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6047155 | /m/0fmdgq | Why the Whales Came | Michael Morpurgo | null | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | Gracie and Daniel, two young children, live on the island of Bryher in the Isles of Scilly at the beginning of World War I. Their parents warn them not to go to near the Birdman, who lives on the south side of the island. There are rumours that the Birdman is mad and dangerous. However, Gracie and Daniel end up on the south side of the island when they cannot find a place to sail their boats then eventually run into him. The Birdman turns out to be friendly and they begin a secret friendship with the old man. He alerts them when a large deposit of timber from a wrecked ship is deposited on one of the island's beaches, and the islanders manage to hide the timber before customs officers from St Mary's arrive. The Birdman warns them in turn to stay away from the island of Samson, which he says is cursed. According to his story, a large school of whales were washed ashore on the island and were massacred by the islanders. This led to a number of misfortunes, including the well drying up, which eventually made the island uninhabitable. The curse can only be lifted when the guilt of Samson is redeemed. As luck would have it, during a fishing trip, Gracie and Daniel end up stranded on Samson, which appears to be haunted. When they return home, they hear that Gracie's father has disappeared while fighting at Gallipoli. Soon after, a school of whales are washed ashore on Bryher, and it appears that Bryher will suffer the same fate as Samson. Gracie and Daniel try to stop the whales from being slaughtered, and eventually succeed when joined by their mother. As a result, the curse of Samson is lifted and the islanders of Bryher are able to visit it. Finally, Gracie's father returns home, having miraculously survived. |
6047363 | /m/0fmdxj | Foreign Devils | Andrew Cartmel | null | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | The story begins in China, 1800, when the Doctor and his companions arrive in their time machine, the TARDIS, at the English Trade Concession in Canton. A relic, previously thought harmless becomes active and transports his companions into the future. The Doctor tracks them in the TARDIS and materialises in England, 1900, where the descendents of an English merchant from 1800 have gathered. One of these is a man called Carnacki, who before long helps the Doctor investigate a series of strange murders in the house. When the Doctor discovers that the house and its surroundings have literally been removed from space and time, he realises that their attacker may not be all they seem. |
6051490 | /m/0fmm9s | The Silver Wolf | Alice Borchardt | 1993 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | "I was born of darkness. My father's eyes closed before mine opened. I am not of this world or the other, and I have the right to be what I am... " Regeane is a half-Saxon and half-Frankish woman whose father, Wolfstan, died because of her mother, Gisela. Wolfstan was a shape shifter, a man who could change from human to a very large wolf while her mother, Gisela, was frightened at the abnormality that her husband displayed. Due to Gundabald's urgings and pressure, Gisela grew to believe that Wolfstan was an offspring of the Devil Himself and eventually lured him to his death. When Gisela birthed Regeane, she was relieved to find no abnormalities...leastwise, not yet. When Regeane experiences her first sign of adulthood, she changes into this beautiful silver wolf. Gisela panics and forces poor Regeane to drink filthy concoctions, to pray for hours, to go to church, to promise never again to change as long as she lived...etc. In return for that promise, Gundabald would take care of Regeane for a long time. But when Gisela dies, the whole family falls into poverty and corruption, ending up with tattered cloths, temporary lodging in Rome and Regeane chained by the neck in the basement. Gundabald treats her worse and worse while Hugo, his son, is a more drunken wastrel than ever. Together, the expert wastrel (Gundabald) and the apprentice wastrel (Hugo) use up the money while Regeane is locked up in the house. But Regeane fights back and she finally escapes from the imprisonment when Gundabald's mood turns when he finds her a wealthy mountain lord by the name of Maeniel to marry her. Regeane escapes to Lucilla's villa, where Lucilla, Hadrian (the Pope), Antonius and many others befriend her and her smaller friend Elfgifa. Antonius, who is a leper, is Regeane's friend and she ventures forth into the World of the Dead to find a cure for him before it is too late. On one of those many trips, she meets three wolves - one black, one gray and one red. Unknown to her, the gray wolf whom she desires is Maeniel, her future husband and lord. On first sight, they both fall in love. A few days later, Maeniel pays an unannounced visit to Lucilla's villa, where he drowns his future bride with more than a king's ransom of wealth. After the wedding feast, a dispute is begun when an assassin tries to kill Maeniel while he is occupied with Regeane. Regeane stops him by breaking his wrist bone with one hand over Maeniel's shoulder, grabbing him by the broken wrist. Due to the excessive bruising a normal woman could not have caused, he finds out that Regeane is, in fact, the silver wolf whom he desires. What follows next is a desperate battle between Maeniel and Scapthar as the champions fight to see whether or not Regeane is to burn at the stake. Maeniel wins and Scapthar is left for dead. Finally, Gundabald is the last to be killed and Regeane finally learns that Maeniel, her love, is the gray wolf. |
6052653 | /m/0fmpmk | The Inheritance | Nancy Varian Berberick | null | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The book begins with Elansa Sungold going to the border to heal a group of trees with her Blue Phoenix, a magical artifact passed down since the Age of Dreams to woodshapers in her family. The Blue Phoenix is a symbol of Habbakuk, and the artifact may be a holy artifact of Habbakuk. She is guarded by twenty elves. When they reach further into the forest, they are ambushed by goblins, which were hired by human brigands. Elansa is taken for ransom, and one of the guards who were sent to take care of her by her husband, Prince Kethrenan, is mutilated and sent back to Qualinost, the elve's homeland, to inform them of the ransom demand, two cartloads full of the best weapons that the elves have. Elansa is taken to one of the bandits secret hideouts, and is guarded by Char, the dwarf. Brand, the leader of the bandits, also takes Elansa's Blue Phoenix from her. In the hands of a human, it didn't pulse with magic at all, so humans would think it's just a pretty shaped gem. Brand means raven in an ancient dialect. Brand kills the son of Gnash, a hobgoblin, who was sent to assist the ambush, making him an enemy of the goblins. They run from the goblins into many different secret hideouts, then hole up in one for the winter. In the sprain, Brand's demand for two wagons full of weapons has been acknowledged. Prince Kethrenan, and his cousin, a female warrior, drive the wagons, while other warriors hide in the woods. Their plan is to slaughter the bandits when they come to take the weapons, however, their plans are foiled when goblins, this time enemies of both, appear. Brand and his band get away with Elansa and the two wagons, leaving the elves to "mop up" the goblins. Brand stores the weapons in caches all over the stone lands, so that they won't be discovered. A goblin "turncoat" decides to help the elves, and with his help the locate all of the weapon caches. The weapons that can't be recovered due to transportation issues are destroyed. By plotting the caches on a map, the elves discover an arrow pointing to Pax Tharkas, perhaps the last safe house for the brigands, so the elves head to Pax Tharkas. Brand and his band know that they are being hunted, but not by whom, so they decide to go to the abandoned Pax Tharkas as a safe haven. During this time, Char becomes almost a friend of Elansa's. Many of the men in the group of bandits want Elansa, so Brand gives her a choice between him and them. He was just doing this to protect her, but she didn't know that. Elansa chooses Brand. The goblins amass an army and also head to Pax Tharkas, following Brand. Brand and his followers arrive in Pax Tharkas, and a couple of goblins manage to rouse the undead guarding Kith-Kanan. While Elansa is trying to help the Bandits to destroy the undead, one of the bandits try to rape her, but Char saves her. Elansa uses her Blue Phoenix to destroy the undead, but she faints from the strain afterwards. The elves and goblins fight outside Pax Tharkas, and the elves destroy the goblins. Prince Kethrenan's cousin is killed. Prince Kethrenan comes in to rescue Elansa, but Elansa wants him to spare Brand. He refuses, kills Brand, and at the same time Leyerlain Starwing kills Kethrenan by throwing a dagger into his neck. At this point, Elansa realizes that she grew to love Brand. Elansa runs away with Char, before the elves come to investigate. She's pregnant with Brand's child, and Char convinces her to claim that she was raped to protect herself and the child, even though Brand grew, almost, to be her lover. She returns to Qualinesti. The child is known as Tanis Half-Elven. |
6053554 | /m/0fmqv0 | Against the Day | Thomas Pynchon | 11/21/2006 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Nearly all reviewers of the book mention the Byzantine nature of the plot. Louis Menand in The New Yorker gives a simple description:The New Yorker Menand, Louis, "Do the Math: Thomas Pynchon's latest novel", The New Yorker, November 27, 2006 edition, posted November 20, accessed November 28, 2006 : "[T]his is the plot: An anarchist named Webb Traverse, who employs dynamite as a weapon against the mining and railroad interests out West, is killed by two gunmen, [...] who were hired by the wicked arch-plutocrat Scarsdale Vibe. Traverse's sons [...] set out to avenge their father’s murder. [...] Of course, there are a zillion other things going on in Against the Day, but the Traverse-family revenge drama is the only one that resembles a plot [...] that is, in Aristotle’s helpful definition, an action that has a beginning, a middle, and an end. The rest of the novel is shapeless [...]" As to the multitude of plot dead-ends, pauses and confusing episodes that return to continue much later in the narrative, Menand writes: : "[T]he text exceeds our ability to keep everything in our heads, to take it all in at once. There is too much going on among too many characters in too many places. [...] This [including tone shifts in which Pynchon spoofs various styles of popular literature] was all surely part of the intention, a simulation of the disorienting overload of modern culture." |
6053891 | /m/0fmr7t | Molly Moon's Hypnotic Time-Travel Adventure | Georgia Byng | 2005 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | Molly is trying to fit in her new life as the daughter of a billionaire (Primo Cell), but things aren't going so well. This is mainly because her mother is depressed about losing her 11 years of her life to hypnotism. She walks around the property miserable and all she does is sulk. Molly tries to help her but is soon subjected to the mystery of her missing pug. While looking she is hypnotised and taken to another time. She is taken to India in 1870, and taken to a fine red fort. Her escort, Zackya, is getting more and more nervous as they approach the main room. Then she has the displeasure of meeting the Maharaja of Waqt, a fat scally man, who wishes to kill her to stop her from wrecking the plans made in the last two books, since the Maharaja is the mastermind who hypnotized Cornelius Logan in the first place to hypnotize Lucy and Primo Cell. Taken back into the 1870s, Molly makes a new friend named Ojas who helps her, Rocky, and Forest defeat the mad Maharaja and save time as we know it. The Maharaja kidnaps a baby Molly, three-year old Molly, six-year old Molly, and 10-year old Molly by time traveling. It reveals her Uncle Cornelius was actually hypnotized as a young boy by the Maharaja and that Molly has a twin brother. es:Molly Moon viaja a través del tiempo sv:Molly Moons hypnotiska tidsresa |
6057877 | /m/0fmys8 | Golem100 | Alfred Bester | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | Taking place in a city of the future, a group of bored wealthy women begin dabbling in ancient satanic rituals, unaware that their rites are actually working. The beast of pure evil, Golem100, is raised each time the group practices their ritual, embarking on a rampage of rape, torture and murder. The demon is tracked through the physical and spirit worlds by Gretchen Nunn, a master of psychodynamics, Blaise Shima, a brilliant and famous chemist, and a clever local police officer, Subadar Ind'dni. |
6062284 | /m/0fn5d8 | The Monastery | Walter Scott | 1820 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"} | In the many conflicts between England and Scotland the property of the Church had hitherto always been respected; but her temporal possessions, as well as her spiritual influence, were now in serious danger from the spread of the doctrines of the Reformation, and the occupants of the monasteries were dependent on the military services of their tenants and vassals for protection against the forays of Protestant barons and other heretical marauders. Dame Elspeth's husband Simon had fallen in the battle of Pinkie (1547), and the hospitality of her lonely tower had been sought by the widow of the Baron of Avenel and her daughter Mary, whose mansion had been seized and plundered by invaders, and subsequently taken possession of by her brother-in-law Julian. While confessing the baroness on her death-bed, Father Philip discovered that she possessed a Bible, and as he was carrying it to the Lord Abbot, it was, he declared, taken from him by a spectral White Lady. Disbelieving the sacristan's tale, the sub-prior visited the tower, where he met Christie of the Clinthill, a freebooter, charged with an insolent message from Julian Avenel, and learnt that the Bible had been mysteriously returned to its owner. Having exchanged it for a missal, he was unhorsed on his return by the apparition; and, on reaching the monastery, the book had disappeared from his bosom, and he found the freebooter detained in custody on suspicion of having killed him. The White Lady was next seen by Elspeth's son Halbert, who was conducted by her to a fairy grotto, where he was allowed to snatch the Bible from a flaming altar. During his absence from the tower, Happer the miller and his daughter Mysie arrived on a visit, and soon afterwards came Sir Piercie Shafton, as a refugee from the English Court. The next day the abbot came to dine with them, and offered Halbert, who had quarrelled with the knight for his attentions to Mary, the office of ranger of the Church forests. He, however, refused it, and startled his rival with a token he had obtained from the mysterious spectre. The following morning they fought in a glen, and Halbert fled to the Baron of Avenel, leaving Sir Piercie apparently mortally wounded. His companion thither was Henry Warden, who offended the laird, and assisted Halbert in his determination to escape from the castle, rather than serve under his host's standard. The knight, however, had miraculously recovered, and on making his way back to the tower, was accused by Edward of having murdered his missing brother, in spite of his assurance that the youth was alive and uninjured. With the sub-prior's approval he was treated as a prisoner; but during the night Mysie assisted him to escape, and accompanied him northwards, dressed as his page. Mary Avenel, meanwhile, in the midst of her grief at the supposed death of her lover, was visited by the White Lady, who comforted her by disclosing the place where he had hidden the Bible, which she had secretly read with her mother. The rest of the family were astounded by the arrival of Christie, who confirmed Sir Piercie's assertion, and announced that he had brought Henry Warden to be dealt with as a heretic by the lord abbot. But the preacher and Father Eustace had been intimate friends at college, and the sub-prior was urging him to save his life by returning to the bosom of the Church, when Edward interrupted them to confess his jealousy of his brother, and his resolution to become a monk, in obedience to the White Lady who had appeared to him. Father Eustace then decided to leave his prisoner at the tower, under promise to surrender when summoned to the monastery; and, having learnt from the freebooter that Julian Avenel would fight for the Church, despatched him in search of Sir Piercie and the miller's daughter. That same night the lord abbot, alarmed by intelligence that English and Scottish soldiers were advancing with hostile intentions against the monastery, resigned his office to the sub-prior. Having taken the road to Edinburgh, Halbert had joined a squadron commanded by the Earl of Murray, who sent him forward to prevent an engagement between the English, under Sir John Forster, and the supporters of the Church, under the Baron of Avenel. He arrived too late, but the earl induced Sir John, who had won the battle, to withdraw, and marched his troops to St Mary's. Here the new abbot had assembled his brotherhood in the village, in anticipation of the destruction of their home. The regent and his followers formed up facing them, and the first matter settled was the marriage of Halbert with the heiress of Avenel. Father Eustace was then summoned to produce Sir Piercie, who surrendered voluntarily, and a flaw in his pedigree having been proved, Mysie was declared a fitting wife for him, and they were shipped off to Flanders. The monks, at the intercession of Henry Warden, were allowed to retain their monastery and lands on condition of being laid under contribution; while Edward, who had sought another interview with the White Spirit, was told that the knot of fate was tied, and impressed with the belief that the marriage of his brother with Mary Avenel might prove fatal to both of them. |
6063708 | /m/076x37t | Last Full Measure | Andy Mangels | 4/25/2006 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction"} | An alien weapon attacks Earth, unleashing energies that kills millions across two continents. A second such rumoured weapon could destroy the planet. The 'Enterprise' accepts a contingent of 'MACOS', Military Assault Command Operations personnel, and track down the source of the alien attack. The military men and the Starfleet officers come into conflict over the ways to perform the mission but both sides realize they must work together or perish. |
6064877 | /m/0fn920 | Who He? | Alfred Bester | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction"} | A TV game show host, waking up after an alcoholic blackout, discovers that someone is out to destroy his life. |
6065164 | /m/0fn9dq | The Computer Connection | Alfred Bester | 1975 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | In the future, a band of immortals (some who are famous historical characters, some who have tried their best to avoid becoming so), including Herb Wells, Ned Curzon (nicknamed Grand Guignol), Hillel, and Sam Pepys have only one requirement for membership: don't die. Through their extensive social network, they come across a brilliant Cherokee physicist named Sequoya Guess, who himself has only very recently learned of his peculiarity and the catches and loopholes that come along with it. This creates a swift change in Guess's day-to-day life that is as much a shock to his friends as to himself. At the same time, the world's scientists are collaborating to bring together a supercomputer named Extro that will monitor and control all mechanical activity on Earth. The immortals create a plan to subtly harness Extro to aid them in their quest for knowledge and use some of the experience they've gained to assist it in its task. Working outside of expected behavior, Extro instead seizes control of Dr. Guess, leaving the only people who know what's going on — the Immortals and Guess's nearest friends — to grapple with the heart and mind of a malevolent machine in the body of an Immortal, a powerful and ingenious man who cannot be killed. |
6065261 | /m/0fn9ly | Tender Loving Rage | null | null | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller", "/m/06n90": "Science Fiction"} | From Publishers Weekly: "With a title more appropriate to a paperback romance and an author whose reputation was made in an entirely different genre, this posthumous thriller by one of the stellar lights of the golden age of science fiction seems unlikely to find an audience. Although Bester died in 1987, the book seems, in both style and perspective, to have been written well before that, perhaps not too far beyond its late 1950s setting. Beautiful model Julene Krebs attracts the attentions of both a high-powered advertising executive and a prominent research scientist. The two men become friendly as a result of their mutual interest in the girl, and she in turn becomes involved with each. Meanwhile, Bester offers what is presumably intended as satirical commentary on the advertising industry in general and TV commercials in particular, via a stream of embarrassingly awkward conversations and repartee in a variety of settings. There's a threatening, shadowy figure lurking about, as well as intimations of a dark secret in Julene's past, but these matters are so submerged in the plodding story that they seem unimportant—at least until a wild, violent night on Fire Island, N.Y. That's followed by a hurricane, a kidnapping and a thoroughly unbelievable bit of melodrama. In the end, after Bester skirts around an appalling view of rape and its victims, love triumphs over all—sort of." |
6065317 | /m/0fn9pp | Molly Moon Stops the World | Georgia Byng | 2003 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | In Molly Moon Stops The World, Molly Moon is having the good life after using the money she earned in New York. She is using the money to fix up the orphanage. At the start of the book, Davina Nuttel, a famous child actress, and Molly Moon's rival, gets kidnapped by Primo Cell, a powerful leader and rich businessman. When Lucy Logan sees the news, she summons Molly because she suspects Primo is behind her abduction and is hypnotizing movie and other types of stars to perform in Primo Cell's ads. And besides, is trying to become the president of United States. Molly travels to Los Angeles, California and finds out her large diamond that she wears around her neck enables her to stop time. She also finds that permanent hypnosis will ensue from stopping time during regular hypnosis of a person. Molly gets help from Sinclair (Primo's stepson), his personal yoga teacher named Forest, and Rocky. Molly finds out that Lucy Logan and Primo Cell are her parents. She also finds Lucy and Primo have been under Cornelius Logan's (Lucy's twin brother) hypnosis for eleven years. The story finally ends when Molly made Cornelius think he was a lamb, through tireless hypnotism and time-stopping. es:Molly Moon detiene el Mundo sv:Molly Moon stannar tiden |
6067175 | /m/0fncny | The Living and the Dead | Patrick White | 1941-06 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The Living and the Dead opens in London's Victoria Station. Elyot Standish bids farewell to his younger sister Eden in a manner that is not particularly emotional or final. Elyot returns to an empty house, somberly observing the memories that remain amongst its silent possessions. Chapter 2 takes the reader several decades earlier, where a young Kitty Goose begins to find her way through England's upper classes. Catherine marries Willy Standish and bears him two children, but separates some years afterwards due to Willy's infidelity. Catherine's children, Elyot and Eden, are raised by her maid Julia and, during World War I, by surrogate guardians. Following the war, Catherine, living on the dwindling remnants of pre-war affluence, struggles to relate to her children. Elyot, a Cambridge graduate and professional writer, isolates himself in intellectual pursuits. Eden, a bookshop attendant, is influenced by left-wing politics. As the Spanish Civil War rises in the conscience of British society, the Standishes are forced to face their inner dissatisfactions. This is brought into focus by the failures of their sexual relationships. Catherine, who finds herself irrelevant in a much-changed world, pursues a romance with the younger Wally Collins, an American musician. The relationship is severed when Wally loses interest in Catherine, who spills her emotions whilst drunk at a fashionable party. Elyot, whether with family or with women, never allows himself a relationship of any depth. He distances himself from both Muriel Raphael, an artistic socialite, and Connie Tiarks, an unattractive but devoted childhood friend. The two are complete opposites, yet neither satisfies the purposeless Elyot. It is Eden who suffers the most tragedy, yet, paradoxically, offers the best hope of a meaningful existence. Her first lover, a married man, discards her to pursue an overseas position. The secrecy surrounding her abortion isolates her further from her family. Her second romance with the leftist Joe Barnett gives her a long-sought happiness, but this is taken away in cruel circumstances. Joe, facing his own conscience, disappears to Spain and is killed in action. It is Joe Barnett's firm direction that all others fail to achieve. With the death of Catherine to cancer, Eden decides that her rightful place is in Spain, even without her deceased lover. At the station, Elyot does not expect to ever see her again, and thus the reader understands the full significance of the opening chapter's sterility. The Living and the Dead raises deep questions about life, death and those in between. |
6068767 | /m/0fngs4 | An Arrow's Flight | Mark Merlis | 1998-08 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Pyrrhus lives in the city with his housemate Leucon. He works as a waiter, then as a hustler. One day he hears his father Achilles has left him some inheritance in Troy, and he decides to claim it. On the ship, he sleeps with Corythus, a sailor. He soon learns he needs to seduce Philoctetes and get his arrow for a prophecy to come true. He grows attached to the old man, though the latter also has an affair with Paris. Finally, Philoctetes breaks the arrow. Pyrrhus meets Leucon again in a hospital where Pyrrhus is waiting to see his lover Philoctetes, who is very sick; the latter realizes he no longer has feelings for Pyrrhus. Pyrrhus understands that he has grown and accepted his sexuality and is able to live openly, something Leucon cannot do. (The novel hints that he probably never will.) |
6070304 | /m/0fnkg2 | The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963 | Christopher Paul Curtis | 1995 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The first part of the book is set in Flint, Michigan, with the narrator, Kenny, introducing his family, the "Weird Watsons". His family includes his dad, his mom, older brother Byron and younger sister Joetta, nicknamed Joey. This section is largely a description of the Watsons' family life: Byron kissing his reflection in a car mirror in January and freezing his lips to the chilled glass, Kenny's friend LJ stealing all Kenny's toy dinosaurs, the countrified new kids at school, and Byron's sliding into friendship with the bad element in town. It is this last episode that prompts the main conflict in the story, as Byron's behavior worsens. Ultimately, he is caught again playing with matches despite having been warned repeatedly against doing just this. At this point, the family decides Byron should live with his Grandma Sands in Alabama for the Summer and if things don't work out he'll stay there for the next school year. It is, however, when the grandmother's church is bombed that the family decides to return home, with Byron, in an attempt to avoid explaining the full implications of what has happened to the children. Kenny, having never encountered racism of this magnitude before, is unable to process what has happened--he ran to the church moments after the bombing took place as he believed his sister to be in the building, and saw the aftermath. Byron does his best to help Kenny understand what has happened, as the parents are reluctant to explain. |
6071436 | /m/0fnmj6 | Fury | C. L. Moore | 2001 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Malik Solanka, a Cambridge-educated millionaire from Bombay, is looking for an escape from himself. At first he escapes from his academic life by immersing himself into a world of miniatures (after becoming enamored with the miniature houses on display at the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam), eventually creating a puppet called "Little Brain" and leaving the academy for television. However, dissatisfaction with the rising popularity of "Little Brain" serves to ignite deeper demons within Solanka's life, resulting in the narrowly avoided murder of his wife and child. To further escape, Solanka travels to New York, hopeful he can lose himself and his demons in America, only to find that he is forced to confront himself. |
6076948 | /m/0fnxtl | Orphans of the Helix | null | null | null | The spinship Helix has not yet reached a suitable destination when it receives a distress signal from a binary star system. Four of the five shipboard AI (apparently formerly of the TechnoCore; in characteristic Simmons fashion, each is patterned after a famous literary figure, in this case, Japanese: Saigyo, Lady Murasaki, Ikkyu, Basho, and Ryōkan) decide that the call is worth investigating, not least because of the further anomaly that the orbital forest around the lesser of the two stars, which the AIs intend to resupply their ship from, is of neither Ouster nor Templar construction, though they may have settled on it. The AIs awaken certain crewmembers, and together they enter the system, where they are greeted by hundreds of thousands of space-adapted Ousters; they importune the Helix to save their civilization from an enormous and ancient harvester spaceship (which gathers food, air, and water), which visits every 57 years, and is so programmatically inflexible that it sees the Ouster and Templar settlements as infestations of the tree-ring, and attempts to cleanse it by eradicating them. Over the centuries, the colony's technological infrastructure has been steadily ground under by its assaults, and many die attacking or being attacked. A brief assay of the harvester's defenses (for the 57 years have elapsed since the last visit, and the harvester has arrived) by one of the Helix armed vessels reveal the ancient device to be minimally defended and weakened by age; easily destroyed. However, the harvester is presumably being used by its creators, and destroying it might be tantamount to condemning that civilization to slow starvation and death. Even despite its misdeeds, the crew of the Helix cannot countenance that possibility, though they saw no inhabitants in the other, red-giant system. Since they cannot get to the system normally before the harvester strikes again, the crew votes to risk the Helix and its hundreds of thousands of stored inhabitants by making a very short Hawking drive jump. The jump succeeds, and they begin scanning the system for life. On an inspiration, they scan inside the red giant star, and discover a truly ancient rocky world which the star had enveloped in its expansion. It is honey-combed, and occupied by a curious oxygen-breathing race, whose primary method of technological communication is via modulated gravity waves (explaining the failure of previous attempts to contact the harvester). Aboard is Ces Ambre, the only survivor of the family which took in Raul Endymion; though she is not an Aenean, she received the Aenean nano-technology; she cannot freecast, but she is capable of empathatic communication with the more than 3 billion "modular... so fibrous" minds in the cinder planet. She successfully explains the harm their harvester has caused. They are devastated to learn of what they had done, and immediately transmit a gravitonic sequence which would reprogram the harvester (they offer further to commit collective suicide to atone for their crimes, but the Spectrum feels that this is not needed), as indeed it does. They also reveal the reason they stubbornly stay in their original planet and constructed the harvester and tree-ring: they like their home, and don't want to leave. Ces Ambre offers a vial of her blood to the tree-ring inhabitants; though she is not philosophically an Aenean and refrains from using her abilities, she feels that the natives should have the choice. The crew return to hibernation, and the AI direct the Helix on its way under Hawking drive. Mysteriously, the Shrike, Dem Loa (Ces Ambre's mother), and "Petyr, son of Aenea and Endymion" appear on the bridge. Petyr briefly communes directly with the AIs, healing Basho's psychological conflicts, and directing them to divert the Helix to a nice, but challenging system. He and Dem Loa then vanish, apparently using the Shrike as a method of locomotion. |
6078671 | /m/0fn_rk | The Bears' Famous Invasion of Sicily | Dino Buzzati | 1945 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | The Bears' Famous Invasion of Sicily is the story of a group of bears living in the mountains on the island of Sicily. One year, a harsh winter descends upon them, eliminating the majority of their food sources. Driven by hunger, the bears descend the mountain to avoid starvation. The bear king, Leander, also has a personal motive for going: years ago, humans kidnapped his son Tony, and he is determined to get him back. Upon being seen, the Grand Duke of Sicily starts a military campaign against the bears. Their valour is no match against the humans' technology, but when the bears proceed against the capital city, the bear Marzipan builds ladders, catapults and a cannon. The bears are victorious. King Leander's son, Tony, is found performing in the capital's theater, and is happily reunited with his father. King Leander now rules over Sicily, with bears and humans peacefully coexisting in the city. However, to King Leander's dislike, his bears lose their innocence and adopt human habits. The situation deteriorates when the King's Chanberlain, bear Salpetre establishes a gambling den, robs the treasury, and organizes orgies. His final grab to take power by killing the king is, however, prevented by bear Dandilion. On his death-bed, King Leander orders his bears to denounce all human ways, and return to into the mountains to their former life. They are to leave the riches behind, to find again peace of mind. |
6079669 | /m/0fp1qt | Himitsu | null | null | null | Heisuke Sugita, a humble 39-year-old man, enjoys the smaller pleasures in life. He is devastated when his wife and daughter are involved in a bus accident. Naoko, his wife, dies and his 11-year-old daughter Monami is badly injured. Monami makes a miraculous recovery—albeit, with one small twist—her personality and memories are that of her mother Naoko's, rather than her own. Both Heisuke and Naoko conclude that her spirit is possessing Monami's body. Unable to explain what has happened, they decide to keep the matter a secret while Monami lives as Naoko from now on. As Monami's possessed body enters adolescence, she takes the opportunity to live her own unfulfilled dreams. Naoko's growing independence begins to cause a rift between her and Heisuke, who struggles to remain a faithful husband and also tries to make sense of the tragedy that caused Naoko's condition by learning more about the bus driver who caused the accident. Heisuke and Naoko have a falling out when he suspects she has become interested in a boy around Monami's own age, but find they cannot resolve their own relationship as Naoko is now biologically Heisuke's daughter. When Monami's consciousness begins resurfacing, Heisuke and Naoko are able to repair their relationship as they ensure that Monami and Naoko, now sharing the same body, will able to function and transition back to the life that Naoko has lived for her. As Monami's consciousness begins to become dominant, Heisuke and Naoko eventually part ways forever and Heisuke is content to raise Monami as his daughter again. Years later, Monami suggests that Naoko's possession was the result of a multiple personality disorder brought on by the accident to help her father cope and gradually went away as her own true personality emerged again. However, on the day that Monami is about to marry, a heartbroken Heisuke suspects that Monami never returned and that Naoko eventually abandoned her identity as Naoko in order for them both to move on in their lives. |
6081759 | /m/0fp5wz | Lunch Money | Andrew Clements | 2005-07 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Greg Kenton is a 6th-grader with considerable talent, but whose greatest talent is as an entrepreneur. His newest business, Chunky Comics, is successful, until long-time rival and business competitor, Maura Shaw, distributes mini books of her own. Eventually, the two come together to form a partnership, and also friendship. The principal, Mrs. Davenport, has some doubts about granting them permission to sell their comics, but eventually consents. Chunky Comics becomes a huge domestic hit, and is eventually distributed nationally on eBay. |
6082776 | /m/0fp7_v | The Summer of the Beautiful White Horse | null | null | null | “The Summer of the Beautiful White Horse” is narrated by nine-year-old Aram Garoghlanian, a member of an Armenian community living among the lush fruit orchards and vineyards of California. One morning Aram is awakened before dawn by his thirteen-year-old cousin Mourad, who is thought to be demented by everyone except Aram, and has a way with animals. Aram is astonished to see that Mourad is sitting on a beautiful white horse. Aram has always wanted to ride a horse, but his family is too poor to afford one. However, the Garoghlanian tribe is noted not only for its poverty but also for its honesty, so it is unthinkable that Mourad would have stolen the horse. So, Aram felt that his cousin couldn't have stolen the horse. Aram was invited to ride on the horse with Mourad. The idea of Mourad stealing the horse drained away from Aram's mind as he felt that it wouldn't become stealing until they offer to sell the horse. They enjoyed their riding on the horse for a long time. Mourad's crazy behavior was considered to be a natural descent from their uncle Khosrove, even though his father, Zorab, was a practical man. Uncle Khosrove was an enormous man who was always furious, impatient, and irritable. He would roar for everyone to stop talking and say It is no harm, pay no attention to it. In fact,one day, when his son came and told them that their house was on fire, Khosrove silenced him by roaring "Enough. It is no harm". After a long day of riding, Mourad wanted to ride alone on the horse. Aram had the same longing, but when he sat on the horse and kicked its muscles it reared and snorted and raced forward, dropping Aram off its back. That afternoon, an Assyrian farmer named John Byro -an Assyrian friend of the Garoghlanians- came to Aram's house. He reported to Aram's mother that his white horse which had been stolen a month ago was still missing. Hearing this, Aram concludes that Mourad must have had the horse for a long time. Khosrove, who was at Aram's house when Byro came, shouted his dialogue "its no harm" to such an extent that Byro was forced to sprint out to avoid responding. Aram ran to Mourad to inform him of Byro's arrival. Aram also pleads to Mourad to not return the horse until he could learn to ride. Mourad disagrees saying that Aram would take at least a year to learn, but promises he would keep it for six months at most. This becomes a routine. Mourad comes daily to pick Aram to ride, and Aram continuously falls off the horse's back after every attempt. Two weeks later, they were going to take the horse back to its hiding place when they met Byro on the road. The farmer is extremely surprised. He recognizes his horse but refuses to believe that the boys had stolen it. He says "the horse is the twin of my horse" and "a suspicious man would believe his eyes instead of his heart". Thus the Garoghlanian's fame of honesty saves them. The following day they return the horse before everyone (except the dogs) is awake. None of the dogs bark, since Mourad has "a way with dogs". Mourad gets extremely sentimental when he parts with the horse. The next day Byro arrives at Aram's house to show the horse to Aram's mother and report that "the horse is stronger and better tempered." The story ends with Khosrove shouting at Byro to "pay no attention to it". |
6083124 | /m/0fp8yl | The Magicians of Caprona | Diana Wynne Jones | 1980 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Caprona is a city-state in the Italy of Chrestomanci's world (World Twelve A), which was never united as a nation-state. The city is said to be losing its "virtue," a process which Chrestomanci blames on the malevolent influence of a mysterious enemy enchanter, making it vulnerable. Florence, Siena, and Pisa aim to capitalize on this weakness by uniting against Caprona in an attempt to conquer it. Chrestomanci has advised each spell-house that Caprona could regain its virtue if the true words to the Angel of Caprona, both a hymn and a powerful spell, could be found. The search is not helped by the deadly (and rather Shakespearean) rivalry between the two spell-houses, each quick to blame the other for the city's misfortunes. The story is told through the eyes of the young Tonino Montana and his brother Paolo. They are both members of Casa Montana, one of two spell-houses in Caprona, the other being Casa Petrocchi. The two spell-houses are deadly rivals; the two families are both convinced that the decline of Caprona is all the fault of the other spell-house, and refuse to work together under any circumstances. Tonino is, unknown to himself or the rest of Casa Montana, a talented enchanter; however, he is unaware of his ability, and prefers to spend his time reading. Paolo is more outgoing and friendly, and does better at school. When representatives of both houses are called to the Duke of Caprona's palace, they both go. Whilst there, they meet members of the Petrocchi family for the first time, and they also encounter the Duchess, a powerful woman who appears to be the true ruler of Caprona. |
6083274 | /m/0fp987 | The Cricket in Times Square | George Selden | 1960 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The story is about a cricket named Chester from Connecticut who gets caught on a commuter train heading for New York and after stumbling on the subway he ends up in Times Square. Mario Bellini, whose parents run a financially struggling newsstand, finds Chester, takes him to the newsstand and wants to keep him as a pet and for good luck. Mama Bellini is concerned that the cricket will give them germs, but Papa Bellini is more easy-going about the cricket's presence. At the newsstand, Chester meets Tucker Mouse and Harry Cat, who spend their time scrounging the city for food and other thrown away items. They show him Times Square, which Chester finds overwhelming. During the story, Chester reveals his musical chirping talent. Mario takes Chester to Chinatown (via the 1 train), where he buys Chester a cricket cage from the Chinatown shop owner Sai Fong. At one point, Chester accidentally eats a two dollar bill from the newsstand cashier. Mama Bellini wants Chester to go, but Tucker gives part of his coin collection that he's collected from scrounging to save Chester and replace the money. Later on, more seriously, during a party that Chester, Harry and Tucker are having, they accidentally set fire to the newsstand. The fire is put out, but Mama Bellini is extremely angry, accuses Chester of being an arsonist, and demands that Mario get rid of Chester, much to his dismay. However, at the right moment, Chester chirps Mama Bellini's favorite song, which she sings along to and which leads her to change her mind. It becomes clear that Chester has a perfect memory for music, as he chirps opera selections, which surprises Papa Bellini. Later, Chester chirps classical music pieces and hymns for a music teacher, Mr. Smedley, the Bellini's best newsstand customer, who is impressed and writes a letter to the New York Times about it. This is printed in the newspaper, and brings attention to the newsstand when Chester starts playing concerts there. This causes the fortunes of the newsstand to turn around, and the Bellinis start selling their newspapers and magazines very well to the new crowds. Mario senses that Chester has become unhappy, and says out loud that he wishes Chester hadn't come to the newsstand if he wasn't going to be happy. This makes Chester decide that he wants to return to the countryside. He tells Tucker and Harry this, and Tucker tries to convince Chester to stay. However, Harry says that Chester should do what he wants with his life and stop the concerts if he isn't happy. With the advent of fall, Chester decides to go home to Connecticut. He gives a final concert that causes Times Square and blocks of New York City to fall still, with everyone stopping to listen to the music. Mario plays one last time with Chester at the newsstand after that last concert, and falls asleep after a while. Later that same night, after Chester gives a farewell chirp to Mario, Harry and Tucker take Chester to Grand Central Terminal so that Chester can hop on to a train. At Grand Central, they all say good-bye. Later, when Mario wakes up as his parents have returned, he realizes later that Chester has gone home, but accepts this by saying: "And I'm glad." The story ends with Tucker telling Harry that maybe they'll visit the country one day, "in Connecticut". |
6087491 | /m/0fpjx0 | The Second Confession | Rex Stout | null | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/028v3": "Detective fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | A wealthy industrialist, James U. Sperling, asks Wolfe to obtain evidence that his daughter's suitor, Louis Rony, is a Communist. Wolfe will neither investigate marital disputes nor collect evidence for divorce cases, but Sperling's request is apparently acceptable. Wolfe recasts the job as finding any information that will cause daughter Gwenn to break it off with Rony, and Sperling agrees. Wolfe begins the investigation by sending Archie to spend a weekend at Sperling's country estate near Mount Kisco. Rony, and two of Sperling's business associates, are also present as guests. Archie is undercover, as "Andy Goodwin," to avoid alerting the family – and Rony – that a private detective is in their midst. But daughter Madeline has harbored a crush on Archie for years, having seen his picture and a story about him in the Gazette almost ten years earlier. She knows he's not Andy, but she implies that she'll keep it to herself. At the Sperlings' swimming pool, Archie notices Rony repeatedly check the contents of a wallet attached to his swimming trunks, and wonders what he's hiding. He prepares a strong sedative for Rony and plans to dope his cocktail with it; later, with Rony drugged, Archie can search Rony's room for whatever was hidden in that wallet. Archie dopes his own drink and surreptitiously exchanges it for Rony's. A few minutes later Archie discovers that Rony has emptied his glass – the one with the dope – into an ice bucket. Bemused, Archie goes to his room. Preparing for bed, he can't stop yawning and just before passing out he realizes that he's been drugged himself. The next day he suffers the drug's aftereffects, but manages to work it out that someone had drugged Rony's drink before Archie exchanged their glasses. Rony was apparently anticipating something of the sort when he dumped his drink. Archie plans to return to Manhattan that night and offers to give Rony a lift. When Rony accepts the offer, Archie lays a trap. On the road that night, they are waylaid by Wolfe operatives Saul Panzer and Ruth Brady. They pretend to knock Archie out and actually do knock Rony out. While Rony's unconscious, Archie searches him and finds a membership card for the American Communist party. The card bears no photo and apparently belongs to someone named William Reynolds. Archie takes photographs of the card, puts the camera back in the car trunk and pretends to regain consciousness along with Rony. When Archie arrives at the brownstone Wolfe informs him that he has had a phone call from Arnold Zeck. Zeck, a crime boss introduced in And Be a Villain, has warned Wolfe to drop his investigation of Rony or suffer consequences. Just as Wolfe tells Archie of the phone call, Zeck's men open fire with machine guns from across the street, destroying the plant rooms' windows and most of the orchids. With replacement materials purchased and repairs underway, Wolfe and Archie decamp for the Sperling estate. Meeting with the Sperling family, Wolfe discloses the reason that Sperling hired him. He describes Zeck's operations, the warning Zeck gave him, and what Zeck then did to his orchids, impressing on Gwenn the connection between Zeck and Rony. Gwenn leaves the family meeting, announcing that she will take a few hours to decide what to do about Rony. Later, Madeline asks Archie for help – she can't find Gwenn. As they search the grounds for her, Archie finds a body that he recognizes as Rony's. It has been run over by a car, and it's just a few feet away from the estate's long driveway. Then Madeline and Archie find Gwenn outside waiting for Rony. She had decided to break it off with him, and had phoned earlier to ask him to come to the house: Gwenn didn't want to give Rony the news on the phone or in a letter. Archie reports to Wolfe, and the police are notified. Lieutenant Con Noonan, Archie's bête noire in Westchester, has a moment of triumph when it is determined that it was Wolfe's car that ran Rony over. But then one of Sperling's houseguests and business associates, Webster Kane, confesses – he borrowed Wolfe's car to run an errand in Mount Kisco and accidentally hit and ran over Rony in the driveway. Kane lost his head, re-parked the car, and pretended to know nothing of the accident. Wolfe doesn’t buy it, but the District Attorney does, and Wolfe returns with Archie to the brownstone. Wolfe isn't through: he still has the photograph of the Communist party membership card to use as a screw. Wolfe does use it, in combination with detailed information about the Party's internal meetings, to force the Communists to help him expose Rony's murderer. |
6088381 | /m/0fpkyn | Back to Life | Wendy Coakley-Thompson | null | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Lisa is facing 30, is three months away from ending her acrimonious divorce from Bryan, and is constantly rebuffing her child psychologist/writer mother, who questions her daughter’s life decisions. Marc, in between plugging his successful novel Goombah, is a star professor at the State College of New Jersey, which is poised to become a university. Nina and Tim Simon, a mixed couple and mutual friends, attempt to bring Lisa and Marc together at a party in Montclair, New Jersey on the very night that an Italian mob in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn murders Yusuf Hawkins, a Black teen. Nina and Tim have their matchmaking work cut out for them. Lisa and Bryan constantly wrangle over community property. Lisa, by some registration fluke, winds up in Marc’s class. A.J., Lisa’s militant friend, drives Lisa incessantly to prove her Blackness. Marc receives word that Michele, his ex-wife, is about to remarry, forcing him to re-evaluate his feelings for her. Demonstrations and hate crimes plague the campus and stress the college’s chancellor, who is fixated on seeing the college become a university. All these activities are interwoven with the charged political context of the New York City mayoral race, which ends in Democratic Party (United States) candidate David Dinkins beating Republican Party (United States) candidate Rudy Giuliani to become the city’s first Black mayor. When Lisa and Marc finally do become a couple, interpersonal conflicts, along with racist and prejudiced family and friends, an ambitious college chancellor, Michele, and a showdown at Lisa’s job threaten the union. Lisa, stressed, crashes her car on her way home and lapses into a coma. A bedside vigil ensues. Bryan agrees to the terms of the divorce. Marc decides to take a fellowship in San Diego. Lisa’s mother rushes to her. Lisa regains consciousness. She and her mother come to an understanding. On his way out of town, Marc visits Lisa, and they negotiate their way to love. On the way to San Diego, they marry in Las Vegas. Lisa is on the balcony overlooking La Jolla Cove at sunset. Marc returns home, and Lisa informs him that the EPT stick has turned blue... |
6088829 | /m/0fpljh | What You Won't Do For Love | Wendy Coakley-Thompson | 2005 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | A failed engagement and an instructional design doctoral degree from Syracuse University lead Chaney Braxton, 36, the youngest of three sisters of West Indian descent, raised in Brooklyn, NY, to the Washington D.C. area in early 2002. She is one-fourth partner in Autodidact, Inc., an 8A government contracting firm that specializes in developing paper-, computer-, and web-based training for government agencies. Devin Rhym, 28, half-black half-Korean veterinarian, has come home from exile in Seattle, where his mother moved after leaving his father, K.L. Rhym, 70, retired JAG Corps Marine. Devin and Chaney meet when Daisy, Chaney’s flaky middle sister, asks Chaney to take care of Tony, Daisy’s massive yellow Labrador Retriever. Daisy has left her home in Los Angeles and run off to join her latest lover, a musician in the band of a black deadlocked rock star. Chaney likes Devin, but doesn’t see her lot in life taking on a “tadpole” – code for the younger lover of an older woman. Randy Tyree, 46, ex-Navy lieutenant, is more her style. He is a bright spot in her sojourn through the seamy world of Government contracts. Devin is also has issues. Despite the fact that he is living a charmed life, with his own veterinary practice, a Georgetown, Washington, D.C. townhouse, and a Lincoln Navigator, he is dealing with his aging and increasingly hostile father, with distant relationships with his two older half-brothers, Chauncey and Eric, and with his lack of suitable companionship. His life takes another blow when another competing practice moves into town at the same time his father’s health begins to deteriorate. Devin and Chaney become a couple just as life around them is unraveling. Devin’s business is suffering. Because of a spurned Randy’s overtures, Chaney is ousted from her partnership at Autodidact. Her relationship with her older sister Anna Lisa fabulously implodes. Belatedly, he discovers that she is expecting Devin’s baby at a time when marriage has not even been discussed and she has no gainful employment. Moreover, as Devin and Chaney are at a crossroads, a sniper lays waste to the Washington D.C. area. Just as the sniper’s reign ends with lives in Chaney and Devin’s orbit mercifully intact, K.L. succumbs to Alzheimer’s disease and dies. In a tense context, Devin and Chaney find each other and solutions to life’s complexities that seem to work for them. Devin realizes that, though he could not come home again to the same life he left, there is a more fabulous life waiting, if he can be patient. Chaney comes to see that a painful past maybe the ticket to a wonderful future, if one believes. Through death and war, Devin and Chaney nourish themselves and each other with their love and that of their family. |
6089118 | /m/0fplw4 | And Be a Villain | Rex Stout | null | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/028v3": "Detective fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | Madeline Fraser is a radio talk show host in the style of 1940s talk show hosts: not a buffoon who rants and blusters, but a sophisticated, trained broadcaster who knows how to connect with an audience of eight million listeners. Her show gets unexpected and unwanted publicity when one of her guests is poisoned in the middle of a broadcast. But what the press finds really juicy is that the poison was administered in her principal sponsor's soft drink. That particular show featured two guests: Cyril Orchard, who published a weekly horse race tip sheet called Track Almanac, and F. O. Savarese, an assistant professor of mathematics at Columbia. Orchard was there to talk with Miss Fraser and her sidekick, Bill Meadows, about betting on horse races. Savarese was invited to talk about the probabilities of winning those bets. One of the regular commercial features on the show is the ritual of drinking Hi-Spot, a soft drink. It's an event, starting with the sound of Meadows pushing back his chair and walking to the refrigerator to get the bottles, and continuing with opening the bottles and pouring Hi-Spot into glasses. Everyone at the broadcast table – Fraser, Meadows, Orchard and Savarese – gets a glass and marvels for the microphone at the taste of Hi-Spot, The Drink You Dream Of. But Mr. Orchard has no sooner taken a swallow from his glass than, in Archie's words, he "makes terrible noises right into the microphone, and keels over, and pretty soon he's dead, and he got the poison right there on the broadcast, in the product of one of your sponsors." Faced with being cleaned out financially by the necessity of paying his income taxes, Wolfe sends Archie on a sales call. Archie meets with some of the program's principals: Miss Fraser, Mr. Meadows, Deborah Koppel (Fraser's business manager), and Tully Strong (secretary of the show's Sponsors' Council). Archie points out that the best way to turn the negative publicity positive is to hire Nero Wolfe to investigate. Because he needs the money, Wolfe offers to take the case on a contingent basis: expenses only, with a fee payable if Wolfe gets both the murderer and credible evidence. Fraser and the several sponsors like the idea, and they hire Wolfe on that basis. The police have focused their investigation on eight people who had the best opportunity during the broadcast to get the poison into Orchard: Fraser, Meadows, Koppel, Strong, Savarese, Nathan Straub (a member of an advertising agency that represents three of the Fraser sponsors), Elinor Vance (a script writer for the show) and Nancylee Shepherd. Miss Shepherd is a teenager who idolizes Miss Fraser and has organized a successful Fraser fan club – she is allowed to take part in the show by taking care of minor tasks such as carrying glasses to the table. Wolfe concentrates on those eight, and calls a meeting at his office, attended by all but Savarese and Miss Shepherd. Wolfe learns that the idea of doing a show on horse race betting had been under consideration for some time, that the question had finally been put to the audience as a survey, and the response had been enthusiastic and positive. One of the listeners who responded was Savarese, who asked for an invitation to participate as a second guest and to act as an expert on what Tully Strong calls the law of averages. Subsequently, Savarese shows up for an interview with Wolfe, but Wolfe does not yet have anything specific to pursue: he is, as he puts it, "… wandering around, poking at things." One of the things that Wolfe is poking at is Michigan. The poison in Orchard's glass was cyanide, and Miss Fraser's husband (who was Deborah Koppel's brother; Fraser and Koppel are sisters-in-law) committed suicide in Michigan some years before by taking cyanide. Wolfe hasn't yet spoken with Miss Shepherd, and Lon Cohen helps out by informing Archie that she is in hiding with her mother in Atlantic City. Wolfe sends Saul to get them, but for once Saul is flummoxed: he takes a good approach, but Mrs. Shepherd is too wary for him. Wolfe then sends Archie to bring the Shepherds. Mindful that even Saul stubbed his toe on this errand, Archie makes elaborate preparations. He composes a telegram, purporting to be from Mr. Shepherd, to tell Mrs. Shepherd and Nancylee to come immediately to Nero Wolfe's house. Then Archie takes a train to Atlantic City, arriving the next morning, at about the time that Saul is sending them the telegram. The trick works: Archie follows Mrs. Shepherd and Nancylee to the brownstone, where they choose to submit to Wolfe's questioning. At first Wolfe lulls Nancylee with innocuous questions, but then he slowly approaches the topic of how the broadcasts are managed, particularly the Hi-Spot bottles and glasses. He finally catches the girl in a discrepancy: Elinor Vance has said that she puts eight bottles of Hi-Spot in the studio refrigerator to cool off for the broadcast, but Nancylee says it's seven. Wolfe pounces on the discrepancy. Nancylee resists, but Wolfe forces her hand by threatening to convince the police to arrest Miss Fraser. Nancylee gives Wolfe what he's after: Elinor Vance has lied about how the Hi-Spot bottles are managed. Miss Vance always brings an extra bottle to the studio, and it always has a length of transparent tape encircling its neck. Sending Nancylee and her mother back to Atlantic City, Wolfe gathers the main suspects and confronts them with the information he wrung from Nancylee. At first they try to humbug him, claiming that Miss Fraser prefers her Hi-Spot much colder than most people, and the tape is on the bottle to show which one goes to Miss Fraser. After Wolfe shows them the holes in that story, he gets the confession: the awful truth is that despite all the Hi-Spot hoopla on every show, the soft drink gives Miss Fraser indigestion. The tape is on the bottle to identify it as containing iced coffee, not Hi-Spot, so that Miss Fraser is able to pretend to drink the beverage in view of the studio audience. It complicates matters that the poison was in the bottle with the tape – so the intended victim wasn't Mr. Orchard at all, but Miss Fraser. Now Wolfe sees a way to earn his fee without doing any further work. He tells Inspector Cramer that he has a fact, unknown to the police, without which they will be unable to solve the murder. Wolfe's proposal to Cramer: Cramer can have the fact if, when he subsequently exposes the murderer, he will also tell Wolfe's client that the case would not have been solved without the information that Wolfe provided. That, Wolfe concludes, will satisfy his client that Wolfe has earned his fee. Cramer agrees, Wolfe tells him why the tape was on the bottle – because of Miss Fraser's indigestion – and Cramer immediately phones Lieutenant Rowcliff to have Homicide shift gears: "We've got to start all over. It's one of those goddam babies where the wrong person got killed." But it's not just the police that Wolfe has stirred up. For it to be generally known that Hi-Spot gives its main pitchman indigestion would dwarf the bad press from the murder itself. Tully Strong is furious that Wolfe disclosed the secret to the police. Traub, from the advertising agency, is upset because Bill Meadows says that Traub served Orchard the poisoned bottle. Savarese, who is trying to use mathematics to solve the murder, is annoyed because the police have set their questions on a new tack, and that's a variable that he can't account for. Archie cools his heels for a week while Wolfe waits in vain for the police to identify the murderer with the clue he's given them. At last Archie gets so impatient that he enlists Lon Cohen's help in getting the Gazette to run a stinging editorial that criticizes Wolfe's lack of progress after the fanfare that followed his hiring. The editorial moves Wolfe to ask Cramer about another recent murder: that of Beula Poole, the publisher of What to Expect, a weekly forecast of political and economic affairs. Both Wolfe and Cramer think it no coincidence that two publishers of overpriced newsletters are murdered within a couple of weeks of one another. Cramer has looked into the Poole murder as well as Orchard's, and was unable to find a subscriber list in either victim's office. Wolfe advertises for information about subscribers to either publication, and gets two nibbles. One leads him to a successful Park Avenue doctor, W. T. Michaels. Wolfe learns from Michaels that some of his patients received poison pen letters, implying unethical behavior by Michaels. Shortly after hearing of the letters, Michaels got a phone call telling him that the letters would stop if he subscribed to What to Expect for one year, at $10 per week. The caller stressed that the letters would then stop, and that there would be no requests for subscription renewals. The second nibble is from Arnold Zeck, the shadowy head of a crime syndicate. In the past, Wolfe has made inquiries about Zeck and learned that he is resourceful and dangerous. Now Zeck has seen Wolfe's advertisement concerning Track Almanac and What to Expect, and warns him that he should drop the matter. Wolfe lets Zeck know that he will pursue the matter as far as necessary to complete the job he was hired for. The phone conversation ends, abruptly. Wolfe assembles the known facts: that Zeck is behind a wholesale blackmailing enterprise. People are threatened by anonymous letters making false claims about them. They are then told that the letters will stop if they subscribe to a publication at a relatively high, but bearable, cost. They are also promised that the extortion will end after one year. Wolfe's inference is that one of the subscribers decided to stop the extortion by killing Orchard and Poole. Wolfe calls Inspector Cramer to his office to give him this new information, only to find that Cramer learned about the blackmail connection a couple of days earlier. Cramer has since then had his men trying to track down anonymous letters about the Orchard suspects, but they have found nothing. Archie tosses Lon the information about the blackmail and the subscriptions. The Gazette prints it, and that brings Hi-Spot's president to the brownstone. He is appalled that the case is no longer about murder – something "sensational and exciting" – but about blackmail – something dirty and disgusting. He gives Wolfe a check for the full amount of his fee and fires him. He also states that he's canceled his sponsorship of the Fraser radio program. Wolfe once again sends Archie to call on the Fraser coterie, and he finds them discussing which company will replace Hi-Spot – they've had sixteen offers, one from a company that makes a candy called Meltettes. While Archie is waiting to be heard, Deborah Koppel tries a sample bite of a Meltette. She spits it out, convulses, and dies of cyanide poisoning. Suddenly the police are all over the Fraser apartment, and all those present are to be subjected to a strip-search. Archie declines – he has a bogus anonymous letter in his pocket – and is taken into custody. When he finds the letter on Archie, Sgt. Purley Stebbins gets so mad that he, not Lt. Rowcliff, starts stuttering. It looks as though Archie is going to have a charge of obstruction of justice hung on him until the police get a call from a radio station. Nero Wolfe has phoned the station to announce that he has solved all three murder cases and is ready to furnish the murderer's identity to the District Attorney. The radio station wants to know if the police have any comment. They don't. They release Archie from custody and appear at Wolfe's brownstone, along with the surviving staff and sponsors. In a wrapup that's extraordinary even by Wolfe's standards, Wolfe forces admission after admission from those present, and concludes by exposing the murderer. A coda describes a phone call of congratulations from Zeck, one that foreshadows his next two appearances in the series. |
6091305 | /m/0fpp9r | ATLA - A Story of the Lost Island | Anne Eliza Smith | null | {"/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | The people of Atlantis are accidentally discovered by the Phoenicians by a chance shipwreck somewhere in Atlantic Ocean. One Tyrian survivor is found and rescued by a people known as the Tsinim who come from the West. The Phoenicians become interested in this new civilization because they possess a secret of sailing without using the heavenly bodies as guides. A foreign infant is found upon a shipwreck near the shores of the Atlantean empire. The baby girl is adopted by the King and he names her Atla. The child's complexion is fair and white which is uncommon among the populace of dark colored inhabitants. Atla is raised alongside the King's real daughter who is called Astera. As the girls grow up to maturity, the inhabitants of Atlan are visited by foreigners from the East. The fleet of Phoenician ships comes to the shores of Atlantis only after mastering the new art of sailing without guiding stars. The leader of the fleet is Herekla, son of King Melek of the Phoenician empire. Herekla was the inventor of the compass which enabled them to reach the island in the west. The Phoenicians were not the first to discover the secret of the compass. The people of the Tsinim learned the secret first and they were in fact the Atlanteans of the west. es:Atla |
6091723 | /m/0fppw0 | The Fallen | Thomas E. Sniegoski | null | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | Aaron Corbett learns on his 18th birthday that he is a Nephilim, the child of a human/angel pairing, and that he is being pursued by a group of angels called the Powers. The Powers believe that all Nephilim are an abomination and affront to God. However, there is a prophecy that a Nephilim will be born that will redeem all the Fallen. * The Fallen (Pocket Books, 2003) The story starts out with introducing us to our main character, Aaron Corbet. Aaron's not such a bad kid, though he was orphaned since birth and shoved from foster home to foster home, and had some anger issues to get over and under control. He was finally adopted by Tom and Lori Stanley, and tried very hard to be a good son and a big brother to their autistic son Stevie. Aaron meets Vilma Santiago, a beautiful girl at his high school to whom he is immediately attracted. It seems like things are finally working out for Aaron; he has everything that he has ever wanted, so he thinks. On his 18th birthday, everything changes. He starts having nightmarish dreams and visions, has trouble concentrating, experiences bad headaches, starts hearing voices in his head and feels painful changes occurring inside his body. Other weird things start happening, too. Suddenly, he has the "gift of tongues" and can speak and understand languages he had never known; he can even understand his dog Gabriel talking to him. Surely Aaron is losing his mind. He reacts to this transformation with confusion; just when his world seemed normal, it now begins to unravel before his eyes. A chance encounter with what Aaron thinks is a homeless bum turns out to be a fallen angel by the name of Ezekiel ("Zeke"). It was Zeke who sensed Aaron's true nature and told him what he really was: A Nephilim, the offspring of an angel and a mortal woman. Zeke warns Aaron that the Powers will hunt him down and kill him, that he must learn how to use his divine gifts and flee immediately. Aaron, of course, thinks the guy is nuts. Nevertheless, Aaron goes to his local library and looks up information on Nephilim. He begins to wonder if it could be true. Another angel, Camael, appears at his high school and tells him that his is the chosen one that the angels have been waiting for: The one spoken of in the Prophecy. Camael tells Aaron that he has come to protect him from the Powers and help him fulfill his destiny. We are introduced to the Powers and their leader Verchiel, a cruel, relentless angel who feels it is his sacred mission in the name of the most Holy to eradicate the Fallen and their offspring from the face of the earth. He especially wants to eliminate the Nephilim spoken of in the Prophecy who is supposed to redeem the Fallen, forgive them of their sins against the Creator and send them back home to Heaven. In this book, Aaron meets Verchiel for the first time. Zeke and Camael come to the rescue, but not before Verchiel kills Aaron's adoptive parents and takes his brother Stevie captive. Enraged, Aaron's angelic nature takes over and he battles with Verchiel. * Leviathan (Pocket Books, 2003) The Fallen saga continues. This story opens with a fallen angel praying to the Divine and listening to others who are also praying. He is seized by the Powers and offers no resistance. Verchiel torments this prisoner with utter relish. Aaron is now on the run with Camael and his dog Gabriel. Together they are searching for Stevie and trying to elude capture by the Powers. Along the way, Camael tries to help Aaron merge with his angelic self. The trio are lured to a seemingly peaceful town which has been seduced by a malevolent ancient creature known as Leviathan. Camael is drawn into Leviathan's web and is captured. Aaron's angel instincts feels something isn't right, but he can't quite put his finger on it. Gabriel also senses something is wrong. He searches the town for Camael. Back in Aaron's old town of Lynn, Vilma is going through similar changes that Aaron went through: She, too, is Nephilim. Verchiel, meanwhile, uses angel magic and transforms Stevie into Malak, a deadly hunter of false prophets and the Fallen. He intends to use his new creation to find Aaron and, if possible, kill him. What a sweet irony for Verchiel: To see Aaron killed by his own brother. Aaron finds Leviathan in an underground cave where he sees Camael, Gabriel and other magical creatures hanging in translucent sacks beneath the belly of the beast. He is seduced by the beast, but his angelic nature surfaces and rebels against the seduction; Aaron breaks free and saves those whom the beast feeds upon. The Archangel Gabriel, one of the angels Aaron frees from Leviathan, tells him, "You have done much to expunge the sins of the father and to fulfill the edicts of prophecy... You are your father's son... You have his eyes..." * Aerie (Pocket Books, 2003) Our story picks up with Aaron, Camael and Gabriel still searching for Stevie. Aaron is still no closer to discovering the identity of the angel who sired him. By pure accident, they stumble upon folks who are from Aerie, a place where the Fallen and Nephilim live together to avoid the Powers. Verchiel is still in hot pursuit of Aaron and sends his magical warrior Malak to hunt for Aaron's scent. Malak wears armor impervious to angel fire, and possesses the keen ability to pick up the scent or trail of the Fallen and Nephilim; he mercilessly kills them. He is determined to prove his worth and find the chosen one for his master Verchiel. Aaron must prove to the citizens of Aerie that he is indeed the chosen one, a hard enough task when he is unsure himself. An ancient, wise, and gentle fallen angel named Belphegor helps Aaron to fully unite his human and angelic natures. While in the process of becoming whole, Aaron hears Vilma's pleas for help and instinctively goes to her rescue, not realizing that it could be a trap. Despite overwhelming odds, he battles Verchiel and the Powers to save Vilma. Aaron meets Malak and realizes that it is his little brother Stevie who has been changed somehow; however, he cannot bring himself to kill his own brother. Aaron rescues Vilma and takes her back to Aerie, but the battle follows him and he loses many friends and loved ones. Verchiel learns from Belphegor who Aaron was sired by; during the battle, he taunts Aaron with jibes about his father. Enraged, Aaron demands that Verchiel reveal his father's identity. Aaron learns who his father is from his friends at Aerie, and is stunned by the news. * Reckoning (Pocket Books, 2004) In the conclusion of The Fallen series, Verchiel is rapidly deteriorating, and he becomes more demented and full of rage. He tries to undo the "word of God" and, with the help of the Archons and magical shackles, he has his prisoner, Lucifer Morningstar, strung up and he orders the Archons to disembowel Lucifer. With magicks and sacred runes, the Archons attempt to unleash the sins of the father upon the world, all the fury, hatred, rage and sorrow which is buried deep within the center of Lucifer's being by the Creator. Aaron is now struggling with the knowledge of his true parentage: That Lucifer, the greatest sinner and first of the Fallen, is his sire. Aaron has accepted his destiny as the Redeemer chosen by God to be able to forgive the Fallen for their sins and send them back home to Heaven. He also becomes more comfortable and familiar with his angelic powers; with the demise of Belphegor, he is now the protector of the citizens of Aerie. They know he is the son of Morningstar, and are aware of how powerful his angelic nature is, yet given the circumstances of his parentage, some of the citizens are torn and do not know if they can trust him. Aaron must win their trust and fight to save them and mankind from Verchiel's madness. Vilma, the woman Aaron loves, is not able to cope with her angelic transformation, and Aaron must find a way to help merge both her human and angelic natures. To do this, Aaron must find the last of the angel sorcerers known as the Malakim to help save her or else face the unthinkable decision to put her down like a rabid animal. Verchiel is eventually successful in releasing Hell from Lucifer's body while Lucifer himself, repentant of his crimes, struggles in vain to hold the essence back, although it costs the mad angel the lives of his magicians and the remainder of his soldiers. Aaron faces Verchiel down in a titanic battle in the gym of St. Athanasius. Verchiel's formerly blind healer Kraus decides to help Lucifer reclaim Hell and, in the end, Verchiel is taken up to Heaven to face God's judgement. Aaron is unable to redeem his father and Lucifer decides to live in Aerie alone. Fallen first aired in 2006 and 2007, and released for re-sale in 2010. The movie is based on The Fallen novels, but doesn't follow the same sequence of characters and events as outlined in the novels. Actors in the mini-series are as follows; * Paul Wesley as Aaron Corbet * Rick Worthy as the former Powers Leader Camael * Hal Ozsan as the fierce Fallen angel Azazel * Will Yun Lee as the Powers leader Mazarin * Fernanda Andrade as Vilma Santiago * Bryan Cranston as Lucifer MorningStar The DVD contains the following sequels; * The Time of the Redeemer * Mysterious Ways, and All That * Someone Always has to Die * Il Gran Rifiuto (aka, the Grand Refusal) |
6093314 | /m/0fpskj | The 25th Hour | David Benioff | 1/30/2001 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | New York drug dealer Monty Brogan is arrested for drug possession and sentenced to seven years in prison. He spends his last night of freedom partying with his friends, contemplating his uncertain future and the decisions he made that brought him to this point. |
6098647 | /m/0fq134 | Secret Servant: The Moneypenny Diaries | Samantha Weinberg | 11/2/2006 | {"/m/06wkf": "Spy fiction"} | From saving spies to private passions, this book covers the secret adventures of James Bond's right-hand woman. Jane Moneypenny may project a cool, calm and collected image but her secret diaries reveal a rather different story. In the grip of an uncertain love affair and haunted by a dark family secret, the last thing she needs is a crisis at work. But the Secret Intelligence Service is in chaos. One senior officer is on trial for treason, another has defected to Moscow and her beloved James Bond has been brainwashed by the KGB. Only a woman's touch can save them. Moneypenny soon finds herself embroiled in a highly-charged adventure infused with the glamour of the Cold War espionage game. Alone on a dangerous Russian mission she turns, with breathless intimacy, to writing a truly explosive private diary. |
6101125 | /m/0fq4zy | The Kobayashi Maru | Julia Ecklar | 11/1/1989 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | When communications with the Venkatsen Research Group were lost, the U.S.S. Enterprise was sent to investigate. In a system with 47 planets, the transporter is not usable, so Kirk and crew take a shuttle to Hohweyn VII. En route, a gravitic mine damages the shuttle. Communications and navigation are not responsive, and Kirk and Sulu are injured in the blast. McCoy, in an attempt to pass time, convinces Kirk to tell his story about the "unwinnable scenario". The training scenario itself involves a crippled fuel freighter in the Neutral Zone between the Federation and Klingon space. The starship receives a garbled distress call, which, if responded to, results in an attack by three Klingon cruisers. The opening volley causes heavy damage to the ship, and, despite any actions on the part of the cadet, the ship is destroyed. The purpose of the no-win outcome is to test the cadets' response to losing. Kirk proceeds to tell how he reprogrammed the simulation so that the Klingon commanders recognize his name and assists Kirk in saving the freighter. Chekov tells his story about the Kobayashi Maru and a secondary training exercise on an empty space station. Chekov completed the scenario by evacuating his crew and physically ramming the ship into the Klingon attackers. In the second exercise, Chekov commits group "suicide" by "killing" the others who had captured him. The secondary exercise involves pitting all the cadets against each other to see who lasts a pre-determined time period. Chekov creates a different plan. He learns that when Kirk went through the same scenario he organized the cadets in such a way there was no need to fight each other. Sulu tells his story about his great-grandfather Tetsuo, and about going to Command School for the first time. The first exercise is a type of Model U.N., where Sulu is a tech level 3 planet, Menak III, and trying to gain entrance into the Federation. When Sulu finds out Tetsuo is discontinuing treatments for a life-ending illness, he refuses to speak to him. Sulu finds out about Tetsuo's death after returning from a field exercise. When he finally takes the Kobayashi Maru test, he decides that the freighter's distress call is probably a trap and chooses not to help it. Scotty tells about his early years at Command School, and how his love of engineering made it difficult for him to pay attention to non-engineering subjects. Upon taking the scenario, Scotty used engineering solutions to destroy ever increasing waves of Klingon cruisers. Review of his performance shows that he used the Perera Field Theory to destroy the final wave, which was proven to be mathematically possible (thus acceptable to the computer), but physically impossible (as proven by Scotty). The resulting decision had Scotty moved out of Command School and sent to study engineering. The shuttle is rescued by the Enterprise after a plan to turn the shuttle into an electromagnetic black hole works. This lets the Enterprise know where to find them. |
6101339 | /m/0fq57_ | The Gift | Danielle Steel | 1994-07 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/01qxvh": "Romance novel", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The setting of the novel was in the 1950's.Maribeth Robertson got pregnant accidentally in a senior's prom by a senior star athlete who is getting married after High School graduation.Her father disapproves of what happened.He sends her away from home and into the convent.She was asked to comeback after she delivers the baby and gives it up for adoption.Finding her life lonely inside with the nuns,Maribeth moves outside the convent and goes to Chicago where a new life of faith,hope and romance awaits her. |
6103625 | /m/0fq8m2 | Winkie | Clifford Chase | null | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Winkie is the story of a teddy bear of the same name who was accused and imprisoned for over nine thousand charges including terrorism, sodomy, witchcraft, treason and others. Winkie is a teddy bear miraculously given life and freedom of movement and speech. In the novel, Winkie's gender transforms, from being a 'she' to a 'he,' as he is passed on to different children. He is first called Marie in the hands of Ruth, his first owner. By then Marie was just a toy, albeit already having consciousness and feelings. Marie is then passed on to Ruth's five children. In the ownership of Clifford Chase, the youngest of Ruth's children and named after the author, Marie is then changed into a boy. He was called Winkie from then on. However, when Cliff, like the owners of Winkie before him, abandons and ignores Winkie as Cliff began to grow up, Winkie feels betrayed. He felt altogether alone, for he knew that there will be no one left to 'hug' him any more. He was left sitting on the shelf above Cliff's dresser for years when finally, he was given by some mysterious and unexplainable force the gift of life. Winkie then decides to go out into the world, to get away from the humans that betrayed him. He shatters the bedroom window with a book, and climbing out onto the tree outside, Winkie was able to fulfill the first of his three wishes: freedom. He continued on fulfilling the other two, for he thought of nothing else to do. Noticing some brown pods underneath a tree, Winkie goes to eat them, fulfilling his second wish. After eating, he then proceeded to defacate, "doo-doo" as he calls it - his third wish. Winkie then goes to the other lawns of the neighborhood, making his "special mark." On his twenty-fifth lawn, Winkie met an old woman. Here he was torn between accepting the sweet croons of the woman and turning his back on her. Anger boiling inside him, he chose the latter, scaring the woman away as he yelp "Heenh! Heenh! Heenh!" He then decided to go to the forest, trying to distract himself and forget the encounter with the old woman. After two days of walking and crawling, he arrives. Here he eats more berries. He ended sleeping on a rock, only to be waken up by an excruciating pain in his stomach. Rolling over and over, Winkie felt that his seams would burst open, only to find that the pain was only intensifying. At its peak, however, it disappeared. Thinking that the stomachache was brought by the berries he ate last night, he turned to look at the terrible mess he had made, only to find that, instead of "doo-doo," there was a baby Winkie. For months, father-mother and daughter lived peacefully in the forest, eating off berries and sometimes from garbage cans nearby. Then one day, Baby Winkie is kidnapped by a mad English professor living in the woods. The professor was a terrorist, making bombs then mailing it to other terrorists. He kidnapped Baby Winkie for he fell in love with her innocence and purity, only to be disappointed to find that she speaks his language of books. For months Winkie was distraught, laying down on the ground until vines began to crawl around him. And then, one evening, he heard a hum which he was sure came from Baby Winkie. He ran after the sound, only to find her, glowing and shining brightly, in the hut where the professor lives. Baby Winkie then disappeared, leaving Winkie alone and depressed. He resolved to live in the hut, acknowledging that his daughter is forever gone yet still hoping that she will return. He disposed off the dead professor, who died before Baby Winkie disappeared. In the days after her disappearance, Baby Winkie appeared before Winkie in a dream. "Think back," she said, and then was gone again. After three days, however, Winkie is arrested by the police. In the months following this apparition and his imprisonment, Winkie tried to remember everything, from his life with Ruth until his hearings in court, where he was able to find meaning in his being and existence. His trial, lead by the insecure and stuttering Charles Unwin against the prosecutor and most of the court audience, was not as he expected. On all 9 678 charges - which he knew nothing of - Winkie felt that he will lose. But when Judy the assistant of the prosecutor, seeing that Winkie really was innocent, said that they were withholding evidences deliberately, Winkie regained hope. In the end, the jury reached deadlock. Winkie, in the meantime, was free after the Free Winkie Committee paid for his bail. He traveled to Cairo, Egypt with Françoise - a lesbian cleaning woman who mended him after he was shot during his arrest in the forest - where he began to accept and understand why everything has happened to him. |
6105288 | /m/0fqbvz | Staying Fat For Sarah Byrnes | Chris Crutcher | null | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Eric “Moby” Calhoune’s best friend Sarah Byrnes is catatonic, sitting in the mental ward of Sacred Heart Hospital. The staff there suggests that he recall some moments that may jog her memory and bring her out of her catatonic state and back to reality. Eric and Sarah Byrnes (who insists on being called Sarah Byrnes, rather than just Sarah) have been friends for a long time, originally because he was extremely overweight and she was severely burned as a child leaving her with scars on her hands and face. They were picked on regularly and began to write an underground newspaper called Crispy Pork Rinds, focusing an article on the bully Dale Thornton. After the ensuing events, they recruited Dale as “protection”, and their lives became a bit easier. Eric is recruited to the swim team, and as he improves in skill his weight decreases. Out of fear of losing his friend Sarah Byrnes, he continues to eat, even more excessively, so he can “stay fat for Sarah Byrnes”. Eric’s search for a “cure” to Sarah Byrnes’s catatonia, leads him to seek out Dale Thornton, and Eric learns that she had an abusive father and that the facial scarring was no accident. Shortly after being confronted with this information, Sarah Byrnes begins speaking to Eric, and he discovers that her catatonia has been a ruse, and that she is terrified that her father, who has been declining into further mental illness, is going to kill her. She has been hiding out in the hospital because it is the only place she feels safe from him. But Virgil Byrnes appears to be on to Sarah, and time is running out. Confused as to what to do, Eric reveals all to his teacher and swim coach, Ms. Lemry. She hatches a plan to hide Sarah Byrnes in the apartment above her garage. Ms. Lemry teaches the Contemporary American Thought (CAT) class which includes discussions on abortion, suicide, religion, body image, social justice, and many other topics. Through these moments, Eric, Steve Ellerby, Jody Mueller, and Mark Brittain (classmates with conflicting views), develop and explore their personal views on these issues. During the course of this class, Mark is confronted with the truth of his actions—that he encouraged Jody to have an abortion—and he has difficulty reconciling his actions with his beliefs and later attempts suicide. Ms. Lemry agrees to take Sarah Byrnes to Reno to look for her mother, who is the only witness to the abuse Sarah has suffered at the hands of her father. While they are gone, Virgil Byrnes hunts down Eric after school and threatens to kill him, and eventually stabs him in the back. Eric makes his way to Dale Thornton’s house where he passes out, and Dale and his father rescue him and take him to the hospital. Sarah attempts to run away because she doesn’t want any more of her friends to get hurt, but Eric and Ms. Lemry stop her. Eric’s mother’s boyfriend Carver Middleton (former Vietnam Special Forces soldier) figures out that Virgil Byrnes must be hiding out in his house and lays a trap for him, capturing him after a brief struggle. |
6106468 | /m/0fqcnc | His Majesty's Dragon | Naomi Novik | 3/28/2006 | {"/m/0mz2": "Alternate history", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | In the winter of 1805 or thereabouts, during the War of the Third Coalition, the HMS Reliant under Captain William Laurence seizes the French Amitie, a 36-gun frigate. Laurence and the crew of the Reliant find an unhatched dragon egg on board and declare it a prize captured from the French. Unfortunately, the egg is near hatching, and in order to bring the resulting dragonet into service with Britain's Aerial Corps, it must accept harnass and a handler. Laurence orders every officer aboard to prepare to make the attempt, but the dragonet, unusual with all-black hide and six spines on his wings, chooses Laurence, who names him Temeraire, after a French ship likewise pressed brought into service of England. Despite Laurence's reluctance to leave polite society and join the Aerial Corps, whose men are almost married to their dragons and who are known for grievous informality, he and Temeraire develop a deep affection. The Reliant lands in Madeira, where Laurence and Temeraire await the Aerial Corps' response concerning their enlisting in the Corps; they are eventually ordered to a training camp at Loch Laggan. In the meanwhile, the naturalist Sir Edward Howe identifies Temeraire as a rare Chinese Imperial, a breed rarely seen outside China, much less in England; only the Celestials are more rare. The Corps also attempt to reassign Temeraire to a more experienced handler, Lieutenant Dayes; Laurence is surprised at how close he has grown to Temeraire in this short time, and rejoices when Temeraire rejects Dayes entirely. After a brief stopover at the Allendale estate, where Laurence reveals his new profession to his family, Temeraire and Laurence arrive in the covert of Loch Laggan. Here Laurence meets Celeritas, the dragon training-master; Catherine Harcourt, the young female captain of the Longwing Lily (Longwings, the only acid-spitters in England, insist on female captains), whose formation they will join; Berkley, the captain of the Regal Copper Maximus; and Rankin, a captain of noble bearing, and his abused Winchester Levitas. Temeraire sees his first action when Victoriatus, a Parnassian, is injured in combat and must be carried back to base. Laurence and Temeraire also adopt their flight and ground crew, headed by Lt. John Granby; Granby, a friend to Dayes, showed initial hostility to Laurence, but the two overcome their difficulties during the mission to aid Victoriatus. Finally, Laurence meets Jane Roland, mother of one of his runners, Emily Roland, who is being groomed to captain the Longwing Excidium after Jane herself retires; Jane and Laurence eventually become lovers. During their training, Celeritas introduces Choiseul, a French deserter, and his dragon Praetorius, who Temeraire views as competition. Choiseul is revealed to be a double agent when he attempts to kidnap Lily and Captain Harcourt. After interrogation, he admits that he was actually sent to steal Temeraire, whom the Chinese gifted to Napoleon as his personal mount. The spirits of the captains, dragons, and crew are bolstered by the victory at the Battle of Trafalgar, which erases Napoleon's navy and diminishes his aerial strength; additionally, while Nelson is raked by fire from a Spanish Flecha-del-Fuego, he survives to fight another day. While they are celebrating, Rankin and a severely wounded Levitas arrive at Dover with important intelligence: Napoleon was not planning to send troops over by sea, as originally predicted. Instead, he plans to send them by air, using transports hauled by dragons, accompanied by Napoleon's aerial force. This disrupts celebrations as the captains at the Dover covert prepare for combat, knowing their great disadvantage in numbers. The Dover dragons fly out to meet the French aerial armada, their primary objective the destruction of the transports. Unfortunately, the superior French number prove telling, and soon some of the transports land. However, Temeraire, earlier deemed unlikely to develop a breath weapon, unleashes a powerful shockwave roar, which destroys the transport they are attempting to take down. This turns the tide of battle, and the French signal retreat. At the celebration party held in order to commemorate the victory, Sir Howe seeks out Laurence. He then reveals that Temeraire is actually Celestial; the roar, called the "divine wind," is unique to that breed. The Chinese reserve Celestials solely for emperors and royalty. Though this opens plenty of new worries concerning China's apparent friendship with France, Temeraire dismisses the idea of going to France, preferring his life in Britain with Laurence. |
6106753 | /m/0fqczd | The Goblin Mirror | C. J. Cherryh | 1992 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | An ill-wind disturbs the peaceful land of Maggiar and the wizard, Karloy requests leave to consult with his sister, Ysabel over the mountain. Lord Stani instructs his two eldest sons, Bogdan and Tamas, and his master huntsman, Nikolai to accompany Karloy. After a difficult trip over the mountain, they approach a tower, Krukczy Straz where they hope to find shelter, but are ambushed by goblins. The goblins have overrun the tower, killing all inside. Tamas is separated from the others but is rescued by Ela, a witchling who takes him to her mistress, Ysabel in a neighboring tower, Tajny Straz. But this tower has also been raided by goblins and all are killed, including Ysabel. Ela goes into the tower and retrieves Ysabel's shard from the goblin mirror. Then Azdra'ik, the goblin lord appears, but does not threaten them. He tells Tamas he must take the mirror fragment from Ela because it is too powerful for her to use. Ela takes Tamas to the next tower at the ruins of what was Hasel. Here Ela looks into the mirror but is overwhelmed by the goblin queen staring back at her. Tamas is startled when the queen looks at him and calls him a wizard, which, he assures Ela he is not. Ela is drawn to the goblin queen at the lake and Tamas tries to follow her, but gets lost. Azdra'ik finds him and together they search for Ela. Back in Maggiar, Yuri, Tamas's younger brother has been left behind to look after Tamas's dog, Zadny. But Zadny, pining for his master, escapes his pen and tracks Tamas's scent over the mountain with Yuri in pursuit. Near Krukczy Straz, Yuri finds an injured Nikolai, and together they follow Zadny, still on Tamas's trail, to Tajny Straz. But by the time they get there, Tamas has already left. Then Karloy arrives and reveals to Nikolai the story of the succession of witches, their bargains with the goblin queen, and the mirror fragment. Karloy realizes that Ela must have the shard and says he must take it from her before she misuses it. The three then head for Hasel to find Ela. At Hasel, Zadny continues his pursuit of Tamas, and realising that Ela and Tamas must be together, they all follow Zadny. Azdra'ik and Tamas find Ela near the goblin lake. Much of the surrounding landscape has been devastated by marauding goblin armies and a darkness spreads from the lake. The goblin queen is expanding her sphere of influence. Ela is tempted to try the mirror again, but Tamas, slowly becoming aware of the wizard in him, convinces her otherwise. Yuri, running ahead in pursuit of Zadny, stumbles into the goblin queen's hall. There he finds the goblin mirror and sees Bogdan in it. Bogdan, under the queen's spell, pulls Yuri into the mirror. Tamas arrives and tries to persuade Bogdan to free Yuri, but Bogdan challenges Tamas and in his rage is accidentally killed. Tamas and Ela confront the goblin queen. The shard returns to the mirror but with their combined magic they seize control of it and banish the goblin queen and her armies. Karloy and Nikolai arrive but the darkness is already receding. Karloy reveals that Azdra'ik used goblin magic to "father" Ytresse with Ylena and that Ela is Azdra'ik's great grand-daughter and Karoly's niece. Tamas, now in control of Azdra'ik, elects to let the goblin lords remain on earth. |
6107048 | /m/0fqd6r | Monster Blood Tattoo Book One: Foundling | D. M. Cornish | 2006 | {"/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/03npn": "Horror", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature"} | Rossamünd Bookchild, a foundling from the city of Boschenburg, has lived his entire life at Madam Opera's Estimable Marine Society For Foundling Boys And Girls, learning the ways of life upon the sea so one day he can begin a career as a vinegaroon (sailor) in the Empire's service. Rossamünd's only friends are the dormitory masters Fransitart and Craumpalin, and the parlour-maid Verline of the Marine Society - the other foundlings only bully him for his feminine name. Much to Rossamünd's surprise, instead of a sailing life he is summoned to begin life as a lamplighter in the coastal city of High Vesting, far away to the south. After being prepared for his journey by his masters, he receives his instructions from a leer (a spy who has a special box with organs in it to enhance his sense of smell) and sets off on a river voyage on the Hogshead, a ram captained by an intimidating man named Poundinch. However he soon learns that he has been tricked onto the wrong ship, and is now slave to a band of criminals. He learns little of their trade other than that they are smuggling some kind of terrible contraband. Rossamünd only narrowly escapes fate as a captive cabin boy when, unwilling to reveal their cargo to river gatekeepers, the criminals are attacked by rams of the navy. Rossamünd, having escaped the river battle, reaches the riverbank and struggles through the wilderness on his own. He comes close to death before being found by Miss Europe, a fulgar (a type of lahzar, or monster hunter) who can fire lightning from her hands. Her powers are demonstrated to Rossamünd as they come across the Misbegotten Schrewd, an ettin (a very large monster). It shows some level of intelligence and no outward hostility, and so Rossamünd cannot help but sympathise with it as it is slain by Miss Europe. Their party is attacked soon after by grinnlings (also known as nimbleschrewds, a small and particularly nasty breed of monster) and the creepy leer Licurius, Miss Europe's personal servant, is killed. Rossamünd drags the badly-wounded and unconscious fulgar to Harefoot Dig, a wayhouse on the road to High Vesting, where she is healed and rested. While staying at the Dig, Rossamünd becomes privy to Miss Europe's reputation and hears her referred to as the Branden Rose, a name with infamy attached to it. Miss Europe also begins to refer to Rossamünd as her factotum (a servantile position previously held by Licurius). Rossamünd is torn between his predestined career of lamplighting, and this new prospect. To replace the deceased Licurius in the short term however, Rossamünd is charged with hiring a new carriage driver in the nearby town of Silvernook. There he finds the postman Fouracres, a friendly man who is all too willing to help, who seems to be a monster-sympathiser. The party now leave the wayhouse and after uneventful travel they reach High Vesting - Rossamünd's original destination. Two weeks having passed since Rossamünd left the Marine Society, he is eager to get to his new place of employment but Miss Europe has business to attend to. Rossamünd is left to explore the city. He comes across the Hogshead docked in the harbour, and is confronted by Poundinch. The captain, assuming Rossamünd to be snooping into his mysterious, live, and probably-illegal cargo, ties Rossamünd to one of the crates in the hold and leaves him there. Rossamünd gives up hope of being rescued until whatever is inside the crate begins talking to him. It turns out to be a glamgorn (a friendly, little, human-like bogle) named Freckle. The other crates do not contain such friendly creatures however, and Rossamünd realises Poundinch's trade: smuggling deceased human bodyparts to be put together into new, horrible creatures like those in the other crates. The captain soon returns and removes Rossamünd from the hold, but not before Freckle hints at some hidden significance to the foundling's name. Poundinch leads Rossamünd to one of his other ships, but Rossamünd escapes the captain and flees - right to the safety of Fouracres and Miss Europe. Miss Europe takes the captain out with one electric shock, and Poundinch falls into the caustic water of the harbour. Rossamünd insists that the three of them go back to the Hogshead to rescue Freckle, and they do just that (Freckle immediately disappearing into the sea), but the subsequent realisation that Freckle is a bogle sparks momentary hostility between Miss Europe and the foundling. However, they continue on to find Rossamünd's employers. On the way, Miss Europe reveals that she is suffering from an undetermined illness, and must travel far away to where she was altered into a lahzar so she can be treated. She promises to return after a while to see how Rossamünd is faring in his lamplighting career, and to again offer him the position of her factotum. Accepting this, he bids Miss Europe and Fouracres farewell. Rossamünd discovers that Mister Germanicus, whom he was supposed to report to in High Vesting, had given up waiting for the foundling and had moved on north to Winstermill. He sets off in a coach, accompanied now only by parting gifts from Miss Europe: food, more gold than Rossamünd had ever seen in his life, and a note revealing the lahzar's true identity - Europa, a duchess-in-waiting, set to one day rule over the rich city of Naimes. Soon enough Rossamünd reaches Winstermill, and is signed into service by two registrars, friendly Inkwill and nasty Witherscrawl. He is also given a letter, written five days ago by Verline from the Marine Society. This letter reveals that Master Fransitart will soon be on his way to see Rossamünd, and is bearing some kind of distressing news. Completely confused, Rossamünd goes to bed. He will begin his career as a lamplighter at the dawn. |
6108018 | /m/0fqftj | Tarzan the Untamed | Edgar Rice Burroughs | 1920 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/05hgj": "Novel", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The action is set during World War I. While John Clayton, Lord Greystoke (Tarzan) is away from his plantation home in British East Africa, it is destroyed by invading German troops from Tanganyika. On his return he discovers among many burned bodies one that appears to be the corpse of his wife, Jane Porter Clayton. Another fatality is the Waziri warrior Wasimbu, left crucified by the Germans. (Wasimbu's father Muviro, first mentioned in this story, goes on to play a prominent role in later Tarzan novels.) Maddened, the ape-man seeks revenge not only on the perpetrators of the tragedy but all Germans, and sets out for the battle front of the war in east Africa. On the way he has a run-in with a lion (or Numa, as it is called by the apes among whom Tarzan was raised), which he traps in a gulch by blocking the entrance. At the front he infiltrates the German headquarters and seizes Major Schneider, the officer he believes led the raid on his estate. Returning to the gulch, he throws his captive to the lion. Tarzan goes on to help the British in the battle in various ways, including setting the lion loose in the enemy trenches, and kills von Goss, another German officer involved in the attack on the Greystoke estate. He then becomes embroiled in the affairs of Bertha Kircher, a woman he has seen in both the German and British camps, and believes to be a German spy, particularly after he learns she possesses his mother's locket, which he had given as a gift to Jane. His efforts to retrieve it lead him to a rendezvous between Kircher and Captain Fritz Schneider, brother of the major Tarzan threw to the lion previously, and the actual commander of the force that burned the estate. Killing Schneider, Tarzan believes his vengeance complete. Abandoning his vendetta against the Germans he departs for the jungle, swearing off all company with mankind. Seeking a band of Mangani, the apes among whom he had been raised, Tarzan crosses a desert, undergoing great privations. Indeed, the desert is almost his undoing. He only survives by feigning death to lure a vulture (Ska in the ape language) following him into his reach; he then catches and devours the vulture, which gives him the strength to go on. The scene is a powerful one, a highlight both of the novel and of the Tarzan series as a whole. On the other side of the desert Tarzan locates the ape band. While with them he once again encounters Bertha Kircher, who has just escaped from Sergeant Usanga, leader a troop of native deserters from the German army, by whom she had been taken captive. Despite his suspicion of Bertha, Tarzan's natural chivalry leads him to grant her shelter and protection among the apes. Later he himself falls captive to the tribe of cannibals the deserters have sheltered among, along with Harold Percy Smith-Oldwick, a British aviator who has been forced down in the jungle. Learning of Tarzan's plight, Bertha heroically leads the apes against the natives and frees them both. Smith-Oldwick becomes infatuated with Bertha, and they search for his downed plane. They find it, but are captured again by Usanga, who attempts to fly off in it with Bertha. Tarzan arrives in time to board the plane as it takes off and throw Usanga from the plane. Smith-Oldwick and Bertha Kircher then try to pilot it back across the desert to civilization, but fail to make it. Seeing the plane go down, Tarzan once more sets out to rescue them. On the way he encounters another Numa, this one an unusual black lion caught in a pit trap, and frees it. He, the two lovers and the lion are soon reunited, but attacked by warriors from the lost city of Xuja, hidden in a secret desert valley. Tarzan is left for dead and Bertha and Smith-Oldwick taken prisoner. The Xujans are masters of the local lions and worshippers of parrots and monkeys. They are also completely insane as a consequence of long inbreeding. Recovering, Tarzan once more comes to the rescue of his companions, aided by the lion he had saved earlier. But the Xujans pursue them and they turn at bay to make one last stand. The day is saved by a search party from Smith-Oldwick's unit, who turn the tide. Afterward, Tarzan and Smith-Oldwick find out that Bertha is a double agent who has actually been working for the British. Tarzan also learns from the diary of the deceased Fritz Schneider that Jane might still be alive. Tarzan the Untamed was one of Burroughs’ most controversial novels. The controversy stemmed from his blanket portrayal of Germans as stereotypical, unredeemable villains, one that was also extended to his contemporary science fiction novel The Land That Time Forgot. This portrayal, while perhaps understandable in wartime, ultimately ruined the market for his writing in Germany, where the character of Tarzan had formerly been quite popular. Burroughs’ later introduction of heroic Germans into his subsequent novels Tarzan and the Lost Empire, Tarzan at the Earth’s Core and Back to the Stone Age did little to repair the damage to his reputation there. Tarzan the Untamed has a sprawling, almost incoherent plot atypical of the author's early Tarzan novels, an artifact of its origin as two separate tales. The initial savage campaign of retribution, once it has run its course, gives way to a complete withdrawal and rejection of humanity, which is succeeded in turn by a fantastic adventure in a lost city. Only the continuing presence of the enigmatic figure of Bertha Kircher serves to unite the disparate story elements. Tarzan himself, unusually, is recast from his typical role as a noble and high-minded hero into that of a very human being so unhinged by grief as to blame a whole nation for the crimes of a few of its people, and to commit atrocities in consequence. His simple, direct and savage campaign against the enemy comes across as crude in comparison with Bertha's espionage, with which it ironically interferes. Tarzan's recovery of something approaching his normal status is attained only gradually. The parallel encounters with the two lions highlight his dual role; in the first, the lion is treated with cruelty, as an enemy and a tool against other enemies; in the second compassion prevails, and the lion is befriended and becomes a willing ally. Regardless of its flaws, Tarzan the Untamed is an important work in the Tarzan series. It begins a sequence continuing with Tarzan the Terrible, Tarzan and the Golden Lion and Tarzan and the Ant Men in which Burroughs' vivid imagination and storytelling abilities hit their peak, and which is generally considered a highlight of the series. The book is also a transitional one for the series. The hero's acts of vengeance against the Germans look back to his malicious baiting of a native tribe in Tarzan of the Apes, the first Tarzan novel, a campaign also motivated by grief, on that occasion for the death of his ape mother Kala at the hands of a villager. The taming of the lions recalls Tarzan’s enlistment of a whole menagerie to his cause in the early The Beasts of Tarzan, while looking ahead to his recruiting of his ultimate lion ally, Jad-bal-ja, in Tarzan and the Golden Lion. Tarzan the Untamed is a pivotal work in that it heralds two basic shifts in plot-type for the Tarzan series. The first is a shift in focus away from Tarzan himself and towards secondary characters. Previous novels had dealt primarily with the ape-man’s own affairs, while most later ones (beginning with Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle) would cast him as a savior and enabler of others, following the example set in his dealings with Bertha Kircher and Harold Percy Smith-Oldwick. The second shift is marked by the appearance of the lost civilization of Xuja, which brings to the fore a plot element that would dominate the later Tarzan novels. Prior to Tarzan the Untamed the series centered on Tarzan’s natural environment and activities among the animals and natives of Africa. The only element comparable to Xuja had been the lost city of Opar, which had been used sparingly, appearing only twice over the course of six novels. After Tarzan the Untamed lost cities, races and lands would be encountered in almost every book, usually in pairs at war with each other. |
6111215 | /m/0fqmjx | The Golden Age | Gore Vidal | 2000-09 | {"/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"} | The action centers around President Roosevelt's maneuvers to get the United States into World War II while keeping his 1940 campaign pledge to America voters that "No sons of yours will ever fight in a foreign war, unless attacked." Vidal makes the case that 1) the U.S had backed Japan into a corner with the oil and trade embargo, as well as massive aid to China and unconditional demands Japan could never accept; 2) the U.S. provoked Japan into attacking; and 3) the U.S. had broken Japan's military codes and knew of Japan's pending attack, but intentionally withheld warning Pearl Harbor. This was to arouse the U.S. populace and bring the United States into the war, so the U.S could take its place as the post-war dominant superpower. The novel also covers some of the American artistic and cultural scene after the war, with attention given to John La Touche, Dawn Powell, Tennessee Williams, and postwar Hollywood. |
6111753 | /m/0fqnr9 | The Lightning Thief | Rick Riordan | 6/28/2005 | {"/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Percy Jackson is a twelve year old boy, diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia, who has been expelled from numerous (six) schools, the latest being Yancy Academy. During a school field trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, his pre-algebra teacher, Mrs. Dodds, attacks Percy, revealing that she is one of the three Furies. Percy's stepfather, Gabe Ugliano, a man whose smell is so repulsive, mistreats both Percy and Percy's mother, Sally. To get away from Gabe, Sally takes Percy on a trip to Long Island for a three-day vacation. In the middle of the first night, Percy's closest friend and former classmate at Yancy Academy, Grover Underwood, who is revealed to be a satyr, comes and warns the two of them that Percy is in danger. Sally drives them both to Camp Half-Blood, a camp for demigods, where he can train and be protected. On the way there, they are attacked by the Minotaur, which grabs Percy's mother by her throat. She then dissolves into a golden shower of light. Percy, angered by the Minotaur for killing his mom and then going after his best friend, goes after the Minotaur and defeats him using the Minotaur's own horn. Percy then stumbles into the camp carrying a semi-conscious Grover. Upon waking up, Percy is moved into the Hermes cabin, under the care of Luke Castellan, the cabin's counselor. During a game of capture the flag, the Ares cabin attacks and injures Percy. He steps into the adjoining river and is healed by the waters. After the game is won, Percy gets attacked by a hellhound, which gets shot by arrows and dies. To heal himself, he steps into the water, while Poseidon's trident appears above his head, revealing him to be the son of Poseidon. Poseidon has broken an oath taken with Hades and Zeus to refrain from having any more children with mortal women, as their children can become too powerful and become a threat. It is revealed that Zeus's master bolt has been stolen. Because Percy has been claimed, Zeus believes that Percy was the one to have stolen it. To clear his and his father's name, Percy is granted a quest to find Zeus's master bolt which Chiron believes Hades has stolen. Percy has to find the bolt before the summer solstice, ten days from then. Luke gives magic flying shoes to Percy before leaving on the quest with Annabeth and Grover. Percy has to travel west to reach the entrance to the Underworld in Hollywood. They encounter Greek monsters, including the Furies, Medusa, Echidna, the Chimera, and Ares, the god of war, who tells Percy that his mother is alive. As they approach Hades' palace, Luke’s shoes try to drag Grover over the edge of Tartarus, but he manages to slip free. Percy confronts Hades, who believes Percy stole his Helm of Darkness, an object that allows him to become a shadow. Percy discovers that the bolt had appeared in the backpack Ares gave them and flees from the Underworld, forced to leave his mother behind. Percy fights and defeats Ares, obtaining the helm, which he asks the Furies, who witnessed everything, to return to Hades. Percy flies to New York, risking his life by entering the sky, the realm of Zeus. He arrives in New York City to give the master bolt to Zeus at level 600 of the Empire State Building, where Olympus is now located. Zeus accepts the master bolt, and Percy returns to camp. Luke reveals that he stole the bolt for Kronos and summons a poisonous pit scorpion which stings and nearly kills Percy. Chiron cures him, and Percy leaves to attend another school that his mother has found. Annabeth returns to live with her father, and Grover embarks on a journey as a "seeker" to try to find the great god Pan. |
6112722 | /m/0fqqk4 | The Bridge at No Gun Ri | null | 9/6/2001 | null | The Bridge at No Gun Ri: A Hidden Nightmare from the Korean War is written in chronological narrative style and is organized in three parts, “The Road to No Gun Ri,” “The Bridge at No Gun Ri,” and “The Road from No Gun Ri.” It opens with two chapters that alternately introduce the readers to the young Army enlistees of the 7th U.S. Cavalry Regiment, mostly from poor backgrounds, many of them school dropouts, on occupation duty in post-World War II Japan, where they have been insufficiently trained and are unprepared for the sudden outbreak of war in nearby Korea; and then to the South Korean villager families and the age-old rhythms of their rural lives, to be exploded in late June 1950 by a Korean civil war borne of the new U.S.-Soviet rivalry, the Cold War. The next two chapters describe the deployment of U.S. military units to face the onrushing North Korean invaders, the growing nervousness of U.S. commanders who issue orders to fire on South Korean refugee columns out of fear of enemy infiltrators, and the disarray of the weakly led 7th Cavalrymen as they reach the warfront; and then tell of the villagers’ plight as they first seek shelter from the war by gathering in a remote area of their valley, and then are forced by retreating U.S. troops to head south toward U.S. lines. The 26-page middle section is an account of three days of carnage that began with U.S. warplanes attacking the column of hundreds of refugees, after which survivors were forced into an underpass and methodically machine-gunned until few were left alive among piles of bodies. Survivors estimated 400 were killed, mostly women and children. Seventh Cavalry veterans recalled orders coming down to stop all refugees from crossing U.S. lines and to “eliminate” the No Gun Ri group. This and earlier chapters describe declassified military documents showing such orders spreading across the warfront. The final section of four chapters follows the stories of lives shattered when they intersected at No Gun Ri, both of Korean villagers fighting to survive in the chaos of war, and of young U.S. soldiers fighting in the seesaw battles of 1950-51. In the postwar decades, the psychic toll of what the Koreans suffered and what the Americans did and witnessed weighs heavily on both, leaving them deeply depressed, sometimes suicidal, often haunted by visions and ghosts. One, Chung Eun-yong, a former policeman whose two children were killed at No Gun Ri, makes it his life mission to find the truth of who was responsible for the massacre. The section ends when an Associated Press reporter telephones Chung, at the beginning of a lengthy journalistic investigation. The book has two epilogues. The first describes the AP investigative work that found the U.S. veterans who corroborated the Korean survivors’ story and the declassified documents that further supported it, and the bibliographic, archival and interview sources for the book. (The AP team’s editor, Bob Port, later wrote about the reporters’ yearlong struggle to publish their explosive report in the face of resistance by AP executives.) The second epilogue details the serious irregularities in the U.S. Army report on the No Gun Ri investigation prompted by the AP disclosures. (Co-author Hanley later published a more extensive analysis of what the Korean survivors described as a “whitewash.”) |
6112846 | /m/0fqqss | Invisible | Pete Hautman | null | {"/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature"} | Dougie talks with his best (and only) friend, Andy Morrow. Athletic, popular Andy is very different from socially inept Dougie, yet the two find things to talk about. They discuss everything - except for what happened at the Tuttle Place three years ago. It is evident that Andy and Dougie's friendship (which adults are afraid of) is not what it seems to be at first: not only is Andy absent when Dougie needs him most, he pressures Dougie into stalking a classmate, Melissa Haverman, and making a bomb threat via the telephone. When Dougie's psychologist finds out that he's been skipping sessions and hiding his medications, the teenager is forced to remember that fateful night at the Tuttle Place. The truth is that Andy is dead, a victim of the fire they accidentally set to the house. In the end, he sets fire to his beloved bridge while in the basement, becoming a burn victim at the hospital. Andy then visits him, promising to return. However, it is debatable as to whether Dougie died or not, since he was hospitalized at the "Madham Burn Unit," the name of his self-built town with his railroad of matchsticks. He also mentions that the hospital smells of burning plastic, referring to the plastic people in Madham, present when he set the town on fire, and that he wants to find his grandfather, to see if he is mad about the train. Whether it is his imagination that leads him to smelling burnt plastic and seeing "Madham Burn Unit" or he has died and Madham Hospital is his place of rest is not revealed. |
6113208 | /m/0fqrbq | The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things: Stories | Laura Albert | 6/9/2001 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things is told from Jeremiah's perspective and is a collection of interlinked chapters that focus on his early life with his mother. At the start of the novel, five-year-old Jeremiah is taken away from his foster parents to live with his biological mother Sarah, a drug addict and lot lizard prostitute, who has recently turned 23 and legally gained custody. Jeremiah moves with his mother from truck driver to truck driver as he gets older, though his age in each chapter is never clearly established. Sarah forces Jeremiah to take on various roles of siblings and offspring (gender determined by Sarah). After wetting his bed, Jeremiah gets viciously belted by her then-boyfriend, Luther, while his mother fondles his penis. He is made to shoplift by Sarah and is left home alone and unattended for six days when Sarah marries one of her men. The man returns alone from their honeymoon, explaining how Sarah abandoned him after he lost his money in Atlantic City. He then sodomises Jeremiah, then dumps him outside a hospital. After some ineffectual psychotherapy, he goes to live with his repressive Christian grandparents' home. Jeremiah is abused there as well; he is being forced to get into scalding water. Two years later, Jeremiah's mother unexpectedly turns up and takes him away, aware of the lack of power her parents have over the custody decision. She makes him grow shoulder-length hair and act as a girl, on occasion for the sexual satisfaction of her clients. With Sarah as the only influential figure in his life, Jeremiah starts to adopt his mother's seduction techniques. After dressing up as a 'baby doll', Jeremiah seduces Jackson, his mother's latest man. Jackson initially tries to rebuff the boy's advances, but then rapes him. |
6116473 | /m/0fqy9w | The Art of Seduction | Robert Greene | null | {"/m/05qfh": "Psychology"} | The book covers a history of the seduction as well as the psychology that makes the described techniques supposedly effective. Greene claims to have studied notable figures such as Casanova, Cleopatra, and John F. Kennedy to create his guide. The book offers amoral advice on effective seduction, including "choose the right victim", and "approach indirectly". Greene also classifies several seduction archetypes, such as "the Siren", "the Charmer", and "the Natural". |
6116738 | /m/0fqyvb | Twelve Sharp | Janet Evanovich | 6/20/2006 | {"/m/0lsxr": "Crime Fiction", "/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | The novel begins with Stephanie being stalked by Carmen Manoso, a woman claiming to be the wife of Ranger, a fellow bounty hunter with whom Stephanie has occasionally been intimate. Ranger is out of town on 'bad business' when Stephanie learns that his daughter has been kidnapped. Ranger is the prime suspect. As the story progresses, Stephanie learns that Carmen is actually married to a man named Edward Scrog who is attempting to steal Ranger's identity, even going so far as to kidnap Ranger's daughter Julie for his own. After Scrog kills Carmen he kidnaps Stephanie to complete his "family" and start a new life. However, he needs money, so Stephanie convinces him to try to find one of her FTA's (wanted for armed robbery) and steal his money. To prevent Stephanie from escaping, Scrog constructs a bomb and tapes it to her. As they try to negotiate for the money, Stephanie's old nemesis Joyce Barnhart turns up to capture the FTA herself. In the struggle that ensues, Scrog gets shot in the foot and Stephanie manages to rip the bomb off before Scrog stun-guns her. When Stephanie wakes up, her boyfriend Joe Morelli is there. Joyce caught the FTA, as he ran over the bomb after Stephanie tossed it in the road and it exploded. Together Stephanie and Morelli return to the trailer where she and Julie were being kept, but find it empty. Stephanie returns to her apartment, where she finds Scrog. He stun-guns her once more, then ties her to a chair. Julie is there too, drugged and on the couch. Scrog's plan is to kill Ranger when he arrives. Ranger opens the door with his hands up and Scrog shoots him. Julie attacks Scrog, the drugs having worn off, and shoots him. The police, paramedics and Morelli come in. Ranger is rushed to the hospital. On the way there Stephanie finally tells Morelli that she loves him, but leaves out the fact that she loves Ranger, too. |
6118487 | /m/0fr186 | Language of Goldfish | null | 4/14/1980 | {"/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature"} | Carrie Stokes, age 13, is suffering a mental breakdown due to her fear of change. She is growing up without realizing it, or perhaps blatantly ignoring it, until it gets too hard for her to pretend that everything was the same as it was when she was a young girl. Carrie is a skilled artist, and takes lessons with the art teacher at her school. Moira, Carrie's older sister, is a constant reminder that she inevitably has to grow up. She has an anxiety disorder because she is worried about the social graces and rites of passage - such as going to school dances - that growing up entails. |
6118585 | /m/0fr1f1 | My Friend Leonard | James Frey | 6/16/2005 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/016chh": "Memoir"} | The novel begins with Frey's release from an Ohio county jail. He anxiously drives to Chicago to see his girlfriend, Lilly, whose grandmother has just died. James and Lilly met in rehab (as mentioned in A Million Little Pieces) and Lilly was in a halfway house while James was in jail. Upon arriving in Chicago, James is informed by the director of the halfway house that Lilly committed suicide because she could not deal with the pain of losing her grandmother. Desperate, James goes to a liquor store and buys the cheapest bottle of wine with the intention of drinking it. He spends the night in his car and does not drink the alcohol. James asks Leonard for thirty thousand dollars, which he uses to bury Lilly and her grandmother. Leonard had told James while they were in the treatment center that he would look out for James as though he were his father. He gives the money to James on two conditions: 1) James must agree to tell Leonard later what he did with the money, and 2) if James does decide to drink the bottle of wine (which he still keeps in his apartment), he must agree to call Leonard beforehand. At the end of the story, Leonard goes into hiding and James does not hear from him for eighteen months. Finally, Leonard meets with James in San Francisco and informs James that he is dying from AIDS. Leonard takes his own life by overdosing on pain medications. James must handle great adversity throughout the entire novel. He has to deal with people who aren't always reputable. And he battles with depression, but slowly grows from his experiences. The rest of the novel deals with James' attempting to create a normal life for himself. |
6118652 | /m/0fr1j4 | Gettysburg: A Novel of the Civil War | William R. Forstchen | 6/12/2003 | {"/m/0mz2": "Alternate history", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The story takes place in 1863 when Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia are victorious at the Battle of Gettysburg instead of the United States. (Instead of attacking the Union line on July 2, 1863, Lee conducts a broad turning movement and forces the Army of the Potomac to attack him in a favorable position.) Losing Gettysburg is a grave setback to the United States, but it by no means spells the end of the war or determines its outcome, and the United States still has a lot of fight in it. In this, the book takes an opposing view to the classic "Bring the Jubilee" published in 1953 - precisely fifty years before the present book - which assumes that a defeat in Gettysburg would have led to a complete defeat and catastrophic collapse of the North. |
6118750 | /m/0fr1mz | Grant Comes East | William R. Forstchen | 6/1/2004 | {"/m/0mz2": "Alternate history", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02p0szs": "Historical fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The book picks up where the first left off at the Confederate victory at Gettysburg. General Robert E. Lee and his troops march on Washington, D.C., and launch an assault, hoping that if they can take the capital they can win the war. Meanwhile, President Abraham Lincoln has appointed Major General Ulysses S. Grant commander of all Union forces with orders to attack Lee. Grant masses his forces (the newly minted Army of the Susquehanna) at Harrisburg, while Maj. Gen. Daniel E. Sickles gains control (through his violent pacification of the New York Draft Riots) of the Army of the Potomac. Sickles has his eye on the White House, but he needs to defeat Lee to win the Civil War for the War Democrats. Violating orders from Grant, he rolls his troops out to meet Lee's army alone. A sidebar shows Napoleon III planning to invade the United States through a colony in Mexico. Lee, bloodily repulsed at Fort Stevens outside Washington (the black troops of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry regiment playing a decisive role), turns on Baltimore. Abandoned by the Union, Baltimore descends into chaos. Using Baltimore to threaten Washington, Lee instead turns his entire army upon the advancing Sickles. The Army of the Potomac is destroyed in a rout, with Sickles losing a leg in the process (as he did in the real Battle of Gettysburg). The battle pens Lee up in Maryland, however, leaving Virginia wide open as Grant and William T. Sherman converge on it via Pennsylvania and Georgia. The novel ends with Lee scrambling to meet Grant's threat. |
6119514 | /m/0fr2wl | The Family Markowitz | Allegra Goodman | null | null | Centred around a middle-class American Jewish family, The Family Markowitz touches on themes ranging from religiosity to ageing and from homosexuality to intermarriage. The novel tells the story of four main characters: Rose Markowitz (the matriarch), her sons Ed and Henry, and her daughter-in-law Sarah. Through these characters, the reader meets many other members of the family including Ed's four children, Henry's wife, and Rose's stepdaughter. |
6119849 | /m/0fr3k9 | The Face in the Frost | John Bellairs | 1969 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | The story opens with Prospero at home on a late summer day when he feels particularly uneasy. In the evening he receives an unexpected visit from his friend Roger Bacon, and the two discuss unusual phenomena that have transpired lately, especially those concerning a mysterious book for which Roger has been searching England. The following morning the two wizards find Prospero’s house besieged by agents of some other wizard who seems to have ill designs for them. They escape the house by shrinking themselves down and sailing out on a model ship via an underground stream accessible through Prospero’s basement. Once they regain their normal size they visit a library of records where Prospero discovers, as Roger stands guard outside, that a seal appearing in the mysterious aforementioned book belongs to Melichus, an old rival of his. Unfortunately, at that point a person comes into the library and claims to have killed Roger. Prospero flees the library and spends the night in a nearby town, where he luckily escapes an attack from some sort of evil creature sent by Melichus. The following day he travels to the cursed grove where Melichus is supposed to be buried, only to discover that the one buried there is not Melichus, but only one of his former servants. He presumes, therefore, that Melichus is still alive. After narrowly escaping from the cursed grove he travels to the town of Five Dials, where he stays at an inn with somewhat unsettling clientele and staff. Unable to sleep, he becomes suspicious of the inn and begins checking the other rooms, only to find them all empty. In the last room he finds the innkeeper with a large knife and flees the inn, whereupon he discovers that the entire town was an illusion (presumably created by Melichus). At last Prospero and Roger are reunited at the actual site called Five Dials, a lone inn on the edge of the country. Here they discuss why Melichus is after Prospero: they once created a magical item together, a kind of crystal ball resembling a green glass paperweight. Since neither one can fully possess it without the other’s cooperation, Prospero will have some share in Melichus’ power until he is dead. They also determine that Melichus is using the mysterious book mentioned early in the story to create a permanent winter over the world. While staying the night at Five Dials they meet a small armed force that intends to attack a village across the border. Roger and Prospero thwart the army by destroying a necessary bridge and begin traveling to the village where the paperweight is kept, and where, they presume, Melichus is now. As they travel, unseasonably cold weather gradually sets in. Though the way to their destination is blocked, they find a monk herbalist who lets them in through a back entrance. Once in the village they do find Melichus studying the book. Prospero attempts to steal the paperweight, only to be transported to a different world. Melichus follows him there, but Prospero meets another wizard who takes the magical item and defeats Melichus. In the end, Prospero returns home to find that the early winter has subsided. |
6120391 | /m/0fr4p8 | Beowulf's Children | Steven Barnes | 11/15/1996 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | As the story opens the second generation of Avalon's colonists are coming of age, and the potential for teenage rebellion has never been so strong. The original colonists (the "Earth-born"), although selected for optimal physical and mental attributes, suffered varying levels of brain damage due to the unforeseen effects of long periods of chemically- and temperature-induced hibernation necessary to survive the long journey to Avalon. Their children (the "star-born") have no such disability; instead, they are geniuses with feeble-minded parents. The Grendel Wars (in which the Earth-Born's short-sightedness nearly led to their extermination) are still fresh in their minds. The battle-proven (yet impaired) elders preach a dogma of zealous caution which might have once tried their own patience; the brilliant (and arrogant) Star-Born deem it cowardice and tyranny. Adding to the strain are those who made the journey to Avalon as cargo: the "Bottle Babies", embryos grown in artificial wombs. They were raised collectively, lacking the family ties of their fellow Star-Born, and feel less obliged to obey. Aaron Tragon (perhaps the most intelligent of them) is more than just rebellious; he may be insane. As conflict brews between generations on the island of Camelot, on the mainland a dangerous question has been answered. The Grendels nearly drove the colony into extinction, but what preys on the Grendels is even worse. Two of the colony's best and brightest die in a horrifying, inexplicable fashion: a storm of yellow sand which has left nothing but naked bones soaked with Grendel supercharger, and a baby wrapped in a blanket. The Earth-Born ban further trips to the mainland, but the Star Born make an attempt to return on a quest for answers (and vengeance). Cadmann Weyland (the colony's hero from the Grendel War) stows away on the return trip, accidentally killing one of the Star-Born during an altercation. The colony holds a tribunal, which finds Cadmann not guilty; this increases tension between the generations of colonists. Aaron Tragon takes advantage of this to further his own goals. Instead of challenging the decision, he shows the tribunal unshakable evidence of an approaching danger. Tau Ceti's sunspot cycle is 50 years, not 11 like Earth's. Because of it, Avalon is entering a period of agitated weather and its lifeforms will react to it in ways the colony has never before seen. If the colony is to survive, trips to the mainland to study Avalon's life are essential – trips such as the one an Earth-Born killed a Star-Born to prevent. Over the objections of senior colonists, missions to the mainland resume. Tragon has humiliated the Earth-Born and established himself as leader of the Star-Born. Months later the yellow storm has not been seen again and the Grendels (although more numerous and varied) are only a dangerous predator, not a demonic horde. There is much to learn; the danger seems controllable until a rainstorm permits six Grendels to reach a snowy mountaintop where a study is taking place. The snow permits them to supercharge without dying, and they will not stop to eat their dead; these Grendels "cooperate". Although the team is able to drive them off with only one casualty, they are shaken. The Grendels, although dangerous, had always been predictable; now they are changing. Aaron Tragon behaves more erratically, convinced that the source of his powers is his origin as a Bottle Baby. He hopes to use artificial wombs to sire hundreds of children (breeding them like horses), and begins worshipping the Grendels. On Camelot Cadmann is disturbed and withdrawn, reflecting on events on the mainland. A small group of Star-Born, trapped in a snowstorm, killed five Grendels with only one casualty. The Grendels were intelligent enough to take advantage of the snowstorm to overcome the heat generated during supercharging, and cooperated to hunt the Star-Born. In contrast, when the Earth-Born first encountered the Grendels they lost ten colonists while driving off one gravely-wounded monster. What was mortal danger to the Earth-Born is a momentary threat to the Star-Born. This reveals a further dichotomy between Earth-Born and Star-Born: to the Earth-Born the mainland is no man's land, but to the Star-Born it is a challenge. The killing of a Star-Born by Cadman Wayland destroyed any remaining trust of the Star-Born for the Earth-Born. The Star-Born see a parallel between the Earth-Born and the Grendels: both seem willing to kill their offspring for their benefit. This cements Aaron Tragon's role as leader of the Star-Born; to Cadmann, this appears deliberate. Aaron's quest for power causes Cadmann to investigate Aaron's background and psychology. He discovers that most "Bottle Babies" have a need for purpose, and bond strongly to their families as a result. Aaron did not bond with his family; he seems instead to have bonded to colonization at the exclusion of all other ties. He seems to be exhibiting megalomania. On the mainland, the Grendels are evolving. Some develop the ability to resist their instinct to hunt and kill mindlessly. One, in particular, refuses to kill her own offspring; instead she establishes a family, with unknown effects on Grendel development. The Earth-Born visit the Star-Born town of Shangri-La; now that the two groups are cooperating, discoveries are made. One is disturbing: another life-form (a pollinater similar to an Earth bee) which uses a Grendel supercharger. There is also a glorious one; for the first time, a human and a Grendel meet and neither tries to kill the other. Camelot's Grendels are an anomaly. On the mainland, some Grendels cooperate with each other and with similar species. Without the cannibalistic cycle existing on Camelot, they have more advanced traits. They hunt in packs, building bridges like beavers with "samlon ladders" to permit use by both branches of the species. One chose to leave, rather than confront an armed human. In mainland Grendels, there is the possibility for coexistence. There is a physical difference between the two types as well. Mainland Grendels are prone to infestation by a brain parasite. Although it may be lethal (reproducing uncontrollably inside the Grendel's brain until their skull breaks open) it may also be symbiotic, enhancing the Grendels' intelligence in exchange for nutrition. This depends on when the infection occurs; during development, the symbiote and host are able to adapt to each other and produce heightened intelligence. Infestation after development is fatal, and the parasite is absent from the island. The first discovery is also understood; the "bees" are the yellow storm. They are scavengers, with a taste for Grendels; after eating them the bees collect the supercharger like Earth bees collect honey so when they are desperate, they can use it themselves and hunt rather than scavenge – stripping whole areas bare. This began the conflict; a windstorm pulled the sturdy, crustacean-like insects across a desert. When the storm hit the camp they were starving, and used their stores of supercharger to eat whatever was available. The blanket in which the baby was wrapped was an aposematic (warning) shade of blue (later called "Cadzie" blue for the baby it protected), which the bees avoided. This discovery gives the colonists an ability to deal with the "bees", at least on a small scale. This helps the Earth-Born realize the drawbacks of their perspective on danger, and the value of investigating (rather than avoiding) it. The threat to the colony is not eliminated, however. Further study of the bees shows that their nests are in areas which will be flooded by the sea as the planet warms. That is why so many bees were in that storm; their hives were flooded, and soon that will happen to large bee populations. Until the storms are over the mainland will have to be evacuated, but Tragon resists. He attacks Cadmann and another Star-Born to prevent this knowledge from spreading, to protect Shangri-La and his dream. The Star-Born survives; the family-building Grendel finds him, spares his life and takes him to safety. Tragon returns to Shangri-La with a story that Cadmann and his fellow Star-Born were eaten by Grendels, but the bees are still coming. When they arrive with devastation; not only do they eat everything but the supercharger they carry is still explosive, capable of knocking aircraft out of the sky. As Tragon rallies his people the old Grendel drags the barely-alive, lost Star-Born into Shangri-La; his father welcomes both, protecting the Grendel. The boy has enough strength to say, "Aaron shot us" before the bees hit Shangri-La. The Grendel hides in the town's cistern, and Tragon survives by burying himself in a stockyard's manure pile. The rest of the town is not as fortunate. The only things stopping the bees are solid walls or fire – which ignites hundreds at once like hundreds of cherry bombs, setting much of the town ablaze. Only 63 of about 90 colonists return to the island. Aaron Tragon is not one of them. After Shangri-La is evacuated he stumbles through the ruins of his kingdom, covered in animal waste. The crops are gone, eaten by the bees. Even the cooperative, beaver Grendels must eat the samlon (Grendel "larvae") to survive. Aaron, still driven by his ambition, wanders away from the town. Two years later, the colonists return to the ruins of Shangri-La. Tragon (or what remains of him) is there. Mentally, it seems Aaron Tragon is dead but what remains is that he has made peace with the intelligent Grendels. He will serve as a bridge between the humans and the Grendels, who will reshape Avalon into its namesake. pl:Dzieci Beowulfa ro:Dragonii Heorot |
6121634 | /m/0fr6k1 | Absurdistan | Gary Shteyngart | 5/2/2006 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | After Misha's father kills a prominent businessman from Oklahoma, the INS bars the entire Vainberg family entry to the United States, trapping Misha in his native Saint Petersburg, which he nostalgically refers to as "St. Leninsburg." Misha, a.k.a. "Snack Daddy" from his days at Accidental College, somewhere in the Midwestern U.S. (the college resembles Oberlin College, which Shteyngart attended, while the name is a play on Occidental College), is desperate to return to his true love, Rouenna, whom he met while she was working at a "titty bar" and who now attends Hunter College, at Misha's expense. Misha's father is killed by a fellow oligarch. Soon after, Misha is given an opportunity to buy a Belgian passport from a corrupt diplomat in the fictitious ex-Soviet republic of Absurdsvanϊ (also known as Absurdistan). Absurdistan's reputation for oil riches got it the title "Norway of the Caspian." Divided between two major ethnic groups, the Sevo and Svanϊ, whose mutual hatred stems from a dispute over which way the "footrest" of the Orthodox cross should be tilted, Absurdistan soon finds itself ensconced in civil war and Misha is forced to take sides on behalf of a new love. Appointed "Minister of Multiculturalism," he is asked to petition Israel for funds, but he soon finds he is being played by the Sevo leader, who has, in fact, been in league with the Svanϊ leader all along. |
6124315 | /m/0frb3c | Circus | Alistair MacLean | 1975 | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller", "/m/06wkf": "Spy fiction"} | Bruno Wildermann of the Wrinfield Circus is the world's greatest trapeze artist, a clairvoyant with near-supernatural powers and an implacable enemy of the East German regime that arrested his family and murdered his wife. The CIA needs such a man for an impossible raid on the impregnable Lubylan Fortress where his family is held, to remove a dangerous weapons formula from a heavily guarded laboratory under cover of a traveling circus tour, Bruno prepares to return to his homeland. But before the journey even begins a murderer strikes twice. Somewhere in the circus there is a communist agent with orders to stop Bruno at any cost. |
6132795 | /m/0frx8l | Layer Cake | J. J. Connolly | 4/6/2000 | {"/m/0lsxr": "Crime Fiction"} | The story starts on April Fool's Day in 1997. The narrator, and his pal Mister Mortimer are waiting impatiently to sell a half-kilo of cocaine to a less-than-punctual pal, Jeremy. Until Jeremy arrives, we are introduced to various characters and are given a brief look into their histories, including Jimmy Price; Mister Mortimer (Morty), who served five and a quarter of an eight year sentence for being caught while disposing of suicide victim Kilburn Jerry after a party; young Clarkie, whom the narrator expects will be taking his place when he retires; and Terry, friend to all. The narrator also explains to us how he made it to where he is—starting small, growing in rank, keeping quiet and making sure everything is strictly business. Jeremy eventually arrives half an hour late to make the purchase. In the next scene, Narrator is invited to Mortimer's pornshop, Loveland, and interrupts an argument between Mort and an employee, Nobby, who is confused on what to do over a shipment from the Netherlands of low-quality sex gear that they did not order. It is decided to send it back. Mort then drives the narrator to a fancy, out-of-the-way restaurant called Pepi's Barn, the haunt of "don" Jimmy Price, who has demanded to meet with him. Here we are introduced to Jimmy's right-hand man Gene, a loyal gundog to boot. The purpose of the dinner, as it turns out, is the disappearance of a young girl name of Charlotte Temple. Charlotte is the daughter of Edward Temple, a wealthy business contractor and socialite whom Price has known since childhood. She's run away with her new boyfriend, a cokehead by the name of Trevor Atkins, alias Kinky. Price charges Narrator with the task of locating Charlotte as a favour to Jimmy's pal, and promises that if he is successful, Price will allow him to retire without fuss. Price also tells the narrator about a crew of gangsters who have recently acquired two million high quality Ecstasy pills from Amsterdam. Price tasks the narrator with finding a buyer for the pills, and quickly. During the meeting with the gangsters, collectively known as the "Yahoos", the narrator finds that he cannot reason with them, and he leaves upon promising to find a buyer for the pills, albeit at a much lower price than if the Yahoos would consent to releasing the pills in small installments. The narrator tells the Yahoos that the pills are worth much less than they believe, which they are not happy to hear. The narrator tasks his old friend Cody, AKA Billy Bogus and his partner Tiptoes with locating Charlie. Cody expects little difficulty and quickly accepts the job. While looking for Cody in a London club, the narrator encounters Sydney, a low-ranking member of The Yahoos, the crew holding the two million pills. The narrator then meets Sydney's girlfriend Tammy, who he is immediately attracted to. Before leaving the club, Tammy gives him her number and surreptitiously asks him to call her. While speaking with Sydney, the narrator hears a story about the leader of Sydney's crew, a man named Darren who prefers to be known as The Duke. The Duke and his girlfriend, Slasher, are a pair of dedicated coke addicts who live just outside of London. The pair of them have become steadily more paranoid due to their cocaine use, and this paranoia leads Slasher to attack a member of the local council with pepper spray when he visits their home. Slasher also manages to kill one of the Duke's prized Dobermans, Mike Tyson, by shooting it. Sydney thinks the story is hilarious, but the narrator panics upon realizing that the Duke probably had his number along with Mr. Mortimer's, and the police could very well have information on them now. The narrator sets about finding a buyer for the Ecstasy pills, and he, Mortimer and Clarkie go to Liverpool to meet with Trevor and Shanks, two powerful north England drug dealers. Upon their arrival, Shanks tells the narrator and his colleagues that the "Yahoos" have in fact stolen the pills from a neo-Nazi outfit in Amsterdam, and they used the narrator and Mortimers' names to gain credibility. Shanks tells the narrator that the Germans have unleashed an assassin named Klaus to recover the pills and eliminate the thieves. Unfortunately for the narrator, Klaus believes that he was the one who initiated the robbery. The meeting ends and Trevor invites the narrator to come to dinner at his house. The narrator has a nightmare involving Jimmy Price and awakes to a television news story about the brutal torture and murder of a boatman named Van Tuck. At Trevor's house, Trevor and the narrator are discussing the state of the drugs game when the narrator offhandedly mentions Van Tuck's murder. Trevor flies into a panic and takes the narrator to see Duncan, a local reporter who is friendly with many police officers and feeds Trevor information. On the way, Trevor explains that Van Tuck was a smuggler and he was currently moving several million pounds worth of marijuana into the country for Trevor. Trevor's hope is that Van Tuck had not yet picked up the shipment, but there is a strong possibility that the police will have confiscated the drugs during their investigation of Van Tuck's murder. Through Duncan, Trevor discovers that the cannabis has been seized by the police and after destroying many of Duncan's possessions in a rage, the action moves back to London. The narrator and Morty receive a call from Cody, telling them that he has located Kinky, Charlie's boyfriend, in a flat in King's Cross. Upon arriving at the flat, the men find that Kinky is dead of a heroin overdose, and one of the crackheads who was living with Kinky believes that Kinky was murdered. The narrator is intrigued to learn that Kinky had turned up at the flat shortly before his death with Charlie and two grand in cash. The crackheads tell them that Charlie has gone to Brighton and the narrator sends Cody after her. The narrator and Morty retire to a cafe, where they run into Freddy Hurst, a fat and slovenly ex-gangster who is down on his luck. Freddy subtly ridicules Morty and asks for some money. Morty complies, but when Freddy makes another comment, Morty flies into a rage and beats Freddy almost to death in the middle of the crowded cafe. Morty and the narrator flee, with the narrator deeply troubled by what he has just witnessed. That night, the narrator visits Gene at his flat. Gene goes over the beating in great detail and informs the narrator that if Freddy dies, the narrator is left with two options. He can either testify against Morty or he will go to prison as an accomplice to murder. Gene then goes on to explain that Freddy Hurst was an influential gangster in the late 1970s in London, and that Gene and Morty were members of his crew. After Kilburn Jerry killed himself and Morty was caught disposing of the body, Freddy was about to go away for about 12 years to serve concurrent sentences. Freddy could have gotten Morty off the hook but chose not to, leading to Morty doing 5 years in prison unnecessarily. The narrator gets very drunk with Gene, and the next day decides to arrange a meeting with Tammy at the Churchill Hotel. While showering at the hotel before Tammy arrives, the narrator is kidnapped by two unidentified men and transported across London to The City. There he meets Eddie Temple, who explains that Jimmy has double-crossed the narrator. Jimmy had become involved in a scheme with some gangsters from Chechnya to purchase a consignment of non-existent Pakistani heroin. Jimmy had been taken in by the gangsters and had lost nearly 13 million pounds. In his rage, Jimmy believed that his old friend Eddie had arranged for Jimmy to be ensnared, and he therefore tasked the narrator to find Charlie, Eddie's daughter. Jimmy believed that if he could hold Charlie hostage, he could force Eddie to get his money back. Eddie goes on to explain that Jimmy has been moonlighting as a police informer for a number of years. Eddie plays the narrator a recording in which Jimmy speaks with Albie Carter, a member of the Southeast Regional Crime Squad. Jimmy tells Albie that he wants the narrator to be arrested for possession of drugs, which would result in a 12 year sentence. Jimmy had sent the narrator to a dodgy accountant, and after the narrator is imprisoned, Jimmy was planning to take control of his assets to recover his lost wealth. Eddie drops the narrator off back at the Churchill with the recording. The narrator decides to take matters into his own hands and proceeds to Jimmy's mansion in Totteridge. There, he sneaks into the grounds of Price's house and kills him with a gun he borrowed from Gene. The narrator heads back into London, where his colleagues are frantically trying to find out who killed Jimmy. The narrator is convinced that he got away cleanly and is unconcerned. He is summoned with Morty to see Gene, who promptly beats the narrator viciously and breaks his wrist. It transpires that Gene has discovered that the narrator killed Jimmy with the same gun that Gene used to kill Crazy Larry Flynn, a homosexual London gangster who had been friends with both Gene and Morty. Upon producing the recording, the narrator manages to convince Gene and Morty that Jimmy was an informer, and they trust one another again. The narrator now decides to eliminate both of his remaining problems. One, he has to stop Klaus the murderous Nazi and, two, he has find a way to steal the pills back from the Yahoos. The narrator and Morty contact Shanks in Liverpool and get him to send an assassin down on the train. The narrator lures Klaus to Primrose Park and lies in wait with the sniper. The narrator spots a tall blonde man in the park and, believing this man to be Klaus, orders to sniper to kill him, which he does. The narrator then realizes that they have killed the wrong man and see Klaus run away from the scene. Gene flies into a rage when he hears what has happened, and dispatches some of his own men to find and kill Klaus, which they do. The narrator then contracts Cody to organize a false police raid on the Yahoos hideout to steal back the pills. Cody and his team assault the hideout, posing as armed police. They allow the Yahoos to escape and they "confiscate" the pills. Gene and the narrator find the Yahoos in a run-down bar and convince them that the police who raided them were crooked and have taken the pills for themselves. The narrator had previously worked out a deal with Eddie Ryder to give Ryder the pills in return for 2.5 million pounds. Thinking that his job is finally complete, the narrator and his colleagues take the pills to Eddie Temple's bonded warehouse at Heathrow Airport, where Temple is having the pills flown to Tokyo. When they arrive at the airport, Eddie and his private security team take them all hostage and take the pills. Temple takes the pills, telling the narrator that he is owed them as a result of the narrator causing Charlie distress. Temple then delivers a speech to the narrator, explaining the nature of the drugs game, crime and life in general: "You're born, you take shit. Get out in the world, you take more shit. Climb a little higher, you take less shit. Until one day you're up in the rarified atmosphere and you've forgotten what shit even looks like. Welcome to the layer cake, son." Seemingly defeated, the narrator and his colleagues then discover that they have delivered the wrong boxes to Temple. The boxes were actually filled with sex toys and pornography that Morty had been able to sell at Loveland, the sex shop that he owned. The real pills had been shipped back to Amsterdam and to an unknown fate. Clarkie then tells Morty that had Freddie Hurst has died of his injuries, which could cause serious problems for Morty. The story then fast-forwards about three years. The narrator is now living on the northern coast of Venezuela where he runs a bar. It turns out that about six weeks after Temple took the pills, the narrator and Tammy were eating in a restaurant in London when Sydney, Tammy's jilted ex-boyfriend found them. Sydney shot the narrator multiple times, including in the head. The narrator spent six weeks in a coma and awoke with a steel plate in his head. He is visited in hospital by a mysterious government official, who may work for the police or MI5. The man tells the narrator to abandon the drugs trade and leave Britain or else he would find himself in prison for a very long time. The narrator moves to Venezuela and leaves us with the line, "My name? If you knew that, you'd be as clever as me." |
6134980 | /m/0fr_v2 | Forgive us our Sins | null | null | {"/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"} | Imagine staging the end of the world and observing the effects of this apocalypse on an isolated, rural village… imagine a group of powerful Vatican clerics coldly orchestrating such an experiment in search of scientific and theological “truth”… 1284 Heurteloup is a village tucked away in the marshlands of South West France. It has been cut off from the rest of the world for forty years and - so it seems - ignored by everyone including the local diocese and the state. Neighbouring townsfolk do not dare venture anywhere near Heurteloup - it is a place that inspires terror, a name that conjures up evil spirits, darkness and savagery. Not so long ago, the remains of corpses were found floating in a river, dragged by the current straight from the banks of the cursed town. One man decides to set off to try to save the “soul” of Heurteloup: his name is Father Henno Gui. A newly ordained priest, Gui is driven purely by faith and his sense of vocation. He is accompanied by two loyal companions: a young boy, Floris, and a giant-like man, Mardi Gras, whose disproportionate size and disfigured face terrify onlookers. Having walked for days, fighting their way through thick forests, Gui and his companions arrive at Heurteloup. The village is deserted and there is not a soul in sight. The Church is in ruins and the dwellings appear uninhabited. But when Gui looks carefully, he notices traces of recent human activity, and he can sense that their every move is being watched. He has no idea where the villagers are hiding. Most importantly, he can tell from effigies and statuettes of women that these hidden villagers worship ‘Gods’ of a very unorthodox kind… So begins this violent story of power and corruption, where magic and superstition coexist alongside Catholicism and the stranglehold of the Vatican. Romain Sardou recreates the period as he weaves philosophical and religious questions through a chilling tale of murder and betrayal. * Pope Martin IV |
6135059 | /m/0fr_yk | Rejuvenile: Kickball, Cartoons, Cupcakes, and the Reinvention of the American Grown-up | Christopher Noxon | 2006-06 | {"/m/05h83": "Non-fiction"} | Rejuvenile is about adults who behave and think in childlike and childish ways, and Noxon's opinion is that this isn't necessarily a bad thing. According to the book, many rejuveniles have found ways to lead productive and responsible lives without tossing aside things they've always loved -- from Necco Wafers to Tintin to skateboarding. The book is also a collection of stories of like-minded adults who do things like play dodgeball on the weekends, go to Walt Disney World Resort (without kids) and collect toys. |
6136468 | /m/0fs1s0 | Dragon Keeper | Carole Wilkinson | 2003 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | In the far western mountains of the Han Empire in ancient China, an aging dragon, his wife (who soon dies), and a young slave girl are used, abused and neglected by the cruel Master Lan. Nameless and alone, the slave girl is without hope and her only friend is her pet rat, Hua. After one of the Imperial Dragons, the mate of the aging one, suddenly dies, the slave girl feels guilty and responsible. She finds herself coming to the aid of the last dragon, Danzi. The two escape, but when the emperor finds out that one of his dragons is dead, Master Lan blames it on her and she finds herself chased by the imperial guards, who believe she is an evil sorceress. A necromancer and a dragon hunter, who are determined to kill the dragon and take the dragon's stone, are chasing her and the dragon. The dragon, Long Danzi (meaning courageous dragon), tells the slave girl her true name: Ping (meaning duckweed). Ping discovers her destiny as Dragon Keeper, but she is unaware that the dragon stone is an egg. Now she and the dragon must go on a dangerous journey across China to Ocean, an apparent magical healing place. She must protect a mysterious stone that is vital to the dragon's legacy. While travelling with Danzi, Ping learns many things that will, in time, help her with her struggles. Ping also learns the value of friendship and courage. After, Danzi and Hua must go over Ocean when they're hurt by Diao, the dragon hunter. The stone (now found to be an egg) hatches, and out of it comes...a purple vegetable. Or at least that is what Ping thinks. Eventually Danzi claims it is a baby dragon. It moves, and just before Danzi leaves, he gives the baby a name: Long Kai Duan. Ping is now left alone with the baby dragon. The last of the first. |
6137012 | /m/0fs2mq | Bag Limit | Steven Havill | 11/17/2001 | {"/m/0lsxr": "Crime Fiction", "/m/02n4kr": "Mystery"} | Sheriff Bill Gastner hopes his last few days in office will be uneventful, but this is before a local 17 year old named Matt Baca drives drunkenly into his cruiser. Baca stumbles drunkenly into the night as Gastner confronts him. He is later arrested passed out at his home. After kicking open sheriff Gastner's temporary cruisers window, he is transferred to a local Border Patrol unit. The transfer turns fatal when Baca pushes himself away, accidentally into a delivery trucks path. The plot thickens as the dead teens father is found dead in his kitchen the next morning. Thus bringing Gastner into a confusing set of clues to lead him to why Baca kept fighting his arrest, where is and where did he get his fake I.D., and who was involved in the struggle with Matt Baca's father leading to his death. |
6137040 | /m/0fs2q3 | Alma Cogan | Gordon Burn | null | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | In Burn's novel, however, Alma Cogan does not die in 1966, but retires from show business sometime thereafter to a quiet solitude near the English seashore, living neither in luxury nor poverty. In contrast to Cogan's bubbly public persona, Burn's Alma, who narrates the book, is an arch, dry-witted, highly intelligent observer of the world around her, mildly dismissive of, even jaded by, her showbiz past (but not entirely disdainful of it). She recounts with equal detachment the heady days of celebrity and the sordid backstage cruelties—including bouts of unexpected violence—as she muses on the nature of stardom and its many pitfalls, which entrap the worshipper as much as the worshipped. But her residual fame proves a gruesome and unwanted relic as it serves to tie her, through her fans, to an unforeseen encounter with evil. |
6137287 | /m/0fs33m | The Ballad of the Sad Cafe | Carson McCullers | null | null | The Ballad of the Sad Cafe opens in a small, isolated Georgia town. The story introduces Miss Smith, a strong character of both body and mind, who is approached by a hunchbacked man with only a suitcase in hand who claims to be of kin. When Miss Smith, whom the townspeople see as a calculating woman who never acts without reason, takes the stranger into her home, rumors begin to circulate that Miss Smith has only done so to take what the hunchback had in his suitcase. When the rumors hit their peak, a group of eight men come to her store, sitting outside on the steps for the day and waiting to see if something would happen. Finally, they enter the store all at once and are stunned to see that the hunchback is actually alive and well. With everyone gathered inside, Miss Amelia brings out some liquor and crackers in hospitality, which further shocks the men, as they have never witnessed Miss Amelia be hospitable enough to allow drinking inside her home. This is essentially the beginning of the café. Miss Amelia and the hunchback, Cousin Lymon, unintentionally create a new tradition for the town, and the people gather inside at the café on Sunday evenings often until midnight. It is apparent, though surprising, to the townspeople that Miss Amelia has fallen in love with Cousin Lymon, and has begun to change slightly as time progresses. When the townspeople see this, they relate it to another odd incident in which Miss Amelia was also involved: the issue of her ten-day marriage. Miss Amelia had been married to a man named Marvin Macy, who was a vicious and cruel character before meeting and falling in love with her. He changed his ways and became good-natured, but reverted back to his old self when his love was rejected after a failed ten-day marriage in which he gave up everything he possessed in hopes of having her return his affections. He broke out into a rage, committing a string of felonies before being caught and locked up in the state penitentiary. When he was released, he returned to the town with the full intention of ruining Miss Amelia's life the way she ruined his. Upon his return, he takes advantage of Cousin Lymon's admiration for him, as he views Macy as a true man, and uses him to crush Miss Amelia's heart, ransack the café, steal her curios and money, and leave Miss Amelia alone by taking Cousin Lymon along with him as he disappears from town. The novella ends with The Twelve Mortal Men, which is a brief passage of twelve men in a chain-gang, whose actions outline that of what happened in the lonely rural town, and highlights the themes of loneliness and isolation. |
6137851 | /m/0fs3j5 | The Privilege of Youth | Dave Pelzer | null | null | Dave Pelzer's biographical account tells of his teen years as an abused child placed into foster care in California in the 1970s. Currently working at an exhausting pace to spread his message of hope and triumph as a public speaker crossing the country for weeks at a time he recounts the events of his teen years that changed the course of his life. He was rescued in 1973 from a childhood home fraught with abuse, starvation, torture and neglect at the hands of his mother; deemed the third worst case of child abuse on record in California up to that time. Despite the newfound freedom and sense of family he got from his numerous foster families, he was still subjected to bullying and torment at school and in his neighborhoods as he struggled to fit in. Often he would put himself a risk of grave injury doing stupid stunts or taking dares to be accepted by his friends David and Paul. Life was better for Pelzer but still very traumatic as he approached the dreaded age of 18 when foster children are cut loose and must go it alone in the world. Pelzer was determined to succeed, after all he had been put through he refused to be complacent and let life beat him. Pelzer admits he made poor choices along the way by sacrificing school for working menial jobs to save enough money to make it on his own, dropping out of school to work as a car salesman, and dreaming of a career as a Hollywood stuntman. He was fortunate to have the friendship of two men from his neighborhood of Duinsmoore, Mike Marsh and Dan Brazell, who preached to him to finish school and make something of his life. It was his short time living in this neighborhood that made all the difference to Pelzer and the man he became. It was here in the “Leave It To Beaver” world of Menlo Park, CA that he gained a sense of belonging that he had never known. His story is inspiring and has a positive message for kids who think they have a rotten life whether they are in foster homes or living with their parents. Dave Pelzer's message to value what you have, stay in school, work hard and to give your best effort in everything you do has been delivered to thousands of groups across the nation in his role as a spokesman for millions of abused and neglected children. |
6138431 | /m/0fs4p7 | Past Master | R. A. Lafferty | 1968 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | Past Master is set in the year 2535 on the world of Astrobe, a utopian Earth colony that is hailed as Golden Astrobe, "mankind's third chance" after the decline of both the Old World and New World on Earth. Despite idealistic intentions, it is suffering moral and social decline that may be terminal for both Astrobe and the human race. In an attempt to save their dying civilization, its leaders use time travel to fetch Sir Thomas More (chosen for his fine legal and moral sense) from shortly before his death in the year 1535 to be the president of Astrobe. More struggles with whether to approve of the Astrobian society, noting its possible connections to his own novel Utopia. His judgements soon lead him into conflict both with destructive cosmic forces on Astrobe and with its leaders who thought him a mere figurehead who could be manipulated. |
6142983 | /m/0fsd0q | The Shoemaker's Holiday | Thomas Dekker | 1599 | null | Aristocrat Rowland Lacy falls in love with middle class girl Rose Oatley, but both their fathers refuse to approve the match because of the class difference and Rowland's spendthrift lifestyle. Rowland is told to redeem himself by joining the army fighting in France. To avoid going, he persuades someone else to take his place and disguises himself as a "Dutch" shoemaker, Hans. He becomes an apprentice of eccentric but hard-working tradesman Simon Eyre and uses this position to be able to find Rose again and secretly marry her. Meanwhile, another shoemaker, Ralph, is sent off to war to the great dismay of his wife, Jane. While he is away, Hammon, a gentleman, falls in love with Jane and attempts to woo her. She is not interested, but once shown a false document that says her husband is dead, she agrees that if she ever marries again, she will marry Hammon. Ralph later returns from the war, with his legs having been amputated. He is further distraught when he cannot find his wife and later suspects (based on the appearance of her shoe that he once made for her) that she has agreed to marry someone else. He locates her, and when given the choice, Jane returns to her husband. Hammon attempts to buy her from Ralph, but Ralph refuses. Later in the play, Simon Eyre is made, first, Sheriff, and then Lord Mayor of London. He decides to create a special holiday to honour apprentices. The King comes to see him. He finds his mannerisms strange, but enjoys his company. The play ends with the King defending Rose and Rowland's marriage to their fathers, and knighting Rowland so that Rose may be a lady and their social classes may be more appropriately matched. He does this while claiming that love goes beyond social class. |
6143895 | /m/0fsflt | The Psychopathic God: Adolf Hitler | Robert G. L. Waite | null | null | This book foregoes many common topics of historicity among biographies of Hitler, instead creating a portrait of the dictator solely through his apparent motivations. While questions have lingered as to whether Hitler had Jewish ancestry, and subsequent history has cast great doubt on the idea, Waite proposes that Hitler's own doubts as to this question was a fundamental catalyst of the dictator's political actions. The author attempts to show that Hitler was unaware as to the truth of this matter, made great efforts to covertly shed light on his ancestry, and was deeply affected by the lingering question. Waite's presents a plethora of evidence to consider: Hitler's fixation on blood (both his own and in his speeches on the topic of purity), craniometry, a law banning Jewish employers from having pre-menopausal German handmaidens (as was the situation of Hitler's grandmother), etc. |
6147347 | /m/0fsn42 | Professional Foul | Tom Stoppard | 1977 | {"/m/05qp9": "Play"} | The play begins by introducing Anderson, a Cambridge don and professor of Philosophy, en route to a philosophical colloquium in Prague. He is soon joined by McKendrick, another professor of Philosophy headed towards the colloquium, who forces conversation upon the reluctant and detached Anderson. During their conversation in the opening scene, the themes of politics and philosophy are established as being central to the play. In the hotel lobby in Prague Anderson is introduced to another philosopher, Chetwyn, and spots two English footballers, Crisp and Broadbent, who are there for a World Cup qualifying match against Czechoslovakia. Whilst in his room, Hollar, a former student of Anderson's, comes to the door and asks Anderson to smuggle an essay out of the country which claims that the ethics of the individual should be the basis of the ethics of the state, an ideal contradicted by the Czechoslovakian Communist model. Although he objects to smuggling the thesis out of the country on the grounds of "good manners" and a breach of the implied contract between himself and the Czechoslovakian government, Anderson agrees to drop the thesis at Hollar's flat the next day, rather than allow Hollar to run the risk of being caught with dissident material by the police. The next morning sees an encounter between Anderson and the two footballers, Crisp and Broadbent. The conversation reveals Anderson's ulterior motive for coming to Czechoslovakia and his lack of interest in philosophical discussion: he is there to watch the football. It is in this scene that McKendrick mistakes the two footballers for philosophers. In the next scene, Anderson and McKendrick talk to each other about the football match with the thesis of linguistic philosopher Professor Stone as a backdrop. The limitations of linguistic philosophy are indicated here, as well as Anderson's ability to think on his feet. Anderson leaves the colloquium early to return Hollar's thesis to him before heading to the football match, however he is accosted by several police officers who prevent him from leaving the Hollar flat upon entry. It is revealed that on his way from the hotel back to his home, Pavel Hollar was arrested. At this point Anderson is now late for the football match so the police permit him to listen to the match on the radio. The action from the football match parallels events in the flat: Broadbent commits a professional foul on a Czechoslovakian footballer just as the police commit their own professional foul by planting foreign currency in the Hollar residence in order to justify their arrest of an outspoken critic of the government. Eventually permitted to leave, the exhausted Anderson returns to the hotel where he overhears match reports being read by two different English journalists. At dinner that evening, McKendrick introduces the idea of a "Catastrophe Theory" as well as inadvertently providing a philosophical criticism of the actions of Anderson, angering the protagonist. It is learned here that Chetwyn, like Anderson, had an ulterior motive for travel to Czechoslovakia. Mrs Hollar then comes to the hotel and Anderson departs the dinner conversation to talk with her. In the street, Sacha, Pavel Hollar's young son explains what is happening in broken English. On observation of the emotional plight of the two, Anderson vows to do all he can to help. Anderson spends the evening thinking about his situation, eventually going to borrow Grayson's typewriter where he interrupts a drunken McKendrick lecturing an unimpressed crowd, including the footballers. McKendrick's criticisms of Broadbent's actions in the football match lead the footballer to punch McKendrick, knocking him out. At the colloquium the next day Anderson delivers a lecture which he wrote the evening before. The paper is not the one which he had earlier agreed to present, but one which speaks of the conflicts between the rights of individuals and the rights of the community, an allusion to his experiences in Czechoslovakia with Hollar. The colloquium's Chairman stops the potentially damaging criticism by staging a false fire alarm. In the play's penultimate scene, Anderson and Chetwyn's luggage is meticulously searched by officials whilst McKendrick breezes through. Nothing is found on Anderson, leading to questions surrounding the whereabouts of Hollar's thesis, however Chetwyn is found to be smuggling letters to Amnesty International and is detained. The final scene is similar to the way in which the play began. On the plane Anderson and McKendrick discuss the fate of Chetwyn and the events of the weekend. It is then revealed by Anderson that he took advantage of McKendrick's "Catastrophe Theory" by placing Hollar's thesis in McKendrick's bag whilst he was unconscious. In spite of McKendrick's role in Anderson's decision to commit his own professional foul, McKendrick is furious. Anderson concedes that McKendrick's anger is justified, but concludes by saying that ethical philosophy can be very complicated. |
6149640 | /m/0fsryz | The Book of Dreams | Jack Vance | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The book opens with an extract from The Book of Dreams, which contains the imaginative writings of Howard Alan Treesong during his unhappy childhood. Among other things, it details the adventures of Seven Paladins, who are key to the fantasy world he devises. Gersen's pursuit of Treesong begins after a conversation with an Interworld Police Coordinating Commission (IPCC) contact, who remarks that the arch criminal has been quiet as of late. Some years earlier, he made himself "Lord of the Overmen" (or "King of Thieves" in less grandiose language) and as recently as three years ago, he almost engineered his appointment as head of the IPCC itself. Gersen and his friend grudgingly admire Treesong's ambition to control the criminal underworld and the Oikumene's sole interstellar police agency at the same time. Gersen concludes that Treesong must be due for another grand gesture any time soon, but admits to himself he possesses insufficient imagination to visualize what it could be. His extensive business empire, managed by Jehan Addels, includes Cosmopolis magazine, for which he often masquerades as the journalist "Henry Lucas". Gersen spends some time examining the Cosmopolis files for any material relating to Treesong. He is on the point of giving up when he discovers a photograph, apparently of a formal dinner, bearing the words "H A Treesong is here". No other likeness of Treesong is known to exist - and the woman who had sold it to the magazine had apparently been killed for it. But there is no way to tell which of the people in the picture is Treesong, so Gersen devises a plan to unmask him. He launches Extant, a livelier sister magazine to Cosmopolis. He then publishes the picture in the free inaugural issue as part of a contest, offering large cash prizes to anyone who can first identify any or all of the ten people in the photograph. An attractive red-haired young woman, Alice Wroke, seeks temporary employment processing the contest entries. Gersen, expecting an attempt at infiltration by Treesong, covertly uses a lie detector on her and confirms his suspicions. Eventually, each of the subjects is identified, except for one man who seems to have a variety of identities. When a contestant submits the correct identification for all ten, Gersen confronts Alice and places most of his cards on the table: that the photograph was intended to identify Treesong, and that the magazine would be interested in interviewing him. However, he conceals his personal interest. Information from the contest leads Gersen to suspect the photograph is of the highest-ranking Fellows of the powerful Institute. It includes seven members of the "Dexad" (the Fellows of ranks 101 to 109 and 111), and the three Fellows of rank 99 (ranks 100 and 110 are always vacant). All save one died at the banquet, poisoned by charnay (see below). The survivor is the man of many names - Treesong himself, clearly the murderer of the others. Having fraudulently acquired the rank of 99, he plans to become the Institute's leader, the Triune (rank 111, hence the name), by default. Three members of the Dexad were not present. One had died recently: the banquet was for choosing his successor from the 99s. Another had broken with the Institute and become a hermit. The last was Alice Wroke's father; Treesong, under a false name, blackmailed Alice into spying on the contest by threats to her father, whom he had in fact already murdered. Gersen locates the last surviving member of the Dexad just ahead of Treesong, and saves him, in the process shooting Treesong in the leg. The new Triune immediately cancels Treesong's spurious rank and brings to an end another plan that would have put the Demon Prince in a position of immense power. Extant receives a late entry to the contest, from someone who identifies Treesong as "Howard Hardoah" from Maunish on the planet Mouderveldt and claims to be his father. The letter also mentions a school reunion, to which Howard has been invited. Treesong himself calls the Extant offices, and identifies the people in the photograph, only to be told that all have been named already, and that he is too late to claim a prize. "Henry Lucas" offers to publish Treesong's memoirs, but Treesong says he has somewhere to go immediately. Gersen suspects that Treesong plans to attend the school reunion. Gersen travels to Maunish. He interviews the elder Hardoah, with the excuse of delivering a prize check, and learns about Treesong's boyhood. He also meets Howard's older brother Ledesmus, who hid Howard's prized "Book of Dreams," an exercise book in which he wrote his childhood fantasies, and tells of Howard's near-murder of his childhood friend Nymphotis Cleadhoe, when he thought Nymphotis had taken it. Ledesmus recovers the book and sells it to Gersen. Gersen contacts Treesong's one-time music teacher, and pays for his orchestra's appearance at the reunion - with Gersen as a member, though an afternoon's lesson leaves him a thoroughly inept musician. His guess is correct. Treesong arrives, accompanied by a band of menacing underlings, and perpetrates imaginative (though non-fatal) humiliations on those who had tormented him. Treesong's admittedly good musical ear is offended by Gersen's poor playing, so he has him thrown out. Out of sight, Gersen dispatches the men assigned to take him away and uses their weapons. This is enough to disrupt Treesong's revenge, but Gersen can do no more than inflict another wound before he has to flee. In a second interview with the Hardoahs he learns that the Cleadhoes moved off-planet, and their destination. Otho Cleadhoe was township marmelizer - who transformed the flesh of corpses into a stony substance, after which the resulting "marmel" (statue) was placed in the cemetery. He still has the Book, and finds there a description of Treesong's "Seven Paladins". On broaching the subject with Alice, who is now his confederate, he learns that Treesong considers the Seven to be the embodiments of various aspects of his own personality, with "Immir" representing normal self. Gersen concludes that the Book would probably lure Treesong out of hiding. He finds willing, but difficult, allies in Nymphotis Cleadhoe's parents, Otho and Tuty - whose only child is dead, and they have no doubt that Howard killed him. Gersen has Cosmopolis publish a sensationalized report of Treesong's exploits at the reunion, and a letter purportedly from Tuty, in which she talks fondly of Howard as their son's friend, and casually mentions an exercise book she still has in her possession. As hoped, this draws Treesong's attention. The Cleadhoes now live on the jungle planet of Bethune Preserve. Treesong comes in search of his precious book. Tuty and Otho lure Treesong to their remote outpost, but double-cross Gersen, leaving him (and Alice) behind. Gersen and Alice manage to borrow a vehicle to follow in, but arrive late. They are shown into Otho's laboratory and museum. Otho has marmelized Treesong's legs, and left him seated in an indoor garden facing the marmel of Nymphotis. Gersen reveals his motivation for seeking the last Demon Prince's downfall. The arch-villain wearily acknowledges himself to have been neatly trapped, mourns the narrow failure of his attempt to make himself the first Emperor of the Gaean Worlds, and asks to be left alone. Gersen declines to take any further revenge on him and leaves with Alice and the Cleadhoes. From behind the door, Gersen overhears a conversation, as between Immir/Treesong and his paladins, in which the lesser paladins bid farewell to their leader and gradually convince him that the situation is truly hopeless. Before they "depart", the paladins perform one last service for Immir. A crash and a splash are heard; Gersen hurries back inside, to find Treesong face down and drowned in a pond, before the overturned chair, though he should have been unable to rise from it and it had been solidly secured. Gersen, his revenge complete, finds himself at a loss. He confesses to Alice that he does not know what he will do now that he has been deserted by his enemies. |
6150247 | /m/0fst1d | Dragon Fire | Humphrey Hawksley | 8/24/2000 | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller", "/m/098tmk": "War novel", "/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | This novel gives us nightmare scenarios where the world's worst fears begin on 10:00 a.m. on 3 May 2007. A SFF(Special Frontier Force) Major, Gendun Choedrak Assaults Drapchi prison with paratroopers to free Tibetan religious leaders who are being incarcerated there. Far out west, Pakistan launches an attack on the strategic outpost of Kargil, promptly raising the green crescent flag on Indian soil. China accuses India of attacking Chinese soil and declares war. It's Pakistan and China vs India now, 3 nuclear powers. Nuclear arsenals are being mobilized. Later Pakistan is devastated while India and China are threatening nuclear war. Russia says whoever is involved in this matter will have to face her first. The West's greatest nightmares are becoming true. |
6150798 | /m/0fsv01 | Divine Hammer | Chris Pierson | null | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | The book begins with Nusendaran (Andras's master), and Andras going into a village to sacrifice a black sheep. However, the Divine Hammer ambush them, and they manage to kill Nusendaran, and are aiming for him next. Suddenly, Andras is teleported away by Fistandantilus. They watch Nusendaran burnt at the stake, so Andras desires revenge against the Kingpriest and his forces. Just then, Fistandantilus offers Andras a choice to become his student. He agrees. Meanwhile, Cathan and the Divine Hammer are eradicating a temple to Chemosh hidden in an abandoned lighthouse. They get onto little longboats, and quickly arrive at the lighthouse. They manage to kill the guards, and work their way down to the main worship hall. The Deathmaster, head priest, aims for Cathan with foul magic, however, Damid, a friend of Cathan's, pushes Cathan away and dies instead. Tithian manages to kill the Deathmaster by throwing his sword at him. After the battle, they receive orders to return to Istar. Cathan also promises to knight Tithian. After returning to Istar, Cathan learns he is to be the escort for the new envoy from the Order of High Sorcery, Leciane, since the previous one died. On the way to the Tower of High Sorcery in Istar to bring her to the palace, the magical olive trees guarding the entrance manage to "persuade" Cathan off the path, causing him to lose his memories of that day. Fortunately, Leciane rescues him, and then he takes her to her quarters in the palace. Later, they head for a tournament held by Cathan's sister. On the way, Leciane is told by the head mage, Vincil, to charm Cathan, however she refuses and lies. Andras is taken to a ruined building a distance away from Istar, which is where he spends his life until one day, when he knows he's ready to attack the Kingpriest. He manages to summon many quasits (abyssal imps), and sends them to attack the Divine Hammer during the tournament. The Divine Hammer are very weak from the tournament, so many die very quickly, including the Grand Marshal. The Kingpriest attempts to banish the quasito, however a spell of Andras's prevents the godly magic from working. Leciane manages to persuade the Kingpriest to let her try, and she succeeds. They go after Andras, and manage to find many quasito around a ruined building. They deduce that their attacker must live there, so they storm the building. Andras is captured, and to be burnt at the stake. However, just before he is burnt, the Conclave rescues him so that they can levy their punishment on him first. Ironically, Fistandantilus steals Andras away from the Conclave. Andras becomes a fetch with the aid of Fistandantilus, and he takes on the form of the Patriarch of Seldjuk. Leciane manages to persuade the Kingpriest and the head of the Conclave to have a moot, however, Andras, as the Patriarch of Seldjuk, stabs the Kingpriest. The Kingpriest's guards think the Patriarch was mind controlled by the wizards, and so they begin to fight. The wizards quickly realize they can't hold out, so begin to attempt to teleport away. They arrive back in the tower, and find out that Vincil has an axe embedded in his back, and is dying. Since Vincil was Leciane's lover, she kisses him, then he dies. The Kingpriest makes Cathan the new Grand Marshal. Faced with the prospect of war with the Kingpriest, the wizards knew that they would lose. Therefore they begin to move all magical artifacts and books, to Wayreth, since the populace isn't ready for artifacts of mass destruction. They also disenchanted those that couldn't be moved. Since Fistandantilus is a renegade, he decides to aid the Kingpriest, sending him some magical seeds that can clear a path through the groves that protect the towers. The Kingpriest distributes the seeds to all of his allies attacking the towers. In Daltigoth, the general decides to attack early. Since the tower wasn't emptied, the Order of High Sorcery decides to destroy the tower, which levels the city. The Kingpriest receives word of this, however doesn't tell any of his other allies attacking the towers, believing it is an attempt by "forces of evil" to sway his holy crusade. Leciane comes to warn Cathan, who is going to attack the tower in Losarcum with the rest of the Divine Hammer. Unfortunately, she is interrupted before she manages to tell Cathan everything. When Cathan and the Divine Hammer attack the tower, Cathan notices that there seems to be a surge of magic in the apex, and quickly realizes the tower will explode. He and Tithian attempt to escape, but are confused by the twisting passages. Leciane finds them and teleports them away, but she takes a fatal wound in the process. Cathan becomes unconscious during the spell, and wakes up days later. By then, Leciane is already dead. Cathan parts with Tithian when they reach Istar, and Cathan decides that what the Kingpriest is doing is evil. He embarrasses the Kingpriest in front of all the courtiers, then leaves Istar. He is never seen again. Andras begins to feel guilty about what he has done, and wishes to undo it. However, Fistandantilus decides that payment is due then, so takes over Andras's mind. Andras, under Fistandantilus's spell, curses the tower of High Sorcery in Palanthas, so that no one will be allowed into the tower until the master of the past and present claims the tower. Fistandantilus threatens the Kingpriest's, by becoming his enemy if he doesn't let Fistandantilus join the Kingpriest's court. The Kingpriest is forced to agree. |
6150915 | /m/0fsv7b | The Dargonesti | Paul B. Thompson | 1995-10 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | The book begins with a Qualinesti princess, Vixa, and some forces sent on the Evenstar to rescue an elven ambassador escaping from the advancing Ergothian army. However, a white wall of fog appears, and tows their ship away for an entire night. The fog clears to reveal a sandy island, which they find out is nine hundred leagues away from their previous location. The island is also unlisted on any maps. They explore the island, and see figures that wear green enamel armor and braided eelweed, who attempt to kidnap one of the exploration party. The exploration party attacks the figures, at which point the figures run away. They follow them into a cave, which collapses as soon as they are in it. While in the cave, they realize they landed on a kraken, and they went into its blowhole. They cause the kraken so much pain that it to releases them while underwater. Unable to swim, they begin to drown. Luckily rescued by Dargonesti elves, known as the green enameled figures. The four that survived are taken to a hollow volcano on the outskirts of Urione, a Dargonesti city, which is full of air and houses other captives. They meet Garnath and others there, and learn that the Dargonesti forces them to build walls to help defend against the chilkit, gigantic lobsters that are the enemies of the Dargonesti. Vixa meets Coryphene, as well as the Queen of the Dargonesti in Urione, Uriona. Vixa is told by Coryphene never to look at the queen, and to be obedient. She learns that Uriona wants to become rule of the Silvanesti, and appears mad. She chafes at being obedient, so she tries to catch a glimpse of Uriona. She sees Uriona reflected by the floor, and then Uriona's green eyes flash, causing her to become unconscious. As a punishment for being disobedient, she is sent to the volcano. While building a wall, the foursome are attacked by the chilkit. They are forced to fight with nothing but their bare hands, and fortunately they survive. However, many others didn't. After working for a while, one morning the Dargonesti don't arrive to escort them to work, and they can soon hear there is fighting going on outside. The dwarves had stored many jars of gnomefire, otherwise known as Greek fire, which was made from the minerals inside the volcano. Chilkit begin to enter the volcano, and the water level also begins to rise. The captives use the gnomefire on the chilkit. However, one manages to corner Vixa, but she is luckily saved by Garnath. Unfortunately, Garnath is killed while saving her. The water level is now very high, and the gnomefire used up the remaining oxygen in the volcano, so the captives are forced to swim out of the volcano, but they have no air shells to breathe through, and Vixa becomes unconscious after swimming outside. She is rescued by Naxos, who takes her to the surface. However, they cannot get back to Urione, because they have no air shells, and Vixa can't hold her breath for that long. Naxos decides to make her one of the sea brothers, allowing her to shape change into a dolphin at will. They swim back to Urione, however she conceals her ability so that Naxos won't get into trouble. She meets up with the rest of the captives in a barracks where they are held. Gundabyr agrees to show the Dargonesti how to use gnomefire so that they can destroy the chilkit, in exchange for freedom. However, Uriona secretly tells Coryphene that the captives must not be allowed to live. Since the captives are now heroes for saving the city from the chilkit, captives are showered with gifts, and can leave the barracks. However, none come back. Vixa soon realizes that the soldiers under Coryphene's orders are killing captives, so she decides to escape. Gundabyr is held prisoner in a guard room, so Vixa rescues him, then Vixa as a dolphin carries Gundabyr on her back, heading for Silvanesti. They attempt to warn the Silvanesti of an attack, but are considered mad and are held captive in an outlying fort. When the Dargonesti do come to attack the fort, the general sets them free to help fight. However, the Dargonesti brought a kraken, which quickly levels the fort. The two manage to escape and reach Silvanost to warn the Speaker of the Stars, Elendar. With the help of Vixa and Gundabyr, the Silvanesti manage to defeat the Dargonesti, and hold Uriona, Coryphene and other Dargonesti elves captive. Elendar decides to marry Uriona, however, their sons will not be in line for the throne. Vixa tells Coryphene that Uriona is going to marry Elendar, and so Coryphene commits suicide, because he loved Uriona passionately, so followed all of her wishes and commands. However, Uriona always thought of him as a tool to help her achieve her dreams. Vixa and Gundabyr are given a griffin to ride to Thorbardin, where she drops Gundabyr off. Then, she rides back to Qualinesti, and is joyfully received by her parents, who thought her dead. They hold a feast in her honor, and her story is spread throughout the realm. Since their daughter can carry responsibility now, she is given command of the Wildrunners. She begins to feel a calling to return to the sea, so days later she abandons her post, writes a letter to her parents saying good bye, and goes to live underwater as Naxos's wife. |
6151708 | /m/0fsw8f | They Thirst | null | null | {"/m/03npn": "Horror"} | The prologue starts in Hungary as young Andy is waiting for his father to come home after a hunting trip. His father comes in late but is different. Andy comes to his father when told to and finds he is pale and cold. Andy's mother suspecting that he is a creature he was hunting for shoots him. His face is blown apart but continues to come after the two. They then run away into the cold blizzard. His father shouts "I'LL FIND YOU" as they run away. Andy and his mother finally go to a house away from their town. Later Andy is now a detective trying find the Roach who rapes, murders, and then puts cockroaches in the mouth of the women. Andy works leaves him stressed from days and days of work. Meanwhile an albino sociopath killer is making his way to Los Angeles by the calls of someone and visions. At a bar in Texas he kills everyone with a Mauser and makes his way to Los Angeles. Gayle Clark is a reporter and while going to work with her boyfriend they find the Hollywood Cemetery is ransacked. The people who did this left the bodies in a road and stole the coffins. Andy is told this and goes to the watchman to tell him what to do if the men did it again to just stay in the house and close the binds. At the same time Rico, a Chicano gangster, gets his girl and finds she is pregnant. But the girl runs away after asking whether it's his. The girl runs while Rico tries to find her. But she is overtaken by the vampires in a dark street. That same night Wes Richer is having a large party after his successful comedy show. But his wife is a medium and she decides to have a vision with a Ouija board with a non-believer. She is told by a spirit that there's evil and when asked what is this evil it replies, "THEY THIRST" Before dawn the Prince Vampire is in Disneyland and sees the Headmaster. The Headmaster tells him that endless possibilities will be possible once he conquers Los Angeles. When seen after talking to him by a watchman he turns into a large bat and flies away. es:Sed de sangre |
6153632 | /m/0fsz7r | The Word | Irving Wallace | 3/27/1972 | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller", "/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The plot of the novel is based around the discovery within Roman ruins of a new gospel written by Jesus' younger brother, James in the first century. In the gospel, many facts of Jesus' life, including the years not mentioned in the Bible, are revealed not to be as factual as they were once thought to be. Steven Randall, a divorced public relations executive running his own company in New York City, is the man hired by New Testament International, an alliance of American and European Bible publishers, to give publicity to James' Gospel as published by them. The project has been top-secret for six years, and now it is about to be unveiled to a world long in need of Christian revival. However, as Steven gets more involved in the project he runs into several questionable circumstances, as radical clerics centered in Central Europe oppose the publication of the document, since it would give ammunition for the conservative churches to keep the flow of worship from the top to the bottom, instead of bringing the faith to the masses. A struggle for control of the World Council of Churches, the suspicious absence in the project of archeologist Prof. Agusto Monti, the original discoverer – and whose daughter Angela is a potential love interest for Steve – , and the potential notion that the newly discovered gospel itself is a forgery made in the 20th century instead of a legitimate historical document, all are guaranteed to make Steve question the worth of the new job he's undertaking, and the newly re-found faith in God he acquired along with it. *New York City, Steve's place of work and regular abode. *Oak City, Wisconsin, Steve's hometown (fictional; may be based on Oak Creek and/or Pleasant Prairie). *London, England, where Steve meets Dr. Bernard Jeffries and Dr. Florian Knight *Amsterdam, Netherlands, headquarters of the New Testament International project, and of Maertin de Vroome's Westerkerk. *Paris, France, home of Henri Aubert's lab at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique *Mainz, Germany home of Karl Hennig's printing press *Simonopetra Monastery, Mount Athos, Greece *Rome, Italy, base of the Monti family, and its former Roman seaport Ostia Antica, place of the discovery of the Gospel According to James *Milan, Italy, where Steve first meets Angela |
6155879 | /m/0ft3bd | Footfalls | Samuel Beckett | 1975 | null | The play is in four parts. Each opens with the sound of a bell. After this the lights fade up to reveal an illuminated strip along which a woman, May, paces back and forth, nine steps within a one metre stretch. In each part, the light will be somewhat darker than in the preceding one. Therefore it is darkest when the strip is lit up without May at the very end. Correspondingly, the bell gets slightly softer each time. Beckett introduced a "Dim spot on face during halts at R [right] and L [left]" so that May's face would be visible during her monologues. The play has a very musical structure and timing is critical. “The walking should be like a metronome”, Beckett instructed, “one length must be measured in exactly nine seconds.” “These ‘life-long stretches of walking,’ he told his German May, Hildegard Schmahl, are ‘the centre of the play; everything else is secondary’.” To ensure that every step could be heard “sandpaper was attached to the soles of [Billie] Whitelaw’s soft ballet slippers” during the London premiere. As she covers the nine paces (seven in earlier printed texts) she hugs herself, the arms crossed, with the hands clasping the shoulders in front. ‘When you walk, you slump together, when you speak, you straighten up a bit.’ Schmahl asked Beckett if May’s posture was supposed to express fear? “No, not fear. It expresses that May is there exclusively for herself. She is isolated.” One of a long line of Beckett protagonists whose name begins with an M, May is a woman in her forties (who should however appear “ageless” according to Beckett). She paces back and forth on a strip of bare landing outside her dying – if not already dead – mother’s room (a vertical ray of light not in the printed text suggests a door barely ajar). The woman, clearly a shadow of her former self, wears tattered nightwear and has a ghostly pallor. Beckett said: “One could go very far towards making the costume quite unrealistic, unreal. It could, however, also be an old dressing-gown, worked like a cobweb … It is the costume of a ghost.” “You feel cold. The whole time, in the way you hold your body too. Everything is frost and night.” The adjective ‘ghostly’ is used frequently – by Beckett himself and others – to describe various aspects of Footfalls. The play – significantly – only has a semblance of a plot. May’s mother is only ever heard. We learn that she is apparently ninety years old and in poor health. The more likely truth is that she is a creation of May’s mind, especially when one examines Beckett’s earlier drafts. As she paces, May and her mother carry on a conversation. They go through the daily routine by rote. Both voices are low and slow throughout. May asks her mother if she requires tending in any way. To each request the mother says: “Yes, but it is too soon.” The full list of comforts offered to the suffering mother carry a biblical resonance: dressings, sponge, lip-moistening and prayer. The suffering daughter, on the other hand, paces on the bare floorboards nailed as in a cross; in the church later ‘she’ paces across the arms of the cross. May asks her mother what age she is. She’s told that she is in her “forties” but only after May has first let her mother know that she is ninety. The mother asks May: “Will you never have done … revolving it all … In your poor mind?” The pacing back and forth is an externalisation of this inner unresolved issue. “It All” was a title Beckett was considering before he opted for Footfalls though we never discover what “it” might be. May may or may not be a ghost but she is undoubtedly a haunted individual; the umbilical cord has clearly never been severed. “M (May) and V (Voice) create a dialogue which is simultaneously time present and time past, for, although the mother’s voice is an echo from the past, May is speaking to her in the endless present dramatized before our eyes. Quite literally in Footfalls, the past is in the present.” Simply put: they are ‘living’ in the past. In the second part, the mother’s voice addresses the audience directly. She tells us that she too is watching her daughter along with us literally through the corridor wall. We learn that the turning point in May’s life, the “it” happened in girlhood: “when other girls her age were out at … lacrosse” she had already begun her obsessive pacing. From that time on significantly she has not ventured outside. In the beginning the hall had been carpeted but May had asked her mother to have it taken up. When questioned the child had said because she needed to “hear the feet, however faint they fall”; “the “motion alone is not enough”. In an earlier draft the voice tells the audience: “My voice is in her mind” suggestive of the fact that the mother actually is only a figment of May’s imaginings. This is borne out by the fact that voice tells the story of a girl who “called her mother” ,” instead of simply talking about a girl who “called me.” This is the kind of slip May might make if she was narrating the mother’s part herself. We also learn how May sleeps, “in snatches” with her head bowed against the wall which is reminiscent of Mary in Watt. “Beckett explains [why] the mother interrupts herself in the sentence ‘In the old home, the same where she — (pause)’ and then continues ‘The same where she began. She was going to say: ... the same where she was born. But that is wrong, she hasn’t been born. She just began. It began. There is a difference. She was never born.’ There is the connection with the Jung story [detailed below]. A life, which didn’t begin as a life, but which was just there, as a thing”. In Part II the mother speaks of the daughter, in the third part, the daughter of the mother, in a way that is exactly parallel. ‘One must sense the similarities of both narratives,’ explained Beckett, ‘Not so much from the text as from the style, from the way that the text is spoken.’ In a manner similar to Mouth in Not I, “the shift into third person narrative and the indefinite pronoun work both to objectify the text, making it into a separate entity that seems disconnected from personal history. In that sense the recitation becomes a verbal structure repeated in consciousness rather than a sequence of memories in spontaneous association.” This part can be subdivided into four sections. After each section May halts for a time and then resumes pacing. This part opens with May uttering the word, “Sequel” twice, which Beckett asked to be pronounced as “Seek well” – another pun – since she is seeking for herself. May begins to tell a story in which an undefined ‘she’, probably herself, has taken to haunting the local Anglican church, which she enters through a locked door; there ‘she’ walks ‘up and down, up and down, his poor arm’” The description of the spectre is similar to how the audience sees May: “a tangle of tatters” and her pacing is comparable except that the ghost paces along the crossbeam whereas May paces the length of the stake. A residual haunting is where the entity does not seem to be cognizant of any living beings and performs the same repetitive act. It often is the reenactment of a tragic event, although it may sometimes be a very mundane act that was repeated often in life. It is generally not considered an actual ghost but some form of energy that remains in a particular location. The ghost goes about their business oblivious to the world of the living – what Beckett meant by the expression “being for herself,” Night by night ghosts pace their prescribed path offering no explanation to the viewers as to why they re-enact the same scene over and over. The answers – or at least best guesses – have to come from research done by the living in the real world. The apparition is “by no means invisible” and can be seen “in a certain light.” : a Latin dictum meaning "to be is to be perceived." Additionally, a ghost does not have to be dead; the word can be defined as: “a mere shadow or semblance; a trace: He's a ghost of his former self.” May makes up a story about a woman, Amy (an anagram of May) and her mother, a Mrs Winter. Although he knew a Mrs Winter in real life the name would have been chosen to reflect the coldness of “his own ‘winter’s tale’, just as he changed the ‘south door’ of the church in the manuscript to the ‘north door’ at a late stage for the same reason.” The name Amy is another pun: “A me.” Mrs Winter has become aware of something strange “at Evensong” and questions her daughter about it while at supper. She asks if Amy had seen anything strange during the service but the daughter insists she did not because she “was not there” a point her mother takes issue with because she is convinced that she heard her distinctly say “Amen.” This is not a dramatisation of the event that traumatised May however as that happened in girlhood and Amy is described in the text as “scarcely a girl any more.” “‘The daughter only knows the voice of the mother’. One can recognize the similarity between the two from the sentences in their narratives, from the expression. The strange voice of the daughter comes from the mother. The ‘Not enough?’ in the mother’s story must sound just like the ‘Not there?’ of Mrs W in Amy’s story, for example. These parallelisms are extremely important for the understanding of the play … One can suppose that she has written down everything which she has invented up to this, that she will one day find a reader for her story—therefore the address to the reader …‘Words are as food for this poor girl.’ Beckett says. ‘They are her best friends.’ … Above all, it is important that the narrative shouldn’t be too flowing and matter-of-course. It shouldn’t give the impression of something already written down. May is inventing her story while she is speaking. She is creating and seeing it all gradually before her. It is an invention from beginning to end. The picture emerges gradually with hesitation, uncertainty – details are always being added” Just as the light from Part I to Part III becomes constantly darker, the tone quieter, so the walking gets slower. When she begins to walk, there’s a small hesitation, as though she were unsure if she should walk or not. “Beckett pointed out that on her last walk along the strip of light, her energy runs out after three paces and she has to wait there until enough vitality returns to drag herself to the end of the light.” “As the play ends, Mrs Winter speaks to Amy the very words spoken to May by her mother: ‘Will you never have done … revolving it all?’” Up until this point May has identified who has been speaking, At the end, when ‘Mrs W’ says, “Amy” it is May who answers, “Yes, Mother” – significantly she does not say, “Amy: Yes, Mother.” Can May be the ghost and be ‘Amy’? Yes, if each reflects a different aspect of who she is. In the final section there is no one on stage. The bell chimes, the lights come up and then fade out. “The final ten seconds with ‘No trace of May’, is a crucial reminder that May was always ‘not there’ or only there as a ‘trace’.” As Beckett told Billie Whitelaw, when she asked him if May was dead, he replied, “Let’s just say you’re not all there.” This has been interpreted by many to mean that May is not dead. But it should be remembered that [a] ghost has a curious relation to finitude, which means it is never entirely unearthly or out of this world. [G]hosts, … are traditionally tied to places, condemned for a certain time to walk the earth. In an interview with Jonathan Kalb, Billie Whitelaw describes May’s journey: “In Footfalls … [May] gets lower and lower and lower until it’s like a little pile of ashes on the floor at the end, and the light comes up and she’s gone.” James Knowlson and John Pilling in Frescoes of the Skull (p 227) come close to summarising the entire play in a single sentence: “We realise, perhaps only after the play has ended, that we may have been watching a ghost telling a tale of a ghost (herself), who fails to be observed by someone else (her fictional alter ego) because she in turn is not really there … even the mother’s voice may simply be a voice in the mind of a ghost.” |
6156403 | /m/0ft4d7 | Leroy And The Old Man | null | null | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | Fleeing from a neighbor's assailants, who believe he has identified them to the police, LeRoy leaves his Chicago housing project to live with his grandfather, a shrimp fisherman, in Mississippi. This was Butterworth's last children's book. He also wrote under several pseudonyms, most notably as W.E.B. Griffin. |
6156916 | /m/0ft5h0 | Craii de Curtea-Veche | null | null | null | Written as a first-person narrative, Craii de Curtea-Veche depicts the lives of the rich and educated boyar family descendants Paşadia and Pantazi, who are often visited by the narrator. The latter admits his admiration for Paşadia and his fascination with Pantazi. The two's mysterious existence is revealed only through conversations and banquet episodes, which tend to end in champagne-drinking bouts and orgies. They appear versed in Western manners and refined salon culture, but love to refresh their senses by submerging in the muddy atmosphere of Bucharest brothels. Their destiny intersects with that of Gore Pîrgu, a brutish self-seeker who is on his way up on the social scale. A combination of venality, depravity and bombastic, often demagogic discourse, Pîrgu is meant to illustrate the alternative and undertoned "Balkan-like" Romanian identity. He manages to sell Ilinca, an impoverished young noblewoman, to the libertine Paşadia, but the latter is defied by Pantazi, who offers to marry Ilinca himself and thus save her family's honour. However, fate puts an end to such a romantic happy ending, as the young woman catches scarlet fever and dies, while Paşadia ends his aventurous life in a heart attack during one of his sexual escapades. The latter stage of the novel corresponds with the onset of World War I and the drastic changes it brought to Romanian society. |
6157405 | /m/0ft67j | The Guardians | Samuel Youd | 1970 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/070l2": "Soft science fiction", "/m/0c082": "Utopian and dystopian fiction", "/m/026ny": "Dystopia"} | Rob - a fourteen-year-old boy living in the "Greater London Conurb" - is orphaned following the death of his father. There is considerable suspicion and secrecy surrounding his death. Rob is sent away to a State Boarding School where harsh disciplinary measures and ritual bullying by seniors soon make life intolerable; in his desperation, he devises a plan of escaping to the County, reasoning that he will avoid detection there much more easily than anywhere in the heavily-surveilled Conurbs. He is further driven by the fact that his mother was also from the County and had herself crossed over into the Conurbs to be with his father. Slipping out and making his way to Reading, he comes up against the Barrier dividing that Conurb from the County adjacent. The Barrier, unmanned, proves be a much less of a challenge than popular rumour suggests, and, finding a spot at which he is able to dig a gap underneath that is large enough to pass through, Rob crosses over into the County. He takes in his expansive surroundings as he continues north-west but does not manage a long distance before he is noticed. A figure on horse spots him and gives chase, catching up quickly as Rob twists his foot running. The rider turns out to be a boy perhaps a year or less older than Rob himself. He appears to be sympathetic to Rob's plight and, introducing himself as Mike Gifford, tends to the blisters on Rob's feet before taking him to a nearby cave where he can rest in concealment. Mike attempts to make the cave a little more hospitable for him by appropriating food, blankets and such from the Gifford household, but these discrepancies are eventually noticed by the housekeeper and reported to Mike's mother, whose suspicion is also aroused by Mike's staying out longer. She finds the cave and confronts Rob. Uncertain about how to proceed, Mrs Gifford allows Rob to remain in the cave one more night. In spite of his impulse to immediately set out again and avoid the possibility of being turned in to the authorities, Rob stays put, partly because he wishes to see Mike again. The following morning, both Mike and Mrs Gifford visit the cave and speak to him; Mrs Gifford proposes that, as he will not willingly return to the Conurbs, and as Mike is determined to help him, the only plausible option is to fit Rob into the family. Amazingly, Mr Gifford has already been told the story and has given his approval. So, declaring him a relative raised in Nepal (accounting for his lack of County manners and behaviour) and playing out his supposed arrival from the nearest station, Rob is inducted into the Gifford family. Changing his surname from Randall to Perrott, Rob does his best to adapt to life in the Gifford house, getting to know Mr Gifford (a quiet, unassuming man whose greatest interest seems to lie in bonsai) and the servants, as well as Cecily, Mike's younger sister. She is not told Rob's story, as it is feared that she is too young to keep the secret safely. Rob is taught various skills such as horse-riding to help him blend in with County society. These are put to the test when the Giffords hold a garden party and he is engaged in searching conversation by Sir Percy Gregory and an elderly man named Harcourt. Under the stress, Rob fears his answers are unconvincing; his worries are put to rest, however, when Harcourt dismisses Rob's mannerisms as typical of a "Nepalese settler". Several months pass. Rob becomes increasingly confident and assured of his position, even going so far as to win third place in the archery contest of the year, beating Mike who comes in eleventh. Rob joins Mike at school; though he notices Mike's attitude toward him has changed, the two still talk frankly, especially about differences between the Conurbs and the County. Mike brings Rob to a gathering held by a senior boy named Daniel Penfold, where a heated discussion on both the failings and the merits of the current social system ensues. While most of the boys present laugh it off, Rob notices Mike does not. Later, in the privacy of their room, Mike shares with Rob his knowledge of a gang of organised revolutionaries and hints that Rob should join, given his knowledge of the Conurbs. Rob refuses, both on principle and for fear of his secret being divulged. Christmas arrives and Rob celebrates it in the way of the County gentry. Mrs Gifford speaks to him about his good progress at school, noting that Mike is not doing as well. As Mike and Rob are about to visit the Penfold family, she also raises her suspicions about Mike’s dealings with them, especially with the older Penfold boy, Roger, whose Army record is not entirely clean. She asks Rob to watch over her son. The visit passes largely uneventfully for Rob, in spite of Roger Penfold's somewhat seditious talk during dinner. On the ride home, Mike and Rob again fall to arguing over the state of affairs; Mike declares that he probably would not have been interested in these issues if he had not run across Rob. Another school term passes. One Friday, Mike pulls out of a planned fishing trip with Rob, saying that he must ride to Oxford to see about a horse. Several hours later, news arrives that a violent uprising has begun somewhere in that area, and that both Oxford and Bristol (government headquarters) have been taken by armed rebels. Rob returns in haste to the Giffords' where Mrs Gifford demands he tell her what he knows about Mike's involvement. He does, and she rebukes him angrily, reminding him of Mike's kindness to him when he was in need. Ashamed, Rob prepares to ride out to meet a band of vigilantes countering the insurrection, but Mrs Gifford softens and asks him to stay as all the men of the house have already ridden out. No clear news arrives due to the telephone exchange being down, and rumours run rife. The next morning, Mr. Gifford and his men return to the house; it emerges that the revolt had been put down without their aid. The younger Penfold is said to have been killed and there is no news of Mike, though his name is not on the incomplete list of dead and wounded. That night, Mike steals into the house and visits Rob, unbeknownst to the family. It is his last visit; he is fully aware of his status as a fugitive (as Rob once was) and realises that his involvement in the revolt means that he can no longer remain in the County. He declares his intention to cross the Barrier into the Conurbs, where the movement has "friends". Rob tries to dissuade him and threatens to raise the alarm but is restrained by the thought that Mike had not turned him in when he had been in a similar position. Mike gives Rob an address in the Conurb where he can be found, should he change his mind and decide to join him. They shake hands and he rides out. The next day, a patrol stops at the Gifford house with orders to escort Rob for questioning. Rob's initial apprehensions about this are calmed when he is taken not to law enforcement but to Old Hall, Sir Percy Gregory's home. Over coffee and cherry cake, Rob comfortably recounts his old Nepal backstory again in response to Sir Percy's prompting questions. Sir Percy, however, shocks him when complimenting him by using his real surname. It becomes clear that Rob's true identity has been known to him for a long time now and that the authorities have tolerated his presence in the County. Using this as leverage, Sir Percy attempts to manipulate Rob into informing. Rob tells him everything except for Mike's late-night visit and the secret address; this seems to satisfy Sir Percy, though he had been hoping to find out more about the leaders of the movement and their present location. Disturbingly, Sir Percy tells Rob of what is to be done with Mike if he is found: a certain surgical procedure on the brain which renders the subject docile and obedient. He also tells Rob of the secret group of overseers responsible for the present system (the titular "Guardians") and, having appraised the intelligence and initiative Rob has shown in coming this far, offers to recruit him. Rob returns home by evening. Mrs Gifford tells him that she is aware of Mike's visit the night previous - having again noted the absence of some household articles, such as food and clothing - and again rebukes Rob, with great sadness instead of anger this time, for not doing what she feels would have been the right thing. To justify himself, Rob explains about the operation that would have been performed on Mike had he turned him in. To Rob's horror, Mrs Gifford reveals that she knows of this, and further that Mr Gifford himself had been subject to it; hence his preoccupation with bonsai and little else. This revelation causes an epiphany for Rob Perrott. He realises that Mike had inherited a spirit of freedom from his father, and though his father had been forced into submission, Mike had not grown up entirely blind to the oppression around him. It had simply taken contact with someone from the other side - Rob, a Conurban - to spark rebellion in him. Rob also realises that he had almost bought into the groupthink himself by assimilating into the gentry with such determination that he had forgotten his Conurban past, even taking up the offer to join the Guardians. He makes a decision: either he can remain in the place he has won in County society, now in perfect safety, or he can join the movement which has fled to the Conurbs and struggle alongside Mike in liberating the masses. The story closes with Rob leaving the Giffords at night and returning to the Barrier, trowel in hand. |
6161733 | /m/0ftg74 | The Lies of Locke Lamora | Scott Lynch | 6/27/2006 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | After a devastating plague, a man known as the Thiefmaker pays off the city guard to allow him to take in thirty newly-orphaned individuals, whom he plans to train as thieves. One orphan sneaks into the group of paid children, "thirty-one of thirty". The Thiefmaker soon discovers that this one child, Locke Lamora, is extremely clever but not "circumspect", and is a liability due to his lack of foresight or restraint. The Thiefmaker decides to sell Locke to Chains, a priest of the Nameless Thirteenth god, the Crooked Warden who protects thieves. Chains uses a temple dedicated to one of the twelve respectable gods as a front to operate the Gentlemen Bastards. They play confidence games on the city's richest citizens. This in defiance of the Secret Peace ,an unspoken agreement between the criminal underground and nobility of Camorr that establishes a toleration of thievery and mischief as long as the nobility are not targeted). Over time, Locke becomes known as the "Thorn of Camorr", an identity which is never linked to Locke, who maintains the pretense of being a perfectly ordinary sneak thief. In time, Locke becomes garrista (leader) of the Gentlemen Bastards. His crew includes Jean Tannen, an expert fighter (especially with hatchets- his favorite pair is nicknamed "The Wicked Sisters"); Calo and Galdo Sanza, a pair of jack-of-all-trades twins; a young apprentice named Bug; and a woman named Sabetha, whom Locke loves and who, for unspecified reasons, does not appear in the novel. At the beginning of the novel, the Gentlemen Bastards are commencing an elaborate confidence game against Don Lorenzo Salvara and his wife. Locke pretends to be Lukas Fehrwight, a representative of a powerful foreign brandy brewing family that needs to get its stock out of its home state before it erupts into civil war. During the course of this con, a mysterious figure named the Gray King begins killing prominent members of the criminal community. Soon, the Gray King confronts Locke and due to Locke's skills at deception, coerces him to impersonate the Gray King during a meeting with Capa Barsavi, head of Camorr's criminal underworld. It is also revealed that the Gray King employs a Bondsmage, a member of an exclusive guild of sorcerers who are infamous for both the ridiculous fees required to acquire their services and the wrath they collectively bring down on any individual or group that kills one of their members. Despite reassurances that the Bondsmage's magic will protect Locke, things go awry during the meeting. While the Bondsmage's sorcery prevents Locke from being cut or pierced, it confers no superhuman strength, and does not protect against blunt trauma. When the Capa's men discover this, they wrestle him to the ground and capture him. Locke realizes that his capture and execution was the Gray King's plan all along, in order to lower Barsavi's guard. Furthermore, Locke cannot reveal his true identity to Barsavi as the Capa would kill not only him, but the other Gentleman Bastards as well. After a brutal and lengthy beating, Locke is sealed in a funeral cask filled with horse urine and thrown into the harbor. Confident that his enemy is dead, Barsavi invites the entire underworld to a celebration in his headquarters, a dry-docked ship. At the height of the celebration, Barsavi is assassinated by his twin bodyguards (actually the Gray King's sisters), who also kill Barsavi's sons, and his most trusted underlings. The Gray King appears before the stunned onlookers, and takes the name "Capa Raza", declaring himself the new head of the underworld. With help from Bug and Jean, Locke is saved, and they return to the Bastards' home to find it ransacked and Calo and Galdo killed. One of the Gray King's men is lying in wait, and kills Bug before being killed by Locke. Enraged, Locke swears revenge. Down at the docks, Jean kills the Gray King's sisters, while Locke tries to complete the confidence game with what few resources he still possesses. Unfortunately, the Salvaras have been tipped off to Locke's scam; they invite him to the nobility's party on the city's most important holiday, where he is nearly captured by the city's spymaster. After escaping and fleeing to one of his hideouts, Locke finds the Bondsmage waiting for him, already having incapacitated Jean. By exploiting the bondsmage's arrogance and psychic link with his scorpion-hawk familiar, Locke and Jean barely manage to subdue him, and proceed to torture the Gray King's secrets out of him. Wary of the ruthless reputation of the Bondsmagi, the Gentlemen spare the Bondsmage's life, but remove his fingers and tongue rendering him unable to practice his craft. From the Bondsmage, we learn that when the Gray King was a boy, his father had opposed the brokering of the Secret Peace, resulting in the execution of nearly his entire family. In the intervening years, the Gray King's consuming hatred had driven him to build up a vast amount of wealth and stage his complex plot against Capa Barsavi and the nobility of Camorr. His revenge on Barsavi complete, the Gray King turns to exact vengeance upon the nobility. For this, he arranges the delivery of four sculptures as "gifts" to the Duke of Camorr. The statues are actually timebombs filled with Wraithstone (a dangerous mineral used to "gentle" animals, effectively turning them into passive vegetables) and are set to explode at nightfall. Locke rushes back to the party, and manages to warn the assembled nobles before the bombs go off. In view of his selflessness, and despite his numerous crimes against the nobility of Camorr, Locke is allowed to leave to go after the Gray King himself. In single combat aboard the Gray King's ship, Locke finds himself completely outmatched against the Gray King, but manages to trick him and ultimately kill him, avenging his fallen brethren. The novel ends with Jean and Locke aboard a ship setting off for a new life. |
6161823 | /m/0ftgff | Runaway Ralph | Beverly Cleary | 1970 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Fed up with his family, Ralph hops onto his toy motorcycle (given to him by Keith in the first book, The Mouse and the Motorcycle), and speeds down the road away from the Mountain View Inn toward Happy Acres Camp, where he encounters Sam, a nosy watchdog, and is captured by a boy named Garfield (or Garf) and kept as a pet. Separated from his motorcycle, Ralph must endure life in a cage with an obnoxious hamster named Chum. Over time, Ralph and Garf form a relationship that is similar to the one Ralph had with Keith in the first book in the series. Ralph's adventures at Happy Acres Camp include escapades with an evil cat, the return of a missing watch, the escape from his cage, and being reunited with his beloved motorcycle. Ralph eventually begins feeling homesick and strikes a bargain with Garf: return the motorcycle and bring him back to the Mountain View Inn, in exchange for clearing Garf's name (the rest of the children at Happy Acres Camp believe Garf was the one who took the missing watch). Eventually the watch is returned, and Garf reassures Ralph that he will go back home the next day. |
6164878 | /m/0ftn16 | The Amen Corner | James Baldwin | 1954 | {"/m/05qp9": "Play"} | The play addresses themes of the role of a church in an African-American family and the effect of a poverty born of racial prejudice on an African-American community. The Amen Corner takes place in two settings: a ‘‘corner’’ church in Harlem and the apartment dwelling of Margaret Alexander, the church pastor, and of her son, David, and sister Odessa. After giving a fiery Sunday morning sermon, Margaret is confronted by the unexpected arrival of her long estranged husband, Luke, who collapses from illness shortly thereafter. Their son, David, along with several elders of the congregation, learn from Luke that, while Margaret had led everyone to believe that he had abandoned her with their son years ago, it was in fact Margaret who had left a dysfunctional Luke and pursued a religious life. This information precipitates confrontations between Margaret and her son, her congregation, and her estranged husband, regarding what they perceive as the hypocritical nature of her religious convictions, and the breakup of her family. After an important conversation with his dying father, David informs Margaret that he is leaving home to pursue his calling as a jazz musician. On his deathbed, Luke declares to Margaret that he has always loved her, and that she should not have left him. Finally, Margaret’s congregation decides to oust her, based on their perception that she unjustly ruined her own family in the name of religion. Only after losing her son, her husband, and her congregation, does Margaret finally realize that she should not have used religion as an excuse to escape the struggles of life and love, but that ‘‘To love the Lord is to love all His children—all of them, everyone!—and suffer with them and rejoice with them and never count the cost!’’ |
6167034 | /m/0ftrmx | The Plot To Save Socrates | Paul Levinson | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/07s2s": "Time travel"} | The Plot to Save Socrates deals primarily with the concept of time travel, and while the novel rarely discusses time travel directly, it poses several questions about its validity and possibility (or lack thereof). In particular, the characters are trapped in endless Time loops, effectively deprived of free will and having no choice but to take an action which - due to time travel - they already know they have taken. The story begins in Athens, Greece in 2042 with the main character, Sierra Waters, thinking to herself, at which point the rest of the story begins as a flashback (both in her head and in the sense that the characters constantly flash in and out of historic eras). Sierra Waters, a graduate student, receives a copy of a previously unknown dialogue in which Socrates is being offered an escape from his death sentence in ancient Athens by a person named Andros offering to take him into the future and leave a clone behind. The document appears to be genuine, and this takes Sierra onto a path that leads her to a time traveling adventure of her own. On her path she meets up with the great historic inventor Heron of Alexandria but soon realizes that not only is Heron a time traveler himself (from a future later than hers) but is a suspicious and ruthless character. Later on she would encounter the renowned Athenian general Alcibiades, help save his life at the time when history records his death in 404 BC, become his lover and fall deeply in love with him, and help set him on a very extensive and fruitful later long life which would remain unknown to historians. The story tangles itself a bit as more and more characters appear to be intertwined with each other and on occasion even the same person at different points in life. However, the novel ultimately untangles itself, somewhat satisfying the plot's plausibility although leaving unanswered any deeper metaphysical qualms the reader might have. Together with various fictional characters, the story also involves Plato, and of course Socrates - who only comes onstage in the last part - as well as the 19th Century publisher William Henry Appleton. There are scenes across time, placed in the Ancient Library of Alexandria, Victorian New York City, and Roman London. At various points it is mentioned that Sierra Waters would eventually become the famous mathematician Hypatia of Alexandria. This theme is taken up in a sequel, "Unburning Alexandria", of which the first two chapters were published as a standalone novelette in the November, 2008 issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact and which had not yet been published in full as of October 2011. |
6169154 | /m/0ftx1j | Eh Joe | Samuel Beckett | 1965 | null | Eh Joe is the complete antithesis to ... but the clouds ... in which a man strains nightly to evoke the image of a woman with little success. Like O in Film, Joe has gone through his routine, doing what he feels he needs to do to protect himself and like the man in Film he is sitting quietly thinking he is safe. But he is not. It is not a face he finds watching himself but a voice he hears, a woman’s voice. As the voice progresses we move closer and closer to Joe. To Alan Schneider, Beckett wrote on 7 April 1966: "Voice should be whispered. A dead voice in his head. Minimum of colour. Attacking. Each sentence a knife going in, pause for withdrawal, then in again." 36” – The voice wants to know if Joe has checked everything. Why is he still sitting there with the light on? Why doesn’t he go to bed? He’s changed the covers. 32” – She reminds him that he’d told her that the best was still to come but that it was the last thing he did say to her as he hurried her into her coat and bundled her out the door. 28” – She is not the first voice that has come to him like this, in his mind; although the woman hints that the source may be external. His father’s voice came to him for years until Joe found a way to stop him talking, to metaphorically throttle him, then his mother and finally, others, “[a]ll the others”, everyone it seems who ever loved him. 24” – She asks if there is anyone left who might love him. He’s reduced to paying for sex, once a week. She warns him to be careful he doesn’t run out of people to take advantage of because then there would only be him left to adore him until he too died. She assures him that she is not in heaven and not to expect to go there himself. 20” – The woman recalls one time the two of them were together. It was summer, they were sitting together on the grass watching the ducks, holding hands and exchanging vows. He’d complimented her on her elocution and she remarks how well he used to express himself. Now, like he did with his parents and the others, he has “[s]queezed her down to this”, the slow monotonous drone we hear. She knows her time is limited and wonders when all she will have left is a whisper. She lashes out at him and asks him to imagine if he never managed to rid himself of her until he died and was with her in death himself. 16”– Joe has been a religious man. She wants to know if he’s as righteous as he used to profess to be. She quotes from the parable of Jesus about the rich man and says one day God will talk to him like she is doing and, when he does, it’ll be time for him to die. 12” – Joe had said that the best was to come. She tells him that, for her at least, it did. She found someone far better than he was and lists off all the ways. 8” – She did all right. “But there was one didn’t.” One of Joe’s other loves, a young, slim, pale girl did not fare so well. He said the same thing to her that the best was yet to come, just as he did with Voice, as he bundled the girl out the door with no intention of furthering the relationship now he’d got what he wanted from her. In fact his aeroplane ticket was in his pocket ready for him to make good his escape. The timeline is unclear but the likelihood is that his relationship with Voice came first. 4” – She wants to know if Joe knew what happened to her, if she’d told him. Of course she hadn’t. The first he’d heard about it was an announcement in the Independent. Joe tries harder to throttle the voice. She knows her time is short and begins to goad him. “Mud thou art,” she tells him – more commonly heard as “dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return” – Genesis 3:19. 0” – The woman proceeds to tell him what exactly happened to the girl he abandoned. Voice describes her going down to the sea close to her house wearing only her lavender slip where she attempts to drown herself but it doesn’t work. The girl returns to the house, sopping wet, fetches a razor – the make Joe recommended to her – goes back down the garden, this time to the viaduct, where she also fails to slit her wrists. She tears a strip of silk from her slip and ties it round the scratch. She goes back to the house and this time gets some tablets. She takes a few on her way back down the garden. When she reaches the viaduct she decides to head further down near the Rock and takes some more on the way. When she reaches the spot she empties the tube and lies down in the end with her face a few feet from the – presumably incoming – tide. At this point Beckett added the following instruction, which is not included in the printed text: “Eyes remember.” Joe makes a concerted effort at this point and the woman’s voice drops to a whisper. She makes Joe imagine the girl lying there, describing events in erotic terms: “… part the lips … solitaire … Breasts in the stones …Imagine the hands … What are they fondling? … There’s love for you …” Another change Beckett made here was to add in a greater degree of repetition, particularly the word “imagine” emphasising that what we are hearing here is primarily a work of imagination rather than simple recollection. The voice falls silent and the image fades out. Joe has finally rid himself of her. As his face vanishes we realise he is smiling, an important addition Beckett made to the play but which was never incorporated in the printed text. “Here, for the first time, Joe looks at the camera”. This may not represent a final victory but he has silenced her for now. |
6171956 | /m/0fv2c1 | A Spectacle of Corruption | David Liss | 2004 | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense", "/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"} | This tale picks up a few months after the conclusion of David Liss' first novel, A Conspiracy of Paper. It's late in the year 1721 and Benjamin Weaver is hired by a clergyman to investigate a death threat against him. His quest doesn't go according to plan, however, and Weaver soon finds himself falsely accused of murder, sentenced to hang and confined in the infamous Newgate Prison. He must somehow escape this fate, clear his name, and find those responsible. Weaver's personal and occupational struggles play out against the backdrop of the upcoming general election. Several of the other fictional characters are carry-overs from A Conspiracy of Paper. As in the first installment of his "memoir", Weaver is aided by his uncle Miguel and his best friend, the surgeon Elias Gordon. His cousin's widow Miriam, now married to a Tory candidate for Parliament, once again tugs on Weaver's heart strings. |
6171981 | /m/0fv2gw | A Conspiracy of Paper: A Novel | David Liss | 2000 | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense", "/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"} | The novel's story is told in the form of a first-person memoir penned by the elderly Benjamin Weaver (born Lienzo), London-born son of Portuguese Sephardic Jewish parents. After a successful career in bare-knuckle boxing, Weaver has found a new calling as a 'thief-taker'—roughly equivalent to a modern private investigator. Believing that his estranged father died in a tragic accident, Weaver is shocked when a prospective client claims that the 'accident' was, in fact, murder. Weaver's subsequent investigation involves him in the new London financial world of banks, stocks, speculation, violence and scandal leading up to the world's first stock-market crash, the South Sea Bubble. In order to solve the mystery, he must learn the inner workings of this new world of paper money. The murder investigation moves toward its conclusion in lock-step with the accelerating frenzy of the Bubble's final days. A sub-plot involves Benjamin's gradual reintegration, after years of estrangement, into his family's community and traditions. This gives the author the opportunity to introduce the Lienzo family, and their struggles to survive and prosper as Jews and foreigners in 18th century London. Benjamin finds added incentive to rejoin his family when he meets the beautiful Miriam, widow of his cousin and now living in his uncle Miguel's household. |
6172424 | /m/0fv3f1 | A Flame in Hali | Deborah J. Ross | 2004 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | A Flame in Hali is set in Darkover's "Hundred Kingdoms" era. It is an era blurred in with the Ages of Chaos at the tail end. Breeding programs are no more, but wars are still fought with terrible laran weapons. The events in this book start some years after the end of Zandru's Forge. It overlaps with Two to Conquer as it mentions the Kilghard Wolf and Varzil's visit in Asturias. |
6174418 | /m/0fv699 | Look Homeward, Angel | Thomas Wolfe | 1929 | {"/m/012jgz": "Autobiographical novel", "/m/04fqp": "K\u00fcnstlerroman", "/m/01jym": "Bildungsroman", "/m/016lj8": "Roman \u00e0 clef"} | The book is divided into three parts, with a total of forty chapters. The first 90 pages of the book deal with an early biography of Gant's parents, very closely based on the actual history of Wolfe's own mother and father. It begins with his father, Oliver's decision to become a stone cutter after seeing a statue of a stone angel. Oliver Gant's first marriage ends in tragedy, and he becomes a raging alcoholic afterwards, which becomes his major struggle throughout his life. He eventually remarries after roaming the countryside, builds his new wife a house, and commences to start a family. The couple is beset with tragedy, as their first daughter dies of cholera at two months old, while two more die during childbirth. In the wake of these losses, Oliver is sent to Richmond for a "cure," to little success and becomes abusive to his family at times, threatening to kill his second wife Eliza (Eugene Gant's mother) in one drunken incident. The two remain together, however, and have a total of six surviving children, with the oldest, Steve, born in 1894. Eugene's father is drunk downstairs while his mother gives birth to him in a difficult labor. Oliver Gant forms a special bond with his son from early on. He begins to get his drinking under control, save for occasional binges, though his marriage becomes strained as Eliza's patience with him grows thinner. By the fifth chapter they are no longer sleeping in the same bedroom. Though, during all this time he is especially fond of his youngest son, Eugene, with whom he makes a special bond. Despite his flaws, Oliver Gant is the family's keystone, reading Shakespeare, having his daughter Helen read poetry, and keeping great fires burning in the house, symbolic of him as a source of warmth for the family. His gusto is the source of energy and strength for the family. Shortly after this, he journeys to California for the last time, returning home to the joy of his family. At this point Eugene is six years old and begins to attend school. His early education takes place, including several incidents of trouble with some of his teachers. He has a love of books and is a bright young boy, much to the pride of both his parents. His mother continues to baby him, unwilling to see him grow up; she does not cut his hair, even though he is teased about its length by the other boys. |
6180704 | /m/0fvfzk | Murderers' Row | Donald Hamilton | 1962 | {"/m/06wkf": "Spy fiction"} | Matt Helm, codenamed "Eric", is given a tough and distasteful assignment: to physically assault a fellow female agent in order to help establish her cover in an undercover operation. In doing so, however, Helm accidentally kills the woman, which results in him having to complete the woman's assignment — the assassination of an enemy agent — while being pursued by his own agency. |
6182359 | /m/0fvjjx | Darkness and Light | Paul B. Thompson | 9/28/1989 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | Darkness and Light begins in the town of Solace at the time the companions decide to pursue rumors of war and embark on their own personal quests for five years. Sturm Brightblade and Kitiara Uth Matar both decide to go north to Solamnia to learn more about their families. Shortly after they leave Solace, they encounter a group of gnomes who are in the final stages of building a flying ship that has become mired in mud. The two companions decide that taking the flying ship to Solamnia would be much faster than on horseback or walking, so they assist the gnomes in hoisting the ship from the mud. The flying ship is a success—but too much of a success, as mechanical problems lead the ship up and up until it eventually touches back down on the red moon Lunitari. While on Lunitari fixing the ship, something unexplainable happens to the companions and the gnomes that they inherit magical powers -- the magic amplifies their natural talents. Kitiara becomes much stronger and Sturm is plagued with visions of his father and the downfall of Castle Brightblade. The ship is carried away in the night, and while searching for it they encounter a deranged king named Rapaldo who is worshiped (but also held captive) by the native Lunitarians, a semi-intelligent race that resemble trees. Rapaldo has gone mad after living on Lunitari for ten years after his sailing ship was propelled there by a waterspout. He plans to escape with the gnomes' ship, leaving Sturm behind to be the new Lunitarian king. His treachery is uncovered and a battle ensues, in which Rapaldo kills the gnome Bellcrank, but is accidentally stabbed by Sturm's dagger. Free of Rapaldo, Sturm, Kitiara, and the gnomes flee before the native Lunitarians can avenge the death of their king. They follow a strange trail to a valley where the brass dragon Cupelix is imprisoned inside a gigantic marble tower, as he is to guard the eggs of other dragons. Conversing with the dragon, Sturm learns of the birth of Draconians.The group also learn of the Micones, horse-sized ants created out of crystal to act as servants for the Dragon. Also, Kitiara forms an alliance with the dragon, that if she can free him, he'll become Kitiara's dragon partner. The gnomes attempt to set him free, but they continue to fail, until they think of vitriol. Using vitriol that they had on board, they destroy the marble tower and set the dragon free. After fixing up their ship, they head for home with the dragon. Unfortunately the air is too thin to support the dragon, so he is forced to remain on Lunitari. As they fly higher and higher, they spot the dead gnome walking again, a magical power in which nothing can die on Lunitari, but they can't return to rescue him. The gnome then goes to live with the dragon. After weeks and weeks of butting heads over individual ideals on Lunitari, Kitiara and Sturm decide that they will go their separate ways and sever their ties of friendship. Sturm joins a group of cattle drivers, were he meets a young girl called Tervy, who is orphaned when Sturm shoots her only relative in a raid. She has no idea of modern technology, like the armour Sturm wears, and regularly calls him Ironskin. Sturm and the cattle drivers are then tricked into delivering their herd into the camp of Merinsaard, a dragonlord. He succeeds in stealing the cattle, and lock the group up. They escape when Sturm and Tervy knock the highlord out, imitate him and escape on his horse. Sturm returns to Castle Brightblade—now abandoned—and finds his father's armor and sword. Shortly after this discovery, he discovers that the horse he stole was actually the highlord in disguise. They battle up to the ramparts, were Kitiara shoots the highlord through the neck. She later severs all links with Sturm in a letter, the gist of which is 'We're even'. |
6185359 | /m/0fvqmb | The Afghan | Frederick Forsyth | 2006 | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Sometime before the events of the story take place, a joint MI6/CIA/ISI raid against al Qaeda (AQ) operatives in Pakistan uncovers documents concerning a planned, but largely cryptic, terrorist attack. This raises concerns and triggers further investigations authorised at the most senior level. Mike Martin, who previously appeared in the Forsyth novel The Fist of God, is now a retired SAS officer. Educated in Iraq and physically able to pass for an Afghan (his maternal grandmother was a Bengali-Indian named Indira Bose, misspelled Bohse in the book) who contributed to his chestnut-brown complexion which allows him to look like an Arab (or later on, Afghan) Martin has a near-perfect command of Arabic and is also familiar with Afghanistan and the Pashtun language, Pashto. He is chosen (due entirely to an overheard gaffe by his brother who is a member of the expert "Koran committee" of academics specialising in ancient texts) to infiltrate the highest echelons of AQ, by impersonating an AQ prisoner, Izmat Khan, currently held at Guantanamo Bay. In the story it is revealed that prior to Martin's escapades in Iraq he had worked with the Mujahideen in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation where he met Osama Bin Laden and rescued a young Afghan boy, Izmat Khan, who later became a resistance leader. Khan is portrayed as an heroic Afghan freedom fighter determined to have vengeance against America and careless of his life following the bombing of his village in the Tora Bora mountains which killed his family. In a highly covert operation Martin is successful in impersonating "The Afghan" (under the code word "crowbar"), a prisoner held in Guantanamo Bay for over five years. Following his re-infiltration to Afghanistan as a repatriated prisoner, and his subsequent stage-managed escape, he makes his way back to an al Qaeda safe house in Pakistan, where he is accepted as a compatriot following his security clearance by "The Sheik", Osama Bin Laden due to the brief encounter years before. He makes contact with AQ and volunteers to get involved in a suicidal terrorist attack which involves hijacking and re-berthing a tanker off Borneo carrying liquid petroleum gas. Another group hijack a cargo ship in the Caribbean, although this is intended to serve as a cynical decoy. Martin successfully alerts his handlers to the general nature of the threat, but is left incommunicado for several weeks as the ship steams to the US Eastern Seaboard. Izmat Khan escapes from US captivity after a US fighter jet accidentally crashes into the secret hiding place in Washington state where Izmat is incarcerated, destroying his guards and the compound wall whilst leaving him unscathed and free to walk out. He is finally shot dead trying to warn his allies using a public phone in Canada, after a long chase across the Cascades. Eventually the tanker reaches the mid-Atlantic, where a G8 summit is being held on the Queen Mary 2 liner. Martin finally learns that the terrorists intend to release and then ignite the gas on board the tanker, which could incinerate the Queen Mary 2 as it passed within range. Martin's last minute heroism, quick reflexes and self-sacrifice prevent a tragedy. |
6190878 | /m/0fv_fn | The Cossacks | Leo Tolstoy | 1863 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0l67h": "Novella"} | The young idealist Dmitriy Olenin leaves Moscow, hoping to start a new life in the Caucasus. In the stanitsa, he slowly becomes enamored by the surroundings and despises his previous existence. He befriends the old Cossack Eroshka, who goes hunting with him and finds him a good fellow because of his propensity to drinking. During this time, young Cossack Luka kills a Chechen who is trying to come across the river towards the village to scout the Cossacks and in this way gains much respect. Olenin falls in love with the maid Maryanka, who is to be wed to Luka later in the story. He tries to stop this emotion and eventually convinces himself that he loves both Luka and Maryanka for their simplicity and decides that happiness can only come to a man who constantly gives to others with no thought of self-gratification. He first gives an extra horse to Luka, who accepts the present yet doesn't trust Olenin on his motives. As time goes on, however, though he gains the respect of the local villagers, another Russian named Beletsky, who is still attached to the ways of Moscow, comes and partially corrupts Olenin's ideals and convinces him through his actions to attempt to win Maryanka's love. Olenin approaches her several times and Luka hears about this from a Cossack, and thus does not invite Olenin to the betrothal party. Olenin spends the night with Eroshka but soon decides that he will not give up on the girl and attempts to win her heart again. He eventually, in a moment of passion, asks her to marry him, which she says she will answer soon. Luka, however, is severely wounded when he and a group of Cossacks go to confront a group of Chechens who are trying to attack the village, including the brother of the man he killed earlier. Though the Chechens lose after the Cossacks take a cart to block their bullets, the brother of the slain Chechen manages to shoot Luka in the belly when he is close by. As Luka seems to be dying and is being cared for by village people, Olenin approaches Maryanka to ask her to marry him; she angrily refuses. He realizes that "his first impression of this woman's inaccessibility had been perfectly correct." He asks his company commander to leave and join the staff. He says goodbye to Eroshka, who is the only villager who sees him off. Eroshka is emotional towards Olenin but after Olenin takes off and looks back, he sees that Eroshka has apparently already forgotten about him and has gotten back to normal life. |
6192202 | /m/0fw1m4 | Ida B. | Katherine Hannigan | 8/17/2004 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature"} | Ida B. Applewood is a homeschooled only child who enjoys long conversations with the apple trees in her family's orchard. Her life changes when her mother develops cancer, leading her parents to sell part of the orchard and send Ida B to public school. She first acts terrible around her teacher, Ms. Washington, because of a previous experience in school. She later learns however that public school—Ms. Washington included—isn't that bad. She also learns along the way that she should learn to say she's sorry, accept the truth, and believe in herself. |
6192339 | /m/0fw1t0 | Hadji Murat | Leo Tolstoy | 1912 | {"/m/02p0szs": "Historical fiction"} | The narrator prefaces the story with his comments on a crushed, but still living thistle he finds in a field (a symbol for the main character), after which and then begins to tell the story of Hadji Murat. Murat is a separatist guerrilla who falls out with his own commander and eventually sides with the Russians in hope of saving his family. The story opens with Murat and two of his followers fleeing from Shamil, the commander of the Caucasian separatists, who is at war with the Russians. They find refuge at the house of Sado, a loyal supporter. However, the villagers learn of his presence, and he must flee again. His lieutenant succeeds in making contact with the Russians, who promise to meet Murat. He eventually arrives outside of the fortress of Vozdvizhenskaya to join the Russian forces, in hopes of eventually defeating Shamil. Before his arrival, a small skirmish occurs with some Chechens outside the fortress, and a young man named Petrukha Avdeyev dies after being shot. The narrator makes a chapter length aside about Petrukha: childless, he had joined the military in place of his brother, the family man. His father regrets this because he was such a better worker. Although the family mourns when Petrukha dies, his wife is somewhat happy since she is pregnant with another man’s child. While at Vozdvizhenskaya, Murat befriends Prince Semyon Vorontsov, his wife Maria and his son during his stay and wins over the good will of the soldiers stationed there. They are at once in awe of his physique and reputation, and enjoy his company and find him honest and upright. The Vorontsovs give him a present of a watch that he is fascinated with. On his fifth day of Murat's stay, the governor-general’s adjutant Loris-Melikov arrives with orders to write down Murat’s story, and the reader learns some of his history: he was born in the village of Tselmes and early on became close to the local khans because his mother was the royal family's wetnurse. When he was fifteen some followers of Muridism come into his village calling for a holy war against Russia. Murat declines at first but after a learned man is sent to explain how it will be run, he tentatively agrees. However, in their first confrontation, Shamil—then a lieutenant for the anti-Russian Muslims—embarrasses Murat when he goes to speak with the leader Gamzat. Gamzat eventually launches an attack on the capital of Khunzakh and kills the pro-Russian khans, taking control of the Chechens. The slaughter of the khans throws Hadji and his brother against Gamzat, and they eventually succeed in tricking and killing him, causing his followers to flee. Unfortunately, Murat's brother was killed in the attempt and Shamil simply replaces Gazmat as leader. He calls on Murat to join his struggle, but Murat refuses because the blood of his brother and the khans are on Shamil. Once Murat has joined the Russians, who are aware of his position and bargaining ability, they find him the perfect tool for getting to Shamil. However, Vortonsov’s plans are ruined by Chernyshov, a prince who is jealous of him, and Murat has to remain in the fortress because the emperor is told he is possibly a spy. The story digresses for a bit and Tolstoy depicts Nicholas I of Russia, showing his tendency towards women and his condescending nature, as well as his enjoyment in terrifying his subjects. The emperor orders an attack on the Chechens and Murat remains in the fortress. Meanwhile, Murat’s mother, wife and eldest son Yusuf, who had been captured by Shamil, were moved to a more defendible location. Realizing his position (neither trusted by the Russians to lead an army against Shamil, nor able to return to Shamil because he will be killed) he decides to flee the fortress to gather men to save his family. At this point the narrative jumps forward in time, to the arrival of a group of soldiers at the fortress bearing Murat's severed head. While Maria Dimitriyevna—companion of one of the officers and friend of by Murat—comments on the cruelty of men during times of war, the soldiers tell the story of Murat's death. He had escaped the fortress and shook his usual Russian escort with the help of his five lieutenants. After they escape they come upon marsh that they are unable to cross, and hide amongst some bushes until the morning. An old man gives away their position and Karganov, the commander of the fortress, the soldiers, and some Cossacks surround the area. Hadji and his men fortify themselves and begin to fire upon the troops, dying valiantly. Hadji himself runs into fire after his men are killed, despite being wounded and plugging up his fatal wounds in his body with cloth. As he fires his last bullet his life flashes before him and the soldiers think he’s dead; he gets up as if to continue attacking and then falls over. Victorious, the Russian soldiers fall upon and decapitate him. The nightingales, which stopped singing during the battle, begin again and the narrator ends by mentioning the thistle once more. |
6192564 | /m/0fw22r | Flying Fox of Snowy Mountain | Louis Cha | 1959 | {"/m/08322": "Wuxia"} | The story begins in the Changbai mountains in northeastern China during the reign of the Qianlong Emperor in the Qing Dynasty. It follows the classical unity of time, taking place on a single day, which is the 15th day of the third month of the Chinese calendar, in the 45th year in the reign of the Qianlong Emperor (i.e. April 19, 1780 in the Gregorian calendar). A group of jianghu pugilists unearth a treasure chest and begin fighting for it. The reason for them doing so is deliberately kept from the reader at this point of time. Midway during their tussle, they are overpowered and coerced by a highly skilled monk called Baoshu to travel to a manor at the top of Jade Brush Peak (玉筆峰), to help the manor's owner drive away an enemy called Hu Fei, also known as the "Flying Fox of Snowy Mountain". They start telling stories concerning the origin of a precious saber in the chest, their mysterious foe (Hu Fei) and slowly reveal each others' personal secrets. The saber's story dates back over a century ago to the feuds of the four bodyguards under the warlord Li Zicheng, who led the rebellion that overthrew the Ming Dynasty. The four guards' family names were Hu, Miao, Tian and Fan. Owing to a massive misunderstanding, which lasted several generations, their descendants had been slaying each other in a vendetta that prevented any one of them from discovering the truth. The Hu clan was opposed to those from the Miao, Tian and Fan families, the latter three which were allies. The people gathered at the mountain manor are either all descendants of the four bodyguards or are otherwise embroiled in the feud. Hu Fei's father, Hu Yidao, was a male descendant who became involved with Miao Renfeng, a descendant from the Miao family. Both were masterful martial artists without peer. Miao Renfeng, Hu Yidao and his wife developed an uncommon friendship and grew to admire each other, but Hu Yidao and Miao Renfeng must fight unwilling duels to avenge their parents' deaths. Under the schemes of the villain Tian Guinong, Hu Yidao was slayed unintentionally by Miao Renfeng after his sword was smeared with poison by Tian. Hu Yidao's infant son, Hu Fei, was smuggled away and raised by a waiter named Ping A'si. Hu Fei eventually grew up to become the "Flying Fox of the Snowy Mountain". The various scheming pugilists are eventually punished by their greed. Hu Fei makes an appearance midway in the story. The conflict reaches a climax when Miao Renfeng challenges Hu Fei to a duel owing to a misunderstanding that Hu Fei has intentionally molested his daughter Miao Ruolan and both of them fight for several rounds but neither emerges the victor. They are stranded on a cliff about to collapse under their weight and the novel comes to its climactic end. Hu Fei has an opportunity to attack Miao Renfeng and knock him off the cliff, but he hesitates as Miao may be his future father-in-law. If he refrains, both of them might fall to their deaths, otherwise he will certainly die as Miao will kill him. The novel ends in a deliberate cliffhanger, leaving the conclusion to the reader's imagination. |
6199490 | /m/0fwd6q | Lulu Dark Can See Through Walls | Bennett Madison | null | {"/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature"} | Lulu Dark is a sixteen-year-old girl with attitude and fashion sense, and a keen eye for clues, who thinks girl detectives (such as Nancy Drew) are dumb. However, after her fake Kate Spade handbag gets stolen at a club, Lulu must become a girl-sleuth to retrieve it. But Lulu did not realize that it would get her entangled in a murder that only she believes has happened. At the end she solves more than one mystery of mistaken identities, and manages to do it in style with the help of her best friends, Daisy and Charlie. |
6199853 | /m/0fwdqn | A Mouthful of Birds | Caryl Churchill | null | null | The play has an unusual structure; it is a series of seven independent vignettes each focusing on a different character. After every scene, a moment in the tragedy of Pentheus is seen. Dionysos, a dancer, watches the action invisibly, and his kiss causes each episode's central transformation. At the play's end, the characters return to give epilogues narrating how their stories continued. The episodes include: * An unhappy wife slowly succumbs to post-natal psychosis. She experiences command hallucinations telling her to drown her baby in the bathtub and eventually does so. * A man's marriage and career are disrupted when he falls passionately in love with a pig at a slaughterhouse his company owns. * A voodoo practitioner newly arrived in London is haunted by an upper-crust British spirit who tries to drive away her familiar Haitian spirit guide, Baron Sunday. * Herculine Barbin, a nineteenth-century hermaphrodite, narrates the story of his transformation from girl to man. This monologue lies at the center of the play and is performed first by an actress, then repeated in identical language by a male actor. * A woman struggles to overcome alcoholism. * Two jailers must restore order in their prison when a serial killer among the inmates inexplicably changes sex and begins killing other prisoners with magic. * A female office worker is subject to grotesque, bloody fantasies and fits of rage. The actors play ensemble roles in all scenes other than their own. Dance sequences are at the center of the episodes involving the pig and his lover, the schizophrenic and her hallucinated tormentor, and the serial killer. The play's perspective on mental illness and sexuality is strongly influenced by the work of Michel Foucault, who also wrote a monograph on the life of Herculine Barbin, as well as David Lan's own anthropological work on possession and non-Western religions. |
6200994 | /m/0fwgnt | Mexico Set | Len Deighton | null | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | The story begins in Mexico, where Samson is on the trail of his Soviet opposite number: Erich Stinnes, a KGB major working in East Germany whom London Central wishes to coax over to the West. The task of laying the delicate and elaborate groundwork for Stinnes' defection propels Samson from Mexico to London, Paris, Berlin, and the East-West border. What happens along the way—-a temporary abduction, an unnecessary murder, an inconvenient suicide—-happens so fast that Samson hardly seems able to keep London Central informed of developments. Or is it that Samson wants to keep his colleagues in the dark? Certainly London Central's entire senior staff—from Samson's immediate supervisors, locked in their endless internecine office warfare, to the dotty Director-General himself—would have reason to suspect that Samson might be working for the other side. He was, after all, closer than any of the other to the former traitor-in-their-midst. And Samson himself is losing control—indeed, events seem to be controlling him. As he finds himself in a series of ever more incriminating positions, as one by one the avenues of escape or vindication close before him, the novel winds back toward Mexico.. and toward the astonishing climax - at the scene of the defection Samson has so painstakingly orchestrated—in which the allegiances of all involved are finally and fatefully revealed. Years after its publication, Granada TV made a version of the trilogy for ITV, called Game, Set, and Match, starring Ian Holm as Bernard Samson and Mel Martin as Fiona. It was adapted by John Howlett and directed by Ken Grieve and Patrick Lau. ar:مجموعة مكسيكو |
6201096 | /m/0fwgvn | London Match | Len Deighton | null | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Samson suspects that there is a traitor within his department of MI6, due to the appearance of a memorandum which was leaked to the KGB. It transpires that it is part of a plot conducted by his wife - now working for East German intelligence - to frame his superior, Bret Rensselaer, as a KGB agent. When Samson's old friend Werner Volkmann is arrested by the East German police Samson organizes an unauthorised exchange of defector Erich Stinnes for him, but the operation ends in a shootout on the Berlin S-Bahn. |
6201194 | /m/0fwh0k | Spy Hook | Len Deighton | null | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | The novel begins with Bernard Sampson visiting his old friend and ex-SIS colleague in Washington named Jim Prettyman as part of an investigation regarding some missing funds. Soon after, Prettyman is murdered in a mugging. All his allies start losing interest in the investigation, and after digging deeper Bernard is sent to America once again, where it is revealed that Brett has not indeed died (as hinted at the end of the first trilogy, and discussed in this book.) but is in fact in rehabilitation. Bernard returns to Europe, where he confronts a man called "Dodo" and is saved from an untimely death by Prettyman, who it turns out has gone under "deep-cover". Bernard then takes his evidence to the Director General, who in a surprise turn of events orders his arrest, which thanks to some quick thinking by Werner Volkmann, Bernard evades for the while. The novel concludes with Bernard seeking an explanation from Frank Harrington, before disappearing into the night. |
6201274 | /m/0fwh3_ | Spy Line | Len Deighton | null | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | The novel starts with Bernard Samson in hiding in Berlin after the events in the first book of the series. He is soon found by the SIS and is invited by Frank Harrington to sit in on a debriefing of an undercover agent, where it is revealed that Eric Stinnes has been smuggling drugs into East Germany. Bernard is eventually recalled to London, and sent on a mission to Vienna to pick up a package from a stamp auction. This is revealed to be a Russian passport, which he uses to meet his wife Fiona, whom it is now revealed is a double agent (It is not made clear for how long Bernard knew this). Finally, Fiona attempts to escape from East Germany, whereupon Eric Stinnes, and Fiona's sister Tessa are both killed. Bernard and Fiona escape back to the other side of the wall and are transported to America for debriefing. |
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