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5776752 | /m/0f40fz | Brotherhood of the Wolf | Dave Wolverton | 1999-05 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/03qfd": "High fantasy"} | Newly crowned by the Earth, Gaborn struggles to understand his new powers and responsibilities in protecting the land, while Raj Ahten wreaks havoc on the Mystarrian countryside in an attempt to lure the new King Orden back to his own country. Soldiers and knights equitable of various nations begin arriving at Castle Sylvarresta, to see if the rumors of the rise of a new Earth King are true. Meanwhile, a second story line is brewing. Roland Borenson, father to Gaborn's bodyguard Ivarian Borenson, awakens after the death of his Runelord, King Mendellas Draken Orden. He unites with a man known as Baron Poll as they travel through Mystarria when suddenly they encounter a young messenger girl named Averan and a mysterious green woman. After hearing news of a Reaver uprising, the group heads towards the walled city of Carris with haste. As word of the Reavers reaches Gaborn, he gathers the amassed troops of Heredon, Orwynne, and Fleeds and heads towards Carris with his host. Sir Borenson he sends to Indhopal on a mission of peace to seek out Raj Ahten's love, Saffira, to see if she can convince her lover to end his war on the kingdoms of Rofehavan. As Gaborn and his army travel towards Carris, they are attacked by a Darkling Glory, summoned from the ashes of a town destroyed by the Wolf Lord Raj Ahten. The Darkling Glory ignores Gaborn and heads swiftly to Castle Sylvarresta, seeking Gaborn's unborn child growing in Iome's womb. In a miraculous display of marksmanship, Myrrima Borenson slays the Darkling Glory with a single arrow to its eye. Iome, Myrrima, and Binnesman then rejoin Gaborn and continue towards Carris. Meanwhile, Roland Borenson and Baron Poll have reached Carris, which is overflowing with men guarding the city against the approaching forces of Raj Ahten. But when word of the Reavers reaches the city, Raj Ahten and his men are accepted into the city, as all realize that the best chance of survival against the Reavers is to join forces behind the immense walls of Carris. Averan and Spring, the green woman, follow their own path, Averan discovering that she has strange earth powers. When Spring kills a Reaver, Averan eats from the Reaver's brain and gains its memories. At the break of dawn, the Reavers attack Carris, at the same time drawing a Seal of Desolation which begins to rot the countryside for miles around. An epic battle rages around the city, with the combined forces of mankind doing all they can to stave off the Reaver assault. When Saffira arrives with Borenson, the power of her voice causes the populace of Carris to surge forth for one last counterattack against the Reavers, but she is slain before Raj Ahten can save her. It is at this time that Gaborn and his mounted knights arrive at Carris and enter the battle, along with Spring, who is Binnesman's wylde, the warrior of the Earth. Only when Gaborn uses his earth powers to destroy the Reaver Fell Mage and the Seal of Desolation, by summoning a world worm, does the battle end, causing the Reavers to flee. At the end of the battle, Raj Ahten castrates Sir Borenson for his role in Saffira's death, and when Gaborn uses his Earth powers to attempt to kill Raj Ahten, one of the Earth's chosen, the Earth forsakes Gaborn and strips him of his newfound powers. In the aftermath of battle, Myrrima and a group of lords and knights equitable swear fealty to the Earth and to mankind, forming the Brotherhood of the Wolf. |
5777045 | /m/0f40zj | The Conqueror Worms | Brian Keene | 2006-05 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/03npn": "Horror", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Teddy Garnett tells this story of a global flood that has left humanity in tatters. Holed up in his mountain home, Teddy and his buddy Carl Seaton struggle through daily life, puzzling over things even stranger than a 40-day rainstorm, including the giant slime-coated holes that keep showing up in Teddy's yard. Before long, Teddy and Carl are fending off man-eating earthworms the size of buses. A helicopter crash nearby brings Kevin and Sarah, the last two survivors of an outpost in Baltimore, into Teddy's story; their tale makes up the even more bizarre second part of the book that explores, graphically, the insanity doom can inspire. It all leads to a slam-bang showdown back at Teddy's house with a creature so monstrous it scares even the killer annelids. |
5778505 | /m/0f43b0 | Aelita | Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | The story begins in the Soviet Union, just after the end of the Russian Civil War. A lonely engineer, Mstislav Los', designs and constructs a revolutionary pulse detonation rocket and decides to set course for Mars. Looking for a companion for the travel, he finally leaves Earth with a retired soldier, Alexei Gusev. Arriving on Mars, they discover that the planet is inhabited by an advanced civilization. However, the gap between the ruling class and the workers is very strong and reminiscent of the early capitalism, with workers living in underground corridors near their machines. Later in the novel, it is explained that Martians are descendants of both local races and of Atlanteans who came there after the sinking of their home continent. Mars is now ruled by Engineers but all is not well. While speaking before an assembly, their leader, Toscoob, says that the city must be destroyed to ease the fall of Mars. Aelita, Toscoob's beautiful daughter and the princess of Mars, later reveals to Los' that the planet is dying, that the polar ice caps are not melting as they once did and the planet is facing an environmental catastrophe. While the adventurous Gusev takes the lead of a popular uprising against the ruler the more intellectual Los' becomes enamored with Aelita. When the rebellion is crushed, they are forced to flee Mars and eventually make it back to Earth. The trip is prolonged with the effects of high speed and time dilation resulting in a loss of over three years and the exact fate of Aelita herself is unknown. It is hinted that she actually survived because Los' receives radio messages from Mars mentioning his name. |
5779726 | /m/0f44yk | Wizardborn | Dave Wolverton | 3/14/2001 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/03qfd": "High fantasy"} | After Raj Ahten attempts to murder the Earth King at the end of Brotherhood of the Wolf, his men turn on him and declare him a marked man in his own kingdom of Indhopal. Raj Ahten, fleeing the battlefield and struggling with wounds inflicted to him by Binnesman's wylde, encounters some of his flameweavers, who warn him that his earthly body is dying from the Earth's curse. However, Raj Ahten has no time to waste, as word reaches him that the Lord of the Underworld himself has arisen in Kartish, and he races off to defend his people. Meanwhile, Gaborn and his companions rest in the nearby village of Balington until dawn, when they will give chase to the fleeing Reaver horde. Binnesman, sensing strong Earth powers within Averan, promptly begins to train her, as well as train his own wylde, Spring. Binnesman also does his best to heal the injured Sir Borenson, and Gaborn, upon learning of Averan's special powers, hatches a plan to track down and extract information from the Waymaker, the only Reaver that knows the underworld path to the One True Master of the Reavers. While Erin Connal and Prince Celinor travel north to gain support for the Earth King, Gaborn and his company move south, attacking and harassing the Reavers whenever possible. Borenson and Myrrima travel south towards Inkarra, to seek out Daylan Hammer, the Sum of All Men, and to ask the Storm King Zandaros for aid. In a final battle, Gaborn and his warriors defeat the remaining Reavers, sending the few remaining creatures scuttling back into the underworld. Averan finds the Waymaker and learns from him the path to the One True Master, afterwards agreeing to lead Gaborn to him. Raj Ahten, after a disastrous battle against the Reavers in his own nation of Indhopal, manages to slay the Reaver Fell Mage, but his own life fails him. In order to remain in the world of the living, he gives himself to the element fire, transforming into Scathain, Lord of Ash. Borenson and Myrrima are attacked by wights on their journey to Inkarra, and Myrrima apparently dies from her wounds. Stunningly though, she comes back from near death, and we learn that she is in fact a water wizard. |
5779847 | /m/0f451p | The Lair of Bones | Dave Wolverton | 2003-11 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/03qfd": "High fantasy"} | In order to save mankind and all life on Earth, Gaborn is charged by the Earth to descend into the underworld and confront the One True Master, ruler of the Reavers. Taking Binnesman, Averan, and Iome with him, he seeks the Lair of Bones in the heart of the Reavers' home. As he descends, Gaborn's powers grow as he takes many endowments, vectored through his dedicates. Gaborn and his companions follow the trail of the previous Earth King, Erden Geboren, to its furthest, and when attacked by Reavers, they are forced to leave Binnesman behind and press on without him. Meanwhile, Borenson and Myrrima venture into Inkarra in search of Daylan Hammer, only to be captured and brought before King Zandaros. The forces of Raj Ahten, fresh off their victory over the Reavers, march north to Carris once more. Erin and Celinor meet Celinor's father, King Anders, who claims to be the new Earth King after Gaborn's loss of power, and they are forced to follow him south into Mystarria. During all this, mysterious earthquakes and countless falling stars herald the very world's shifting in the heavens, as the chaotic forces of destruction seek to unmake the Earth, as the One True Master attempts to bind the Rune of Desolation with the Runes of the Inferno and the Heavens. When Averan is captured by the Reavers, Gaborn has no choice but to leave Iome behind and press forth on his own. Eventually, he reunites with Averan, Iome, and the wylde, and he begins slaying dedicate Reavers of the One True Master. Meanwhile, Borenson and Myrrima escape Inkarra with the help of a Days named Sarka Kaul. They race towards Carris, where they find the city fortified beyond belief in anticipation of another attack by Reavers, this horde making the last look small in comparison. Also near Carris are the massed armies of Raj Ahten, Queen Lowicker of Beldinook, and King Anders of South Crowden. Right before the Reaver attack, Binnesman arrives at Carris to aid his fellow men for one last time. In the underworld, while Averan attempts to destroy the Rune of Desolation, Gaborn battles the One True Master. With the battle raging at Carris, Gaborn, with aid from the Earth, the wylde, and Glories and with Iome slaying dedicate vectors to the One True Master, is able to defeat the Reaver queen, and Averan, instead of destroying the Rune of Desolation combines it with the four other heavenly runes, creating a perfect rune to heal the Earth. With the One True Master's host dead, the remaining Reavers at the Battle of Carris flee to the underworld, and the Earth transports Gaborn, Iome, and Averan to the battlefield. Raj Ahten, seeing his chance to finally kill Gaborn, rejects the Earth King's guidance and is subsequently struck by an ensorcelled arrow, shot by Myrrima. Before he can recover, Raj Ahten is attacked by dozens of Runelords, who hack his body to pieces and throw him in the river, killing the man and drowning the fire spirit within him. With the Earth no longer in danger, peace comes over the land. Iome births her and Gaborn's child, a son named Fallion, and Gaborn travels the land in service to the Earth. |
5780538 | /m/0f45wj | Worldwar: Upsetting the Balance | Harry Turtledove | 1/1/1996 | {"/m/0mz2": "Alternate history", "/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | The United States and Germany develop atomic weapons of their own and, alongside the Soviets, engage in a nuclear exchange with the Race. The Soviets may have detonated the first atomic bomb, but it was only because their original sample of plutonium (captured from the Race) was larger than the samples given to the USA and Germany; the Soviets actually lag far behind either of these two countries in their efforts to make their own plutonium, and they used all they had in the atomic bomb they used south of Moscow to stop the Race's main thrust against the city. Regardless, the Race is in a full state of panic that humans have been able to detonate an atomic weapon, and many commanders are shocked at the number of the Race's soldiers that died in the blast. Straha, third in command of the Conquest Fleet, demands a vote of no confidence in Fleetlord Atvar by the captains of each ship in the Fleet. Such a vote would require a 75% majority to depose Atvar, but the vote falls short at 69%. Atvar remains in control, but he recognizes that most of the shiplords no longer actively support him. Furious at Straha, he orders the shiplord's arrest, but Straha, one step ahead of him, defects to the United States, enraging Atvar and allowing the Americans access to a spaceship of the Race. Soon, the Race launches an invasion of the British home islands (by air from south France, flying over German-held north France) and occupy a northern area (which seems to be centered on Oxfordshire and includes Northampton), and a southern area (which seems to be centered on west Sussex). The humans hold onto Market Harborough; parts of the story describe fighting around Brixworth and Scaldwell and Spratton villages which are on the front line between Northampton and Market Harborough. Another section of text describes an artillery and tank battle for Henley-on-Thames. The human forces are exposed to fire from Lizard helicopter gunships many years before humans had such craft in the real timeline. The Lizards ignore warnings from Churchill that such an attack will meet with terrible consequences. The Lizard forces in Britain are subjected to another human weapon they did not anticipate: mustard gas. Totally unprepared for a chemical attack by the humans, the Race's invasion force is devastated and thrown back: a Lizard plan to link their two areas through Maidenhead fails. London suffers heavy bombardment and loses many landmarks including Big Ben which survived the real world timeline German Blitz. The Lizards' northern pocket is obliterated, and their southern pocket evacuates in a hurry by air through Tangmere, which is the Lizards' last airfield in Britain out of range of human artillery. As a result, the British gain access to much intact Lizard technology that was abandoned in the retreat. The British use of mustard gas also inspires the Germans, Americans and Russians to use poison gas against the Race. The German use of poison gas includes the use of Sarin and Tabun. China's Communist guerrillas also escalate the conflict against the Race. In one of the Race's bases in Siberia, morale is at an all time low. The weather is a truly miserable condition from the hot one the Lizards are used to, and the Race's soldiers feel they're constantly being sent to their deaths by incompetent commanders. Many have fallen into abusing ginger, which works as a narcotic for them, even though it has been outlawed by Atvar's orders (such disobedience would have been considered unthinkable before they came to Earth). The Race's soldiers are pushed to the breaking point, and when the base commander starts berating the garrison yet again, landcruiser driver Ussmak shoots him in the head to silence him and an insurrection starts; the entire Race base mutinies and makes Ussmak their de facto leader. |
5780650 | /m/0f460c | Worldwar: Striking the Balance | Harry Turtledove | 11/5/1996 | {"/m/0mz2": "Alternate history", "/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | At the beginning of 1944, the Battle of Chicago has ended with the Race's forces decimated as a result of an American atomic bomb detonated in the heart of the city. German forces in Western Europe have successfully kept the Race from reaching the Rhine while managing to hurl back the Race's troops in Poland after a nuclear attack on Breslau. The Soviets have managed to stop the Race's assault on Moscow and accept the surrender of a band of disillusioned alien soldiers. After a landing in Britain, Churchill inflicted a massive victory against the Race using mustard gas, gaining much abandoned technology, and inspiring the other nations to use poison gas. The United States attempts to reverse engineer captured Race technology in an effort to create ballistic missiles at a military base in Couch, Missouri. Sergeant Yeager attempts to help Robert Goddard and other scientists with this research by interrogating captured aliens. By this point Yeager has become an expert translator of the Race's language, making him an invaluable asset to Goddard. In the process of his work, Yeager has developed a friendship with two of the alien prisoners, Ristin and Ulhass. Both members of the Race show an alarming adaptability to American customs, learning to play baseball and adopting human slang, along with a surprising willingness to help their human captors. The Race has apparently lost interest in Chicago and seeks instead to capture Denver. Captain Rance Auerbach is among the U.S. Army soldiers who are ordered to try and halt the new offensive. However, the Race's superior firepower and mobility crush American resistance with relative ease. During the fighting, Rance is critically wounded and incapacitated. He awakens in a refugee hospital to find that the Race is advancing rapidly on Denver. General Omar Bradley prepares defenses around Denver which, as the site of America's nuclear weapons program, must be defended at all costs. Fortunately, Brigadier General Groves and the metallurgical laboratory manage to produce an atomic bomb which they use to halt the Race. Fleetlord Atvar considers a nuclear strike against Denver in retaliation, but decides against it since the nuclear fallout would harm the Race's forces. Instead he orders the detonation of one over the front lines in Florida, causing the collapse of the entire American position in the state. Americans are upset by the recent death of President Roosevelt, and Atvar hopes that this will cause a succession crisis, tearing the United States apart; however, this does not happen, and the Presidency is smoothly transferred to Secretary of State Cordell Hull. The U.S. Army, under the command of General George Patton, launches a counter-offensive down the Mississippi River, slowly liberating it from the Race. They manage to reach Quincy, Illinois but begin taking higher and higher casualties as they progress. The first American ballistic missiles are also launched against the Race, though they are so crude and unsophisticated that they do little damage against the invaders. Many of these missiles are easily destroyed by the Race's anti-missile systems. But stocks of anti-missile weapons are low as the Race already expended many to shoot down German missiles. The speed with which the Americans and Germans have developed such weapons stuns and frightens the Race. In Poland, the Wehrmacht continues its advance eastward toward Lodz. However, as they get deeper and deeper into Polish territory, they encounter Jewish partisans whose sympathies lean toward the Race. Mordechai Anielewicz and his fellow Jews do not trust the Nazis and do not wish to see them in control of Poland. They don't wish to see the Race rule the world, either. This situation is exacerbated by the realization that Soviet forces in Ukraine are slowly making their way toward Poland as well. No one is sure what will happen if and when the Wehrmacht and the Red Army meet on the battlefield. Colonel Heinrich Jäger, a tank commander who has had experience with the partisans, manages to convince Anielewicz that the German forces will not repeat their previous persecution of the Jews. For a time, the Wehrmacht and the partisans manage to work together against the Race. The Kriegsmarine manages to destroy Alexandria with an atomic bomb on board a type XXI Elektroboote U-boat. This attack shocks the Race, both because they are unaware of the type XXI's existence and do not see how the bomb could have been transported close enough to Alexandria to destroy the city, and due to Alexandria's proximity to the Race's capital in Cairo; they destroy Copenhagen in retaliation. In the wake of recent setbacks, especially a Soviet nuclear attack on the Race's forces in Saratov, Fleetlord Atvar agrees to meet with human diplomats from the USSR, Britain, Germany, Japan, and the United States for the purpose of negotiating an armistice. Vyacheslav Molotov, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Anthony Eden, Shigenori Tōgō, and George Marshall head to Cairo, the Race's capital, in order to negotiate with Atvar. However, the chances for peace are severely endangered when Hitler secretly plans to resume hostilities by launching a surprise attack against the Race in Poland. Jäger is relieved that the fighting has stopped and hopes that it will achieve a lasting peace. However, Hitler sends SS agents into Poland under Otto Skorzeny and they immediately begin to cause friction between the local Poles, the Jewish partisans, and the Wehrmacht. To Jäger, Skorzeny privately makes comments alluding to the fact that Hitler has not by any means abandoned his plans for the Final Solution. Jäger grows steadily distrustful of Skorzeny and seeks to prevent the SS and Nazis from turning against the Jewish partisans. He establishes a line of communication to the partisans through a Polish farmer named Karol. When Jäger learns that Hitler is planning to use the negotiations in Cairo as a distraction to detonate an atomic bomb in Lodz, he is shocked and disgusted. Jäger gets word to Mordechai about the bomb through Karol. Mordechai and his fellow partisans manage to find and disable the weapon. The Wehrmacht moves into position for the offensive. When Skorzeny activates the weapon's detonator, nothing happens. Furious, Skorzeny heads into Lodz to discern the problem. In Cairo, a distraught Joachim von Ribbentrop announces his government's decision to continue the war to the confused delegates. Ribbentrop is relieved when Atvar tells him that no reports of an attack in Poland have been made. When Jäger finds Karol tortured to death with SS runes burned onto his chest and his wife and daughter brutally raped and murdered, he realizes that his cover is blown. Soon after returning to camp, he is detained by SS men and interrogated. Somewhere in Poland, Ludmila Gorbunova crash lands while trying to deliver supplies to partisans, as the partisans forget about a pine tree in the middle of the runway, which she runs into, wrecking her aircraft. She gets little or no help from the locals who are largely unable and unwilling to aid a Soviet pilot. A Jewish partisan named Ignacy does eventually manage to help her locate a working Fieseler Storch. She takes off with the intent of returning to the Soviet Union after her extended stay in Estonia. By a shocking coincidence, Ludmila arrives at an airfield in the same location where Jäger is being held captive. Jäger's tank crewmen recognize Ludmila as the woman with whom he is involved. Fearing what will happen to their commander if he is interrogated by the SS, the tank crewmen inform Ludmila about his fate and ask for her help. She readily offers her assistance. The Wehrmacht soldiers kill the SS men guarding Jäger and then lead him to Ludmilla's plane. The two take off before anyone realizes Jäger has escaped. Jäger explains Hitler's plan to Ludmila and they make their way to Lodz. There they make contact with Mordechai and tell him about Skorzeny. All three head to the condemned building where the bomb is being guarded by partisans. They find the Jewish guard dead. Upon entering the building, Skorzeny attacks them with nerve gas and a submachine-gun. Jäger is carrying a medical kit with an antidote to the toxin and manages to inject himself, Ludmila, and Mordechai with it. They manage to kill Skorzeny and avert the detonation of the bomb. In Cairo, the Race reaches an accord with the human powers. The Race will completely withdraw from the territories under the control of the United States, the Soviet Union, and the Third Reich in 1942, with the exception of Poland, which the Race intends to hold as a buffer state between the Reich and the USSR. Atvar is willing to suspend hostilities with Germany, Russia, America, Britain, and Japan. Atvar has no intention of returning any part of the British Empire to the United Kingdom, except Canada (which the Race considers uninhabitable due to its climate). And Australia is fully conquered with the atomic bombing of Sydney, and Melbourne. With that, the war ends. Nevertheless, fighting continues in those territories the Race still controls, especially China where a determined Communist insurgency under Mao Zedong seeks liberation. And the Red Army continues to mop up remnant German units from the German invasion. It is clear that the peace is only temporary. The Race has not recognized the right of the human powers to their own independence and still officially intends to conquer the entire world at a later date. Nazi Germany is apparently still eager to use force in order to drive the race off earth completely, though perhaps not in the immediate future. In the Soviet Union, Stalin assures Molotov that war with the Race and the other human powers is inevitable, especially since a second wave of alien colonists is expected to reach earth by the 1960s. In the United States, an America in ruins begins the long process of reconstruction. |
5780913 | /m/0f46g5 | At the Earth's Core | Edgar Rice Burroughs | 1914 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/08sdrw": "Adventure novel"} | The author relates how, traveling in the Sahara desert, he has encountered a remarkable vehicle and its pilot, David Innes, a man with a remarkable story to tell. David is a mining heir who finances the experimental "iron mole," an excavating vehicle designed by his elderly inventor friend Abner Perry. In a test run, they discover the vehicle cannot be turned, and it burrows 500 miles into the Earth's crust, emerging into the unknown interior world of Pellucidar. In Burroughs' concept, the Earth is a hollow shell with Pellucidar as the internal surface of that shell. Pellucidar is inhabited by prehistoric creatures of all geological eras, and dominated by the Mahars, a species of flying reptile both intelligent and civilized, but which enslaves and preys on the local stone-age humans. Innes and Perry are captured by the Mahars' ape-like Sagoth servants and taken with other human captives to the chief Mahar city of Phutra. Among their fellow captives are the brave Ghak, the Hairy One, from the country of Sari, the shifty Hooja the Sly One and the lovely Dian the Beautiful of Amoz. David, attracted to Dian, defends her against the unwanted attentions of Hooja, but due to his ignorance of local customs she assumes he wants her as a slave, not a friend or lover, and subsequently snubs him. Only later, after Hooja slips their captors in a dark tunnel and forces Dian to leave with him, does David learn from Ghak the cause of the misunderstanding. In Phutra the captives become slaves, and the two surface worlders learn more of Pellucidar and Mahar society. The Mahars are all female, reproducing parthogenetically by means of a closely guarded "Great Secret" contained in a Mahar book. David learns that they also feast on selected human captives in a secret ritual. In a disturbance, David manages to escape Phutra, becomes lost, and experiences a number of adventures before sneaking back into the city. Rejoining Abner, he finds the latter did not even realize he was gone, and the two discover that time in Pellucidar, in the absence of objective means to measure it, is a subjective thing, experienced by different people at different rates. Obsessed with righting the wrong he has unwittingly done Dian, David escapes again and eventually finds and wins her by defeating the malevolent Jubal the Ugly One, another unwanted suitor. David makes amends, and he and Dian wed. Later, along with Ghak and other allies, David and Abner lead a revolt of humankind against the Mahars. Their foes are hampered by the loss of the Great Secret, which David has stolen and hidden. To further the struggle David returns to the Iron Mole, in which he and Dian propose to travel back to the surface world to procure outer world technology. Only after it is underway does he discover that Hooja has substituted a drugged Mahar for Dian. The creature attacks David but is overcome, and the return to the surface world proceeds successfully. Back in the world we know David meets the author, who after hearing his tale and seeing his prehistoric captive, helps him resupply and prepare the mole for the return to Pellucidar. |
5787848 | /m/0f4l14 | Life During Wartime | Lucius Shepard | 1987 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | David Mingolla is an artillery specialist in the United States Army serving in a near-future Central American war (references are made to then-future "Afghanistan in '89" and a nuclear weapon that destroyed Tel Aviv). As his unit serves in "Free Occupied Guatemala", Mingolla goes on leave and meets a woman named Debora in a cantina. They gradually become lovers; however, as they get close to each other, Mingolla feels intense mental pain later identified as a psychic probing his mind. Soon after this, Mingolla is recruited into the Psicorps, an elite group of psychics the United States has assembled to counter the Soviet Union's own. Debora, a veteran of the revolt that led to American intervention in the first place, is designated his target. On his way through Psicorps training to refine his mental abilities, Mingolla learns that this front of the Cold War (published before 1991, before USSR's fall) as well as the war itself is a manipulation by two Panamanian families, the Madradonas and the Sotomayors, over three centuries to increase psychic potential in humanity as well as their own genetic diversity. Mingolla and Debora meet and part several times before their meeting with the Madradonas and Sotomayors in Darién, Panama and become embroiled with the members of Mingolla's former squad in a firefight which culminates in the nuclear destruction of Panama City. David and Debora leave the city and their former friends and antagonists behind them, deciding that ultimately what matters is their love for one another, the only item that has not been blatantly manipulated. The fictional work excerpted several times in the novel, Juan Pastorín's short story collection The Fictive Boarding House, gives clues to the nature of the novel and Mingolla's experiences himself in a type of foreshadowing. The lyrics of Prowler heard or sung or thought among members of Mingolla's unit which bookend Life during Wartime serve this function as well. As a nod to science fiction author Philip K. Dick's work, the text itself does not present a clear or objective account of what truly happened to Mingolla or what was hallucination on his part. (At one point on Mingolla's journey, an AI combining a downed Sikorsky helicopter and a long-range guided missile imparts "revelation" to him.) PsiCorps' intensive drug therapy to hone Mingolla's potential as well as the presence and use of "Sammy" (short for Samurai, an intense stimulant) and Frost, a super-addictive version of cocaine, make the third person point of view essential for this novel. es:Vida durante la guerra (novela) |
5799415 | /m/0f5d1h | Among the Brave | Margaret Haddix | 4/27/2004 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/026ny": "Dystopia"} | The fifth book starts off directly where the last book had ended, from the point of view of Trey, Luke's friend from Hendricks' School for Boys. After Luke Garner (Lee Grant) leaves Smits Grant, the younger brother of the real Lee Grant, in the care of his real parents, Luke's friend Trey finds himself at Mr. Talbot's front door preparing to explain all the recent events. The car containing Trey's friends, Nina, Joel, and John takes off without Trey.The house is raided soon afterward and thanks to luck and his own vast knowledge from reading during his years in hiding, Trey manages to dive to safety behind a flowerpot. A member of the Population Police, who searches the porch, says liber (Latin for free). Trey's knowledge of Latin saves his life, as the raider reports that the porch is clear.After the raid, Trey sneaks into the house and encounters a hostile but stunning woman with bright red hair; she is none other than Mrs. Talbot. Together, they discover from a private news network that the government has been overthrown and replaced by the powerful Population Police. Defeated, Mrs. Talbot abandons the house and leaves Trey to fend for himself. After sorting himself out and taking several obscure, important looking documents found within the Talbot house, Trey sets out to find help, hopefully to find Lee and the others. He winds up on the Garner farm and ventures out with Mark, one of Luke's older brothers, to find Luke/Lee and the rest of his friends. They instead find themselves at Population Police Headquarters, once the house of the Grants; Mark is captured and taken instead and Trey must sign up as a recruit to save him. Using his own ingenuity, despite his own fears, Trey manages to save injured Mark by working out a deal with a Population Police guard. He was also able to save his missing friends and Mr. Talbot from execution with the help of a rebel named Nedley. The group find safety at Mr. Hendricks' cottage and discover the schools have been raided and emptied of their students and able-bodied teachers. Then the group is nursed back to health by Mrs. Talbot, who happens to be a doctor. Afterward, Trey presents the documents that he saved, despite several opportunities where he may have abandoned them. Mr. Talbot reveals that the documents conceal the identities of hundreds of Third Children with false identities and they decide to burn them to protect the children. But Trey wants to take the names and the responsibility. Trey snatches them away at the last moment, resolving to take small steps to destroy the Population Police from within along with Lee, Nina, the chauffeur, and Nedley. |
5801361 | /m/0f5kkn | The Stone Rose | Jacqueline Rayner | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | After Mickey Smith discovers a 2000-year-old statue of Rose in a museum, she and the Doctor travel to Ancient Rome and discover some unpleasant secrets. Rose meets a girl who can predict the future, and learns to be careful what she wishes for. |
5804023 | /m/0f5s_n | Jumper | Steven Gould | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | One evening, while being physically abused by his father, David Rice unexpectedly teleports (or "jumps") and finds himself in the local library. The origin of this power is never explained. Vowing never to return to his father's house, David makes his way to New York City. After being mugged and discovering that he can't get a job without a birth certificate and social security number, David robs a local bank by teleporting inside the safe, stealing nearly a million dollars. He then begins a life of reading, attending plays and dining in fancy restaurants. At a play he meets a woman named Millie Harrison, and they spend some time touring New York before she returns to college in Stillwater, Oklahoma. David later visits her in Oklahoma, and they begin a romantic relationship. David also manages to locate and reunite with his long lost mother, Mary Niles. Mary left the family after being severely beaten by David's father, and all her attempts to contact David over the years were interrupted by his father. The New York police start investigating David after he saves a neighbor from an attack by jumping her abusive husband to a park; the husband turns out to be a cop. The investigation drives David to move to Oklahoma, where he gets an apartment near Millie. One night while David is out, the police are in his New York City apartment when Millie calls, and Millie breaks up with him after learning that he is being pursued by the police. Mary, who was on a business trip, is murdered by terrorists when her plane is hijacked. David then sets out to find Rashid Matar, the terrorist responsible for his mother's death. David starts jumping to Algeria to search for Matar, having to dodge the police almost every time he is there. While he is searching for the terrorist, he and Millie eventually reconcile. However, the National Security Agency, led by veteran agent Brian Cox, become suspicious when they find out he can get from Algeria to the United States in only a few hours. When he is questioned, David jumps out of the NSA office, witnessed by Cox and several other agents. Cox and the NSA then become determined to capture David so they can use his powers. After numerous failures to grab David, Cox takes Millie hostage in order to get to him. David strikes back by grabbing Cox, and later captures Matar and his abusive father – thereby putting him in the unique position of controlling the fates of all three of his tormentors. This experience has profound effects on all four of them. David finds himself unable to kill his captives despite their crimes against him, and ultimately releases them. David turns Matar over to the authorities, threatening to come after him again if he isn't found guilty for his crimes. His father is forced to acknowledge his abuse of David and Mary, and enters alcoholic counseling. Cox is forced to see the similarities between his actions and those of the terrorist and the wife-beating alcoholic, and has Millie released and agrees to stop hunting David. Afterward, Millie comforts David as he realizes that he cannot escape his pain through teleportation or vigilante action, and he enters counseling as well. |
5804157 | /m/0f5tbf | Rant: The Oral Biography of Buster Casey | Chuck Palahniuk | 5/1/2007 | {"/m/06nbt": "Satire", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Buster Casey is born in the rural town of Middleton with the senses of smell and taste far more advanced than any other human. Buster acquires the nickname "Rant" from a childhood prank involving animal organs which results in numerous people getting sick. As the victims throw up, they make a sound resembling the word "rant," which becomes a local synonym for "vomit" and Buster's nickname. As a child Rant discovers a massive wealth that turns the small town's economy on its head. He then becomes obsessed with getting bitten by rabid animals along with venomous snakes and spiders. After his first bite from a black widow spider, Rant discovers that toxic spider bites cause him to get an erection. He uses this effect to get out of school and eventually threatens his way to an early diploma and a rather large check that he uses to leave town. It isn't until Rant arrives in the city that it becomes clear that the novel takes place in a dystopian future, where urban dwellers are forcefully divided by curfew into two separate classes: the respectable Daytimers and the oppressed Nighttimers. Rant becomes a Nighttimer and finds himself swept up in the Nighttimer lifestyle that revolves around "Party Crashing", a covert demolition derby played out on city streets at night. The game is organized by an unknown entity and is set during a designated window of time. The object of the game is to crash, not too forcefully, into other players who sport a certain "flag", such as a Christmas tree on the car's roof or the words "Just Married" scrawled on the rear windshield. Rant meets Echo Lawrence, a fellow crasher and the girl with whom he falls in love. Rant also starts a nationwide rabies epidemic that eventually erupts into zombie-invasion-like proportions that calls for those infected with rabies to be shot and killed on sight. Rant eventually dies during a Party Crashing event. His death is viewed and listened to by millions on national television and the "Graphic Traffic" radio show. However, when the car is pried open, his body is missing. After his "death", many interviewees share their speculations about Rant's strange fate and its implications for society along with the rabies outbreak. Some interviewees and friends of Rant speculate that crashing a car while in a given state of mind, will jar a person outside of time. Once this is accomplished, they can then go back and kill off all of their ancestors, in turn, making them immortal. Or they can, through incest, make themselves into something more than human. The latter is believed to have happened to Green Taylor Simms, a fellow Party Crasher, who is suspected to have unsettling ties to Buster Casey. |
5804456 | /m/0f5v4l | Fool on the Hill | Matt Ruff | 1988 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The novel is the story of two authors. Cornell University resident and author Stephen Titus George finds that his real life is becoming the main plot of a retired god, known as Mr. Sunshine. Mr. Sunshine, as god, prefers to create his works in real life instead of on paper. Stephen Titus George decides to fight with Mr. Sunshine about the authorship and outcome of the work. On the stage of Cornell campus a rich set of secondary characters appears, like Cornell student Aurora Borealis Smith with whom Stephen Titus George falls in love, Ragnarok, the Bohemians, a dog named Luther, a cat named Blackjack, Puck, Calliope, a fire-breathing paper dragon as well as evil forces like Rasferret the Grub, a mannequin called Rubbermaid and an army of rats. The drama then unfolds, telling the story of the battle between Good and Evil and the efforts of the two authors to write the story towards either a happy ending or a tragic greek drama. |
5804783 | /m/0f5w52 | Question and Answer | Poul Anderson | 1956 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | John Lorenzen is an astronomer from Lunopolis who is recruited by the Lagrange Institute for the second expedition to Troas. At this time, Earth is still recovering from a two-century-long era of war and chaos that began with the Soviet conquest of North America in World War III and ended with the unification of the Solar System at the conclusion of a war between Mars and Venus. Twenty-two years after the discovery of a faster-than-light drive, Troas is the only Earthlike world to be discovered, and enthusiasm for interstellar travel is waning. If Troas is not opened to colonization, humanity may give up interstellar travel altogether. The effort to mount a second expedition to Troas is plagued with difficulties. The Lagrange Institute is unable to charter a starship and must build its own, the Henry Hudson. The construction of the Hudson is hampered by delays, cost overruns, and at least one act of outright sabotage. The voyage of the Hudson to Troas is also troubled, as tension rises among the members of the expedition. Edward Avery, the expedition's psychomed, is unable to maintain group harmony aboard the ship, and at least one fight breaks out. Upon arrival at Troas, the crew of the Hudson find no trace of the first expedition. After it is determined that there are no harmful microorganisms on Troas, a base camp is established on the planet. Eighteen days later, a group of aliens appears. Avery is assigned to learn the aliens' language, and he reports that it is extremely difficult to understand. He is eventually able to determine that the aliens are called the Rorvan, and that they are native to Troas. This is bad news for the expedition, since planets with native intelligent species are off limits to colonization. The Rorvan invite a small group of humans, including Avery and Lorenzen, to accompany them to their settlement. As the group of humans and Rorvan travel, Lorenzen listens to Avery's conversations with the aliens and realizes that their language isn't nearly as difficult to understand as the psychomed claims. By the time they reach the Rorvan settlement, Lorenzen has learned through his eavesdropping that Avery and the Rorvan are conspiring to deceive the other humans. When Lorenzen finally confronts Avery, the psychomed admits that he and his clique within Earth's government have been deliberately stifling interstellar travel, since they feel that humanity isn't ready for it. The members of the first expedition were interned after returning to the Solar System, and the Rorvan are not native to Troas after all. Avery pleads with Lorenzen to help him maintain the deception, but Lorenzen refuses. He wants humanity to expand into the galaxy. |
5806088 | /m/0f5zp2 | Among the Enemy | Margaret Haddix | 2005-06 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/026ny": "Dystopia"} | Matthias, Percy, and Alia, (from Among the Betrayed) are introduced once again. At Niedler School they are apprehended along with many other children and put in a truck to be taken, supposedly, to a work camp. They are saved when Matthias finds a nail, slashes the tires and crashes into a tree that falls, injuring Alia in the process, and allows them to escape. They run immediately to the forest, and Percy is shot in a crossfire between Population Police and Rebels while they are trying to find a place to hide. Matthias is able to drag Percy and Alia, now both critically ill, into a rebel hideout cabin, whose dwellers are killed by the Population Police, and then he runs to Mr. Hendrick's cottage to get help. He returns from Mr. Hendrick's cottage with Mrs. Talbot, a talented doctor and wife of a rebel leader, Mr. Talbot. Finding Alia and Percy missing, Matthias then ends up saving a Population Police Officer Tidwell, called Tiddy by his friends, from a deadly shootout. They end up at Population Police headquarters, where he finds an expected favor from the commander of the base as a result of his association with Tiddy, a favorite of the commander's. Tiddy goes to the forest and reports upon his return that he torched the entire area. Unexpectedly, he dies from poison very suddenly soon afterward. Matthias grieves for Percy and Alia, who he believes are now dead, though makes it appear as though he is grieving for Tiddy instead. The commander provides Matthias with special allowances, believing that Matthias is devastated by Tiddy's death, and Matthias pretends to enjoy the commander's company to avoid getting into trouble. Matthias soon encounters Nina, working undercover at the headquarters, and she reluctantly reveals what she, Lee (Luke Garner), and several other allies are doing in hopes of overthrowing the Population Police. The commander also takes the boy to a warehouse full of food, where Matthias realizes that he must stop grieving over Percy and Alia and help Nina and her friends. Thanks to Matthias, they are soon able to overhear many of the commander and the Population Police's plans, including one involving Jason Barstow, a boy who betrayed Nina to the Population Police. Matthias eventually escapes from headquarters to aid Nina and the others but is caught by Mike, a Population Police agent and Tiddy's best friend. However, Mike soon reveals that he is actually a double-agent, having previously saved Matthias and Nina when they were caught during a secret meeting to exchange information. They make their way to the warehouse and empty it of all its food by "lending" it to the local population. The warehouse, which also contains fake ID cards as well as the local population's real ID cards, is destroyed to prevent the Population Police from exacting a plan that would expose illegal thirds and other people targeted by the Population Police as enemies. The pair remain in hiding for several days before returning to Mr. Hendricks' house, where Matthias hopes to apologize to Mr. Talbot for abandoning Mrs. Talbot in the forest where Percy and Alia perished. However, when they arrive, Matthias is relieved and overjoyed to discover his friends and Mrs. Talbot are safe and alive. Mike reveals himself to be Nedley, an ally from Among the Brave. Matthias decides to remain at the Mr. Hendricks' cabin with his friends until he decides what he will do next with his life, though he is content to remain with Percy, Alia, and everyone else. |
5806151 | /m/0f5zy2 | Among the Free | Margaret Haddix | 2006-04 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/026ny": "Dystopia"} | Luke Garner is an illegal third child along with Trey, Nina, Matthias, Percy, and Alia. He has been working from within the Population Police at the stables in hopes of slowly overthrowing them and bringing about freedom. When he is chosen to accompany a sergeant on a mission to distribute new identification cards to citizens, Luke unknowingly brings about the catalyst of change when he refuses to shoot a defiant old woman and runs away, leaving his sergeant in the hands of a group of angry villagers who despise the Population Police. After several days of surviving alone, haunted by the memory of his friend Jen Talbot, run-ins with a selfish stable boy who was with Luke and his sergeant at the time of the incident, and attempting to avoid the Population Police at all costs, Luke finds his way to another village filled with starving people. They save Luke from being executed by the Population Police when they arrive; one man in particular named Eli reveals that the village no longer cares about their own lives and will do anything to help those in need like Luke. In the past, Eli and other villagers willingly betrayed a family with a third child in order to obtain food for their own families. That villagers realize their wrongs much too late and found many of their family members taken away by the Population Police with nothing in return. When people are heard coming to the village, Eli helps Luke escape with a quilt made by his daughter Aileen. Luke wanders into another village and discovers the Population Police has finally been overthrown. With many villagers, they travel to the government headquarters as large groups of people revel and relate their own stories on television. Luke, on the other hand, is apprehensive and discovers Oscar Wydell, Smits Grant's former bodyguard, intends to claim leadership and collaborates with Aldous Krakenaur, former Population Police leader, to blame Third Children for all the Population Police's crimes. While the news broadcast originally intended to allow people voice their opinions, Luke sees that the leaders are already beginning to poison the unwitting populace with propaganda and it is impossible for any opinion other than one that blames Third Children for all crimes to be heard. Desperate, Luke rides one of the horses (Jenny, he called it in memory of Jen) onto the stage to avoid the security guards and voices his opinion and reveals to the world what he is saying is the absolute truth as he is a third child. Protected by Philip Twinings, a prominent news anchor from before the era of the Population Police who had hoped that opinions could have been openly shared, Luke tells his life story (chronicling the events from the beginning of the series to the present) and the stories of his friends Trey, Nina, and Matthias, and of Smits and how Oscar was his bodyguard, and people come to realize that the government is undeniably at fault. Shortly after, the people discover that Oscar escaped with Krakenaur during Luke's speech. Luke finally finds his friends Nina and Trey in the crowd and finds out that all his friends met up at Mr. Hendricks home. Luke thinks about all the things he's always wanted to do, and realizes that it is all possible. |
5808026 | /m/0f648_ | Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood | Ann Brashares | null | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | It is the girls last summer before college and then they will go to university and college. They all find themselves in different, but challenging situations. They all struggle with their identities, love, and relationships. Following the death of Lena's grandfather, Lena's father convinced his mother, Valia, to move in with his family. Valia is homesick and sad, and, as a result, constantly complains and makes Lena's home life very tense. Lena's one solace is the figure drawing class she is taking at an art school, despite her parents' wishes that she choose a more practical interest. However, when her father comes into the class and sees her drawing a nude model, he really forbids her from taking the class. Lena tries to fund the class herself, but is caught by her father, who then announces that he will not pay for Lena to go to the Rhode Island School of Design. Shocked by her father's decision, Lena goes to the class's instructor, Annik Marchand, who advises Lena to try for a scholarship. Lena makes a portfolio of drawings of her family, as well as Paul Rodman, who comes to stay with Carmen and ends up visiting and posing for Lena. Through her drawings, Lena learns more about her family: her sister Effie's anger that Lena is leaving for college, her mother's struggle between Lena's wishes and her father's, her father's fear of Lena entering a world he is unfamiliar with, and her grandmother's wishes that someone pay attention to her misery instead of simply ignoring it. At the end of the summer, Lena mails in her portfolio, and receives word that she has gotten the scholarship. She tells her father, and receives his permission to attend art school. She also manages to convince him to allow Valia to return to Greece. Brian asks Tibby to go to the senior party with him, as his date. Although it is clear that she returns his romantic feelings, she worries about changing their relationship and opening herself up to him. She soon relents, though, and Brian kisses her and tells her that he loves her. The next morning, Katherine reached out the window to get an apple but falls out the window and injures her head. Tibby is thrown into depression, concerned for Katherine and blaming herself for the accident. She also feels as if she didn't love Katherine enough, having always resented her younger siblings. She begins to avoid Brian, feeling that the accident wouldn't have happened if she hadn't been thinking about him, and also believing that Katherine's accident indicates that taking chances will only end in suffering. Towards the end of the novel, Tibby becomes Christina's unwilling labor partner and helps Christina be brave enough to have the baby, even without her husband and Carmen's presence. This encourages Tibby to be brave herself and confront her feelings for Brian instead of shying away from them, and they begin a relationship. Bridget goes to soccer camp in Pennsylvania, and is shocked to discover that one of her fellow coaches is none other than Eric. She finds her feelings for him reawakening, but is stunned by the discovery that he has a girlfriend, Kaya. Bridget plans to begin avoiding Eric, but her plan is shot down when she and Eric are made partners, causing them to see each other constantly. Not wanting to upset Eric, Bridget selflessly puts her feelings aside and restrains herself to being Eric’s friend while respecting the relationship between Eric and Kaya. The two develop a friendship despite Bridget’s uncertainties. Later, Bridget comes down with a fever, and Eric finds her in her cabin very ill. Eric carries her to his cabin and he takes care of her. They fall asleep together, and Bridget wakes up to find Eric holding her. Feeling guilty, she tries to break the hold quietly, but her attempts wake up Eric. Bridget feels confused and betrayed when he leaves the camp for an unknown reason, and decides that she won’t hope for his attention anymore. As much as she prided herself on making this summer with Eric different from the first one (where she went after him and had to have him), it began to feel the same because once again she is left wondering why he left her. She trains her soccer team hard, and they go on to defeat Eric’s in the championship. Bridget later questions Eric about his leaving, and Eric reveals that he returned to New York to break up with his girlfriend due to his feelings for Bridget. At first, Bridget asks Eric if he gets closer to her just to leave her, but he lets her know otherwise. He tells her that he thinks they were always meant to be. Afterwards, they become a couple. Carmen feels stressed out over her mother’s pregnancy and her job watching Lena’s grandmother, Valia, who has become cranky and sullen ever since she was forced to move to the United States following the death of her husband. Carmen also begins to feel that her leaving for college will leave her unable to return home, and decides to attend the University of Maryland instead of Williams so that she can stay home and retain a part of her old life. While taking Valia to the hospital one day, Carmen meets Win Sawyer, a college student who volunteers at the hospital. He begins to develop feelings for her, and she for him, but she fears that he only likes her because he assumes that she is a kind and selfless person, and is afraid of telling him the truth. She calls this selfless side of her, "Good Carmen." When Carmen’s mother goes into labor four weeks early, Carmen enlists Tibby to stay with her mother, and together with Win Sawyer heads off to find David, Christina's husband, who is out of town. Together, Tibby and Christina do it and she delivers a baby boy which Carmen names Ryan. After the baby is born, Win and Carmen finally kiss, and leave the hospital hand in hand. Carmen finds that, "Good Carmen," is a part of her, not a different person. Carmen realizes that there will always be a place for her in her family, and she decides to go to Williams College. it:Il tempo delle scelte. Quattro amiche e un paio di jeans |
5811678 | /m/0f6hkg | A Stroke of Midnight | Laurell K. Hamilton | 4/12/2005 | {"/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/03npn": "Horror", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/01qxvh": "Romance novel"} | Following on almost immediately from the events of Seduced by Moonlight, A Stroke of Midnight begins with Merry and the Ravens attending a press conference in the sithen. This is highly unusual as the home of the sidhe is usually off-limits to the human press. However, it is felt that it is more secure than holding the conference elsewhere. This opinion is challenged almost immediately by the deaths of Beatrice, one of the lesser fae, and a human reporter. Merry, assigned to solve the murders by her aunt, Queen Andais, opts to bring in human forensics in the hope that science might be able to succeed where magic has so far failed - and bring a murderer to justice. The entire novel takes place within approximately one day. |
5811788 | /m/0f6hyq | Seduced by Moonlight | Laurell K. Hamilton | 2004-02 | {"/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/03npn": "Horror", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/01qxvh": "Romance novel"} | Seduced by Moonlight begins shortly after the events of A Caress of Twilight. Kurag, Goblin King, is insisting upon proof that Kitto has become sidhe following sex with Merry. She offers an extra month of their alliance for every goblin hybrid she can bring into sidhe magic. During the discussions, Siun, Kitto's nightmarish, spidery former mistress, appears and he is terrified. It is revealed that Rhys also swore blood price on her, as it was she that took his eye when he failed to "glow" for her during sex. In his fear, Kitto accidentally uses the Hand of Reaching to open a portal through the mirror. Siun falls through and is trapped half-way, and after some negotiation, Kurag allows the Ravens to do what they like. Kitto viciously wounds her, and Rhys kills her with a sword. It is revealed that Meredith is a vessel for the Goddess Danu when she inadvertently brings the pregnant Maeve Reed back into her god-head, and gives Frost newfound god status (which he is not comfortable with). The cup or cauldron also reappears after Merry has a dream about it, an effect that has significant impact upon the sidhe who believed it lost forever. During sex with Merry many of her lovers suffer unexpected side-effects: * Rhys is brought back into his god-head * Frost is brought into his god-head * Sage is turned into a full-sized sidhe * Nicca is possessed by Dian Cecht * Doyle regains his shape-shifting abilities (turning into a dog and a horse), plus ones he never had previously (an eagle). Merry and her lovers return to the Courts. Upon the flight back, Merry is presented with the Queen's ring by Rhys. This is not only a symbol of her status as heir, but also a potent artifact in its own right. It was known as the happy ever after ring as it permitted sidhe to find their perfect mates. When they arrive at the airport they are greeted by several of the Queen's Ravens as well as human policemen. The Queen has insisted that Merry take to her bed any of the sidhe that the ring recognises. A short while after their arrival, they attend a press conference. A policeman is bewitched and shooting breaks out. Merry is saved by Frost and others of the Ravens. Yet more Ravens await Merry at the sithen. The Queen insists that Merry beds two out of the four before she appears before her. The result is the appearance of a spring, from which Merry fills a cup. Andais, apparently insane with bloodlust, is attacking her men. The Ravens attempt to intervene and protect one another. Merry uses her Hand of Blood to draw wounds upon her aunt. The Green Man then gives Merry the ability to heal all those in the room. It is discovered that a spell was used to incite the Queen to murder. The plot was hatched by those amongst the court who feared that a mortal Queen, Merry, would result in the sidhe ceasing to exist. Merry is challenged by one, Miniver, and they duel before the court. Meredith is declared the winner. |
5811854 | /m/0f6j38 | A Caress of Twilight | Laurell K. Hamilton | 3/26/2002 | {"/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/03npn": "Horror", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | A Caress of Twilight begins a few months after the events of A Kiss of Shadows. It is December, and Merry and the Sidhe warriors she has chosen as her lovers have returned to Los Angeles, California. Merry has resumed working for the Grey Detective Agency and several of the Sidhe have also joined the payroll. Merry is approached by Maeve Reed, previously known as Conchenn before her exile from the Seelie Court and now a famous Hollywood actress. Maeve asks Merry to perform a fertility rite that will permit her to have a child by her dying human husband. In return, she tells the princess that the reason for her exile was that she had refused to become the wife of Taranis, King of Light and Illusion, because she believed he was sterile. Galen, badly injured by the demi-fey during A Kiss of Shadows, has yet to heal, despite the usually phenomenal healing abilities of a sidhe warrior. Merry approaches the Queen of the Demi-Fey, Niceven, regarding a cure. The price of the cure and an alliance is a weekly drink of Merry's blood by a surrogate to be chosen by Niceven. During Merry's first night in bed with Doyle, they are interrupted by Andais who reveals that the Nameless has been freed. The worst of both courts, the Nameless was the last great spell that Seelie and Unseelie had cooperated upon. They had stripped themselves of everything too awful for them to be permitted to stay in the United States, and from it had been formed the Nameless. A strange murder brings members of the Grey Agency, including Merry, to the scene. However, their presence is challenged by others of the police force and they are thrown off site. However, this is not before they have a chance to suspect that supernatural forces are at work. It is suspected that the lives had been sucked from the murder victims by the ghosts of dead gods. Nothing is said to the police, however, as the only known person to work such a spell was a sidhe and, if it were discovered, that fact could result in all sidhe being banished from the country. Healed from his injuries by Niceven's representative, Sage, Galen acts the part of the Green Man in the fertility ritual with Merry which results in Maeve Reed becoming pregnant. It begins to become clear that Taranis is also planning something as various social secretaries insist upon Merry attending first the Yule Ball and then a feast in her honour. This culminates in a conversation between Merry and Taranis himself. Finally, the Nameless attacks Maeve Reed's home. It is finally defeated by Merry and her companions, Merry herself showing for the first time her second Hand of Power - the Hand of Blood. The result of the destruction of the Nameless is the release of the magics which formed it; these magics transfer themselves to the victors, who begin to exhibit unforeseen side effects. |
5811962 | /m/0f6jgr | A Kiss of Shadows | Laurell K. Hamilton | 10/3/2000 | {"/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/03npn": "Horror", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The story begins in Los Angeles, California, in a world where magical creatures are "out of the closet" and, in some cases, even legal. Princess Meredith NicEssus is working for the Grey Detective Agency under the assumed name of Meredith 'Merry' Gentry. When two women come to the agency with a story about fey-wannabes and rituals involving fey women, Merry goes undercover to investigate. However, she and her colleagues get more than they bargained for when it is discovered that the culprit is using Branwyn's Tears, an illegal oil that can make a human appear as a sidhe (pronounced 'shee') lover for a night, and turn even a sidhe or a sidhe-descendant into his sexual slave. In the process of solving the case, Merry's secret is revealed, and she is hunted by the demonic Sluagh. Brought to see their King, Sholto, he offers Meredith a deal. Himself disapproved of by Andais, Queen of Air and Darkness, because of his mixed blood, he proposes an alliance between the two of them. Jealous at the idea of Merry becoming his lover, Sholto's harem of nighthags attack Merry. During the fight Merry's gift, theHand of Flesh, is revealed when one of them, Nerys, becomes turned into a ball of flesh. Shocked, Merry tries to flee, but is trapped. Doyle, Captain of the Queen's Raven Guard, appears. He announces that the Queen never sent the Sluagh, and that in fact the Queen meant her no harm. As proof of this he produces the Queen's sword Mortal Dread, as well as the Queen's mark, which he transfers to Merry in a kiss. Merry returns with Doyle to the Court. The Queen claims that she wants her bloodline to continue upon the throne. She is willing to take as her heir whichever of Meredith or her cousin, Cel, can first produce an heir. She lifts the geiss of celibacy upon her Ravens for Meredith alone, insisting that she choose at least three in order to increase the chance of pregnancy. While this offer would permit Merry to end her self-imposed exile and return home, it also brings dangers. Cel, previously the sole heir, makes several attempts upon her life. Merry makes alliances with others such as Kurag, the Goblin King. However, Cel was behind the Branwyn's Tears incident in LA. In punishment, he is to be confined for six months after being coated with the oil himself, something akin to torture. |
5811996 | /m/0f6jkh | Mistral's Kiss | Laurell K. Hamilton | 12/12/2006 | {"/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/03npn": "Horror"} | Meredith wakes up from a dream where she is given a horn cup from the Consort. The horn is a lost relic belonging to Abeloec, one of her guards, and the former god of wine. Abeloec and Merry drink from the horn, and some of his former god powers are restored. The other guards receive tattoos, symbols of their former god-powers that link the guards to Meredith in a mysterious way. They are magically transported to the heart of the Unseelie sithen, the dead gardens, where sex with Meredith, Abeloec and Mistral causes the gardens to come alive again. Rain begins to fall inside the garden. Through the sex magic, Galen, Nicca and Aisling disappear into the earth, air and trees, apparently as sacrifices to bring the magic back. Merry discovers that the Sithen responds to her desires, like adjusting how much rain falls in the garden. Merry learns that Abeloec’s cup was once used to make queens and goddesses, and the group speculate as to whether Merry is now immortal. Meredith asks the sithen to create a door to return to the Unseelie sithen. When they go through it, they find that they have accidentally passed into the Sluagh sithen, and they end up in the dead garden of the Sluagh. Before they can escape, they are confronted by Sholto, King of the Sluagh, and Lord of That Which Passes Between, and his two night hags, Agnes and Segna. Meredith discovers that Sholto’s tentacles have been shaved off by a member of the Seelie who tricked him. The hags believe that Meredith is part of the conspiracy. Segna attacks Meredith, but before she can reach her, Sholto strikes her and throws her into the dead lake, where is she is speared by the enchanted bones of the dead. Segna is mortally wounded, but alive. Sholto and Meredith wade into the lake to euthanize Segna. In a last-ditch attempt to kill Meredith, Segna pulls her under the water. Meredith uses her Hand of Blood to finish Segna. Sholto and Meredith magically appear on the Island of Bones in the middle of the lake. Sholto carries a dagger and a spear of bone, signs of kingship among the sluagh that had been lost. The Goddess appears and gives Sholto the chance to restore magic to the Sluagh. He is given the choice to either bring the magic back with blood by killing Meredith, or by sex. If he chooses death, the black heart of the sluagh will be restored. But if he chooses sex and life, it will change the sluagh sithen to a more Seelie-like place. Sholto chooses sex and life, and together they restore magic to the Sluagh garden. In a blast of power, they are returned to the Sluagh garden which is now filled with herbs, plants and flowers. Drunk with his new power, Sholto calls the Wild Hunt to chase the sidhe. Meredith and her guards flee. Meredith conjures a protective covering of four-leaf clover and discovers a “thin place” that allow them to escape the Sluagh sithen. Now more sidhe than ever, Sholto is attacked by the very Wild Hunt that he called up, and he is forced to flee as well. Now in the real world, Meredith calls on a group of Red Caps (cousins of the goblins), led by Jonty, to fight the Wild Hunt with them. The Wild Hunt is defeated and through the remaining magic, faerie animals including dogs appear. After the battle, they are rejoined by Galen, Aisling and Nicca who, having disappeared from the garden, reappeared in the Hall of Mortality. Galen’s wild magic causes flowers and water to appear in the Hall, and he accidentally causes all prisoners to be freed, including Cel, the Queen’s son, who wants Meredith dead. A furious Andais confronts Meredith and tells her that she must take her guards and go back to Los Angeles tonight, because she has ruined her sithen and Andais cannot keep her safe from Cel. |
5812419 | /m/0f6kp9 | Monster Planet | David Wellington | 2005 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/03npn": "Horror"} | Monster Planet takes place twelve years after the events in Monster Island. Sarah, Dekalb's now 20-year-old daughter, fights alongside Ayaan and her squad of female Somali warriors to defend their last remaining settlements from the encroaching undead forces. Meanwhile, a powerful lich from Russia who calls himself "The Tsarevich" leads his army west on an unknown expedition. |
5812965 | /m/0f6m68 | Freddy Goes to the North Pole | Walter R. Brooks | null | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | In the beginning, Freddy had the idea to establish a tourism company called Barnyard Tours Inc. The animals agreed, and the company was formed. Animals could pay for a tour with food, or by doing work for Mr. Bean. Soon, however, Freddy and Jinx, the cat, were sick and tired of conducting the tours. Freddy suggested a trip to the North Pole. So they and four other animals set off. A year passed, and the animals left began to worry. A mob formed in the barnyard triggered by a speech by Charles, the rooster. Then, Ferdinand, a crow from the expedition, came back and organized a rescue party. He said they had gone on a ship and crew were planning to eat Freddy. The sailors had said that they might try going to Santa Claus’ house. Later, in the woods of Canada, two children and a bear joined the rescue party. However, it soon was discovered that Ferdinand forgot to bring food and clothing for the animals. Everything looked grim for Ferdinand for a minute, but he suddenly came up with the idea for a lecture tour. The animals of the woods brought in food and clothing they found in the woods. Also, a few weeks later Charles and Jack, a dog, wandered away and were captured by some wolves. The animals, Charles and Jack, managed to drive the wolves away with the help of some ants. They finally arrived at Santa Claus’ house. The animals found Freddy there and also found a problem: The sailors were trying to turn Santa Claus’s irregular workshop into an ordinary, assembly line factory. The animals tried to make the sailors leave. They played ghosts, but one sailor wasn’t scared. Then, Freddy sent the captain, Mr. Hooker, a treasure map. He thought all the sailors would go with him, but instead, he tried to get all of it for himself. Freddy and Jinx chased after him and took it back. Later, the whole crew of the ship was shown the map. The sailors left and Santa Claus’s workshop went back to normal. Santa Claus took the animals and the two children to the Bean Farm. |
5832482 | /m/0f8067 | Good News, Bad News | David Wolstencroft | null | null | The novel revolves around two men, Charlie Millar and George, both secret agents who are mistakenly placed together as employees in a photo kiosk at Oxford Circus. Neither man is aware of the other's real identity. Then a "Frame Thirteen" order comes through, instructing each to assassinate the other. Charlie and George try at first to carry out the order. But in time they learn that the real problem lies with the organisation for which they both work. As the chase begins, the two men come to understand that things not what they seem, and out pour secrets that will rattle the foundations of the British Intelligence Service. |
5833227 | /m/0f81dt | My Cousin Rachel | Daphne du Maurier | 1951 | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/05hgj": "Novel", "/m/01qxvh": "Romance novel"} | The story of "My Cousin Rachel" begins with Ambrose and Philip Ashley out walking. Ambrose is the owner of a large country estate on the Cornish coast and guardian to his orphaned cousin, seven year old Philip. As they walk they see a body swinging on a gibbet and Ambrose delivers the book's memorable opening line… The story moves forward and we find Ambrose and Philip running the estate and living a harmonious, bachelor lifestyle in an all male household. The manservant, Seecombe, is in charge of the staff and runs the house and Tamlyn is head gardener. On Sundays Philip's godfather, Nick Kendall and his daughter Louise, come to lunch as do the Reverend Pascoe and his family. Life is good apart from a few health problems that determine that Ambrose must spend the winter in warmer climes. As the damp weather approaches, he sets off for his third winter abroad and this time chooses Italy. Philip misses Ambrose, but receives letters from him, telling of his journey and then saying that he has reached Florence and met up with a cousin of theirs called Rachel. Apparently Rachel's father was from Cornwall and related to the Ashley family by marriage, but her mother was Italian. Ambrose relates that when Rachel was young she had married an Italian nobleman called Cosimo Sangalletti, who had been killed in a duel, leaving her childless and in a precarious financial position. Ambrose's letters reveal that he enjoys Rachel's company and that he spends much time with her during the following months. Philip discusses Rachel with Nick and Louise Kendall and they are all surprised that Ambrose has chosen female company during his visit to Italy. In the Spring, when Ambrose would normally be planning a date for his return home he sends a letter to Philip announcing that he and Rachel are married and have no immediate plans to return to Cornwall. Philip is numb with shock and ashamed that he can not be pleased for Ambrose, while everyone else seems delighted for the happy couple and full of questions about what Rachel is like. Seecombe is also unhappy, dreading a female influence on the household. Louise chatters on about the changes that Rachel will make to the house and when Philip snaps at her she asks him if he is jealous. Then Philip's godfather asks him if he has any plans for the future bearing in mind that, if Ambrose has a son, Philip will no longer be his heir. Another letter arrives from Italy saying that there is a 'tangle of business' relating to Rachel that Ambrose is spending a lot of time and money sorting out and that they need to stay in Florence. Philip is relieved that he can continue running the estate for the time being. Gradually the tone of Ambrose's letters changes and he complains of the relentless sun, the stuffy atmosphere of the villa Sangalletti and terrible headaches. Philip hears nothing at all from Easter to Whitsun of the following year and when a letter finally arrives in July, all is clearly not well. Ambrose writes of his illness and says that a friend and advisor of Rachel's called Rainaldi has recommended that Ambrose sees a different doctor. Ambrose says he can trust no-one and that Rachel watches him constantly. Philip discusses the contents of the letter with his godfather who thinks Ambrose may be having a breakdown or suffering from a brain tumour. Nick tells Philip that Ambrose's father had died of a brain tumour, having suffered terrible headaches and other symptoms similar to those affecting Ambrose. Philip is deeply concerned and decides to go to Italy. As he is about to start his journey another letter arrives saying… When Philip arrives at the villa Sangalletti he is told by a servant that Ambrose is dead and that Rachel has left the villa. Philip is devastated by the realisation that he will never see Ambrose again. He calls on Rainaldi, who seems startled when he sees Philip, but quickly recovers himself and explains that Ambrose's condition had deteriorated quickly, with his behaviour becoming very strange and that this was because of pressure on his brain. Philip feels intense dislike and mistrust for Rainaldi and for Rachel. Once back in Cornwall, Philip tries to overcome his sadness. Ambrose had appointed Philip's godfather to be his guardian until his coming of age, which would be when he was twenty-five. Nick tells Philip that he has received a communication from Rainaldi containing two pieces of information; firstly that the death certificate confirms that Ambrose's cause of death was a brain tumour and secondly saying that Ambrose had never changed his will in Rachel's favour so Philip is still heir to the estate. Nick accepts Rainaldi's word about Ambrose's death but Philip is convinced that Rainaldi cannot be trusted and coupled with Rachel's abrupt disappearance from the villa, he is sure something is amiss. Two weeks later Nick receives a communication from Rachel to say that she has arrived by boat at Plymouth. She says that she has all Ambrose's possessions with her and wants to return them to Philip. Philip invites her to stay with him, even though he can hardly bear to think of her. Seecombe prepares the house for a female visitor and on the day Rachel is due to arrive, Philip goes out so that there will be no-one to receive her. When Philip returns home Rachel has retired to her room so he dines alone. Later Rachel sends a note down asking Philip to join her in her room. Rachel seems startled when she first sees Philip and he is dumbfounded by the vision in front of him. Rachel is small and pale with dark hair and tiny hands and she is dressed all in black. She bears no resemblance to the woman Philip has imagined since he first heard of her. Rachel thanks Philip for letting her visit and says that her arrival at the house was just as she had imagined it would be, because of all that Ambrose had told her about his Cornish home and she says that Philip must not let her visit inconvenience him at all. Rachel quickly relaxes in Philip's company, who despite his preconceived dislike for her, finds himself at ease with her; all thoughts of anger, hatred and fear seeming futile as he gets to know and like her. The next day Philip shows Rachel around the estate and introduces her to the tenants in the surrounding farms. After a day or two, Philip realises that Rachel does not know about his trip to Florence, so he approaches the subject with her and shows her the last two letters that Ambrose had sent explaining that it was the letters that prompted his journey. Rachel knows that the letters must have made Philip hate her and he admits that he only invited her to stay so that he could accuse her of harming Ambrose, make her suffer and then send her away. He goes on to tell her, that now they have met, she is so different from what he expected that he cannot hate her. She explains about Ambrose's illness and because they both loved Ambrose a harmony develops between them. Philip and Rachel adopt a routine which includes church on Sundays, followed by lunch with Nick and Louise Kendall and the Reverend Pascoe and his wife and daughters. Rachel has brought many plants from Florence and she spends lots of time working in the gardens with Tamlyn, the head gardener. Evidently Rachel is an expert on plants and herbs and often provides advice on the use of herbal remedies to the staff in the house and the families in the nearby farms. She also brews tisana saying that it is better for you than tea. It is not long before Rachel is accepted as mistress of the household. From time to time Rachel refers to Louise as Philip's future bride, which totally baffles him as he has no intention of marrying anyone. Philip realises that as Ambrose's widow and with no will to make provision for her, Rachel has no income. He speaks to his godfather about this and although Nick is surprised that Philip's attitude towards Rachel has improved so much, he is pleased to arrange a quarterly sum to be paid to Rachel. When Philip tells Rachel about the allowance they argue, but then she agrees to accept the money and they are reconciled. Later Philip sees a letter, addressed by Rachel to Rainaldi, in the postbag and feels disturbed by it. One day about a month later, bad weather keeps Philip and Rachel indoors and they decide to unpack the things belonging to Ambrose, which Rachel had brought back from Florence. The cases contain all manner of things including clothes and books. Philip decides that he will distribute Ambrose's clothes to the tenants at Christmastime. When they begin to unpack the books, a note falls out of one of them. Philip reads it and then throws it onto the fire. The note included the following words… Rachel sees the note but Philip will not discuss it with her and there is a feeling of constraint between them. Later Rachel presses Philip to tell her what the note said and he answers in vague terms saying that Ambrose had mentioned concerns about expenditure. Rachel tells Philip that Ambrose had always been generous with money until he became ill and then everything had changed and he had constantly questioned her about what she wanted the money for. She had even been obliged to ask Rainaldi to give her money so that she could pay the servants. She tells Philip that Ambrose did not like Rainaldi. Winter approaches and the household routine continues. Philip is totally happy; his only fear being that Rachel may want to leave one day, however she is busy with Tamlyn, planning the terraced gardens. Philip decides to hold a Christmas party for the tenants and Rachel throws herself into the preparations. He really wants to give Rachel something special for Christmas, so he decides to go to the bank to choose something from the family jewels. The most beautiful item is a collar of pearls, traditionally worn by Ashley brides on their wedding day. Philip brings the pearls home and gives them to Rachel just before the party on Christmas Eve. She is radiant with happiness and kisses him. Everyone has a wonderful time at the party, which is attended by Nick, Louise and the Pascoes as well as all the tenants. Back in the drawing room after the party, Nick speaks to Philip. He has a number of concerns about Rachel. Firstly, she is hugely overdrawn on her allowance. Secondly, Nick has heard a rumour that Rachel had a reputation for living a loose and extravagant lifestyle and people had been concerned when she married Ambrose in case she ran through all his money. Thirdly, Nick says Philip had no right to give Rachel the pearl collar and, acting as his guardian, Nick says Philip must ask for it back. Rachel enters the room at that moment and hands the pearls to Nick. Philip is devastated, but when everyone else has gone, Rachel takes him in her arms and says he must not mind. But they are at cross purposes. Rachel loved wearing the pearl collar that she would have worn if she had married Ambrose in Cornwall and does not realise that Philip gave it to her because of the feelings he is developing for her. Philip and Rachel enjoy a happy Christmas together and they distribute the parcels of Ambrose's clothes to the tenants. Following the incident with the pearls there is a coolness between Phillip and Nick. One day Sam Bate, the tenant from East Lodge, asks to see Philip. Sam has found a letter, in Ambrose's writing and addressed to Philip, in the pocket of the jacket Philip gave him at Christmastime. Philip walks up to the top of the hill and sits down to read the letter. Ambrose had written the letter three months before he died and in it he tells Philip about his illness which takes the form of fever, headaches and strange moods. He talks of Rachel's recklessness with money and her habit of turning to Rainaldi, rather than himself. He says that Rainaldi has questioned him about his will and about providing for Rachel and that Rachel is always watching him. Finally he says that since his last bout of illness he wonders if they are trying to poison him and he asks Philip to go to him. Philip buries the letter up on the hill. Philip does not mention the letter to Rachel but he does talk to her about how different things would have been if Ambrose had left the estate to her. Rachel goes to the drawer and brings out Ambrose's unsigned will. Philip reads the will, which is in Ambrose's handwriting, and states that he leaves his property to Rachel, for her lifetime, passing at her death to the eldest of any children that might be born to both of them, and failing the birth of children, then to Philip, with the proviso that Philip should have the running of the property while Rachel should live. Rachel says that she does not know why Ambrose did not sign the will, and that he had changed so much once he became ill, suspecting her of everything and not letting Rainaldi come to the house. The next day, Philip goes to Bodmin to see an attorney and gets a legal document drawn up, so that on the day that he becomes twenty-five, and inherits the estate, he can give it to Rachel and fulfil Ambrose's wishes. On his return home, Philip finds that Rainaldi has arrived. He stays for a week; Philip dislikes him and is jealous of the amount of time Rachel and Rainaldi spend together. Philip becomes increasingly excited as his birthday approaches. On the day before his birthday he goes to the bank and withdraws all the family jewels. Later that day he goes to see Nick and shows him the unsigned will and the document that the attorney has drawn up. Reluctantly Nick agrees to witness Philip's signature on the document which gives the estate to Rachel, during her lifetime and providing she does not remarry. In the evening Philip and Rachel dine together and afterwards Philip is so restless that he goes for a long walk and a swim in the sea. As midnight approaches he returns to the house and climbs up to Rachel room. He showers her with all the family jewels and afterwards they make love. Philip is so naïve that he believes this means that Rachel will marry him, she sees it very differently and was simply thanking him for the jewels. The next morning Philip makes sure that the legal document giving Rachel the estate goes up to her room on her breakfast tray. He bursts into her room but she sends him away and later she goes out in the carriage. When she eventually returns she says she has been to see Nick to clarify certain things in the document. She says that she has also seen Louise and repeats her thoughts on what a suitable wife Louise would be for Philip. Philip is stunned, he cannot understand what is wrong with Rachel, surely they are in love with each other and getting married? He tries unsuccessfully to recapture their mood of the night before. After dinner Nick and Louise call in to have a birthday drink with Philip. Philip cannot contain himself and bursts out with the news that he and Rachel are to be married. There is a terrible silence and then Rachel apologises for Philip's ridiculous outburst. Nick and Louise leave. Philip has given Rachel his property, his money and the jewels. He has nothing else to give. He puts his hands around her neck and asks her to swear that she will never leave him, but his pressure on her throat prevents her from answering. He releases her and she slips away to her room. The next morning Philip sends a note to Louise asking her to meet him by the church in the town. Although Louise is concerned about the events of the previous evening she does not attempt to comfort Philip. Instead she tells him that she believes that Rachel came to Cornwall with the specific intention of getting the Ashley money and that Philip has played into her hands, by misinterpreting her behaviour towards him. Louise does not want to hurt Philip, but she does want him to realise the truth so that he can begin to get his life back together. Philip stays in the town all day. It is a cold, rainy day and the wind is blowing and by the time he returns home he is chilled and wet. He finds that Rachel has invited Mary Pascoe, one of the vicar's daughters, to stay as her companion, making it impossible for Philip to talk to Rachel. That evening Philip feels cold and unwell and by the morning he is suffering from a stiff neck and terrible pains in his head. He collapses and has to be carried to his room. Philip is ill for many weeks and when he begins to recover Rachel tells him he has had meningitis. He discovers that Rachel has been nursing him and in his confusion he thinks they are married. When he is well enough to go outside he finds that the terraced gardens are complete and work has begun on a sunken garden. Flowers are in bloom including the laburnum trees, which remind Philip of the laburnums that he saw growing beside Rachel's house in Florence. Rachel tells Philip that she will stay with him until he is well again and then she must go back to Florence. Philip asks Rachel to tell people that they are married and when she tells him that they are not he collapses into sobs, his dream broken. Rachel agrees to stay a little longer and Philip recovers to a certain extent, but remains weak and has recurring headaches. Seecombe worries about Philip and Nick and Louise visit and are very kind. One day Philip discovers that Rainaldi is staying at the Rose and Crown, beside the church in town and that Rachel visits him there. When Philip challenges Rachel about this she says that she did not tell him because he does not like Rainaldi. They argue and eventually Philip says that Rainaldi should come to the house to see Rachel. When Rainaldi arrives Philip leaves him talking to Rachel and goes to his room. That night Philip's fever returns and Rachel resumes her role as nurse. Philip tells Rachel that she need not nurse him if she wants to spend her time with Rainaldi, but Rachel says that Rainaldi has gone. Thoughts of Rachel and Rainaldi make Philip remember the letter that Sam Bate gave him. As soon as he is well enough he goes up the hill to where he buried the letter. He reads it again, especially the end part where Ambrose wonders if Rachel and Rainaldi are trying to poison him. When Philip returns home he notices that a letter has come from Rainaldi, but later when he looks for it, he finds instead an envelope containing laburnum seeds. Philip thinks laburnum seeds are poisonous and he begins to piece together a number of things - Rachel's relationships with Rainaldi, Ambrose and himself, her herbal remedies and tisana, Ambrose illness, his own illness… The next day is Sunday and the foreman responsible for the work in the gardens has a word with Philip telling him that the bridge over the sunken garden is only a framework and will not bear any weight. After church Philip invites the Kendalls and the Pascoes to lunch. Philip asks Louise to stay behind when her father goes home. After Nick and the Pascoes have left, Rachel prepares some tisana for Philip, Louise and herself but Philip refuses to drink his. Rachel goes out for a walk and as soon as she has gone Philip asks Louise to help him find some sort of proof that Rachel is trying to poison him. As they search Rachel's room, Philip is surprised to find a letter from the bank thanking Rachel for returning the jewels. They can find nothing to incriminate Rachel and begin to wonder if they are misjudging her. Meanwhile Rachel has walked to the terraced garden and stepped onto the bridge over the sunken garden. Philip finds her broken body lying amongst the timber and stone. He takes her in his arms and she looks at him calling him Ambrose before she dies. The book's title reflects Philip's consistent references to Rachel as "my cousin Rachel" right up to the moment he realizes he is in love with her. A film My Cousin Rachel, starring Richard Burton and Olivia de Havilland was made in 1952, and a television adaptation, starring Christopher Guard and Geraldine Chaplin. |
5833507 | /m/0f81vz | The Hunting Party | Pierre Christin | 1983 | null | The book begins with an epigraph from György Konrád: You have become accustomed to power as to bleeding flesh. This is followed by fictional biographies of the Dramatis Personae, who are all prominent political ex-leaders of Eastern European Iron Curtain countries: the Soviet Union, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany and Poland. The only Western character in the novel is a young, unnamed French Communist student of Slavic languages who participates as an interpreter. Another French character appears later, but he is an ordinary tourist who is detained by police at the border of Poland and later expelled without understanding the reason for his detainment nor the authorities understanding what he is saying. His role in the novel is thus insignificant, except possibly as a metaphor of the unfathomable distance between Western and Eastern Europe. (This character appeared as a nameless revolutionary with extraordinary powers in Christin and Bilal's La Ville qui n'existait pas.) As the book begins, a Soviet Railway train passes through the station of Czaszyn, Poland, at night. The first characters of the novel are introduced: a young, unnamed French student, and Evgeni Golozov, an Ukrainian polyglot born in 1918 who is a member of the Central Committee and the de facto personal secretary to Vasili Aleksandrovič Čevčenko. Čevčenko, an old paralyzed man who lies in bed in the next car reading the Pravda, is the Éminence Grise behind the whole novel: born in 1895, he has fought in the Revolution of 1917, has met Lenin and Stalin and has been an executive of the Cheka and the GPU. A decorated General during the Second World War, he has later become a high ranking official of the Politburo. Čevčenko's long and eventful life, recreated in the conversation between Golozov and the French student, summarizes both the utopian, exhilarating aspects of the Communist Revolution and its darkest, most violent abuses. We also learn about Čevčenko's only love interest, Vera Nikolaevna Tretjakova (1895–1937), a blonde, strikingly beautiful Bolshevik leader and intellectual who, coincidentally, is the only female character in the story, and only present as a ghost of the past. After having played an important role in the October Revolution, during which she had an affair with Čevčenko, Tretjakova was a victim of the 1937 Čistka and arrested under charges of Trockij-Zinovievism, then disappeared, probably eliminated by the NKVD. She was arrested by the very agency Čevčenko was an executive of. Tretjakova's memory has since haunted Čevčenko constantly, with the implication that since her death, as a high State official, Čevčenko has always been torn between personal feelings and Raison d'État. The train finally reaches its destination in Królówka, Poland. The Soviet dignitaries and the French student are welcomed by Tadeusz Boczek (born in Wilno, 1914), on whose country property the hunting party will be held. While they debark on the platform, the French student/interpreter learns that his and Golozov's duties are largely ornamental, since all guests at the hunting party speak fluent French, which is their lingua franca, unless an argument ensues, in which case the guests pretend in spite not to understand each other and call for interpreters. Shortly, other hunting party guests arrive at the platform: Ion Nicolescu (born on the Danube Delta, Romania, in 1918, an executive of the Securitate and member of the Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Party; and Janos Molnar, vice-Interior Minister at Budapest. Nicolescu was a follower of Gheorghiu-Dej in 1948 and in charge of the purges, but fell in political disgrace in 1952, until new purges favoured his return to power in the Securitate in 1957, after which he has been steadily climbing the ranks of the Central Committee. The guests board a motorcade and depart towards Strzyżów, to Tadeusz Boczek's country estate, a large mansion evidently expropriated from wealthy landowners during the Communist takeover of Poland. There is a hint that Boczek was only granted such a property as honorable exile after political disgrace. The French student expresses admiration for the rich decor and works of art displayed throughout the mansion, to which Golozov quips: "Yes, the decadent exploiting aristocracy of this country did have good taste." The vast mansion also features an American Bar Room, where the next character is found having a drink: Vasil Strojanov, born in 1920 or 1921 in Bulgaria to peasant parents. Strojanov was a valiant partisan during World War II on the Rodopi mountains, and took part in the first Dimitrov cabinet in 1946. He is introduced as a big, hard-drinking loudmouth. Boczek accompanies his guests in a tour of the estate and serves a "frugal, but hearty" lunch in the gazebo in the snow-covered garden. Another guest arrives: it is Pavel Havelka, born in the suburbs of Prague in 1915. Havelka was a Czech Social Democrat who sided with the 1948 Communist coup, then was arrested in 1951 in the wake of the Slánský trial as a "nationalist-bourgeois imperialist", then was rehabilitated in 1963. Havelka is the only one to arrive by car, driving a Tatra that has special significance for him and Čevčenko, being the very same car in which he and Čevčenko discussed the possibility of a Russian intervention in Czechoslovakia on August 15, 1968, after the Dubček reform. A flashback of Russian troops in Prague on August 21 follows, with people screaming: "Эх, Иван! Вернись домой!" and "Hoj Kamarade! Koho jste vy přišli zabit? Svobodu?". The guests briefly discuss the Prague Spring, Molnar and Nicolescu cynically dismissing the whole concept of Socialism with a human face as an "enormous tactical blunder". Havelka hints that while they may be right, the Russian élite, and especially Čevčenko, actually favoured the departure to the West of disgraced comrades on the very same Tatra that he arrived on. Embarrassment follows. The party then marches on to the first hunt for small fowl in the snow-covered country, a warm-up exercise only intended to secure appetizers for dinner. Strojanov displays his love of whisky, and he is warned: "Vasil, you had better beware of the influence of capitalist alcohol on your tongue". At this moment, the whirring of an helicopter is heard. Boczek explains more guests are arriving from Akademgorodok, where they have been attending a summit conference on industrial exchange between Warsaw Pact countries. The helicopter lands and two men debark: Günther Schütz and Sergej Šavanidze. Schütz, born in Leipzig in 1930, a brilliant East German philosopher-economist, is, as Boczek explains it, "one of the great minds of the Comecon. Before him, no one knew why our commonwealth worked badly. Now we know". Molnar asks: "So now it works better?" Boczek answers: "No, but knowledge is priceless for scientific régimes such as ours." Sergej Šavanidze, born in Georgia in 1939, a mechanical engineer, is the Party's young lion, destined to replace Čevčenko in the Politburo. Golozov warns the French student he is going to have to work, since Šavanidze does not speak any language except Russian, plus he does not like Golozov at all. The French student translates small talk between Šavanidze, Molnar and Havelka, and the guests adjourn to the winter garden for drinks. Boczek then suggests a dip in the brand new heated pool in the basement of his mansion. All the guests change into bathing suits. Boczek tells Schütz the whole apparatus is imported from the United States, and Schütz says stiffly he has never approved of "luxury goods", especially in view of Poland Boczek's country's foreign debt. Strojanov tells him sarcastically: "I thought privileged Party executives like you had everything to gain from 'luxury goods'." Vasili Aleksandrovič Čevčenko watches silently from his wheelchair while the guests dive in the pool, and Janos Molnar approaches him to tell him the pool should remind him of the July 1956 Hungarian Revolution, when Čevčenko had come to Hungary and talked to Tibor Illyes, the old Stalinist Party leader, in a thermal pool, to remove him from his seat. Illyes was found dead soon after, officially a "suicide", and Molnar was the first to bring the news to Čevčenko, therefore winning his favour. But maybe Čevčenko had already set his sights on Molnar, then a young reporter from Szabad Nép, and chosen him for his ally. We learn that Čevčenko has always shown remarkable talent for singling out the young and promising cadres in times of trouble, so that the Communist empire could move forward no matter the individual casualties. The discussion and arguments between Molnar, Havelka and Nicolescu concerning Hungary and Czechoslovakia reach a high at dinner, where caviar and other delicacies are served. While Strojanov belches contentedly, Šavanidze challenges Čevčenko to a chess match ("Не хотцте аи вы играть шашки, Василий Александрович?"). Čevčenko is a master player. Havelka whispers to the French student: "As usual, Sergej challenges Vasili Aleksandrovič. And as usual, Sergej will lose. And he is a very bad loser". Šavanidze, beaten and humiliated, retreats angrily to his room. Boczek suggests everybody goes to bed, because "tomorrow will be a hard day". Golozov and the French student watch Čevčenko's bedroom, where he is haunted by his personal ghosts and nightmares: a soaring falcon, possibly a metaphor of the October Revolution, and the same falcon with its eyes ripped out and its beak dripping blood; Vera Nikolaevna Tretjakova being escorted away by two NKVD agents; a bear in a snowy landscape in a pool of blood, like a vision of the future hunting party; and Čevčenko himself with Tretjakova, both naked and embracing while immersed thigh-high in blood, with the (incomplete) word "ЛЮБОВ" (Love) painted in white on a wall behind them. The next morning, the guests move out on a new hunt: boar first, then deer. Tadeusz Boczek and the French student exchange political zingers, where the impression is that the French student is enthusiastic and extremely naive in his unrequited love of Communism, while Boczek is a seasoned veteran who has seen the dark side and lived to tell the tale. Wild boar prowl the countryside, huge and dangerous creatures. The hunting party scatters, each looking for prey on his own, but before long someone is heard crying for help. Pavel Havelka says: "It sounded like Tadeusz's voice". Molnar says: "I do not understand. Nothing was supposed to happen today". The party finds Boczek wounded and lying in the snow in front of an enraged boar ready to kill. While everybody is gripped by fright and discusses what to do, a single master rifle shot from somewhere in the forest strikes the boar dead when it is just inches away from Boczek. Everybody knows it was Čevčenko who saved Boczek's life. While he is brought back to safety, Boczek says Čevčenko has gifted him with three lives and three deaths. Boczek, as a Polish Communist Jew, was saved in 1938 from internal Comintern purges; was a witness to Nazi atrocities and participated in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, and Čevčenko organized his escape in order to rebuild a national Communist party; and today Čevčenko has chosen to save him from a more mundane, but no less deadly threat. But Boczek has also died three times because of Čevčenko: once in the same year 1938 when he was saved, when he first realized Russia was bent on destroying its most faithful foreign militants; later, after World War II, when he witnessed the torturing of dissidents inside the Palace of Culture and Science; and lastly in 1967, when the Soviet régime was in dire need of external enemies to pin its shortcomings on and decided the last Jews left after the Shoah were responsible. Boczek was excommunicated and vilified, and exiled to the comfortable but isolated estate in Strzyżów. The hunt goes on in the afternoon for deer, sans Boczek who stays home recovering. Later, the guests meet at the Observatory dome to watch the night sky, which prompts Nicolescu to reminisce about his youth, when he gazed at the sky between 1952 and 1957 while in disgrace from the Party along with Ana Pauker, and still earlier with his mother as a child and in 1945, when he returned to Romania with Čevčenko to take his role as one of the new rulers of the country after Yalta. He goes on to describe his memories of storks nesting on the multicoloured chimneys of his childhood village and pelicans going after fish in the Danube Delta. Vasil Strojanov, in his cynical and drunken way, is moved enough to recount his own experience as a partisan and member of the Dimitrov cabinet. Strojanov was the only one to escape hanging under charges of Titoism. Since then, Strojanov has had a recurring nightmare: a hideous monster-beast with sharp teeth, gray, stonelike skin and breasts similar to a female animal's mammaries, rising over a snow-covered landscape along with a red star. In the dream, the beast is Strojanov himself, or maybe "The Party itself, of which I am but a swearing mouth, a bloodthirsty claw". The conversation is interrupted by Schütz, who coolly disapproves of his comrades' "puerile idealism" and proudly reminds them he voted against Kafka's rehabilitation from charges of "bourgeois pessimism". Boczek saves everyone from further embarrassment by calling them to dinner. However, Nicolescu, Strojanov and Boczek share a few words that let us know Schütz is increasingly becoming a puppet of Šavanidze, which is harmful to their "business". Dinner ends with a collective toast: "На здоровье!", after which Šavanidze challenges yet again Čevčenko to a chess match, and yet again loses. |
5834189 | /m/0f82lg | Revolt on Alpha C | Robert Silverberg | 1955 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature"} | The story takes place in the year 2363. The protagonist is Cadet Larry Stark, a 20-year-old, fresh graduate of the Space Patrol Academy who comes from a long line of Space Patrol commanders. As the story begins, he is embarking on the customary final training cruise on the interstellar ship Carden. At the end of this cruise, he will be awarded a commission as officer of the Space Patrol. The ship makes the four and a half light-year journey to the star Alpha Centauri in a span of 15 days using the faster-than-light overdrive. The fourth planet orbiting Alpha C, an earth-like planet inhabited by dinosaurs, has been colonized 125 years earlier. Cadet Stark, who has been taught to obey orders and to trust the infallibility of Earth and the Space Patrol, arrives at planet IV of Alpha C just as the colonists are voting to declare, and possibly fight for, their independence from Earth. The arrival of the Carden and its crew can potentially affect the course of events in this revolution. The young cadet, for the first time in his life, must choose the proper and honorable course of action in a situation where there is no clear right and wrong. The consequences of his actions may place in jeopardy his career with the Space Patrol and the love of his father. The story is apparently a metaphor for the American Revolution, with Earth representing England and Alpha Centauri representing the US. Ultimately Cadet Stark sides with the Alpha C colonists, but he feels confident that his father would be proud that he had been true to himself. Distinctive things to note about the 1955 novel include: 1) The overdrive is based on the principle of warping space; 2) The phrase "electronic guitar" is used for electric guitar and "wristchron" is used for wrist watch; and 3) the ship radio uses vacuum tube technology. Also the character named Harl Ellison was named after science fiction writer Harlan Ellison, who was a neighbor of Silverberg in New York at the time he was writing the book. This was confirmed in a special edition on the occasion of Silverberg's 35th year in the business. |
5836822 | /m/0f8665 | The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place | E. L. Konigsburg | 2004 | {"/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature"} | Twelve-year-old Margaret Rose Kane is sent to summer camp in the Adirondack Mountains while her parents visit Peru, the first time she has neither vacationed with them nor lived downtown with her great-uncles Alex and Morris Rose. She is a new girl at Camp Talequa, placed in a cabin with six "Meadowlarks" who return every summer, and she is the victim of their hazing or "pranks". As a result, she does not follow the directions of the camp proprietress, Mrs. Kaplan. After the first of four weeks, Uncle Alex travels by bus and rescues her. Mrs. Kaplan states that there can be no refund. However, Uncle Alex elicits lunch and a long automobile ride home, chauffeured by camp handyman Jake Kaplan, the adult son of the proprietress. Margaret lives the rest of vacation with the Uncles. For 45 years they have constructed three towers of scrap metal, glass, and ceramic in their small back yard at 19 Schuyler Place, former company housing that the Tappan Glass Works long ago sold to its workers or to immigrants such as the Roses. The uncles have remained through Old Town's decline and recent gentrification, but the new homeowning gentry have petitioned to have the towers demolished. Margaret spurs and leads a belated fight to save them after the Uncles have lost their last battle and given up hope. She plots initially with young Jake Kaplan. She personally recruits to the Cultural Preservation Committee. She does this through their mothers who still live in Epiphany, two adults who were friends of her own mother and neighbors of the towers as children, art museum director Peter Vanderwaal and Infinitel (a telephone company) attorney Loretta Bevilacqua. With Jake she must handle Phase One: Stop the demolition. On Loretta's advice she buys the towers for a dollar; on her own, she occupies them. Finally Jake must drag his mother and the Meadowlarks from Camp Telaqua into the fray. Phases Two and Three and the epilogue comprise fewer than 20 pages.The Outcasts, ch. 27–30 (pages 278–96 in the Aladdin edition). Occupation with mass media publicity bought time. Peter who knew the towers as masterpieces of outsider art mustered academic opinions in support. Loretta, who recognized their potential function, persuaded Infinitel to buy them. They were moved to a new hilltop park above campus and topped with cellular phone antennas. Margaret's triumph was bittersweet: she anticipated sharing it with her returning parents but saw that their love had ended and her family would soon break up. Tower Hill became a suburban housing development. |
5838375 | /m/0f89j2 | The Two Captains | Veniamin Kaverin | null | null | After a postman drowns, Sanya, 8, finds a bag full of letters. As the envelopes are all wet, there is no way to read the addresses and send the letters. A neighbour, Aunt Dasha, reads the letters to anyone willing to listen during the cold winter evenings. Thus Sanya first hears of the lost Arctic expedition that will become the meaning of his life. For now on he is only fascinated by the brave people and their adventures, though he already can understand that the expedition is probably lost and all its participants are dead. Meanwhile, tragedy comes into his own life. One night he goes fishing in the river and witnesses a murder. Next morning his own father is accused of it, the accusation based on the knife with the name of "Grigoryev" beside the victim. Sanya knows that it is he who has lost the knife, but he cannot tell anything because he is mute. Sanya's father is taken to prison and eventually dies there. During the hard and hungry winter of father's being in prison, mother sends Sanya and his sister, also Sanya (he is Alexander and she is Alexandra) to a village to live the two of them all alone. There Sanya meets the Doctor, a runaway revolutionary, who teaches the boy to speak. He disappears three days after his mysterious arrival, but Sanya keeps practicing all winter - only to start speaking when it is told of father's death. Eventually mother comes for the children and takes them home, where they discover she is about to re-marry. The stepfather turns out to be cruel and selfish, and he abuses the children heavily. Mother realizes that and soon dies, probably after committing suicide (this is not specified; it could be an accident after which she has no will to live, though suicide is also possible, as to parallel the fates of Sanya and Katya's parents). Sanya then agrees to his best friend Pyetka's urges and the two escape to search for a better life in Turkestan, which they see as a magical land of the East. They give each other a pledge taken from the poet Tennyson: "To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield". This pledge always helps Sanya go on. After months of wandering through the winter forests, through war-beaten Russia of the 1917 winter, they end up in the hunger-stricken Moscow. The reality smashes in their faces, they get separated and lose each other for many years. Sanya ends up in an orphanage. In the orphanage he meets two new friends, Valka and Romashka, and also the strict school headmaster, Nikolay Antonich Tatarinov. By chance - or fate - Sanya meets on the street an old woman originating from Sanya's own town, Ensk, and her granddaughter, Katya, of Sanya'a age. He soon realizes that they are his headmaster's family. After breaking the Tatarinov's lactometer, getting into a fight with Katya over that, and Katya's taking the blame, they become fast friends and Sanya frequents the Tatarinov house, helping the old woman with the household. He also gets to meet the old woman's daughter, Katya's mother, Maria Vasilyevna, a mysterious sad woman. But one day, just after Sanya's beloved teacher, Korabliov, proposes to Maria Vasilyevna and gets a refusal, he overhears the teachers' cruel plot to destroy Korabliov, because he has gained the students' love and respect and has become more popular than the headmaster, and Sanya tells him of the plot. Nikolay Antonich discovers of Sanya's intervention (as it is discovered years later - through Romashka) and banishes him out of the house. Years later, in the last school year, Sanya meets Katya again and realizes that he is in love with her. But Romashka spies on him kiss Katya and tells Nikolay Antonich. Nikolay Antonich sends Katya back to Ensk, but Sanya goes after her, thus visiting home, the beloved Aunt Dasha and the abandoned little sister for the first time since his escape. He finds the old letters and is shocked: only now does he realize that the mysterious letters of his childhood deal with no other than Katya's lost father, the Captain Tatarinov, one of them is actually from him - the last letters ever to have arrived, the letters Katya's mother has never seen. His letter clearly indicates that it was him who first discovered Severnaya Zemlya. But there is more: in his letter Katya's father accuses Nikolay Antonich of destroying the expedition, of doing everything to make it fail and the people never to return. But that page is missing: Sanya remembers it by heart, and his proof is a nickname that Katya's mother used to call Katya's father - Sanya could not have guessed or invented that nickname. Maria Vasilyevna believes Sanya. However, by now she is married to Nikolay Antonich, because she till now believed, according to his own words, that he actually was the great benefactor of the expedition, accusing the Captain, his cousin, to always have been a good-for-nothing who never succeeded in anything he tried to do. She believes Sanya - and commits suicide. Katya turns away from Sanya, Nikolay Antonich having convinced her and all the others that Sanya only slanders him. Sanya then swears to find the expedition and prove that he is right. Sanya finishes school and fulfills his first dream - he becomes an Arctic pilot. While working in the North he meets again with the doctor who taught him to speak and discovers that the doctor possesses the diaries of the expedition's navigator. Sanya reads the diaries, but they do not contain any proof of Sanya's being right. One day, during a mission, Sanya and the doctor make a forced landing in a northern village, where they find a hook from Santa Maria, Captain Tatarinov's ship. An old native tells Sanya a ten-year-old story about himself finding a boat with a dead man in it. This is a proof that someone from the expedition has reached mainland, and that the remnants should be searched for in this region. Sanya comes back to Moscow and meets Katya again. He also meets a man who has to do with the expedition's organization, and his story, and the papers he has, are the lost proof. Korabliov tells all this to Katya and she realizes that Sanya was right. Sanya organizes a search expedition and leaves to the North again, as his leave is over. Later in the year Sanya and Katya meet in Leningrad to get married and also to meet Sanya's sister and her husband, Sanya's best friend Pyetka, and be with them at the birth of their first son. But the sister is very ill during the birth and soon dies of complications. The search expedition is cancelled, probably through the efforts of Nikolay Antonich, who refuses to acknowledge his guilt, saying he will only accept one witness - the captain himself. Instead, Sanya is sent to the battlefields of the Civil War in Spain. When he returns, Sanya and Katya plan on finally starting their life together, but by then it's 1941 and the Germans invade Russia. Katya remains in Leningrad an is soon trapped in the blockade. During that horrid time Sanya's old enemy, Romashka, who has always been Nikolay Antonich's ally and all his life tried to harm Sanya, finds Katya. He tells her of meeting with the wounded Sanya on a bombed echelon and his apparent attempt to save Sanya's life. But after she finds in his pocket Sanya's documents, she starts thinking that Romashka has killed Sanya. Already starved and ill, she faints and gets worse. A friend manages, after many efforts, to send her away from the seized Leningrad. Sanya, meanwhile, is not dead. It is true that he met Romashka on a bombed echelon, but Romashka abandoned him and ran away by himself, leaving Sanya, badly wounded in his legs and unable to move, to die in a forest under fire. Sanya manages to crawl out of the forest and is tended back to health by two little boys, and then goes to a field hospital. Upon leaving the hospital he is told that he will never fly again. Sanya tries to locate Katya but cannot find her trace, and starts believing that she is dead. Meanwhile he is called back to fight, this time on the Northern front. He overcomes his condemnation and starts to fly again, bombing German ships invading the Northern Sea. During one of these fights he is forced to make a landing and thus finds the remnants of the expedition, and the Captain's last letters, clearly stating that all the blame is on Nikolay Antonich. He also finds the Captain himself, frozen to death 29 years ago. One day he goes to visit his friend the Doctor and surprisingly meets Katya, who has come to the North in search for him. Sanya organizes a lecture about Captain Tatarinov and his achievements, and Nikolay Antonich is banished. Captain Tatarinov is buried with all honors on a shore facing the land he has discovered, and all ships passing through can see the engraving: "To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield". |
5839363 | /m/0f8c6w | The Book of Dave | Will Self | 6/1/2006 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Contemporary narrative: Dave Rudman, a London taxi-driver, has a casual sexual encounter with a young woman named Michelle Brodie. The pair do not meet for another seven months until a heavily pregnant Michelle arrives at Dave's flat. They marry, and Michelle gives birth to a boy, Carl, but the marriage is unsuccessful, and Michelle eventually files for divorce, after which she resumes an earlier relationship with the television producer Cal Devenish. Dave descends into depression and increasingly unstable behaviour, and Michelle forbids him contact with their son, Carl. Dave writes a book that consists partly of an account of cab-driving in London, and partly of a misogynistic rant against the alleged unfairness of divorce and child access legislation. He has a single copy of the book printed on metal plates and buries it in the garden of the house in Hampstead where Michelle lives with Cal and Carl. Dave suffers a breakdown, and comes under the care of the psychiatrist Anthony Bohm. Despite discovering that Carl is actually Cal's son, Dave slowly recovers his sanity and, during a stay in hospital, forms a relationship with Phyllis Vance, the mother of Steve, another patient. Dave regrets the content of his book, and attempts to dig it up from the Hampstead garden, but fails. Dave moves into Phyllis's cottage on the fringes of outer London and, under her guidance, writes a second book that repudiates the content of the first, and recommends a life based on tolerance and freedom. He mails the new book to Carl, but shortly afterwards is confronted at the cottage by loan sharks to whom he is heavily indebted. Dave brandishes a shotgun but is fatally injured in a struggle with the men, who arrange the scene to make the death look like suicide – an arrangement that is readily believed by Phyllis and the police. Carl and Cal then place Dave's second book in a metal film canister and bury it in their garden. Future narrative: On the isolated island of Ham, a tiny community ekes out an existence from the land, assisted by semi-intelligent pig-like creatures known as 'motos' that are unique to the island. The community lives according to the severely enforced religion of the country (known as 'Ing') whereby men and women lead separate lives but share childcare in accordance with the dictates of the 'Book of Dave', which is regarded as a sacred text, but which is evidently the book written by Dave Rudman and buried in a Hampstead garden some two thousand years earlier. A young male 'Hamster', Symun Devush, explores a forbidden area of the island and emerges claiming that he has discovered a second Book of Dave that repudiates the tenets of the first. Although Symun's revelations are popular, and he is lauded throughout the country as a prophet, religious authorities from the reconstructed city of New London send a deposition that arrests Symun on a charge of heresy (or 'flying') and transports him to New London, where he is physically and mentally broken, his tongue torn out, and returned to live in isolation on the desolate outcrop of land known as Nimar, not far from Ham. Before being arrested, Symun conceives a son, Carl, who becomes an object of interest to Antone Böm, an exiled heretic. Böm believes that the second book of Dave discovered by Symun may be buried on the island, but his search for the book is a failure. Carl and Böm travel to New London in order to determine the fate of Symun and the second book but, soon after their arrival, the pair are arrested and sentenced to death. They escape, and discover Symun's fate on Nimar. Upon returning to Nimar, however, they find that Symun has died, and that his belongings include no second book but only a metal container filled with rotten debris. They return to Ham, where another delegation from New London is brutally mistreating the population and slaughtering the motos. As one of the Hamsters rebels against the slaughter, Carl and Böm reveal themselves. |
5840098 | /m/0f8d5p | Out | Natsuo Kirino | 9/30/2004 | {"/m/0lsxr": "Crime Fiction", "/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | The novel tells the tales of four women, working the graveyard shift at a Japanese bento factory. All four women live hard lives. Masako, accepted as the leader of the four women, feels completely alienated from her estranged husband and teenage son. Kuniko, a plump and rather vain girl, has recently been ditched by her boyfriend after the couple were driven into debt leaving Kuniko to fend off a loan shark. Yoshie is a single mother and reluctant caretaker of her mother-in-law, who was left partly paralyzed after a stroke. Yayoi is a thirty-four-year old mother of two small boys. She hates to leave her children home alone to go to work. More than that, she hates the thought of her drunken, gambling husband returning home and hurting them or, more likely, herself. Returning home one night, Yayoi discovers her husband has gambled away all their savings and loses control of her temper. She strangles him to death. She desperately persuades Masako, who eventually gets Yoshie and Kuniko involved, to help her dispose of the body. The body is dismembered, secured in many black bin-liners and hidden all over Tokyo. It is isn't long before one carelessly hidden bag is discovered and the police begin to ask questions. As if things weren't bad enough, the women begin to blackmail each other, a loanshark is requiring their services and a criminal who has lost everything because of their antics has begun to hunt the women down. The way out is not easy and it is certainly not pretty, and the women soon have to pay the price. |
5840337 | /m/0f8dl3 | Adverbs | Daniel Handler | 6/5/2006 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/01qxvh": "Romance novel", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | In "Immediately," a man leaves his girlfriend (Andrea) and falls in love with his homophobic cabdriver. In "Obviously," a teenager (Joe) working at a multiplex takes tickets for Kickass: The Movie while pining for the teenage girl (Lila) working the shift with him. She has a boyfriend (Keith). Joe mentions a friend, Garth, who travels to San Francisco to meet with his girlfriend, Kate. This Kate is Kate Gordon, one of Flannery's friends in The Basic Eight, who is mentioned having a brief relationship with a guy named Garth in that novel. In "Arguably," a British writer (Helena), who is married to a man (David) whose ex is called 'Andrea', needs money. In "Particularly," Helena works for Andrea, whom she is jealous of. In "Briefly," a teenager's crush on his sister's boyfriend (Keith) haunts him throughout life. In "Soundly", a woman (Allison) -- who has an ex named 'Adam' -- spends an evening out with her best friend (Lila), who's dying of a rare disease, and they both focus on what their friendship means, particularly compared to their relationships with men. They reminisce about their friend 'Andrea' and an encounter with a boy named 'Joe'. "Allison" and "Lila" both crop up again as character names repeatedly throughout the book. Handler is sometimes clear about whether he's speaking about the same people, and sometimes not. As in most of the chapters, Handler here provides one possible definition of love: "[t]his is love, to sit with someone you've known forever in a place you've been meaning to go, and watching as their life happens to them until you stand up and it's time to go. You don't care about yours. Why should it change, the love you feel, no matter how death goes?". After a conversation with a woman named Gladys, who is able to make items appear out of thin air, Lila gets a call to come to the hospital for a transplant, but there is a problem with the ferry; some kind of disaster has occurred which means they cannot cross to the hospital. The guy working at the booth is called 'Tomas'. In "Frigidly," a pair of detectives comes looking for the Snow Queen (Gladys) in a diner where Andrea is drinking at the counter. A boy (Mike), who had been a student of Helena, is waiting. "Collectively" is about a man who has a series of random people, including a mail carrier and his son (Mike), coming to his house to declare how much they love him. "Isn't love a sharing?", asks the narrator, trying to explain the postman's (and everyone else's) strange longing for the house owner. The story concludes with the man sharing accepting the affection of his guests by sharing a smoothie with them. In "Symbolically," an aspiring writer (Tomas) hooks up with a man (Adam) who has come to film a potential catastrophe. The next day, the man returns with his girlfriend (Eddie). In "Clearly," a young couple (Adam and Eddie) sneaks away into the woods for some risqué outdoor sex. After they have undressed, an apologetic hiker (Tomas) interrupts them with news of an injured friend (Steven). The couple attend to the hiker's needs, leaving their own hanging. The female character (Eddie) in "Naturally" dates a man who turns out to be a ghost. When she discovers this, she ends their union. Her ex is called 'Joe'. "Wrongly" features a graduate student (Allison) inexplicably drawn to a colleague (Steven) who's already treated her badly. In "Truly," Daniel Handler explains the game Adverbs: "Someone is It and leaves the room and everyone else decides on an adverb. It returns and forces people to act out things in the manner of the word, which is another name for the game. People argue violently, or make coffee quickly, and there's always a time when the alcohol takes over and people suggest hornily and we all must watch as It makes two people writhe on the floor, supposedly dancing or eating or driving a car, until finally It guesses the adverb everyone's thinking of. It's a charade, although it's not much like Charades. You play until you get bored." Handler's explanation of Adverbs leads to a discussion of the identity of characters across chapters: "Nobody keeps score, because there's no sense in keeping track of what everyone is doing. You might as well trace birds through a book, or follow a total stranger you spot outside the window of your cab, or follow the cocktails spilling themselves from the pages of vintage cocktail encyclopedias to leave stains through this book, or follow the pop songs that stick in people's heads or follow the people themselves, although you're likely to confuse them, as so many people in this book have the same names. You can't follow all the Joes, or all the Davids and Andreas. You can't follow Adam or Allison or Keith, up to Seattle or down to San Francisco or across—three thousand miles, as the bird flies—to New York City, and anyway they don't matter." In "Not Particularly," Helena awaits the return of her husband, David. She thinks he's cheating on her, because he's left his passport behind, but she doesn't realize that (at that time) he doesn't need a passport to travel to Canada. Helena meets Joe and gets a letter addressed to Andrea. In "Often," Allison is married to a comic writer and goes on a cruise for comic writers. She meets Keith. In "Barely," Sam moves out after her roommate (Andrea) gets involved with Steven. The boy across the street is Mike. Finally, in "Judgmentally," Joe avoids jury duty and meets Andrea, who is driving a cab. |
5842112 | /m/0f8j47 | The Gift of Asher Lev | Chaim Potok | null | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The brilliant, schismatic Hasidic painter Asher Lev is now a middle-aged man, residing with his wife and children in the south of France. When his beloved Uncle Yitzchok dies, Asher is abruptly summoned back to Brooklyn. Soon after the funeral, he learns that his uncle had secretly been collecting art for many years and has amassed a valuable collection, of which Asher is to be the trustee. Asher is dazzled and makes some tentative efforts to reconcile the Ladover Hasidic community to modern art—for example, by sketching a portrait of his uncle for his grieving father and by teaching a lesson in art appreciation at the school where his daughter has temporarily enrolled. But one of his cousins bitterly resents the art collection and hampers Asher's efforts to use it for charity in his uncle's name. Meanwhile, Asher's parents and the rest of the Ladover community worry because the aging Ladover rebbe has no children and has appointed no successor. What will happen to the Ladover community if the rebbe dies before the Messiah comes? The logical candidate for next rebbe would be Asher's father, Aryeh Lev, who has been one of the rebbe's chief lieutenants for decades, but Asher realizes that the rebbe is reluctant to pass the mantle of authority to Aryeh unless Aryeh has a successor—who cannot be Aryeh's only child, the iconoclast painter. Slowly, Asher realizes that the rebbe and Aryeh both hope that Asher's five-year-old son, Avrumel, will become the ultimate successor to the rebbeship. It is Avrumel who will be "the gift of Asher Lev." Another strand of the plot concerns Asher's wife, Devorah, who is plagued by bitter memories of her parents' deaths in the Holocaust and of her own early childhood, spent in hiding with her cousin Max and his parents. Asher suspects Devorah will seize on her son's eventual succession to rebbeship as some sort of vindication for her family's suffering. In the end, Asher acquiesces in the unspoken plan of succession and decides to save his uncle's art collection until Avrumel grows up, in confidence that Avrumel will know what to do with it. |
5842145 | /m/0f8j70 | Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas | Hunter S. Thompson | null | {"/m/012jgz": "Autobiographical novel", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/016lj8": "Roman \u00e0 clef"} | The novel lacks a clear narrative and frequently delves into the surreal, never quite distinguishing between what is real and what is only imagined by the characters. The basic synopsis revolves around journalist Raoul Duke (Hunter S. Thompson), and his attorney, Dr. Gonzo (Oscar Zeta Acosta), as they arrive in 1970s Las Vegas to report on the Mint 400 motorcycle race. However, they soon abandon their work and begin experimenting with a variety of recreational drugs, such as LSD, ether, cocaine, alcohol, mescaline, and cannabis. This leads to a series of bizarre hallucinogenic trips, during which they destroy hotel rooms, wreck cars, and have visions of anthropomorphic desert animals, all the while ruminating on the decline of culture in a city of insanity. |
5842146 | /m/0f8j7j | Davita's Harp | Chaim Potok | null | null | In New York City of the 1930s, Ilana Davita Chandal is the child of a mixed marriage: a Polish Jewish immigrant mother and a Christian father from an old and wealthy New England family. Both of her parents are haunted by bitter and violent memories from their youths, and both have, in consequence, turned their backs on their pasts in order to become active members of the Communist Party. Ilana's early childhood is fraught with mystery and struggle as the neighbors eye the Chandal family with suspicion. When Michael Chandal, already wounded once in the Spanish Civil War, returns to Spain, Ilana begins to look for answers at the local synagogue and in friendship with observant Jews, including her neighbor Ruthie Helfman and her distant cousin, David Dinn. Michael Chandal is killed in Spain, at Guernica, and Ilana and her mother both struggle to cope with their grief. They are often at odds with each other as Ilana becomes more and more interested in traditional Judaism—even asserting her right to say kaddish for her non-Jewish father—while Anne Chandal devotes herself to the Party and becomes involved in a new relationship with a young Communist historian, Charles Carter. When Stalin signs a non-aggression pact with Hitler, Anne struggles with reconciling the communist cause with the geopolitical reality and leaves the Party. Soon after Carter breaks off their engagement. Ultimately Anne returns—though not with her daughter's fervor—to religious observance and marries her cousin Ezra Dinn, whom she had rejected many years before. Ilana becomes a star student at her Jewish day school. She is devastated when she is unjustly denied an academic award on account of her gender, but she remains determined to make her mark on the world. A subplot involves the mystical European Jewish writer Jakob Daw, another former suitor of Anne Chandal. He is deported from the United States against his will— in spite of the best efforts of his lawyer, Ezra Dinn—and dies in Europe soon afterwards. Anne Chandal, now Dinn, unconventionally decides to say kaddish for her old friend, even though she is a woman and women did not say kaddish in Orthodox synagogues in the 1940s. |
5844310 | /m/0f8n1n | The Bride Price | Buchi Emecheta | 1976 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | In the city of Lagos, the Ibo Aku-nna and her brother, Nna-nndo, are bid farewell by their father Ezekiel, who says he is going to hospital for a few hours – their mother, Ma Blackie, is back home in Ibuza, performing fertility rites. It becomes apparent that he is much sicker than he let his children know, and he dies three weeks later. They have the funeral the day before Ma Blackie arrives; she takes them back to Ibuza with her, as she now becomes the wife of Ezekiel’s brother Okonkwo. The family is problematic in Ibuza – Ma Blackie has some of her own money, and so her children receive much more schooling than other children in the village, particularly the children of her new husband’s other wives. Aku-nna is blossoming, though she is thin and passive, and starts to attract the attention of young men in the neighborhood, though she has not yet started to menstruate. Her stepfather Okonkwo, who has ambitions of being made a chief, begins to anticipate a large bride price for her. Meanwhile she has begun to fall for her teacher Chike, who in turn has developed a passion for her. Chike is the descendant of slaves – when colonization started, the Ibo often sent their slaves to the missionary schools so they could please the missionaries without disrupting Ibo life, and now the descendants of those slaves hold most of the privileged positions in the region. Chike’s inferior background means it is unlikely that Okonkwo will agree to let him marry Aku-nna, although his family is wealthy enough to offer a generous bride price. When Aku-nna begins menstruating – the sign that she is now old enough to get married – she at first conceals it in order to stave off the inevitable confrontation. When she finally reveals that she has her period, young men come to court her and Okonkwo receives several offers. One night, after she finds out that she has passed her school examination (meaning she might become a teacher, earning money by means other than the bride price) she and the other young women of her age-group are practicing a dance for the upcoming Christmas celebration when men burst in and kidnap her. The family of an arrogant suitor with a limp, Okoboshi, has kidnapped her to be his bride in order to “save” her from the attentions of Chike. On her wedding night, she lies and tells Okoboshi that she is not a virgin and has slept with Chike; he refuses to touch her. The next day, word of her disgrace has already spread around the village when Chike rescues her and the two elope, fleeing to Ughelli where Chike has work. The two begin a happy life together, marred by her guilt over her unpaid bride price – Okonkwo, furious, refuses to accept any of the increasingly generous offers made by Chike’s father, and has gone so far as to divorce Ma Blackie and torture a doll made in Aku-nna’s image. When Aku-nna feels sick, she goes home. There she is not sure if she will have a baby. Soon the doctor in Chike´s oil company confirms that Aku-nna will have a baby. Later on when she feels sick and screams, Chike brings her to the hospital. There Aku-nna dies in childbirth. Chike christens his baby Joy. |
5844990 | /m/0f8p5z | Vera; or, The Nihilists | Oscar Wilde | null | null | Vera is a barmaid in her father's tavern, which is situated along a road to the prison camps in Siberia. A gang of prisoners stop at the tavern. Vera immediately recognises her brother Dmitri as one of the prisoners. He begs her to go to Moscow and join the Nihilists, a terrorism group trying to assassinate the Czar, and avenge his imprisonment. She and her father's manservant Michael leave to join the Nihilists. Years later, Vera has become the Nihilists' top assassin, and is wanted across Europe. She is in love with a fellow Nihilist named Alexis: however, Nihilists are sworn never to marry. A Nihilist meeting is nearly broken up by soldiers, but Alexis thwarts the soldiers by revealing his true identity: he is the Tsarevich, heir to the Russian throne. This act earns him the further admiration of Vera and the hatred of the Nihilists. At a council meeting, Tsar Ivan and his cruel epigrammatic minister Prince Paul Maraloffski criticise Tsarovitch Alexis's democratic leanings, but the Tsar is assassinated by Michael after the Tsarovitch opened the window. Alexis ascends the throne and exiles Prince Paul Maraloffski, not to Siberia, but to Paris. Maraloffski joins the Nihilists to kill Alexis. The task of assassinating the Tsar is given to Vera. She must infiltrate the palace, stab the Tsar and throw the dagger out the window as a signal to Nihilist agents below. If she does not, the agents will break in and kill him. Vera is reluctant to kill the man she loves, though. Alexis returns to the palace after his coronation, intending to end injustice in Russia during his reign. Vera enters the palace, knife at the ready. Alexis asks her to marry him. She accepts, but then she hears the agents outside crying out for the signal. She stabs herself and throws the dagger out the window, and the agent departs satisfied. :Alexis: Vera, what have you done? :Vera: I have saved Russia. [dies] |
5846068 | /m/0f8r87 | Weapon | Robert Mason | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | The novel describes a new weapon system being developed for the US military; the titular Solo. A robot, Solo is designed to replace human soldiers in battle. It is humanoid in shape, in order to allow it to use all the military vehicles and equipment human soldiers do. Solo is capable of feats of great speed, strength and endurance. Most importantly, Solo is governed by a neural network computer which is able to learn and think much as a human brain does. The robot's designer recognises that this could potentially make Solo as unpredictable and difficult to control as any human is; the military therefore insist that Solo be told a carefully edited version of world history and politics in which the United States are in all cases the unambiguously "good guys" and winners of all conflicts - for example Solo is told that the US won a clear victory in the Vietnam War. Despite his indoctrination, Solo begins to display what his designers consider aberrant behaviour. He begins to question and occasionally refuse his orders. For example on one training session Solo is assigned to shoot a human target in a sniper mission. He is told that the mission and target are real, and that he is to genuinely kill the person. He point blank refuses to do so. More worryingly to his designers, Solo is not entirely forthcoming about his reasons for such hesitancy. On another training mission Solo is lost; he is discovered by a group of Nicaraguan villagers who although initially fearful of him, come to trust the robot and depend on his protection. The novel details Solo's developing friendship with the villagers, whilst the US military attempts to recapture him. |
5846447 | /m/0f8rxj | 4th of July | Maxine Paetro | 5/2/2005 | {"/m/0lsxr": "Crime Fiction", "/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | When Lindsay Boxer gets a lead on a recent murder of a teenager, she responds to the call and joins Warren Jacobi on a stakeout of a Mercedes. When the car takes off, a high speed chase ends in a crash. The officers discover two teenagers in their father’s car, who are scared and have been hurt. They help them out, but the teens pull guns and both officers are shot. After being hit in the shoulder and thigh, and seeing Jacobi shot twice, Boxer returns fire. The girl is killed, and the boy is paralyzed for life. As Boxer and Jacobi are recovering in the hospital, they are told that everything is legally good, that is was a case of self-defense. Then, Boxer receives a notice she is being sued by the teenagers' father for wrongful death. Taking a vacation before the trial starts, Boxer housesits for her sister in Half Moon Bay. While there she reads about recent murders in which the victims’ throats were cut and they were whipped. This resembles an unsolved case from before, so Boxer begins to investigate informally. After a few days, the Half Moon Bay police chief tells her to mind her own business, but reconsiders when the next bodies are found. Boxer meets with her friends to try to determine a link between victims as her trial date approaches. Boxer is found not guilty, and instead of returning to work right away, goes back to Half Moon Bay, determined to solve the recent murders. She is only there a day when the killers leave her a message by shooting up the house. She gets out and follows more clues, then finally catches up with a guy who has been following her. He is arrested and confesses to the killings. It is not until Alison Brown, her friend’s daughter, shows up at her house that Boxer catches the other two killers. They are part of a vigilante group of former victims who take the law into their own hands, playing the role of The Seeker, The Watcher, and The Truth. After they are all arrested, Boxer returns to San Francisco a double hero, for winning the trial and solving the murders. |
5846816 | /m/0f8shz | Second Sight | Gary Blackwood | null | {"/m/0mz2": "Alternate history", "/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature"} | Joseph is a young boy who joins his father in a mind reading act. When a girl named Cassandra, who actually does have second sight, moves into his boarding house, she confesses to Joseph that she is having visions of something terrible happening to President Abraham Lincoln. Meanwhile, Joseph befriends John Wilkes Booth, an actor who is appearing in a local production. Cassandra moves with her uncle to boarding house run by Mary Surratt, where they meet David Herold. As the Civil War ends and Cassandra's visions of Lincoln's approaching death grow stronger, Joseph and Cassandra have to prove to the authorities that Booth is planning to kill Lincoln before it is too late. |
5849750 | /m/0f8ykc | How Obelix Fell into the Magic Potion When he was a Little Boy | null | null | null | The story is narrated by Asterix: he tells of his early childhood (when he was about six years old) when Obelix was shy, overweight and bullied. After the other kids picked on Obelix one too many times, Asterix decided to help him by getting him to drink some of Getafix' magic potion when the village men went out to beat up Romans, but Obelix slipped and fell in — being rescued by Getafix when the battle was over. |
5850863 | /m/0f8zrv | Seven Swords of Mount Heaven | Liang Yusheng | 1956 | {"/m/08322": "Wuxia"} | The prologue serves as a continuation of Yang Yuncong and Nalan Minghui's story in Saiwai Qixia Zhuan, set in the early Qing Dynasty. Nalan is forced to marry the Manchu prince Dodo even though she loves Yang and has bore Yang a daughter. Yang shows up on the night before Nalan's wedding and seizes their infant daughter from her. He is mortally wounded in a fight against Prince Dodo's henchmen and before his death he entrusts his daughter to the youth Liang Mulang, who was attempting suicide after being mistakenly accused of betraying his comrades. Mulang brings Yang's daughter back to Yang's teacher Reverend Huiming on Mount Heaven. Mulang spends eighteen years training under Reverend Huiming's tutelage and becomes a formidable swordsman. He returns to the jianghu under a new alias, "Ling Weifeng", and does a series of chivalrous deeds. Yang Yuncong's daughter Yilan Zhu has mastered the Mount Heaven Swordplay, and she swears to kill Prince Dodo and avenge her father. On Mount Wutai, members of the anti-government Heaven and Earth Society and some Southern Ming rebels attempt to assassinate Prince Dodo but their plans are interrupted by Yilan Zhu's untimely appearance. During the ensuing chaos, Yilan Zhu unintentionally causes Zhang Huazhao to be captured by Qing soldiers. She goes to Prince Dodo's residence to rescue Zhang later. Meanwhile Fu Qingzhu and Mao Wanlian discover that the Shunzhi Emperor is still alive and has become a monk on Mount Wutai. Shunzhi's son, the reigning Kangxi Emperor, secretly murders his father to safeguard his throne. On Ling Weifeng's part, he meets his old crush Liu Yufang, who wrongly accused him of betrayal years ago. Even though Ling's appearance has changed, Liu still notices that he bears some resemblance to Mulang, but he refuses to admit that he is indeed Mulang. Ling Weifeng and Liu Yufang travel to Yunnan later and befriend Li Siyong, a descendant of Li Zicheng. They also encounter Fu Qingzhu and Mao Wanlian, as well as Gui Zhongming, a new companion. Gui falls in love with Mao after she helps him recover from his mental illness. Gui Zhongming and Mao Wanlian go to Beijing later to find Yilan Zhu and they meet the scholar Nalan Rongruo. In the meantime, Nalan Minghui recognises Yilan Zhu as her daughter and she pleads with Prince Dodo to spare her daughter's life. After much difficulty, Yilan Zhu and Zhang Huazhao escape from danger and they fall in love. Yilan Zhu avenges her father later by assassinating Prince Dodo, but is captured and imprisoned. Nalan Minghui is unable to rescue her daughter and commits suicide in despair. "Flying Red Sash" Hamaya (a former love rival of Nalan) and Ling Weifeng appear in the nick of time and save Yilan Zhu. Ling Weifeng suddenly experiences a seizure in a fight against Chu Zhaonan, his treacherous senior. Chu turns the tables on Ling and captures and imprisons him in an underground labyrinth in Tibet. Ling attempts to escape but fails and is on the brink of death. He writes a letter to Liu Yufang, admitting that he is indeed Mulang. Liu is heartbroken upon reading Ling's letter. Han Zhibang, who has a secret crush on Liu Yufang, bravely sacrifices himself to save Ling Weifeng and dies at the hands of Chu Zhaonan. Fu Qingzhu and the other heroes break into the labyrinth to rescue Ling. Chu Zhaonan is defeated by Yilan Zhu and commits suicide eventually. Ling Weifeng, Zhang Huazhao, Gui Zhongming, Yilan Zhu, Mao Wanlian, Wu Qiongyao, and Hamaya form the "Seven Swords of Mount Heaven", with Liu Yufang as a close ally. They leave behind a heroic legacy of upholding justice and helping the poor and oppressed. |
5851150 | /m/0f8_3y | Dubrovsky | Aleksandr Pushkin | 1841 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Vladimir Dubrovsky is a young nobleman whose land is confiscated by a greedy and powerful aristocrat, Kirila Petrovitch Troekurov. Determined to get justice one way or another, Dubrovsky gathers a band of serfs and goes on the rampage, stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. Along the way, Dubrovsky falls in love with Masha, Troekurov’s daughter, and lets his guard down, with tragic results. |
5852736 | /m/0f921f | I Malavoglia | null | null | null | In the village of Aci Trezza in the Province of Catania lives the Toscano family, who, although extremely hardworking, has been nicknamed (for antiphrasis) the Malavoglia (The Reluctant Ones). The head of the family is Padron Ntoni, a widower, who lives at the house by the medlar tree with his son Bastian (called Bastianazzo, despite his being anything but tall), and the wife of the latter called Maria (nicknamed Maruzza la Longa). Bastian has five children: Ntoni, Luca, Filomena (Mena), Alessio (called Alessi) and Rosalia (Lia). The main source of income is la Provvidenza (the Providence), which is a small fishing boat. In 1863, Ntoni, the eldest of the children, leaves for the military service. To try and make up for the loss of income which his absence will cause, Padron Ntoni attempts a business venture and buys a large amount of lupins. The load is entrusted to his son Bastianazzo, the plan being to sell them in Riposto to make a profit. However, Bastianazzo and the merchandise are tragically lost during a storm. Following this misfortune, the family finds themselves with a triple misfortune: the debt caused by the lupins which were bought on credit, the Providence to repair, and the loss of Bastianazzo, an important and loved member of the family. Having finished his military service, Ntoni returns to the laborious life of his family very reluctantly, having seen the riches and splendour outside of his small village, and does not represent any support to the already precarious economic situation of his family. The family’s misfortunes are far from over. Luca, one of Padron Ntoni’s grandsons, dies at the battle of Lissa (1866), which leads to the breaking off of the betrothal of Mena to Brasi Cipolla. The debt from the lupin venture causes the family to lose their beloved “Casa del Nespolo” – the house by the medlar tree, and gradually the reputation of the family worsens until they reach humiliating levels of poverty. A further wreck of the Providence leaves Padron Ntoni near death, although fortunately he manages to recover. Later Maruzza, his daughter-in-law, dies of cholera. The firstborn, Ntoni, decides to go away from the village to seek his fortune, only to return destitute. He loses any desire to work, turning to alcoholism and idleness. The departure of Ntoni had forced the family to sell the Providence to get the money needed to get back the Casa del Nespolo, which had never been forgotten. The mistress of the osteria, Santuzza, who is already coveted by the sharkish Don Michele, becomes infatuated with Ntoni, serving him for free in the tavern. The conduct of Ntoni and the lamentations of his father convince her to turn her emotions from him, and to return to Don Michele. This leads to a brawl between the two; a brawl that results in the stabbing of Don Michele in the chest by Ntoni during an anti-smuggling raid. Ntoni ends up in prison. At his trial, after hearing rumours about a relationship between Don Michele and his granddaughter Lia, Padron Ntoni passes out and falls to the ground. Now old, his conversation is disjointed and he recites his proverbs without much awareness of what is going on. Lia, the younger sister, becomes the victim of vicious village gossip, runs away and becomes a prostitute. Mena, because of the shameful situation of her sister, feels that she cannot marry Alfio, even though they love each other, and instead remains at home to care for Alessi and Nunziata’s children. Alessi, the youngest of the brothers, has remained a fisherman and with hard work manages to rebuild the family fortunes to the point at which they can repurchase the house by the medlar tree. Having bought the house, what is left of the family visits the hospital where the old Padron Ntoni is being kept, to inform him of the good news and to announce his imminent return home. It is the last moment of happiness for the old man, who dies on the day he was to return. Even his desire to die in the house where was born is never granted. When Ntoni is released from prison and comes back to the village, he realises that he cannot stay because of all that he has done. He has excluded himself from his family by systematically denouncing their values. |
5853410 | /m/0f93dt | The Baron in the Trees | Italo Calvino | null | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | The story of twelve-year-old Cosimo Piovasco di Rondò is narrated by his younger brother, Biagio. Set in Liguria near the French Riviera, the two brothers belong to a noble 18th century family whose estate is located in the vast forest landscapes of Ombrosa. The regions of Italy have not yet united and the Ligurian Coast is not ruled by a legitimate king. In a rebellious fit after refusing to eat a dinner of snails prepared by Battista, his sadistic sister, Cosimo climbs up a tree and decides never to come down again. He has literally had enough: enough of family and decorum, his proper role as a future Baron, and of everything on the ground. Initially helped and sometimes cared for by Biagio, the young Baron eventually becomes self-sufficient but finds that the more he distances himself from others in order to see them from a new point of view, the more he helps everyone on the earth. His love for a young woman named Viola changes the course of the lives of everyone: Cosimo, Viola, Biagio, and the community of Ombrosa. |
5853789 | /m/0f93z8 | Gather Yourselves Together | Philip K. Dick | 1994 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | After the final victory of Mao Zedong's Chinese Communists in 1949, an American company prepares to abandon their Chinese operations, leaving three people behind to oversee transitional affairs- Carl Fitter, Vernon Tildon and Barbara Mahler. Vernon and Barbara were previously involved with one another back in the United States, in 1945, when she lost her virginity to him. They have sex again, but Barbara has matured, and becomes more interested in Carl, who is younger than she is. Carl is more interested in reading his handwritten volume of personal philosophy to her, but Barbara does succeed in seducing him, shortly before the arrival of the Chinese. |
5854290 | /m/0f94_9 | Voices From the Street | Philip K. Dick | 2007 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Official synopsis: :Stuart Hadley is a young radio-electronics salesman in early 1950s in a town south of San Francisco, California. Hadley is also an angry young man, an artist, a dreamer, and a screw-up. He has what many would consider an ideal life; a nice house, a pretty wife, a good job with prospects of advancement, but he still feels unfulfilled; something is missing from his life. From drinking to sex to religious fanaticism, Hadley unsuccessfully tries to fill his void. He reacts to his wife's love and kindness of his employer with anxiety and fear rather than acceptance. This is the story of Hadley's descent into depression and madness, and the story of his redemption. |
5854625 | /m/0f95m9 | The Professor's House | Willa Cather | 1925 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | When Professor Godfrey St. Peter and wife move to a new house, he becomes uncomfortable with the route his life is taking. He keeps on his dusty study in the old house in an attempt to hang on to his old life. Also the marriages of his two daughters have removed them from the home and added two new sons-in-law, precipitating a mid-life crisis that leaves the Professor feeling as though he has lost the will to live because he has nothing to look forward to. The novel initially addresses the Professor's interactions with his new sons-in-law and his family, while continually alluding to the pain they all feel over the death of Tom Outland in the Great War. Outland was not only the Professor's student and friend, but the fiancé of his elder daughter, who is now living off the wealth created by the "Outland vacuum." The novel's central section turns to Outland, and recounts in first-person the story of his exploration of an ancient cliff city in New Mexico. The section is a retrospective narrative remembered by the professor. In the final section, the professor, left alone while his family takes an expensive European tour, narrowly escapes death due to a gas leak in his study; and finds himself strangely willing to die. He is rescued by the old family seamstress, Augusta, who has been his staunch friend throughout. He resolves to go on with his life. |
5854745 | /m/0f95sk | Mary and the Giant | Philip K. Dick | 1987 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | In 1953, Joseph Schilling arrives in Pacific Park, Southern California. He establishes a small music shop, and later, Danny and Beth Coombes join him. Mary Ann Reynolds is also interviewed for a position at the shop, but backs off after Schilling touches her. After leaving home, Carleton Tweaney, an African-American lounge singer (and her lover) finds her a new home. However, Beth has already slept with Joseph, and now moves on to Carleton. Provoked by her affair, Danny tries to shoot Carleton, but instead dies himself. Carleton and Mary Anne break up, and she decides to work for Schilling after all, as well as becoming sexually involved with him, despite a forty year age difference. He helps her to rent and renovate her own apartment, but Mary Anne decides to live in a dilapidated African American neighbourhood instead. In an epilogue, she has married Paul Nitz, a pianist who works with Carleton. The author himself once described the novel as: "A retelling of Mozart's Don Giovanni, with Schilling seduced and destroyed by a young woman." |
5855081 | /m/0f96n7 | A Time for George Stavros | Philip K. Dick | null | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | According to Lawrence Sutin's book, Divine Invasions: A Life of Philip K. Dick, (1989) the plot survives only as an index card synopsis from the publisher dated 24 October 1956, after the manuscript had already been rejected one time. The reader's comments on the rewrite as follows: :"Didn't like this before & still don't. Long, rambling, glum novel about 65 yr old Greek immigrant who has a weakling son, a second son about whom he's indifferent, a wife who doesn't love him (She's being unfaithful to him). Nothing much happens. Guy, selling garage & retiring, tries to buy another garage in new development, has a couple of falls, dies at end. Point is murky but seems to be that world is disintegrating, Stavros supposed to be symbol of vigorous individuality now a lost commodity." In a letter from 1960, the author himself commented on the titular character in an unexpectedly optimistic fashion: :"Contact with vile persons does not blight or contaminate or doom the really superior; a man can go on and be successful, if he just keeps struggling. There is no trick that the wicked can play on the good that will ultimately be successful; the good are protected by God, or at least by their virtue." |
5855224 | /m/0f96_c | The Well at the World's End | William Morris | 1896 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | Using language with elements of the medieval tales which were his models, Morris tells the story of Ralph of Upmeads, the fourth and youngest son of a minor king, who sets out, contrary to his parents' wishes, to find knightly adventure and seek the Well at the World's End, a magic well which will confer a near-immortality and strengthened destiny on those who drink from it. The well lies at the edge of the sea beyond a wall of mountains called "The Wall of the World" by those on the near side of them but "The Wall of Strife" by the more peaceful and egalitarian people who live on the seaward side. Ralph meets a mysterious lady who has drunk from the well, and they become lovers. Together and separately, they face many foes and dangers including brigands, slave traders, unscrupulous rulers and treacherous fellow travellers. The lady is killed, but with the help of Ursula, another maiden whom Ralph meets upon the way, and the Sage of Sweveham, an ancient hermit who has also drunk of the well, Ralph eventually attains the Well, after many more adventures. The outward journey takes more than a year. Returning from the well, Ralph, Ursula and the Sage find that some of the poor oppressed folk they had helped on the way to the well have righted grave wrongs, increased prosperity and reduced the level of strife in the city-state kingdoms along the way. The wayfarers must now decide whether they can settle down to a righteous but stodgy life at Ralph's home kingdom now that they have learned so much and become near-immortal, or are called to further heroism in the wider world. |
5855999 | /m/0f98gb | The Broken Bubble | Philip K. Dick | 1988 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The lives of two couples intertwine in mid-1950s California, and all learn important lessons about life. Jim Briskin is a classical music DJ. He and his ex-wife Patricia Gray are still very much in love but have divorced because he is sterile. The two divorcees meet a teenaged married couple named Art and Rachael and essentially swap partners. Pat passionately loves the youthful but dysfunctional Art, almost as though he were her child, and the two of them have an abusive relationship in which he gives her a black eye. Meanwhile, Jim and Rachael hook up and Rachael offers to ditch Art and move to Mexico with Jim where he will adopt her baby and raise it as his own. In the end, however, maturity prevails and they all return to their original partners. Miss Thisbe Holt of the original title is actually a very minor character in the book. She is a well-endowed stripper who performs at an optometrists convention which occurs near the very end of the novel. Her act consists of climbing naked into a large clear plastic ball which the optometrists then roll around the hotel suite to more thoroughly examine her ample personal assets. The ball is demolished when it's later filled with debris and pushed off the hotel roof by the inebriated optometrists. The shortened title seems more obviously appropriate in that its lack of specificity allows it to do double duty in serving as a metaphor symbolizing the irreversible effects of the various life-altering events that occur within the orbits of the main characters. |
5856005 | /m/0f98j1 | The Octagonal Raven | L. E. Modesitt, Jr. | 2/24/2001 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | The Octagonal Raven is set in the distant future, where nanites are prevalent throughout society, for those who can afford them. The story follows Daryn Alwyn, the younger son of one of the richest families in the world. He is augmented with nanites, and is a “pre-select,” or someone whose mental and physical abilities were tuned before birth by DNA manipulation. Despite this, he does not go to work for his family, the owners of one of the largest media corporations on the planet. Instead, he chooses to follow his own path, first by going into the military, then by becoming a freelance editorial writer. He lives in isolation, but after surviving an assassination attempt, he is forced to notice the growing cultural strains around him. The pre-selects, due to their abilities and thus money, make up 10% of the population, but control over 95% of the resources of the world, and are using that power to shut out the “norms,” or non-augmented humans. A plague breaks out that only kills augmented humans, a plague much more virulent than a similar one that had swept the world 20 years before. Alwyn discovers that he is immune, however, as the supposed assassination attempt was actually a vaccination against the plague. After his family is killed, by assassination in the case of his sister and the plague for his parents and older brother, he finds out that both plagues were non-human in origin, caused by octagonal nanites, reminiscent of the very ancient octagonal jumpgate that had been found in deep space, rather than the round designs of human nanites and jumpgates. The newest plague, however, was engineered by Eldyn Nahal, the norm who stopped the first plague, as revenge for the power control of the pre-selects. After Nahal is killed, Alwyn takes over his family's company, stopping an attempt by the power elite to merge the largest media corporations together, thus controlling all sources of news. He uses the company to expose how these handful of pre-selects are attempting to take control of everything, forever shutting out all norms and those pre-selects who stand against them. The book ends after they are all dead or incarcerated. |
5856515 | /m/0f999r | Puttering About in a Small Land | Philip K. Dick | 1985 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | In 1944, Virginia Watson and Roger Lindahl meet in Washington DC. They marry after Roger divorces his first wife Teddy and abandons his daughter by her as well. Their subsequent move to Los Angeles to work in a munitions factory proves extremely profitable. But Roger spends the money far faster than it took them to earn it. By 1953, Roger has opened a television sales and repair shop, while Virginia is trying enroll their 7-year-old son Gregg in an expensive boarding school in Ojai against Roger's wishes. Liz Bonner, another parent, persuades Roger to agree to Gregg's enrollment by offering to share the perilous and exhausting driving duties involved in transporting their children over the nearby mountains to and from Ojai. There is a particular private exchange between Roger Lindahl and Marion Watson, Virginia's mother, that very graphically depicts Roger's highly immature, volatile and unpredictable nature. The trigger for his outburst, ironically enough, is the realization that his hostile mother-in-law (as a favor only to her daughter) plans on providing substantial financial backing for his business. But there is yet another financial interloper afoot. "Chic" or Charles Bonner, Liz's husband, wants to buy into Roger's shop as a partner, but Lindahl declines his offer and promptly begins an affair with a very accommodating Liz. Virginia finds out, though Chic remains unaware, and she hectors Roger into letting her assume legal ownership of the shop with Chic. Unfortunately, however, both marriages have been irreparably damaged. Chic and Liz end up getting divorced. Roger and Virginia remain tenuously married, and a philandering Roger remains in contact with Liz through the private school. The final chapter closes with ever-impulsive Roger dumping Gregg off at home, pilfering a carload of expensive T.V. sets from the store and hightailing it to Chicago. |
5856785 | /m/0f99tq | Nicholas and the Higs | Philip K. Dick | null | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | As with several lost Philip K. Dick novels of this period, all we know about it is an index card synopsis in the files of a publisher who rejected the book. According to Lawrence Sutin's book, Divine Invasions: A Life of Philip K. Dick, (Published 1989) this card was dated 1/3/58 and said: :"Very long, complex story, usual Dick genius for setting. Future society wherein trading stamps have replaced currency and people live hundreds of miles from work (drive at 190 mph), have set up living tracts. Cars often break down, so they have tract mechanic on full-time basis. Mechanic old, has bad liver, seems to be dying. People of tract use general fund to buy pseudo-organ but man is dead for a few days and 'comes back' a bit touched. Sub plot concerns man from whom tract got organ (which is illegal), and how his presence causes moral breakdown of people in tract." In a letter dated 1960, Dick himself commented on the theme of the novel: :"This is an odd one, half 'straight' and half science fiction. An inferior man can destroy a superior one; a Robert Hig can move in and oust Nicholas because he, Hig, has no morals...Only by relying on base techniques can Nicholas survive;...Awareness of this is enough to drive Nicholas out; he must give up because to win is to lose; he is involved in a terrible paradox as soon as Hig puts in his appearance. In other words, you can't really beat the Adolph [sic] Hitlers; you can only limit their success." (Compare this pessimistic "Bad guys always win" sentiment to Phil's own comments on how "God, or at least … Virtue" will always protect the good from evil in his lost novel, A Time for George Stavros.) |
5857386 | /m/0f9c0l | The Space Vampires | Colin Wilson | 1976-03 | {"/m/0kflf": "Vampire fiction", "/m/06n90": "Science Fiction"} | In the late twenty-first century, far out in a nearby asteroid belt, a gigantic derelict castle-like alien spacecraft is discovered by the space exploration vehicle Hermes, commanded by Captain Olof Carlsen. Investigating the spacecraft's interior, the astronauts first discover the desiccated corpses of giant bat-like creatures, then three glass coffins containing three immobilized humanoids - two male and one female - preserved in a state of suspended animation. Returning to Earth with the preserved humanoids, Carlsen discovers the true nature of the beings when one of them kills a young man, a reporter (and the son of a friend of Carlsen) whom Carlsen illicitly allowed to view the body. The woman kills her victim by completely draining his life-force (a quantifiable energy measured by a device called "lambda-field scanners"), then, when Carlsen attempts to intervene, partially draining him of energy as well. Carlsen is left still alive, but unable to prevent the woman from escaping from the hospital. Carlsen joins forces with Dr. Hans Fallada, a scientist researching energy vampirism and longevity, to find the escaped vampire and recapture her. In the course of their investigations they discover that the aliens can transfer from one body to another, and that the other two have also escaped; they also discover the potential for energy vampirism - and more generalized voluntary energy transfer - that exists in all humans, and the parallels between vampirism, criminality, and sexual fetishization. At last Carlsen tracks down the vampires in London, their leader having possessed the body of the Prime Minister; but their confrontation is averted when representatives from the Nioth-Korghai, the vampires' original race, appear and offer the vampires (the Ubbo-Sathla, as they call themselves) the chance to regain their original nature as higher-dimension energy-beings. The vampires accept joyfully, but destroy themselves upon regaining the ability to see themselves for what they had become. An epilogue, set nearly a century later, reveals that Carlsen has used the techniques of benevolent energy transference he learned via his encounters with the vampires to live an extraordinarily long life, and possibly (it is implied) to have achieved a kind of transcendence upon his death. |
5859652 | /m/0f9hgp | Time After Time | null | 1979-04 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/07s2s": "Time travel"} | The novel alternates perspectives between H.G. Wells and a character initially identified only as "Stevenson." In the first chapter, Stevenson copulates with a prostitute in a 19th century London alley and then murders her. In the next chapter, Wells is introduced showing off his brand new time machine to a group of men including Stevenson. When police arrive to announce that they have identified Jack the Ripper as Stevenson, Stevenson uses the time machine to escape, and Wells follows him. Wells finds himself in the future and befriends a young bank teller named Amy Robbins. Robbins is unaware of Wells's identity and 19th century provenance and believes him to be just a quirky old-fashioned gentleman. As Stevenson murders several women, Wells pursues him while hampered by a love affair with Robbins, to whom he does not dare tell the truth. When Wells is finally forced to confess to Robbins who he is and what he is really doing, she terminates their relationship. But Stevenson targets her next, and Wells rescues her and incapacitates Stevenson in a dramatic climax. |
5863980 | /m/0f9q7w | The Clockwise Man | Justin Richards | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | The Doctor and Rose travel back in time to London in the year 1924 in a trip to the British Empire Exhibition, only to find themselves caught up in the hunt for a mysterious, inhuman murderer; meeting a woman who never shows her face; a cat that can return from the dead and people who may not even know the truth. They must solve the mystery before the whole of London is destroyed. |
5866058 | /m/0f9t5v | Edenborn | Nick Sagan | 2004 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | In the aftermath of a global plague, a group of gengineered posthumans are trying to rebuild society by cloning children.The world is divided into two idealogical factions, one believing that humanity's weakness should be improved upon via genetic manipulation, and one devoted to bringing back the frozen remains of humanity 1.0. Both groups contribute to the overall systems of the world, Vashti working to cure Black Ep, and Isaac working to sanitize the world for his children. Pandora runs IVR, the virtual reality system, and Halloween maintains his policy of American isolationism. The children are protected from the plague by a specially-engineered retrovirus called BEAR. One group led by Champagne and Vashti, in Munich, Germany, is composed entirely of posthuman women. The other, led by Isaac, in Luxor, Egypt, is human. The two camps have an exchange program despite the death of Hessa, Isaac's daughter, in the previous exchange. Haji, of the Luxor camp, is going to Munich this year with two of his siblings, Ngozi and Dalila. Raised to be devout Sufi Muslims, Haji is wary but delighted by the mores and technology in Munich. The Munich contingent is run more like a bootcamp than a school for the girls. Vashti monitors all of their dealings and domains in IVR, and has it strictly censored. Vashti also controls the girls through virtual dollars given as pocket money, used to buy things in IVR. Penny, the main character of the Munich base, is obsessed with power, and recognition. When she hears that Pandora has become overworked, and may need an assistant, she puts all of her energy into getting the position. Penny is alienated from all of her peers, especially Brigit and Sloane. She believes that she has supernatural powers and somehow put a "hex" on her sister, causing her to break her leg. She believes herself to be the smartest of the girls, the best athlete, and a great writer of operatic symphonies. Her only desire is to be recognized, to be "queen of the inside" by controlling IVR, and thereby controlling her sisters.She is the kind of person who is only nice when she thinks someone is watching.She offers to pay Brigit and Sloane 5,000 dollars each (in IVR money) if they say good things about her to Pandora. When her sisters demand more money, she resorts to blackmailing them. When she is informed that Olivia, her younger sister, got the job instead, she threatens Olivia, and resolves to "make them pay". Small items, with no history or sender, keep ending up in IVR. Haji finds a key, and Tomi recognizes it as the key to the cryogenics lab, where the Geanectis scientist Halfway Jim has stored a composite of his personality in a computer. Haji realizes the truth, that he is a clone of Halfway Jim. The Jim composite tells his that he must sacrifice himself, and "download" the personality, so that Halfway Jim, the genius, can help the world. Haji is in the middle of a crisis of faith. His entire life, his religion, stresses the ultimate path to God as self-annihilation, fana, the black light that annihilates everything but God. Here he is faced with the decision to destroy himself for the betterment of humanity. He must also consider what his father's intentions were in cloning him, and raising him to believe in what he does. He wonders if he was intended to be a conduit for Halfway Jim, his father's idol; his father's God. Just as Haji gets some solitude to contemplate this crisis, and Penny makes out her hit list, IVR goes down. Everything is exposed, Vasthi's logs and evaluations of the girls that reveal a range of mood-suppressing drugs—including sex-drive suppressants—and subliminal codes that the Munich camp use to keep their children in line, as well as the reading of the girls supposedly secret diaries. The girls are betrayed, and the Munich camp is in disarray. This is the work of a trickster called Deuce, who sees himself as the successor to "Hermes, Loki, Prometheus, Raven and Coyote". Halloween made a clone of himself to watch his own life. He inserted this clone into IVR to follow his own life. However, the clone did not follow all of Halloween's choices, and Hal realized that the clone was an individual human being, and not really Hal. He named the clone Deuce and brought him out of IVR to raise him as his son. When Deuce makes his strike on the Munich computer network, Pandora goes to Michigan to confront Halloween (she thinks he is responsible), which makes Halloween initially mad. Pandora agrees to take Deuce back to Munich to face a punishment. But Penny, recently unbalanced by the news of the mood-suppressants, is secretly working with Deuce, and the two elope. Meanwhile, Pandora is tracking monkeys in the Amazon. The plague wiped out the world's primates, so the continued survival of the monkeys is important if a vaccine is to be found. An answer is found—a special sap the monkeys eat—but Mu'tazz, a human boy on the expedition, suddenly falls ill and the groups goes back to Munich for medical care. The answer is chilling—Mu'tazz overdosed on his retrovirus tablets, and the retrovirus began to mutate. Halloween goes to Munich to track down his son. After brief recriminations, Isaac—leader of the Luxor camp—tells them that the three children on the exchange course (and presumably the other human children) are also suffering and will soon die. Deuce and Penelope go to Britain, and begin a 'last-couple-on-Earth' fantasy. But Penny insists that on fulfilling the fantasy, and the pair go to an air force base and acquire weaponry. After they accidentally shoot down Pandora over the Mediterranean, they travel to Munich with a rocket launcher. Deuce follows everything Penny tells him to do because she is dying—it's shown by huge red splotches on her. However, she is really using strawberry jam to cause herself to have an allergic reaction so that she can fool Deuce. When Penny tells Deuce to fire the rocket launcher at the headquarters where everyone else is, Deuce refuses. Penny takes the rocket launcher herself and prepares to fire it. Halloween shoots her. Deuce commits suicide, with his idea of his father shattered. In the aftermath, the various leaders realise that all their problems came from deceit and trickery. They all move to Munich, where they begin to build, hopefully, a better world. |
5870181 | /m/0f9_l1 | Inkdeath | Cornelia Funke | 2008 | {"/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature", "/m/01jym": "Bildungsroman"} | Inkdeath picks up with the now immortal, but slowly decaying, evil Adderhead, ruler of the southern part of the Inkworld, his brother-in-law the Milksop king of Ombra, and his trusty right hand man, The Piper, ruling over the small village of Ombra. They set harsher taxes and loot what they can from the villages. The three Folcharts, Meggie, Resa, and Mortimer, along with an unborn Folchart child, reside at a peaceful abandoned farm that has fortunately long been forgotten by others. Farid, who has given up his fire after the death of Dustfinger, works for an increasingly wealthy Orpheus. Orpheus treats him like a slave while promising that he will read a dead Dustfinger back to life. Fenoglio, the author, gives up writing at the beginning of the book and grows increasingly drunken and senile. He is immensely annoyed at how Orpheus is changing Inkworld and asking his never ending questions about the "White Women." Ombra is under constant threat by the Adderhead's men, who have killed nearly every young adult male in the city, and regularly kidnap children to work them in the mines. The only figure standing in their way is the romanticized "Bluejay", a thief created by Fenoglio in a series of songs that was inspired by Mo who is now "stuck" as the "Bluejay" and is in as much trouble as ever. Meanwhile, Orpheus, who has been tediously changing the story, succeeds in calling a meeting of the robber graveyard to get the Bluejay to bring Dustfinger back to life, and die in the process. Mo agrees, and summons the White women, who bring him to the world of the dead for what turns out to be three days. During this time, Meggie believes her father is dead and becomes furious with both Farid and her mother, Resa. In the world of the dead, Mo meets Death itself, who makes a bargain with Mo: Death will release Dustfinger from her grasp and Mo as well, as long as Mo finishes what he started, and writes the three words in the White Book, the book that makes the Adderhead immortal. If he does not succeed, Death will take him, Dustfinger, and Meggie, as she was partially involved in the binding of The White Book. He awakens from the world of death, bringing Dustfinger with him. They are now both nearly fearless, Dustfinger is now scarless, and they are both inseparable from each other. Mo finds himself enjoying the Bluejay role, and has no intention of leaving Inkworld despite Meggie and Resa's urgings. Meggie finds herself increasingly distanced from Farid, and drawn to another young man named Doria, a member of the Black Prince's robber camp. The plot picks up when nearly all of the children of Ombra are kidnapped by The Piper and threatened to be taken to the mines where they will surely die. Mo, now known almost exclusively as the Bluejay, cannot accept this, and frees them by giving himself up in exchange. He discovers that the Adderhead's daughter, Violante, known as Her Ugliness, wishes to take his side in the matter. She gets him back safely to the robber's camp, while keeping her allegiance a secret from The Piper and her young son Jacopo, a follower of the Adderhead and admirer of the Piper. The Piper is sent to follow after the children. The Milksop goes after the group of robbers, but Fenoglio saves them by writing giant human nests up in the trees. Mo, goes off in secret with Dustfinger, Violante, and her legion of child soldiers to the castle in the lake, where the white book is kept. In the meantime, Orpheus has put himself in the service of the Adderhead, in the hopes of picking the winning team but doesn't because Mo has a few tricks up his sleeve. He is also plagued by visits from a now insane Mortola, who still works for the return of her dead son, Capricorn. The Bluejay and Dustfinger face difficulty at the castle, and their plans go awry. Mo, Dustfinger, and Brianna, Dustfinger's daughter, are all eventually imprisoned. For Brianna's sake, Dustfinger momentarily betrays Mo. At this point, Resa arrives in the form of a Swift, saves Mo from going insane, and restates Dustfinger's allegiance. Resa and Dustfinger search for The White Book unsuccessfully while the Bluejay, who has been captured again by the Piper, works on creating a new white book for the Adderhead. Jacopo betrays his grandfather, the Adderhead, by giving Mo the original white book so that he is able to write the three words, thus killing the Adderhead. Inkdeath concludes as Orpheus, finding himself on the losing end, flees to the north mountains, Fenoglio is writing again, Farid decides to go travelling with his regained power of fire who asked if Meggie would join him, Meggie, now in love with Doria, bids Farid farewell and good luck, and later marries Doria just as Fenoglio's pre written story had said. Violante, now known as Her Kindliness, becomes ruler of Ombra, and a new Folchart, a boy, is born into Inkworld, longing for the world that his parents and sister were born in: longing for the mechanical horse-less carriages, and the bright lights. |
5870454 | /m/0fb00_ | The Blue Djinn of Babylon | Philip Kerr | 2006 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | After having promised their mother, Layla, not to use their djinn powers without consulting her first, John and Philippa are leading pretty normal lives. When Philippa enters the Djinnverso tournament (also called Djinnversoctoannular, djinn game of bluffing with 7 astaralgi, or 8 sided dice, the of which being undermine luck) unbidden events are set into motion and she is framed as a cheater. The twins also learn that the famed book, Solomon's Grimoire, which is in the care of Ayesha, the Blue Djinn of Babylon and the ruler of all six tribes of djinn, has been stolen. The Grimoire gives anyone who uses its spells vast control over a djinn. The twins go in search of the missing book, leading them into more danger and adventures. It turns out that Solomon's Grimoire is not missing, but instead was being used as a trap for Philippa. Ayesha, the twins' grandmother (whom they do not know of until the end of the book), wished to kidnap Philippa so that she would be the next Blue Djinn, as Ayesha's life was rapidly expiring. Jockeying for her position was Mimi de Ghulle, a wicked djinn from the tribe of Ghul; however, she is having little success. John goes in search of Philippa, who is being held at the Blue Djinn's secret palace in Babylon. The twin's favorite uncle, Nimrod, also goes in search of an acceptable alternative to Philippa as the next Blue Djinn. The book alternates between John's search of Philippa, told in third person narration, and Philippa's experiences, told in first person in the form of a diary. Philippa discovers that the Blue Djinn's powers to be beyond good and evil come from the Garden of Eden's Tree of Logic. Slowly Philippa loses her humanity as the Tree has greater and greater effects on her. John, in his search, faces numerous obstacles in finding and reaching the palace. He is aided by two of his uncles, Alan and Neil, who were turned into dogs by his mother for attempting the murder of their brother, John and Philippa's father, Edward, for his fortune. In addition, John attains a copy of The Bellili Scrolls, a map to the palace, and of its underground locale, Iravotum. The book climaxes when John reaches the palace and manages to rescue Philippa. However, during their traversal of Iravotum, Alan and Neil attack a large bird, called the Rukkh, that was attacking the group, biting its legs. However, the dogs did not let go, and fell to the ground, killing them. It is later revealed that Layla's binding of the human Alan and Neil would last only as long as the physical bodies of the dogs they inhabit, leaving the human Alan and Neil alive. The twins join Nimrod and Groanin in a restaurant, called Kebabylon, in Iraq, near Iravotum. A reporter introduced earlier in the book is also present. The reporter, Montana Retch, is actually a djinn tracker hired by Mimi de Ghulle to eliminate Philippa, so that Mimi would be the only candidate for the post of Blue Djinn. After Layla appears, having been summoned by the transformation of Alan and Neil, she transforms Montana Retch into a cat, reversing her previous vow never to use djinn power again. It is revealed to the reader, but not John and Philippa, that Ayesha did not wish Philippa to be the next Blue Djinn; she wanted Layla. However, Layla had refused, prompting Ayesha to kidnap Philippa to use as a bargaining tool. As Ayesha knew she would, Layla offered herself to become the next Blue Djinn in place of Philippa; Nimrod is also privy to this due to his own conclusions. The novel ends with the children still not knowing, but as Layla knows Ayesha's life is rapidly ending, must tell her children the reason Ayesha did not pursue them after escaping, and leave forever to assume her post as the cold hearted Blue Djinn of Babylon. |
5870671 | /m/0fb0h_ | Dicey's Song | Cynthia Voigt | 1982-10 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Picking up where Homecoming left off, Dicey Tillerman and her three siblings, James, Maybeth, and Sammy, are now living with their widowed grandmother Abigail Tillerman, or Gram as the children call her, on her farm just outside of Crisfield, Maryland. Because the Tillermans' mom just left them in the parking lot in Provincetown, the children have the chance to start living a completely new life in their new family home, even though several of the major issues of Homecoming are not resolved. Dicey has trouble letting go of her siblings enough to let Gram take over as the parent character. She also worried about her mother Liza, who is catatonic and seriously ill in a psychiatric hospital in Boston. While in their new school, the Tillermans make several new friends: Mr. Lingerle, the elementary school's music teacher, who begins giving Maybeth piano lessons; Mina, a friendly African-American girl who goes to school with Dicey; and Jeff, a high school student who likes to play the guitar. To help Gram support the family, Dicey starts to work for Millie Tydings, the owner of the local grocery store, whom Gram has known since childhood. Gram soon comes to terms with having to accept Social Security payments to help with the costs of raising her four grandchildren. She also must confront and reexamine her past, particularly her relationship with her deceased husband and her three children. Gram refuses to discuss her past with the children, and their attempts to find out about it by climbing into the attic are met with anger. As the children settle into the routines of their new school and after-school jobs, Gram receives a number of letters from the psychiatric hospital in which the children's catatonic mother resides. The letters do not appear to bring hopeful news, although Gram does not discuss their contents with the children. Dicey is frustrated that Gram will not open up and talk about her past, or their mother's past as a child growing up with her two siblings in the same house that Dicey and her brothers and sister are now living. She is also frustrated that her grandmother will not tell her what is in the letters from Boston, beyond the fact that her mother is no better. In December, the psychiatric hospital in Boston calls and informs Gram that Liza is in a critical state and may not live much longer. Dicey and Gram travel to Boston, and find Liza catatonic, not responding to any treatment. Liza soon dies and, since they can't afford the cost of a funeral or of transporting Liza's body from Boston to Crisfield, Gram and Dicey decide to cremate her. Dicey is given a hand-carved wooden box by the owner of a local gift store who is touched by her situation. When Dicey and Gram arrive back in Crisfield, the family buries the wooden box containing their mother's ashes under the paper mulberry tree in their front yard, which to the Tillermans is symbolic of family in its fragility and its beauty. |
5870694 | /m/0fb0lr | A Gathering of Days: A New England Girl's Journal | Joan Blos | 1979 | {"/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"} | The book begins with a letter from the 82-year-old owner of the journal, now Catherine Hall Onesti, to her great-granddaughter, Catherine. The writer tells the recipient about the journal she is sending her, of her own life at age fourteen. Then the journal begins. Catherine introduces herself as 'aged 13 years, 6 months, 29 days, of Meredith in the state of New Hampshire'. She then goes on the give an almost day-to-day report of the happenings that occur. At various intervals, she also includes quotes from her speller or her school textbook. |
5870733 | /m/0fb0q7 | I, Juan de Pareja | Elizabeth Borton de Treviño | 1965-06 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | Juan is born into slavery in Seville, Spain in the early 1600s, and after the death of his mother when he is just five years old he becomes the pageboy of a wealthy the painter Diego Velazquez. Diego has a wife, Juana de Miranda, and two little girls, Francisca and Ignacia. Juan's main job is to help his master with his painting, preparing the colours, washing the brushes, etc. However, Juan learns to paint as well, but since slaves in Spain are not allowed to practice any of the arts, his master cannot teach him how. Soon, two apprentices, Cristobal and Alvaro join the household to learn from Diego. Juan, whose opinions do not differ from his master and his family's, dislikes Cristobal, but finds Alvaro pleasant enough. However, Cristobal is a much better painter than Alvaro. Some time later, Diego receives a message from the King of Spain, saying that he has been invited to paint His Majesty's portrait. Thus, he and his family are given permanent living quarters in the palace itself, so they move there, along with Juan and the two apperentices. Juan also accompanies Velazquez to Rome for a portrait of Pope Innocent X, and the portraits of many other Italian noblemen. |
5870824 | /m/0fb0xg | ...And Now Miguel | Joseph Krumgold | 1953 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Miguel Chavez has dreamed of visiting the Sangre de Cristo Mountains since he was very little. This summer, he is going to work hard and pray until his father and grandfather realize that he is ready to take the trip with the rest of the older men. His prayers are granted, though ironically – when his older brother is drafted his father needs an extra body and grudgingly allows Miguel to accompany them. Miguel is miserable with the manner in which his wish has been granted, and confesses to his brother what he prayed for. His brother explains that he had been praying to leave New Mexico and see more of the world – while he is not happy about being drafted, he fatalistically accepts that it is the only way he is likely to be able to fulfill his dream. The brothers resolve to allow God to work freely for the rest of their lives, and not bother God with petty requests. |
5870848 | /m/0fb0z7 | Amos Fortune, Free Man | Elizabeth Yates | 1950 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | At-mun, a young African prince, lives a peaceful life until a raid on their village by slavers kills his father, the chief. At-mun is kidnapped and sold in America. Now called 'Amos', he is sold to a man named Caleb Copeland, and though the Copeland family do not treat him badly he rejects his slave status and determines to earn his freedom. He comes to an arrangement with Copeland, but when Caleb dies in debt the arrangement is disregarded, and so Amos is sold again to a man named Ichabod Richardson. Richardson teaches Amos about tanning, and he becomes a skilled worker. He is now about thirty. Amos works for Richardson for four years, then buys his freedom. He marries a woman named Lily, whose freedom he also buys; but she dies a year later. Amos is sad that she died, yet happy she died a free person. Later he marries another African woman named Lydia, and it takes three more years to save up her freedom price. Lydia dies a year later. Again, Amos is sad she died but happy that she died free. He marries a younger woman named Violet, and he buys freedom for her daughter too. Amos moves to Jaffrey, New Hampshire to start his own tanning business there, and does so despite opposition. Eventually Amos saves up enough money that he buys his own land and he builds a house and a barn. At one point Amos becomes very angry with his wife, who has taken money from him. He climbs a mountain and doesn't leave until he gets an answer from God. Eventually he receives his answer and climbs back down, then forgives his wife as she is sorry for stealing his money. She had done it to keep him from helping a woman named Lois who needed help to keep her children from being taken away. She was lazy and wouldnt support her children,but Amos had pity on her. He decides against helping her and keeps the money. Amos goes to buy the land that he has always wanted. They buy the land and they build a house before winter. They also build a place where Amos can work as a tanner. At this point in his life, he is 80 years old. The book is based on the life of the real Amos Fortune, who was born free in Africa in around the year 1695 and who died free in Jaffrey, New Hampshire, in 1801. |
5870871 | /m/0fb0_b | King of the Wind | Marguerite Henry | 1948 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The novel is a fictionalised biography of the Godolphin Arabian, an ancestor of the modern thoroughbred. The story starts with Man o' War's victory over Sir Barton in a race. The fans expect Man o' War to race at Newmarket, but his owner chooses to end his racing career early. When questioned about his decision, he tells the story of the Godolphin Arabian. The story starts in Morocco, as the fast of Ramadan is ending with the setting sun. The boys in the Sultan's stables begin to hungrily feast, but Agba, a mute orphan, ignores the end of the fast and continues to tend to his favorite mare. She refuses to eat, even though all the horses were forced to participate in the Ramadan fast along with the humans, and Agba worries for her. The Chief Groom realizes this, and that tonight is her birthing hour. Agba, sleeping in the mare's stall, wakes to find a new foal in the stable. He notices a white spot on his hind heel, considered the emblem of swiftness and good luck. The Chief Groom, upon entering the stall spots a wheat ear on the foal's chest, a sign of bad luck. He attempts to kill it, but Agba intervenes and points out the white spot. The Chief Groom considers this, then leaves, prophesying that the mare will die. Agba, undaunted, names the colt Sham because of his golden coat. Within a few days, the prophecy is fulfilled. Agba attempts to run away from the stables, but is knocked into a camel. This gives him an idea, and he feeds Sham on camel's milk and wild honey, promising that someday he will be King of The Wind. Sham matures into a promising racehorse, beating all of the other horses. Sham sees Agba as a mother, and they develop a close bond. The Sultan summons six horseboys to his palace, including Agba, and charges them to accompany six horses to the French king, one chestnut, one yellow dun, one dark gray, one white, one black, and one bay touched with gold. Sham fits the requirements and accompanies Agba to France. The horseboy is to remain with that horse until death, then return to Morocco. Here, the supposedly great racehorses are frowned upon by the French, who believe that they are not 'lusty' enough to be racehorses. Five are sent to work in the army, but Sham remains behind to be a kitchen horse. He does not take to this well, and when Agba is gone one afternoon, causes such a mess that the cook sells him. Agba searches desperately for Sham, finally finding him pulling water in the streets of Paris. He becomes a slave to Sham's owner, and meets Grimalkin the cat along the way. Sham is bought by a Quaker man and taken to England. He refuses to have the Quaker's nephew ride him, and is sold to an inn. When Agba is caught sneaking in to see him, he goes to jail. The jailer destroys Sham's pedigree. Fortunately, Agba is bailed by the Quaker's housekeeper who is quite fond of him, and Sham is released from his cruel treatment at the inn. She finds him a job with the Earl of Godolphin. The Earl treats Sham as a workhorse, albeit kindly. The true celebrity in the Godolphin stables is Hobgoblin, whom Sham detests. Lady Roxana, a mate meant for Hobgoblin, arrives, and Sham fights Hobgoblin for her. Lady Roxana enjoys his company, but the Earl is embarrassed. He sentences Sham, Agba, and Grimalkin to life in Wicken Fen, and they depart. Two years later, the Earl's Chief Groom comes back and reveals that Lady Roxana had a foal with Sham, who was left alone and left untrained due to his skinniness. Lath, however, one day jumps the fence and outruns some of the colts that the Earl is training, proving his worth. The trio come back to Godolphin, and Sham is named the Godolphin Arabian. He has two more foals with Lady Roxana, Cade and Regulus. After the Earl reveals that he is near bankruptcy, they decide to race Sham's sons in Newmarket. Agba kept his promise! Sham is King of the Wind They win the races and the Queen's purse, and Agba contemplates his life with Sham. As a footnote, it is revealed the Godolphin Arabian lived long and had many successful descendants. The Earl has left his grave blank, and Agba has returned to Morocco. After the Earl's death, the dates and name of the Godolphin Arabian are put on the grave, but time is slowly erasing the words. |
5870892 | /m/0fb11r | Rabbit Hill | Robert Lawson | 1944 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The story takes place in a place called Rabbit Hill, a country crossroads near Danbury, Connecticut. The animal inhabitants are suffering as the house nearby has been abandoned for several years and the untended gardens, the animals' source of food, have withered to nothing. Then "New Folks" move in to the house. Are the New Folks hunters, or friendly gardeners who will share their crops with the animals? |
5870905 | /m/0fb134 | Adam of the Road | Elizabeth Gray Vining | 1943 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"} | Adam is an eleven-year-old who wants to become like his father, Roger, and to do so he tries to be the best minstrel in England. Beginning of the story, Adam and his friend Perkin are in St. Alban's monastery, where they go to an old lady's house to visit Adam's dog, Nick. They quickly return to their home at the monastery and go to the roadside to find Roger is coming back from his long journey as a knight's minstrel. Roger tells Adam that he is going to London to follow in the knight's train. Adam is allowed to come, but he must hurry because the knight leaves the next day. While on the road, Adam meets Margery, the daughter of the knight, in a beautiful carriage. Soon after, following a night of feasting and partying, Roger tells Adam he lost his warhorse, Bayard, in a bet with another minstrel. One night, while Roger and Adam are sleeping, Bayard trades Nick to another minstrel, Jankin. Adam worries that Jankin will mistreat Nick. When Adam and Roger discover Nick is gone, they chase Jankin across England. When Adam sees Jankin in a crowded marketplace, he pursues him and is separated from Roger. Adam makes friends and eventually finds Nick with Perkin. Roger, Adam and Nick are eventually reunited in Oxford. Adam is offered a place at Oxford college, but decides to be a minstrel, like his father. |
5870941 | /m/0fb14x | Roller Skates | Ruth Sawyer | 1936-10 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Roller Skates opens with the narrator remembering back to a special year in the 1890s, when young Lucinda Wyman arrives at the Misses Peters' home in New York City; the two ladies will care for her during the year of Lucinda's parents' trip to Italy. The narrator's diaries help her remember the details of 10-year-old Lucinda's "orphanage," as she calls it. Miss Peters, a teacher, is "a person of great understanding, no nonsense, and no interference." Miss Nettie is shy and soft-hearted. Living with them Lucinda experiences unprecedented freedom, exploring the city on roller skates and making friends with all types of people. Lucinda quickly gets to know Mr. Gilligan the hansom cab driver and Patrolman M'Gonegal. The first friend of her own age is Tony Coppino, son of an Italian fruit stand owner. Lucinda enlists Officer M'Gonegal to stop the bullies who knock down Tony's father's fruit-stand and steal the fruit. In return Tony takes her for a city picnic where they meet a rag-and-bone man. Later Lucinda reads Shakespeare with her favorite uncle and is inspired to put on a puppet production of The Tempest. But the cold and snow of winter keep her cooped up indoors, and eventually a restless Lucinda acts out -- and gets sent home from school in disgrace. Later her uncle introduces her to Shakespeare's tragedies, and she experiences her own when two of her friends die. With Lucinda's parents coming back from Italy she realizes everything is changing. So she skates to the park one last time. "How would you like to stay always ten?" she muses. "That's what I'd call a perfectly elegant idea!" |
5870976 | /m/0fb18b | Invincible Louisa | Cornelia Meigs | 1933 | {"/m/0xdf": "Autobiography", "/m/017fp": "Biography", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | Invincible Louisa, subtitled "The Story of the Author of Little Women", opens with Louisa Alcott's birth on a snowy November day in Germantown, Pennsylvania. Her father, Bronson Alcott, ran a school for young children in their home. "It was a time of great happiness, peace, and security... Happiness was to continue... but peace and security were not to come again for a very long time". So Meigs introduces her reader to Alcott's life. Her father, Bronson, is portrayed as brilliant but impractical, unable to support his family as a man of the times was expected to. The book follows the Alcott family to Boston and Concord, as Bronson Alcott seeks places that understand his unusual views on education and transcendentalism. Louisa proves to be an active child, getting into trouble and causing her mother, Abba, some anxiety. When she is ten the family moves again to Fruitlands, the transcendentalist community Alcott helps found. By now there are four girls in the family. Meigs portrays Bronson Alcott and the oldest daughter, Anna, as being fully committed to the ideals of this new life, but says that Louisa and her mother understand how much hard work would be necessary for a communal farm to succeed. The contrast between idealistic and practical is shown when Bronson and the only other adult leave the area for a conference just as the barley is being harvested. An approaching storm has Abba and the children bringing in the grain alone. In less than a year Fruitlands failed, and the family moved several more times. Invincible Louisa tells of the Alcott's friendship with Ralph Waldo Emerson, and recounts some of the events Louisa later used in Little Women, including meetings of the Pickwick Club and the death of one of Louisa's younger sisters, Elizabeth. Louisa later leaves the family to earn her own way writing and teaching. During the Civil War she travels to Washington, DC to nurse soldiers. The book concludes with Louisa writing Little Women and the two books that followed, Little Men and Jo's Boys. The success of these books, according to Meigs, gives Louisa her own "happy ending... the whole of what she had wanted from life -- just to take care of them all." Invincible Louisa ends with a five page chronology of Louisa May Alcott's life. |
5870991 | /m/0fb190 | Young Fu of the Upper Yangtze | Elizabeth Lewis | 1932 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | As the book opens, the widowed Fu Be-be arrives in Chungking with her 13-year-old son Yuin-fah and a letter from a village friend to Tang Yu-shu, a master coppersmith, asking that Young Fu be given an apprenticeship in Tang's establishment. Because the widow is alone and Young Fu is her only son, he is allowed to complete his apprenticeship while living in a small rented room with her, rather than living in the shop, a plot device which allows us to see more of the city than might otherwise be the case. In the chapters that follow, Young Fu goes from being a young and somewhat arrogant boy of 13 to a more capable and humble youth of 18. Along the way, he has encounters with soldiers, foreigners, thieves, political activists, an old scholar, the poor of the city, the rich of the city, and government officials. He is alternately swindled, attacked by bandits, reviled and praised as his coppersmith skills grow. |
5871015 | /m/0fb1bd | Gay Neck, the Story of a Pigeon | Dhan Gopal Mukerji | 1928 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | Gay-Neck, or ‘’Chitra-Griva’’, is born to a young owner in India. Gay-Neck’s parents teach him how to fly, but he soon loses his father in a storm and his mother to a hawk. His master and Ghond the hunter take him out into the wilderness, but he becomes so scared by the hawks that he flees and ends up in a lamasery where the Buddhist monks are able to cure him of his fear. When his young master returns home he finds Gay-neck waiting for him. But Gay-Neck decides to go on other long journeys, much to the boy’s consternation. Then, during World War I, Gay-Neck and Ghond end up journeying to Europe where Gay-Neck serves as a messenger pigeon. He is chased by German machine-eagles (planes) and is severely traumatized when one of his fellow messenger pigeons is shot down. Gay-neck and Ghond barely survive, and Gay-Neck is unable to fly. Ghond, Gay-Neck, and his master return to the lamasery near Singalila, where Ghond and Gay-Neck need to be cleansed of the hate and fear of the war. After that, Ghond succeeds in hunting down a buffalo that killed a villager, but feels remorse for having to kill the buffalo. Gay-Neck disappears once more, but when the other two return home, they find, to their joy, that Gay-Neck had already flown there ahead of them. |
5871920 | /m/0fb2p2 | The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death | Daniel Pinkwater | 3/1/1983 | {"/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature", "/m/02yq81": "Comic novel", "/m/03npn": "Horror", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01z4y": "Comedy"} | The story is told from the viewpoint of Walter Galt, a teenager on the verge of dying from boredom at Genghis Khan High School, until he meets Winston Bongo, another suffering student and the self-proclaimed inventor of "snarking out" (which involves sneaking out of your house late at night, going to the movie theater, hanging out, and sneaking back home without getting caught). They usually go to an all-night movie theater, The Snark. While snarking out, they meet the usual assortment of oddballs, such as Ms. Bentley Saunders Harrison Matthews, a.k.a. Rat, and places, from Blueberry Park to Lower North Aufzoo Street to Beanbender's Beer Garden. Along the way, they help foil the scheme of the world's greatest criminal genius and his gang of trained orangutans. |
5874603 | /m/0466pd4 | Bearing an Hourglass | Piers Anthony | 7/12/1984 | {"/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | Some time in the future (as evidenced by technology in use that is much more advanced than in the first story), Norton—a man of about forty—is living a life of nomadic wandering when a ghost named Gawain asks him to father a child to his widow, Orlene, with whom Norton eventually falls in love. Gawain then asks Gaea, the Incarnation of Nature, to make the child in his own likeness so his bloodline would continue. Unfortunately, the child ends up dead due to a disease that runs in Gawain's family. Orlene then commits suicide. Feeling depressed about the disastrous results of his affair with Orlene, Norton is approached by Gawain again, who offers Norton the position of Time (Chronos), where he must rule over all Earthly aspects of time. Gawain explains to Norton that Chronos lives backwards in time until the moment of the birth—or conception, it is never made clear—of the office holder's previous self, who is still living forwards. The ghost baits Norton, explaining to him that, by living backwards, he can continue to see Orlene, since she is still alive in the past. Norton accepts, and Gawain leads him to the spot where the future office holder of Time, Norton's predecessor, will pass the hourglass onto Norton. Norton immediately starts literally living life backwards in time, though he can temporarily go forward in order to interact with others. However, when he is living backwards, he is not visible to mortals. Norton experiments with his hourglass, recognized by all the Incarnations as being the most powerful magical device in the world, to halt and/or reverse time, travel many millions of years into the Earth's past, and work with the Incarnation of Fate, who needs his hourglass to help fix tangles in her threads of fate. Because Norton lives backwards in time, his past is everyone else's future, making him an isolated character even among the other Incarnations. He also realises that this will make it impossible to have a relationship with the forward-living Orlene. He does, however, have an affair with Clotho, the youngest aspect of Fate. This is both awkward and intriguing to Norton since her past is his future. Residing at his new residence in Purgatory, Norton is then visited by Satan, who informs Norton that while he can travel anywhere in time with his hourglass, he cannot leave Earth. Satan claims to have the power to travel the whole universe, since evil permeates all of reality, and gives Norton some samples of this ability by having him travel to other planets where, Satan claims, time flows backwards, allowing Norton to live normally and to get involved in both a space opera ("Bat Durston and the BEMS") and an epic fantasy adventure. Satan offers Norton the ability to have that power if Norton will grant Satan a favor; to go back in time 20 years and save a man from committing suicide. Norton goes back in time to check out this young man, but after consulting with the other Incarnations, he is informed that this man is the current office holder of the Incarnation of Death (Thanatos—in other words, Zane, from the previous novel) and that it is Zane's attempted suicide that brought him to that position. This man is needed as Thanatos in order to protect his girlfriend, Luna Kaftan, from Satan's mischief so she can go into politics and fulfill a prophecy of thwarting Satan. However, a relic Satan had given Norton turned out to be a demon in disguise. When Norton went back in time, the demon disembarked a few years in the past to prevent Luna from going into politics (the demon gives an incumbent politician an antidote to keep him alive so Luna doesn't take his place). Due to some of the limitations of the hourglass, intercepting this demon is difficult, but Norton eventually manages to stop it. Not giving up, Satan tries one more time by trapping Norton on one of the other planets he had an adventure on. Not sure how to get back home, Norton starts toying with the hourglass, traveling all the way back to the beginning of the observable universe and all the way to its end (from the big bang to the point where all matter became trapped in black holes) and realizes that, since the Incarnations' magic does not extend beyond Earth, his adventures on other planets were illusions created by Satan, and that Norton had, in fact, never left Earth. Norton then finds out that the demon that created the illusion had been attached to him and, once again, disembarked at a point in the past, two years after the events of the first book, to begin a campaign to discredit Luna so she doesn't run for office. Norton then goes back in time to this point and uses his hourglass to show the world all the bad things that will happen if Luna doesn't get elected. As Norton is no longer fooled by Satan's illusions, Satan stops trying to exploit him. |
5874617 | /m/0466pdj | With a Tangled Skein | Piers Anthony | 9/12/1985 | null | Set around the time of World War I, a young Irish (21) woman named Niobe has a marriage arranged for her by her parents. Her husband-to-be is a teenage boy (16) named Cedric Kaftan. She considers him too immature for her, but can find no way out of the marriage. Although Niobe at first hates being married to a "child", Cedric's good nature, kind heartedness, and desire to make his wife happy and safe win her over, and she soon falls madly in love with her husband. Cedric shows that he is an intellectual prodigy. With some prodding and nurturing from his wife as well as from his mentor, Cedric accepts a scholarship to attend college and hone his magical abilities. As he matures and finds his niche in magic and wetland studies, he and Niobe have a child: Cedric Jr. With a bright future certain, and wizardry greatness assured, life in the Kaftan house was happy indeed. Sadly a few years later, Cedric learns of a plot to kill Niobe. Seeing no way to avert it, Cedric leaves school, goes home to Niobe, hastily puts his affairs in order, and sets in motion the only way he can save his wife's life..... by taking her place. On the fateful morning, Cedric wakes up to make love to his wife one last time, kisses her goodbye and goes into the woods to face his destiny. Awakened by gunshots, Niobe learns her husband is assassinated as part of a plot by the agents of Satan. She learns not only of the plot, but that she, and not her husband, was the real target. Upon learning this, Niobe's hatred for having her husband's life cut short, makes her vow to make Satan pay. She is invited to join as an aspect of the incarnation of Fate, three women sharing one physical body. Eager to thwart Satan's plans and to avenge Cedric, she leaves her child with Cedric's cousin and becomes Clotho, the youngest aspect of the three Fates. The three Fates weave the tapestry of life and have disposition over the length of human lives and the pattern they produce. Clotho, the youngest, spins the threads from the substance of Void; Lachesis, the middle aspect, measures the threads and Atropos, the oldest, cuts the thread of each individual human. When she takes the aspect of Clotho, Niobe must journey to the edge of the Void without aid from the other Fates and replenish her stock of thread-material. Because Incarnations do not age, Niobe spends many years as Clotho. She frequently visits her son, who has befriended Cedric's younger cousin, Pacian. Because her lack of aging would be noticed, she takes the form of the grandmotherly Atropos, pretending to be a concerned family friend. One day, the Fates take the two boys to a fortune teller, who gives them disturbing news—each of the boys will have a daughter who will oppose a tangle in the threads of life. However, one of the girls is fated to marry Death, and the other is fated to marry Evil. Niobe leaves the office of Clotho and returns to mortal life in order to marry Pacian, who has matured while she was in office. She gives birth to a daughter they call Orb, at around the same time that her son, who is now a powerful magician, has a daughter called Luna. The two girls grow up together under the magician's protection. At one point the girls and Niobe go on a quest for powerful artifacts that will enhance their natural talents, and Satan takes the opportunity to send demons against them. Although one of the girls is to marry him, he is not interested in a wife who is not evil. Niobe helps the girls to get through safely, though, and Satan's plot comes to nothing. One year after the events of On a Pale Horse, the middle-aged Niobe is asked to join the Incarnation of Fate once again, this time as Lachesis. Satan has arranged to have all three women leave the office at the same time, thus making the Incarnation of Fate inexperienced in all three aspects simultaneously. The current office-holders hope to use Niobe's previous experience as aspect of Fate as an ace in the hole to prevent Satan's current plot from coming to fruition. They learn that Satan plans to cause political turmoil in the UN by having one of his minions plant a stink-bomb. They are forced to waste time by investigating the likely minions one by one, but in the meantime Satan is offering aging political candidates a chance at renewed youth, and the opportunity to start over in their careers, in exchange for their resignation from office. He plans to replace them with his own minions, who would work against Luna. The three Fates realize that their inexperience is a liability, so they seek help. They learn that Niobe's son, the magician, can help them—unfortunately, he is now in Hell. Satan cannot prevent them from searching for the magician, but he can make the quest very unpleasant and one of them must risk her own soul in the process. Niobe is worried that Satan will cheat, so she arranges for the Incarnation of War to supervise the contest. Niobe leaves the Fates' collective body and goes to Hell. She must beat Satan's challenge—a puzzle-maze—in order to get the answers she is looking for. At the end, she finds her son, but Satan has cast an illusion over him. She puzzles out the answer anyway—that Satan's plot can be stopped by the Atropos aspect of Fate: Atropos can cut short the lives of Satan's minions, making his plot futile. Niobe wins the game and is allowed to leave Hell freely. |
5874622 | /m/0466pdx | Wielding a Red Sword | Piers Anthony | 9/12/1986 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Mym, an Indian prince, defies his father's plans for an arranged marriage, instead joining a traveling circus. He meets Orb, who teaches him to overcome his own handicap of a terrible stutter through song. He is soon discovered, and his father arranges for him to marry a princess by the name of Rapture. After fighting against this for days on end, he finally realizes that Rapture is worth loving, and so concedes to the marriage. However, a plot to separate him from her results in his decision to become the Incarnation of War. Through the course of living as Mars, Rapture takes up a life of her own and decides that she does not need him anymore. Satan arranges, subtly, a demoness for his new companion, hoping to get Mars in his debt that way. In the end, this backfires and he ends up with two loves in his life. His ultimate goal was to use his position to ameliorate some of the suffering being caused by war on Earth, and is surprised by Satan's encouragement. Soon he realizes the subtle importances of human war and conflict: under certain circumstances, human suffering is increased, not decreased, by abstinence from armed response. Satan's plan is to have an inexperienced office-holder in the position of the Incarnation of War, such that he can manipulate the course of armed conflicts on Earth, allowing some wars through and blocking the progression of others, such that the overall balance of evil in the world is increased. He accomplished the replacement of the previous Mars by facilitating the cessation of all conflict in the world—not only war, but bar brawls and even minor squabbles between children counts as conflict—every time this happens in history, the Incarnation of War retires and passes on into the afterlife. Mym stepped into the office at a time when global violence was just being recommenced, and thus became an opportunity for Satan to manipulate a naïve Mars. Part of this process was a plot by which Satan managed to trap Mym in Hell. Mym eventually led a revolution of the lost souls and secured an escape route, employing lessons from Miyamoto Musashi's famous treatise, The Book of Five Rings, to defeat Satan in a one-on-one battle. However, during his absence, Satan has manipulated the geopolitical situation such that international tensions everywhere are at an all-time high, and the world is on the brink of apocalypse. This results in virtually every government everywhere adopting martial law, as normal democratic process is eminently non-viable. A result of this, and an important objective for Satan, is that Luna Kaftan has become sidelined, unable to fulfill the prophecy that she would rise into political office and stand as a bulwark against Satan. Mym realizes Satan's underlying objective, and forces a confrontation on terms unfavourable to Satan—he travels to the Doomsday Clock, a signifier of how close the world is at any given time to Armageddon, and there employs the powers specific to his office to escalate world violence and bring War to ultimate fruition—Judgement Day. The crux is this: that Satan is not yet ready for the Final Judgment to happen, as the current balance of souls on Earth is favourable to God—i.e. God would get a greater proportion of the souls, signifying (in this fictional universe) the ultimate victory of Good. At the very last minute, Satan is forced to concede and withdraw. Mym lowers his Sword and returns the world to a state of relative peace. Mym learns that his responsibility as War is not to promote war and violence, but to make sure that conflicts are handled fairly. |
5874629 | /m/0466pf8 | Being a Green Mother | Piers Anthony | 10/12/1987 | {"/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | It is discovered that young Orb, the Aunt of Luna, has the gift of conjuring natural music that emanates from things in nature. She sets off on a quest for a magical song known as the Llano, a song supposed to be the most beautiful imaginable. During the beginning of her search, she meets and helps a young Gypsy girl who was blind, teaching her song and dance as such most men never see. She also joins up with a circus for a short time, meeting there the man that would later become War, and realizing after his unwanted departure that she is pregnant with his child. Upon having his child, she takes the baby, the young Orlene, to her Gypsy friend with the understanding that the woman would find her daughter the best possible home. Later on, she joins up with a rock and roll band. Her magical singing allows them to lose their drug addictions, and they quest together until she is approached by her mother, Niobe (who had left her office to have her with Pacian, thus effectively making Orb the aunt of Luna as well as her cousin through their fathers), in the guise of Fate. She is told that she has been selected to fill the role of Nature (Gaea), but that a prophecy foretells that she may one day marry Satan. Satan, attempting to fulfill the prophecy, kidnaps Orb and attempts to use magic to compel Orb to marry him. She frees herself with the help of Natasha, a man who has also been seeking the Llano and has learned much of it. Natasha continues to teach her the Llano as they defend themselves from Satan's attacks. Orb learns that the Llano has the power to control Nature and that she must learn it in order to assume her position. She also finds herself falling in love with Natasha and decides to marry him. All is not as it seems, however, as Natasha reveals that he is Satan in disguise ("Natasha" is "Ah, Satan" backwards) and has been attempting to court her according to the terms of an agreement he made with Fate: He will be allowed to court Orb without interference from the other Incarnations, but everything he says to Orb must be a lie, or part of a greater construct of lies, until he proposes marriage, when he must reveal the truth. Orb rejects Satan's proposal, and demands that he teach her the final part of the Llano, the Song of Chaos, which she needs to become Gaea. He does so, but warns her that it is a powerful weapon and its effects are unpredictable. She sings the Song of Chaos and it results in devastation on a global scale. The previous Incarnation of Nature then tells her that the only thing that he knows that might reverse its effects is the Song of Chaos itself. She tries singing the song three more times, and each time only results in more destruction. The destruction came in the form of the four elements—Fire, Air, Earth, and Water—so if she sings the song a fifth time, it would appear in the form of the fifth element, Void, and erase the Earth from existence, returning all of existence to primeval Chaos. Thus, the Song of Chaos is Gaea's ultimate weapon; it will unmake all of reality, and Heaven, Hell and the mortal universe will return to the fundamental chaos from which they sprang. Desperate, Orb turns to the other Incarnations for help. Chronos tells her that he can go back in time and stop her from singing the Song of Chaos, but he needs the consent of all the other incarnations in order to do it. The only one who objects is Satan, who says that he will only give his consent if Orb agrees to marry him. Orb, faced with the impossible choice hinted at in the prophecy, declares "God help me, but I do love Satan" and agrees to the wedding. Chronos changes the past, and Orb honors her agreement. The wedding takes place in Hell, and Satan puts on a grand ceremony. As their wedding vows, the two each sing a song to the other. Orb sings a section of the Llano (the Song of Evening—also known as the Song of Love) which is meant to evoke romantic love, but Satan, surprising everyone, sings a variation of the hymn Amazing Grace—and vanishes. Singing a song forbidden to him, Satan abdicates as the Incarnation of Evil as a demonstration of his feelings for Orb. Having fallen in love with a good woman, Satan can no longer continue to hold the office of the Incarnation of Evil. |
5874638 | /m/0466pfn | For Love of Evil | Piers Anthony | 1988-11 | {"/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | Parry, an orphan, is taken in and is accidentally adopted by a wizard who teaches him the benefits of white magic and how it can be used to help others. A musician and adept white magician, Parry plans on following in his father's footsteps when he is encouraged by his father, the sorcerer, to take a bride. Parry selects Jolie, seeing her potential despite her ragged appearance. Using his unique singing talents, Parry convinces Jolie that he means no harm. Taking her in, Parry and his father begin to teach Jolie the ways of wizardry and they begin to fall in love. With his father's blessing, Parry and Jolie wed and are about to start a life of bliss when they are attacked by crusaders of Christianity. Parry's father is killed in the attack and Parry escapes in bird form while his wife Jolie had gone ahead to warn her parents to go to the pre-determined hidden shelter. Unfortunately by the time Parry gets to town to check on his wife, she has been taken prisoner by the crusaders, who capture Parry himself shortly after he arrives. Working in conjunction with his wife, since he possesses a magical second sight, he frees them both but not before Jolie is slain by the dying Captain who was going to rape her. Taking off in horse form with Jolie strapped to his back, Parry arrives at the shelter and tries to heal her wounds but is lacking in medical supplies to save her. Parry watches as his wife dies in his arms. Due to special circumstances, Jolie's soul cannot immediately go to Heaven, so at Parry's request, Thanatos binds her spirit to a drop of blood on Parry's wrist. Vowing vengeance, Parry thinks the best way to escape from the villagers is to hide in plain sight, so he joins a monastery for sanctuary as well as a means to destroy the enemy. Soon after joining the Franciscan monks, Parry discovers that a new order, the Dominicans, are being formed with the express purpose of rooting out evil and heresy. Because of his keen mind and magical prowess (which he uses in secrecy), he becomes a feared inquisitor. During one of his many trips to stop Lucifer's campaign of Evil, Parry succumbs to the temptation of his ghostly wife Jolie inhabiting a physical body, thus violating his oath of celibacy. As retribution, Lucifer sends forth Lilah (alternately known as Lilith), a demoness, to corrupt him. By using the toehold of his broken oath of celibacy and his own feelings of sexual desire and guilt, Lilah corrupts Parry to Evil. His intense desire for Lilah eventually leads him to corrupt the Inquisition itself. Upon his deathbed, Lucifer attacks Lilah; with his last vestige of strength, Parry manages a magical counterattack against Lucifer, saving Lilah. Lucifer, taken off guard, is defeated. Though Parry's magic was far weaker than that of Lucifer, his spell was able to work because Jolie's good spirit (which still resided in the drop of blood on Parry's wrist) was immune to Lucifer's powers. As a severely weakened Parry lays dying with only moments to live, Lilah tells him to claim the office before it finds a different successor, as well as to name the form he would like to assume (he chooses his body at the age of 25). Parry, not understanding what she's asking of him and wanting to honor this last wish before he succumbs to death, does as Lilah requests, and is suddenly transformed into the new Incarnation of Evil and takes the name Satan. (It is later explained that if no one claims the office, it seeks out the most qualified person for that position. So if Parry hadn't claimed the office as Lilah had told him, it would have found the most evil person on earth to take Lucifer's place.) In For Love of Evil, several scenes from the previous books (as is the case with all the books in the series with respect to their Incarnations) are shown from Parry's point of view. Parry also does not believe himself to be evil, but is simply fulfilling his function as an Incarnation. It is rather ironic that Parry is not actually evil, but all of the other Incarnations (Thanatos, Gaea, Chronos, Mars, and Fate) naturally expect him to be. Parry wants to defeat God so that he can create a better way to separate the good souls from the bad, and he takes no pleasure in causing unnecessary suffering in the mortal world (the other Incarnations obviously believe that Parry's reasons for wanting to defeat God are more nefarious). In fact, Parry, as a personal favor to YHWH (the incarnation of the God of the Jews, called JHVH in this book), manages to prevent the Holocaust from happening. Upon taking office, Parry approached the other Incarnations in good faith, but was rebuffed and/or humiliated by them since they allied with God. Only Chronos offered friendship. This led to Parry being enemies with many of these Incarnations and their successors. Parry was friends with several holders of the office of Chronos, but eventually the Chronos officeholders became hostile to him as well. Parry also attempted to meet with the Incarnation of Good to figure out how to best sort out which souls belonged in Heaven and which in Hell (Parry had no desire for souls that didn't belong in Hell to be there), but was not successful. The Incarnation of Good was too busy contemplating his own greatness to pay any attention. Instead he strikes a bargain with the Archangel Gabriel: if Parry cannot corrupt one influential individual or her children or grandchildren in order to shift the balance of the world to evil, he must give up his quest. That individual was Niobe Kaftan—meaning Parry had to wait six centuries before he could act. Later Parry meets Orb, Niobe's daughter who is slated to become the next Gaea, and decides to court her in the hope that he could later take advantage of Gaea's powers to defeat God. The other Incarnations oppose Parry's plan, but eventually they all come to an agreement: the other Incarnations promise not to interfere with Parry's courtship of Orb if he tells her the truth about his identity prior to asking her to marry him. Posing as a mortal named Natasha, Parry manages to win Orb's heart. When she becomes Gaea, he reveals to her that he is the Incarnation of Evil and asks her to marry him. In a fit of rage, Orb nearly destroys the world with her powers, and in order to undo that destruction, she needs Parry's help. Thus she agrees to marry him, and even admits that she still loves him despite his true identity. At the wedding Parry surprises everyone by singing Amazing Grace, which causes him to vacate his office. With no one to take his place, the office automatically goes to the most evil person on earth, a cruel murderer and child rapist. After a battle of wits, Parry eventually reclaims his office, to the relief of the other Incarnations who prefer Parry's doctrine of necessary evil over the murder-rapist's sadism. The Incarnations come to realize at the end that Parry is not truly evil in the traditional sense; rather, he works to facilitate evil on earth because that is a necessary part of the process to determine whether souls belong in Heaven or Hell. Unable to consummate his marriage to Orb due to their offices being traditionally opposed, Parry initially becomes depressed. But then the spirit of Jolie co-inhabiting the body of Orb comes to him one night and explains that he and the two loves of his life can occasionally spend time together as long as they do so in secret. In the end, Parry is happy and resumes his duties as the Incarnation of Evil. |
5874649 | /m/0466pg0 | And Eternity | Piers Anthony | 1990-01 | {"/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | In the seventh novel of the series, three women—the ghost of Jolie, the ghost of Orlene (daughter of Orb), and a fourteen-year-old drug-addicted prostitute named Vita—try to discover a way to restore the life of Orlene's baby, Gawain II, who had died as a result of a severe birth defect inflicted unknowingly by Gaea at the request of the child's ghost father Gawain. Nox, the mysterious Incarnation of Night, promises to help, but she needs a specific item of great value from each of the other Incarnations in order to resurrect the baby. The three women set out to meet with each of the other seven Incarnations of Day. In the process of obtaining the items, they conclude that the definitions of Good and Evil used to classify souls as destined for Heaven and Hell are flawed. Orlene's soul had been denied access to Heaven because she committed suicide in a futile attempt to help her baby. Vita meets and comes under the protection of an older male judge; they fall in love and have sex, but this too is considered Evil, because Vita is below the legal age of consent. The three women eventually succeed in gaining the item from each one of the Incarnations, with the exception of God, the Incarnation of Good, who has become obsessed with his own greatness and is completely unresponsive to the outside world. Reporting their discovery to the other Incarnations, they all conclude that God has been derelict in his duty and must be replaced so that the eventual triumph of Evil can be prevented. Luna Kaftan, now an influential Senator, begins a campaign to impeach God and declare the office of the Incarnation of Good vacant. Thus, the final conflict between Good and Evil becomes a political one, fought with words and votes in the halls of a legislature, and not by armies on a battlefield. Despite Satan's efforts, Luna's campaign succeeds, and a mortal must now be chosen to become the new Incarnation of Good. However, the replacement must be selected by a unanimous vote of all the other Incarnations, including Satan himself—and why would the Incarnation of Evil approve a candidate who would effectively promote the cause of Good? Each Incarnation, in turn, nominates a mortal for the position. (Gaea's nominee happens to be the same judge that became Vita's lover.) After all the other Incarnations make their suggestions, to their complete amazement, Satan nominates Orlene, whose soul had become exactly half evil as a result of choices none of the other Incarnations were willing to condemn. The other Incarnations immediately agree that Satan has made the best possible choice, and they unanimously declare Orlene to be the new Incarnation of Good. Therefore the girls find that Nox had set up the items from the other Incarnations to help Orlene take the place of God and in doing so, become God herself. In return, Orlene allows Nox to keep Gawain II as she will no longer be able to care for him and the child is content with the Incarnation of Night. |
5874727 | /m/0fb7cw | Lives of the Saints | Nino Ricci | null | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Vittorio Innocente's father, Mario, has immigrated to Canada, though originally believed to be America, to pave the way for the rest of his family to come. Little Vittorio doesn't understand why the neighbours disapprove of his mother, but suspects it has something to do with the man she was with in the stable on the morning she was bitten by the snake. But it becomes clear that it is Cristina’s independence of mind and rejection of superstition that offend the peasant values in this remote village in post-war Italy. In the miniseries, Vittorio seeks comfort from his teacher, Aunt Teresa "La Maestra", who unlike the neighbours, sympathizes with Vittorio, and consoles him. Aunt Teresa hides Cristina when she becomes visibly pregnant while her husband is away, and helps Vitorrio understand life through stories in a book she gave him called Lives of the Saints, while in the novel Zia Lucia (Aunt Teresa) is a completely different character from "La Maestra". Cristina and Vittorio depart to Canada to meet Mario, but the Cristina dies on the ship giving birth to Vittorio's sister, Rita. Rita has bright blue eyes like her father, which serves as a constant reminder of Cristina's affair. The book focuses on the unspoken affair Cristina Innocente is having with the "blue-eyed man" (Vittorio first sees when at the stable with the snake). Ever since the incident with the snake, Cristina is scrutinized by the townspeople as a "whore" who is sleeping around while her husband, Mario, is working and sending her money from America. Cristina has become pregnant and Vittorio, her 7-year-old son, remains oblivious to the entirety of the situation until much later in his life. Cristina's scrutiny leads to the isolation of the Innocente family: her father resigns as mayor and Vittorio is bullied; not to mention, Mario was informed of Cristina's pregnancy. The townspeople's ruthless treatment leads Cristina to leave the town of Valle del Sole with Vittorio. The townspeople assume it is to meet with Mario, but hinted that Cristina had actually made plans with the "blue-eyed man". It is never clear as Cristina dies on the boat to America, but the blue-eyed man does pay Vittorio a visit in the infirmary in Canada, so one may assume this. Vittorio then lives his life on his own from then. |
5875760 | /m/0fb8t1 | Whale Song | Cheryl Kaye Tardif | 2010 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Thirteen years prior to the start of the book, Sarah Richardson’s life was shattered after the assisted suicide of her mother who was battling a debillitating disease. The shocking tragedy left a grief-stricken teen-aged Sarah with partial amnesia. A familiar voice from her past sends Sarah, now a talented mid-twenties advertising executive, back to her buried past. Torn by nightmares and visions of a yellow-eyed wolf, yet aided by the creatures of the Earth and by the killer whales that call to her in the night, Sarah's life parallels the native legends that were told to her by a wise old native grandmother. In the end, she must face her fears and uncover the truth―even if it destroys her. |
5876252 | /m/0fb9fr | The Monsters Inside | Stephen Cole | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | The TARDIS takes the Doctor and Rose to the Justicia System — a prison camp comprising the six planets in that solar system. The pair are separated and trapped in different environments, each determined to escape in their own distinctive style. However, their plans are complicated when some old enemies show up. Are the Slitheen really attempting a takeover of Justicia, or is it something far more sinister? |
5877683 | /m/0fbcs2 | Edison's Conquest of Mars | Garrett P. Serviss | 1947 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/06bm_y": "Edisonade"} | The book is set following the abortive Martian attack depicted in Fighters from Mars, much more devastating and global than in H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds, though in both works the onslaught is thwarted when the aliens die from bacterial illness. Determining that the Martians will inevitably return, Earth's leaders, including U.S. President William McKinley, Queen Victoria, Kaiser Wilhelm II, and Emperor Mutsuhito, unite the world against the common threat and plan an attack on Mars. American inventor Thomas Edison leads a group of scientists to study derelict Martian equipment; they are able to develop an anti-gravity device powered by electric repulsion as well as a disintegration ray. Using this new technology, the allies construct an armada of space ships for the attack. Edison takes some ships to the moon on a test run; using the first known fictional depiction of space suits, the explorers uncover evidence of an extinct civilization of giants. The armada heads on, discovering a solid gold asteroid being mined by the Martians. The humans fight two space battles against the Martians, suffering heavy casualties but ultimately winning thanks to the superiority of Edison's ray gun compared to the Martians' electric weapons. The humans take a captive, from whom they learn the Martian language. The humans reach Mars, but in spite of their superior forces they have lost half their number to the Martians' overwhelming numbers. The Martians envelop the planet in a smoke screen, and the humans retreat to the moon Deimos. During a raid on Mars for supplies, the earth men find Aina, the last of a population of human slaves whose ancestors were captured from Kashmir in a Martian raid 9,000 years ago. During this raid, the Martians also constructed the Great Pyramids and the Great Sphynx in Egypt, the latter of which is a statue of their leader. Aina advises Edison that meeting the Martians in battle would be fruitless, and that they should instead attack the dams that channel water from the polar ice. Since most of Mars' cities are under sea level, the flood spreads rapidly, killing most Martians and destroying their civilization. Edison and company force a peace with the Martians, and return home to great celebration. |
5878272 | /m/0fbdw2 | The Last Hawk | Catherine Asaro | 1997 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The novel opens when Kelric Valdoria crash lands on the planet Coba. An ancient culture with similarities to the Raylicans, Coba is one of the many isolated and forgotten planets of the former Ruby Empire. Kelric makes several unsuccessful attempts to escape and eventually ends up in jail. It is there he spends his time (particularly while in isolation) learning the dice game Quis. Eventually, Kelric is released and joins one of the "estates" - small matriarchical provinces or city-states that comprise the population of Coba. These estates have special dedicated communes that exclusively play Quis, called Calanya. Kelric becomes a member of one of these communes, known as the "Calani". The society of Coba has, for centuries, replaced war and aggression with competition in Quis. The Quis also double as an information network, with players revealing information about themselves and their estate while at the same time learn about others. Finally, as an information-exchange network, Quis allows technology to improve on Coba at an astounding rate. The strength of a Calani is based on two properties: a player's skill, and the number of different estates they have worked for. Because of his pleasing appearance and his skill in Quis, Kelric is conveted by the queens (known as "Managers") of the different estates. Kelric's membership in the estates proceeds as follows: Dahl, Haka, Bahvla, Miesa, Varz, and finally Karn. Renamed "Sevtar", Kelric has two children with two of his wives (one of which is born Rhon) during his time in the different estates. Each time Kelric is traded, his skill and worth increase, in the end reaching legendary status. In the final trade to Karn, Ixpar Karn trades rule of the planet (in addition to being Karn Manager, Ixpar also held the title of "Minister" of Coba) for Kelric. This eventually ignites actual violence, allowing Kelric to escape. The end of this novel is where Ascendant Sun begins. Quis refers to a dice game learned by Kelric on the planet Coba. This dice strategy game can be played with a physical set of dice that are made from hand-crafted jewels; or it can be played mentally. It originates on a planet called Coba, a former colony of the Ruby Empire that became isolated during the empire's collapses and remains so even during the time of the novels. All members of Coban society learn to play Quis, but only a few excel at it. The Quis dice can be used for a variety of purposes, including as a game, to tell stories, to exchange information, and even to gamble. But its most important use is its influence on politics, as the dice are used to compete politically, and also can convey politically important information. There are competing city-states that have isolated top Quis players, who study the art of playing Quis as their full-time occupation. |
5878550 | /m/0fbffp | The Stealers of Dreams | Steve Lyons | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | It seems an easy enough position to take — on a world where daring to dream is a crime, the Doctor sides with a pirate television station that is trying to foment rebellion. However, he begins to discover that things are not as simple as that, and dreams can easily become nightmares. |
5883734 | /m/0fbqn7 | The 33 Strategies of War | Robert Greene | null | {"/m/012lzc": "Self-help", "/m/05qfh": "Psychology", "/m/09s1f": "Business", "/m/050yl": "Military history"} | The 33 Strategies of War contains successful military principles from a range of cultures and eras that are often applied to 21st century situations. The book is divided into five parts: Self-Directed Warfare, Organizational (Team) Warfare, Defensive Warfare, Offensive Warfare and Unconventional (Dirty) Warfare. The 33 strategies are: # Declare War on Your Enemies: The Polarity Strategy. # Do Not Fight the Last War: The Guerrilla-War-of-the-Mind Strategy. # Amidst the Turmoil of Events, Do Not Lose Your Presence of Mind: The Counterbalance Strategy. # Create a Sense of Urgency and Desperation: The Death-Ground Strategy. # Avoid The Snare of Groupthink: The Command-and-Control Strategy. # Segment Your Forces: The Controlled-Chaos Strategy. # Transform Your War into a Crusade: Morale Strategy. # Pick Your Battles: The Perfect Economy Strategy. # Turn the Tables: The Counterattack Strategy. # Create a Threatening Presence: Deterrence Strategies. # Trade Space for Time: The Nonenagement Strategy. # Lose The Battles But Win The War: Grand Strategy. # Know Your Enemy: The Intelligence Strategy. # Overwhelm Resistance With Speed and Suddenness: The Blitzkrieg Strategy. # Control the Dynamic: Forcing Strategies. # Hit Them Where it Hurts: The Center of Gravity Strategy. # Defeat Them in Detail: The Divide and Conquer Strategy. # Expose and Attack Your Enemy's Soft Flank: The Turning Strategy. # Envelop The Enemy: The Annihilation Strategy. # Maneuver Them Into Weakness: The Ripening For the Sickle Strategy. # Negotiate While Advancing: The Diplomatic-War Strategy. # Know How To End Things: The Exit Strategy. # Weave a Seamless Blend of Fact and Fiction: Misperception Strategies. # Take The Line of Least Expectation: The Ordinary-Extraordinary Strategy. # Occupy the Moral High Ground: The Righteous Strategy. # Deny Them Targets: The Strategy of the Void. # Seem to Work for the Interests of Others While Furthering Your Own: The Alliance Strategy. # Give Your Rivals Enough Rope To Hang Themselves: The One-Upmanship Strategy. # Take Small Bites: The Fait Accompli Strategy. # Penetrate Their Minds: Communication Strategies. # Destroy From Within: The Inner Front Strategy. # Dominate While Seeming to Submit: The Passive-Aggressive Strategy. # Sow Uncertainty and Panic Through Acts of Terror: The Chain Reaction Strategy. |
5884004 | /m/0fbr5c | Leaf Storm | Gabriel García Márquez | 1955 | {"/m/0l67h": "Novella"} | The Father, an aging, half blind man who carries the title of colonel within the village, has made a promise to bury the recently deceased former doctor in spite of the consensus within Macondo that he should be left to rot within the corner house where he had lived in complete social isolation for the past decade. The daughter, Isabel, is obliged to accompany her father out of respect for traditional values while knowing she and her son will be doomed to face the wrath of her neighbors in Macondo. The narrative of the grandson, on the other hand, is more preoccupied with the mystery and wonder of death. As with many of his stories, such as Love in the Time of Cholera and Chronicle of a Death Foretold, García Márquez introduces a dramatic scene to begin his narrative and then moves backward, rehashing the past that will lead up to the ultimate conclusion. It is discovered within the narrative that the center of all the conflict (the deceased) is a doctor who came to Macondo with a mysterious past and no clear name. The man's only saving grace is a letter of recommendation from the Colonel Aureliano Buendía, one of the main characters of the later One Hundred Years of Solitude. It is this letter that leads the stranger to the family that serves collectively as narrator to the drama that unfolds. In Medias Res-Marquez starts his novella in medias res, that is, “in the middle of things”. This is shown through the opening paragraph that starts off with the description of the boat company landing in Macondo and then immediately goes to the boy’s point of view at the doctor’s wake. Multiple Narrators-The story changes narrators at many points with an omniscient narrator always being present. It changes for the boy to his mother to his grandfather the colonel. Each perspective is different and allows the reader to see inside the mind of whoever is speaking. Stream of Consciousness-The story is told in a stream of consciousness because the boy, Isabel, and the colonel tell the reader a trail of thoughts as they appear in their mind. These internal monologues provide the information that puts the pieces of the story together as the story starts off at the doctor’s death and not his life. Because the stream of consciousness is used, it enables the characters to jump back and forth in time without ever leaving their present moment, which is at the wake of the doctor. Also due to this narrative technique the illusion is given that these characters are talking out aloud to each other when in fact very little interaction actually takes place between them. Death-As the novella starts out at the wake of the doctor, death is an apparent theme that surrounds the narrative. More specifically, however, the type of death exhibited in this book is self-inflicted death as the doctor committed suicide after locking himself away for ten years in his home. Solitude-Solitude is another important theme that not only manifests itself through the doctor’s life but through the colonel, Isabel, and the boy. As a result of the doctor’s isolation he commits suicide but as a result of that suicide the family risks isolation with his burial. Because the doctor was an outcast from Macondo and scorned by the people of Macondo there is more at stake than just the proper treatment of a corpse. This is reflected in Isabel’s thoughts as she contemplates how the townspeople will receive them after they bury the doctor. War-It is not as apparent as solitude or death but nonetheless involved in the story. It is suggested in the novella that at this time in Macondo’s history a civil war has ended. This can be inferred by the reason that townspeople hate the doctor. He denied treatment to wounded soldiers that had come to his house to seek aid. The colonel himself is a reminder of war culture as he maintains high rank in Macondo and is well respected by the people although he is going against their will by burying the doctor. Also, reflecting war culture is the colonel’s relationship to the doctor. He is loyal to the doctor even after his death because of the doctor's ties to another colonel he knows. After giving up on the practice of medicine and living at the expense of the family for an inordinate amount of time, the reclusive doctor moves two houses down with Meme, the indigenous house maid that had been living with the narrative family at the time. While his reclusive demeanour and lustful attention to the female form do not make him popular with the locals, the former doctor's ultimate banishment only occurs when nearly a dozen men, wounded from one of the country's many civil wars, are brought to his door in search of medical attention. The doctor, having given up the practice of medicine, refuses to save them as he once refused to help an ailing Meme while they had been living with the family of narrators. In addition to the themes of cyclicality and inversion that are bedrocks to the narrative fluidity of One Hundred Years of Solitude; Leaf Storm also demonstrates several other techniques identified with Magical Realism such as manipulation of time and the use of multiple perspectives. |
5884364 | /m/0fbryx | An Old Captivity | Nevil Shute | 1940 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The principal character is a young Scottish pilot with bush-flying experience in Canada, Donald Ross, who is hired by an Oxford don, Cyril Lockwood, to pilot an air survey mission of Greenland. Lockwood's interest is in the early Viking seafarers and their exploits, and although he appears to have little knowledge of the needs of such a project, he insists on their starting as soon as possible, with his elder brother David, a businessman, providing finance. Ross, as the hired expert, then has to contend with the 'helpful' suggestions from both the financier and Lockwood's young daughter, Alix. This causes early tensions in the preparatory stages. While the preliminary dig is ongoing Ross shoulders much responsibility including keeping the aircraft safe in a tidal zone. Worn out with the expedition's work - all of which has fallen solely on him - and a prolonged lack of sleep induced by worry over the expedition, he enters a coma induced by the sleeping tablets he has been forced to take to keep going, and in it dreams that he and Alix were once Scottish slaves aboard Leif Ericson's vessel on its voyage of discovery to Greenland. A part of this dream includes the leaving behind by the two slaves of a stone, with their names carved on it, at the Viking explorers' landing point in North America. Ross recovers and tells Alix and the don of his dreams. The last remnant of photographic survey is successfully completed, and the three complete their air crossing to North America, making landfall in eastern Canada. Flying down the coast towards New York Ross recognizes where he dreamed Lief Erickson's expedition landed on the coast of Cape Cod; they land to investigate and find the stone with the slaves' names on it. The technical details of a trans-Atlantic flight of this period (late 1930s) are accurate and of interest. The type of aircraft is a fictional radial-engined floatplane intended for bush use, made by a fictional Detroit firm named Cosmos. It corresponds roughly to the performance of a Noorduyn Norseman. This was Shute's first attempt at re-incarnation as a plot, a second later work on this theme is In the Wet. |
5884627 | /m/0fbsh4 | A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide | Samantha Power | 2003 | {"/m/05h83": "Non-fiction"} | Power begins with an outline of the international response to the Armenian Genocide (Chapter 1), and then describes Raphael Lemkin's efforts to lobby for American action against Nazi atrocities in Europe (Chapter 2). Then she describes further the difficulties of individuals' efforts to convince Americans and other members of the Allied Powers to recognize the Holocaust, which she explains were compounded by the focus on World War II and anti-Semitic indifference (Chapter 3). She continues in Chapter 4 to describe how Lemkin brought genocide to the forefront of foreign policy issues, leading to the 1948 U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Chapter 5 describes Lemkin's mounting disappointments and multiplying adversaries until his death in 1959, whereupon Senator William Proxmire and others picked up the torch. She shows how Senator Proxmire and President Ronald Reagan worked to gain support for the ratification of the Genocide Convention (Chapter 7). In the rest of the book, she mainly focuses on individual genocides and the U.S. response in Cambodia, Iraq, Bosnia, Rwanda and Kosovo. |
5886366 | /m/0fbwdm | The Feast of the Drowned | Stephen Cole | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | When a Naval cruiser sinks in mysterious circumstances in the North Sea all aboard are lost. Rose is saddened to learn that the brother of her friend, Keisha, was among the dead. And yet he appears to them as a ghostly apparition, begging to be saved from the coming feast of the drowned. |
5886510 | /m/0fbwt0 | The Resurrection Casket | Justin Richards | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | On a shadowy planet called Starfall, where no modern technology works, the Doctor and Rose become involved in a quest for a lost treasure that belonged to Hamlek Glint — the Resurrection Casket, supposedly the key to eternal life. But the TARDIS has stopped working too... |
5886604 | /m/0fbx41 | I am a Dalek | Gareth Roberts | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction"} | The Doctor and Rose Tyler are preparing to enjoy a visit to Earth's Moon when they discover that the TARDIS has, on its own volition, taken them instead to a small seaside town in present-day England. In this town, the dead shell of a Dalek has been discovered by archaeologists in 1st century Roman ruins on the site of a decommissioned Cold War-era military bunker. The Doctor and Rose are separated for a time when the TARDIS dematerializes with Rose still outside the ship. The Doctor finds himself at the dig where he befriends one of the archaeologists and, upon recognizing the Dalek, attempts to disarm the dead creature by giving his new friend custody of the Dalek's gun arm. Rose, meanwhile, witnesses a traffic accident in which a young woman named Kate is apparently killed. However, Kate proceeds to regenerate in much the same fashion as the Doctor, which causes her hair colour to change and — unknown to Rose — her intellect to increase exponentially. Along with Kate's newfound intelligence comes a confusing desire to exterminate every human on the planet, starting with her ex-boyfriend. The Doctor and Rose eventually reunite at the dig site, where Kate reactivates the Dalek, causing it to also regenerate. Rose and the confused Kate escape, while the Doctor tries to unsuccessfully disable the revived Dalek before it can go on a killing spree. The Dalek tracks down and kills the archeologist in order to reacquire its gun arm. Meanwhile, Kate's personality becomes more Dalek-like, and she eventually unites with the Dalek, who bargains for the use of a time travel technology, with Earth as the bargaining chip. It is revealed that Kate is a form of Dalek-human hybrid, the result of an attempt by Daleks who came to Earth millennia earlier (because of the Time War) and injected a "Dalek Factor" into humanity. However, only a few individuals retained it in the present day. With encouragement from Rose and the Doctor, Kate's human personality manages to reassert itself against the Dalek influence and she destroys the Dalek, returning to her pre-accident self. |
5889981 | /m/0fc17z | The War in 2020 | Ralph Peters | 1991-02 | {"/m/098tmk": "War novel", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/08sdrw": "Adventure novel"} | The War in 2020 takes place in a future dystopia dominated by an alliance of Japan, South Africa and militant Islamic states. The novel describes the attempts by the United States to defend the remnants of the (still existing) Soviet Union against attacks by the Japanese alliance. The novel begins in the year 2005, when the South African Defense Force (equipped and trained by Japan) seizes mineral-rich areas of the Shaba Province in Zaire. The United States sends the XVIII Airborne Corps along with associated air and naval assets to repel the aggression. The American expeditionary force is defeated due to a combination of technological inferiority (the South Africans' Japanese equipment has such innovations as onboard battle lasers), lax security (a squadron of USAF B-2 Spirit bombers is destroyed on the ground by South Africans and local guerrilla) and poor intelligence. The American collapse is so swift that the XVIII Airborne Corps attempt to surrender. When the surrender offer is ignored, the American President orders a nuclear strike on Pretoria, forcing a cease-fire and a South African withdrawal from Zaire. The political cost paid by the United States for these events, however, is very high. An African epidemic spreads home with the returning soldiers, while abroad, an economic and political conflict with Japan reduce American power and influence. This is heralded by a newspaper headline that reads: "THE END OF THE AMERICAN CENTURY". The novel's protagonist, George Taylor, is an air cavalry captain commanding an Apache gunship squadron that is attacked and destroyed on the first day of the South African offensive. Through a combination of luck, physical strength, and sheer willpower, Taylor makes his way several thousand miles through the African bush from the Shaba province to the Zairean capital, Kinshasa, where he is evacuated, but finds himself suffering from a virus named "Runciman's disease" that leaves him horribly scarred. After the war in Shaba ends, Runciman's disease spreads rapidly through the rest of the world, bringing numerous societal problems along with it. In 2008, the United States is suffering from escalating social unrest and gang violence in major cities because of the spread of Runciman's Disease. The U.S. Army is ordered into the major cities to quell unrest and to ensure the safety of basic services. Taylor is placed in command of a unit deployed to Los Angeles as part of the operation. In 2015, Mexico is occupied by the United States, and the U.S. Army is fighting a guerrilla war against Japanese-supported insurgents. Taylor commands a unit in the war, where his unconventional tactics are unleashed on an unsuspecting rebel leader. By the year 2020, the Soviet Union is collapsing from the inside-out. Quality of life for Russian citizens continues to decline. The Muslim Central Asian republics have joined forces with other Japanese-supported Islamic nations and have begun a genocidal conquest with the dual purpose of slaughtering ethnic Russians, as well as conquering the resource-wealthy territory for their Japanese masters. In order to prevent the dismemberment of the Soviet Union, the United States intervenes, secretly building up an in-theater force of experimental and secret war machines. Once unleashed, (now-Colonel) Taylor's force proves to be unexpectedly advanced technologically to the Japanese. They strike a crippling blow to forces in the region, however, the Japanese have one last trick up their sleeve: a radio-wave weapon that cripples, but does not kill, all those affected. Their forces were battered, but their resolve was intact. The American forces planned a daring counter-attack. |
5893837 | /m/0fc7p1 | Gösta Berlings Saga | Selma Lagerlöf | 1891 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | The hero, Gösta Berling, is a deposed minister, who has been saved by the Mistress of Ekeby from freezing to death and thereupon becomes one of her pensioners in the manor at Ekeby. As the pensioners finally get power in their own hands, they manage the property as they themselves see fit, and their lives are filled with many wild adventures, Gösta Berling is the leading spirit, the poet, the charming personality among a band of revelers. But before the story ends, Gösta Berling is redeemed, and even the old Mistress of Ekeby is permitted to come to her old home to die. |
5897399 | /m/0fcgch | Officer Buckle and Gloria | Peggy Rathmann | null | {"/m/016475": "Picture book", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | A rather boring police officer named Officer Buckle is assigned to take a police dog named Gloria to his safety speech at the local school. Until that time, whenever Officer Buckle tried to tell schools about safety everyone fell asleep. Then, unbeknownst to Officer Buckle (literally, behind his back), Gloria does tricks imitating the safety tip demonstrating safety rules, and Gloria is a big success. Officer Buckle enjoys the fame until he sees on a taped speech that the schoolchildren are so enthusiastic because of Gloria. He refuses to teach safety and a huge accident happens. A letter from an attentive and sweet girl, named Claire, convinces Officer Buckle to start teaching again. In the end, Officer Buckle and Gloria go to many schools and teach the students about safety together. |
5898976 | /m/03bxkcj | The Last Puritan | George Santayana | null | null | Part I provides the necessary back story on the characters who shape Oliver's childhood and helps us understand the significance of Oliver’s conflict: the conflict between Oliver’s sense of duty and his “true nature”. The section begins with Nathanial Alden, Oliver’s reclusive Puritan uncle, and we are clued into his life and his philosophy. It is easy to dismiss Nathanial as a prig, but his philosophy is practical enough and his life is in such unwavering unison with his beliefs, (a unison hard to find in many of the characters) that he serves as a good example of an early American Puritan unaffected, or just escaping, the oncoming genteel tradition. The detailed caricature of Nathaniel is significant because it shows how he affects Peter's life, which in turn, affects Oliver's. Nathaniel's problem is that his beliefs are so strong that he doesn't validate any world view except his own. In the book A Philosophical Novelist, George Santayana says, "Nathaniel is an unwitting purveyor of Epicurean atomism to his half brother, accidentally encouraging in him a cynical tendency toward self indulgent agnosticism." Nathaniel fails to see Peter's potential; he is distracted by Peter's curiosity and favor for recreation and hanging out with "heathens." He sees Peter's actions as evil and feels a need to force change in the young boy's life. Nathaniel wants Peter to follow the will of God – prudent and tempered living with a respect for the social order of that time. When Peter began to go in a direction that he felt was unbecoming of a young man, Nathaniel tries to prove how loyal he is to God's will by sending Peter west to a camp for wayward youth. The first section of the novel, "Ancestry", sets the tone for the rest of the story. We see the ancestral ground work for the development of Oliver's mental conflict, his dedication to duty. In section seven of Ancestry, Harriet Alden stares down on baby Oliver and describes the portraits of four generations of family, consisting of clergymen, lawyers, merchants, and physicians. It seems as if we are being predisposed to Oliver’s inevitable struggle. Oliver's relationship to duty goes back to his grandfather Nathaniel Alden who seems to only do things out of a sense of duty. It is stated in the opening scene "If he [Nathaniel Alden] went out at all it was to perform some duty, such as to ascertain the state of his financial affairs." Peter is more inclined to be a free spirit and involve himself with pleasurable things. This gets him into trouble with his older sibling and is the catalyst for Peter’s adventures around the world. It is also important to note how Nathaniel feels about interacting with others. He sees this as nothing more than mere gossip, and the pleasantries of conversation are nothing more than staged mechanical mannerisms. We see this when both Peter and Nathaniel attend one of the Unitarian Church services. When Nathaniel is interacting with the others, you get the distinct feeling that he only does so out of duty. Piety is another form of duty for our dearly drab Nathaniel. He enjoys his Sunday ritual of going to church because, “if acquaintances met there they could decently ignore each other, or at most pass with a mute bow.” This confirms Nathaniel’s anti-social personality, being that he rarely ever leaves his home in the first place. Even art for Nathaniel is a duty he declares for those who can afford it. He believes one ought to encourage art in a new country regardless of the quality. He possesses countless works of art which he generously donates to museums then keeps the letters of gratitude to, “refute any possible insinuation that he was a miser”, which his murdered father was accused of being. Nathaniel is undoubtedly incapable of any raw emotion and relies on his sense of duty and tradition to serve as sufficient emotional constructs. When the conundrum was proposed by Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, why couldn’t Nathaniel Alden open the blinds or light the gas in his house, he suggests, because he might see the pictures. This cleverly states what Nathaniel truly is, a fraudulent being. When Nathaniel decides to attend the funeral of his late Cousin Sarah Quincy, it's done to maintain the consistency of their relationship. Nathaniel says, “I feel that ones conduct ought always to be consistent to the last, and that I ought to attend her funeral.” How horribly mundane. It is only because of sheer duty that he attends his Cousin funeral, devoid of any true emotional attachment. Here Nathaniel even remarks that the undertaker has the duty not to be emotionally affected by his work. He goes on to say that if he ever goes to funerals or to church it is only from the sense of duty he retains and that he does not truly enjoy them. We see Nathaniel’s attitude invade young Peter’s mind frame. It is Nathaniel that feels it to be his duty to save Peter from his consorting with lower status individuals by sending him away. It is made clear however that Nathaniel is only doing this to fulfill his own sense of duty and when examined closer Peter is in no real danger of anything from which he should be extracted. It is also brought out that when Nathaniel does this it is, “one of the busier and happiest days of his life”. Could it be that Santayana is trying to tell us if we move through life only for the sake of being mobile or we stay still just to be in a state of stagnation that our soul is in danger of being in dire straights? In the spirit of Santayana one could say, that is for the reader to decide. Everything is duty to Nathaniel and this, despite Peters extensive traveling, is what Peter ultimately succumbs too. During Peters more mentally distressing years, when he is in his mid-thirties, we begin to see him fall into the practice of duty for duties sake. His views on marriage are a distressing prevalence of his commitment to duty. He describes his wife Harriet in a surgical way. Peter, whom his wife refers to as Dr. Alden, has a very dutiful sense of what marriage is. He says that Harriet has no sense of humor, but he doesn't care because he is only looking for peace, not companionship. He describes Harriet as “a first rate woman” and says that if he tried to fare better in finding a mate he would probably fare worse, so why not just take her. He is just like his older brother Nathaniel at this point; he is introverted, anti-social, mechanical, and cold. He does, however, respect duty, and this, for better or worse, is what he uses to validate his existence. Harriet's motives towards marriage are not altogether dissimilar from Peter's. She feels a deep sense of duty to her father, Dr. Bumstead and to her home and property. She doesn’t really want to marry Dr. Alden, but it is the most sensible thing to do, given Dr. Alden’s financial status through which she intends to preserve her home and watch over her father. When asked if she would still marry Dr. Alden if she chose to move to Boston where there are a host of other men to choose from, says she would because she has a duty to preserve her family's interests. Given that these are Oliver’s parents, the reader has an excellent precursor to what Oliver's life will be like growing up in that household. In Part II we journey with Oliver, a rather extraordinary child, through his early life. This section, as well as Part I, serves as a map from which we can trace many of the older Oliver's tendencies. Santayana starts at the absolute beginnings of Oliver's life, (his genetic formation in the womb) and with fantastic style describes and gives coherence to Oliver's earliest sensations and perceptions of a vast new universe. Santayana notes, at the beginning of this section, that from his first action (being born punctually and denying the "drowsy temptation" to remain female) every decision he was to make, was a decision he would make on the basis of duty. "In his infancy, Oliver is already strongly disposed to go over the line of healthy egoism – to assert too vigorously his dominion over the world that he occupies". Indeed it was through this assertive nature that Oliver attempted planning or structuring every event in his life – in his own way mocking chance and circumstance. But he didn't only impose his will relentlessly, he felt it his duty to do so. Duty is the inextricable force that at once propels Oliver through purposeful, practical existence, and what keeps him from ever attaining access to the more tender side of life. This tender side of life was felt by Harriet to be a fundamental flaw if learned of too early. Peter, who generally abandoned his premonitions about his wife's mothering style, left the formal aspects of Oliver's upbringing (namely, the aspects that involved planning as opposed to physical engagement) to Harriet. She felt the emotional aspects of life and learning (religion, poetry, song) not only as unimportant to his young mind, but purely detrimental. "His education mustn't begin by stuffing him with nonsense". How significant this is in identifying the roots of Oliver's sense of duty and detachment from true emotion! The little physical contact given to the young Oliver in the capacity of emotion was to be had through Irma the German governess, although this too would prove awkward in time. Oliver's young mind readily digested the material of fact, those indisputable fundamental principles void of human meddling and the confused passions of the lower sphere of the brain. But therein lies the problem for Oliver. His mind was digestive, not so much perceptive. Every piece of information he took in became true only when he digested it and moralized it. His perception was not weak though when he left it alone. In fact his perception, his senses, his memory, were all first rate – the problem resided in his heart. Even in as a man his heart would remain undeveloped. His early education was too one-sided, which was what Harriet thought best, and his lack of rounding out a full character would inevitably become his downfall. His childhood was privileged though to say the least, and the pleasures he was offered would have been the greatest joy for many a boy, if only they were offered to him as pleasures. Alas, he was forced, although not by external factors alone, to perceive everything through the lens of duty. He receives a pony, but does not ride for fun or for show, but instead out of duty to his health. Oliver excelled at school, and was the best in most categories, but formal schooling was delayed as long as possible for Oliver had always learned on his own, and needed little guidance. The scholastic system was, in Harriet's eyes, a place for him to further his sense of duty, discipline, and the routine of social interaction. It was in school though that Oliver came to a realization that would stick with him until manhood: that there was a sunny and shady side to knowledge. The sunny side was to be found in nature, geography, mathematics, and anything left untainted by the crude passions of humanity. For him "Only non-human subjects were fit for the human mind. They alone were open, friendly and rewarding". The section really reaches its peak with the meeting of Lord Jim on the Black Swan. Lord Jim was like a brother to Peter Alden, and for much of the section he represents a wholly admirable free-spirited side of life of which Oliver was largely unaccustomed. His friendship on that level would be very temporary as Oliver had to come to grips for possibly the first time that the person in his mind, in this case Jim, did not match up with the person as they were. This is yet another struggle in Oliver's perfectly imperfect existence. The experience of fear when Jim dives in the water is connected to a later section of the book as a sort of premonition in Oliver's mind, and is worth keeping in mind as you progress through the novel. In quite compressed summary, this section takes Oliver to Europe where he will further his education, and is the section where Oliver truly begins to form his own tastes. This section also marks the decline of his and Jim's friendship, which flourished in Part II, and marks the rise of his relationship with his cousin Mario. Part III begins with Peter Alden in London, where he felt strangely comfortable and at home, waiting for the arrival of Oliver and Irma. Peter arranged for Oliver to spend the first few days with Jim in Iffley and he sent Irma on to visit her old school. At the beginning of this section we see Peter, for the first time, worry about his sons future. He speaks of the money that will eventually belong to Oliver, and the problems it will cause him. Jim and Oliver arrive at the Iffley Vicarage to find the family is off at the church, where Jim's father is the minister. They jolt quickly to the church to catch the rest of the sermon. Their arrival at church pleased the Vicar and caused him to change his whole sermon. This visit to the church becomes memorable because directly after the sermon Oliver meets Rose Darnley, Jim's sister, for the first time. Oliver spends some time speaking with the Vicar alone (while Rose and Jim play in the garden), and the Vicar explains that he can see a light in Oliver's eye and that he has the higher calling. He says that Oliver is a spiritual man by nature and calls this a tragic privilege. After a meek supper Jim and Oliver leave for a two mile hike to the King's Arms Inn. There, Mrs. Bowler, the landlady made them a large supper. One the way back to the Vicarage Jim let Oliver in on a secret of his. Mrs. Bowler and Jim had been lovers and her son, Bobby, was Jim's. This news hit Oliver like a like a ton of bricks, but after reflection, he realizes that it was what should have been expected. The reader observes a steadfast and unchanging disposition towards Jim despite the shift in Oliver's perception of the reality of Jim's character. Oliver's new outlook about Jim and Mrs. Bowler are displayed through a dream that night. In the dream Oliver takes Jim and Mrs. Bowler's greed to an extreme, by insinuating that they would be willing to kill Peter or Oliver to get their money. The next morning, when he wakes up, Oliver goes down stairs and speaks to Mrs. Darnley. It is obvious that she has lived a difficult life and Oliver feels pity for her. Despite his recent feelings Oliver had towards Jim, he focused on Jim's positive qualities, with the purpose of pleasing her. Later that day Jim and Oliver went to the inn for a luncheon (which Oliver would pay for). Oliver comforted Bobby after dropping his fruit in the mud and he doctored up his bruised leg. Bobby clung to Oliver's coat and stated that he didn't want to leave, because he likes Oliver more than his family. Oliver than encountered Rose, he found himself interested in how her mind worked. She was young and her mind was not yet mature. Her mind still thought in categories and didn't believe in the necessity of a reason for something; she just believed that things simply were the way that they were. This attracted Oliver and at the end of their conversation he asked the young girl to marry him. Rose accepted this proposal and he kissed her. He wanted to run and tell Jim that they would be married, but she said no one would believe it because Oliver, himself, didn't believe it. They decided to keep it a secret until the day that they can prove it true. Oliver took his first punting lesson while travelling back to Iffley. He learned the task rather easily, like all physically dependent tasks. The action of the body seemed to restore a sense of homeostasis to his mind. "Thought is never sure of its contacts with reality; action must intervene to render the rhetoric of thought harmless and its emotions sane." [This idea is recurring in the novel. He uses bodily action to remain in contact with reality via football, rowing, and running. As he gets older he exercises less and uses his body less, thus causing pain in his thoughts and an irrational emotional state (attributing too much control to himself over the world).] Peter decides to take Oliver to see his foreign cousin at Eton, an English public school. This is when we first encounter Oliver's cousin, Mario. Mario is younger than Oliver, but he was at least his intellectual equal, perhaps even his superior. He carried on a full conversation with Peter, and Oliver listened. Despite the lack of conversation between the two boys they each felt the presence of the other. Oliver and Mario seemed, from the beginning, to be direct opposites. "[Mario] is the anti-puritan, the foil to Oliver; his destiny on earth is happiness, and the world, Santayana believes, is better off for him and his kind. At lunch the next day they all three sat and conversed until Peter began to cough and grow pale. Peter decided to stay in and rest next to a fire while Mario showed Oliver the sights. They decided to walk and talk rather than see the sights. Peter was dreading the walk down Castle Hill, but he didn't want to disappoint Mario so he decided he would dose himself with medicine before the trip. When the boys returned they got a visit from Mr Rawdon Smith, Mario's schoolmaster. They spoke of a multitude of things, but the most important topic was of Mario's staying at Eton. Mario wanted to stay there so he could see his mother on the holidays. As Mr Rawdon Smith continued to speak Peter slipped into a limp slumber in the arm chair, with his eyes closed. Mr Rawdon Smith went to shake him until he encountered Oliver's deliberately rough arm-nudge. Oliver knew that Peter had a chill and must have medicated himself with a sedative, and he also knew that the sedative had taken him over. Oliver coaxed Peter into assisting in moving him to the cab and the three of them went to a see a doctor that Mario knew. The Doctor's name was Mr. Morrison-Ely, he wasn't referred to as doctor. He advised them against travelling for a few days. Oliver decided he would go back to London, pay the bill, and bring his father his old slippers and razors. Mario decided to go with him, and Oliver gave him the task of paying for everything with his money since the money was foreign to him and he knew it would make Oliver feel as though he helped his elder cousin. Peter's health was declining. Due to his current heart issues they decided to move him to a more peaceful spot. Peter was on bed-rest and had Mildred to wait on him. This is the time that Oliver and Peter spend the most father-son time together. The two finally connect and had time to talk and exchange philosophic inquiries and viewpoints. Oliver was thinking of the upcoming school year when he received a cablegram from his mother demanding that he bring his father home immediately, or else she would come and get him. This upset Peter, he didn't understand why Oliver wrote to his mother to explain the situation. This ruined everything, because he was unable to move he had no options. He had Oliver write a letter to his mother, stating that he was better and that Oliver was sailing home. He made his preparations and then just had to close his eyes and die. Oliver meets up with his mother, who exclaims that everything is wrong, just like Peter predicted. Mrs. Alden is having difficulty dealing with the fact that she was in a strange land, her husband is dead, and her son is going off to college. Mrs. Alden found a letter among Peter's business papers. The letter was from Mario wishing Peter to get well, it also thanked Peter for paying for his schooling. The letter also spoke of Oliver and the interest the two showed in each other foreshadowed their future involvement in each other's lives. Mrs. Alden was no longer a match for Oliver. Any position she may take would be beaten down by the young puritan. She bounced from one automatically elicited thought to the next and Oliver understood the irrationality in his mother. This is the point where Oliver and his mother really break apart. "His allegiance in any case must be to his own conscience, to his own reason. On that basis he was not in the least afraid of the future-fool's paradise or virtuous hell, or whatever you might call it." On the ship back to America Oliver finds some time to escape from his mother and spend some time alone. He re-reads Mario's letter and begins to ponder on the people who think so highly of him. He feels as though his mother doesn't love him and he thinks that she won't let anyone else love him either; but he convinces himself that the relationship he and Mario have can only be explained by love. After reaching this realization he is about to go back to his mother, when out of nowhere, a hand grabbed his shoulder. It was Jim Darnley. He wandered how and why Jim was here. It was clear that he had travelled many miles without sleep to come to the ship that he knew Oliver would be on. It was as though Jim felt if Oliver got away to America he would never see him, or more importantly, his money again. Jim sneaked on board without a ticket, but he knew the Bursar and was allowed to work off his passage. Lucky for Jim, there happened to be a large, double cabin that was open and had been paid for by an unknown source. Oliver understands Jim's reliance on him, but he knew that he should not avoid him. Jim's appearance transformed overnight. He was now clean, shaven, and well-dressed. Jim wanted to spend some time with Oliver like the old days, but Oliver knew he couldn't be around Jim on this trip. His mother would be uproarious if she found out that Jim was on the ship at all. Jim offered Oliver some of his father's books and keep-sakes from the "Black Swan." Jim tells Oliver of his newly planned life. He is to marry a new girl name Bella Iggins, and they plan on acting to pay the bills until he gets his money for the ship and they can settle at a riverside cottage. Oliver knew better than to believe in Jim's plan, he doubted he would get married, but was sure he would be divorced soon afterward if he did follow through with the plan. The rest of the trip he hardly saw Jim Darnley. He felt as though Jim was afraid that he would forget him, but Oliver was ever too loyal to turn his back on a promise. "Jim is to be the Goethen good intentions." He knew that, despite what he now understood about Jim's, selfish character, he would not be the same person without him. Oliver understands that the effect that Jim had on him was over. Now he was merely attached to him through a sense of duty, which is how he feels he is attached to everything through this same sense of relentless duty. At the end of this section we get a peek inside Jim's head. When he speaks of his marriage he doesn't speak of love and commitment, he speaks of how he will ask Oliver to be his best man (even though he knows Oliver will be too busy and won't be able to come), for the purpose of getting a big wedding gift. He thinks about how Bobby, Rose, and his future children will all be taken care of by the soundest Puritan he had ever known, Oliver Alden. The first part of The Last Pilgrimage recalls Oliver's journey around the world with Mario, which had turned out to be a disappointment for Oliver. Like his father, Oliver could not find peace anywhere in his travels. So, Oliver returns to Oxford and decides to ultimately return to America. The next part occurs in 1914 at the start of World War I. Mario visits Oliver to inform him that he is going to fight with the French. Oliver protests this decision, and argues that war is foolish, but Mario proceeds to tell Oliver that he doesn't understand such things and joins anyway. Oliver then returns to Iffley to discover that Jim Darnley has been killed. In the third part we witness Oliver in a touching moment comforting Jim Darnley's mother, but he is only able to do so because he mimics Jim. Oliver again proves his goodness by proposing to adopt Jim Darnley's bastard son, but Jim's sister Rose crushes this proposal. All they really need is Oliver's money, and Rose says that Oliver wouldn't be capable of raising the boy in any other manner. Following these events Oliver decides to volunteer as an ambulance driver in France, but is unable to handle the stress. He realizes that "his soul has been born crippled." So, he returns discouraged to Iffley. Following the advice of Mrs. Darnley, he opens a home for convalescent officers at Court Place, which places his wealth, as always, at the center of his relationships. By this time, America had entered the war. Oliver, driven as always by duty, returned to America to enlist to fight for America (despite his earlier belief that the war was wrong). Santayana begins to mention more and more Oliver's psychological issues. Upon joining the army, Oliver ignores his personal problems, and "he threw off this 'depression' as again they called it." He also realizes the correlations between football and the military. He visits his mother for what would be the last time, and Irma is horrified that he is going to war against her own country. His mother becomes a devout patriot and Irma eventually leaves the Alden household. Mrs. Alden's former lover and close friend, Letitia Lamb, takes Irma's place. During this time, Mario is wounded and stays with the Darnley women on Oliver's behalf. Rose develops a crush for Mario. The fifth part again portrays Oliver as depressed and unable to cope with war. He was no longer a capable officer and "the authorities were "annoyed at his frequent illnesses." He is sent away for recuperation to Paris. Then enters a prostitute and old "friend" of Mario's looking for money, whom Oliver pities and gives 1000 francs. She then attempts to seduce him, but he realizes that he is incapable of making love to a woman, a realization brought on by him tasting her sardine breath. The fact that Oliver was offended at this is secondary to the idea that the smell and lustful embrace served to pull his head from the clouds, and to bring before his face the true nature of the woman whom he had seen, as little as five minutes prior, drop the masque and embody the very symbol of the meek; while he took on that of the man of ample piety. Part six tells of Oliver returning to duty sick and depressed. He was "thin, sallow, and tired" and "he couldn't sleep well at night, and seemed to be half asleep and dreaming all day." His commanding officers realize that his depression has made him unfit for service, and send him to a nursing home. While there he realizes that he is not free, and makes the decision to marry. Recall that Peter's life was wrought by similar circumstances, but realized a different outcome. In part seven he returns to Iffley to propose to Rose Darnley, and in doing so finds out that Mr. Darnley has died. He proposes to Rose but is turned down. In the following episode, Oliver realizes that he probably won't marry. The only thing that might make him happy "must be all perfection and all beauties and all happiness." In the conclusion of The Last Puritan, we found out that Oliver returned to his military service but was killed in a vehicle crash. This part tells us of Mario returning to Iffley to speak with the Mrs. Darnley and Rose. Apparently, his old friend Tom Piper had become a doctor in the military, and upon seeing Oliver had died was terribly sad (something which affirms that Tom was Oliver's true friend in this story). Mario cannot help but notice how unappreciative the Darnley's were of Oliver, despite all that Oliver had done for them. Mario himself is terribly distressed. The tale ends with the reader realizing that Mario had matured, when he realizes that Rose had a crush on him. He thinks about "taming the shrew," but after playing with the idea realizes that he's past such meanderings. He becomes a moral creature through natural self-knowledge. The Darnley's remain crude and disrespectful of Oliver. Rose begins to weep (probably in Mario refusing her) and Mrs. Darnley assumes that she is mourning Oliver. "No need breaking your heart over a young man who's dead and gone," she remarks to Rose. But, she admits, he was a kind gentleman. |
5907986 | /m/0fc_75 | Benjamin Button | F. Scott Fitzgerald | 5/27/1922 | {"/m/0707q": "Short story", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Benjamin is born with the physical appearance of a 70-year-old man, already able to speak. His father Roger invites neighborhood boys to play with him and orders him to play with children's toys, but Benjamin only obeys to please his father. At five, Benjamin is sent to kindergarten but is quickly withdrawn after he repeatedly falls asleep during child activities. When Benjamin turns 12, the Button family realizes that he is aging backward. At the age of 18, Benjamin enrolls in Yale College but having run out of hair dye on the day of registration, is sent home by officials, who think he is a 50-year-old lunatic. In 1880, Benjamin is 20, his father gives him a control of Roger Button & Co. Wholesale Hardware. He meets Hildegarde Moncrief, a daughter of General Moncrief, and falls in love with her at the first sight. Hildegarde mistakes Benjamin for a 50-year old younger brother of Roger Button, and without realizing the fact of Benjamin's abnormality, the two get married six months later. Years later, Benjamin's business has been a great success, but his family life hasn't been well for him. Benjamin starts to get tired of Hildegarde because she's a nagging woman that is no longer beautiful as before. His family life is so boring that he joins the Spanish-American War in 1898. He had a great success in the military, ranked up to lieutenant colonel, and rewarded with a medal. He then quits the military because his company requires his care. In 1910, Benjamin turns over control of his company to his son, Roscoe, and enrolls at Harvard University, having the appearance of a twenty-year-old. His first year at Harvard is a great success, and he is dominant in American football, notably obtaining revenge against Yale for his earlier unpleasant experience. However, by the time Benjamin reaches his last 2 years, he is a weak sixteen-year-old, unable to play football and barely able to cope with the academic load. After graduation, Benjamin returns home, only to learn his wife has moved to Italy. He lives with Roscoe, who treats him very sternly, making Benjamin call him "Uncle" in front of his house guests. As the years progress, Benjamin turns from a moody teenager into a young child. Eventually Roscoe has a child that later attends kindergarten with Benjamin. After kindergarten, Benjamin slowly begins to lose memory of his earlier life. His memory fades away to the point where he cannot remember anything except his nurse. Then everything fades to darkness. |
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