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5026872 | /m/0c_gxg | Vampirium | Joe Dever | 1998 | {"/m/03ff00": "Gamebook", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | The Claw of Naar is the evil wand of power used by Agarash the Damned during his ancient conquest of Magnamund. Legend held that it had been lost forever in the molten ruins of Naaros, but now it has resurfaced, and its dread return heralds a dawn of disaster for the peaceable nations of Magnamund. Your allies, the wise wizards of the Elder Magi, have the power and the means to destroy the accursed Claw, but they do not possess it. In Vampirium, you must venture into the hostile land of Bhanar and snatch the Claw from the clutches of the evil Autarch Sejanoz. |
5028208 | /m/0c_jg8 | The Fall of Blood Mountain | Joe Dever | 1997 | {"/m/03ff00": "Gamebook", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | For centuries the Shom’zaa has lain incarcerated and forgotten in a granite prison located deep below the mountains of Bor. Now this terrifying beast has accidentally been set free, and its hunger for vengeance knows no bounds. With a horde of vile minions at its command, swiftly the Shom’zaa enacts its sinister plan to destroy King Ryvin and the wondrous realm of the Drodarin dwarves. You must journey to the subterranean kingdom of the dwarves and attempt to save your ancient allies from the wrath of the Shom’zaa. |
5028710 | /m/0c_kb9 | Trail of the Wolf | Joe Dever | 1997 | {"/m/03ff00": "Gamebook", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | Lone Wolf has been abducted by the forces of the Dark God Naar and imprisoned in a remote city-fortress on the border of the Darklands. Subjected to relentless attacks by the minions of evil, the Supreme Master of the Kai is surely doomed to die unless a rescue can be affected swiftly and successfully. You must venture alone into the dreaded stronghold of Gazad Helkona to find and free your leader. |
5028764 | /m/0c_kdc | Rune War | Joe Dever | 1995 | {"/m/03ff00": "Gamebook", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | Evil Lord Vandyan of Eldenora has unearthed the lost secrets of rune magics used by Agarash the Damned during his ancient conquest of Magnamund. Empowered by his discoveries, Vandyan unleashes his armies upon the peaceful realms of the Free Alliance with swift and devastating effect. Lone Wolf, Supreme Master of the Kai, leads the crusade to defeat Vandyan before all Magnamund succumbs to his tyrannical rule. Your task is to infiltrate Skull-Tor, Lord Vandyan’s stronghold, and destroy the ancient runes from which he draws his evil power. |
5028802 | /m/0c_kg2 | Mydnight's Hero | Joe Dever | 1995 | {"/m/03ff00": "Gamebook", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | The King of Siyen has been assassinated. Prince Karvas is the sole heir of this rich and powerful realm but he lives in exile in distant Sheasu - ‘the Isle of Lost Heroes’. In his absence, evil Baron Sadanzo and his army of robber knights have staked their claim to the vacant throne. In Mydnight’s Hero, your quest is to voyage to Sheasu and track down Prince Karvas in the fabled city of Mydnight. Once found you must persuade him to return with you to Siyen without delay. You have only 50 days in which to complete this challenging quest or Siyen will be enslaved by the tyrannical Sadanzo and his brutal followers. |
5028836 | /m/0c_kht | Voyage of the Moonstone | Joe Dever | 1994 | {"/m/03ff00": "Gamebook", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | The Moonstone is a legendary artefact that was created by the godlike Shianti. It contains the might of all their magic and wisdom, the sum of their divine knowledge. Lone Wolf - Supreme Master of the Kai - has succeeded in retrieving it from the clutches of Naar, the King of the Darkness. Now the Moonstone must be returned to its creators who are exiled upon the remote Isle of Lorn in southern Magnamund. Someone must take the fabled artefact to the Shianti and Lone Wolf has chosen you, the most promising warrior, among the ranks of the New Order Kai, to carry out this vital mission. Armed with the special weapons and skills of a Grand Master, you embark upon a secret voyage to the distant Isle of Lorn. However, your mission becomes a life and death struggle when you encounter intrigue and danger en route. |
5029129 | /m/0c_krd | Nastanirh | Rabindranath Tagore | 1901 | {"/m/0l67h": "Novella"} | Nastanirh takes place in late 19th century Bengal and explores the lives of the "Bhadralok", Bengalis of wealth who were part of the Bengal Renaissance and highly influenced by the Brahmo Samaj. Despite his liberal ideas, Bhupati is blind to the loneliness and dissatisfaction of his wife, Charu. It is only with the appearance of his cousin, Amal, who incites passionate feelings in Charu, that Bhupati realizes what he has lost. |
5031446 | /m/0c_pkg | A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain | Robert Olen Butler | 3/15/1992 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The opening story is set during the Vietnam War. The narrator, a translator for the Australian forces, recounts the story of a North Vietnamese communist named Thập who joins the Australian forces as a spy, after the communists massacre his family. When the Australian soldiers bring him to a screening of pornographic films, Thập seems overwhelmed and disgusted. The narrator speculates that, as a former Communist, he considers pornography immoral, and that it simultaneously reminds him of his longing for his dead wife. Thập later kills an Australian soldier and himself. "Mr. Green" is narrated by a Catholic woman who was taught by her grandfather about ancestor worship. As a child, she was saddened when her grandfather told her that she could not tend to the worship of her family members because she is a woman. Mr. Green is a talking parrot that belonged to her great grandfather; after his death, she cares for the parrot, bringing him to the United States with her. When Mr. Green grows old and melancholy, plucking out his own feathers, the narrator kills him by wringing his neck as she had learned from her mother and grandmother. This story is about gendered values. The narrator must come to terms with her Grandfather's subtle misogyny and establish her own self-worth as a woman. Ths story focuses on the conflict between ancient, honorable but constricting values and the modern assertion of femininity. As the narrator leaves Vietnam she takes a reminder of this bonding Confucian values with her in the form of Mr. Green. The death of Mr. Green is therefore symbolic. "The Trip Back" is about Kánh, who drives to the airport in order to pick up his wife's grandfather, Mr. Chinh. Kánh is shocked when he discovers that Mr. Chinh is chaperoned by his cousin Hương, and during his trip home realizes that Alzheimer's disease afflicts Mr. Chinh. Kánh is deeply disturbed by this and worries whether he could ever forget his wife, whom he deeply loves. The situation is compounded further when his wife realizes that her grandfather has no recollection of her. The story is about a Vietnamese prostitute nicknamed Miss Noi who was brought to the United States as the wife of an American GI. She divorces her husband and becomes a prostitute again, and seems happy with her station in life. She meets a Vietnam War veteran named Mr. Fontenot who proposes to her with an apple, and gives her a good life. "Crickets" is about a man named Thiệu who tries to teach his Americanized son how to make crickets fight, which was a favorite game of Thiệu's as a boy in Vietnam. His son is uninterested and Thiệu eventually gives up. Thiệu and his new bride had escaped from Vietnam by boat and ended up in the state of Louisiana, where the land was very much like the Mekong Delta. They struggled to adapt to the new land and language, while their American-born son, Bill, adapted easily but had little knowledge of his Vietnamese cultural background. Despite barriers of age and language, Thiệu tries to educate his son to be more Vietnamese. "Letters from my Father" is the story of a Vietnamese teenager who has grown up without her American father. After the father arranges for his wife and daughter to come to the United States, he is unsure of how to react to his daughter, because all that he knows of her is from pictures and letters. His daughter learns more from her father by discovering some letters that he had written to the United States government in which he angrily and poetically demands his daughter's release, and she longs for him to love her in the way that he expressed his love in those letters. Love is about a former Vietnamese spy who has a beautiful wife, Bướm. As a spy in Vietnam, he was able to direct U.S. missiles onto the homes of men who aroused his jealousy by looking at or flirting with his wife. After moving to New Orleans, he suspects his wife of having an affair with a Vietnamese restaurant owner, and consults a voodoo practitioner. The stories "Mid-Autumn" and "In the Clearing" are similar, in that they deal heavily in Vietnamese mysticism. Both are dialogues between parent and child and make reference to supernatural beings. "Mid-Autumn" is about a mother’s first love lost; "In the Clearing" is an apology from father to son for having to leave his family in Vietnam. In "A Ghost Story", a man tells a story, which he claims he knows to be true, about the spirit of a beautiful woman who saves men from disaster, then reappears to eat them. "Snow" is the story of a woman named Giàu who works as a waitress in a Chinese restaurant. A Jewish lawyer named Cohen, who shares with Giàu a fear of snow, talks to her as he waits for his takeaway meal on Christmas Eve. They realize that despite their different backgrounds they have several things in common, and arrange to go on a date. "The American Couple" is the longest story in the collection at 80 pages. It is narrated by a Vietnamese woman named Gabrielle on vacation in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. They meet an American couple, Frank and Eileen. Frank is a Vietnam veteran who is eager to talk about his experiences. Vinh and Frank begin a strange and secretive relationship in which hostilities are sometimes manifested concerning their respective roles in the Vietnam War. The story is told from the perspective of Vinh’s wife, who has had little access to her husband’s experiences as a soldier. It is an outsider’s perspective of Vietnam veterans, which is why Frank and Vinh are observed at a distance. "A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain" is the final story. It involves a grandfather, slowly dying, and seeing the vision of Ho Chi Minh, with whom he worked and lived. The politics of the Vietnamese refugees continue after they have arrived in America, as their new home country looks to deal with the newly Communist united Vietnam. |
5032114 | /m/0c_qjp | Definitely Maybe | Boris Strugatsky | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction"} | Action takes place in Leningrad, USSR, apparently in the 1970s. The protagonist, Dmitry Alekseyevich Malyanov (Дмитрий Алексеевич Малянов) is an astrophysicist who, while officially on vacation, continues to work on his thesis, "The Interaction of Stars with Diffused Galactic Matter". Just as he begins to realize that he is on the verge of a revolutionary discovery worthy of a Nobel Prize, his life becomes plagued by strange events. First, Malyanov is visited unexpectedly by an attractive woman claiming to be his wife's classmate and food and wine arrive for them mysteriously and already paid for. Then his neighbor dies of an apparent suicide and Malyanov becomes the murder suspect. Approaching the problem with a scientific mindset, Malyanov suspects that his discovery is in the way of someone (or something) intent on preventing the completion of his work. The same idea occurs to his friends and acquaintances, who find themselves in a similar impasse — some powerful, mysterious, and very selective force impedes their work in fields ranging from biology to mathematical linguistics. An explanation is proposed by Malyanov's friend and neighbor, the mathematician Vecherovsky (Вечеровский). He posits that the mysterious force is the Universe's reaction to the mankind's scientific pursuit, which threatens to destroy the very fabric of the universe in some distant future. Vecherovsky proposes to treat this universal resistance to scientific progress as a natural phenomenon which can and should be investigated and even harnessed by Science. As the novel concludes, the other scientists, including Malyanov, have been forced to abandon their research, and Vecherovsky remains alone to battle the universe and continue their work. Aleksandr Sokurov's movie The Days of the Eclipse is loosely based on the novel. |
5034461 | /m/0c_t_x | Exiles to Glory | null | 1978-07 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction"} | An intelligent young misfit, Kevin Senecal, leaves Earth to escape various troubles, including a teen gang vendetta which the authorities will not act to stop, and bureaucratic interference in his studies for an engineering degree, in a culture where environmentalists and zero-growth advocates hold sway. He enlists with the Hansen Corporation, a huge conglomerate which has re-located to the Moon, and is now involved in asteroid mining. He is to go to the asteroid Ceres. The journey involves laser launch from Earth to orbit, and a long voyage on a ship using the NERVA nuclear rocket technology. During the journey, all the passengers have to be involved in maintaining the shipboard environment, which includes algae to generate oxygen from photosynthesis. Kevin falls in love with a mystery woman called Ellen MacMillan. Between them they deal with the consequences of sabotage of the ship by persons unknown, and find a way to effect the rendezvous at Ceres after the ship's computer is sabotaged. They use the expertise of Jacob Norsedal, a prototypical computer hacker who is also a top-notch mathematician and physicist. At Ceres Ellen reveals herself to be an agent for Hansen investigating the mining work, which is plagued with irregularities. In particular, a new element called Arthurium is being mined on Ceres. This is a stable transuranic element of the kind predicted during the 1970s based on the theory of an Island of stability for elements of atomic number 114, 120 and 126. Being super-heavy, these elements sink into the cores of planets and are not accessible, but may be found in asteroids. In the story, the arthurium is a possible catalyst for hydrogen fusion and is vital to both the economy of Earth and the future of spaceflight. Rival corporations and mineral interests on Earth want to steal the arthurium or stop its production. Anti-technology politicians would like to shut down all space industry and dedicate the money to the Welfare State. Ellen is actually Glenda Hansen-Mackenzie, daughter of Aeneas Mackenzie and Laurie Jo Hansen, owner of the Hansen Corporation. She can foil the plots if she can access the Ceres computer system. However, she, Kevin and Jacob are marooned on one of Ceres' small satellites by the enemy agents. They improvise a steam-jet rocket which lets them land back on Ceres and bring an end to the intrigue. |
5036278 | /m/0c_x04 | Counterfeit Son | null | null | null | Cameron Miller is 14. He has been physically and sexually abused by his father all his life. His 'Pop', Hank, was a serial killer who preys on young boys, murdering more than 20 over the years. Hank kept newspaper cuttings of each of the boys in a filing cabinet in the cellar where he locked Cameron while he tortured and killed the boys. Cameron studied the cuttings and dreams of being one particular boy whose parents have sailboats on a lake. When 'Pop' dies in a gunfight with police, Cameron takes on the identity of this boy, Neil Lacey, a victim who was abducted and murdered six years earlier. The Lacey parents accept 'Neil' into their home with few questions, but he lives in fear that he will make a serious mistake through not knowing Neil's likes and dislikes and that dental records and suspicious Detective Simmons will expose him. His eight-year-old brother Stevie is put out by his return and his younger sister Diana is convinced he's not Neil, but much prefers him to her memories of her real brother. Alphin describes the years of sexual and physical abuse that Cameron endured at the hands of his father, but never in graphic detail. Cameron is always expecting punishment from his new 'parents', yet finds kindness and love instead. When Cougar, "Pop"'s former accomplice newly freed from prison, finds Cameron and threatens him with exposure, Cameron tries to tell his 'father' the truth. In the novel's climax, Stevie is kidnapped and Cameron risks everything to save him. During the rescue Cameron's knowledge of the boat indicates that he really could be Neil, and eventually it is shown that Hank had killed his own son Cameron and Neil took his place as the son. |
5037417 | /m/0c_yrb | Jumping the Scratch | null | null | {"/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature"} | Eleven-year-old Jamie Reardon’s cat dies, his father leaves home; and his aunt Sapphy has an accident at work that causes her memory to skip. Jamie is a boy who is teased at school and, on the other hand, has a memory he'd give anything to be able to forget. He is performing badly at school and has Miss Miller,an unsympathetic teacher. A visiting author, or as Jamie hears the name - 'Arthur', recognises that the boy is troubled, but the two do not have a chance to really communicate. Jamie has to sort out his problems himself. He tries to find the magic trigger that will help Sapphy's memory jump the scratch, like the needle on a record, but in the end it's Audrey Krouch, a neighborhood girl who hypnotises him. Under hypnosis, when he is hoping to learn how to forget, Jamie recalls his recent sexual abuse by Old Gray, a paedophile caretaker at the trailer park where he lives in Traverse City, Michigan. Jamie's emotional reaction to the incident he was trying to suppress returns Sapphy’s memory, and the boy is finally able to tell her everything. The actual abuse is not described in the book. Sarah Weeks has said that, "I felt like I wanted to protect Jamie’s privacy... Jamie didn’t want anybody to know what had happened to him in Old Gray’s office on Christmas Eve, so it didn’t feel right for me to tell all the details either." |
5039607 | /m/0d00gs | Vector | Rob Swigart | 1987-02 | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | New York City cab driver Yuri Davydov is a disgruntled Russian émigré poised to lash out at the adoptive nation he believes has denied him the American Dream. A former technician in the Soviet biological weapons program in Sverdlovsk, BIOPREPARAT, Yuri possesses the knowledge and expertise to wreak havoc in the Big Apple. But before he executes his planned pièce de résistance of retribution against the wealthy Jews of Manhattan he first tests the Anthrax's efficacy on a dealer in exotic carpets as well as on his increasingly suspicious American-born wife. Dr. Jack Stapleton and Dr. Laurie Montgomery (both last seen in Chromosome 6) begin to witness some unusual cases in their capacity as forensic pathologists in the city's medical examiner's office: a young obese black woman dies of respiratory failure on the heels of a Greek immigrant's succumbing to what initially appears to be a sudden, overwhelming attack of influenza. At the same time, the pair are pressured from above to investigate the death of a prisoner from the blatantly obvious use of excessive force by police. When an unexpected breakthrough persuades Jack that the first two seemingly unrelated deaths are connected, his colleagues and superiors are skeptical. Only Laurie is somewhat convinced. The tension builds as the reader's complacent assumption of the usual happy ending is eroded away by a never-ending series of twists and turns in the action. For even if the pair of doctors succeeds in solving the puzzle, will they still be able to react in time to keep Yuri and his militant American cronies from snuffing out the lives of a million Manhattanites? |
5040409 | /m/0d01td | Ratman's Notebooks | Stephen G Gilbert | null | {"/m/03npn": "Horror"} | The book is set as a series of journal entries, where the unnamed narrator goes back and forth between his life with the rats and his work, in a low-level job at a company that his father used to own. In these entries, the young man dwells on the hatred he feels for his boss, the stresses of caring for his aging mother, a nameless girl he becomes fond of and above all the families of rats which he has befriended and which he uses them for company and companionship. Eventually, the young man trains the rats to do things for him. His favorite is a white rodent, which he calls "Socrates". A rival to Socrates is "Ben", a large rat that the narrator grows to despise when it refuses to listen to him. The young man uses the rats to wreak revenge upon his boss, and havoc amongst the local shop owners and home owners, who he has robbed with the aide of his rat pack. His "ratman" robberies become a newspaper sensation in the area, and the man makes quite a stash of money for himself, and for the girl who he is courting at work. After his mother dies, the young man inherits the house. Socrates is killed at the young man's work place, by his boss Mr. Martin, and the young man is forced to now use Ben in his criminal escapades. He devises a plan to have the rats kill Mr. Martin, avenging Socrates death. He then abandons all the rats at the scene of the crime, ridding himself of that part of his life. Eventually, as his relationship with the office girl moves towards marriage, Ben and his pack return, chasing the girl out of the house, and trapping the young man in the attic. The book ends with the young man madly scribbling about the rats chewing away at the door. |
5041461 | /m/0d03bk | D'entre les morts | Boileau-Narcejac | 1954 | {"/m/0lsxr": "Crime Fiction"} | The story concerns a former detective who suffers from vertigo, who is hired to follow the wife of a friend who is puzzled by her strange behavior. The detective becomes obsessed with the woman, eventually falling in love with her but unable to explain her strange trances and her belief in a previous life. When she falls to her death from a tower, he is unable to save her due to his fear of heights and experiences a psychotic break. After his partial recovery he encounters a woman who is nearly the image of his dead love, and the obsession begins all over again... |
5043277 | /m/0d06sl | The Madman's Tale | John Katzenbach | 2004 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Francis Petrel, recently released from an asylum faces his own inner demons as he recounts his memories of a murderer in the asylum during his time there. The story tells itself in two parallel parts: one of the stories is during his time in the asylum, all a memory slowly bringing itself back to life; the other story takes place after he is released, and he feels compelled to author a book on the events surrounding that murder. He has no paper, so he writes his story on the wall and is constantly challenged with tedious interruptions. At the same time, he forgoes his medication, and the tension of continuing with his work becomes threatened by his struggle with his own madness. It is currently being turned into a movie and it was supposed to be filmed from November 26th, 2007 until approximately January 20th, 2008 at Fairfield State Hospital in Newtown, Connecticut. Filming has not yet taken place due to personal issues of Jonathan Rhys Meyers, the films star, according to an article in the Newtown Beehttp://www.newtownbee.com/. Trivia: Descriptions in the text suggest that the central hospital, "Western State Hospital", is actually modeled on the Northampton State Hospital, which operated in Northampton, MA from 1856 - 1996. |
5043452 | /m/0d070y | The Da Vinci Code | Dan Brown | null | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller", "/m/0594kx": "Conspiracy fiction", "/m/028v3": "Detective fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/0lsxr": "Crime Fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | Louvre curator and Priory of Sion Grand Master Jacques Saunière is fatally shot one night at the museum by a man named Silas, who is working on behalf of someone known only as the Teacher, who wishes to discover the location of the "keystone," an item crucial to the search for the Holy Grail. After Saunière's body is discovered in the pose of the Vitruvian Man, the police summon Harvard Professor Robert Langdon, who is in town on business. Police Captain Bezu Fache tells him that he was summoned to help the police decode the cryptic message Saunière left during the final minutes of his life. The note also includes a Fibonacci sequence, left as a code. Langdon explains to Fache that Saunière was a leading authority in the subject of goddess artwork and that the pentacle Saunière drew in his own blood represents an allusion to the goddess and not "devil worship", as Fache believes. A police cryptographer, Sophie Neveu secretly explains to Langdon she is Saunière's estranged granddaughter, and that Fache thinks Langdon is the murderer, because of the note her grandfather left saying to "find Robert Langdon," which she says Fache had erased prior to Langdon's arrival. Sophie is troubled by memories of her grandfather's involvement in a secret pagan group. However, she understands that her grandfather intended Langdon to decipher the code, which she and Langdon realize leads them to a safe deposit box at the Paris branch of the Depository Bank of Zurich, which Sophie and Langdon go to after escaping the police. In the safe deposit box they find the keystone: a cryptex, a cylindrical, hand-held vault with five concentric, rotating dials labeled with letters that when lined up properly form the correct password, unlocking the device. If the cryptex is forced open, an enclosed vial of vinegar ruptures and dissolves the message, which was written on papyrus. The box containing the cryptex contains clues to its password. Langdon and Neveu take the keystone to Langdon's friend, Sir Leigh Teabing, an expert on the Holy Grail. There, Teabing explains that the Grail is not a cup, but the tomb containing the bones of Mary Magdalene. The group then flees the country in Teabing's private plane, on which they conclude that the proper combination of letters spell out Sophie's given name, "SOFIA." Opening the cryptex, they discover a smaller cryptex inside it, along with another riddle that ultimately leads the trio to the tomb of Isaac Newton at Westminster Abbey. During the flight to Britain, Sophie reveals the source of her estrangement from her grandfather, ten years earlier. Arriving home unexpectedly from college, Sophie secretly witnesses a spring fertility rite conducted in the basement of her grandfather's country estate. From her hiding place, she is shocked to see her grandfather making love to a woman at the center of a ritual attended by men and women who are wearing masks and chanting praise to the goddess. She flees the house and breaks off all contact with Saunière. Langdon explains that what she witnessed was an ancient ceremony known as Hieros gamos or "sacred marriage". By the time they arrive at Westminster Abbey, Teabing is revealed to be the Teacher for whom Silas is working. Teabing wishes to use the Holy Grail, which he believes is a series of documents establishing that Jesus Christ married Mary Magdalene and bore children, in order to ruin the Vatican. He compels Langdon at gunpoint to solve the second cryptex's password, which Langdon realizes is "APPLE." Langdon secretly opens the cryptex and removes its contents before destroying it in front of Teabing. Teabing is arrested by Fache, who by now knows that Langdon was innocent. Bishop Aringarosa, realizing that Silas has been used to murder innocent people rushes to help the police find him. Silas is found hiding in an Opus Dei Center, when he realizes that the police have found him, which causes him to rush out and accidentally shoot Bishop Aringarosa. Bishop Aringarosa survives but is informed that Silas was found dead later, apparently by suicide. The final message inside the second keystone leads Sophie and Langdon to Rosslyn Chapel, whose docent turns out to be Sophie's long-lost brother, whom Sophie had been told died as a child in the car accident that killed her parents. The guardian of Rosslyn Chapel, Marie Chauvel, is Sophie's long-lost grandmother, and the widow of Jacques Saunière. It is revealed that Sophie is a descendant of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene. The Priory of Sion hid her identity to protect her from possible threats to her life. The real meaning of the last message is that the Grail is buried beneath the small pyramid directly below the inverted glass pyramid of the Louvre. It also lies beneath the "Rose Line," an allusion to "Roslyn." Langdon figures out this final piece to the puzzle in the last pages of the book, but he does not appear inclined to tell anyone about this. |
5043907 | /m/0d07zb | Birds Without Wings | Louis de Bernières | 2004 | {"/m/098tmk": "War novel", "/m/01qxvh": "Romance novel", "/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"} | The story is set in Eskibahçe, a small fictional village in southwestern coastal Anatolia during the 1900s, spanning World War I and the era of Turkish nationalism. The Battle of Gallipoli takes place halfway through the novel. Although fiction, the setting of Eskibahçe is based upon Kayaköy (Greek: Levissi Λεβισσι) village near Fethiye, the ruins of which still exist today. Once a thriving Greek village, this town of over one thousand houses, two churches, fourteen chapels, and two schools, was completely deserted in 1923 when the Greek inhabitants living there, along with a vast number of Greeks living throughout Turkey were deported to Greece through a massive government mandated population exchange between the two countries following the Turkish war of independence. Historically, Turks and Greeks had lived together in this region for centuries, the Turks as farmers in the Kaya valley and the Greeks living on the hillside dealing in crafts and trades. A Greek presence in this region goes back for centuries. Since then, the village of Kayakoy, as it is called in Turkish, or Karmylassos, as it was called in Greek, which had been continually inhabited since at least the 13th century, has stood empty and crumbling, with only the breeze from the mountains and mist from the sea blowing through its empty houses and streets. Attempts by the Turkish government to get Turks deported from Greece to inhabit the village failed, and eventually, in the 1950s, the roofs of all the houses were removed. Some of its characters are also present in the author's earlier novel Captain Corelli's Mandolin. The book includes a vivid and detailed description of the horrors of life in the trenches during World War I. |
5044147 | /m/0d08hg | Tetrarch | Ian Irvine | 9/29/2003 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | Tiaan wanders the ancient, abandoned city of Tirthrax aimlessly. She still clutches the dead body of her adopted-sister, Haani, who was killed by a nervous Aachim shooter. Her previous withdrawal, that caused her to madly desire the strange crystal Amplimet, which lies unguarded near the gate she created to bring the treacherous Aachim to Santhenar from dying Aachan, has evaporated in her grief for her sister. It is not long before Tiaan realises that she is being followed. Indeed she is soon captured, by her nemesis from the manufacturory, Nish and a strange young woman by the name of Ullii. Tiaan escapes twice but is recaptured both times. However, as Nish bounds her after her second escape attempt, in which Tiaan nearly falls to her death in the Well of Echoes, he is interrupted by an old Aachim woman who states herself to be the Matah of Tirthrax. The Matah forces Nish to release Tiaan, humiliating him with a minor use of her powers. The Matah has Tiaan and Nish relate their story and becomes distressed at the knowledge of the Aachim invasion, led by Vithis. She speaks of the time of The Forbidding as if she were present. The Matah instructs Nish and Ullii to leave Tirthrax and warn their people of the Aachim invasion, though Nish had already sent word by skeet of what he had witnessed. The Matah befriends Tiaan and helps her to deliver Haani's body to the Well of Echoes, an honour befitted to only the greatest of people. The Matah reveals that she is in fact Malien, a heroine from the time of the Mirror. Tiaan decides to go and retrieve the amplimet from the gate room, but finds it missing. She originally accuses Malien, but they eventually realise that Nish is the only possible culprit. Later, Tiaan and Malien head for the Baloon on the side of Tirthrax to retrieve the Amplimet and succeed. Nish and Ulii manage to repair and refloat the balloon and head off. |
5044608 | /m/0d093f | The Rotters' Club | Jonathan Coe | 2/22/2001 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Three teenage friends grow up in the British 1970s watching their lives change as their world gets involved with Provisional Irish Republican Army bombs, progressive and punk rock, girls and political strikes. |
5046545 | /m/04n7pkv | The Wild Boy | null | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction"} | The novel switches among several different timelines which ultimately tie together in the last few chapters. As the novel opens, the Lindauzi are reeling from the extinction of their soul-mate species, the Iani, without whom they will lose all sense of themselves and succumb to "reversion," a return to a feral, animal state. Many Lindauzi are choosing suicide over the possibility of reversion; a civil war has erupted between those who believe it is time for the Lindauzi to surrender to extinction, and those who wish to leave the homeworld in search of a compatible species to replicate the bond the Lindauzi had enjoyed with the Iani. Corviax, son of the Left Emperor, finally wins the right to lead a search expedition; they discover that the humans of Earth share many similarities to the Iani and, believing that the Iani emotional bond with the Lindauzi can be recreated in the humans, Corviax instigates an ambitious scheme to make the human population more receptive to the Lindauzi. He begins by covertly releasing viruses to thin the planet's population, and his fleet endears itself to the sick and traumatized survivors by arriving with a cure for the virus, seemingly by pure coincidence. Once a bond of trust has been established, the Lindauzi begin building settlements and inviting humans to live with them. Further dependence is fostered in the humans by the systematic decimation of the humans' companion animals, such as dogs and cats, by more viruses. Within three or four generations, humanity is completely dependent upon and subservient to the Lindauzi, who have begun their breeding program in earnest. Ilox is the pinnacle of the breeding program, an exceptionally bright and empathic human boy who at an early age can sense the presence and emotions of nearby Lindauzi. He becomes the pet of Phlarx, a young Lindauzi noble, and the two form a deep bond - "heart to heart, mind to mind, soul to soul," as is the stated goal of the breeding program. Despite his attachment to Phlarx, Ilox is insatiably curious, especially about human history. "Dogs" - as humans are now called by the Lindauzi - are forbidden from acquiring this knowledge, but Ilox eventually learns of the origins of the Lindauzi, the extinction of the Iani, and the lengths to which the Lindauzi went to engineer humanity to their specifications. At the same time he comes by this knowledge, Ilox falls in love with another pet human, Nivere, and is caught having sex with her. Nivere is euthanized, and Ilox - formerly seen as the Lindauzi hope for a new partner species - is now thought to be a failed breeding experiment of no use to the Lindauzi. He is separated from Phlarx and abandoned in the wild to fend for himself or die; his disappearance is written off as an accidental death. Ilox is taken in by a small tribe of "wolves" - humans who have resisted domestication by the Lindauzi and live apart from them, hiding in the ruins of human cities. Ilox eventually adapts to life among the free humans in the settlement of Jackson, and takes a wife, Mary, with whom he has two sons, Caleb and Davy. Despite his new life as a "wolf," Ilox misses Phlarx dearly, and one day when Caleb is eleven, Ilox leaves the human settlement to return to his Lindauzi bondmate. Not long after this, the settlement falls under siege by Lindauzi "hounds," humans bred to hunt and kill "wolves." Caleb, the only survivor of the raid, wanders on his own for a time until he is discovered and brought before Prince Orfassian, son of the late Corviax. Orfassian, impressed with the fact that Caleb can speak (and specifically, curse) in the Lindauzi language, decides to keep Caleb as a novelty, and has him trained as a "show dog." Ilox, meanwhile, has been reunited with Phlarx and tries to tell him about the indignities humanity has suffered to become the pets of the Lindauzi. He tries to explain that the symbiotic bond that existed between the Iani and the Lindauzi can never be recreated as long as humanity remains subservient to the Lindauzi, and that humans cannot be forced into loving another being, but must be allowed the choice of loving, as Ilox chose to love his wife Mary. Phlarx cannot comprehend this, however, and thinking that Ilox has been corrupted by living among wolves, has him sealed in a sensory deprivation cocoon in an attempt to correct what Phlarx sees as a flaw in Ilox's otherwise impeccable breeding. This only has the effect of driving Ilox insane, however, and while Ilox is now more dependent upon Phlarx than ever before, he is a far cry from the intelligent, capable companion Phlarx desired. Caleb is eventually reunited with his father, who no longer recognizes him, and the pair escape from the Lindauzi city of Umium - built on the ruins of New York City - via the old city's subway system. They are intercepted by Phlarx, who is on the run from Lindauzi authorities for displaying signs of reversion and is suffering from severe guilt for what he has done to Ilox. Phlarx agrees to take Caleb and Ilox to the "Summer Country" - South America - where it is too warm for Lindauzi to settle and humans live with relatively little interference. Prince Orfassian, upon hearing of Phlarx's supposed reversion, the escape of Ilox and Caleb, and the truth behind Ilox's supposed "death" years previously, finally realizes that the bond cannot exist in humans the way it did in the Iani, and that the Lindauzi are facing inevitable reversion and extinction. He arranges for the air filters in the forcefields surrounding the Lindauzi cities to be altered so that carbon monoxide emissions will slowly reach lethal levels, leading to a peaceful and dignified death for his species. Caleb adapts well to life among the human population of the Summer Country, and Ilox slowly begins regaining his senses, though he never recovers them completely. He has recurring prophetic dreams about the death of all the Lindauzi, which the humans of the Summer Country decide to act on, making tentative exploratory forays beyond their safe haven in the tropics. Phlarx does not fare as well as the humans, however; he suffers in the tropical heat, and this, combined with his compromised bond with Ilox, leads to his death within a few months. Ilox dies along with him, and the pair are buried side by side - Ilox on the boundary of the sanctified ground of the village cemetery, and Phlarx just beyond it. |
5047323 | /m/0d0dnl | Locksley Hall | Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson | null | null | The unnamed protagonist is a soldier traveling with a small military unit. He asks his company to continue ahead as he pauses for sentimental reasons. He then quickly reveals that the place he has stopped at is called Locksley Hall, and he spent his childhood there. The rest of the poem, though written as rhymed metered verse, follows the stream of consciousness of its protagonist as an interior monologue. The protagonist struggles to reach some sort of catharsis on his childhood feelings. In his monologue, the protagonist begins with fond memories of his childhood and love, but those memories quickly lead to a burst of anger because his lover abandoned him due to her parents' disapproval. He proceeds to offer a biting criticism of his lover's new husband, interspersed with personal reflection. This criticism is only really interrupted when he reflects that his lover will eventually have a child, and will be more concerned with her child than about the protagonist. The protagonist promptly continues his angry tirade, this time directed at the mother-child relationship. The protagonist reveals frustration with his present career, which he identifies as an escape from a depression and sense of hopelessness, saying: : What is that which I should turn to, lighting upon days like these? : Every door is barr'd with gold, and opens but to golden keys. : Every gate is throng'd with suitors, all the markets overflow. : I have but an angry fancy; what is that which I should do? : I had been content to perish, falling on the foeman's ground, : When the ranks are roll'd in vapour, and the winds are laid with sound. (lines 99-104) In order to be free of his depression, the protagonist continues into a grand description of the world to come—which he views as somewhat utopian. He relapses into anger briefly again when he hears a bugle call from his comrades telling him to hurry up. Much of the remainder of the poem is built up of an odd contrast between the beauty of civilization and the beauty of the noble savage. He recalls the land where he was born (which he only says is somewhere in the Orient), and lovingly notes its lack of civilization, describing it as "Summer isles of Eden" and "knots of Paradise." In the end, he rejects the ideal of the noble savage, preferring the progress that civilization has made. He also immediately thereafter rejects Locksley Hall, and marches forth to meet his comrades. |
5047951 | /m/0d0fkk | The Passion According to G.H. | Clarice Lispector | null | null | When the book opens, G.H., a well-to-do resident of a Rio de Janeiro penthouse, is remembering what happened to her the previous day, when she decided to clean out the room of the maid who has just left her service. “Before I entered the room, what was I?” G.H. asks. “I was what others had always seen me be, and that was the way I knew myself.” In the maid’s room, G.H. expects chaos. Instead, to her shock, she finds a desert, “an entirely clean and vibrating room as in an insane asylum from which dangerous objects have been removed.” Only one thing disturbs the room's perfect order: black carbon scratches on the dry white wall, outlines of a man, a woman, and a dog. Pondering the inscrutable drawing, she realizes that the black maid, whose name she has forgotten, and whose face she has trouble calling to mind, had hated her. Overwhelmed by anger, she opens the door to the wardrobe. Terrified by the cockroach she sees emerging, she slams the door shut, severing the cockroach in its center and sees the still-living animal's entrails begin to ooze out. G.H. is appalled by the sight, but she is trapped in the room by the irresistible fascination of the dying insect. She wants to scream, but she knows it is already too late: "If I raised the alarm at being alive, voiceless and hard they would drag me away since they drag away those who depart the possible world, the exceptional being is dragged away, the screaming being.” Staring at the insect, her human personality begins to break down; finally, at the height of her mystic crisis, she famously takes the matter oozing from the cockroach—the fundamental, anonymous matter of the universe, which she shares with the roach—and puts it in her mouth. |
5050625 | /m/0d0jr7 | A Cry in the Night | Mary Higgins Clark | 1982-09 | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller", "/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | Jenny MacPartland, a divorced single mother, falls in love with artist Erich Kreuger while working for a New York gallery. They marry within a month and set up home on Erich's vast Minnesota ranch. For several months they are happily married, but Jenny begins to feel uneasy around her increasingly unstable husband. Within a year, their marriage is ripped apart by scandal and Jenny plans to return to New York City until she realizes that she is pregnant and completely dependent financially on Eric. Unsure of what to do, Jenny lives in fear and hides her growing baby from her husband as long as she physically can. As Jenny's pregnancy progresses, she discovers Eric's obsession with his dead mother, Caroline—the exact image of Jenny. As the facts begin to add up, Jenny realizes that she is married to and carrying the child of his. Soon after he finds out she is planning to leave him, he starts to stalk her. Leaves without her on a trip and takes her two children. Trying to find out the truth about what he is trying to do, she also finds out more than that, more in the past and soon... |
5050695 | /m/0d0jwc | Honus & Me | Dan Gutman | 1997 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/06bvp": "Religion"} | Joe Stoshack's biggest love is baseball. He knows everything there is to know about the game -- except how to play well. When he takes a job cleaning a bunch of junk out of his neighbor's attic, he finds a 1909 T206 Honus Wagner card (the most valuable baseball card in the world). He tries to verify that it is an authentic Wagner by going to a collectible shop. The owner, an ex "bad guy" professional wrestler named Birdie Farrell, tries to trick him into selling it for ten dollars by saying it's Heinie Wagner. When he goes to sleep that night, he's holding the baseball card, wishing he could meet Honus. The next day, after one of his team's games, Joe finds himself face to face with baseball legend Honus Wagner. He plays catch with him, and Joe and Honus share what their dreams are. Joe's is to play in the big leagues, while Honus' is to win the World Series. Together they travel back in time -- into the seventh game of the World Series -- where Honus helps Joe boost his self-esteem and gain confidence in his ability to play baseball. |
5051840 | /m/0d0lc7 | The Rainbird Pattern | Victor Canning | null | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Elderly spinster Julia Rainbird, under sessions by medium Blanche Tyler, or "Madame Blanche", promises her a large sum of money to locate her illegitimate nephew Edward Shoebridge. Blanche and her boyfriend, George Lumley, begin making inquiries around their area about the Shoebridges, despite no one knowing where Edward is, or if he is alive. Meanwhile, Edward Shoebridge, alive and under the pseudonym of "the Trader", has been organising small kidnappings around the area, but is planning a larger score, the Archbishop of Canterbury, whom he will hold for a large ransom. |
5052099 | /m/0d0lvh | The Fury | John Farris | 1976 | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/03npn": "Horror"} | Gillian Bellaver is a teenage girl who has psychic powers such as telepathy and telekinesis. But though she is trying to reject the fact that she is clairvoyant, she soon finds out that a boy her age, Robin Sandza, is kidnapped. With her powers, she helps Robin's father Peter Sandza find Robin. But though Robin was psychic like Gillian, they come to realize death has entered their boundaries. Gillian and Peter find Robin, but both father and son get killed. Gillian wakes up to find she is kidnapped, a victim herself, when the kidnapper, Childermass, has her in a room. She grabs a winter coat and drowns him mercilessly. |
5052307 | /m/0d0m1b | Topaz | Leon Uris | null | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The Cold War-era story concerns an alleged plot between the Soviet Union and Cuba, and a spy ring with connections to both. It also speaks about the Russian infiltrations into the French intelligence. The main characters of the book are fast friends Michael Nordstorm and Andre Devereaux of the American and French intelligence. Devereaux goes out of way to get evidence of Soviet missiles in Cuba. He has information of Soviet links in French intelligence but is himself targeted when he reveals this to the French president. But he continues with his fight and exposes the mole ultimately seeking asylum in America with Nordstorm's help. |
5053182 | /m/0d0n60 | Ashes and Diamonds | Jerzy Andrzejewski | null | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The story takes place in Ostrowiec (probably Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski), Poland, and begins on May 3, 1945, one of the last days of World War II. The characters are all aware that the war will end soon. The Soviet Army had driven the German Army out of Ostrowiec in January, and the Communists are poised to take control of post-war Poland. In the story, Stefan Szczuka is the Secretary of the Province Committee of the Polish Workers' Party (PPR, a party of Communist orientation formed in the Soviet Union), and is expected to play an important role in the new government of Stalinist Poland. A jeep is transporting him to speak at a cement factory in Biała, a nearby town. The jeep is being driven by Frank Podgórski, who is the Secretary of the District Committee of the PPR. Podgórski recognizes a friend (Alicja Kossecka) walking alongside the road, and stops to greet her. Podgórski learns from her that her husband Antoni Kossecki, who was a local judge before the war, had returned from the German prison camp Groß-Rosen two days ago. He asks to visit them, and she agrees. Podgórski gets out of the car to talk with his friend which causes a delay. Szczuka impatiently honks the horn to get Podgórski to return to the jeep and resume the trip. Later, as they are driving, Podgórski explains to Szczuka who his friend Alicja Kossecka was and that her husband had just returned from the Nazi captivity. Szczuka mentions that he had also spent time in that prison camp, but cannot remember knowing anyone from Gross-Rosen named Kossecki. Podgórski suddenly remembers that Kossecki had been arrested under an assumed name, so that Szczuka would not have known him as Kossecki, but Podgórski cannot recall what his assumed name was. A short time later, after the jeep passes a narrow point in the road, they find a crowd surrounding another jeep lying on its side at a distance from the road. They stop and go to investigate. They find that the passengers, two workers named Smolarski and Gawlik, have been shot and killed, apparently ambushed at the narrow place in the road they had just passed. On the way back to their own jeep, Szczuka tells Podgórski that he thinks the shots were intended for him (Szczuka). Podgórski suddenly recalls that Kossecki’s assumed name was Rybicki. Szczuka recognizes this name, but doesn’t say very much about what he remembers. Antoni Kossecki and his wife Alicja Kossecka (the couple that Podgórski was telling Szczuka about), have two sons Andrzej (21) and Alek (17). During the war, while his father was at Gross-Rosen, Andrzej was fighting as a partisan, presumably with the Armia Krajowa (AK), although it is never mentioned by name in the story. Andrzej too has now returned home, so the family is together again. Alicja Kossecka returns home from the walk on which she had met Podgórski. She needs 3,000 zloty to purchase some wool. She had hidden this money in a safe place, but discovers that the money has disappeared. The only person who could easily have taken it was her younger son Alek, who was there at home earlier but suddenly left the house shortly after she did. She keeps her suspicions to herself and decides to ask her elder son Andrzej to lend her the money she needs. As she goes to his room, she hears him talking with some friends and overhears fragments of a conversation that he is having with them. These conversation fragments strongly suggest to the reader that Andrzej and his friends were somehow involved in the ambush of the two men in the jeep. Meanwhile, Podgórski drops Szczuka at the Monopol hotel in Ostrowiec, where he is staying. They will both attend a banquet at the hotel later in the evening, but Podgórski says that he first wants to visit Antoni Kossecki, as he had agreed earlier in the day with Alicja Kossecka. As Podgórski and Szczuka part ways, Szczuka asks Podgórski to ask Antoni Kossecki whether he wants to meet him, an old comrade from Gross-Rosen. Podgórski agrees and goes to visit the Kossecki family while Szczuka goes into the hotel. As Szczuka is picking up his room key from the reception desk, a 24-year-old young man, who we later find out is Maciej Chelmnicki, is also at the hotel desk asking for a room. The desk clerk tells Maciej that all the rooms are taken, however Maciej is very persistent and ultimately convinces the desk clerk (with the help of a bribe) to find him a room. By chance, Maciej ends up in the room next to that of Szczuka. Podgórski’s visit to Antoni Kossecki turns into a very long conversation, and Podgórski stays late. They talk about how the War subjected people to conditions that brought out the worst in some of them, and to what extent people can be held accountable for their actions under such conditions. While Podgórski is visiting Antoni Kossecki, Szczuka goes to visit his sister-in-law Katarzyna Staniewiczowa, who also lives in Ostrowiec. She has not invited him, and does not expect him to visit, but he feels that he has to tell her that his wife Maria (the sister of Katarzyna Staniewiczowa) has not returned from the prison camp where she had been staying. When Szczuka arrives, Katarzyna Staniewiczowa has guests who are obviously part of the pre-War aristocracy and disapprove of Szczuka’s politics. In the next room, unknown to Szczuka, Andrzej Kossecki is meeting with Captain Florian Waga. It is apparent that Captain Waga is Andrzej’s commanding officer in a conspiratorial organization (presumably the AK) and has given the order to kill Szczuka, eliminating any doubt that Andrzej and his friends are the ones involved in the ambush earlier that day. Andrzej asks Captain Waga whether it is really necessary to kill Szczuka, and Captain Waga replies that all that matters is that they have been given the order to do so, and that they must obey the order. Back in the living room, the discussion has taken a not very cordial turn. Szczuka tells his sister-in-law about Maria, which is why he came to visit, and decides to leave. After Szczuka leaves, Katarzyna Staniewiczowa and her guests, including Andrzej, all decide to go to the Monopol for entertainment. Captain Florian Waga declines to join them and goes his separate way. Back at the Monopol, Maciej Chelmnicki has gone to the hotel bar, where he chats up the bar maid Krystyna. He is quite taken with her, and tries to convince her to come to his room when she is done with work. While waiting for Krystyna’s shift to end, Maciej is joined in the bar by his friend Andrzej Kossecki, who has just come from the home of Katarzyna Staniewiczowa. Maciej and Andrzej discuss the botched attempt on Szczuka’s life. Andrzej recounts his meeting the Captain Waga, and Maciej promises to finish the job of killing Szczuka. In the main part of the Monopol dining room, separate from the bar, the banquet is beginning. Meanwhile, Alek Kossecki, who has stolen the 3,000 zloties from his mother, is meeting in an abandoned basement with four of his friends, all of whom belong to a conspiratorial organization. During the meeting, their leader Jerzy Szretter calls upon all the attendees to produce the 5,000 zloties that each of them was supposed to bring to the meeting to fund a weapons purchase. All but one of them is able to produce their money. Alek Kossecki confesses that he had to steal part of the money from his mother. The leader tells Alek to keep his money, and demands that his share be paid by Janusz Kotowicz, another of the attendees who is known to have more money than the others. Kotowicz refuses, and Szretter beats him until he surrenders all his money, which turns out to be an enormous amount. Janusz Kotowicz starts to leave, hinting that he will turn them in, prompting Jerzy Szretter to shoot Kotowicz. Back at the hotel, Podgórski has returned from his visit to Antoni Kossecki, and stops by Szczuka’s room on his way to the banquet. While they are talking, Szczuka tells Podgórski that Antoni Kossecki had committed horrible crimes while at the Gross-Rosen prison camp. Podgórski, who knew Kossecki before the War, can hardly believe what he is hearing and reflects about the conversation he just had with Kossecki about moral accountability. At the bar of the Monopol, Krystyna asks her coworker to cover for her so that she can leave early and go to Maciej’s room. Her coworker agrees, and Krystyna does go to Maciej’s room and they spend the night together. Maciej falls seriously in love with her, and begins to reconsider the path he has been following in life. Downstairs, the banquet, which turned into a boisterous party, is ending, and the hotel impresario has the musicians play Chopin’s Military Polonaise as the last guests leave. (This is the scene that appears at the end of the film.) The next day, Maciej spends the entire day with Krystyna. He tells her that he wants to make changes in his life and is thinking about enrolling in a technical school. He meets with Andrzej Kossecki, who is his superior in the secret organization that has ordered the killing of Szczuka which Maciej has been ordered to carry out. Maciej explains to Andrzej that he has fallen in love with Krystyna and wants to change his life, and that he no longer wants to kill Szczuka. Andrzej reminds Maciej that he is under orders to carry out the killing. Maciej finally agrees to kill Szczuka, but says that this will be the last order he will carry out. Maciej writes a note to Krystyna and tells her that he has some business to attend to, and cannot see her for awhile. He says that he has to go to Warsaw, and invites her to come with him, and she agrees. Maciej begins to stalk Szczuka, and follows him to the apartment of a woman who had returned from the same camp where Szczuka’s wife was imprisoned. Szczuka has gone to see her in hopes of learning the fate of his wife. While Szczuka is in the apartment, Maciej enters and kills Szczuka. He returns to the hotel, where he sleeps for several hours. When he awakes he hurries to catch the train for Warsaw. After having killed Szczuka he is nervous about being recognized, and on his way to the train station he raises the suspicion of a patrol, which orders him to stop. He panics and tries to run, and they shoot him. |
5059561 | /m/0d0wvb | The Lab | Jack Heath | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction"} | The Lab is an action book, whose protagonist is a 16 year old superhuman, named Agent "Six of Hearts". Six was created to be the ultimate soldier by a group called The Lab which is a ruthless division of the company ChaoSonic. In this futuristic setting there is only one known city left in the world, and it is run by ChaoSonic. ChaoSonic took over the city and has obliterated all their competitors and enemies. Six is an agent of a vigilante organization called "The Deck" which survives by attacking ChaoSonic subsidiaries that are acting unethically, arresting the people involved and then selling off their assets. Only the King of Hearts, who saved Six from the Lab as a child, and is now his boss, is aware of the fact that Six is a superhuman developed by ChaoSonic. Six and King keeps this a secret, as the Spades, another division of the Deck, would imprison Six if they knew he was a ChaoSonic creation, in case he was a threat. Six is the best agent in the Deck, having a 100% mission success rate. The Deck then begins to investigate "The Lab" and King gives Six the assignment to stop anyone from discovering his true identity. On his mission he meets Kyntak. Kyntak is genetically identical to Six, designed in the Lab's 'Project Falcon' alongside him. In a twisted way, they are brothers. This discovery prompts Six to re-ex When he arrives, he discovers that Lab soldiers have invaded the Deck and captured the agents. Six sets off on a mission to infiltrate the Lab and rescue the agents. The agents manage to get out, but Six is killed in the attempt. However, the Lab brings Six back to life, using parts from a clone of him to repair his body. Their leader, Methryn Crexe, then offer Six a job working for them, as they believe he has the perfect personality for a soldier, which theyamine his own sense of humanity. Kyntak is locked up when he and Six arrive at the Deck, but is soon released on the orders of one of the Jokers, the shadowy leaders of the Deck. One of the Jokers is Grysat, who usually poses as the Deck's receptionist, but the identity of the other Joker is unknown, and he is the Joker that released Kyntak. Six and King are worried that the Joker and Kyntak might be working for ChaoSonic, but they keep quiet in case the Spades find out the truth about Six when investigating Kyntak. The Deck then spies on a meeting between the Lab and a potential customer, but one of the guards recognizes Six. Six chases the man, but he escapes, using superhuman abilities. Six returns to the Deck with his first ever mission failure. want to replicate with the next soldiers they grow. They then plan to use those soldiers to crush all resistance in the city. Six refuses the offer, and tries to escape, but is almost killed. Kyntak then arrives and rescues him. Before they leave, they find a new baby superhuman, a girl, which they take with them. |
5060743 | /m/0d0y2z | Edinburgh: A Novel | Alexander Chee | 2001 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | In the novel, Aphias "Fee" Zhe, a twelve-year-old Korean American boy growing up in Maine, is selected for membership in a boys' choir along with Peter, who becomes his best friend and first love. Fee and other boys are molested by the choir director Big Eric Gorendt. Fee is afraid to tell, and doesn't want anyone else to tell, for reasons that are deeper than pure embarrassment or fear. When one boy comes out with the secret, all the boys are revealed as victims as well. This novel explores the horrific mental and emotional damage these boys go through and how they cope with this trauma. |
5061559 | /m/0d0z7r | The Coming Storm | Paul Russell | 1999-08 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The story is told from the alternating perspective of four characters: Louis Tremper, the headmaster of a boy's prep school in upstate New York; his wife, Claire Tremper; Tracy Parker, the school's new 25-year-old English teacher; and Noah Lathrop III, a 15-year-old student struggling with his own sexuality."The Coming Storm | Paul Russell | Macmillan", macmillan.com, 2010, webpage: Mac-CS. Headmaster Louis Tremper is a repressed homosexual with a love of German opera. He hires Tracy as an English teacher at the school, Middle Forge, and is instantly attracted. He and his wife, Claire become close friends with Tracy, often inviting him over to dinner, with Louis educating and imparting his love of classic music on the young English teacher. Louis, as headmaster, has a history of having favorite boys within the school, but the relationships always closely resembled that of his new friendship with Tracy Parker – a relationship similar to the one he himself had with Jack Emmerich, the school's previous headmaster. Claire has also developed a friendship with Tracy. Knowing full well of Louis' repressed desires, Claire accepts them knowing that even so, he has remained a faithful husband. She also admits to a lesbian crush when she was younger, with her best friend Libby, who is married to Reid. Louis and Reid have been friends for years, and it was through Reid that Claire had met Louis. It is implied that Louis had an unrequited love for Reid – who instead became a womanizer and an adulterer, eventually leaving his wife by the end of the novel. Tracy quickly becomes a popular teacher on campus, letting the students call him by his first name. He lives alone in a big house on campus; one that was previously owned by Jack Emmerich. He quickly befriends the Trempers. He and Claire visit a dog shelter where Tracy finds Betsy, a beagle which he occasionally leaves in the care of one of his students, Noah Lathrop III. Shortly after he starts teaching, he visits friends in New York City, where it is revealed that Tracy is gay. His ex-boyfriend, Arthur Branson, who is dying of AIDS, was also formerly a student of Middle Forge, and at the time, had been one of Louis' favored students. Later it is revealed that Arthur was in an illicit relationship of his own with the school's previous headmaster, Jack Emmerich. Noah is a troubled student who was sent to Middle Forge after having developed a crush on a teacher in his previous school. His father, Noah Lathrop II, is an overbearing alpha male running dubious business deals around the world. He's a coke fiend who has little time for his son, and is oblivious to what goes on his son's life. Noah III often sees the school counselor, wets the bed, and is on Ritalin. During a trip home to New York, he runs into Christian Tyler, a boy maliciously teased by the other boys in their dorm. Christian is gay, HIV-positive, and in a relationship with a 40-year-old doctor. Noah has his first gay experience with Chris, and eventually the boys become close friends. Early on, Louis suspects the relationship between Tracy and Noah has grown too close – only it's not until a few months later, after many overtures by Noah, that Tracy finally gives in to his desires. They see each other clandestinely for a couple of months, until the headmaster finds out, and everything begins to unravel, including the history of what happened with Arthur Branson and Jack Emmerich and how it ruined their lives as well as Louis' life. Louis stepped in to stop the relationship, but then turned his back on Arthur when Arthur declared his homosexuality. When Tracy invited him back to the school to have dinner with the Trempers, Louis now realizes that Tracy is gay and turns his back on Tracy for the same reason. Claire eventually re-ignites her own friendship with Tracy, during which he confides in her about his forbidden relationship with Noah. History repeats itself when Tracy panics and finally breaks off the relationship (with Noah) he knows he never should have started. Noah, feeling hurt and rejected runs away with Betsy to New York. While wandering the city at night, he loses Betsy in Central Park. Tracy finally comes clean to Louis, about the teacher-student relationship with Noah, and offers his resignation, which Louis accepts. Louis prepares to, once again, clean up the mess caused by a forbidden relationship between teacher and student. Eventually, Noah is brought back to school by his father, who is unaware that any drama other than a lost dog has occurred. Tracy's actions are kept secret, though he still resigns his teaching position. The novel ends with Louis, the headmaster, feeling that once again he has failed the person in the situation who needed protecting most, Noah. Claire urges him to look out for the boy, since no one else will. Tracy has left the school and gone back to New York, having completely cut off any contact with the Trempers, the school, and Noah. Though Noah never says anything to his father or anyone else who might do something, Tracy nonetheless now realizes that he will spend the rest of his life feeling guilty, not for loving the boy, but for acting on it when he knew better; and not knowing if has irrevocably damaged Noah in the same way that Jack Emmerich (and inadvertently Louis) had damaged Arthur. Unlike the three adults – Louis, Claire, and Tracy – who are left pondering their regrets and mistakes, it is Noah who gets the happy ending. Finally coming to terms with who he is, he tests negative for HIV, is no longer angry at Tracy for ending their relationship, and has finally accepted himself for who he is. He and fellow student Chris Tyler start a club for gays on campus, which allows Noah the chance to finally admit his homosexuality openly for the first time. The club is run with Louis' blessing, and the novel ends with Noah realizing that unlike Arthur, his own experiences have helped him find himself and that there is hope that his own future will be brighter and happier than Tracy and Arthur, or Louis and Claire. |
5062035 | /m/0d0zwz | A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian | Marina Lewycka | 3/31/2005 | {"/m/02yq81": "Comic novel", "/m/01z4y": "Comedy"} | The novel details in comic form the varied reactions by two daughters when their widowed father marries a much younger Ukrainian immigrant. The father, a former engineer, is writing a history of tractors in Ukrainian, extracts from which are interleaved throughout the text. It is told in the first person from the perspective of one of the daughters, Nadezhda. After their father decides he is going to remarry after his wife's death, Nadezhda is outraged and worried, especially when she meets the wife-to-be: voluptuous gold digger Valentina. The hurricane on their lives that is Valentina serves to bring together the two daughters against a common enemy, as it becomes increasingly clear of the middle-aged divorcee's intents. The family's secret history is overturned as the troubles continue, and their father is gradually weakened by his fiancée until the hold is finally broken. |
5062852 | /m/0d1031 | Ragazzi di vita | Pier Paolo Pasolini | null | null | The novel tells the story of Riccetto, a street urchin who the audience is first introduced to during his Confirmation and First Communion. Not too long afterwards, Riccetto is stealing from a blind beggar and a convent. Over the next few years, the reader follows along with Riccetto as he goes from robbery to scam to prostituting himself and back again while drifting around. During this time, many of his companions are killed or die off and there is constant immorality at hand. He is finally arrested and put in jail after trying to steal some iron in order to buy his fiancée an engagement ring. He is released afterwards and goes back to his same street life. Pasolini makes it clear to the reader that Riccetto and his peers are wanderers by nature, they have no life plans or goals and don’t care to; Riccetto is a more deviant Dean Moriarty of sorts. This is the way in which Pasolini finds this subclass of people to be free from modernity and rooted in a way of life that has since been lost. He also admired “what he considered their pre-political rebelliousness”; they were separated from the partisan politics that plagued post-war modern Italy. Pasolini wished to bring to the attention of the public the existence of this underground class they thought extinct. As he saw it, “They were thought of as a closed book. Yet, poor devils they really did exist”. He wrote the book in lowbrow language and derogatory slang that the real life “lumpen proletariat” would use that made the book not easily accessible for mainstream Italy, the Italy that Pasolini was against. He would later write in Heretical Empiricism that literature should be “written in a language substantially different from that of the writer, not leaving out of consideration a certain naturalism”. Another alienating characteristic of the book is the fact that the narrator does not provide any background information to a society who know nothing of what he is writing. His narration puts himself on the same level as the people he is writing of; he does not narrate from above. He saw the underground class as the only ones who survived the corruption brought about of industrialization and modernity; a sort of human time capsule. He saw them as the only ones who are truly free. He respects them for this, and sees them as being the true underclass; that even the Communist Party sees themselves as being above. <!--SEE MAIN ARTICLE ABOUT PASOLINI PLEASE |
5062888 | /m/0d1055 | The Manchurian Candidate | Richard Condon | 1959 | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller", "/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Major Bennett Marco, Sergeant Raymond Shaw, and the rest of their infantry platoon are kidnapped during the Korean War in 1952. They are taken to Manchuria, and are brainwashed to believe that Shaw saved their lives in combat — for which Congress awards him the Medal of Honor. Years after the war, Marco, now back in the United States working as an intelligence officer, begins suffering the recurring nightmare of Shaw murdering two of his comrades, all while clinically observed by Chinese and Soviet intelligence officials. When Marco learns that another soldier from the platoon also has been suffering the same nightmare, he sets to uncovering the mystery and its meaning. It is revealed that the Communists have been using Shaw as a sleeper agent, a guiltless assassin subconsciously activated by seeing the “Queen of Diamonds” playing card while playing solitaire. Provoked by the appearance of the card, he obeys orders which he then forgets. Shaw’s KGB handler is his domineering mother Eleanor, a ruthless power broker working with the Communists to execute a "palace coup d’état" to quietly overthrow the U.S. government, with her husband, McCarthy-esque Senator Johnny Iselin, as a puppet dictator. |
5063891 | /m/0d124_ | Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself | Judy Blume | 1977 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Sally J. Freedman is moving from New Jersey to Miami, Florida with her brother and their mother and grandmother at the end of World War II. This is because of her brother Douglas's health, for he caught nephritis from staying in wet clothes in the cold. The novel first touches on racism when, on the train to Florida, Sally meets a black woman traveling with her young son about Sally's age and her infant daughter whom Sally gets to hold. The next day, Sally goes back to visit the black family and discovers that laws requiring racial segregation in the 1940s in the Southern United States force the family to move to another car on the train. Sally is infuriated and does not understand why her mother is not upset as well. Before Sally can be admitted to her new school, she must undergo a physical examination in which the school nurse discovers nits (head louse eggs) in Sally's hair. The school nurse tries to calm Sally's mother, who is insulted and taking the news personally, by saying, "Look Mrs. Freedman, don't take this personally. You've been traveling, she could have picked them up anywhere." In her new school, she meets new friends, the first being Barbara, who teaches Sally all about the new school. Later, she meets Andrea, a sixth grader, and Shelby, a girl in a different class than Sally. She has a difficult first day at school, but after a while, she begins to make more friends. There, she meets Peter Hornstein, a so called 'Latin Lover', who seem to like Sally, but Peter ignores Sally when Jackie, a new girl, arrives at the school. It troubles Sally that Peter is going after a different girl, and she begins to like Peter back. A central part in the story is when Sally meets a man named Mr. Zavodsky, who lives in her building in Miami. He offers Andrea and her candy. Sally refuses the candy even though Andrea accepts it, which makes Sally upset. Sally, who is Jewish, notices that Mr. Zavodsky looks similar to Adolf Hitler and comes to believe (because of her active imagination) that he is actually Hitler, in disguise and retiring in Miami. Another important plotline is when Sally finds out that her father, who had just turned 42, was exactly the same age as his two brothers had been when they died. Sally, who is superstitious, is worried that her father may die in his 42nd year, because of the well-known superstition 'all bad things happen in threes'. Sally writes (but never mails) a lot of letters to Mr. Zavodsky, always saying she will get him someday. She spies on him, secretly listens to their phone conversations on a party line. She worries at one point Mr. Zavodsky killed her friend Shelby, and she believes the rock candy he offers is actually poison. In the end, Mr. Zavodsky dies of a heart attack. In the one year Sally spends at Miami, she learns how babies are made, attends but loses a contest, drinks whisky, kisses Peter at their teacher's wedding, and in the end, strengthens her relationship with her family members. At the very end, Sally and her family return to New Jersey. |
5064007 | /m/0d12d8 | Wifey | Judy Blume | 1978 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The story follows the life of bored 1970s New Jersey housewife, Sandy Pressman, who decides to reinvigorate her life by having an extramarital affair with an old high school boyfriend. This decision is complicated when she accidentally discovers evidence her husband might be having a long-term affair. Somewhat emblematic of the time period of open marriages and different mores, this was the first novel by Blume to directly address adult lives and sexuality. |
5064200 | /m/0d12v6 | Smart Women | Judy Blume | 1983 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The story follows Margo and B.B., two divorcees who are trying to restart their lives in Colorado, to the annoyance and amusement of their teenage daughters. Matters get much more complex and relationships strained when B.B.'s ex-husband moves next door to Margo and starts a relationship with her. |
5064508 | /m/0d13cz | Fudge-a-Mania | Judy Blume | 1990 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The Hatcher and Tubman families decide to spend their summer vacation together in Maine, not next door to each other, but in the same house, much to the disgust of Peter Hatcher and his arch-rival Sheila Tubman. Fudge plans to marry Sheila Tubman and Peter is disgusted. It took ten hours for the Hatcher family to drive to Maine. Jimmy Fargo (Peter's friend) is able to come for a week, with his father, Frank Fargo. Sheila also plans to have a friend come named Mouse Ellis who is weird, but she catches Chickenpox and is unable to do so. Fudge meets a girl named Mitzi, who has a baseball glove she calls her "mitzi" and she also has a book about her called "Tell me a Mitzi." Fudge gets his own "mitzi" and Peter goes with him to the library that day. Fudge could not find the book he wanted, so they ask a librarian named Isobel. Peter falls in love with her and cannot stop thinking about her. Peter asks Fudge why he wants to marry Sheila in the first place, which was because he wanted her to protect him from " scary creepy monsters." Fudge quickly postpones the wedding because he has his own can of " Mitzi's monster spray" and it is solved. The Hatchers and Tubmans are related at the end of the story because their grandparents, Muriel and Buzzy, got married. Peter's brother, Fudge, no longer plans to be a bird when he grows up, but instead a bird breeder, or as he mispronounces it, "bird breather", to which Sheila immediately corrects him by saying he cannot breathe for birds. Other subplots include Tootsie accidentally helping Mr. Fargo's art business when she toddles across his work and Fudge being chosen as a team captain in a baseball game sponsored by a retired player of the Boston Red Sox, Big Apfel, much to Peter's dismay. One last one is how Fudge meets Mitzi. Uncle Feather, Fudge's myna bird, went missing and Peter and Fudge went looking for him. They rang the doorbells to different houses and eventually met up with Mitzi's Grandma. The next day they met Mitzi. Towards the end of the book a little romance is spread between Peter and Sheila, though they agree that they will always hate each other. |
5064574 | /m/0d13hf | Trace | Patricia Cornwell | 2004-09 | {"/m/0lsxr": "Crime Fiction"} | Dr. Kay Scarpetta, having left Richmond, Virginia five years ago to become a freelancer, is asked to return at the request of her replacement, Chief Medical Examiner Joel Marcus. A young girl has been murdered, but very few clues are available. In parallel her niece Lucy is investigating an attack on her companion Henri. Henri has been sent for analysis and safe keeping to stay with Benton Wesley, Scarpetta's partner. Scarpetta's investigations are hampered by Marcus's ineptness and the disarray of her former lab. |
5064635 | /m/0d13n7 | Here's to You, Rachel Robinson | Judy Blume | 1993 | {"/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature"} | This book is written in the perspective of Rachel Robinson, who is an overachiever and a perfectionist. She tries to help her older sister, Jessica, with her acne problem. She resents her older brother, Charles, who has been expelled from boarding school. Rachel feels Charles gets all the attention in her family, even if it is negative, and that he is driving their parents to the break of despair,(and is gorgeous in the sight of girls). In the book, Rachel has to deal with her crush on Charles's tutor, Paul Mediros,(who in the end dates their cousin Tarren) and the fact that the best looking boy in ninth grade, Jeremy "Dragon" Kravitz (at least, to Stephanie, Allison and Rachel) is interested in her, (who in the end kisses her). Through family counseling and a trip to Ellis Island, the Robinson family learn how to put aside their differences and get along better. |
5064773 | /m/0d13_8 | Star King | Jack Vance | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | Gersen is taking a short holiday at Smade’s Tavern, the only settlement on Smade’s Planet, which is a “neutral ground” hostelry for crook and honest man alike in the Beyond. Here he meets an explorer with a problem: Lugo Teehalt has discovered a beautiful and unspoiled world – but he has learned that his employer is the notorious criminal Attel Malagate, “Malagate the Woe”, and Teehalt cannot bear to see his planet despoiled by him. However, some of Malagate's minions murder him and steal the spaceship parked nearby. By chance, Gersen's spaceship is the same common model as Teehalt's; the thieves have taken the wrong ship. Gersen departs in the deceased man's ship and thus comes into possession of the navigational device that contains the planet’s coordinates. Gersen goes in search of the identity of Teehalt’s employer. He quickly establishes that his mission was sponsored by someone at Sea Province University, an important institution on the planet Alphanor in the Rigel Concourse, and narrows Malagate's alter ego to one of three men, all senior officials at the university. All deny specific knowledge of Lugo Teehalt. By now, Gersen has encountered two of Malagate’s chief henchmen, whom he saw earlier at Smade’s Tavern: Tristano the Earthman, and Sivij Suthiro the Sarkoy. He knows that Malagate is aware of what he carries, though not his motivation. He has also deduced that Malagate is not, as widely assumed, human, but rather a "Star King", a member of a species that can rapidly evolve in a few generations to resemble its most successful rival. After contacting humans, the Star Kings began changing their appearance to look more and more like Man. The most successful can readily pass for human. During his visit to the University, Gersen makes the acquaintance of Pallis Atwrode, a clerical assistant. While the two are enjoying an evening out, they are attacked by another of Malagate’s lieutenants, the hideous Hildemar Dasce. Gersen is left unconscious and Pallis abducted. Through a combination of detective work and good luck, he traces her whereabouts to a secret base belonging to Dasce. He takes the three officials to see Teehalt’s world, which they are interested in purchasing, and along the way, Gersen opportunely stops to rescue Pallis and capture Dasce, along with a prisoner he has tortured for years, Robin Rampold. Gersen convinces Dasce that Malagate betrayed him and then allows Dasce to overpower him. Dasce's attempt to avenge himself on Malagate reveals the Star King's identity. In combination with strong circumstantial evidence, this convinces the other two men to accept Gersen's accusations. After Dasce’s unsuccessful attack and flight, Gersen tells Malagate that he is to be summarily executed. Malagate however succeeds in escaping himself, only to be horribly killed a few minutes later by one of the native lifeforms on Teehalt’s world. At his own request, Rampold is left behind. He subsequently turns the tables on his former torturer and begins a long-term program of revenge. |
5065619 | /m/0d155t | Burnt Offerings | Laurell K. Hamilton | null | {"/m/03npn": "Horror", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | As in the previous novels, Burnt Offerings requires Anita to balance her romantic life with her roles as supernatural police consultant, vampire executioner, zombie animator, human servant and lover to the vampire Master of the City and lupa to the local werewolf pack. In this case, Anita is quickly confronted with several problems that ultimately prove to be interrelated: * Fire Captain Pete McKinnon wants Anita's help with a series of arson incidents that he believes to be the work of a pyrokinetic. * The local wereleopard pard needs leadership and protection after Anita killed its "alpha," Gabriel in the previous novel, The Killing Dance. * The Thronos Rokke pack of werewolves needs clear succession and protection, particularly while Richard is out of town studying for his master's degree. * A vampire has been set on fire at the vampire owned and themed restaurant, "Burnt Offerings." The woman who did so claims that the vampire tried to bite her against her will, and alleges self defense. This attack later proves to be the first in a series of attacks on vampires and vampire businesses. * Most threatening, the Vampire Council has sent representatives to Jean-Claude's territory in an attempt to investigate and possibly destroy Jean-Claude. The Council is threatened by Jean-Claude's ability to destroy one of its most powerful members, The Earthmover, and by Jean-Claude's refusal to take The Earthmover's place on the Council himself. (Jean-Claude will not do so because he is not strong enough to hold the position against challengers; but the Council, based in Europe, fears that Jean-Claude is setting up a rival council in the United States). The Council has sent representatives of four of its six remaining members, as follows: ** Council member The Traveler has arrived personally, or at least in spirit (one of his powers is the ability to possess other vampires, and the location of his actual body is never revealed). The Traveler is accompanied by Balthasar, his human servant, and has also recruited one of Jean-Claude's vampires, Liv, to leave Jean-Claude's service and swear fealty to the Traveler. ** Council member the Master of Beasts has arrived personally, accompanied by his son, Fernando and the other members of his triumvirate, Gideon and Captain Thomas Carswell. ** Belle Morte does not come personally, but is represented by Asher, Jean-Claude's former lover and current mortal enemy. ** Morte d'Amour is represented by the vampires Yvette and Warrick. Anita is forced to put the mysteries aside as she participates in a series of confrontations between Jean-Claude's followers and the council. Ultimately, Anita's combination of loyalty, ruthlessness, and naiveté allows her to triumph over each of the delegations of vampires. * The Master of Beasts and Fernando attempt to seize control of as many of the city's lycanthropes as possible, but are ultimately stopped by Anita, Richard and Rafael. Anita assumes control of the leopard pard and fully assumes her role as lupa, rescuing all of the local shapeshifters with Richard and Jean-Claude's help, but not before the Master of Beasts, Fernando, and Liv torture Rafael and Fernando and Liv torture and rape Sylvie and Vivian. * Anita shares Jean-Claude's love for Asher, notwithstanding Asher's scars and his hatred of them both. Ultimately, their love wins Asher over, and he decides to leave Belle Morte's service and remain in St. Louis with Anita and Jean-Claude. * Anita offers friendship to the Traveler, and challenges him to be a worthy ruler when she discovers that his power is causing local vampires to become feral. Intrigued, he accepts. * As she and Richard confront the Master of Beasts a second time, the Master lets Anita get too close. Anita draws on the power of Raina's munin, using Raina's powers to threaten harm rather than healing. With the Master's heart in her metaphysical grip, Anita threatens to kill him unless the Master leaves St. Louis and turns over Liv and Fernando to suffer the punishment for raping a member of Anita's werewolf pack. The Master is loath to give up his son, but ultimately agrees, and Anita turns Liv and Fernando over to Sylvie and the pack, winning their loyalty as their lupa. * Yvette then reveals her plan, solving the remaining mysteries. Like Mister Oliver before him, Yvette's master, Morte d'Amour, fears the US experiment with vampire legalization and wishes to sabotage it. Yvette, together with Harry, the owner of Burnt Offerings, has been provoking Humans First to attack vampires and vampire businesses, and plans for Asher to kill Jean-Claude, seize control of the city's vampires, and provoke them into a murderous rampage. Asher, won over by Jean-Claude and Anita, refuses. Yvette then reveals her back-up plan—at her instructions, Warrick, a pyrokinetic, has been setting the arson fires, and will burn down a stadium full of people. Warrick, a former crusader, announces that he has rediscovered his faith in God and refuses to assist Yvette. Yvette then announces that she personally will go on a rampage, but is stopped by Warrick, who uses his powers to burn both Yvette and himself to ash. |
5069054 | /m/0d19b6 | Islands in the Stream | Ernest Hemingway | 1970 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The first act, "Bimini", begins with an introduction to the character of Thomas Hudson, a classic Hemingway stoic male figure. Hudson is a renowned American painter who finds tranquility on the island of Bimini, in the Bahamas, a far cry from his usual adventurous lifestyle. Hudson’s strict routine of work is interrupted when his three sons arrive for the summer and is the setting for most of the act. Also introduced in this act is the character of Roger Davis, a writer, one of Hudson’s oldest friends. Though similar to Hudson, by struggling with an unmentioned internal conflict, Davis seems to act as a more dynamic and outgoing image of Hudson’s character. The act ends with Hudson receiving news of the death of his two youngest children soon after they leave the island. "Cuba" takes place soon thereafter during the Second World War in Havana, Cuba where we are introduced to an older and more distant Hudson who has just received news of his oldest (and last) son’s death in the war. This second act introduces us to a more cynical and introverted Hudson who spends his days on the island drinking heavily and doing naval reconnaissance for the US military aboard Hudson's yacht, converted to an auxiliary patrol boat. "At Sea", the final act, follows Hudson and a team of irregulars aboard their boat as they track and pursue survivors of a sunken German U-boat along the Jardines del Rey archipelago on the northern coast of Cuba. Hudson becomes intent on finding the fleeing Germans after he finds they massacred an entire village to cover their escape. The novel ends with a shoot-out and the destruction of the Germans in one of the tidal channels surrounding Cayo Guillermo. Hudson is presumably mortally wounded in the gun battle, although the ending is slightly ambiguous. During the chase, Hudson stops questioning the death of his children. This chapter rings heavily with influences of Hemingway’s earlier work For Whom the Bell Tolls. |
5071062 | /m/0d1ct4 | Shuttle Down | G. Harry Stine | 1981 | {"/m/017rf8": "Techno-thriller"} | In the book, the Space Shuttle Atlantis launches on a polar orbit launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in Southern California. During the launch, the main engines cut off prematurely and the shuttle is forced to make an emergency landing on Rapa Nui, better known to most of the world as Easter Island. Landing is just the start of the problems for NASA, who now have to deal with the immense technological challenge of getting the shuttle back home. Problems include lack of documents for the astronauts and shuttle, bringing in the crane that's used to lift the shuttle onto the specially modified 747 that carries it, widening the runway to accommodate the 747, building turn-arounds on the runway so that it can turn and take off again, bringing in fuel for the plane and many, many other problems. A subplot involves efforts by the Soviet Union to take the shuttle for themselves. In real life, and shortly after publication of this book, the United States paid the Chilean Government to improve the facilities at Mataveri International Airport on Rapa Nui in case of just such an emergency, and the airport now has a relatively long runway. In addition, astronauts now carry passports and other documents, including traveller's cheques, in case of emergency landings. |
5073808 | /m/0d1jhn | The Face | Jack Vance | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | Kirth Gersen tracks Lens Larque across several worlds, most notably Aloysius, the desert world Dar Sai and the more temperate Methel. He eventually learns that Larque is a Darsh, born Husse Bugold. He had been deprived of an earlobe and made a rachepol or outcast from his clan for a crime considered "repulsive but not superlatively heinous." He took the name Lens Larque, after the lanslarke, an indigenous creature and the fetish of the Bugold clan. (It was this slim clue that enabled Gersen to track him down.) He then became a notorious criminal renowned for his magnificent, if often grotesque and horrifying, jests. Gersen encounters Larque at a Darsh restaurant on Aloysius, but only manages to cut off his remaining earlobe. Gersen had arranged to impound one of Larque's spaceships, in order to lure him in from the lawless Beyond. In an ironic twist, Larque escapes Gersen's courtroom ambush, blows up the ship, and collects insurance money - from a company owned by Gersen. Gersen then proceeds to Dar Sai. The harsh planet is home to the "fierce and perverse" Darsh, who mine black sand, stable transuranic elements of atomic number 120 or greater. The inhabitants have odd mating customs; when the moon is full, men and women chase each other on the desert. Young women are used as bait to lure men into the clutches of ugly, older women. Gersen determines that Larque is connected somehow with a seemingly worthless Dar Sai company called Kotzash Mutual. He begins buying up its shares in an attempt to gain control, but falls short of what he needs, until shares are put up as a prize for a hadaul match. Hadaul is essentially a free-for-all brawl within a series of concentric rings. Gersen, by dint of skill and cleverness, wins the match and gains control of the company. He also rescues Jerdian Chanseth, a young aristocratic Methlen woman, when her sightseeing party is waylaid by Darsh during their mating activities. A brief romance blossoms between them. Gersen then follows Larque to Methlen. The wealthier Methlens reside in large manors with which they closely identify. Gersen attempts to renew his relationship with Jerdian, going so far as to buy the mansion next to her family's. But being a disreputable (if extremely rich) space vagabond and decidedly not Methlen, he is rejected as a suitor by her father, bank owner Adario Chanseth, who uses the law to nullify the sale of the house. It turns out that Larque himself had tried to buy the same estate, but had also been thwarted by the same Methlen law, because Chanseth didn't want to see his "great Darsh face hanging over my garden wall." Eventually, Gersen learns that Lens Larque and Kotzash Mutual have been mining Shanitra, the small moon of Methlen, for some mysterious reason. It was well known that Shanitra bore no useful deposits of ore and was practically worthless. Nonetheless, Kotzash had gone to great pains to place extensive explosive charges all across its surface. Gersen finally tracks Larque down and kills him with cluthe, a paralyzing poison. In his final moments of life, the Darsh begs Gersen to press a button, but Gersen denies him his last request. However, Gersen has divined Larque's last and most grandiose jest, and having exactly the same motivation, he presses the button after the Demon Prince has died. Shanitra is racked by explosions and takes on a new shape, the face of Lens Larque, expression frozen in a leering grin. Gersen then calls Adario Chanseth and dryly informs him there is a "great Darsh face hanging over your garden wall." |
5073937 | /m/0d1jp7 | The Killing Machine | Jack Vance | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | To hone his skills, Gersen spends time as a "weasel", a police spy in the lawless Beyond; in this role he is sent on a sensitive mission in which Kokor Hekkus is reputedly involved. He is to intercept a “Mr Hoskins,” with license to kill him if necessary. Mr Hoskins is killed, though not by Gersen, who however recovers two pieces of paper that were being exchanged. The one from Hoskins’s contact, Billy Windle, provides information on how to become a “hormagaunt,” a legendary undying monster that steals children and lives on the supposedly mythical planet Thamber; the other contains technical specifications that Gersen doesn't understand. During debriefing, Gersen is made aware that Billy Windle was Kokor Hekkus himself. He laments his lost chance, but shortly afterward he learns that Hekkus is masterminding a series of kidnappings, not his normal modus operandi. The victims are taken to Interchange, on a planet in the Beyond where exchanges between kidnappers and ransomers are facilitated. Gersen learns that the latest victims are the children of a local high-ranking Fellow of the powerful Institute, Duschane Audmar, who as a matter of Institute policy must remain aloof under all circumstances. Gersen convinces him to underwrite a fact-finding mission to Interchange to learn more of Hekkus’s activities and to ransom the children. While there, Gersen learns that Hekkus accumulates funds to ransom a lovely young woman named Alusz Iphigenia Eperje-Tokay who claims to be from Thamber; she fled her homeworld when Hekkus became interested in her and settled on Interchange as her only possible refuge, since not even he would dare to interfere with that organization. As her own "kidnapper," she had set her ransom at a staggering, seemingly unattainable ten billion SVU, but Hekkus was undaunted, and set out to raise the immense sum by kidnapping the loved ones of the Oikumene’s hundred wealthiest citizens, ransoming them for a hundred million apiece. Gersen also meets Myron Patch, an engineer from Krokinole. Patch had built Hekkus a unique many-legged walking “fort” made to look like a giant centipede, but when Hekkus was dissatisfied with the result, Patch refused to refund the money already paid, and was accordingly kidnapped and shipped to Interchange to recover the sum. Having enough money on hand, Gersen ransoms him as well as the Audmar children, and temporarily takes a controlling interest in his engineering company. He determines to improve the fort to lure Hekkus within his reach, and has some ideas as to how to correct the faults in its walking mechanism that Hekkus had identified. Gersen demands and is paid more money by Hekkus’s agent Seuman Otwal for the alterations, but when it is time to deliver the completed fort, Gersen is taken captive and ordered to repay the money; when he cannot, he is dispatched to Interchange. While there, Gersen sees an old newspaper article that identifies “Mr Hoskins” as a senior bank official. He recalls the cryptic fragment of paper he recovered earlier and surmises that it describes marks used to authenticate banknotes. He forges enough money to free himself, and soon afterward returns to ransom Alusz Iphigenia. As she had in effect kidnapped herself, the money goes to her (minus Interchange's fee) – and since she is uninterested, Gersen becomes fabulously wealthy. (Usefully, it is laundered money; Interchange and Hekkus are left with nothing, as Gersen's forgeries had been printed with disappearing ink.) Gersen hopes that Alusz Iphigenia will be able to guide him to Thamber. She has no knowledge of astrogation but is able to complete a nursery rhyme that allows Gersen to deduce the planet's location. Thamber is home to a quasi-medieval culture, complete with barbarian tribes into whose hands Gersen and Alusz Iphigenia quickly fall. He has to fight the formidable leader of a war-band in order to save her from sexual slavery, and they accompany the warriors to Kokor Hekkus’s castle. There the barbarians easily defeat Hekkus’s foot soldiers, but then Patch's mechanical fort appears. It mimics one of Thamber's greatest terrors, an animal called the dnazd, and the barbarians flee in panic before it. Gersen, however, had foreseen the possibility of facing Patch's creation and had installed an Achilles heel. He disables the war machine and takes its crew prisoner, in the process noting that one of the men aboard, Franz Paderbush, resembles Seuman Otwal and also Billy Windle, in height and build. He takes the fort to the castle of Sion Trumble, at one time Alusz Iphigenia’s fiancé. Trumble offers the services of a friend who knows Kokor Hekkus, but the man denies that Paderbush is him. Gersen has his own suspicions. He allows his prisoner to escape, but then quickly forces his way into Trumble’s private quarters. There he finds Paderbush in the process of transforming himself into Trumble, for they are one and the same, and both are alter-egos of Kokor Hekkus. Hekkus himself has no face, having concealed his hideous un-face beneath a series of cunningly made masks, and he had for uncounted years played numerous roles on Thamber in order to enact wars, conquests and atrocities for his own amusement. Gersen identifies himself, reminding Hekkus of the Mount Pleasant raid in which his home was destroyed and nearly all of his family killed, and after giving him a few seconds for the news to sink in, summarily executes him. He then returns to the Oikumene accompanied by Alusz Iphigenia, promising to send ships to bring Thamber back into contact with the rest of humanity. |
5074911 | /m/0d1ktl | Room at the Top | John Braine | 1957 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Joe Lampton, recently demobilised from the armed forces of late 1940s Britain, is starting in a new job with the Municipal Treasury in the town of Warley. He was a POW who spent his captivity studying to pass his accountancy examinations. He is an orphan whose parents were killed in an air raid against his home town. He is determined to make something of himself, targeting a high-paid job with a thousand a year salary. He notices, shortly after arriving, a young man with an expensive car and a pretty girl friend and he realises that this lifestyle and appearance is what he aspires to. The book centres on Joe's efforts to secure a future he can take pride in. In Warley, he takes lodgings with the Thompsons, a middle-class couple living in the better part of town, known locally as "T'top". Lampton is delighted to find himself already socially advantaged by taking, quite literally, a "Room at the top", and this serves as a metaphor for his ambition to better himself and to leave behind any vestige of his former life and acquaintances, many of whom he characterises as "zombies", lacking any trace of genuine life and character. Everything about Warley is an improvement on his former life in Dufton. The Thompsons introduce him to the local amateur dramatic society, which is in need of new faces, and there he meets Susan Brown, the only daughter of a very successful local businessman. He also meets the apparently cold and standoffish Alice Aisgill, who plays many of the leading lady parts. Alice and Joe are drawn together through intelligent conversation, and their relationship soon becomes a highly rewarding sexual one, in spite of what Alice perceives to be a significant age difference. Although supposedly betrothed to Jack Wales, the dashing scion of a wealthy local family, the naive and childish Susan allows Joe to woo her; meanwhile, Joe and Alice develop their relationship through clandestine sex in a borrowed apartment. Joe has a way with words, and convinces Alice of his affections for her - consolidating this during a stolen few days away in a country cottage, during which Alice declares her undying commitment to Lampton; in the meantime, Joe's silver tongue and persistence also enable him to seduce Susan, who becomes pregnant. This is part of Joe's plan; Joe loves Alice, but wants to marry Susan so as to achieve his social ambitions, and to demonstrate that he can outdo Wales in his battle for the girl's affections; people are becoming aware of the relationship with Alice, and exposure threatens his future (it would force him to leave town), so Joe is not averse when Susan's father insists on their immediate marriage, sweetening the offer with a "thousand a year " job, on condition that he drop Alice for good. Alice, distraught at the break-up, is found severely injured after a drunken car crash near where she and Joe first consummated their love, and dies shortly afterwards. Room at the Top concludes with Joe drunkenly attempting to cope with remorse over Alice’s death and his successful scheme to marry upwards. He is reassured that nobody blames him for Alice's death - but he knows this is wrong, and the book closes with him aware of his conscience, forced to live with his guilt and his responsibility for what has happened. |
5075303 | /m/0d1lfg | Kill the Indian, Save the Man | null | null | null | The book is primarily an extended essay, entitled "Genocide by Any Other Name," tracing the history of the mandatory attendance of Native American children at residential schools, which generally meant they left their families to receive education in distant places, where they studied with children from other tribes. Churchill analyzes this as a process of genocide (forced assimilationist policies, as school policies often prohibited the use of the students' own languages and their exercise of their own religions or cultural practices, such as style of hair and clothes. Particularly in the early years, the schools were generally run by religious organizations, many of which had already established missions among the Native Americans. During the nearly 100-year history of the schools, conditions varied from place to place. Former students have also reported positive experiences. Families often hid their children, or their cultural identities, in an attempt to keep their children from being kidnapped. Trickery and outright paternalistic force were used to remove young children from their homes. Families were devastated, and once enrolled at school, the children were not allowed to associate with siblings or loved ones. Stress and trauma for both native communities and individual children still haunt the people today. Children were forced to develop an identity which did not prepare them for life back home in the native communities from which they came, or in the society at large which did not accept native people as equals. These people did not belong anywhere. He describes the sometimes terrible conditions in the schools, with poor nutrition, a high rate of tuberculosis (untreatable until the use of antibiotics was developed) and other infectious diseases (which were common in the times); forced labor, and incidents of physical, sexual and emotional abuse. He says the students suffered a higher rate of mortality than children of their age in the general population. He notes that many graduates have reported being damaged by their experiences and have suffered high rates of alcoholism (note: this has been a problem for Native Americans outside of the school experience) and suicide. Churchill says the former students have transmitted the "trauma to successive generations," contributing to social disintegration among Native American communities. The author intended the book to compensate for his not having covered the boarding schools and their issues in his 1979 book A Little Matter of Genocide. It includes numerous photos and lists of such historic schools in the US and Canada. |
5078068 | /m/0d1q2p | For the Term of his Natural Life | Marcus Clarke | null | null | The story starts with a prologue, telling the tale of young British aristocrat, Richard Devine, who is the son of a shipbuilding magnate, Sir Richard Devine. In an incidence of domestic violence, Richard's mother reveals to Sir Richard that his son was fathered by another man, Lord Bellasis. Sir Richard proceeds to threaten the mother's reputation if Richard does not leave and never come back. He leaves him to pack for a while, claiming that he will fetch his lawyer to alter his will so that Richard receives no inheritance. When Richard leaves, he comes across a murder scene: his biological father, Lord Bellasis has been murdered, and Richard witnesses Sir Richard walking away from the scene of the crime. The police come and lock up Richard, who now gives his name as Rufus Dawes (which is used for the remainder of the book), for the murder of Lord Bellasis. Additionally, Sir Richard returns home and dies straight away, possibly of a heart-attack, without altering his will. Rufus Dawes/Richard Devine never finds this out. Rufus is found not guilty of the murder but guilty of the robbery of the corpse and sentenced to transportation to the penal colony of Australia. In 1827, Dawes is shipped to Van Diemen's Land on the "Malabar", which also carries Captain Vickers, who is to become the new commander of the penal settlement at Macquarie Harbour, his wife Julia and child Sylvia, Julia's maid, one Sarah Purfoy and Lieutenant Maurice Frere, Richard Devine's cousin, son of Sir Richard's sister, who would have inherited the fortune in Richard's place. It turns out that Sarah is on the vessel only to free her lover, John Rex. She organises a mutiny with the help of three other men: Gabbett, James "Jemmy" Vetch or "the Crow" and a man nicknamed "the moocher", while John Rex is in hospital with the fever. One night, a burning vessel is sighted and found out to be the Hydaspes; the ship on which Richard Devine is supposed to have sailed. The crew cannot be found. The following day, Dawes overhears the plans of the mutineers, but is taken to the hospital sick with the fever shortly afterwards. He manages to warn Captain Vickers and Doctor Pine about the plans. Sarah gets the Captain drunk and Frere otherwise busy but does not know about Vickers clandestinely doubling the guard. The mutiny is, therefore, unsuccessful, but Jemmy Vetch, who has understood that only Dawes could have betrayed them, gets his revenge by claiming that Dawes was the ring leader of the mutiny. Dawes is found guilty and receives a second life sentence. In 1833, at Macquarie Harbour, Maurice Frere has come to deliver to Captain Vickers the news that the settlement at Macquarie Harbour is to be abandoned and the convicts to be moved to Port Arthur. He also attempts to befriend Sylvia, but the child resents him ever since witnessing his treatment of the convicts (especially that of Dawes, who went to the quarterdeck to return her ball). Rufus Dawes has been the victim of several assassination attempts at the convicts' hands, but has also attempted escape twice and has a long record of bad conduct and punishments. At the moment of Frere's arrival, he is in solitary confinement on Grummet rock, a small island before the coast. Dawes has managed to recognise Frere at the harbour and now, seeing the preparations for the abandonment of the settlement, mistakenly assumes that Frere has taken command. Rather than suffer Frere's treatment upon his return, he attempts to drown himself. Meanwhile, it has been decided that Vickers should sail with the convicts and Frere follow with the brig "Osprey" with Mrs. Vickers and Sylvia, the pilot, five soldiers and ten convicts. Among the convicts is John Rex, who has again plans for mutiny. The convicts succeed in taking the boat, killing two soldiers, wounding one, and marooning him with the Vickers, the pilot and Frere. The pilot and the wounded man die shortly afterwards. One night, a man reaches their makeshift camp. It is Rufus Dawes, who has managed to swim to the settlement only to find it deserted. Although initially weary of him, the little community soon accepts Dawes, especially since he knows all kinds of ways to make their life more agreeable. Sylvia takes to him and Dawes soon does everything to please her, despite Frere's jealous attempts to win Sylvia's affection. It is also Dawes, who, after Sylvia mentioned the coracles of the Ancient Britons, plans and succeeds in building a boat out of saplings and goat hide. Although Frere promises Dawes a pardon, he nevertheless does not stop treating him like an inferior, at one point upsetting Dawes so much that he considers leaving on his own. Only Sylvia's writing in the sand, "Good Mr. Dawes", stops him. Through a hazard, Frere tells Dawes of the fate of his cousin and how narrowly he missed inheriting the Devine fortune. Dawes had not known about Sir Richard's death. Finally, they set to sea with Mrs. Vickers gravely ill and Sylvia soon also sick. After some time they are found by an American vessel at which point Frere takes the rudder of the boat and Sylvia in his arms. By 1838, in Port Arthur, Mrs. Vickers has died. Sylvia has lost all her memories of the incident at Macquarie Harbour and knows only what she has been told about it. She is now a young woman of sixteen and engaged to Captain Maurice Frere, who has told the story of the mutiny in his own way: making himself the hero and claiming that Dawes attempted to murder all three of them. News arrives that the surviving mutineers of the Osprey have been captured and are to be tried at Port Arthur. Sarah Purfoy calls on Frere and begs him to speak in Rex's favour, saying that he left them food and tools. She threatens to expose Frere's previous affairs to Sylvia. Frere consents to her demands. Rufus Dawes is also brought down from Hobart to identify the captured men. At the trial, he sees Sylvia again and realises that she is alive: he had been informed of her death. He tries to speak his case but is not allowed to. The mutineers get away with life sentences. Dawes escapes to see Sylvia again and begs her to speak, but in her amnesia she is afraid of him and calls for help. Dawes, too thunderstruck to leave, is immediately recaptured and sent back to Hobart. There, he meets the Reverend James North, a drunkard, whose failure to get up in time after a drinking night results in the death of a convict at the triangle, whom North had sworn to protect. Dawes is ordered to carry out the flogging and upon eventually refusing is flogged himself. Despite Dawes' initial hate for the man he considers to be a hypocrite, he is moved by North's begging for forgiveness and calling him "brother". The next time he asks to see the chaplain he finds that North, an enemy to the bishop for his impious vices, has been replaced by Meekin, a dainty man, who lectures him on his sins rather than attempting to console him. John Rex seeks Dawes and tries to persuade him to join him in an escape, organised by Sarah Purfoy. Dawes refuses. Through luck, Rex starts talking about the Devines and about how he was once employed to find news of their son. Dawes, appalled, asks if he would still recognise the man and Rex understands all of Dawes' story. When shortly afterward a warder confuses them both, commenting on how much they look alike, Rex hatches another plan. A few days later, Rex and another group of eight, led by Gabbett and Vetch, escape. It soon becomes apparent that Rex used the other men only as decoys. They get hopelessly lost in the bush and start eating one another, leaving only Gabbett and Vetch to struggle for not being the first to fall asleep. Later, Gabbett is found on a beach by the crew of a whaling vessel, with the half-eaten arm of one of his comrades hanging out of his swag. This part is based on a true story, that of Alexander Pearce. Rex reaches Sydney and, soon becoming weary of Sarah, escaping her to go to London, where he presents himself as Richard Devine. Lady Ellinor accepts him as her son. In Norfolk Island, by 1846, Reverend James North has been appointed prison chaplain. Shortly afterward, Captain Frere becomes Commandant of the Island, resolved to enforce discipline there. North, appalled at the horrible punishments inflicted but not really daring to interfere, renews his friendship with Dawes and also takes to Sylvia. Her marriage is an unhappy one. Frere has grown weary of his wife over the years and Sylvia married him only because she believed that she owed love to the man who allegedly saved her life. Dawes has also been on the Island for five years and again becomes Frere's target. Frere is resolved to break his opponent's spirit and finally succeeds after inflicting punishment upon punishment on him for several weeks. One night, Dawes and his two cell mates draw lots. The longest straw and old hand Blind Mooney is killed at the hands of the second, Bland, with Dawes as the witness. According to their plan, Bland and Dawes get sentenced to death. North, in the meantime, has had to realise the true nature of his affection for Sylvia. At first, he attempts to keep away from her, but this unfriendliness is ill-received by Frere, who gets his revenge on the convicts open to North's words, especially on Dawes. One day, Sylvia has gone to see Dawes. She has not been able to stop thinking about him as she feels that there is more to the story than she knows. She finds Dawes on the "stretcher" and orders his release. Frere is furious when he learns about it and strikes Sylvia, despite North's presence. North has sent his resignation two months previously. Sylvia had already decided to go and see her father to escape the grievances of her life on the Island. The two admit their feelings for one another but decide to keep quiet until they can sail. North visits Dawes and learns the true story of the mutiny and rescue. He promises to tell Sylvia Dawes' story but does not. Meanwhile, Sarah has found John Rex in London. He has led a life of debauchery, much to the disapproval of Lady Ellinor. Sarah threatens to denounce John if he does not introduce her as his wife. Ever since Rex wanted to sell the family house, Lady Ellinor's suspicions have reached the point where she attempts to test her alleged son. When she forbids him to sell the house, Rex says that it only is his right to do so. Lady Ellinor tells him that he has no rights to anything since Richard Devine was a bastard, the son of Lord Bellasis. Rex suddenly understands their strange resemblance: he is also a son of Lord Bellasis; his mother was a servant in his house. Rex confesses to the murder of Lord Bellasis, who laughed at him when told this story. Lady Ellinor promises Sarah to allow them to leave the country in exchange for information about her son. Sarah manages to get them both aboard a vessel bound for Sydney, but Rex dies of a stroke during the voyage. Shortly before leaving, North visits Dawes to confess that he never talked to Sylvia because he is himself in love with her. Dawes tells the priest that he knows nothing about love and recounts his own story to illustrate his words. North confesses to having been the one who robbed the corpse of Lord Bellasis, as the Lord held proofs against North, who had been forging bank notes. Begging forgiveness again, North leaves in great confusion, forgetting his hat and cloak. Dawes manages to get out and on the boat in this disguise as the drunken warder has not closed his cell door. North observes him leaving and decides that it is for the best. The ship on which Dawes and Sylvia sail soon gets into a storm. Sylvia, seeking comfort from the reverend, finds Dawes in his place, and now remembers the past as the gale reaches its greatest force. The next morning finds their entangled corpses on a piece of planking from the sunken ship. * Macquarie Harbour Penal Station * Hell's Gates * Frenchmans Cap * Hobart * Port Arthur, Tasmania * Island of the Dead http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/f/fa/IsleOfTheDead.jpg/180px-IsleOfTheDead.jpg * Eaglehawk Neck, Tasmania * Norfolk Island |
5078257 | /m/0d1qb_ | Life at the Top | null | null | null | It is ten years further on from when last we learned of Joe's life in Room At The Top. He now has everything he thought he wanted - the upper-class wife, an executive job, two cars and two children for his new house. Yet, Joe is still a dissatisfied man - his job had not moved significantly forward in the last ten years. This dissatisfaction leads him back to his old philandering ways - spurred on by the knowledge of his wife's own infidelity. Joe and Susan separate temporarily but, towards the novel's close, Joe is drawn back to his life in Warley in response to trouble with his children and the self-knowledge of what his life needs. |
5078339 | /m/0d1qdq | Corduroy | Don Freeman | 1968 | {"/m/016475": "Picture book", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | The book tells the story of a teddy bear named Corduroy, displayed on a toy shelf in a department store. One day, a girl named Lisa arrives in the store with her mother and spots the bear. She is willing to buy him, however, her mother declines to spend more money and notes that a button is missing from his overalls. After they leave, Corduroy decides to find the missing button by himself and embarks on a trip around the department store after it closes in the evening. He goes upstairs and finds furniture he had never seen before, including beds and mattresses. Thinking that one of the mattress buttons is the one he is missing, he pulls it hard and eventually falls down from the bed, making noise. The store guard arrives, finds the bear and puts him back in place. The next day, Lisa comes back with the money she had found in her piggy bank and buys Corduroy. At home, she sews a button on his shoulder strap and the book ends with them saying that they had always wanted a friend and hugging each other. |
5079765 | /m/0d1sbq | Death in Holy Orders | P. D. James | 2001 | {"/m/0lsxr": "Crime Fiction", "/m/02n4kr": "Mystery"} | Dalgliesh visits Saint Anselm's in a semi-official capacity to follow up the death of a student some time previously - his father was not satisfied with the verdict. Whilst there, a visiting Archdeacon is murdered. Dalgliesh is assigned the investigation, summoning D I Miskin and D I Tarrant from London to assist, as well as local officers. Initial suspicion falls on one of the fathers who run and teach at the college, as the archdeacon was known to be recommending the closure of the college. Two more murders follow and after all present have been questioned, several skeletons are brought out the cupboard - including the fact that one of the students is unknowingly the son of one of the lay lecturers and that through his Mother, he will inherit the property, should it be closed and sold. Forensic evidence clinches the case against the lecturer and he confesses. The college is closed and the student inherits the proceeds. In this novel, Dalgliesh meets and begins a relationship with Dr Emma Lavenham, a visiting teacher from Cambridge. |
5080040 | /m/0d1sts | The Skull Beneath the Skin | P. D. James | 1982 | {"/m/0lsxr": "Crime Fiction", "/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Cordelia Gray is engaged by Sir George Ralston, a baronet and World War II hero, to accompany his wife, the acclaimed actress Clarissa Lisle, for a weekend at Courcy Castle on the island of the same name on the Dorset coast. Clarissa has been receiving thinly veiled death threats in form of quotations from plays where she played the main role. Shortly before the performance of The Duchess of Malfi, Clarissa is brutally murdered, leaving Cordelia and the Dorset CID to deal with solving the crime. |
5080326 | /m/0d1tb2 | Original Sin | P. D. James | null | {"/m/0lsxr": "Crime Fiction", "/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The murder of Peverell Press's managing director, ambitious Gerard Etienne, seems to be the horrible end of a series of malicious pranks in the company headquarters. When Adam Dalgliesh is called to the scene to solve the murder, he soon finds out that the killer does not intend to stop with Etienne. |
5082407 | /m/0d1x90 | The Interruption of Everything | Terry McMillan | 2005 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Marilyn Grimes, a 44-year-old mother of three has spent her time deferring her dreams to create the perfect suburban life for her family: her grown-up children, her live-in mother-in-law, an elderly poodle named Snuffy, and her workaholic husband Leon. |
5082958 | /m/0d1ylc | Sweet Danger | Margery Allingham | 1933 | {"/m/0lsxr": "Crime Fiction", "/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | Guffy Randall is surprised to find his old friend Albert Campion in a French hotel, accompanied by a mountaineer and a prospector, masquerading as minor Royalty. When Campion explains that they are seeking proof of British rights to a small territory, recently disturbed by an earthquake and turned into a strategically important harbour with its own fuel, Randall joins the team. Following their adversaries, headed by a secretive financier named Savanake, they travel to the village of Pontisbright in Suffolk, former seat of the heirs to the crown of Averna. After a night in the local inn, the Gauntlett, during which Lugg sees a corpse wrapped in a winding cloth on the nearby heath, they move to the local mill, run by an impoverished family with claims to be the lost heirs of the Pontisbright name. Amanda, the middle child, has an interest in electricity and radio, running a dynamo from the watermill; her aunt Hattie recently disturbed a burglar in the house, who Campion immediately identifies as "Peaky" Doyle, an old associate of Savanake who recently shot at Campion on the continent. Amanda shows them an ancient inscription on a slab of oak cut from the Pontisbright estate, which speaks of a crown hidden by a split diamond, and other proofs, believed to be the missing deeds and titles, marked by a bell and a drum. Campion and his friends visit Dr Galley, the local medic, a bizarre, eccentric old man who tries to scare them back to London with talk of a curse on the village. Back at the house, they find a drunken Lugg and Scatty Williams, the Fittons' servant, have beaten up a burglar found looking at the inscription; it is Peaky Doyle, who Campion insists they leave, unconscious, on the heath, revealing that he informed Doyle of the inscription in hopes of getting some help solving the riddle. Campion is called to a meeting with Savanake, who insists he take a job in Peru, leaving immediately; when Campion's friends receive a note saying he has run out on them, they resolve to stay to finish the business, but are at a loss as to how to continue. The house is invaded, and everyone left bound and gagged in the dark while it is searched, but they are mysteriously released later. A letter arrives addressed to Campion, which the men read after Amanda has opened it; it describes a drum belonging to the Pontisbrights, currently in a Norwich museum. Amanda reveals she has come into £300, and plans to buy a car and some radio equipment; when Farquharson and Randall arrive at the museum to retrieve the drum, they find Amanda and Scatty Williams have already taken it. At the mill, Hal meets Dr Galley, who tells him he has found evidence that Hal is the Pontisbright heir, and insists they all visit him the following night for dinner. Amanda arrives, and Hal locks her in the grain store, taking the drum. When the others return, he goes to tell them he has it, but when they return to his room the skin is gone from the drum and Amanda is free. Next morning, Lugg and Scatty leave early in the new car, laden with radio equipment. Two policemen arrive, and take Farquharson and Eager-Wright away, accused of trying to defraud a museum of its drum. Aunt Hattie disturbs a man rifling her jewellery, which leads to a gunfight in the yard; the thief is driven back into the house by Campion, dressed as a woman. He explains that he switched with a friend to avoid being sent abroad, and has been hiding in the house, secretly helping out. He tells them he arranged for the two men to be arrested by friends, so they could safely take the drum-skin bearing the deeds to Averna to London. He identifies a necklace of Aunt Hattie's as the ancient crown of Averna, and gives everyone instructions to go to Galley's and flee by boat when they get his signal. When he hears some stories about Galley from Amanda, he realises the old man is insane and plans to kill his guests. They rush to his house, arriving just in time to stop him drugging everyone, and Campion heads off on his mission. Amanda enters Galley's, and he begins a ceremony to conjure a demon. They learn he had tried this before, and had mistaken Peaky Doyle, who arrived during the ceremony, for Astaroth; he did Doyle's bidding for a time, until he found him unconscious on the heath, from when he believed he had control of the demon, and tried to feed him with bizarre herbs. He unveils Doyle, bizarrely dressed and near death, just as the sound of an enormous bell rings loud around the valley; the others overpower Galley, lock him up and flee in a camouflaged boat prepared by Amanda. Campion follows an echo of the bell, broadcast by a duplicate of the old Pontisbright bell in a foreign convent and amplified by Amanda's equipment. He finds an old well, but must hide in a tree when Savanake arrives with his well-armed gang. They remove an iron box from the well, but Campion has knocked out Savanake's chauffeur, and driving him and Parrott away with the box, heads to the mill and gets out, feigning engine trouble. He knocks Parrott out, but Savanake draws a gun on him; he knocks the box into the water, and he and Savanake fight. As Campion is about to drown in Savanake's mighty hands, Amanda opens the stops and flushes Savanake away. Campion is exhausted, and Savanake climbs out of the water; Amanda distracts him and grabs the box, but takes a bullet from Savanake's gun as she shuts a door on him. Savanake tries to get round to them, but falls through a rotten walkway; when Campion tries to help him, he shoots at Campion, losing his grip as he does so, and is washed into the waterwheel and killed. The army arrive and clear everything up, taking the precious deeds found in the box to the government. Hal has proof, found in Galley's house, that he is the Pontisbright heir; Randall and Mary plan to marry; and Amanda's wound is not serious. She and Campion talk, and she makes him promise to take her into "partnership", when she is a little older. |
5085765 | /m/0d20cl | An Actor Prepares | Constantin Stanislavski | 4/28/1989 | null | An Actor Prepares is the diary of a fictional student named Kostya during his first year of training in Stanislavski's system. Kostya and his fellow students have little to no experience in acting. As they go through the class, Tortsov, their teacher and theatre director addresses the many assumptions they have formed that do not coincide with the 'system'. Stanislavski relates his message with examples. He argues that his system is not a particular method, but a systematic analysis of the 'natural' order of theatrical truth. The system that he describes is a means both of mastering the craft of acting and of stimulating the actor's individual creativeness and imagination. It has influenced the majority of performances we see on the stage or screen. The book is autobiographical and deals with many different areas of acting skills, including action, imagination, concentration of attention, relaxation of muscles, units and objectives, faith and a sense of truth, emotion memory, communion, adaptation, inner motive forces, the unbroken line, the inner creative state, the super-objective and the subconscious mind. Tortsov, the Director, explains all these art forms in great detail, and thereby transforms An Actor Prepares into a type of textbook. The book begins when Kostya and his fellow students are waiting for their first lesson with the Director. They are excited and nervous at the prospect of meeting, and are surprised when he tells them that their first exercise is to put on a few scenes from a play. Kostya and two of his friends perform scenes from Othello, with Kostya taking the leading role. Afterwards the Director tells them their mistakes. At the end of the book, the students recall their first exercise: Sitting in a chair in a way that interests the audience, and searching for a brooch convincingly. fr:La Formation de l'acteur |
5085908 | /m/0d20k3 | Tuck Everlasting | Natalie Babbitt | null | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01qxvh": "Romance novel", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Ten-year-old Winnie comes from a well-bred and straight-laced family who keeps her safe behind a four-foot iron fence that surrounds their home. She lives a life of boredom and frustration. They are the oldest family in the town and own the surrounding woods. When she runs away from her confinement and into the woods one morning, she finds a beautiful tree from which a spring of water pours with a teenage boy—almost a young man—drinking from it. This discovery leads her to learn of the Tuck family - the boy named Jesse Tuck and the rest of his family (Jesse's mother Mae Tuck, father Angus Tuck, and brother Miles)—who are immortal (they do not age and cannot be killed by most normal fatal accidents or methods of killing; it was never clear whether they would survive) because they drank from this spring eighty-seven years earlier. The family decides it best to take Winnie away with them to explain the secret and why it must be kept—but all the while, a man in a yellow suit has been watching. He has come to the town in hopes of finding the spring (which he had heard of through stories told by his grandmother who is Miles Tuck's wife's friend) and selling the water for an incredibly high price. He uses this supposed kidnapping of Winnie to define the Tucks as brutes, and uses it to persuade the Fosters to give him the forest. Meanwhile, the Tucks introduce Winnie to their strange limbo existence, and she grows to love them like the family and friends she never really had. They are affectionate, with nearly no apparent rules, and live humbly in the woods 20 miles from town. They state that unleashing immortality upon the world would disrupt the balance of life, throwing human beings out of the great cycle of life and death and turning them into "rocks on the side of the road." Their brief time together is ended when the man in the yellow suit confronts the family, whom he has tracked to their home after the "abduction." After hearing his plan, Mae Tuck takes out a shotgun and hits him in the back of his head with the stock, a blow from which he eventually dies. The constable, who has followed the man, sees only Mae's assault, not the man in the suit's plans to use the Tucks as sideshow freaks. Mae is incarcerated in the newly built jail and will be hanged, but since she cannot die, her date with the gallows will reveal the Tucks' secret to the world. Jesse then gives Winnie a bottle of the spring water, and tells her to drink it when she turns 17, as he has asked her to live and travel the world with him, or even get married. Jesse argues that immortality is only dreadful for the Tucks because the way in which they live makes it so; he says that they could be together, in the prime of their lives, forever. Meeting the family by the jailhouse the night before Mae's "execution," the boys open the jail's bars, and Winnie takes the place of Mae in the cell. They then escape, while Winnie is found in the cell the next day. She gets into trouble for helping the Tucks escape, but the secret is safe. In the epilogue, it is revealed that Winnie had a family of her own after the Tucks' escape. Winnie died of old age before the Tucks came back to Treegap for her. The Tucks were saddened, yet they left to live their immortal lives. |
5089642 | /m/0d266q | Sideways | Rex Pickett | 2004-06 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The novel is the story of two friends, Miles and Jack, who go away together for the last time to steep themselves in everything that makes it good to be young and single. During the week before Jack plans to marry, the pair heads out from Los Angeles to the Santa Ynez wine country. |
5090100 | /m/0d26w3 | The Big Six | Arthur Ransome | 1940 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/08sdrw": "Adventure novel"} | The Ds return to Norfolk, hoping to enjoy a holiday with their friends of the Coot Club. Unfortunately, they find the Death and Glories coming under an increasing cloud of suspicion for setting moored boats adrift. Everywhere they go boats seem to be cast adrift and they are threatened with being forbidden to sail. Things get worse when new shackles are stolen from a boatbuilder after one of the casting off episodes and some of them are found aboard the Death and Glory. At the same time, the boys seem to be flush with cash, but they won't say where they got it. The Big Six (Dick, Dorothea, Tom Dudgeon, and the three Death and Glories) get together to investigate the crimes and collect evidence. Eventually a carefully prepared trap is sprung and in a flash (literally, to take a night photo of the real culprits), the villains are discovered and the boys are exonerated. The source of their secret supply of money is uncovered when a local pub unveils a magnificent stuffed pike. |
5090172 | /m/0d271n | Missee Lee | Arthur Ransome | 1941 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/08sdrw": "Adventure novel"} | The book opens with the Swallows, Amazons and Captain Flint in an unnamed port in the South China Sea, apparently the Hundredth Port of a round-the-world voyage aboard the Wild Cat, the small green schooner which featured in Peter Duck. They are warned to stay away from the Chinese coast because of pirates. On the next stage of their voyage, they encounter a dead calm. Their monkey, Gibber, causes a fire which burns the Wild Cat to the waterline so she sinks. They all escape aboard the Swallow and Amazon which are being used as ship's boats. However, the boats are separated in the night when a strong wind blows up. The crew of the Amazon, the Blackett sisters and their uncle, is picked up by a junk, which turns out to be a pirate vessel. The Swallows make their own way to shore, where they eventually meet the Amazons, who are being held by Taicoon Chang, one of the Taicoons who rule the Three Islands. Captain Flint is kept under much stricter guard by the Taicoon, as he hopes to ransom him, as he claims to be the Lord Mayor of San Flancisco. The children are sent to Missee Lee, the leader of the pirates. She turns out to be a frustrated academic from Camblidge, who had been sent to England for her education, only to have to return to rule the Three Islands when her father died. She starts to give the children Latin lessons, at which Roger surprisingly excels. Captain Flint is also bought from Taicoon Chang who has threatened to chop off his head. The pirates are concerned that if the Royal Navy were to learn their position, a gunboat might be sent to destroy them, so when Captain Flint is later seen by the other Taicoon, Wu, with a sextant, they are only saved from having their heads chopped off by Missee Lee's intervention. As they consider that they are still in danger of execution and are also becoming fed up with the Latin lessons, they plan an escape. During the Dragon festival, they set sail aboard Missee Lee's junk, the Shining Moon. With the help of Missee Lee, who has decided to leave her responsibilities on the Three Islands and go back to study at Camblidge, they take a daring and dangerous passage through a gorge to evade capture. However, when Missee Lee hears fighting begin between the various islanders, she decides that she owes it to her people to return and unite them again. The Swallows, Amazons and Captain Flint return to England aboard the Shining Moon. |
5090932 | /m/0d282t | Nemesis | Jo Nesbø | 2002 | {"/m/0lsxr": "Crime Fiction"} | A bank robbery is committed by a lone robber in a balaclava mask. Holding a bank teller hostage, he demands that the bank's ATM be emptied within 25 seconds before the police can arrive, or he will kill her. To conceal his voice, he makes the hostage speak his demands, whispered into her ear. The bank manager empties the ATM, but it takes him 31 seconds. Taking the money, the robber whispers one last time to the hostage before shooting her. Initially given to the robberies unit, the case remains unsolved. However, a police video evidence expert, Beate Lønn, surmises that, since the robber and hostage are intimately close together, the robber knew his victim well. The case is transferred to Lønn and Harry Hole, treating it as a murder investigation. Further bank robberies occur in the same way. However, successful emptying of the ATMs within the specified time limit mean that no other tellers are killed. Whilst his girlfriend, Rakel, and her son Oleg are in Moscow on a parental custody case (Oleg's Russian father has sued for the return of his son), Harry Hole is invited to dinner at the flat of an old girlfriend. Anna, a flamboyant painter of minor skill, intends to have an art show which she wants to call Nemesis. The following morning, Harry awakens in his own apartment with the classic symptoms of a hangover, headache and short-term memory loss regarding the events of the night before. Later that day, Anna Bethsen is found dead, an apparent suicide. But the gun is held in her right hand, and Harry knows Anna was left-handed, so he believes this is a disguised murder. A photograph found near her body suggests the involvement of a rich businessman, who may have been Anna's lover. Harry, who has concealed his presence in Anna's flat, now is in a race against time to discover the murderer before he is implicated himself. With no memory of the night of her death, he is even uncertain that he himself is not the killer. Learning that Anna was a gypsy, Harry enlists the help of Anna's blood relative, Raskol, a former bank robber now in prison, the latter's insights into the robberies in exchange for Harry solving the murder of his niece. Harry's dealings with Raskol extend also to getting from him considerable sums of money to finance a private investigation for which Harry cannot use police resources - an act which, had it been discovered, could have led to Harry losing his job and being prosecuted. Further evidence plus Raskol's suggestions send Harry and Beate Lønn on a visit to a robbery suspect hiding in São Paulo, Brazil, but the man is found hanging from a beam in his home, another apparent suicide. Back home, Harry receives a number of e-mails from the murderer, signed S2MN, which give him insights into the latter's mind. But simultaneously, Detective Inspector Tom Waaler, a thorn in Harry's side in The Redbreast (the previous novel), learns of Harry's visit to Anna and, with great delight, prepares to arrest him. Harry now finds himself on the run. He forwards the incriminating e-mails to Beate Lønn as evidence of his innocence. But forensics determines that the e-mails were sent on time-delay by a modem connected to Harry's own (missing) mobile phone, so Harry is still implicated. Tom Waaler, meanwhile, uncovers another former lover of Anna's, who may also have robbed the banks. But he shoots him dead when he seems to resist arrest, just as he had done to a murder suspect in the Redbreast investigation, so that line of inquiry is closed. Eventually, the strange signature on the e-mails, S2MN, is deciphered when Harry catches sight of it in a mirror. Now reading NM2S, he deduces that the 2 represents a second S, and that running the letters together phonetically, it sounds like the word Nemesis ("revenge"), the name of Anna's intended art show. His "hangover" symptoms are proven by forensic evidence to be the effects of being drugged. Anna's death was therefore an intricate suicide, which she had plotted to confuse and convict Harry and two other former lovers, all of whom had abandoned her. This solution also leads Harry to realize that the first bank robber was, in fact, the husband of the murdered bank teller, who had intended to leave him for his brother in Brazil. The inescapable conclusion is that all the crimes were done for love. Thanks to Raskol's gypsy contacts, Rakel wins the custody battle for Oleg and returns to Norway with him. But even now Harry cannot relax. He has gotten wind of a witness in the murder of his former colleague, killed during the Redbreast investigation into a mysterious gun smuggler. The witness may have seen Ellen's murderer with the smuggler, known only as the Prince. Harry shows him a picture of his new prime suspect... In fact, the reader knows much more than Harry, having been told a lot by the omniscient author. The ending clearly sets the stage for a shattering showdown in the following book. As with other Harry Hole novels, the novel was translated from Norwegian into English by Don Bartlett. no:Sorgenfri (bok) zh:復仇女神的懲罰 |
5091671 | /m/0d293g | Bloodhype | Alan Dean Foster | 1973 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The Vom is an intergalactic intelligence described as a large black blob not unlike a gigantic amoeba, impervious to almost all energy and physical attack. Following years of battle with the Tar-Aiym it has sheltered on a planet where it has gone dormant for 500,000 years, waiting for an opportunity to escape the Tar-Aiym Guardian orbiting in space above it. Carmot MMYM a commander in the AAnn Empire discovers the Vom and brings it to the planet Repler for study at a concealed AAnn base. Lieutenants Kitten “Kitty” Kai-sung, a female human, and Porsupah, a male Tolian, of the Intelligence Arm of the United Church have been sent to Repler to investigate the newly re-established trade in the drug bloodhype (aka jaster, silly salt, brain-up, phinto) as the most deadly and addictive drug in and outside the Humanx Commonwealth. Once on Repler they make contact with the drug trader Dominick Rose who are using Captain Malcolm Hammurabi and his ship, the Umbra, as unwitting transporters of bloodhype. This trio tracks Rose to his base where they encounter Flinx, currently in Rose’s employ, who helps them escape when Rose’s men capture the agents. After reporting Rose’s activities to the United Church, Rose escapes to the AAnn base right before the AAnn lose control of the Vom. Meanwhile, the agents have enlisted the help of Rose’s brother who has discovered the Tar-Aiym Guardian and his machine now orbiting above Repler. With the assistance of Flinx’s psychic abilities the Guardian prepares to fight the Vom again, while Kitty, Porsupah, and Mal prepare a raid on the AAnn base to capture Rose. The Vom escapes and the Guardian is forced to fight it in a psychic battle, but is slowly losing until Kitty and Mal manage to recover Rose’s supply of bloodhype and use it to poison the Vom. Now weakened, the Vom succumbs to the Tar-Aiym Guardian. After the battle the Guardian self-destructs, Flinx leaves Repler on his ship Teacher, Porsupah gets drunk, while Mal and Kitty start a romantic relationship. |
5092014 | /m/0d29k2 | Orphan Star | Alan Dean Foster | 1977 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The novel takes place in 550 A.A. (After Amalgamation in Foster’s timeline, 2950 AD). Flinx, no longer a poor orphan, is chasing a merchant to Hivehom and Terra in search of information about his parentage. Along the way Flinx is joined by Sylzenzuzex, a female Thranx member of the Commonwealth Church. His chase leads him to Ulru-Ujurr, a planet under Edict from the United Church, ostensibly because it contains a highly intelligent telepathic race. It is on Ulru-Ujurr that he discovers the mystery of his parentage and begins the childlike Ulru-Ujurrians on their "Game of Civilization". |
5092903 | /m/0d2bll | The End of the Matter | Alan Dean Foster | 1977 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | He not only finds this man, Skua September, but also acquires a strange new alien pet Abalamahalamatandra—Ab for short—and is pursued by an assassin squad called the Qwarm. Flinx’s friends Bran Tse-Mallory and Truzenzuzex show up looking for Ab in the hope of finding an ancient weapon, thought to possibly be capable of stopping a rogue black hole; before the three inhabited planets on the black hole's course are sucked in. |
5093294 | /m/0d2c1m | Flinx in Flux | Alan Dean Foster | 1988 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | The book opens upon a meeting of ecological fanatics plotting against operations on Longtunnel. Lifeforms are being modified by gengineers, and they intend to stop the perversion of nature. The scene switches to Alaspin. Flinx has returned to the planet to release Pip's offspring into the wild. The minidrag became pregnant in The End of the Matter. While returning to town, Flinx’s empathic abilities detect someone hurt nearby. Flinx discovers a woman, badly hurt, and with bruises that suggest interrogation of some sort. He returns to town, but no one seems to know of a missing woman. He takes her to his hotel and she regains consciousness and reveals herself to be Clarity Held. She explains that she is a gengineer working for Coldstripe on Longtunnel. Fanatics attempting to stop the work kidnapped her. This sparks uncertainty in Flinx, due to his past of genetic alteration by the Meliorare Society. Later, while sleeping, people in chameleon suits attack them in the hotel. Flinx and Clarity escape and return to Alaspinport, where Flinx smuggles Clarity onto the Teacher, his personal ship in order to return her to Longtunnel. On the voyage, their relationship becomes romantic. They land on Longtunnel and Clarity begins showing Flinx around the facilities. All structures are contained in an extensive cavern system since the surface is inhospitable. The caverns are home to a wide variety of flora and fauna that redefine the preconceived Humanx notions of evolution and possible lifeforms. Clarity introduces Flinx to Alynasmolia Vandervort, the leader of the Coldstripe compound. Flinx stays to learn more about the operation. Clarity and Flinx begin to fall in love, but Flinx is not used to this kind of attachment. Flinx attempts to push Clarity away by confiding in her that the Meliorare Society has manipulated him. During the discussion, an explosion rocks the facility. The fanatics have somehow found the facilities and are destroying everything in sight. Flinx and Clarity flee deeper into the cave with minimal supplies to wait out the attack. However, more explosions rock the facility, and they discover that the fanatics have collapsed the tunnels. Flinx and Clarity have no choice but to continue through the caves in hope of discovering a way out. In the tunnels, they meet an injured thranx, Sowelmanu, and help him recover enough to go with them. Unfortunately, Flinx trips after they take an unexpected slide to another level of the caves, and breaks their last light. In the darkness, Flinx detects a sentient creature in the blackness that feels nothing but peaceful intentions. The aliens turn out to be empathic like Flinx and identify themselves as the Sumacrea. They communicate with Flinx through complex descriptive emotions, allowing Flinx to hone his skills. Eventually, the aliens lead them back to the Humanx settlement. Clarity and Sowelmanu reunite with their fellow scientists, and Flinx discusses the ordeal with Alynasmolia Vandervort. Clarity discloses Flinx’s special abilities to Vandervort. Vandervort cautions Clarity about becoming too close to Flinx due to his unpredictable and possibly dangerous gene modifications. Meanwhile, Flinx is asked to take wounded survivors to a nearby planet, Gorisa, which has better medical facilities. Clarity begins distancing herself from Flinx, and he realizes she fears him. Clarity and Vandervort accompany Flinx on the journey to Gorisa. Later, Clarity visits Vandervort only to find that Flinx and Pip have been rendered unconscious by sleeping gas and are in a container. Vandervort intends to study Flinx and convinces Clarity that she has no choice but to help. As they begin to leave, fanatics arrive to "save" Flinx and return him to true normal form. A firefight ensues and Flinx’s container is damaged. He begins having strange dreams. He regains consciousness and escapes the container. While in the container, Flinx’s powers have developed again. He projects intense fear into the combatants, rendering them unconscious. Clarity and Flinx reunite, but suddenly the ground beneath them erupts. Several of Flinx’s old friends, the Ulru-Ujurrians, emerge and ask for Flinx’s assistance in understanding a new threat that could end all life. They have discovered an alarm on Horseye that warns of impending danger, but all else is unknown. They project Flinx’s consciousness across space, and he finds something terrible and incomprehensible. He returns to his body and decides his mission in life is to do something about this horrible threat. He promises the Ujurrians that he will learn more about the danger, and then they will meet again. He extends an invitation to Clarity to accompany him on his journey to understand himself and this new threat, but she declines, needing a break. |
5093584 | /m/0d2ccg | For Love of Mother-Not | Alan Dean Foster | 1983 | {"/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/03npn": "Horror", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The story of Flinx is begun in this novel, exploring his early years growing up with Mother Mastiff on the planet Moth. Young Philip Lynx is purchased in a slave auction by Mother Mastiff for one hundred credits. After years of raising the boy, whose full origins are unknown to his adoptive mother, she suddenly disappears. Flinx pursues her across the rainy world of Moth and discovers she has been kidnapped by the mysterious Meliorare Society, a group known to have experimented with eugenics and might very well be the source of Flinx’s unusual talents. Flinx is gifted with empathic powers and able to project emotions and read the emotions of others. Mother Mastiff also realizes later on that it was not her desire to buy the boy but his desire to be bought that was intentionally pushed on to her by Flinx . |
5093868 | /m/0d2cn4 | Mid-Flinx | Alan Dean Foster | 1995 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | This novel does little to expand on Flinx’s much hinted at upcoming importance in fighting a great evil approaching the Humanx Commonwealth, but does show Foster’s love of travel to the tropical portions of our world. Midworld is essentially a worldwide jungle that is many more times deadly than our own. His stance on environmentalism comes through in how most of the villains are defeated not so much by Flinx's skills or cleverness, but by their lack of respect for the world itself. The events aren’t so much important in and of themselves but seek to expand on Flinx’s talents and set up the next book in the series. |
5094115 | /m/0d2cz0 | Reunion | Alan Dean Foster | 2001 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Flinx has returned to Earth for only the second time in his life to search out the records of the extensive computer network known as the Shell that is maintained by the Unified Church. To do so he uses his empathic Talent to seduce Elena Carolles, a security guard in the Shell, and convinces her to allow him direct access to the most secure databanks. In the Shell he discovers a new bit of data about his mysterious past, information about the Meliorare Society, but the file containing this data has already been stolen by an operative hiding behind the front company Larnaca Nutrition. The agent has absconded with the file to the bleak desert planet Pyrassis deep in AAnn held territory. Flinx has no recourse but to pursue in his own space ship, Teacher, leaving Elena in an emotional lurch. Once he reaches Pyrassis he finds the agent’s ship, the Crotase, in orbit and apparently abandoned. A search of the ship for the missing file turns up nothing, so Flinx must pursue the ship’s crew to the planet surface. On his trip down to confront the thief, he discovers that his shuttle has been sabotaged by the Crotase's AI. He crash lands far from his target, the camp of the ship’s crew. Now forced to march across the desert with few supplies and only Pip, his minidrag, for company Flinx discovers the strange flora and fauna that exist on the harsh world. The difficulty of his journey results in Flinx losing most of his supplies and being captured by a mated pair of AAnn scientists. They inadvertently reveal to him that the strange terrain over which he had been traveling wasn’t just the broken lands of a desert, but was in fact an ancient alien transmitter. During Flinx's struggle to escape the reptilian scientist before members of the AAnn military take him into custody, they accidentally activate the transmitter revealing a secret on the outermost planet of the Pyrassis system, a brown dwarf star. After escaping on a shuttle thoughtfully provided by Teacher's AI, Flinx follows both the Crotase and the transmitter’s signal to the brown dwarf where an alien construct is found. He pursues the missing file into the construct where he finds the other ship’s crew and his long lost sister Mahnahmi Lynx who is intent on killing him. Flinx manages to use his mental Talent to defend himself when the Qwarm that Mahnahmi has hired attacks him. After binding the Qwarm and holding Mahnahmi at bay with a weapon, the two siblings exchange information confirming to Flinx's satisfaction and surprise, that Mahnahmi is indeed his sister and she was the one who stole the sybfile. Their reunion is broken up by a troop of AAnn soldiers hunting for the humans who had infiltrated their territory. The Qwarm is killed aiding in the siblings' flight while Mahnahmi breaks the tentative truce the pair had struck up, attacking him and stealing the transport Flinx had used to reach the alien construct. His only means of returning to Teacher now gone, Flinx flees from the AAnn back into the depths of the construct which he discovers to be another Krang apparently also made by the Tar-Aiym, a long dead alien race. Using the Krang he fights off the AAnn and takes the shuttle that had belonged to Mahnahmi's ship, Crotase to return to Teacher. It is revealed to the reader that the Krang wasn't communicating directly with Flinx, but with the plants that he had been given from the planet Midworld, plants that have achieved sentience and had been assisting Flinx in his adventure. |
5094210 | /m/0d2d36 | A Cavern of Black Ice | Julie Victoria Jones | 3/30/1999 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | The story begins with a woman named Tarissa giving birth to a girl outside the city Spire Vanis. The girl, Ash March (possibly the daughter of Jack, from the Book of Words(Ref Required)), is taken in by Penthero Iss, Spire Vanis's Surlord (a supreme ruler). After discovering that she will soon be moved to more prison-like quarters by the supposedly benevolent Surlord, she escapes. The book also relates the tale of a young clansman of the Blackhail clan named Raif Sevrance. Raif and his brother, Drey, return from hunting one morning to discover their party has been slain. After dispensing final rites to their clansmen, the brothers return home to find the foster son of the chief, Mace Blackhail relating a different version of the tale implicating Clan Bludd in the death of their friends and family. Mace becomes chief of Clan Blackhail through various acts of treachery and declares war on Clan Bludd; Raif realises that Mace is lying, but no-one else who speaks against Mace lives to tell the tale. Raif is forced by social pressure in a raid on what Mace says is a Clan Bludd battle party; it instead contains the (innocent) family of Vaylo, chief of Clan Bludd. Refusing Mace's orders to kill these innocents, Raif flees and is exiled from his clan for disobeying orders. His uncle, Angus Lok, takes him to Spire Vanis. There, Angus and Raif rescue Ash from the Surlord's soldiers and flee the city, deciding to travel to another city called Ille Glaive. Along the way, Marafice Eye "the Knife", Iss's leading general, pursues them with some soldiers and a sorcerer called Sarga Veys. Most of the soldiers are lost as they follow Ash onto the ice of a lake, and subsequently drown, though Veys uses magic to escape and the Knife also makes it out. Once in Ille Glaive, Angus, Ash and Raif meet with Heritas Cant, another sorcerer. Cant explains Ash's abilities to reach the Blind, resting place of all manner of dark creatures sealed away in ancient history. Angus, Ash, and Raif then proceed northward to the Cavern of Black Ice, where Ash can get rid of her abilities as a Reach. As the group heads north they become captured by Clan Bludd, who have recently taken over a place they stop in. Raif is beaten severely for days. Vaylo fears Ash because of her connection to Iss, and contacts the Surlord to return her (we do not discover what happens to Angus). Ash forces Vaylo to postpone the execution of Raif, which allows his escape during a raid by Clan Blackhail. Drey, present at the raid, allows Raif to escape. The Knife attempts to rape Ash. She awakes before this occurs and unleashes the dark power within her, killing all but Veys and the Knife once more. Ash again travels towards the Cavern of Black Ice and re-meets Raif. Eventually, after a cold and difficult journey with the help of two mysterious "Sull" (a more advanced culture described earlier in the book), they arrive at the Cavern of Black Ice where Ash finally discharges her powers. |
5094281 | /m/0d2d8f | White Horse, Dark Dragon | null | null | null | The action takes place in a fictional Central European country, Karistan, where the beautiful Alta lives with her young blind daughter Jewel. Jewel has a friend in the form of an enigmatic white horse. Soon they meet an American visitor named Jim Martin, who has been sent to Karistan to prove that a new investment is not going to harm the environment in Karistan. |
5094462 | /m/0d2dl3 | A Small Town in Germany | John le Carré | 1968-10 | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | A Small Town in Germany occurs in the late 1960s, in Bonn, the capital of West Germany. From London, Alan Turner, of the British Foreign Office, arrives to investigate the disappearance of Leo Harting, a minor British Embassy officer; moreover, secret files have disappeared with him. The embassy's security chief, Rawley Bradfield, is hostile to Turner's investigation. Despite that, he is dinner party host to Turner and Ludwig Siebkron, head of the German Interior Ministry; the latter is close to industrialist Klaus Karfeld, who is successfully building his new political party. Initially, Turner suspects Leo Harting is a spy, but comes to grasp that Harting was secretly investigating Karfeld's Nazi career — as the war-time administrator of a laboratory that poisoned 31 half-Jews. In fact, Harting is hiding from Siebkron, and might assassinate Karfeld. To Turner's chagrin, Bradfield is unsympathetic to Harting's circumstance and uninterested in protecting him, because he considers him a criminal and a political embarrassment. |
5094787 | /m/0d2d__ | The Poseidon Adventure | Paul Gallico | null | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller", "/m/08sdrw": "Adventure novel"} | Formerly the RMS Atlantis, the SS Poseidon is a luxury ocean liner from the golden age of travel, which was converted to a single-class, combination cargo-cruise liner. The ship was on its maiden voyage in the North Atlantic with the new company, celebrated with a monthlong Christmas voyage from Lisbon to African and South American ports. On December 26, the Poseidon is overturned when it has the misfortune of being directly above the location of an undersea earthquake. The ship capsizes as it falls into the sudden void caused by the quake displacing millions of gallons of seawater. Starting from the upper deck dining room, preacher Reverend Frank "Buzz" Scott leads a small group of (often unwilling) followers towards the keel of the ship, trying to avoid the rising water level and other such hazards. Those stuck within the dining saloon are unwilling to follow the Reverend, and stay behind. Those survivors choosing to follow Scott climb a Christmas tree to ascend into the galley area where they meet some stewards and kitchen crew. There is a great debate about whether to try to reach one of the propeller shafts at the stern, or to go forward to the bow. One of the stewards fears the lockers that hold the anchor chains will have flooded, and suggests that they try for the engine room. After climbing two upside-down stairways, the group comes upon "Broadway", a wide service corridor that runs the length of the ship and connects to the engine room. The posse breaks for a while whilst they look for supplies. Young Robin Shelby ventures off to find the bathroom while Tony "The Beamer" Bates and his girlfriend Pamela find the liquor closet. When the ship's emergency lighting suddenly goes out, a number of crew members panic and stampede; they are trampled, or killed by falling over stairway openings or into a large pit where a boiler tore through several decks of the upturned ship. After the panic, Scott's group goes in search of The Beamer, Pamela, and Robin, who are missing. New York Police Detective Mike Rogo finds The Beamer passed out, intoxicated, and Pamela refuses to leave him. Robin is nowhere to be found. While searching for her young brother, Susan is brutally raped by a young, terrified crew member. Susan talks with the boy, who is remorseful and ashamed, and grows to like him. But the boy, realizing the consequences of his actions, panics and runs off -falling to his death in the dark pit. Susan rejoins the group and tells them nothing of what has happened. After an intense search, they make the painful decision to move on without Robin. At this point his mother, Jane Shelby, breaks down and vents her long-held disgust and hatred for her husband. The Reverend, having found a Turkish oiler, guides the other survivors through Broadway to the stern. They find the corridor to the engine room, which is completely submerged. Belle Rosen, a former W.S.A. champion, swims through the corridor and finds the passage to get them to the other side. Upon their arrival, they find the engine room, or "Hell" as Mr. Martin calls it. They take time to rest and save the batteries on their recently-acquired flashlights. In the darkness Linda Rogo makes a move on the Reverend. After their rest they see the way out - five decks up, on top of a fractured steel wall they name "Mount Poseidon". During the difficult climb, Linda Rogo rebels and attempts to find her own way. She chooses an unstable route and falls to her death, impaled on a piece of sharp steel. An explosion rocks the ship, and Reverend Scott, in an insane rage, denounces God, offers himself as a sacrifice, and commits suicide. Mary Kinsale, an English spinster, screams in grief and claims that they were to be married. Her fellow survivors aren't quite sure what to make of this revelation. Mr. Martin takes charge of the group and they make their way into a propeller shaft where the steel hull is at its thinnest. The oxygen supply begins to give out, but after much waiting, they are finally found. Belle Rosen has a heart attack and dies before the rescue team can reach her. The rescue team cuts through and the group climb out of the upturned hull. Manny Rosen, however, refuses to leave without Belle's remains, which are lifted out after the others have left. Once outside, the survivors see another, much larger group of survivors being removed from the bow of the ship. Most are still in their dinner clothes, in contrast to Scott's group, who are stripped to their underwear and streaked with oil. En route to the rescue ships in lifeboats, they see The Beamer and Pamela, who have survived after all. Sailors from a small German ship try to put a salvage line on the Poseidon. Mike Rogo curses them because of his World War II experiences, and laughs when their efforts fail. The group goes their separate ways - Mary Kinsale and Nonnie on a ship back to England; Mike Rogo, Manny Rosen, Hubie Muller, Dick, Jane and Susan Shelby back to New York; and the Turk back to Turkey. Aboard the American ship, they watch as the Poseidon sinks. Jane Shelby, finally giving up hope, silently grieves the loss of her son. The novel ends with Susan dreaming of going to Hull in England to visit the parents of the boy who had raped her. She hopes that she might be pregnant with his child so he would have a legacy. |
5097299 | /m/0d2jq2 | City of Skulls | Carl Sargent | 1993 | {"/m/06c9r": "Role-playing game"} | The adventure takes place in the Kingdom of Furyondy and the Empire of Iuz following the Greyhawk Wars. The city referenced in the book's title is Dorakaa, the capital of Iuz's empire. |
5103688 | /m/0d2t1n | Flinx's Folly | Alan Dean Foster | 2003 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | While on Goldin IV looking for new experiences to give direction to his life, Flinx accidentally renders unconscious a group of twenty innocent bystanders when his Talent takes an unexpected turn and starts projecting to others in his immediate vicinity. He and the others are hospitalized but unhurt; knowing he is still wanted by the Commonwealth for his past crimes, Flinx gives a false name and slips out of the hospital, but to no less danger. He is now being pursued by the Order of Null, a quasi-religious group that worships death itself as expressed in the great evil that is approaching the Commonwealth—the same great evil that Flinx is able to sense and communicate with through his Talent. After escaping from the Order of Null and the planetary authorities, Flinx decides he needs to reflect on his life and talk over his difficulties with someone who understands him. Since that particular type of person is extremely rare in the universe, he settles on finding Clarity Held, the woman he fell in love with on Longtunnel, who is now a gengineer on New Riviera, a paradise world. Finding Clarity proves easy, the difficult part is dealing with her boyfriend Bill Ormann, a vice-president of the gengineering firm for whom she now works. He is eager to make Clarity his wife but she is more reluctant to marry. After tolerating a growing attraction between the two, Ormann decides he is losing Clarity to Flinx and sets out to remove the young man from the relationship. After a pair of failed attempts to warn his rival off with use of violence, Ormann is forced to act himself with the intention of killing Flinx. Ormann first kidnaps Clarity and imprisons her in a remote cabin with the intention of luring Flinx to rescue her there, where he will spring his trap. Flinx manages to bypass the deadly mechanical traps set by Ormann, but is overcome by the particularly clever bio-engineered trap hidden in a most unlikely vector. Captured by Ormann’s minions, Flinx and Clarity are at the mercy of the thugs but their lives are saved by the timely intervention of Flinx’s old friend Truzenzuzex. The wily thranx had come looking for Flinx to get the young man’s insight on the disappearing weapons platform full of Krangs the Tar-Aiym had left behind on the tenth planet of the Pyrassis system (see events in Reunion). The old warrior inside Tru manages to kill the four thugs threatening Flinx and Clarity while his partner Bran Tse-Mallory confronts Ormann. When the corporate executive threatens Bran with a weapon, Bran kills Ormann with a voltchuk. The four attempt to escape from New Riviera via Flinx’s shuttle, but before they can even approach the ship, they are trapped between two groups both seeking to capture Flinx: a squad of Commonwealth Peaceforcers and yet another group from the Order of Null. In the process of trying to flee the fighting, Clarity is critically wounded. To save her and remain free himself, Flinx is forced to allow Bran and Tru to take the woman he loves to a hospital while he slips aboard the shuttle and back to his starship, the Teacher. They agree to meet up again when Flinx locates the Tar-Aiym weapons platform Back on board Teacher Flinx is so distracted by the seriousness of Clarity’s wounds that he misses the presence of two members of the Order of Null already on board. They manage to capture the preoccupied Flinx and set Teacher on a suicide course with New Riviera’s sun. Once again Flinx is saved at the last minute by the sentient plants from Midworld on board his ship; they strangle the two initiates in the Order of Null allowing Flinx to escape his drug-induced bondage. Flinx plots his next move as a return to his adopted home world of Moth. |
5103776 | /m/0d2t5h | Sliding Scales | Alan Dean Foster | 2004 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | In Sliding Scales Flinx is confounded by how to proceed with his life. He abandoned his injured girlfriend, Clarity Held, on the planet New Riveria under the protection of his friends Truzenzuzex and Bran Tse-Mallory (see events in Flinx's Folly) with the understanding he would search the galaxy for the Tar-Aiym weapons platform that has once been in the system Pyrassis. Not knowing where to go to start the search, Flinx first visits his homeworld of Moth, then broods as his ship, Teacher takes in aimlessly through the galazy. Teacher’s AI suggests something unusual to take him out of his funk: a vacation. This is followed another surprising suggestion: that he take the vacation in an isolated world that falls within the reach of the AAnn Empire, a near-desert planet named Jast. The native sentient species of Jast is the Vssey, a single-sex species that resembles and acts much like a giant mobile mushroom. The Vssey are loosely allied with the AAnn, though not yet a part of their empire. Some members of the Vssey are strongly opposed to a closer alliance, though the ruling government seeks to bring the two worlds closer together. Flinx enters this unsettled atmosphere and is immediately suspected of being a spy for the Humanx Commonwealth. Taken by Secondary Administrator Takuuna VBXLLW on what is to be a sightseeing tour of a canyon. Either through accident or fortune Takunna’s tail knocks Flinx over the edge of the canyon and to his death. Flinx manages to survive the fall, but with a head injury causing amnesia. He wanders the Jast desert for several days before being rescued by a Chraluuc, a member of a most unusual organization: an AAnn artist colony known as the Tier of Ssaiinn. Considered outcasts by AAnn society, Flinx is safe among these aliens, so safe that he is actually adopted by the Tier under the name Flinx LLVVRXX once he proves to them he has the soul of an artist. Meanwhile, back in the cities of Jast, an insurrection is ongoing as a faction of Vssey start a bombing campaign against the AAnn. Based on his success in getting rid of the supposed Commonwealth spy Flinx, Takuuna is given the assignment of tracking down this disruptive element. Although he uses the best of AAnn intimidation and hunting techniques, his mission is a failure until a bit of luck and a low-level functionary delivers the name of the one and only terrorist. Fortune also provides him with the location of Flinx, the human he thought he had killed. Takuuna travels to the Tier to arrest Flinx, but finds his efforts thwarted by the Tier’s unusual Imperial charter. Nevertheless he manages to get special authorization to arrest one of their members and forces Flinx into hiding in canyon where the artist group is creating a group project. Cornered, Flinx and Chraluuc seek safety in a Tier built shelter, but circumstances arise allowing one of Takuuna’s soldiers to kill Chraluuc. The shock of seeing his friend killed allows Flinx to respond, instinctively, with his empathic Talent, knocking out Takuuna and driving the soldier permanently insane. His memory restored, Flinx is able to contact Teacher and leave the troubled world of Jast. Takuuna is airlifted from the Tier, but his transport is sabotaged by the singular Vssey terrorist killing him and destroying the AAnn Authority’s transportation annex. Flinx decides he has had enough of a vacation—from the Commonwealth and himself—and heads back to his home territory. |
5104008 | /m/0d2tj8 | Running from the Deity | Alan Dean Foster | 2005 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Continuing his pursuit of the alien weapon’s platform, the Krang, Flinx finds himself heading into the Blight—where the Krang has presumably gone—but is informed by his ship, Teacher, that repairs are necessary before they can continue. The repairs can be simply done by Teacher’s autonomic controls, but the need for raw materials force Flinx to land the entire KK-drive ship on the world of Arrawd. Arrawd is classified by the Humanx Commonwealth as a Class IVB world, placing it technologically at 19th century Earth levels, the initial development of the steam engine. Because the planet is at such a low technology level, first contact with aliens is forbidden, a rule that Flinx once again ignores. On an excursion from his ship while it is repairing itself, Flinx falls and injures his ankle, leading to his discovery by two members of the Dwarra, a married couple Storra and Ebbanai. They assist the human to their home where he is able to heal himself with some simple Commonwealth technology. His use of such magical technology and his physical prowess—the gravity of Arrawd is much lower than Terran standard—quickly leads Storra to spread stories of his abilities. The couple takes advantage of Flinx’s good will and begin to profit from the human’s agreement to help heal those who come to the couple’s farm. When this is discovered by Flinx he resolves to leave the planet, but too late it seems for his presence has started a war between three of the local governments, all seeking to control the new god that has come to their world. Flinx, despite his troubles on Arrawd considers staying there for the rest of his natural life simply to be away from his troubles with the rest of humanity and the Humanx Commonwealth. Part of his reasoning is that during his time on the planet he doesn't have any of the headaches that have plagued him most of his post-adolescent life. The reason for the headaches disappearing is unclear, though it is indicated that the empathic ability innate in each Dwarra might be the reason. In the end, he knows staying is an impossibility because of his responsibility to track down the Krang. Despite his protestations that he is as mortal and common as the Dwarra, the members of the native race pay Flinx little attention. A three-way war erupts and ends only when Flinx brings Teacher to the stronghold where the battle is raging and uses his ship’s weapons to separate the combatants. During a conference after the war, Flinx attempts to convince the various political leaders he is not a deity, to limited success. Before the conference can be concluded Flinx is the target of an assassination attempt. His Talent once again saves him, but kills the assassin and several co-conspirators in the process. Flinx's headaches return after the assassination attempt. Disgusted at his poor choice of actions in dealing with the Dwarra, and the alien race’s insistence at seeing him as a god, Flinx finally leaves Arrawd. As he leaves the system Flinx is contacted by an alien intelligence that pulls him away from his search for the Krang. In the epilogue, Clarity Held has been taken to the safety of the thranx homeworld, Hivehom where she is shown the interstellar devastation known as The Great Emptiness. Thranx galactographic astronomers have been able to track the destruction of a galaxy known as Poltebet-MH438A. The destruction is accelerating and headed directly for the heart of the Humanx Commonwealth. |
5104322 | /m/0d2t_x | Patrimony | Alan Dean Foster | 10/30/2007 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Once again diverting from his assigned task of finding the ancient Tar-Aiym weapon that will help save the galaxy from the approaching evil, Flinx lands on the planet Gestalt, known as Tlel to its natives, looking for his father. In the previous volume of the series, Flinx was told his male parent, a former member of the Meliorare Society, was now living on an obscure minor planet that was part of the Commonwealth. Though the information was suspect, coming from a dying member of the Meliorares, Flinx jumped at the opportunity. Following a series of adventures, including his attempted murder at the hands of a local hit man hired by the Order of Null, Flinx finds his father. Or rather, he finds the last man associated with his creation. Since Flinx is a semi-successful experiment in eugenics, the man he finds is just another Meliorare in hiding. However, the man reveals to him that Flinx was the product of so much DNA splicing that he has no real parents; no father who donated sperm, and his dead mother was nothing more than a surrogate womb for hire. Upset that Flinx, who does not reveal the true extent of his talents, was hardly the super-genetic success they had hoped for, Flinx's creator attempts to kill him, but only wounds the minidrag Pip before Flinx's erratic yet powerful mental gifts save his life, but destroy all traces of the scientist. |
5105071 | /m/0d2w5d | The Eight | null | null | null | The Eight features two intertwined storylines set centuries apart. The first takes place in 1972 and follows American computer expert Catherine “Cat” Velis as she is sent to Algeria for a special assignment. The second is set in 1790 and revolves around Mireille, a novice nun at Montglane Abbey. The fates of both characters are intertwined as they try to unravel the mystery behind the Montglane Service, a chess set that holds the key to a game of unlimited power. A gift from the Moors to Emperor Charlemagne, these pieces have been hunted fervently throughout the years by those seeking ultimate control. In the throes of the French Revolution, Mireille and her cousin Valentine must help in dispersing the pieces of the chess set to keep them out of the wrong hands. However, when Valentine is brutally murdered in Reign of Terror, Mireille is thrown into the midst of men and women who would pursue power at any cost, including Napoleon, Robespierre, Talleyrand, Catherine the Great, and more. She comes to realize she must rely on her own intuition and tenacity to accomplish her goal. In 1972, Cat Velis faces a similar atmosphere of conspiracy, assassination and betrayal. When she is requested by an antique dealer to recover the chess pieces, she unwittingly enters into a mysterious game that will endanger her life. As she learns the story of the Montglane Service, she begins to realize that players of the Game may plan their moves, but their very existence makes them pawns as well. |
5105821 | /m/06tmskz | Patriots of Ulek | Anthony Pryor | null | null | The adventure takes place in the Principality of Ulek in the southwestern Flanaess. |
5105935 | /m/0d2x86 | Spellsinger | Alan Dean Foster | 1983-03 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | In a world of sentient animals and humans, the hardheaded tortoise wizard Clothahump searches across the dimensions for another kind of wizard to help defeat the looming threat posed by the armies of the Plated Folk. What he gets is Jonathon Thomas Meriweather, law student, part-time would-be rock guitarist and janitor, who finds that with the use of a unique instrument called a duar, he can perform magic by playing and choosing from his well-worn repertoire of rock. Jon-Tom, as he is called in Clothahump’s world, quickly discovers that while he might be able to use magic with his music making, the results are often unpredictable and usually humorous. Ever searching for a way to get back to Earth, Jon-Tom takes up the battle to save this world. |
5106203 | /m/0d2xs7 | The Hour of the Gate | Alan Dean Foster | 1984-03 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | Barely accustomed to the strange new world in which he has found himself trapped, Jon-Tom accompanies the wizard Clothahump to try to mount a defense against the invasion of the monstrous insectoid Plated Folk. He and his otter companion Mudge, along with other allies gained in "Spellsinger", find themselves faced with ever more serious obstacles: From an underground river that leads to the four waterfalls known as The Earth's Throat, to the spider-silk city of the wary Weavers and their horrific arachnid queen, into the heart of Plated Folk territory, and even to the stars themselves. |
5106574 | /m/0d2yf9 | The Day of the Dissonance | Alan Dean Foster | 1984 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Jon-Tom, with the somewhat faithful otter Mudge, sets across the Glittergeist Ocean in his strange new world in order to find a magical cure for the dying wizard Clothahump. Along the way he conjures up Roseroar, an Amazonian tiger, rescues Jalwar, the ferret, and together they free Folly, a not so innocent beauty, from bondage. Jon-Tom and his motley crew press on, confronting a forest of Fungoid Frankensteins on the Muddletop Moors, a parrot pirate on the high seas, cannibal fairies in the enchanted canyon, and the evil wizard of Malderpot. They also ally with a shopkeep with a secret and a golden unicorn with his own. |
5106855 | /m/0d2yxl | The Moment of the Magician | Alan Dean Foster | 1984 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The wizard Clothahump described the swamps of the south as "tropical, friendly, and largely uninhabited" when he sent Jon-Tom the Spellsinger and Mudge the Otter to investigate the rising power of a new magician, Marcus the Ineluctable. Along the way they encounter warring colonies of tough-talking prairie dogs, magical mime-vines, a mammoth mountain of living muck and a hidden colony of dreaded Plated Folk. |
5106948 | /m/0d2z1s | Atlantis Found | R. Garcia y Robertson | 12/6/1999 | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/08sdrw": "Adventure novel"} | In 7120 BC, a comet slams into North America, creating Hudson Bay, abruptly ending the last Ice Age and causing global geological and environmental upheaval. Several advanced civilizations are ended. In 1858 AD, a whaling vessel discovers a 1770s merchant ship frozen in Antarctic ice. As with most of the novels in this series, these oddly juxtaposed opening scenes become key elements to the plot as it develops. A group of U.S. scientists discover an mysterious underground chamber in Colorado and are then attacked by a group of 'tomb raiders'. The attackers leave them to drown, but luckily U.S. National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA) Special Projects Director Dirk Pitt happens to be nearby and saves the scientists. The scientists were able to save an exquisitely carved skull of polished obsidian (see crystal skull). It seems unique, but curiously, another is discovered to exist—in the private collection of a descendant of the whaling sea captain from the opening scenes of the novel. Dirk and Al Giordino acquire the descendant's skull, and the two are handed over to NUMA for study and analysis. A theory develops in the organization as to whether or not they are Atlantean in origin. Al and Rudi Gunn make it to the remote island and discover another inscribed chamber that housed the second skull, and discover another larger chamber beyond it. Here, they find perfectly-mummified, pre-Hellenistic men and women, surrounded by friezes of exotic cities and strange, mythic animals. They are ambushed by 'tomb raiders' too, but manage to defeat them. Meanwhile, Pitt is aboard an icebreaker in Antarctica searching for the 1770s merchant ship. The ship is found, but Pitt narrowly escapes disaster from an attack by a German U-boat that has been missing since 1945. The U-boat is destroyed by a US nuclear submarine and Pitt recovers the body of a beautiful female officer by diving to the wreckage. At NUMA headquarters, the skulls have been examined. Inside both are geometrically exact globes. However, the continents are in different locations; Antarctica in particular is now almost temperate. Coastlines are also different, further out. The inscription symbols are fed into the computers, and translations are awaited. Pitt returns to Washington and interrupts someone stealing the latest report from the NUMA director's office. After a brief chase, Pitt overcomes the thief and discovers a beautiful twin to the U-boat officer. Blood tests of both women show not only are they genetically identical, but their systems are so resilient as to allow them a long natural lifespan. The women are relatives, but not sisters. Both women are members of the Wolf family, who in turn are descendents of Nazi escapees from Syria. The Wolfs run Destiny Enterprises, a corporation based in Argentina that is rumored to include Fourth Empire Holdings from Nazi Germany. Pitt suspects foul play. The next morning, the results are back. Apparently, the chambers are the work of a civilization calling themselves the Amenes (pronounced Ah-Meen-Eez). A nation of seafarers, traders, and wisemen, they discovered and traded with most of the world, leaving coastal towns wherever they went. However, a comet struck Earth at the end of the Pleistocene period, ending the Ice Age. This caused a world wide series of tidal waves which wiped out most of their civilization—and, thanks to the urbanization they had begun, most of their civilized contemporaries as well. The survivors were all in the uplands, and usually less advanced. However, some of the Amenes survived in isolated pockets. Banding together in a sort of priesthood, they tried to pass on their knowledge of the world, architecture, astrology, navigation, and history. However, the knowledge was transmitted inexpertly, and was twisted as a result. Depressed, the priests saved the bulk of their knowledge in a series of enclosed inland vaults, similar to the one found in Colorado, and then passed out of history. But the comet which obliterated their society had a twin. According to their impressive mathematical models, the twin would return in some 9,000 years—in other words, soon—and produce similar results. The data is passed on to an observatory for analysis. Around this time, Dirk meets Karl Wolf, the C.E.O. of Destiny Enterprises Limited, who is a direct descendant of Ulrich Wolff, Colonel of the S.S. When Dirk mentions the potential catastrophe, and the loss of life it will entail, Wolf gives and answer that seems to imply that his family may actually be planning to capitalize on the disaster. The data from the observatory comes back: the prophecy is false. The comet will actually return to Earth in another few millennia and miss the planet entirely. Pondering Wolf's comment, NUMA researchers note that Destiny is putting a lot of capital into a series of vast ships. The Wolfs have created four superships to save themselves from the cataclysm, and everything required for a future civilization. Dirk Pitt and Al Giordino take a tour of one of the ships, while rescuing again one of the Colorado scientists, who was captured for her ability to decipher the Amenes inscriptions. As well as this, information linked to a nanotech research facility in Antarctica comes to light. According to some sources, the facility is built on the ruins of an Amenes city found there by Nazi archeologists before World War II. It was intended as a submarine base, but never used. The plan ultimately comes to light: the villains intend to use nanotechnology to separate the Ross Ice Shelf from the Antarctic mainland. The loss of such a large mass will destabilize the ocean currents of the southern hemisphere, and unbalance the planet (Pole shift theory). In the resulting wave of earthquakes and tsunami, the population would be decimated, and civilization would collapse. Dirk and his friends travel there immediately, but their transport breaks down. They encounter a rich eccentric named 'Dad' (Clive Cussler) who is there with a team to recover the gargantuan Antarctic Snow Cruiser left there in 1940 during Admiral Byrd's third Antarctic expedition. Using the Snow Cruiser, they are able to make it the rest of the way to the villains' base in the ancient Amenes city. There, they deactivate the nanotechnology with minutes to spare, and the authorities arrive to secure the base. Dirk forces Karl Wolf and his relatives to leave the base on foot in the middle of a blizzard, and they die of hypothermia soon afterwards. |
5107401 | /m/0d2znm | The Paths of the Perambulator | Alan Dean Foster | 1985 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | The strange world Jon-Tom has found himself trapped in takes a turn for the decidedly weird as Foster’s fantasy series take a page from Kafka's The Metamorphosis when the Spellsinger wakes up one morning as a giant crab. The cause, as determined by the turtle wizard Clothahump, is a trapped perambulator: an inter-dimensional creature that wanders through different universes leaving behind random changes to the fabric of the world. Jon-Tom and his friends attempt to free the perambulator before it wreaks permanent havoc on their world. |
5107634 | /m/0d2z_5 | Blue Moon | Laurell K. Hamilton | null | {"/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/03npn": "Horror", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Blue Moon takes place in the apparently fictional town of Myerton, Tennessee. Richard, still recovering from Anita's rejection in The Killing Dance, has been in Myerton for some time, studying a local group of trolls as part of the requirements for his masters degree, and auditioning the women of the local werewolf tribe as possible lupas. The plot begins when Anita receives a call from Richard's brother Daniel. Daniel explains that Richard has been arrested for an alleged rape, and is refusing to hire a lawyer. Anita leaves for Myerton, over the objection of the local Master of the City, with Asher, Damian, and most of the wereleopards as backup. Once there, Anita must simultaneously attempt to uncover why local police have framed Richard and deal with Colin, the local Master of the City, who views her arrival as an act of war. Ultimately, Anita destroys most of Colin's vampires by activating the lupanar of the local werewolf clan, rendering it holy ground, and kills Colin herself by shooting Colin's human servant, Nikki. In the course of her various rituals, Anita ends up having sex with Richard, and they agree that Anita will begin dating both Richard and Jean-Claude. Anita also learns that Richard had discussed her with Jean-Claude and had obliquely asked Jean-Claude whether he would accept Anita taking Richard as a lover. Anita meets Marianne, a Wiccan practitioner who works with Verne's pack. Marianne advises Anita on building the wereleopards into a coherent group. Anita also has a long talk with Damien, and discovers that Jean-Claude gains power from lust and sex. Not only can he feed on the patrons of his strip club Guilty Pleasures, but on sex with Anita, or Anita having sex with Richard. She and Richard discover that the rape charges were an effort by art collector Frank Niley to drive Richard's study project from the area, allowing them to acquire some contested land and complete Niley's search for the Spear of Destiny. In desperation, Niley kidnaps and brutalizes Richard's mother and brother, causing Anita to cross another moral line, torturing Niley's messenger and killing everyone responsible. |
5108039 | /m/0d2_r7 | 9tail Fox | Jon Courtenay Grimwood | 2005-10 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The plot centres around Bobby Zha, a Sergeant at the fictional SFPD Chinatown station in San Francisco. The claimed shooting of a burglar by eleven-year-old Natalie Persikov conflicts with Zha's intuition on the matter, but before he has a real chance to investigate he is shot himself. After meeting the Jinwei hu (the nine-tailed fox of the title) while dead, Bobby wakes up in a hospital. However, there are a few surprises for him on waking; not least that apparently he isn't Bobby Zha anymore. The doctors tell him he's in New York, not San Francisco; he was never shot; and that he's Robert Van Berg, sole survivor of a car crash that killed both his parents and put him into a coma since he was seven. Now adult and sole inheritor of his family's considerable fortune, Bobby wastes no time in getting back to the West Coast to investigate. In between looking into the case of his own murder, finding out what really happened at the Persikov's house and following up the leads from his contacts among the homeless of San Francisco, Bobby becomes increasingly concerned over his own identity. Changing identities at a whim — an FBI agent, a CIA investigator, a special forces agent direct from the White House — he questions his old acquaintances about Sergeant Zha, finding out more about himself than he ever knew. The novel is set "a few years in the future", and frequently references Soviet author Mikhail Bulgakov. Grimwood notes in the Acknowledgments that "the choice of Persikov for Dr Misha's surname is entirely intentional." |
5109121 | /m/0d31dk | Bloomability | Sharon Creech | 9/30/1998 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Dinnie Doone has spent most of her life traveling around the United States because her father is transiently employed. Dinnie feels that she has settled into this routine of never having a permanent home until one night, her whole world changes. With her older brother in the Air Force after ending up in jail again, her older sister pregnant and married, and her dad still on the road for yet another home, Dinnie is taken away by her maternal aunt and her husband to Switzerland, where Uncle Max (her uncle) is the new headmaster of an international boarding school. Dinnie becomes a student at the school, where she makes friends, sees new, exciting things, and has many adventures of her own. She befriends a girl named Lila, who at first seems nice but then starts complaining a lot, but Dinnie still really likes her. Dinnie also has a friend named Guthrie, a spontaneous and fun-loving "fantastico!" person. She also gets to know Keisuke and Belen, a Japanese boy and a Spanish girl, who love each other but their parents are not supportive of their relationship. The group is later joined by an Italian girl named Mari. During a "going-away" party for Lila, Lila and Guthrie get trapped in an avalanche and are saved because Dinnie watched where they fell and is thus able to locate them. Both of them survive and make a full recovery. Intersperced in the novel are Dinnie's diary entries, postcards from her two paternal aunts informing Dinnie of what is happening with her family, and Dinnie's various attempts to communicate to the local community using signs at her window that she wants to return home. However, as the year progresses, Dinnie begins to thrive in the diverse environment and the stability of remaining in one place. At the end of the year, Dinnie's aunt and uncle give her a choice: Go home to America for the summer and come back in the fall, or go back to America permanently. It is never said what her decision was, but Dinnie keeps her skis in the closet so that she will have to come back someday. |
5111325 | /m/0d340r | Medicine River | Thomas King | 1989 | null | Medicine River chronicles the lives of a group of contemporary First Nations people in Western Canada. The novel is divided into eighteen short chapters. The story is recounted by the protagonist, Will Sampson, in an amiable, conversational fashion, with frequent flashbacks to earlier portions of his life. In the novel, Medicine River, Thomas King creates a story of a little community to reflect the whole native nation. A simple return of Will's makes the little town seem to be more colourful. "Medicine River makes non-native readers think a little longer and harder about the lives of the first people they live among and the places they inhabit." Although Will enters the town as a foreigner, he eventually becomes part of the community. Medicine River shows the history of Canada and teaches readers to learn from the past experience in order to become better people. Will meets Louise who becomes an unfulfilled love interest that very much represents Will's existence, a series of half-fulfilled expectations. That is, he develops an ongoing relationship with Louise and her daughter, South Wing, for whom Will becomes a kind of father-figure. It has been included on the high school reading curriculum in many Canadian jurisdictions. One advisor writes, "It is a humorously told 'homecoming novel' that echoes an oral storytelling style, yet at the same time, debunks any kind of stereotypical 'cultural voice.' Although the protagonist is a middle-aged man, the novel is appropriate for young people, simply because of the way it is written, drawing in any audience." |
5111769 | /m/0d34r3 | Chinese Cinderella | Adeline Yen Mah | 9/7/1999 | {"/m/012jgz": "Autobiographical novel", "/m/0xdf": "Autobiography", "/m/017fp": "Biography", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | Adeline's family considers her as bad luck and they don't pay attention to her throughout her early childhood. This is the story of her struggle for acceptance and how she overcomes the odds to prove her worth. Born the fifth child to a wealthy Chinese family, Adeline's life begins tragically. Adeline's mother died three days after her birth due to complications bought on by the delivery, and in Chinese culture she is considered as bad luck. This situation is compounded by her father's new marriage to a lady who has little affection for her husband's five children. She displays overt antagonism and distrust towards all of the children, particularly Adeline, while favoring her own younger son and daughter born soon after the marriage. The book outlines Adeline's struggle to find a place where she feels she belongs. Denied love from her parents, she finds some solace in relationships with her grandfather (Ye Ye) and her Aunt Baba, but they are taken from her. Adeline immerses herself in striving for academic achievement in the hope of winning favour, but also for its own rewards as she finds great pleasure in words and scholarly success. Adeline progresses through various situations in life, from boarding school to studies abroad. |
5111971 | /m/0d34_f | Against the Cult of the Reptile God | null | null | {"/m/06c9r": "Role-playing game"} | The adventure takes place on the border between the Gran March and the Kingdom of Keoland in the western Flanaess. It is one of the most challenging of the early AD&D modules, featuring a mystery that leads to adventures in town, the wilderness and a dungeon. The scenario details the village and the cult's dungeon caves. The player characters arrive in the village of Orlane, where they are met with mixed reactions. Some villagers are friendly towards the characters, whereas some are distant and others are very suspcious and guarded. The characters realize that something is amiss, and have to find out what. They find that Orlane is being plagued by an evil cult, and the characters have to stop the cult. |
5117506 | /m/0d3g5g | The Time of the Transference | Alan Dean Foster | 1987 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Nothing is forever in the magical world Jon-Tom has found himself trapped in and as such the duar he uses to create his music-based magic breaks after a battle to save Clothahump from a group of house burglars. He does this by accidentally stepping on a fallen left behind battle axe, cutting himself, and falling back onto the duar and breaking it. The need to find an expert capable of repairing the rare instrument sets Jon-Tom off on another adventure where he and his friend the otter Mudge search for a repair shop for his instrument, along the way they encounter pirates, cannibals, talkative porpoises, a flying horse who is scared of heights and a beautiful female otter, Weegee, who becomes the target of Mudge’s amorous intentions. On the way, Jon-Tom accidentally finds a way back to Earth - to Texas, to be exact - and some of the anthropomorphic animals of his new world, including some very nasty characters, cross over as well. After some unpleasant experiences with American criminals and police, Jon-Tom takes the unequivocal decision to go back to what he realizes is now his true home. |
5117620 | /m/0d3gb9 | Son of Spellsinger | Alan Dean Foster | 1993 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | Rather than become a spellsinger like his father Jon-Tom, teenage Buncan decides to do his own thing, and puts together a band with Mudge and Weegee’s children that features rap music. Unfortunately for them it is Buncan and his band who possess the power to battle the sinister Grand Veritable. |
5118058 | /m/0d3h1z | Chorus Skating | Alan Dean Foster | 1994 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | To avoid boredom, Spellsinger Jon-Tom and his faithful otter companion, Mudge, embark on a quest that seems to have no end. They rescue a gaggle of spoiled princesses, wage war on a guerrilla gorilla, and escape from a mocking maelstrom before getting on the wrong side of an evil alien band. |
5118697 | /m/0d3hwm | Settling Accounts: In at the Death | Harry Turtledove | 7/27/2007 | {"/m/0mz2": "Alternate history", "/m/06n90": "Science Fiction"} | The United States campaigns mirror Sherman's march to the sea as U.S. armies drive through the center of the Confederacy, while a second U.S. force drives into Virginia to capture Richmond. The Confederacy (with some quiet help from Great Britain) manages to produce a fission bomb. The bomb is smuggled via truck into the de facto U.S. capital of Philadelphia, and detonated; however, the bomb explodes only on the city's outskirts and does not damage any government buildings. In retaliation, the United States drops nuclear bombs on Newport News, Virginia, and Charleston, South Carolina. The Newport News bomb narrowly misses Confederate President Jake Featherston. Texas declares independence from the Confederacy and signs a separate peace with the United States. Jake Featherston attempts to escape to the Deep South but his plane is shot down. He survives the crash landing, only to be caught and killed by a black guerrillero, Cassius. The fourth and presumably final war between the United States and Confederate States ends officially on July 14, 1944, at 6:01 p.m after an unconditional surrender is signed between General Irving Morrell and the acting Confederate President Don Partridge. The United States commences a full occupation of the former Confederate States and Canada, though Texas apparently remains independent but still hosts American soldiers in its territory. For the first time in almost a century, the Stars and Stripes flies over the whole of the pre-1861 United States territory, and Americans express their determination never to let go of the former Confederate territories, after Featherston came so close to crushing them. The Confederates are bitter and far from being reconciled to their fate; they constantly attack the occupying US forces, despite grim retaliations including the execution of civilian hostages. Though outlawed, the Freedom Party is still very much an active underground force. Moreover, the United States itself - while dissolving the Confederate government and declaring its firm intention never to let it rise again - refrains from any formal annexation and (re)admitting Southern states to the Union, since any free elections would likely fill Congress with the United States' most staunch enemies. Rather, the former Confederate territories are left in the same legal limbo in which Canada has been since 1917, being offered neither independence nor civil liberties and kept under an open-ended, harsh military rule. Despite the enormous victory won by the US, the war has not truly ended, but rather changed its form. To their chagrin, most of the soldiers and sailors conscripted "for the duration" are not discharged but set to occupation duty. The US is faced with the daunting task of keeping under indefinite harsh military occupation vast rebellious territories with hostile populations, with the conquered Confederate territories being added to the previously held Canadian ones, as well as the smaller Mormon Utah. And at the same time, the Nuclear Age has been launched with the destruction of three cities in America and six in Europe, and a fast scramble to obtain nuclear arms by powers not yet possessing them. The United States and Germany are determined in trying to prevent Russia and Japan from going nuclear, but these efforts are apparently doomed to failure; moreover, these erstwhile allies themselves seem likely to drift into a Cold War, glaring at each other across the Atlantic. Moreover, aside from the nuclear issue, Japan is presenting an unresolved problem to the US - having won the Battle of Midway, consolidated its hold on the Western Pacific and Eastern Asia and established a concrete threat to Australia. Having to deal with the Confederacy - either as a belligerent neighbor or as a rebellious occupied territory - the US can spare only limited resources for confronting Japan, and the idea of "an island-hopping campaign" across the Pacific is rejected out of hand by one character. |
5120386 | /m/0d3lzj | Battledragon | Christopher Rowley | 1995-10 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | The Masters of Padmasa have started using a great new terror on the world of Ryetelth, not magic but technology; on the southern continent of Eigo they have begun building cannons that could break the military might of the Argonathi Dragon Legions. To help fight this new threat, the Argonath Empire enlists the aid of western kingdom of Czardha and their horse mounted armored knights. On the southern continent the combined armies find victory when they destroy the enemies’ cannons and factory, but at a very high price for the armies are nearly devastated. In pursuit of the Master Heruta they track him to his lair inside a volcano that erupts during the final battle. Bazil and Relkin survive, but are separated from the rest of the Legion in a strange land. |
5121633 | /m/0d3nry | The Dragon Token | Melanie Rawn | 1993 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Pol is torn between anger and guilt at his father's death and relief that he can finally act out against the invading Vellant'im. As he and his mother, Sioned, try to uncover more about the invaders, they discover hidden secrets within an ancient mirror that had belonged to Sioned's old friend, Camigwen. An ancient sorcerer, Lord Rosseyn, is trapped within the mirror. Rosseyn tells Pol of his past and teaches him more about his sorcerous heritage. Meanwhile, Pol's wife and daughters are attacked by the Vellant'im. High Princess Meiglan and Rislyn are taken captive, but Andry, who had been travelling from Goddess Keep, saves Jihan. The southern princedoms are slowly being reclaimed,although many lives are lost, including Prince Kostas of Syr and Rihani of Ossetia. The Dorvali resistance mounts raids on the enemy, preventing them from joining the forces on the Continent, and Kierst-Isel remains secure. Goddess Keep is guarded by the Devr'im in Andry's absence. Other princedoms, such as Grib and Fessenden, have so far remained neutral, but ambitious and/or devoted Princes try to rouse their fathers and their people. In Firon the sorcerers capture the royal seat in Balarat and control the princedom through young Prince Tirel. Idalain, Tirel's squire in the absence of the boy's father, tries to protect the boy, but is forced to pretend he is unaware that the princedom is being overtaken. Yarin, a sorcerer and Tirel's uncle, names himself Regent of Firon. In order to keep Idalain busy, Yarin orders the squire to teach his kinsman, Aldiar, swordplay. As the Vellanti War continues, Pol, his family, and allies must hurry to discover a weakness in their enemies and must overcome past hatreds in order to work together. |
5121642 | /m/0d3ns8 | Skybowl | Melanie Rawn | 1994 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | As the death toll rises and Pol's list of allies grows ever thinner, he must work with people once thought enemies and join all the forces of the Continent together in order to defeat the Vellant'im. Pol discovers allies in the Sorcerers of the Old Blood, who will help him defeat the invading Vellant'im. With this new found strength and the knowledge gained from Lord Rosseyn in the mirror, Pol, Sioned, and the other Lords of the Desert begin to form a plan for their last stand. A ros'alath, much like the one used previously at Goddess Keep, would be constructed by Pol and Andry with the aide of the Sunrunners of Goddess Keep. The main difference between the two walls being that this one would not kill. The diarmadh'im would be woven into the wall in order to withstand the steel blades of the enemies and protect the faradh'im, though they refused to be wove by Andry due to the Lord of Goddess Keep's transgressions against them. In Firon, Aldiar helps Idalian and Tirel escape. He then saves them and Prince Laric's entourage from a blizzard. During the journey to Balarat, Firon's royal seat, Aldiar discovers that Rohannon had become addicted to dranath. With Arlis' permission, Aldiar purges the drug from Rohannon's system. Rohannon then discovers that Aldiar is in fact a sorcerer and a woman, Aldiara. After Rohannon's recovery, the group makes their way North to reclaim Laric's princedom. To the South, Ostvel is able to infiltrate Meadowlord and secure the princedom from both the traitorous Chiana and the Vellant'im. Tilal's army meets up with the remnants of his brother's army, now led by ,Saumer of Kierst-Isel, and together they head North into the Desert. Along the way they stop to retrieve the Dragon Tears, which were used to protect Faolain Riverport. Prince Amiel of Gilad takes control of an army of physicians and aides whatever people he can. Prince Elsen of Grib, although crippled, rides to the aide of Goddess Keep, when it once again falls under attack. These Princes, along with other personages of power, joined the war at last, forsaking their Ruling Princes' stances of neutrality. Back in The Desert, Sioned and the other ladies form a plan to diminish the Vellanti army and rid the invaders of their superstitious priests. The women pose as servants, while Ruala 'gives' Skybowl to the Vellanti High Warlord. The women then proceed to give the priests poisoned food. The priests die, but the women are caught and held captive. The final battle begins. Pol is able to free Sioned, who is able to weave all the faradhi and diarmadhi minds that Pol calls together. Andry and his Sunrunners are also in the weaving. The ros'salath is formed, but a call for blood is heard and dragons enter the weaving. Andry wrests control from Pol, and the ros'salath begins to kill. Pol calls on more minds in an attempt to regain control. Aldiar (really Aldiara) offers Pol access to all the sorcerers' minds in Balarat - her kinsmen. With this new strength of diarmadhi minds, Pol is able to overpower Andry. The ros'salath stops killing; instead it renders nearly all the Vellant'im unconscious. Seeing his army crumble, the High Warlord kills Meiglan. Pol, enraged, kills him. Andry, whose mind had been stretched between this weaving, Goddess Keep, and a dragon, is lost on the light. To the North, Aldiara, Rohannon, and her kinsmen are immobile. Prince Laric is easily able to reclaim his princedom. In the end, the Vellant'im are all rounded up and shipped back to the Vellanti Islands, along with Chiana and her son, who had aided them. Ostvel is named Prince of Meadowlord and Chayla is named Lady of Goddess Keep. Pol is officially confirmed as High Prince, the Faradh'rei and the Diarmadh'rei. |
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