all the way home by feigning battle fatigue to scare new recruits, impersonating chaplains to get out of working short-arm inspection and harassing an airline stewardess. They part ways in Chicago and rejoin their families. |
5004367 | /m/0czf1c | The Hunger of Sejanoz | Joe Dever | 1998 | {"/m/03ff00": "Gamebook", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | You play as one of Lone Wolf's Grand Masters. On a visit to the court of Xo-lin, there is news of an invasion force by the Autarch Sejanoz of Bhanar brought to the palace in Pensei. Xo-lin must be rescued and brought to sanctuary in the distant city of Tazhan across the Lissanian Plain. |
5006014 | /m/0czhf_ | Where Rainbows End | Cecelia Ahern | 2004 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Rosie and Alex were best friends since they were very young, confiding in each other and telling each other everything. The story is told through the form of instant messages, letters, invitations, e-mails, throughout their teen and senior high school years and into their adult lives. de:Für immer vielleicht it:Scrivimi ancora |
5009235 | /m/0czngr | Senso | Camillo Boito | null | null | Senso is set in Italy about the time of a war with Austria in 1866. Its protagonist is Livia, an Italian countess who is married unhappily to a stuffy old aristocrat, and who willingly wanders in response to her yearnings. The story opens a few years after the war, with Livia reminiscing on her 39th birthday about her first truly passionate affair. Her reverie transports us to Venice during the war, where Livia falls in love with Remigio Ruz, a dashing young lieutenant in the Austrian army. Although he obviously is using her, her money, and her social status, Livia throws herself into an affair of complete sexual abandon with Remigio. She lets him spend her money freely, cares nothing of what society thinks of her, and ignores her new lover's pathetic cowardice when he refuses to rescue a drowning child. Though the war drives the lovers apart, Livia feels driven to revisit Remigio. When she joins him for a tryst, he asks for more money, to bribe the army doctors for a reprieve from the battlefield. Livia gladly gives him all her jewels and gold. Remigio flees to Verona, without bothering even to kiss her goodbye. Eventually her yearning for Remigio drives Livia nearly mad, but her spirits soar when a letter from him finally arrives. His letter says that he loves and misses her, and that her money and his bribery had allowed him to evade any combat. He asks Livia not to look for him. Still clutching his letter, she promptly boards a carriage and heads straight to Verona to find her loyal lover. She finds the city in ruins, with dead and wounded everywhere. Livia's undeterred. She heads to the apartment she had bought for Remigio, where she finds him, a drunken, ungrateful rogue, in the company of a prostitute who openly mocks Livia for accepting his abuse. Mortification drives Livia out into the night. Shame shapes her lingering lust into vengeance when Livia remembers she still has his letter. Livia finds the Austrian army headquarters, where she indicts Remigio by presenting his proof of desertion to a general. Her vengeance for Remigio's philandering infidelity is obvious to the general, yet her motives lend her lover no exemption. The very next morning, Remigio and the doctors he bribed face a firing squad while Livia attends the execution. |
5012215 | /m/0czss8 | The Champion Maker | Kevin Joseph | 1/30/2006 | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller"} | The Champion Maker is hybrid of suspense and sports fiction. Set primarily in the Washington, D.C. area, it tells the story of an unorthodox track coach and his young protégé's quest for Olympic gold in two disparate events: the 100 meter dash and the 1500 meter run. Along the way, they uncover a dark conspiracy involving genetic engineering. |
5017753 | /m/0c_04h | Archer's Goon | Diana Wynne Jones | 1984 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | Thirteen-year-old Howard Sykes lives in an English town with his parents, Quentin, an author and professor, and Catriona, a music teacher; his sister Anthea, always called "Awful" because of her constant screaming; and Fifi, the family's au pair. Their life is interrupted one afternoon when an unnamed huge person, "somebody's Goon" as Fifi describes him, comes into their home and announces that he has come to collect the two thousand words that Quentin owes somebody called Archer. It transpires that thirteen years ago Quentin undertook to write two thousand words of nonsense quarterly and give them to Mountjoy, a town official. In return he was promised an exemption from city taxes. The Goon says that the latest two thousand didn't get to Archer. Quentin irritably writes a replacement set and gives them to the Goon, who goes away—but the next afternoon, he is back, as they were a repeat of what had been done previously, and the agreement specified that they must not be a copy or paraphrase of anything he had done before. The Goon takes Howard to see Mountjoy, who reveals that the town is secretly run by seven wizard siblings: Archer, Shine, Dillian, Hathaway, Torquil, Erskine, and Venturus. Each one "farms" (i.e., collects a portion of taxes from) some aspects of the town's life and industry (for list, see below). Mountjoy has instructions from an unknown superior to post the words, but does not know who the actual recipient is. Mountjoy's revelation starts the Sykes family on a quest for the sibling who is the actual user of Quentin’s words. The Goon takes the family to meet Archer, who believes that Quentin's words are restricting him and his siblings from leaving town. His aim is to acquire a sample of the writing so that he can figure out how to lift the restriction, in order to take over the world. On learning of Archers ambitions, Quentin becomes convinced that the restrictions are a thoroughly good thing, and stubbornly refuses to write them any more. Other siblings, like Archer, also want to acquire samples of Quentin’s words for the same purpose and they all start putting pressure on the Sykes family. Gas and electricity is cut off, the shops are closed to them, their bank accounts are frozen, and all of Catriona's musical instruments play themselves, full blast, as does the radio and TV. Torquil, who farms music and therefore is Catriona's effective boss, threatens that she would lose her job if she does not get Quentin to write him two thousand words; Fifi, who is in love with Archer, attempts to get the words for him; Shine sends a group of boys known as Hind's Gang, led by one Ginger Hind, to follow Howard and Awful and briefly kidnaps the two to use them as leverage, though the Goon and Torquil quickly come to the rescue. Hathaway (roads and transport, archives and records)sends a messenger to collect the words, but Quentin locks up his typewriter and tells the messenger to have Hathaway write the words himself; the street outside the Sykes house is subsequently dug up and re-paved over and over again as a form of punishment. When Quentin receives a letter from the town demanding payment of a huge amount in back taxes, Howard and Awful decide that they have to seek help from Hathaway, who lives 400 years in the past. The children visit him in his Elizabethan household by going through a white door at the back of the museum. Hathaway proves to be very reasonable, stops the street digging, and promises to help about the taxes. He also tells Howard that Catriona and Quentin found him (Howard) as an infant and adopted him, which proves only to add more to the boy's troubles. With Hathaway out of the running, Erskine is the next most likely candidate as the "user of the words". The Goon takes Quentin and the two children through the sewers to the Erskine's sewage installation outside the city limits. It would have been only a short walk above ground, and when asked why he took them through the sewers, the Goon admits that he can only leave the town through the sewer or by rubbish truck. Quentin realizes the Goon is, in fact, Erskine. Erskine has the three locked up as a way of exerting even more pressure on Quentin, but they manage to escape with the help of the aforementioned Ginger Hind, who insists that he needs Howard's help to be free from Shine. Howard now must find the seventh brother, Venturus, who lives in the future. Howard identifies Venturus's hiding place by going to a half constructed building, i.e., to a place that will exist in the future. As he runs from Erskine's men, he frantically wishes to Hathaway to send him a bus, and lo - one appears. He asks Archer for money for the fare, Shine to cause a distraction, and Dillian for a police car to stop Shine's "distraction", which goes a little over the top; all of these things miraculously appear and Howard makes it to Venturus's hideout. As he climbs up the stairs of the half-finished building, Howard discovers that each step ages him. On a mirror is scrawled the foreboding message, "THIS IS THE SECOND TIME". Howard eventually realizes that he himself is Venturus, who has been building a fantastic spaceship inside his home in the future. Venturus had twice, to get himself out of design problems with his spaceship, sent the whole town back thirteen years through time, accidentally transforming himself into a small child in the process. That small child was adopted (twice) by Quentin and Catriona, who named him Howard. The six siblings could not leave the town all that time not because of Quentin's words, but because their parents laid it on them to protect Venturus, and as long as Venturus–Howard was too young to realize his magical powers, they had to be close by to protect him. Torquil, Hathaway, Erskine, and Venturus, who understand that civilization would likely crumble if one of the seven gained ultimate control, evolve a plan to send the other three (Archer, Shine, and Dillian) off to deep space in Venturus's newly constructed spaceship. They do this by convincing each of the three that the rest had plotted against each other and would put their final plan into action that night in Venturus's spaceship. They all board the ship, which Howard–Venturus has programmed for a one-way trip to Alpha Centauri, and it takes off. The remaining siblings have no plans to rule the world – but Howard, now Venturus, still worries about what Erskine and Awful may get up to in the future. He decides he will stay with the Sykes family so he can help keep Awful in check and Erskine decides to travel the world, making for a pleasant ending. |
5021006 | /m/0c_5dl | Lion in the Valley | Barbara Mertz | 1986 | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"} | The Emersons return to Egypt in 1895-96 to excavate at Dahshoor - finally, some real pyramids for Amelia! In looking for a keeper for Ramses, they find a demoralized Englishman named Donald Fraser. Donald has troubled family relationships and a hashish habit, both of which Amelia means to reform. Enid Debenham, a young lady whose behavior scandalizes Cairo society, also takes a hand when Amelia takes her under her wing. Meanwhile, the Master Criminal reappears personally, taking an interest not only in illegally obtained antiquities but in the person of Amelia herself. The story is key in the series because it is the first time the reader learns the pseudonym of the Master Criminal: Sethos. It is the name of a number of Pharaohs, and is tied to Set or Seth, the Egyptian god of the desert. Sethos interacts in a number of ways, including offering gifts and returning the communion set stolen from Mazghuna the previous year. Sethos also appears in a number of guises, only one of which Amelia sees through. She does, however, assume a number of others are either Sethos or in his gang, almost always incorrectly. Donald and Enid return in a later novel, Seeing a Large Cat. |
5021410 | /m/0c_622 | Double Whammy | Carl Hiaasen | 1987 | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | On an early August morning in Harney County, Florida, fanatic bass fisherman Bobby Clinch takes his bass boat out onto the lake. A few hours later, he is found floating dead in that same lake. Private investigator R.J. Decker is hired by sugar cane tycoon Dennis Gault, another fanatic bass fisherman, to prove that celebrity fisherman Richard "Dickie" Lockhart, Gault's main rival on the fishing tournament circuit, is a cheat. Decker, an expert photographer, used to work for a newspaper, but was fired, and served a short prison sentence, after assaulting a teenaged kid trying to steal camera equipment out of his car (his ex-wife, Catherine, playfully nicknamed him "Rage" on account of his temper). Investigating Lockhart's hometown in Harney County, Florida, Decker looks up an old newspaper friend, a laconic reporter named Ott Pickney. Finding the local bass fishing guides too expensive, Decker takes Ott's advice and meets a reclusive hermit who lives in the woods, calling himself "Skink." While teaching Decker about fishing, he mentions seeing Bobby Clinch on the lake on the morning he died. The strange thing is, he wasn't fishing. Attending Bobby's funeral, Decker meets Elaine "Lanie" Gault, Dennis's sister, a former fashion model who confides to Decker that she and Bobby were lovers. She tells Decker that Dennis hired Bobby to catch Lockhart first, only she believes Lockhart had Bobby killed. When Decker mentions her suspicions to Ott, Ott is skeptical and dismissive; the coroner ruled Bobby Clinch's death an accident (the result of a crash while joyriding) and besides, a murder over fishing is too outlandish to be believed. However, when Ott interviews Bobby's widow, he also discovers clues that Bobby wasn't fishing. Tracking down the junked remains of his boat, Ott discovers signs of sabotage. Unfortunately, at that moment he is tracked down and murdered. After finding his body, Skink and Decker are both committed to nailing the likely culprit, Dickie Lockhart. They tail Lockhart to his latest fishing tournament, on Lake Maurepas in Louisiana, but inadvertently photograph the wrong gang of cheaters, and Lockhart wins the tournament anyway. Decker is dispirited, but Skink tells him not to worry, adding, "worse comes to worst, I'll just shoot the fucker," to Decker's alarm. Later, he returns to their hotel room and finds Lanie waiting for him. They sleep together, but after her drops her off at her hotel, he notices lights on at the lakeside. Going to investigate, he finds Dickie Lockhart floating in the weigh tank, clubbed to death. Assuming Skink is the culprit, Decker quickly and quietly leaves Louisiana and drives back to Florida. But when he returns home, he finds the Miami police, led by Detective Al Garcia, waiting for him. Skink intercepts Decker and tells him the bad news: Decker has been framed. The whole assignment from Gault was a set-up, allowing Gault to kill his hated rival and put the blame on Decker. Meanwhile, Lockhart's corporate sponsors, the mammoth Outdoor Christian Network, led by TV evangelist Reverend Charles "Charlie" Weeb, loses no time in announcing a Lockhart memorial fishing tournament, a publicity stunt to boost sales at "Lunker Lakes", a massive housing development built by Weeb on the very edge of the Everglades, targeted almost exclusively at bass fishing enthusiasts. In reality, advance sales of the condominiums at Lunker Lakes have been going very slowly, and Reverend Weeb is becoming increasingly desperate, as the Outdoor Christian Network has so much money sunk into the project that its failure will mean his own financial ruin. |
5023750 | /m/0c_b9c | Call for the Dead | John le Carré | 1961 | {"/m/0lsxr": "Crime Fiction", "/m/06wkf": "Spy fiction"} | Foreign Office civil servant Samuel Fennan apparently commits suicide after a routine security check by Circus agent George Smiley. Smiley had interviewed and cleared Fennan only days previously after an anonymous accusation; however, Circus head of service Maston sets up Smiley to be blamed for Fennan's death. While interviewing Fennan's wife Elsa (a Jewish concentration camp survivor) in her home, Smiley answers the telephone, expecting a call from the Circus for him. Instead, it is a wake-up call from the local exchange, but Elsa Fennan seems surprised by it. Smiley then meets Inspector Mendel, a police officer on the verge of retirement who is investigating the Fennan case, and finds out through him that the wake-up call had been specially requested by Samuel Fennan the night before. When Elsa later tells Smiley that she requested the call from the exchange (which Smiley knows to be false), he tells Mendel and Maston. However, Maston unequivocally orders Smiley to refrain from any further investigation into Fennan's death. Back in his office, Smiley receives a letter posted by Fennan the night before, requesting an urgent meeting that day. Believing that Fennan was murdered to prevent the meeting, Smiley promptly resigns from the Circus and attaches his resignation to Fennan's letter, which he forwards to Maston. On returning home, Smiley notices a tall blond stranger inside his house, avoids going inside and notes the number plates of all the cars parked nearby. Mendel traces one car to a criminal named Adam Scarr, who tells Mendel that he rents it out twice a month to a stranger known as "Blondie", who matches Smiley's intruder. Smiley is subsequently attacked and nearly killed while trying to track the car to "Blondie", and Adam Scarr is killed. Investigating further, Mendel learns that Elsa attends a local theatre twice a month with "Blondie" and that the two exchange music cases at each performance. "Blondie" is soon identified by fellow Circus agent Peter Guillam as Hans-Dieter Mundt, an East German agent under diplomatic cover working for Dieter Frey, a German spy of Smiley's during World War II who has since become an important East German agent. Smiley believes that Frey would use a courier like Mundt to service only one highly-placed resident agent. Guillam reports that Mundt has fled England. When confronted with Smiley's evidence, Elsa Fennan confesses to Smiley that her husband was an East German spy, that she was his unwilling accomplice in passing secret documents in the music cases, and that Fennan was killed by Mundt after Frey saw him talking to Smiley. However, Guillam learns that during the last six months Fennan had been taking home insignificant, unclassified documents. Smiley realizes that Elsa Fennan herself is the East German spy and that Fennan had accused himself to meet someone with whom he could discuss his suspicions about his wife. Smiley sets a trap, using his knowledge of Frey's tradecraft from WWII to arrange a rush covert meeting between Frey and Elsa Fennan. When Frey realises he has been tricked, he kills Elsa, but he is trailed by Mendel and killed by Smiley while trying to escape. At the end of the story, Smiley turns down Maston's offer to rejoin the Circus and instead flies to Zurich to see his estranged wife Ann. |
5023763 | /m/0c_bbd | In Custody | Anita Desai | 10/8/1984 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Deven earns a living by teaching Hindi literature to uninterested college students. As his true interests lie in Urdu poetry, he jumps at the chance to meet the great Urdu poet, Nur. |
5023767 | /m/0c_bbr | A Murder of Quality | John le Carré | 1962 | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery"} | George Smiley is called by a wartime colleague, Miss Brimley, who now publishes a small Christian magazine, to investigate a "death menace" letter sent by a reader who claims her husband, a boarding school teacher, is trying to kill her. Terence Fielding, the brother of a classics professor who was one of Smiley's close wartime associates in the Circus, is also a teacher at the school where the woman's husband teaches, the famous Carne College. Unfortunately, the woman is killed before Smiley can even talk to her, and Smiley goes to the school to investigate, in an effort to ease Miss Brimley's concern that her failure to call the police was a cause of the woman's death. The town of Carne was the youthful home of Smiley's estranged wife Ann, and Smiley is both the subject of snide gossip and witness to a rural "town and gown" gap (with mistrust on both sides) that makes finding the killer seem more and more unlikely. At every step, he realizes there were many possible reasons for the murder, and the number of suspects only seems to get bigger. The town police focus on a madwoman as the murderer, but both Smiley and the investigating officer believe her to be innocent. Smiley discovers the hiding place of the murderer's blood-stained clothes, while the police find a second murder victim, a boy in Fielding's house. The clues, and a confession about the secret, delusional vindictiveness of the murdered woman from her husband (which confirms the odd reaction to her that Smiley had noted from the local minister), lead Smiley to the real murderer: Fielding, who was being blackmailed by the woman due to a WWII homosexuality conviction, and who had only kept his job at substantially-reduced wages. The boy had inadvertently seen evidence that disproved Fielding's alibi for the time of the woman's murder, although the boy was never aware of it before his death. Le Carré has denied that Carne was based on any particular school: "There are probably a dozen great schools of whom it will be confidently asserted that Carne is their deliberate image. But he who looks among their common rooms for the D'Arcys, Fieldings and Hechts will search in vain." Nonetheless, the geography and descriptions of Carne bear a great deal of resemblance to le Carré's own alma mater, Sherborne School. |
5024077 | /m/0c_by7 | Iggie's House | Judy Blume | 1970 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature"} | Winnie Barringer misses her best friend Iggie, whose family has moved to Japan. She is fascinated that a black family, the Garbers, have moved into Iggie's old house. She soon becomes friends with the three kids. Another neighbor, Mrs. Landon, organizes a petition to pressure the Garbers into moving. Much to Winnie's distress, her parents seem ambivalent on the issue, though they do not sign the petition. Mrs. Landon later nails a harassing sign to the Garbers' lawn. Winnie creates a questionnaire to determine community members' attitudes about blacks, hoping to raise support for the Garbers. She has an argument with the Garber kids, however, who accuse her of befriending them only because she thinks having black friends is cool. The Garber parents are seriously considering moving. Mrs. Landon visits Winnie's parents again. She not only complains about Winnie's questionnaire, but also announces that she will be moving away and tries to pressure the Barringers to move. Mr. Barringer flatly refuses, and in the ensuing argument Winnie confronts Mrs. Landon about her racism. The next morning, Winnie discovers that her parents really are considering moving. She decides that if they do, she will become a stowaway and go to live with Iggie in Japan. But soon she makes up with the Garbers, and finds that neither they nor her parents have ultimately decided to move. |
5024135 | /m/0c_c12 | Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great | Judy Blume | 1972 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | When the family of Sheila Tubman, Peter Hatcher's rival from the Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, as well as Superfudge, takes a trip to Tarrytown with her family. The family reside in the house of Sheila's father's friend, Professor George Egran. Sheila pretends that she is fearless and confident. The truth, however, is that many things terrify her. The family vacation forces her to confront some of her many secret fears, including the dark, swimming, ghosts, lightning, spiders and dogs. Sheila attends a day camp where she meets a girl named Merle "Mouse" Ellis, who is skilled at many activities that Sheila fears and is an exceptional yo-yo champion. In spite of envying Mouse for her multiple talents, Sheila befriends her and tries to mask her cowardice with a more courageous, talented personality. Mouse does not appear to have many fears and according to Sheila, Mouse is able to do everyhing. Unforunately for Sheila, she is afraid of dogs and is unable to swim. Mouse, on the other hand, loves dogs and is a swimming champion. The Egrans own a pet dog named Jennifer that Sheila fears. Mrs. Tubman has her daughter take swimming lessons with an instructor named Marty. Sheila is deeply reluctant about this arrangement but is forced to pull through with it anyway, and becomes acquainted with Mouse's younger sister Betsy, who is a phenomenal swimmer and pulls an empty box called "Ootch" around, pretending that it is a pet dog, since her allergies prevent her from being able to adopt an actual dog, and the Van Arden twins, Sondra and Jane. Sheila also signs up to write a portion of the camp newspaper entitled "Newsdate by Sheila the Great," where she writes about her fellow campers, but is forced to give up her position after two boys complete her crossword puzzle and she has no other reward to give to them after promising whoever filled the crossword puzzle with a prize. Even though Sheila's relationship with her new friends from camp appears to be turning out smoothly, one night at a sleepover party, when the girls fill out "slam books" and give each other their true opinions on one another, Sheila discovers that the others wrote rather negative comments about her and that the other guests' slam books are also quite offensive. Antagonized by these writings, the group winds up tossing toy models belonging to the Egrans' son Bobby (whose bedroom Sheila is sleeping in) at each other, only to be faced with repairing these items afterward. Jennifer mates with a neighboring dog named Mumford and is expecting a litter of puppies. Sheila's older sister Libby urges her parents to adopt one of the puppies after they have been born as the Egrans have offered, whereas Sheila protests against this, fearing the idea of owning a pet dog. However, gradually, Marty's encouragement with Sheila in the water helps her conquer her fear of swimming, and soon she is comforted slightly in her fear of dogs also, although not entirely. |
5024225 | /m/0c_c60 | Forever | Judy Blume | 1977 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/01qxvh": "Romance novel"} | Katherine, in the middle of her senior year in high school, finds herself strongly attracted to Michael, a boy she meets at a New Year's party. As their relationship unfolds, the issue of sex comes up more as an emotional and health issue than as a moral one. Both of them are aware that physical intimacy is both common and complicated. Michael has been sexually active, while Katherine hasn't. Their relationship progresses slowly as they begin to go on dates and trips together; they are accompanied on various meetings by Katherine's friend, Erica, who has known Katherine since the 9th grade and believes that sex is a physical act and not a romantic act. Erica and Katherine are also joined by Michael's friend Artie, who, with Erica's help, explores and acknowledges some uncertainty about his own sexuality. Artie is a depressed teenager who feels life is over after high school. He shows his depression when he attempts to hang himself from his shower curtain rod but fails. When Katherine and Michael do have sex on Michael's sister's bedroom floor, they are sure it seals a love that will be "forever." Michael buys Katherine a necklace for her birthday that says both of their names on it and it also says "Forever". However, separated for the summer by work that takes them to two different states, Katherine finds herself aware of the limitations of the relationship and ultimately attracted to a tennis instructor, Theo, who is older and more experienced in life. She takes responsibility for breaking the news to Michael when he comes on a surprise visit and almost catches her and Theo together. Katherine realizes the 'loss' of Michael, while painful at first, can be the start of new successful relationships. The book ends with Katherine's mother giving her a message that Theo called for her. |
5024580 | /m/0c_crm | The Return | Buzz Aldrin | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | The book starts by detailing a corporation that works to send people to space, by booking them on empty seats on Space Shuttle flights. The third such flight was preparing to launch, carrying retired basketball player MJ (a character closely resembling Michael Jordan) into space. However during the flight something goes wrong and MJ and the pilot die, while the rest of the crew is forced to make an emergency landing. Initially most everyone in the space industry is sued over MJ's death, although most of the charges are later dropped when it is discovered that the explosion was the result of a Chinese attempt to take down the Space Shuttle. China is also found to be responsible for a high altitude nuclear weapon that Pakistan set off. The purpose of this bomb was to wipe out the current network of satellites, apparently in an attempt to cash in with their new presence in space exploration. The bomb also leaves the International Space Station heavily damaged. The rest of the book chronicles a daring rescue attempt to save those still on board the ISS, using mostly theoretical prototype vehicles. The rescue is a success, and the whole crew returns as heroes. |
5025098 | /m/0c_dmw | Flags in the Dust | William Faulkner | 1973 | null | For generations, the powerful Sartoris clan has dominated political and social life in Yoknapatawpha County, a history-rich but impoverished district in rural Mississippi. But with the coming of the twentieth century, a new war in Europe, and the passing of old ideals, the lives of the Sartoris family are permanently transformed. |
5025572 | /m/0c_f1y | More Die of Heartbreak | Saul Bellow | 1987 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The book opens with an introduction of characters, and with Trachtenberg, the narrator, describing his complex relationship with his maternal uncle, Benn Crader, a world-renowned botanist. He then discusses the distinctions between himself, and his father, a man who, as he describes him, “[puts] on the kind of sex display you see in nature films, the courting behavior of turkey cocks or any of the leggier birds… Dad was a hit with women.” This theme continues throughout the book, with Kenneth accepting his difficulties with women. He also introduces his mother, a woman who allowed her husband to step out, and only left after realizing that he did not understand what made her happy. She wanted intellectual stimulation of a literary style, whereas he bought her materialistic goods to make up for his infidelities. To atone for the goods she did not need, Kenneth’s mother is now living an African community, helping a refugee camp. Kenneth then embarks on an overview of Benn’s recent sexual history. He presents a man who, while appreciative of beauty and women, is not quite rooted enough in human society to understand the sexual pretexts he encounters. One incident is discussed many times during the novel: a middle aged neighbor of Benn’s, an attractive professional who has a slight drinking problem, asks Benn to help her change a light bulb, a not too subtle hint which Benn ignores until she makes a move. The next day, when he shows no interest, and expresses regret for the act, she exclaims, “What am I supposed to do with my sexuality?” Benn then attracts the attentions of another older woman, Caroline who is controlling, indifferent, and loving all at the same time. While Benn, unbeknownst to Kenneth, is dealing with a planned wedding to Caroline, the protagonist is in Seattle to discuss with his ex-girlfriend, Treckie, what they should do about raising their child, now three years old. Treckie, a beautiful, half-sized woman, has been seeing another man, a fact Kenneth knows because of the bruises on her legs - lovemaking injuries he refused to ever give her. Kenneth has discussed this peculiar fetish with his father, who knows women, and received the knowledge that some smaller women must do it to show they are women, and not fully matured girls, the perception they give off. Benn, escaping from the wedding to Caroline, flies to Kyoto at the expense of a lecture series, inviting Kenneth to join him. The Japanese sense of order and utility appeals to Benn, until a strip show he sees at the insistence of his colleagues upsets him with its overt sexuality, at which point, he and Kenneth return to their home in the Midwest. Benn’s next partner is Matilda Layamon, a beautiful, Midwestern daughter, who wants to settle down with a distinguished, older man who can calm her wild side. Benn, perhaps fearing that Kenneth will convince him that it is a foolhardy idea, weds her without “Kenneth’s permission.” Matilda’s father is a rectangular man with sharp, thin shoulders who is a doctor, and in fact, asks that he be called, “Doctor.” He serves the rich, and because of this, has one-percentage point interests in many businesses around the country - an accidental fortune. He is a scheming man, and other than a few disagreements between Benn, and the man, no conflicts occur until he attempts to take advantage of Benn’s uncle, a man who, as executor of the will of the Crader mother, undersold, and unfairly bought the Crader home, selling the land to a company which built a tower there, resulting in millions of dollars of profit for Uncle Vilitzer, and pennies for the Crader children. Because Vilitzer controlled the judge, neither Benn nor Kenneth’s mother received their fair share, and the Doctor hopes to correct this, so that Matilda will have a rich husband. In the end, Vilitzer dies after a heated discussion with Kenneth and Benn, and Benn, attending the funeral, sends his wife ahead to their honeymoon, and changes his ticket for the North Pole. He relays this to Kenneth who now lives in Benn’s apartment, and who has recently returned from a successful bid to Treckie that he have his daughter for a part of the year. He is aware of her impending marriage thanks to a self-expedient phone call that revealed this information. The book ends with a conversation between the two professors in which both stories are relayed to each other. |
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