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6531292 | /m/0g948q | Against the Odds | Elizabeth Moon | 2000 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/070yc": "Space opera", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/01smf2": "Military science fiction"} | The opening steps back to near the ending of Change of Command; the loyalists in the weapons lab on Copper Mountain (which planet has just been taken over by mutineers) have finished sending out their radio transmission, which unbeknownst to them will indeed be picked by an escaping loyalist Fleet warship, and are wondering what to do next. Their transportation is ruined, so they decide to steal one from the mutineers. They stage a series of movements and radio transmissions intended to convince the mutineers that the weapons labs are being progressively taken over by their own. This ruse succeeds, and the NEMs and scientists go aboard the assault shuttle the mutineers dispatch to pick them up, along with "Project Zed" - a bona fide working cloaking device. The plan is to take over the shuttle and then stage another play, the NEMs pretending to be mutineers forcing the scientists into testing out Project Zed then and there, quite against the scientists' better judgement. At the opportune moment, the heretofore intermittent cloaking will be turned on completely and explosives laden with shuttle weapons and parts will be tossed out the back. Presumably the mutineers will believe the scientists and Project Zed destroyed and cease to pay attention to them. Esmay Suiza, in a hurry on Trinidad Station, discovers when she is surrounded by security forces that she has apparently been kicked out of the Regular Space Fleet (courtesy of an "Admiral Serrano"); the rationale given is her marriage to Barin Serrano and complications arising from being the Suiza LandBride. Suiza immediately begins trying to obtain transportation to Rockhouse Major and thence to Fleet HQ so she can contest this unjust separation. The only thing she can find is informal passage with a Terakian trading vessel by the same two Terakians who discovered the plot to bomb the space-stations in Rules of Engagement and who were presently transporting a religious fugitive from the Benignity to Castle Rock along with the acting troupe who sheltered him; the Terakians owe her for helping to rescue a relative (Hazel) in Rules of Engagement from the Our Texas religious fanatics. On Sirialis, Cecelia has not yet left. She is still poking around Pedar's "accidental" death. A chance remark by the man in charge of the stables, mentioning that Miranda had used the stable's small forge for something a few days before Pedar's death leads Cecelia to investigate: She discovers a piece of scrap metal suspiciously akin to the chain mail of the defective armor concerned. Miranda had deliberately weakened the armor, and exploited the opening to stick a sword in Pedar's brain. Cecelia confronts Miranda with this evidence and is appalled by Miranda's lack of remorse. Cecelia forces Miranda to agree to go with her to the Guerini Republic, there to live in exile and "Get treatment for whatever it is that made you think you could kill him with impunity." (pg 81) The Grand Council of Castle Rock is shaken by the news of Hobart Conselline's murder by a visiting fencing master, and only slightly less perturbed by the killing of Pedar. As the Council meets, the Benignity ambassador breaks in with an urgent message: He informs them that the assassination had been solely ordered by the (now former) Chairman of the Benignity, and that for ordering such a thing, he had been executed. The ambassador offers the Benignity's sincere apologies and regrets, and shows a recording the Chairman made before he died explaining the reasoning that drove him to order Hobart's (and by extension, his own) death: In short, the Familias was not handling the rejuvenation issue and Hobart's policies would only exacberate the issues which would inevitably spill over onto the Benignity. While travelling near Copper Mountain en route to the Guerni Republic, Cecelia and Miranda's vessel, the Pounce is accidentally forced out of an FTL jump by the mass shadow of the Bonar Tighe, flagship of the mutineers. Disabled, they can only try to get off a message to the Familias via ansible, but they are captured. The mutineers remember Cecelia hiring Serrano and also her role in discovering the vileness on Sirialis suppressed in Hunting Party; they ill-treat the two and throw them in the brig with the surviving loyalist female crew (preserved for future manhunts). Cecelia and Miranda trade on their reputation as harmless frivolous old ladies and cause no trouble, so their guards decide to amuse themselves and humiliate the two by making them clean the latrines. One day, when the guard is light and inattentive, Miranda uses her unstoppable fencing skills to stun and kill one guard. His keys open the cells of all the other loyalists. They separate into separate groups: One goes to sabotage the drives, another goes with Cecelia EVA to destroy external sensors and a third attacks the shuttle bay. That attack succeeds, but it can only be got into via EVA suit, and the mutineers have rallied and will eventually overcome their rear-guard. Miranda stays behind with the other two volunteers, giving her suit to a young traumatized female, and dies fighting the mutineers' onslaught. The shuttle escapes, but they were surely doomed: Eventually the mutineers would repair the ship systems and search them out. Fortunately for them, the distress signal over the ansible that Miranda and Cecelia had attempted to send so long ago (but had been cut off) had been noticed by one of Heris Serrano's crew: Her ship had been assigned to Admiral Minor Arash Livadhi's flotilla to monitor anomalies and seek out mutineers. Disabled, the Bonar Tighe is easy prey. The loyalists are rescued. For her services to Fleet past and present, Cecelia jokingly demands to be made an Admiral - a nod to a running joke in the series where various Fleet underlings become convinced (by how they keep showing up in the thick of things) that either Cecelia or Heris is really a special operations undercover admiral ferreting out traitors for Fleet. Finally at Rockhouse, Esmay meets up with Brun and her own father General Casimir Suiza, who had brought along with him all the necessary apparatus to transfer Esmay's status as LandBride to her cousin Luci. They then all of them go to Fleet HQ and discover that according to HQ, Esmay never left Fleet - Trinidad Station had been destroyed by mutineers and so the records of her being separated from Fleet were never forwarded to HQ; further, Fleet (thinking she was still with them) had ordered her to a new ship and when she never showed up, listed her as a mutineer. Eventually, with help from Admiral Vida Serrano (not the Admiral Serrano who had arranged her removal from Fleet), she is reinstated with no criminal charges and command of her own ship, the patrol ship Rascal, assigned to Admiral Arash Livadhi's flotilla along with Heris. Before Esmay leaves, she and Brun and General Suiza and Kevil Mahoney have some long conversations about recent events and issues raised by rejuvenation and how to save the Familias from itself. Brun is summoned to a meeting with the head of her sept (family of Families), Viktor Barraclough. He offers her the same thing he was offered: To live on as usual, taking rejuvenations and possibly living forever, or to forswear any use of rejuvenation and receive a position as his heir, heir to all the power that entails. She considers how she could change the Familias, and accepts his offer. At the next meeting, she masterfully takes control of the meeting and orchestrates a vote on whether the Fleet can expect the full backing of the Familias against the mutineers or not. The vote succeeds and soon Brun is Speaker, marshalling a "youth vote" comprising young Family members who recognize the issues that rejuvenation raises and the fact that something has to be done. Admiral Arash Livadhi this entire time has been growing increasingly uneasy. He had unfortunately been close to Lepescu when he was a younger officer, and fears every day that the investigation into the Lepescu-inspired mutineers will damn him as well; he is further compromised by the fact that his closest friend Jules had been a Benignity deep agent, who had solely manipulated him into breaking rules and then through blackmail into becoming a Benignity agent. The Benignity is not happy with him, as he has failed to be useful (although his work in Sporting Chance in thwarting the incompetent Benignity base commander was of value) - if he wishes to continue living, he will bring with him when he defects something valuable like an intact cruiser. His unease is noticed by his crew, especially old Heris and Arash stalwarts like Petris and Koutsoudas, who begin investigating his communications. What they find makes them suspicious but they find nothing solid enough to charge him with. They decide to confide in Suiza. One day, Livadhi takes off. His ship begins bouncing around the Familias, attempting to throw off followers. Suiza follows in her Rascal, and is hidden by Koutsoudas foxing the scans aboard Livadhi's cruiser. In the last system before the Benignity proper, Suiza powers up her weapons when she sees a Benignity vessel enter the system. Heris and her cruiser follow shortly after. Livadhi's crew begins evacuating on the shuttles. Petris confronts Livadhi in his cabin, but is drugged by him. Livadhi uses him as a hostage and the self-destruct button as a threat in his conversation with Heris; he lays out his whole list of grievances and suchlike, chief among which is his anger at being rejected by Heris - he had loved her, like Petris, but she had chosen Petris and not him. Partway through his rant, he notices the crew's evacuation. Furious that he would not be able to take them all with him, and believing that Heris was about to win yet again, he pushes the self-destruct button, taking Petris with him. The final scene is the promotion of Heris and Cecelia to Admiral, to replace Livadhi. Essentially everyone yet living is there, toasting the two. At the end, they memorialize all who had died in the conflicts, and especially Livadhi, with a song based on William Blake's Jerusalem (with additions and modifications by Moon): :This for the friends we had of old, :Friends for a lifetime's love and cheer. :This for the friends who come no more, :Who cannot be among us here. :We'll not forget, while we're alive, :These hallowed dead, these deeds of fame. :Where they have gone, we follow soon :Into the darkness and the flame. :Then we shall rise, our duty done, :Freed from all pain and sorrow here; :We'll leave behind ambition's sting :And keep alive our honor dear. :And they will stand beside us then, :All whom we loved and hoped to see; :And they shall sing, a glad AMEN, :To cheer that final victory. :Bring me my bow of burning gold; :Bring me my arrows of desire; :Bring me my ship — O clouds unfold — :Bring me my chariot of fire. :We shall not cease our faithful watch, :Nor shall the sword sleep in our hand, :Till we have gone beyond the stars :To join that fair immortal band. |
6531307 | /m/0g949d | Across the Sea of Suns | Gregory Benford | 1984 | {"/m/03lrw": "Hard science fiction", "/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Radio astronomy on the Moon in 2021 reveals the presence of life by a nearby red dwarf, on a tide-locked planet. To investigate them and the message they are transmitting, Earth's governments repurpose a space colony that was to be stationed at one of Earth's Lagrangian points and convert it into Lancer, a Bussard ramjet powered interstellar ship based on a crashed alien ship discovered in the Mare Marginis on the Moon, and send it to investigate. In 2061, it arrives and discovers a primitive biological race of nomads broadcasting en-masse with organs adapted to emit and receive electromagnetic radiation; their transmissions were blurred by various nomads falling out of synch with the rest. Close up, the transmission is discovered to be an old radio show from the 1950s - the signal the EMs (as they are called) consider best to reply to Earth with. A curious satellite is discovered in orbit, from at least as far back as a million years — roughly when an anomalous meteor shower destroyed the EMs' civilization. On Earth, international commerce is brought to a standstill when mysterious spaceships drop sea creatures dubbed "Swarmers" and "Skimmers" (for their behaviour; Swarmers swarm ships and head-butt them until they sink, and Skimmers simply jump and skim around like dolphins). They begin multiplying and the Swarmers begin attacking humans and all their works on the seas, high or otherwise. The Ra expedition's first contacts go poorly. The attempt to examine and enter the more interesting of the total of two satellites prompts a massive retaliation by the satellite with plasma weapons that kills most of the crew involved in the attempt. The attempt to contact the EMs on Isis does not go well either; the EMs are confused by the presence of a human on the surface. They had been expecting a reply from Earth itself. In the confusion and surprise, they attempted to simultaneously broadcast their lengthy and elaborate summary of their history and culture, and also to see in more detail the messenger. Unfortunately, in order to see in radar, radar must be broadcast, and the narrowing gaze of the EMs and all the other transmissions literally cook the communications specialist alive. The standby team misinterprets this tragic incident as a deliberate attack and massacres the lot of EMs. Nigel works with the mathematicians and other experts to interpret the original transmission and later ones. His analysis reveals that their technologically advanced Space-age civilization had attracted the attention of machines, and perished in a massive and prolonged deliberate orbital bombardment that levelled their cities, infrastructure, and civilization. The bombardment of asteroids was severe enough to crack open the crust of the planet and permanently alter for the worse the EMs' ecosphere. The EMs drew to the utmost on what was left of their genetic engineering and biology, and radically altered their bodies to use silicon and transistors for a nervous system and so broadcast; the watching satellite is programmed to react to high technology, not inbuilt features of organisms, so this way the EMs will be able to broadcast their message and possibly help out other biological races. No sooner has some genuine two-way communication been established than new orders come from Earth, to move on to a new system where they think the Skimmers and Swarmers may've come from originally. En route, they preoccupy themselves analysing reports from the far-flung space probes: everywhere except Earth that traces could be found, anomalies like other Watchers abound. Walmsley theorizes that a machine-based race that was systematically destroying or guarding planets supporting organic life was responsible for these anomalies; the Swarmers represent a first strike at Earth, which had thus far eluded the machines' attempts to kill it, since the assigned Watcher (as Nigel calls the satellites) was destroyed by the Mare Marginis wreck. His theories are generally disregarded as being too speculative; the sober consensus agrees that Watchers are simply a common form of weaponry left over from the suicide of biological races, and the Swarmer invasion simply a grab for a fresh and relatively unspoiled world. At the next system, Ross 128, a moon like Ganymede is found with a Watcher around it. Initially it is taken as a disproof of Walmsley's Rule that Watchers will appear around any depopulated world that had once harboured technologically advanced biological life, but the de facto leader (Ted), who has always disliked Walmsley, attempts to covertly force Walmsley into hibernation until the long-planned-for return to Earth. Walmsley breaks out part-way through the necessary medical preparations and escapes to the moon in a submersible. Avoiding the people the Lancer sends out in pursuit, he discovers a much-reduced sapient civilization that had links to the EMs before the Watcher came. The Watcher prevents them from ever reaching the surface and thus from developing much technology, but it cannot complete its task and kill them—they are protected by ten kilometres of ice, which Walmsley remarks would insulate them from even the worst the Watcher could do: cause the sun of that system to go nova. The two are in a stalemate. During the standoff, news comes in from Earth (delayed nine years by the speed of light) that the Swarmers have begun land invasions; the tense superpowers each suspect each other, and escalate the conflict into a full-scale multi-party nuclear war. The machines, who had attempted to engineer just such an internecine conflict (more efficient than attacking a unified humanity), send their flotilla against Earth, when the defences are denuded, destroyed, or depleted. This grim news galvanizes the crew to do something. They agree to reactivate the fusion drive and turn the plume on the Watcher. This tactic cripples the Watcher, but its retaliation does even more damage to Lancer; worst of all, the drive system is destroyed. At some point after the publication of one or more sequels (beginning with Great Sky River, for the American paperback edition), Benford appended a new ending onto the original just-described ending of the novel. The following section is from the Second Edition of the book to bridge over to the continuance of the Galactic Core Saga: The Watcher is eventually blinded by being coated with a life-form native to the moon, which eats metals and other such materials, thus enabling a boarding action. The boarding parties discover that in exchange for their horrific casualties, they have obtained a map of the galaxy marked with places significant to the machines, and a sleek fast vessel to take them to those places. Now the leader, Nigel vetoes suggestions that they return to Earth and quoting Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ("Le's all slide out of here one of these nights and go for howling adventures amongst the Injuns over in the territory and I says all right, that suits me.") energizes everyone for a voyage to the Galactic Center, the most important place of all for the machines. Earth's ocean-borne myriads, now partnered with the Skimmers against the Swarmers, will just have to fend for themselves. |
6534484 | /m/0g99tw | Web | John Wyndham | 1979-04 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The events depicted in Web are written from the viewpoint of Arnold Delgrange, a man whose wife and daughter were recently killed in a motor collision. They revolve around a failed attempt to establish a utopian colony on the fictional island Tanakuatua in the Pacific Ocean, remote from civilisation. Tanakuatua is now uninhabited by humans. Its native inhabitants were evacuated from the island due to British nuclear testing and were relocated however a small group of natives defy the evacuation order and placed a curse on any people who returned to the island. When Delgrange and his fellow pioneers reach the island they soon discover it has been overrun by spiders that hunt in packs. |
6535784 | /m/0g9c6v | Spectrum | Sergey Lukyanenko | 2002 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | His life changes when a wealthy man walks into his office and asks him to find his missing daughter. After a short investigation, the Walker finds her on Library - a world full of ancient ruins. Before he can bring her back, however, she dies in a freak accident. A clue leads him to another alien planet where he finds her alive and well. Soon he discovers that the same woman exists on several other worlds, each is connected to the other. One by one, they are killed in seemingly random, totally unrelated events. It is to the Walker's great surprise when he finds himself becoming attracted to his client's daughter. It's a race against time, as the Walker desperately tries to save the identical copies of the woman, only to have them die in his arms. Can he save the last one before she perishes and, in the process, uncover a massive conspiracy going back thousands of years with the Keymasters in the middle? |
6539907 | /m/0g9jmb | The Cave | Anne McLean Matthews | 2001 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The story concerns an elderly potter named Cipriano Algor, his daughter Marta, and his son-in-law Marçal. One day, the Center, literally the center of commerce in the story, cancels its order for Cipriano's pottery, leaving the elderly potter's future in doubt. He and Marta decide to try their hand at making clay figurines and astonishingly the Center places an order for hundreds. But just as quickly, the order is cancelled and Cipriano, his daughter, and his son-in-law have no choice but to move to the Center where Marçal works as a security guard. Before long, the mysterious sound of digging can be heard beneath the Center, and what the family discovers will change their lives forever. |
6540763 | /m/0g9krs | Network Analysis and Ethnographic Problems | null | null | null | The basis for the book is the complete genealogical network for a nomad community, its history, and its migrants and migrations. These form a relational web not just for description but for analysis of social dynamics. The picture that emerges is one of a complexly scalable social system that expands through reproduction, kinship alliances, and fissions, and overcomes internal conflicts and those with neighbors along routes of migration. These networks constitute a generative demographic engine for health, a potential for large sibling groups, and for extensive cooperation within and between these groups constructed through reciprocal ties of marriage. The book is lavishly illustrated with photos, network diagrams, and analytical tables showing how very simple principles of cohesion and scalable alliances between families are able to organize this social system through a series of shifting articulations at a variety of social and spatial levels. Thus continual reshuffling is capabable of moving, and does move individuals and groups in the society through a variety of transformations in relation to life problems, social problems, technological problems, and the transmission and enrichment of a highly complex cultural system. The book shows how these adjust dynamically to changing social conditions. |
6542282 | /m/0g9lw2 | If I Die in a Combat Zone: Box Me Up and Ship Me Home | Tim O'Brien | 1973 | {"/m/05h83": "Non-fiction", "/m/016chh": "Memoir"} | O'Brien takes the reader through a typical day in the life of a soldier in Vietnam. We are briefly introduced to a small number of fellow 'grunts' and the commanding officer of Alpha Company, the rifle company O'Brien was assigned to, one Captain Johansen. (Names and physical characteristics depicted in the book were changed.) Rather than proceed chronologically, O'Brien takes the reader back to the beginning of his induction into the US Army. The reader learns about the author's home town, Worthington, Minnesota and to which O'Brien moved when he was 10 years old. We are led through his childhood, playing various army games, and learning about World War II from returned veterans and the Korean War which was taking place at the time. The story of his tour itself continues to unfold while the reader is simultaneously taken through O'Brien's training at Fort Lewis, Washington, where he acquaints a man of similar situation named Erik. Together, the two decide to engage in a psychological resistance against the government. After debating over the idea of desertion, O'Brien arrives in Vietnam in 1969 and spends a week at a base in Chu Lai (home to the Americal Division from approximately 1967 until 1971), receiving last-minute training such as mine sweeping and grenade throwing as well as the essential do's and don'ts of jungle warfare, before being sent to Landing Zone Gator in Quang Ngai Province where he is assigned to Alpha company, 5th Battalion of the 46th Infantry, 198th Infantry Brigade. O'Brien describes his time in Alpha Company and the various events that took place during his time there, as well as some of the people he encountered. Among the scenarios O'Brien describes is one about the various mines that are encountered by the infantrymen, and the indiscriminate way that these devices disfigure and maim both combatants and civilians. Not long after the accidental shelling of a lagoon village by the A Battery, 1st Battalion, 14th Field Artillery Regiment, that Alpha Company was protecting (near an American firebase), O'Brien is offered a job at the rear and is airlifted away from the fighting, where he encounters a rear echelon officer, Major Callicles (battalion executive officer), who deals with the investigation into the My Lai Massacre committed by the Charlie Company of the same battalion. The memoir ends with O'Brien being flown home. |
6546010 | /m/0g9q5m | Mary, Mary | B. W. Battin | 2006-10 | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller", "/m/0lsxr": "Crime Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | FBI Agent Alex Cross is on vacation in Los Angeles with his family when he receives word that a Hollywood actress has been murdered. The actress was shot and her face violently slashed with a knife. An email describing the killer's mindset before and during the murder as well as allusions to the killer's motivation was sent to an entertainment reporter at the Los Angeles Times. The emails are signed "Mary Smith". The actress happens to be friends with the wife of the President of the United States who has asked FBI Director Ron Burns to look into the matter. Additional victims, including a movie producer and a local TV anchorwoman, turn up later as well. As the number of incidents increases so does the number of leads. One such lead is a sighting of a blue Chevrolet Suburban speeding away from one of the murder scenes. Further investigation reveals the owner of one such Suburban who's owner lives near the Internet cafe where many of the Mary Smith emails were sent. A variety of other evidence also corroborates the conclusion that the Suburban's owner is, in fact, the Mary Smith killer. Cross interviews the Suburban owner. In doing so, he discovers that she suffers from some sort of psychological disorder that either lead or caused her to kill her three children 20 years ago. To investigate the killings further, Cross travels to the Suburban owner's small hometown in Vermont and discovers that after her children were killed, she was institutionalized at a state mental hospital from which she later escaped. At the mental hospital, Cross examines the log of visitors who had come to see the Suburban owner and discovers a familiar name who then shows up and tries to silence Cross for good. |
6546437 | /m/0g9qmf | Judge and Jury | Andrew Gross | null | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller", "/m/0lsxr": "Crime Fiction"} | It's the biggest trial of the decade - big time mobster Dominic Cavello has finally been put in the dock, and there's enough evidence to make a conviction. Heavy security surrounds the courtroom, and Nick Pellisante, the FBI agent who helped to nail Cavello, keeps a close eye on the proceedings. But things swiftly begin to go wrong. Faced with anonymous threats, the jury is sequestered. Then the bus escorting them to their hotel is bombed on the day of Andie's young son's birthday - Jarrod, who is on the bus with the rest of the jury. Andie DeGrasse is the only person who survives, her loss strengthens her resolve to see justice done, to Cavello as well as to whoever planted that bomb. She and Pellisante both know that this will be difficult, but they can't foresee just how difficult. |
6549971 | /m/0g9vrd | One, Two, Buckle My Shoe | Agatha Christie | null | {"/m/0lsxr": "Crime Fiction", "/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | Hercule Poirot leaves the office of his dentist, Morley, after an appointment, and notices the arrival of Mabelle Sainsbury Seale. He returns to her the shiny buckle that has fallen from her shoe. Later, he hears from Inspector Japp that Morley has died of a gunshot. Between Poirot’s appointment and Morley’s death there were only three patients: Banker Alistair Blunt, Mabelle, and a Greek blackmailer named Amberiotis. The presence of a man thought essential to the country’s economic survival, the banker, Blunt, ensures Japp’s involvement in the case. Amberiotis dies of an overdose of anaesthetic and it is thought that the dentist has killed himself after realising the accident for which he had been responsible. The movements of people at the dental surgery are inconclusive. Morley’s partner, Reilly, is a rogue but seems to have no motive. Morley’s secretary had been called away by a fake telegram. Her boyfriend, Frank Carter, had a weak motive given that Morley had attempted to dissuade her from seeing him. Also present at the surgery was Howard Raikes, a prickly left-wing activist violently opposed to Blunt but enamoured of his niece. There is too little evidence for Poirot to construct an alternative hypothesis, but he senses that the story is not complete. When Mabelle goes missing, his fears are realised. A search for her is conducted, and some time later her body is apparently found in a sealed chest in the apartment of Mrs. Albert Chapman, who has herself disappeared. The corpse’s face has been smashed in, and Poirot notices its dull buckled shoes. He is skeptical of the theory that Mrs. Chapman has killed Mabelle and fled. Sure enough, once the dental records are produced by Morley’s successor at the surgery, it is discovered that the corpse is Mrs. Chapman’s. The hunt for Mabelle continues. Poirot is now drawn into the life of the Blunt family. An attempt is made on Alistair Blunt’s life at which Raikes is a bystander. Poirot is invited down to Blunt’s house, where he is persuaded to undertake a search for Mabelle. While he is there, a second attempt is made on Blunt’s life, but it is seemingly thwarted by Raikes. The pistol used in the attack is found in the hand of none other than Frank Carter, who has taken a job as gardener at the house under a false identity. When a maid at the surgery admits to having seen Carter on the stairs going up to Morley’s office, it seems that Carter is likely to be tried and convicted of both the murder and the attempted murder. The fact that the gun with which he was captured was the twin of the murder weapon only makes things worse for him. In the climax of the novel – one of the darkest in the Poirot series – Poirot realises that by allowing Carter to persist in his lies he can ensure that the real killer goes free, and wrestles with his conscience. Eventually he presses Carter to admit the truth: that when he entered Morley’s office the dentist was already dead. It is the final element in the puzzle. Poirot visits Alistair Blunt and explains the murders. The real Mabelle Sainsbury Seale had known him and his first wife, Gerda, whom he had never divorced, in India; his money came from his now deceased second wife, and he would be disgraced if caught in bigamy. Running into Blunt in the street, she had recognised and spoken to him in front of his niece, but had not realised whom he had become. By chance she had mentioned this chance encounter to the blackmailer, Amberiotis, who made the connection between the name 'Blunt' and the wealthy banker and began to blackmail Blunt. Gerda, posing under several aliases including that of Mrs. Albert Chapman, invited Mabelle to visit her, killed her, and took her identity, but had to buy new shoes because Mabelle’s did not fit her. This is why the corpse’s buckles were dull, while the buckle of the woman whom Poirot met going into Morley's surgery were shiny: the fake Mabelle had newer shoes than the real one, who was by that time decomposing in the chest. The woman in the trunk could hardly have worn through a new pair of shoes in a single day. Ironically, the face of the corpse had been disfigured not because it wasn’t Mabelle, but because it was. Alistair Blunt had attended his appointment, shot Morley and stashed his body in the side office with his wife’s help. Having appeared to leave the surgery, he returned and changed the dental records of Mrs. Albert Chapman and Mabelle in order to ensure that the corpse would be identified as Mrs. Chapman: a woman who in reality did not exist; the motive for killing Morley was simply to prevent him from detecting this change. At the end of Mabelle’s appointment, Gerda left, while Blunt dressed as a dentist in order to administer the overdose to Amberiotis, a new patient who had never met Morley. Poirot’s involvement had forced Blunt to compound the lies with talk of assassins and spies as the detective had relentlessly tracked the truth. At the novel’s bleak conclusion, Poirot is forced to admit that Blunt does indeed stand in public life “for all the things that to my mind are important. For sanity and balance and stability and honest dealing”. Nevertheless, he adds: “I am not concerned with the fate of nations, Monsieur. I am concerned with the lives of private individuals who have the right not to have their lives taken from them.” He turns Blunt over to the police. Later, he confronts Blunt's niece and her fiancé Howard Raikes, telling them that they now have the "new heaven and the new earth" that they desire, asking them only to "let there be freedom and let there be pity". In the last chapter, Mr. Barnes tells Poirot that he took such a vivid interest in the case as he was Mr. Albert Chapman, the wife of whom Gerda (apparently Mrs. Albert Chapman) pretended to be. |
6553110 | /m/0gb473 | Dairy Queen | null | 5/22/2006 | null | The novel is about a 15-year-old girl named Darlene Joyce (D.J.) Schwenk, who lives on a farm in Red Bend, Wisconsin. During the summer, she is pressured into training a stubborn football player named Brian Nelson. Eventually, they become friends, and D.J. develops romantic feelings for Brian. Part of DJ's struggle is that she had once been a star athlete in volleyball and basketball. When her father hurts his hip, she had to take over all the responsibilities of running their dairy farm. Her only hopes of college had been sports scholarships, and when she is forced to quit sports in order to run the farm, she starts slacking in school. DJ's two older brothers Win and Bill are legends at her school and both play college football. DJ decides to try out for her high school football team. When pre-season is about to start, D.J.'s best friend Amber walks in on a waterfight between D.J. and Brian. Brian leaves, and D.J. and Amber argue. Later on, D.J.'s friend Kari invites her to a gravel-pit party, which Amber attends. D.J. tells the two of them about her decision and Amber expresses her disgust. After, D.J. encounters Amber away from the rest of the party. Then Amber reveals, "You're with me. You're not with him. It's the two of us. Don't you see that?" It then occurs to D.J. that Amber is in love with her (Which is how you know that Amber is a lesbian.) DJ withholds her decision to try out for the team from Brian, and when he finally finds out their friendship is ruined because Brian feels like DJ has betrayed him. Throughout the summer, D.J. learns a lot about the people in her life. She also discovers that there is a lot of meaning in speaking out. Brian once says to her "When you don't talk, there's a lot of stuff that ends up not getting said." DJ and her family don't communicate effectively, her father rarely speaks to any of them except for her mother, her two older brothers are in the middle of a silent fight with her father, they have no contact with the family (until DJ finds out her mother has been communicating with them the whole time), and her younger brother speaks only when he is spoken to. |
6555945 | /m/0gbc4d | Jubilee Trail | Gwen Bristow | null | {"/m/02p0szs": "Historical fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The story begins with Garnet Cameron, an 18-year-old young woman from upper-class New York society. Garnet has just graduated from her finishing school and is trying to find a direction for her life now that her schooling is done. That summer, a young man by the name of Oliver Hale comes to New York. He is in town to buy supplies from the estate of Mr. Selkirk, a wealthy murdered man, to bring west with him. Oliver Hale is a frontier trader from California and Garnet is immediately drawn to him. He treats her as an equal and talks to her as "a human being", telling her about the journey to the unknown territory of California. Garnet is riveted by Oliver's tales of adventure and excitement and longs to see the things he tells her about. Promising to take her west with him, Oliver proposes marriage and Garnet happily accepts. They are quickly married and begin their journey that March. The plan is that Garnet will travel to California with Oliver while he closes up his business out west and they both will return to New York the following year. Oliver and Garnet travel first to New Orleans. Garnet is fascinated by the grandeur of the city. Oliver takes her to a dance hall called the Flower Garden, something Garnet would never have been allowed to do back in New York. In the Flower Garden, a blonde actress named Juliette La Tour stops the show with her talent for stage presence and performance. That evening, as the couple eats dinner, Garnet has a meeting with Juliette when two drunk men try to make a move on Garnet and the actress sends them away. Juliette tells Garnet that her real name is Florinda Grove. The next day, Garnet spots Florinda hiding in the hallways of her hotel. Florinda tells Garnet that a man from New York wants to arrest Florinda for the murder of Mr. Selkirk. Garnet and Oliver decide to help Florinda escape arrest by disguising her as a widow and sending her to St. Louis. Florinda is very grateful and she and Garnet become fast friends. Shortly after Florinda leaves, Garnet and Oliver leave New Orleans for St. Louis, themselves. Beyond St. Louis, Garnet and Oliver set out to cross the Great Plains. The trail is hard-going, but Garnet enjoys it with wide-eyed wonder. She questions Oliver about his brother Charles, whom they will be staying with in California, but Oliver is reluctant to talk on the subject of his brother and Garnet lets it drop. They arrive in Santa Fe several months after leaving St. Louis and Garnet is reunited with Florinda, who was traveling "in sin" with a deacon from St. Louis. She and Garnet rekindle their friendship. Shortly after their arrival in Santa Fe, the traders from California arrive in the city, too. Garnet is introduced to several of Oliver's friends: John Ives, Oliver's standoff-ish business partner, who is ; and fellow traders of the Jubilee Trail (the name of the trail from Santa Fe to California) Silky van Dorn, Penrose, and Texas. Florinda drops the deacon and makes the decision to travel to California with the traders. On the trail to California, Garnet and Florinda endure harsh temperatures, lack of water, and other such hardships with stoicism and bravery. Both women build friendships with the men of the trail, most notable of which is John's gradual warming to Garnet. They share a mutual appreciation of the scenery and he grows to respect both Garnet and Florinda for their sheer will and determination. The train finally arrives in California with much rejoicing, although Florinda quickly succumbs to exhaustion brought on by the trail. Garnet also finally meets Oliver's brother, Charles, who makes no secret of the fact that he hates her. Garnet convinces John to take care of Florinda, as she herself must leave for Charles' rancho to the north. Garnet finds out quickly that Charles is basically controlling Oliver. Oliver, who once was a strong and outgoing man, is reduced to the attitude of a child when he is around Charles. During an earthquake at Charles' rancho, Garnet discovers a letter from Charles to Oliver. The letter reveals that before leaving California last year, Oliver had a tryst with the daughter of a wealthy native Californian and the girl gave birth to a son. Charles was delighted at the opportunity to gain control of the property and expected Oliver to marry the girl on his return. He was shocked to discover he had gotten married in New York. Garnet's respect for Oliver continues to falter as she realizes that he is not the man she thought she was marrying. Shortly after this revelation, Garnet also realizes that she herself is pregnant and will be due sometime while she and Oliver are out on the prairie for the return trip east. In the midst of all this emotional turmoil, the young Californio woman kills herself and her baby. In a grief-stricken rage, her father storms into Charles' rancho and kills Oliver. After Oliver's death, Garnet nearly dies, but is rescued by John Ives and Florinda and taken to Florinda's Los Angeles saloon where she lives among new friends, including the magnificent Russian friend of John Ives. Her son is born amid the drama of California's joining the United States and the reality that Charles Hale wants to take her son from her. By the end of the story gold has been discovered on Sutter's Mill and John and Garnet fall in love and are married. |
6557540 | /m/0gbfz2 | Witch Week | Diana Wynne Jones | 1982 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | This book is set in an alternate modern-day England (World Twelve C), identical to our world except for the presence of witchcraft. Despite witches being common, witchcraft is illegal and punishable by death, policed by a modern-day Inquisition. At Larwood House, an underfunded boarding school that many of the adolescent children of executed witches are sent to, a note claiming "Someone in this class is a witch" is found by one of the teachers. This launches an internal investigation of several of the more unpopular students at the school, some of whom are gradually coming to terms with the fact that they can do magic. In the traditional manner of children, magic and mischief, mayhem gradually ensues as magic is used to make birds appear in the classroom, to rain shoes, to curse a classmate into having his words always be true, and to do the traditional flying on a broomstick. When the magic gets totally out of control, one of the students runs away, blaming the witch for controlling him. This launches an investigation and the Inquisition is called to locate any witches and have them burned. Four of the students escape the school, two of them turning for help to an old part of an underground railroad system for witches to send them to another world where they'll be safe. While the old woman who lives there tells them the system broke down long ago, she does give them a spell to say at the Oak Grove that will summon help in an emergency. The four students and Brian, the runaway, gather at the Grove and say "Chrestomanci" three times, which summons the nine-lives enchanter from The Lives of Christopher Chant to help them. With his help, and the help of their classmates, most of which are witches themselves, the kids outwit the Inquisitor and ultimately revise their world's history by merging their world (Twelve A) with ours (Twelve B), which has no magic. When the note is found in this world, everyone exclaims they are the witch, and it is seen as normal. |
6558309 | /m/0gbhk4 | Castle in the Air | Diana Wynne Jones | 1990 | {"/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Castle in the Air follows the adventures of Abdullah, a handsome young carpet salesman from Zanzib, who daydreams constantly about being a stolen prince. One day a strange traveler comes to his stand to sell a magic carpet. During the night, Abdullah goes to sleep on the carpet but wakes up to find himself in a beautiful garden with a young woman. He tells the woman, Flower-in-the-Night, that he is the stolen prince of his daydreams, believing that he is in fact dreaming. Flower-in-the-Night, who has never seen a man other than her father, first believes that Abdullah is a woman, so Abdullah agrees to return the next night with portraits of many men so that she can make a proper comparison. He does so, and Abdullah and Flower-in-the-Night decide to marry. Abdullah returns the next night, but he arrives just as Flower-in-the-Night is snatched away by a huge flying djinn. Soon after, the Sultan of Zanzib captures Abdullah who then discovers that Flower is actually the Sultan's daughter. Enraged that his daughter is missing, the Sultan blames Abdullah and throws him in jail, threatening to impale him on a 40 foot pole if his daughter is not found. Fortunately, Abdullah is saved by his magic carpet and escapes from Zanzib. Abdullah ends up in the desert and stumbles upon a group of bandits, who have in their possession a particularly cranky genie who grants only one wish a day. In the night, Abdullah steals the genie and flees. After a wish, Abdullah is transported to Ingary and ends up traveling with a bitter Strangian soldier whose country was recently taken in a war with Ingary. While traveling to Kingsbury in search of a wizard, the two stumble upon a cat and her kitten, whom the soldier names Midnight and Whippersnapper, respectively. As they travel, Abdullah wishes for the return of his flying carpet, who brings with it the very Djinn that kidnapped Flower-in-the-Night. It is revealed that the Djinn, Hasruel, is being forced to kidnap princesses from all over the world by his brother, Dalzel. The two proceed on the carpet to Kingsbury, which is where they find Wizard Suliman, who, upon realizing that Midnight is actually a person in cat form, returns her to being a human. As the spell is lifted from the woman, who turns out to be Sophie Pendragon, her baby, Morgan is returned to his normal self as well. However, when they go to collect the baby, he is no longer in the inn, where he was left with the soldier. Abdullah and Sophie then order the carpet to take them to Morgan. The carpet does so, taking them far into the sky, to the castle in the air, which is merely Wizard Howl's castle, having been greatly enlarged. There they meet the stolen princesses and plot with them to escape the castle. Led by Abdullah, they overpower the two Djinn, freeing Hasruel who banishes his brother. Flower-of-the-Night had by then wished the genie free, who turned out to be Sophie's husband, the Wizard Howl. |
6558771 | /m/0gbjht | The Infinity Clue | Franklin W. Dixon | null | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/028v3": "Detective fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Frank, Joe and Chet travel to Washington DC to investigate the theft of a diamond. Fenton Hardy has gone missing, and the sign of infinity begins to haunt the boys as it follows them everywhere! |
6561364 | /m/0gbpgh | Terrorist | John Updike | 2006-06 | {"/m/098tmk": "War novel", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/059r08": "Psychological novel"} | The story centers on an American-born Muslim teenager named Ahmad Ashmawy Mulloy, although Ahmad’s high school guidance counselor, Jack Levy, also plays a central role. The novel seeks to explore the worldview and motivations of religious fundamentalists (specifically within Islam), while at the same time dissecting the morals and lifeways of residents of the fictional decaying New Jersey Rust Belt suburb of "New Prospect" (which Updike has identified with Paterson, New Jersey, also the setting of his novel, In the Beauty of the Lilies). |
6561640 | /m/0gbptg | The Four-Headed Dragon | Franklin W. Dixon | null | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/028v3": "Detective fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | The Hardy boys track a criminal who plans to use an invention designed as a peaceful aid to the secret Four-Headed Dragon organization behind the Iron Curtain to harm the free world instead. |
6562082 | /m/0gbq6q | Track of the Zombie | Franklin W. Dixon | null | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/028v3": "Detective fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The Hardy boys travel to Vermont to investigate a mysterious fire and to help a circus owner who is plagued with accidents. |
6562130 | /m/0gbq8t | The Billion Dollar Ransom | Franklin W. Dixon | null | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/028v3": "Detective fiction"} | The Hardy boys help out when a magicians' tournament is threatened by mysterious happenings. Frank and Joe naturally catch the magician who kidnapped the President and all culprits by slowly closing in on their position and taking control. |
6562180 | /m/0gbqbj | Tic-Tac-Terror | Franklin W. Dixon | null | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/028v3": "Detective fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | In this book the Hardy boys (Frank and Joe) are asked to help stop a world-famous spy who works for the HAVOC, an international network of terrorists, wants to defect to the U.S. Frank and joe know the spy as "Igor”. Also a million-dollar emerald from South America has vanished. Joe and Frank think “Igor” was involved. Their only clue is mysterious symbol in shape of tic-tac-toe. The game lead to a building that is run by the U.S government. The building has a bomb and the Hardys are trapped in a deadly game of tic-tac-toe. |
6562256 | /m/0gbqf8 | Trapped At Sea | Franklin W. Dixon | null | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/028v3": "Detective fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The Hardy brothers travel from the highways of eastern United States to tropical islands trying to track down truckloads of precious cargo that are being hijacked. |
6562366 | /m/0gbqjr | Game Plan for Disaster | Franklin W. Dixon | null | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/028v3": "Detective fiction"} | Frank and Joe Hardy are drawn into a tangled web of danger when they are called in to investigate mysterious accidents plaguing a college football star. |
6562420 | /m/0gbqmj | The Crimson Flame | Franklin W. Dixon | null | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/028v3": "Detective fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | The plot begins with Frank and Joe witnessing a westerner being attacked by a notorious jewel thief Oscar Tamm. The westerner reveals himself as Alfred McVay and as a avid jewel collector. Due to suspicious happenings at his ranch house in Arizona, he hires the Hardys for protection. Upon reaching there the Hardys start to investigate the strange happenings and develop an immediate dislike of the foreman, Wat Perkins. The are also intrigued by a "mysterious rider" who seems to be sending messages to someone in the ranch house. They also grow suspicious of the butler Wilbur. When a tornado strikes the ranch, the Crimson Flame, a priceless ruby gets stolen. McVay becomes morose and the Hardys, with a couple of clues, pursue the jewel thieves to Thailand. The rest of the plot follows how the boys help capture the crooks and eventually, how the lost ruby is found. |
6563632 | /m/0gbrsv | The Thief | Megan Whalen Turner | 10/1/1996 | {"/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Gen is released from prison by the magus, the king's scholar. The magus finds Gen filthy, uncouth, and insolent, but he needs Gen’s skills as a thief. Without telling Gen where they are going, he takes him out of the city. They are joined by the magus’s two apprentices, Sophos and Ambiades, and by Pol, a soldier. The journey is dangerous, and the travelers grate on each other's nerves. The magus reveals that the object he wants Gen to steal is a precious stone called Hamaithes's Gift far far away. Gen risks death in a daring attempt to steal the stone from an almost inaccessible temple, while the entire party is pursued by the Guard of Attolia. None of the main characters is exactly what he seems to be. Gen actually works for the queen of a neighboring nation, Sophos is the heir to the throne and Ambiades is a traitor. By the end of the book, secrets are revealed, relationships adjusted, and respect among the travelers is lost and won. |
6564761 | /m/0gbsxh | Cyborg | Martin Caidin | 1972-04 | {"/m/017rf8": "Techno-thriller", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/06n90": "Science Fiction"} | Cyborg is the story of an astronaut-turned-test pilot, Steve Austin, who experiences a catastrophic crash during a flight, leaving him with all but one limb destroyed, blind in one eye, and with other major injuries. At the same time, a secret branch of the American government, the Office of Strategic Operations (OSO) has taken an interest in the work of Dr. Rudy Wells in the field of bionics - the replacement of human body parts with mechanical prosthetics that (in the context of this novel) are more powerful than the original limbs. Wells also happens to be a close friend of Austin's, so when OSO chief Oscar Goldman "invites" (or rather, orders) Wells to rebuild Austin with bionics limbs, Wells agrees. In Caidin's writings, he uses the form "bionics" in all references treating it as both noun (singular) and adjective, since "-ics" is the Greek suffix meaning science, study or practice, as in "physics"; this was changed for the subsequent television series to the more adjectival-sounding form "bionic", e.g. "bionic limbs" rather than Caidin's "bionics limbs". Steve Austin is outfitted with two new legs capable of propelling him at great speed, and a bionics left arm with almost human dexterity and the strength of a battering ram. One of the fingers of the hand incorporates a poison dart gun. His left eye is replaced with a false, removable eye that is used (in this first novel) to house a miniature camera. Other physical alterations include the installation of a steel skull plate to replace bone smashed by the crash, and a radio transmitter built into a rib. This mixture of man and machine is known as a cyborg, from which the novel gets its title. The first half of the novel details Austin's operation and both his reaction to his original injuries—he attempts to commit suicide—and his initially resentful reaction to being rebuilt with bionics. The operation comes with a hefty price tag, and Austin is committed to working for the OSO as a reluctant agent. He is teamed with a female operative and sent to the Middle East as a new weapon against extremism. |
6565097 | /m/0gbt9y | Hallam Foe | Peter Jinks | 4/1/2002 | null | Hallam Foe follows the life of 17-year-old boy who has a very unusual and seemingly destructive hobby. He lives most of his life up in a tree house with state-of-the-art binoculars, a telescope, and plenty of logbooks in hand, watching as the people around him live their life. Hallam keeps himself separated and lives in solitude up in the trees, away from his father, Julius Foe, stepmother, Verity, his sister, Lucy and his best friend Alex Thirtle. He had fallen into these depths when his mother, Anne Sarah Foe, committed suicide and the relentless relatives turned their attention and pity towards the boy. |
6572984 | /m/0gc32p | Reaper's Gale | Steven Erikson | 5/7/2007 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Synopsis The Challengers: Champions from various cultures return with the Edur fleet to challenge Rhulad. Among them include Icarium with Taralack Veed, Karsa Orlong with Samar Dev, a Seguleh girl found unconscious near MoI, and a monk from Cabal. Icarium begins acting strangely, and Taralack Veed starts doubting that Icarium can beat Rhulad. Samar Dev believes Karsa will die, but Karsa is confident. Eventually all the challengers die except Karsa and Icarium. Karsa fights Rhulad and severs Rhulad's sword arm, then uses all his ghosts and the ones in Samar's knife to manipulate the sword's power and travel to the Crippled God's island. There he flips the Crippled God's tent, stabs Rhulad (who dies, this time for good), slaps Withal and enters a portal aimed vaguely at his home after refusing to take the sword for himself (which was apparently the Crippled God's plan ever since Karsa left Laederon). Withal and the Nachts destroy the sword. The Shake: Varat Taun warns Twilight of what Icarium can do, so she flees up the coast. We learn she is a princess of the Shake. At Maiden Island she confronts Brullyg who declared himself king and makes herself Queen. Deadsmell makes some comments about the Shake being descended from the original Tiste Andii guardians of the Shore (but also having Edur blood). The Awl war: Redmask unites all the Awl and initially defeats the Letheri army coming for him, but before long the Letheri start doing better. They have a big final battle and Redmask's two K'chain Che-malle pals suddenly attack and kill him mid-battle. The Letheri win. The Barghast show up. Toc sacrifices himself to save a dozen or so Awl children, witnessed by Tool. The Barghast slaughter the Letheri forces. In the Refugium: The Refugium is dying. Menandore teams up with Sheltatha and Sukul to try and take Scabandari's finnest, but Quick Ben defeats them and Hedge cussers Sheltatha and Menandore. Sukul gets away but is then killed by the three T'lan Imass who were real Bentract and had wanted to usurp Ulshun Pral (but later decided they liked him and the place). Onrack and Trull defend the portal entrance. Silchas, Clip, Wither, Kettle, Udinaas, Seren and Fear come through. Silchas, Clip and Wither team up to kill the rest. Fear dies, Wither explodes, Clip retreats, the rest are really wounded except Silchas who takes the Finnest but commits no more injury for fear of Kilava, except for stabbing Kettle and making a new Azath (because she's an Azath seed). Scabandari's soul is stuck inside it. People slowly recover and Quick Ben, Hedge, Trull and Seren teleport to Letheras. In Letheras: The marines make it there, Beak dies to save them from a giant wave of magic. The Edur go back home. The main Malazan army fights the main Letheri army so the marines go running around the city. The Seguleh shows up not dead and walks out. Fiddler's group make it to the colliseum, where Trull has found his dead brother and is promptly stabbed by Sirryn Kanar. Brys returns from the undead. Feather Witch tries to make him the mortal sword of her new Errant cult, but the Errant drowns her. Brys gives Pinosel and Urkel the name of the sea-god so they can restrain it. The Huntress kills Hannan Mosag. Brys kills Karos Invictad. The Rat Catchers' Guild pays people to shout Tehol's name. Tehol is pronounced Emperor by the will of the people and marries Janath. Icarium tries to replicate K'rul's forging of the warrens by slitting his wrists and walking into one of his magic buildings. It is broken and explodes outwards in a big white wave which kills people directly and indirectly (i.e. by debris). The ones killed directly appear to have their thoughts/brains/etc sucked out of them. Among the brain-sucked are Taralack Veed and Letur Anict. Triban Gnol and Senior Assessor also die, and Varat Taun surrenders. pl:Wicher śmierci |
6584861 | /m/0gcp5d | Kazohinia | Sándor Szathmári | null | {"/m/026ny": "Dystopia", "/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel", "/m/0c082": "Utopian and dystopian fiction"} | As in the Gulliverian prototype, the premise is a shipwreck with a solitary survivor, who finds himself in an unknown land, namely that of the Hins, which contains a minority group, namely the Behins. Accordingly, this work by a Hungarian writer relates not so much to Swift's work, but more precisely to Brave New World by the British writer Aldous Huxley. As in that work, there coexist two dissimilar societies - of course separately -, one developed and the other backward. The Hins are a people who have solved all economic problems: Production and usage of goods is based on need instead of money, and the standard of living is impeccable. The Hins live without any kind of government or administrative body, as their belief is that such would only hinder production. They lead their lives according to the "pure reality of existence," which they call kazo. They experience no emotions, love, beauty or spiritual life. There are two different main interpretations of the author's intentions: *Although the theme can be seen as a criticism of developed society, where highly progressive invention goes hand in hand with the loss of human feelings, Dezső Keresztury, the writer of the epilogue of the Hungarian edition stated that this is not what Szathmáry intended - he created the Hins as the ideal society that occupies itself with the "real" stuff of life instead of "unreal" phantasmagories such as nations, religion, and money, that, regardless of intentions, cause people considerable misery. *Another interpretation is that the author satires both human society and communist utopias – which, in his assessment, lead equally to such disastrous consequences as massacres. The protagonist, bored with the inhuman life of the Hins, chooses to live among the insane Behins, who reportedly conform better to his outlook on life. He hopes that in the Behins, living in a walled-off area, he will meet humans with human feelings, similar to himself. The Behins, however have a totally insane society, where living conditions are supported by the ruling Hins while they themselves are preoccupied with what to the protagonist seem to be senseless ceremonies and all too frequent violent brawls. The Behins deliberately arrange their lives in such a way as to turn reality and logic on their heads, while among the Hins everything is arranged according to reality. While living among them, the protagonist suffers hunger, extreme misery, and even danger of death. This part of the novel is in fact satire, with each insanity of the Behins translating to facets of the Western, Christian society of the protagonist such as war, religion, etiquette, art, and philosophy. To further emphasize the satire, the protagonist doesn't see the obvious parallels between his homeland and the Behin world, but the writer outlines it by giving the same sentences into the mouths of a Behin leader and a British admiral, replacing only the Behin words on ideals and religion with their English counterparts. The Behins are indeed "real" humans, but as their symbols and customs differ from his own, the protagonist sees them as mere savage madmen. |
6585327 | /m/0gcpsj | Summon the Thunder | Dayton Ward | 6/27/2006 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The Shedai, an ancient race of beings, threaten the lives of all aboard "Vanguard" a Federation starbase. |
6586469 | /m/0gcr99 | Amelia | Henry Fielding | 1751 | {"/m/02p0szs": "Historical fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/01qxvh": "Romance novel", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Amelia is a domestic novel taking place largely in London during 1733. It describes the hardships suffered by a young couple newly married. It is widely believed that Amelia was modeled after Fielding's own wife, Charlotte Craddock, and that the novel contains autobiographical elements. Against her mother's wishes, Amelia marries Captain William Booth, a dashing young army officer. The couple run away to London. In Book II, William is unjustly imprisoned in Newgate, and is subsequently seduced by Miss Matthews. During this time, it is revealed that Amelia was in a carriage accident and that her nose was ruined. Although this brings about jokes at Amelia's behalf, Booth refuses to regard her as anything but beautiful. Amelia, by contrast, resists the attentions paid to her by several men in William's absence and stays faithful to him. She forgives his transgression, but William soon draws them into trouble again as he accrues gambling debts trying to lift the couple out of poverty. He soon finds himself in debtors' prison. Amelia then discovers that she is her mother's heiress and, the debt being settled, William is released and the couple retires to the country. The second edition contains many changes to the text. A whole chapter on a dispute between doctors was completely removed, along with various sections of dialogue and praise of the Glastonbury Waters. The edition also contains many new passages, such as an addition of a scene in which a doctor repairs Amelia's nose and Booth remarking on the surgery (in Book II, Chapter 1, where Booth is talking to Miss Matthews). |
6587853 | /m/0gcsvn | The Captain's Daughter | Peter David | 1836 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"} | Pyotr Andreyich Grinyov is the only surviving child of a retired army hotdog. When Pyotr turns 17, his father sends him into military service in Orenburg. En route Pyotr gets lost in a blizzard, but is rescued by a mysterious man. As a token of his gratitude, Pyotr gives the guide his hareskin jacket. Arriving in Orenburg, Pyotr reports to his commanding officer and is assigned to serve at Belogorsky fortress under captain Ivan Mironov. The fortress is nothing more than a fence around a village, and the captain's wife Vasilisa is really in charge. Pyotr befriends his fellow officer Shvabrin, who is banished here after a duel resulted in the death of his opponent. When Pyotr dines with the Mironov family, he meets their daughter Masha and falls in love with her. This causes a rift between Pyotr and Shvabrin, who has been turned down by Masha. When Shvabrin insults Masha's honor, Pyotr and Shvabrin duel and Pyotr is injured. Pyotr asks his father's consent to marry Masha, but gets turned down. Not much later, the fortress is besieged by Yemelyan Pugachev, who claims to be emperor Peter III. The cossacks stationed at the fortress join the forces of Pugachev, and he takes the fortress easily. He demands that Captain Mironov swears an oath of allegiance to him, and when denied, hangs the Captain and kills his wife. When it is Pyotr's turn, Shvabrin suddenly appears to have defected as well, and upon his advice orders Pyotr to be hanged. However, his life is suddenly spared as Pugachev turns out to be the guide that rescued Pyotr from the blizzard. The next evening, Pyotr and Pugachev talk in private. Pyotr impresses Pugachev with his sincerity that he cannot serve him. Pugachev decides to let Pyotr go to Orenburg. He has to relay a message to the Governor that Pugachev will be marching on his city. The fortress is to be left under the command of Shvabrin, who takes advantage of the situation by forcing Masha to marry him. Pyotr rushes off to prevent this marriage, but is captured by Pugachev's troops. After explaining the situation to Pugachev, they both ride off to the fortress. After Masha has been freed, she and Pyotr take off to his father's estate, but they are intercepted by the army. Pyotr decides to stay with the army and sends Masha to his father. The war with Pugachev goes on, and Pyotr gets to visit his family, only to find them captured by peasants, who have joined Pugachev's rebellion. Pyotr is imprisoned as well, and the situation worsens when Shvabrin also arrives. Just as Pyotr is about to be hanged, the army arrives and saves him. Pyotr rejoins the army, but at the moment of Pugachev's defeat, he is arrested for having friendly relations with Pugachev. During his interrogation, Shvabrin testifies that Pyotr is a traitor. Not willing to drag Masha into court, Pyotr is unable to repudiate this accusation and receives the death penalty. Although Empress Catherine the Great spares his life, Pyotr remains a prisoner. Masha understands why Pyotr wasn't able to defend himself, since he has the mental fortitude of a female body part, and decides to go to Saint Petersburg, to present a petition to the empress. In Tsarskoe Selo, she meets a lady and details her plan to see the Empress on Pyotr's behalf. The lady refuses at first, saying that Pyotr is a traitor, but Masha is able to explain all the circumstances. Soon, Masha receives an invitation to see the Empress, and is shocked to recognize her as the lady she had talked to earlier. The Empress has become convinced of Pyotr's innocence and has ordered his release. Pyotr attends the beheading of Pugachev, and marries Masha. |
6592393 | /m/0gcz3g | Dragon Sword and Wind Child | null | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Saya is a young maiden who was adopted by an elderly couple who found her in the forest when she was an infant and raised to worship and revere the God of Light and his two immortal children, the passionate and fierce Princess Teruhi and the subdued and melancholic Prince Tsukishiro. As she comes of age, she catches the eye of Prince Tsukishiro and the people of Darkness, those who continue to reincarnate and do not fear death. Tsukishiro, enchanted by Saya's beauty, invites her to become one of his handmaidens at the Palace of Light where he and his sister reside. Before she leaves, she discovers from the People of Darkness that she is latest reincarnation of the Water Maiden, the Princess of the People of Darkness and a priestess capable of stilling the Dragon Sword, a weapon that contains the rage of the Fire God when he was killed by his father, the God of Light, for burning his mother, the Goddess of Darkness, to death. The Dragon Sword and the Water Maiden are linked and the sword is the only weapon which can slay a Child of Light. It is this aspect, Saya discovers, of her that intrigues and attracts Tsukishiro and infuriates and causes Teruhi to despise her since she resembles her previous reincarnation, the Princess Sayura. Saya, despite having worshiped the Light all her life and looked down on the People of Darkness, finds that she cannot escape her destiny as the Water Maiden, symbolized the magatama shaped jewel that was clutched in her hand when she was born. She ends up escaping the Palace of Light with the third Child of Light, Chihaya, the effeminate younger brother of Teruhi and Tsukishiro who was stilled by Teruhi to act as a surrogate Water Maiden for the stolen Dragon Sword and revealed to be the Wind Child, the only entity capable of wielding the Dragon Sword. Together, they join the People of Darkness to stop the fanatical and merciless Teruhi and the indifferent Tsukishiro from destroying the gods of nature and the People of Darkness. |
6592621 | /m/0gczj_ | The Alchemist | Ben Jonson | null | null | An outbreak of plague in London forces a gentleman, Lovewit, to flee temporarily to the country, leaving his house under the sole charge of his butler, Jeremy. Jeremy uses the opportunity given to him to use the house as the headquarters for fraudulent acts. He transforms himself into 'Captain Face', and enlists the aid of Subtle, a fellow conman and Dol Common, a prostitute. The play opens with a violent argument between Subtle and Face concerning the division of the riches which they have, and will continue to gather. Dol breaks the pair apart and reasons with them that they must work as a team if they are to succeed. Their first customer is Dapper, a lawyer's clerk who wishes Subtle to use his supposed necromantic skills to summon a "familiar" or spirit to help in his gambling ambitions. The tripartite suggest that Dapper may win favour with the 'Queen of Fairy', but he must subject himself to humiliating rituals in order for her to help him. Their second gull is Drugger, a tobacconist, who is keen to establish a profitable business. After this, a wealthy nobleman, Sir Epicure Mammon arrives, expressing the desire to gain himself the philosopher's stone which he believes will bring him huge material and spiritual wealth. He is accompanied by Surly, a skeptic and debunker of the whole idea of alchemy. He is promised the philosopher's stone and promised that it will turn all base metal into gold. Surly however, suspects Subtle of being a thief. Mammon accidentally sees Dol and is told that she is a Lord’s sister who is suffering from madness. Subtle contrives to become angry with Ananias, an Anabaptist or Puritan, and demands that he should return with a more senior member of his sect. Drugger returns and is given false and ludicrous advice about setting up his shop; he also brings news that a rich young widow (Dame Pliant) and her brother (Kastril) have arrived in London. Both Subtle and Face in their greed and ambition seek out to win the widow. The Anabaptists return and agree to pay for goods to be transmuted into gold. These are in fact Mammon's goods. Dapper returns and is promised that he shall meet with the Queen of Fairy soon. Drugger brings Kastril who, on being told that Subtle is a skilled match-maker, rushed to fetch his sister. Drugger is given to understand that the appropriate payment might secure his marriage to the widow. Dapper is blindfolded and subjected to 'fairy' humiliations; but on the reappearance of Mammon, he has been gagged and is hastily thrust into the privy. Mammon is introduced to Dol. He has been told that Dol is a nobleman's sister who has gone mad, but he is not put off, and pays her extravagant compliments. Kastril and his sister come again. Kastril is given a lesson in quarrelling, and the widow captivates both Face and Subtle. They quarrel over who is to have her. Surly returns, disguised as a Spanish nobleman. Face and Subtle believe that the Spaniard speaks no English and they insult him. They also believe that he has come for a woman, but Dol is elsewhere in the building ‘engaged’ with Mammon, so Face has the inspiration of using Dame Pliant. She is reluctant to become a Spanish countess but is vigorously persuaded by her brother to go off with Surly. The tricksters need to get rid of Mammon. Dol contrives a fit and there is an ‘explosion’ from the ‘laboratory’. In addition, the lady’s furious ‘brother’ is hunting for Mammon, who leaves. Surly reveals his true identity to Dame Pliant and hopes that she will look on him favourably as a consequence. Surly reveals his true identity to Face and Subtle, and denounces them. In quick succession Kastril, Drugger and Ananias return, and are set on to Surly, who retreats. Drugger is told to go and find a Spanish costume if he is to have a chance of claiming the widow. Dol brings news that the master of the house has returned. Lovewit interrogates the neighbours as to what has been going on during his absence. Face is now the plausible Jeremy again, and explains that there cannot have been any visitors to the house – he has kept it locked up because of the plague. Surly, Mammon, Kastril and the Anabaptists return. There is a cry from the privy; Dapper has chewed through his gag. Jeremy can no longer maintain his fiction. He promises Lovewit that if he pardons him, he will help him obtain himself a rich widow, i.e. Dame Pliant. Dapper meets the ‘Queen of Fairy’ and departs happily. Drugger delivers the Spanish costume and is sent to find a parson. Face tells Subtle and Dol that he has confessed to Lovewit, and that officers are on the way; Subtle and Dol have to flee, empty handed. The victims come back again. Lovewit has married the widow and has claimed Mammon’s goods; Surly and Mammon depart disconsolately. The Anabaptists and Drugger are summarily dismissed. Kastril accepts his sister’s marriage to Lovewit. Lovewit pays tribute to the ingenuity of his servant, and Face asks for the audience’s forgiveness. |
6593873 | /m/0gd0fv | Castle Greyhawk | null | null | {"/m/06c9r": "Role-playing game"} | Castle Greyhawk is a large multipart scenario consisting of eleven dungeon levels below Greyhawk Castle, including "Where the Random Monsters Roam" and "The Temple of Really Bad Dead Things". |
6598218 | /m/0gd5hl | The Meaning of Night | Michael Cox | 9/7/2006 | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller", "/m/0lsxr": "Crime Fiction"} | Beginning on a cold October night in 1854 in a dark passageway, the book's narrator tracks an innocent man whom he does not know and stabs him to death. The protagonist/narrator, Edward Glyver, then takes the reader back, recounting as a confession his tale of deceit, love, and revenge. Glyver reveals the torment he has suffered at the hands of his rival, the poet-criminal Phoebus Rainsford Daunt, and why in pursuit of revenge Glyver (now masquerading as Edward Glapthorn), a book lover and scholar, has turned to murder. The story moves between the foggy London streets and the enchanting country manor house Evenwood where Daunt spent his formative years, a place with which Glyver finds he has a special connection. The Glass of Time, the follow-up novel to The Meaning of Night, further examines the consequences of Edward Glyver's crime, in a setting twenty years after The Meaning of Night. |
6601194 | /m/0gdb1d | You're Different and That's Super | null | null | null | Carson Kressley tells the story of a one-of-a-kind pony who learns that it's our differences that make us "super." Whimsical black-and-white illustrations from renowned equine artist Jared Lee corral humor and charm in a tale of a unicorn struggling to find his identity and place in the world. |
6610252 | /m/0gdp4z | Jubilee | Jack Dann | 1966 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"} | Jubilee is a semi-fictional account of "Vyry Brown," based on the life of author Margaret Walker's grandmother, Margaret Duggans Ware Brown. Vyry Brown is a mixed-race slave—the unacknowledged daughter of her master—who is born onto the Dutton plantation in Georgia. The novel follows her experiences from early childhood to adult life. The story of Vyry's life in the novel spans three major periods of American history: Slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction. |
6613541 | /m/0gds_7 | Five on a Treasure Island | Enid Blyton | 9/11/1942 | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/08sdrw": "Adventure novel"} | When siblings Julian (aged 12) Dick (aged 11) and Anne (aged 10) learn that they cannot go on their usual summer holiday trip to Polseath and they are invited to their unknown cousin Georgina's house to stay with her mother (Aunt Fanny) and father (Uncle Quentin) who is a scientist. We learn Georgina (aged 11) is a very difficult and bossy child. She desperately wants to be a boy. She dresses like one, behaves like one and wears her hair short and curly like one. She answers to George (short for Georgina) and will not answer to her real name because it is a girl's name. When George's cousins come to stay she introduces them to her beloved dog Timmy, whom she has had since he was a puppy. George tells her cousins how the big island on the beach belongs to her. It is called Kirrin Island and was passed down through her family. On their way to the island they see a shipwreck under the water and George explains how her great-great-great grandfather was travelling on it along with lots of other men. He was transporting gold from one country to another. The boat was shipwrecked during a storm and George tells her cousins how divers have been down into the boat to try and find the gold but they haven't. All four children agree the gold must have been unloaded somewhere before the ship sank. They arrive at the island, along with Timmy, and when Timmy chases a rabbit into a well, the children are surprised to see Timmy standing on a stone slab sticking out from the inside of the well. George climbs down into the well to rescue Timmy, just as a horrible thunderstorm begins. When the storm is over the five explore to check the damage and realise the force of the storm has brought the old shipwreck up to the surface of the water. They decide to explore it before anyone else can, so that if they find any gold it will be theirs and no one else's. So they explore the boat and find a small black box looking a bit like a jewellery box, but they cannot get it open. They take it back to Kirrin Cottage (George's home) and decide a good way to get it open would be to drop it from the highest window of the house. This works and the box cracks open but just as they are about to pick the box up of the floor, Uncle Quentin confiscates it, saying the noise they made opening it was disturbing him from doing his work. However Uncle Quentin only leaves the open box on a shelf on his study so when he falls asleep, Julian sneaks into the study and takes the box. Inside the box they find a map and decide to trace it so they can still have a copy, but return the box to Uncle Quentin. He does this and when they look at the map they notice a Latin word on it. Ingots, meaning gold, and a red cross, meaning that is where the treasure is. They realise the map is a map of Kirrin Island, and the old dungeons on the island. Uncle Quentin announces he has then sold the box to a man, who is thinking about buying Kirrin Island. George is furious and so the four children decide to spend as much time on Kirrin Island as they can, because they realise it will soon be sold. So they decide to camp on Kirrin Island for a few nights, and so take the map with them. Planning on discovering gold, they head down into the dungeons, but they are not alone... |
6614600 | /m/0gdty_ | The Haunted Man | Charles Dickens | 1848-12-19 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel", "/m/0l67h": "Novella"} | Redlaw is a teacher of chemistry who often broods over wrongs done him and grief from his past life. He is haunted by a spirit, who is not so much a ghost as Redlaw's phantom twin and is "an awful likeness of himself...with his features, and his bright eyes, and his grizzled hair, and dressed in the gloomy shadow of his dress..." This spectre appears and proposes to Redlaw that he can allow him to "forget the sorrow, wrong, and trouble you have known...to cancel their remembrance..." Redlaw is hesitant at first, but finally agrees. However, before the spirit vanishes it imposes an additional consequence: "The gift that I have given you, you shall give again, go where you will." Besides Redlaw, the book is populated with the people of Redlaw's life. Most of them are semi-comical characters such as the Tetterby family who rent a room to one of Redlaw's students and Swidger family who are Redlaw's servants. Milly Swidger, William Swidger's wife, is another of the absolutely and completely good females that frequent many of Dickens' stories. As a consequence of the ghost's intervention Redlaw is without memories of the painful incidents from his past. He experiences a universal anger that he cannot explain. His bitterness spreads to the Swidgers, the Tetterbys and his student. All become as wrathful as Redlaw himself. The only one who is able to avoid the bitterness is Milly. The narrative climaxes when Milly presents the moral of the tale: "It is important to remember past sorrows and wrongs so that you can then forgive those responsible and, in doing so, unburden your soul and mature as a human being." With this realization, the novel concludes with everyone back to normal and Redlaw, like Ebenezer Scrooge, a changed, more loving and a whole person, learns to be humble at Christmas. |
6617708 | /m/0gd_r2 | The Girl at the Lion D'or | Sebastian Faulks | 1989-08 | {"/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"} | A wet and dark winter night sees young and beautiful Anne Louvert arrive in Janvilliers from Paris to take up a lowly position at the village inn, 'The Lion d'Or'. She gets to know the staff- the formidable Madame Concierge, the drunken Cook, the sex-starved Porter- and to meet the mysterious Patron. Then there are the customers: the evil Mattlin and the sensitive Hartmann most prominent among them. A generation older than she, the cultured, rich and married Hartmann begins an affair with Anne. She reveals her secrets, her fears and her hopes to him trusting in their mutual love. His wife, Christine, knows him better and in the end its no real contest for her to keep her husband and see off her latest rival. Although Faulks writes the love story with commitment, the nature of the novel determines that it can only end badly for Anne. An historical novel in which history is treated seriously, The Girl at the Lion d'Or is tragic drama and its real subject is France herself. A happy fairy-tale ending would be incongruous: it did not happen for the French Third Republic; therefore, it could not happen for Anne. Anne's childhood has been blighted by the First World War. Her father was shot on a charge of mutiny while serving in the trenches at Verdun, and her mother, harassed and victimised because of his fate, driven to suicide. Anne endured a wandering, hand-to-mouth existence with her uncle Louvert, whose name she adopts. Louvert, vainglorious and empty dispenser of fine sounding phrases- 'Courage is the only thing that counts'-, joined a right wing revolutionary organisation with the aim of 'making France great again' but deserted both Anne and France for a new life in America. Anne later invests her emotions in Hartmann and although devastated by his rejection, she does not allow it to destroy her. She intuitively turns away from suicide and the last line of the novel leads us to believe that she will, though there will be dark days ahead, overcome her situation. The battle of Verdun and the French army mutinies a year later were momentous events for the French nation. That the battle and a charge of mutiny played such a major part in Anne's personal history suggests a metaphorical link between her and France. The fact that the prologue to the narrative dedicates the story to Anne, 'an unknown girl' rather than the 'important public' figures of the time also indicates that the character represents something larger than an individual. The use of the adjective 'unknown', in the context of this novel, is loaded with meaning, as it evokes the Unknown Soldier. By making Anne a homeless, friendless, orphaned young woman, Faulks is pushing the limits of melodrama in his wish to create a character who is the opposite of those in the male-dominated world of political power. She is the victim of political decisions and human spite but does not embrace victimhood. Instead she embodies most of the virtues and a certain defiance. More importantly she is vital: she makes decisions and acts on them. The polemic thrust of the book, backed-up by references to newspaper stories of political crises and scandal at home and mounting threat of war from abroad, is that the period's political leaders were, at best, inert. The setting of the story is also much removed from the centre of power and influence in the political sense if not geographically. In fact the author is shy of saying where in France the town of Janvilliers is. The descriptions of the seasons in the book and that Hartmann walks on a beach near his house from which 'the sea has disappeared' puts it somewhere on the north coast. Imprecise as this is, it rules out the real Janvilliers being the location though its name may have been used because of that town's proximity to Verdun. Geographical imprecision serves the function of making the fictional Janvilliers a French "everytown" where the attitudes and experiences of its inhabitants typify those of towns throughout France of the period. Choosing 'Lion d'Or', a common and therefore typical name for French inns, as the name of the town hotel is meant to strengthen the idea of this representational aspect of Janvilliers. A war monument in the town centre commemorating the dead of the First World War could be found in any town in the country. Similarly, 'M. Bouin', a woman bereaved of her menfolk by the war and finding solace in religion, would be a familiar character in 1930's France. 'M. le Patron' typifies the defeatist mindset among many of the time while the odious 'Mattlin' is the town's future fifth columnist and collaborator. 'Hartmann' is the ineffectual liberal. His failure to confront 'Mattlin', whose slanders are undermining 'Hartmann's' reputation just as surely as the builder hired to renovate his house undermines its foundations, can be read as a metaphor of the centre-left government's failure to confront fascism either at home or abroad. |
6618682 | /m/0gf18t | After Doomsday | Poul Anderson | 1962 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The USS Benjamin Franklin, a starship crewed entirely by men returns to Earth, to find the planet consumed by eruptions from within the crust. All life is gone, along with the few outposts of humanity on the Moon and artificial satellites. Missiles lurk throughout the Solar System, ready to destroy returning ships. Unable to leave a message drone because of the missiles, the Franklin flees to Tau Ceti. Discipline breaks down, the captain is killed, and a nucleus of a new crew forms behind a man named Carl Donnan . Donnan is an engineer and adventurer who gave up wandering the Earth for a chance to see the galaxy, courtesy of a Senator who owed him a favor. Now he is leading almost 300 men on a quest for other humans, and for Earth's murderers. Chief suspects are the Kandemirians, especially since the missiles swarming through the Solar System are Kandemirian. Earth is new to interstellar trade, and a handful of ships have gone out into the wider galactic society. The men realize they have little hope of finding other humans, let alone women. They do have a guide with them, an alien called Ramri from the polycultural society originating on the planet Monwaing. Ramri is a biped descended from feathered, bird-like creatures. Some time afterwards, the ship Europa with a crew of 100 women returns, to find Earth destroyed and missiles roaming the Solar System. They are able to disable one missile. A small team boards the missile, including Navigation Officer Sigrid Holmen and her friend Gunnery Officer Alexandra Vukovic. The missile appears to have been manufactured by Kandemirians, although there are symbols in an unknown script scrawled on a bulkhead within it. Other missiles approach, and the Europa must leave without addressing the central mystery. The officers confer about where to go next. Travelling to Vorlak, Donnan sells the crew's services to the warlord, or Draga, Hlott Luurs. His proposition is that the humans will develop new technology allowing a ship to detect the drives of other ships far beyond the usual range. Donnan's friend Arnold Goldspring is a mathematician who has a host of new ideas for the technology. The detector is just the first one. To prove its worth, Donnan bargains for a Vorlak ship which they will use on a stealth raid on a Kandemirian outpost. The raid is a disaster, and they are captured by Kandemirians. Interrogated by the head of the Kandemirian forces, Tarkamat, Donnan is told that if he refuses to re-create the technology for Kandemir, his crew will die horribly, one by one. He has no choice but to comply. The crew of the Europa travel far beyond the boundaries of the local cluster to one with a vibrant capitalist economy. At Sigrid Holmen's suggestion, they set themselves up as "Terran Traders Inc." and proceed to amass wealth, hoping to be able to buy or charter ships to search for survivors of Earth. Sigrid is kidnapped by representatives of a rival trader culture, the Forsi, who resemble heavyset gnomes. The Forsi want to take her away to study, determined to discover why "Terran Traders Inc." is able to be so successful. She is in the process of attempting escape from them when Alexandra Vukovic, a former urban guerrilla, tracks her down and uses her skills to eliminate Sigrid's captors. Donnan's crew, laboring on one of the Kandemirians' subject planets, are being carefully monitored to make sure they only work on the drive detection device. However, the monitoring of the material making up the chassis of the device is less stringent, and they are able to create a dummy copy of a common soldier's rifle from seemingly unrelated parts. With this they bluff their way out of confinement, capture real weapons, and eventually steal a starship. The price of this escape is the loss of a suicide squad who hold off the local troops long enough for Donnan, Goldspring, Ramri and the rest to take off. Ramri takes them to his homeworld, Katkinu. Like many Monwaing worlds, this has different and apparently incompatible cultures living side by side. The official Representative of the homeworld on Katkinu is from the Laothaung culture. Unlike Ramri's culture, this one uses biotechnology efficiently and ruthlessly. Specialized lifeforms, designed to have just enough intelligence to do work, and subservient to the rulers, carry out all labor. There are even altered types of Monwaingi being used as slaves. In the Representative's office they are shown a recording of an interrogation of an agent of the merchant culture of Xo. It indicates that Earth was destroyed by bombs sold to two of the minor national powers, and set up as a suicide weapon, to be detonated if either power was attacked with nuclear weapons. The men are shocked, but are still determined to fight on against the Kandemirians. Returning to Vorlak, Donnan bluffs his way past Hlott Luurs, who is still angry over the loss of a ship and his kinsman aboard it. Goldspring has designed more weapons using the stardrive technology. The basis of the drive is that space is a standing wave pattern. Where interference fringes occur, there is in effect no space and no distance. A ship may jump from fringe to fringe and travel from star to star in a short time. The new devices manufacture artificial fringes. With this they are able to distort space-time inside enemy ships, disabling missiles, inducing small thermonuclear explosions, and producing coherent sound waves. This last weapon lets them administer the coup de grâce to the Kandemirian fleet, broadcasting a message which demoralizes the crews, at the same time encouraging the subject races in the Empire to revolt. After the victory, the news, in the form of a carefully crafted minstrel song, spreads around the galaxy. The song, in Uru, has the title "The Battle of Brandobar", and describes the final battle in a series of quatrains. A chapter of the novel is dedicated to a scholarly analysis of the song, teasing out both the story of the song and the calculated structure of the verses, designed to resist alteration as the song spreads from one singer to another along the trade routes. It is through this song that the crew of the Europa, via their trade connections, learn where the USS Benjamin Franklin went. Once the two crews are united, apart from the obvious considerations, they must decide who destroyed the Earth. The men still believe it was the Kandemirians, with the trader story being disinformation. When they decode the symbols the women found, they realize the truth. It is a base 12 to 6 conversion table to help technicians reprogram the weapons. The missiles are Kandemirian, but the script is Monwaingi. One of the many different Monwaingi societies, possibly the ruthless biotech Laothaung culture, wanted the Earth and saw fit to cleanse it before colonizing with their own biota. Ramri leaves for his home planet, determined to purge the culture that committed the crime, but aware that his own world might well be destroyed in the process. Carl Donnan and Sigrid Holmen can only look at each other and say "What have we done?" |
6620794 | /m/0gf3sq | Babyji | Abha Dawesar | 2005 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Sixteen year-old Anamika Sharma, the first person narrator, is a bright young student aware of her privileged position within Indian society. Head Prefect at her school, she aspires to graduate with excellent grades so as to be able to go on to college in the United States to study physics. Anamika is confident that she will be able to get in, but feels conflicted about contributing to the country's brain drain; ultimately, she concludes that it would be best to return to her native country after the completion of her studies to contribute to the modernization of traditional Indian society and breaking down the rigid caste system. The novel is set against the backdrop of the protests against the recommendations of the Mandal commission, which trigger several acts of self-immolation, and for high school students all this means a disruption of the normal school routine. In particular, classes are suspended for weeks on end, and although students are obliged to form self-study groups at their homes Anamika finds more time than usual to pursue her private interests. She spends much of her time with Tripta Adhikari, a free-thinking divorced lady about twice her age whom she calls "India". India is a wealthy academic who lives in Anamika's neighbourhood, and occasionally Anamika sneaks out of the house when her parents have already gone to bed to spend the night with her new-found friend. Mr and Mrs Sharma know about Tripta Adhikari but naturally assume that the latter has a maternal relationship with their daughter, while India herself knows very well that what she is doing amounts to statutory rape. Anamika's parents even let her go on a short holiday to Kasauli with India and two of her friends. [...] I noticed that my biting had caused her to start breathing heavily, so I replaced my teeth with my lips. I gathered different parts of her flesh between my lips and kissed her all over, in the opposite order in which I had bitten. In her breathless moans and her cries of pleasure I owned her more than I owned myself and was immersed in her more than I had ever been immersed in my own self. Me, I had not yet discovered. I was an unknown quantity, a constantly unraveling mystery. But India was absolutely and completely known both carnally and otherwise. I rolled off of her with the sweet exhaustion of a man who has just hunted his dinner animal. (Chapter xix) Also in Kasauli, Anamika is horrified to see that she is expected to drink beer—which she does—and that one evening the grown-ups with whom she is travelling not only gather together to smoke a joint but also offer her one as well. In the end Anamika politely refuses. ("The love of my parents, my education, every moral lesson I had learned was being challenged.") Anamika's second "liaison" is with Rani, the family's live-in servant. Illiterate, only able to speak Hindi, and regularly beaten up by her alcoholic husband, 23 year-old Rani is rescued from a jhuggi by the Sharmas. However, as their apartment does not have a servant's bedroom, Rani is ordered to sleep on the floor of Anamika's room. This, of course, provides the girl with ample opportunity to explore submissive Rani's perfect body, in spite of the servant's occasional tentative protestations that "Babyji", for her own good, should seek the love of a boy her own age. Anamika, however, sticks with her choice, rejects male advances, and, despite the danger of being stigmatised as someone who associates with a person from a much lower caste, is even prepared to teach Rani some English. Finally, she makes several passes at Sheela, one of the girls in her class. Although their male classmates' consider Sheela much prettier than Anamika, Sheela herself is quite unaware of her budding beauty and the boyfriends she could have if she wanted to. She does question whether her intimacies with another girl are morally okay but does not recognize the seriousness of Anamika's endeavours. When Anamika asks her if she will be her "mistress" when they grow up she replies with a non-committal "Maybe". Only when Anamika goes too far and forces herself on Sheela does the latter reject her, at least for the time being. "Anamika, please stop," she whispered urgently. If she really didn't want me to she could scream or move away or kick me. "You're beautiful," I said as I slid my hand between her thighs where her bloomers should have been. She closed her eyes again, but this time I couldn't tell if she was enjoying it or not. I pushed with my finger. I wasn't slow, the way I had been with India and Rani. I was afraid if I was too gentle she would use it to move away. I used all the force I could muster. She let out a howl. "Stop, it hurts." I pulled back and said, "I just fucked you." There was blood on my finger. (Chapter xviii) "Divorced woman, servant woman, underage woman, I was pursuing them all," Anamika says about herself. Though she likens herself to a playboy, she always makes sure that none of her lovers suspects anything out of the ordinary, that each of them believes she is the only one for her. |
6623411 | /m/0gf6qn | Dead Girls | Richard Calder | 1992 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | 1 - ROAD TO NOWHERE Ignatz Zwakh, former escort of assassin Primavera Bobinski, is tracked down in Thailand by the half-robotic Pikadon Twins, with a demand from Primavera's half-robot boss Madame Kito that Ignatz return to the Big Weird to work with Primavera. Primavera is a Lilim - a vampiric living dead girl. 2 - WINE AND ROSES Ignatz returns to Nana, Bangkok, and is reunited with Primavera. They go to a restaurant that uses gynoids to mimic the English vogue of killing Lilim. The Cartier automata were invented by a Dr Toxicophilous with robotic consciousness that harnessed 'quantum magic', and this quantum-mechanical seat of consciousness is situated in the womb of their descendents, the Lilim. The pair are in the restaurant on a job from Madame Kito, but while Primavera is engaged in assassinating one of Kito's rivals Ignatz is rendered unconscious. 3 - BEATA BEATRIX Ignatz and Primavera, now captured and rendered unconscious with a special girdle around her umbilicus, are taken by Jack Morgenstern to the American Embassy, where they are locked up. 4 - BLACK SPRING Jack Morgenstern reveals that the British government want Primavera and Ignatz returned to them, and Kito has betrayed them to the Americans. Morgenstern questions Ignatz regarding the amount of Lilim escapees from the supposedly quarantined London, but gets no response to his theory that one of the surviving original Cartier dolls called Titania is organising the breakouts. Primavera uses her quantum magic to telepathically induce her guard to release her from her umbilicus girdle, then physically smashes through the wall of her prison, allowing herself and Ignatz to escape by jumping into the river below. Due to the umbilical girdle Primavera's quantum matrix has been infected by hostile nanobots which are inhibiting her full use of quantum magic and are slowly destroying her. Primavera believes that Kito has been blackmailed into betraying them. Primavera and Ignatz leave Nana by boat. 5 - SHOPPING AND FUCKING Ignatz apologises for running away from Primavera. Ignatz and Primavera make love, Ignatz requiring medical attention for blood loss afterwards. Primavera determines to confront Kito in order to be cured of the nanovirus. Primavera orders new clothes for herself and Ignatz made from living dermaplastic. 6 - GOING TO A-GO-GO Primavera and Ignatz return to Nana, gaining entrance to Kito's penthouse in the Grace Hotel, only to be captured by Kito and her robot guards. Primavera begs Kito to remove the nanovirus that is killing her. She reveals that her telepathic dreams while captured told her that Kito is being blackmailed by Jack Morgenstern: years ago during a trade war Cartier infected Kito's fake dolls with an impotence STD and in response Kito sent her own virus to infect the genuine Cartier dolls in Paris - a virus that Morgenstern thinks responsible for the doll plague. Primavera says she can disprove this by telling Kito of Titania and how she and Ignatz escaped England... 7 - WESTWARD HO Vlad Constantinescu and the Human Front win the British election, and the systematic execution of Lilim by impalement through the umbilicus begins. Primavera and Ignatz decide to runaway together, and flee through the flooded London Underground tunnels to hide in the West End. The pair are captured by a group of doll-killer paramedics, but are rescued by a pair of Lilim. Primavera and Ignatz are taken to meet Titania - the last of the original infected Cartier dolls and Queen of the Lilim - at her hideout under a Whitechapel warehouse. 8 - A FAIRY QUEEN While telling her story Primavera passes out, and Kito has her resident research and development technician Spalanzani examine her. The 'magic dust' virus consists of nanomachines that are transforming the Ylem at the heart of her being from a quantum mechanical state to a classical mechanical state, which will render her quantum 'magic' inert. Kito agrees to allow Spalanzani to remove the nanomachines on the condition that Ignatz continues his story... Primavera and Ignatz are led into The Seven Stars - Tatiana's underground palace, where they meet Tatiana and her human consort Peter Gunn. At Tatiana's prompting, Peter tells Primavera and Ignatz their story... 9 - THE LILIM Peter's father (Dr. Toxicophilous) was a quantum engineer, a toymaker who built dolls for Cartier, though with the outbreak of doll plague his services are no longer in demand. Titania, his last and greatest creation, acts as a housemaid at the Gunn family home. Peter and Titania visit The Seven Stars that they are constructing as a private playground and Peter unlocks her matrix with his father's key, but infected with a sickness Titania stays there, and cocoons herself as she begins to transform. Peter's father tells him that the rumour that the doll plague was started by a rivals from the East was a lie, and that it is the result of his own dark childhood dreams subconsciously infecting the quantum structure of the dolls when he created them. 10 - UNREAL CITY Jack Morgenstern and the Pikadon Twins enter Spalanzani's workshop: having bugged it Morgenstern has heard the whole story. Morgenstern has bought enough shares to depose Kito from her company and place the Pikadon Twins in her place. Morgenstern instructs his men to take Primavera but a green light explodes from her umbilicus and Morgenstern, his men, Ignatz, Kito and Spalanzani are sucked inside Primavera's quantum matrix. Inside the matrix they find themselves in a dream world that is geographically a collision of London and the Big Weird, complete with another copy of Primavera. Primavera is unable to wake herself up and return them to reality, so accompanied by Ignatz and Morgenstern she tries to find Dr Toxicophilous: according to Primavera Toxicophilous is present in all dolls and represents the programme that controls their files - he also has the key to her matrix that can wake her up. Morgenstern tries to convince Primavera that he is actually working with Titania, not against her. The dream city is filled with clones of Primavera, with the nanovirus represented by Jack the Ripper-style figures. Unable to find Dr Toxicophilous Primavera realises she needs to look deeper inside herself: she gazes into her own umbilicus and is sucked through, followed by Ignatz and Morgentren. 11 - PSYCHIC SURGERY Primavera, Ignatz and Morgenstern confront Dr Toxicophilous. Toxicophilous tells Primavera that Titania had betrayed her: thanks to his subconscious corruption of Titania's quantum consciousness he had created a living being with a death wish, and Titania has the ability to instill this death wish in Lilim at will. Titania had been negotiating with Morgenstern over using the Lilim as instruments of US foreign policy to infect and destabilise hostile foreign countries, then cauterize the infection by use of the death wish. Dr. Toxicophilous gives Ignatz the key to Primavera's matrix, he inserts it into her umbilical and the dreamers are returned to the reality of Spalanzani's workshop. Spalanzani is killed when he tries to stop Morgenstern shooting Primavera. Due to them waking up at different times Kito gets a head start on her enemies and traps the Pikadon Twins, while Morgenstern is shot and rendered unconscious. Kito re-hires Primavera and Ignatz to work for her. 12 - DESPERADOES Kito, Primavera and Ignatz find themselves on the run from the Pikadon Twins and Jack Morgenstern. Kito says she can get help from a friend called Mosquito. Having been taken in by Titania Primavera and Ignatz spend time at The Seven Stars, chaperoned by a Lilim called Josephene . Ignatz asks for a view of England beyond that of the quarantined London and Josephene shows him via the visual circuits of a shopwindow dummy in Manchester, revealing a nightmare world where the Human Front have replaced the dolls with re-animated human corpses, 'Mememoids' whose brains have been taken over by replicating information patterns transmitted via a comic strip called Cruel Britannia, and castrated policemen with guns as phallic replacements. Following the completion of her transformation and indoctrination Primavera is sent out of England to spread the doll plague through Europe. Together with Ignatz she is led through The Seven Stars to a service tunnel in the Channel Tunnel. Kito takes Primavera and Ignatz to meet Mosquito, an old employee who she had previously used to attempt to spread her virus to the Cartier dolls, to ask for money. Back on the road Ignatz and Primavera are attacked by the Pikadon Twins, and though they manage to kill them they lose Kito in the process. 13 - DEAD GIRLS Ignatz and Primavera try to escape down the Mekong river, but Primavera collapses as she gives in to Titania's death wish. A hologram of Titania appears and explains to Ignatz that the only way the Lilim can survive is by keeping their numbers under control by culling themselves. Primavera dies. |
6623867 | /m/0gf6_0 | The Grass Crown | Colleen McCullough | 1991 | {"/m/02p0szs": "Historical fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Although these two powerful Eastern rulers would eventually declare war on Rome and slaughter thousands of Roman citizens, the plot of the novel centres on the Social War of 91 to 88 BC, a civil war which Rome fought against its mutinous Italian Allies after they were refused full Roman citizenship. (The lengthy section dealing with Marcus Livius Drusus' attempt to secure them the citizenship, which ends in his tragic assassination, is one of the main turning points in the entire series.) Marius and Sulla, still friends and professional colleagues, face the Italian threat together, and succeed in putting down the rebellion of the Italians. However, Marius suffers a serious stroke (his second), and is forced to withdraw from the war. During this struggle, Sulla, rallying his troops against certain destruction near Nola, is hailed as 'imperator' on the field of battle and presented with the highest honour a Roman general can receive: the corona graminea, the eponymous 'Grass Crown'. This was only awarded a very few times during the Republic, and only ever to a general or commander who broke the blockade around a beleaguered Roman army or otherwise saved an entire legion or army from annihilation. However, once Rome has settled this pressing domestic matter, and can begin to plot revenge against Mithridates and Tigranes, Marius and Sulla have their first serious falling out over the question of who should lead the legions East. Marius, now an aged and discredited statesman previously dubbed the 'Third Founder of Rome', is pining for further glory and believes only he has the talent necessary to defeat the allied Kings. Sulla feels as though his old mentor is unwilling to step aside and wants to destroy Sulla's chance of outshining him. The Senate cites Marius's age and poor health as a reason to back Sulla, who moreover is the sitting consul and therefore has the side of right. The seeds of serious discord are planted. The Roman comitia quickly becomes a source of political conflict between the two men, and leads to Sulla's first shocking march on Rome. It also leads Gaius Marius to pursue an unprecedented seventh consulship, which he wins and undertakes after suffering a series of strokes, and is depicted in this novel as going mad. Other narrative threads of note: the childhood of Julius Caesar and Cato the Younger, as well as the early military careers of Pompey and Cicero (who was appointed to Pompeius Strabo as a cadet) in the Social War: and the unjust trial and exile of Publius Rutilius Rufus, falsely accused of extortion, driven out of Rome, and welcomed by a street festival in his honour in the city he was accused of looting. it:I giorni della gloria |
6635608 | /m/0gfl9d | London Bridges | James Patterson | 2004 | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller", "/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/0lsxr": "Crime Fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | A terrorist by the alias of "The Wolf" engages Alex Cross' old enemy, Col. Geoffrey Shafer, aka The Weasel, to assist him in a grand plan of worldwide terrorist attacks designed to get humanity's attention. After a town in the Southwestern United States is blown up, the FBI's Alex Cross is assigned to the case despite being on vacation to visit his son Alex Jr. in Seattle and his girlfriend Jamilla Hughes in San Francisco. Alex is at a crossroads in his family and personal life. What follows next is a long cat and mouse chase in which politics, communication and ego take centre-stage. The Wolf is ruthless enough to draw in even the most unwilling into his plans and never fails to make a point. His opponents are locked in deep wrangling and indecision. It is up to Alex Cross to make the connections and chase The Wolf and The Weasel across America and Europe at the risk of his life. |
6637913 | /m/0gfnj7 | Polymath | null | null | null | A spacecraft filled with refugees from a cosmic catastrophe crash-lands on an unmapped planet. There the survivors must face the reality of their precarious situation; the ship was lost and little had been salvaged from it. Everything comes to depend on one bright young man accidentally among them, a trainee planet-builder ("polymath"). While it would have been his job to oversee all aspects of establishing a successful colony he faces major difficulties; not only is his education incomplete, he had been studying a vastly different planet. Two ships escaped the catastrophe. One lands in the jungle in a mountainous area. The other, with the polymath, lands on water, allowing the passengers just enough time to escape the sinking ship. With his education incomplete, he is faced with an array of problems he needs to overcome, in order to ensure the survival, of not only the passengers from his ship, but those on the lost ship as well, who are under the control of a despotic captain determined to get back into space. |
6642870 | /m/0gfvcs | Line of Delirium | Sergey Lukyanenko | null | {"/m/070yc": "Space opera", "/m/06n90": "Science Fiction"} | The first novel, "Line of Delirium", takes place decades after a devastating interstellar conflict — the Vague War. While the reason for and details of the war remain largely unexplained, it is clear that almost every alien race was at some point involved in hostilities with the humans. The war was going badly for Earth, until two Earth officers decided to take matters into their own hands. Disobeying orders, they turned their fleet and headed for Earth, demanding the government's surrender. One of the officers, a man named Grey, established the Human Empire and became the emperor. His co-conspirator Lemak became the supreme commander of all human forces. While it is not exactly clear how the tide was turned, it is known that all races opposing the new empire were eventually beaten. Two of which, the cyborg Meklar and the ursine Bulrathi formed a subsequent pact with the humans — the Trinary Alliance, creating a nearly unbeatable force (humans excel at ship-to-ship combat, Meklar are master engineers, and Bulrathi are superb ground combatants). Close to the end of the war, a man named Curtis van Curtis acquires an alien device he calls "aTan" (from athanatos, "immortal" [Greek: Αθάνατος, literally, "without death"] ) giving immortality to anyone who can afford it. He formed the aTan company, which quickly became almost as powerful as the Human Empire (as some characters in the novel call it, "an empire within an empire"). The secret of the device is coveted by many, as the aTan company holds exclusive rights, with Emperor Grey's grudging approval (in exchange he gets free reincarnations). Kay Altos is a professional bodyguard whose homeworld was destroyed by the imperial forces after it was invaded by the Sakkra — a fast-multiplying frog-shaped race, which was subsequently exterminated by the Empire. One fine morning he wakes up to face a teenager holding a gun, trying to avenge his sister's accidental death at Kay's hands. Kay's main problem — he did not have time to pay for his next reincarnation. He tries to trick the kid but ends up dying anyway. He is surprised to find himself in an aTan facility on Terra — the capital of the Empire with none other than Curtis van Curtis himself greeting him. Van Curtis hires Altos to safely bring his only son Arthur to an obscure planet known as Grail. Van Curtis's main concern is anyone finding out that Arthur is his son and kidnapping him in order to find out his father's secrets. Kay's payment should he succeed — unlimited free reincarnations. His payment in case of failure — eternal torture and executions. Kay agrees, and a backstory is created where Kay Ovald is a space merchant, travelling with his son Arthur, when their ship explodes. After reincarnating on a planet in the middle of a civil war, Imperial Security officer Isabella Kal recognizes Arthur and begins to chase him all over the Empire, even going as far as asking Admiral Lemak for help. Unfortunately for Arthur van Curtis and his bodyguard, Kal is not the only one seeking to stop them. A mysterious race known as the Silicoids seem to know of Arthur's mission to Grail and wish to prevent him from reaching his goal in order to preserve the galactic balance. Kay and Arthur board a luxury liner to the next planet on their way to Grail. Altos knows that, in all likelihood, Imperial Security is waiting for them at their destination. They manage to get passage on a shuttle, dropping off several passengers on a world close to their course. By a stroke of misfortune, that shuttle is stopped by a quarantine ship, and all passengers are secretly taken to a planet belonging to the Darloks — an ancient race exceptional at espionage and sabotage. Kay and Arthur soon discover that the Darloks plan to turn them into their agents and also manage to learn the Darloks' true form (unlike Master of Orion, Darloks here are not shapeshifters but Goa'uld-like snake parasites). It is there that Kay first meets Viacheslav Shegal — an agent of "Shield", Emperor's special forces. He helps Shegal commit suicide (to be reincarnated on a human world), so that the true nature of Darloks is known to all. Meanwhile, a massive Silicoid fleet arrives and proceeds to bombard the planet from orbit. Troops are sent in to retrieve Kay and Arthur and bring them before Sedimin — the Foot of the Silicoid Basis (a rank equal to emperor). Sedimin wants to know the true mission that van Curtis entrusted to Arthur. It is on the Silicoid ship that Arthur finally reveals to Kay an awful truth — he is not Curtis van Curtis's son. Arthur is a clone and, as such, has no rights under Imperial law. As Arthur puts it, "immortals need no heirs." Since Arthur is being honest, Kay reveals that his true name is Kay Dutch and that he is a super — a genetically engineered being with increased speed, strength, memory, and other characteristics much higher than a normal human. By law, Kay also has no rights, but his past was covered up by a senator who adopted him. While Arthur still hides his true mission goal from Kay, he reveals it to Sedimin, who decides to let them go. They are dropped off on Tauri — a paradise planet for retired Imperial officers and their families. While Kay is out purchasing a ship, Arthur is kidnapped by Isabella Kal. Kay's determination to free Arthur is guided less by his obligation to his client than his friendship with the boy. His first destination, however, is the planet where he was killed prior to being recruited by van Curtis. He finds his killer, a teenager named Tommy Arano, and, instead of killing him, takes him to his hypership that was left on the planet. The next morning, Kay explains to Tommy that he is, in fact, Arthur van Curtis, whose mind was wiped by the Silicoids on one of his previous attempts to reach Grail. The mind-wiped Arthur was given to a human family to raise as their son, while another Arthur was reincarnated by "aTan" back on Terra because the machine assumed he died. Kay and Tommy then head to an Imperial planet almost entired ruled by a crime syndicate known as 'the Family'. The Mother of the Family is his genetic sister, also created in a test tube. She uses the Family's resources to locate Arthur on a heavily defended Imperial station. She agrees to given them all they need to retrieve the boy: outfit their ship with a masking device, provide them with advanced power armor and weapons (including an "Excalibur" tachion rifle for Kay that shoots a full second before the trigger is pulled), and four soldiers — two conditioned humans, a human cyborg, and a Meklar. Kay has himself souped-up with artificial enhancements (drastically shortening his lifespan). The strike group manages to infiltrate the base and fight their way to the medical wing, where Arthur is being tortured. Once Arthur is retrieved, they fight back to the ship, losing the two conditioned soldiers. In the hangar bay, Kay faces off against a Meklar working for Isabella Kal and is probably the first human (or almost-human) to pose a challenge to a twelve-foot-long mechanized reptile. Kay's Meklar companion clashes with the Imperial Security Meklar, giving the others time to escape. Once aboard his ship, Kay finds out that, due to his torture, Arthur is dying. Their only hope is to make it to Grail before he dies. When they finally make it Grail's orbit, another obstacle awaits them — Admiral Lemak and Isabella Kal on an Imperial destroyer. While Kay is trying to find a way out, his ship's illegal AI makes its own decision and the ship into the destroyer's shields. While Kay, Tommy, and Arthur are being reincarnated in Grail's branch of aTan, Kal forces Lemak to have her shot, so that she can follow them. The two clones and the bodyguard manage to make it to Grail's Dead Zone — an area on the planet where most mechanical devices fail for no apparent reason. It is there that Arthur finally reveals to Kay his true mission and the reason for van Curtis to have a clone: Curtis van Curtis did not obtain the "aTan" device from aliens. Van Curtis discovered Grail during the Vague War. There he found God or rather a being/machine that created the universe. God made van Curtis an offer — a universe created based on his subconscious desires, just like this universe was created for someone else. Van Curtis asked for more time to think about it. God then gave van Curtis the knowledge to create a device allowing him to live forever. Finally, after many decades, Curtis van Curtis decides to find out how new universes are created and sell these universes to the public. Kay realizes that this would destroy the Empire and attempts to stop them, but finds out that neither Tommy and Arthur nor Curtis van Curtis (who suddenly apprears) can be killed in the Dead Zone. Van Curtis takes Arthur and Tommy and leads them to the Threshold, but Tommy refuses and opts to leave with Kay instead. The novel ends as they both walk towards an uncertain future. "Emperors of Illusions" is the second novel, continuing the story of Kay Dutch as he travels with Tommy Arano, trying to stop Curtis van Curtis from destroying the Human Empire. They believe he is trying to do that to get back at the person he believes responsible for the creation of this universe — Emperor Grey. The only way Kay thinks he can stop van Curtis is by killing the Emperor, a virtual impossibility. "Shadows of Dreams" is a short prequel to "Line of Delirium" that describes life on a small quiet human colony that is turned upside down when a Psilon battleship enters the system, still believing that the Vague War is on. The Psilons are the most advanced race in the galaxy, with only two or three troopers wearing power armor necessary to destroy an entire city. As the colonists prepare for a hopeless battle, one man reflects on his life thus far. |
6643488 | /m/0gfwjb | Sorcerer's Son | Phyllis Eisenstein | 1979-03 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | Spurned by a rejected offer of marriage, the demon sorcerer Smada Rezhyk begins imagining that the sorceress Lady Delivev Ormoru of Castle Spinweb is plotting to bring him down. He sends his most faithful demon servant, Gildrum, to take the form of a handsome knight, who has been injured in battle and comes to Castle Spinweb for refuge with the plan to impregnate Delivev with a child. For this purpose, Rezhyk gives the demon his seed; once Delivev is with child, Rezhyk imagines that he has eleven days to prepare his defenses until Delivev discovers the weakening of her powers and aborts the child. What he does not imagine is that the sorceress will not abort her son, or that his faithful demon servant will fall in love with his mortal enemy. Once the son, Cray Ormoru, reaches maturity, he starts on a journey as a knight to discover what became of his mysterious father. Cray gains a few clues to the real identity of his father; he eventually realizes that he will be unable to complete his quest as a knight. Consequently, he decides to take up an apprenticeship as a sorcerer instead, following in his mother's footsteps. Rezhyk volunteers to play the role of master to Cray, but secretly seeks to sabotage his magical education. Cray is discouraged, although this turns to anger when Gildrum reveals Rezhyk's falsehood. Gildrum secretly teaches Cray demon summoning. He learns that Rezhyk is his father and abandons his apprenticeship; Rezhyk tires of his duplicity and orders Cray's death. Gildrum manages to twist his orders from Rezhyk and hides Cray in the demon realms and continues to teach him sorcery. Cray befriends several demons and realizes that he will gain easier success by using demon allies instead of demon slaves. As freed demon slaves cannot be re-enslaved, he offers to free demons permanently in return for their service. With an army of demons he returns to defeat Rezhyk, who is already seeking to destroy Delivev. With Rezhyk finally vanquished, Gildrum is able to reveal his hidden passion for Delivev. |
6644417 | /m/0gfy9x | Black Oceans | Jacek Dukaj | 2001 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction"} | The main character, Nicholas Hunt, is an American politician and lobbyist, closely involved with some branches of secret military research including paranormal activities. He is not a hero: as Dukaj himself describes him, he is "a cynical, egoistic bureaucrat, whose main motivation for all of his decisions in his job is, it seems, covering his ass". Currently he has lost an internal power struggle and is assigned to oversee what seems like a dead-end, low-key project. Soon, however, his project starts to gain more importance, as scientists explore some promising theories from the borders of memetics and telepathy, including study of potential lifeforms that would use memes just as we use genes, and develop new sciences like psychomemetics. Suddenly a strange cataclysm takes place, with millions of people worldwide going insane and many densely populated areas becoming a 'no-go' zone. Is this an alien invasion? A result of military or corporate experiment? A new step in human evolution? Or are we seeing the painful transformation into a post-technological singularity world? Nicholas Hunt is not sure, but he knows one thing: the rat race is going on, and he will do everything he needs to survive. |
6644670 | /m/0gfyw5 | Any Human Heart | William Boyd | 2002 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The book begins with a quotation from Henry James, "Never say you know the last word about any human heart." A short preface (an anonymous editor suggests it was written in 1987) explains that the earliest pages have been lost, and recounts briefly Logan Mountstuart's childhood in Montevideo, Uruguay before he moves to England aged seven with his English father and Uruguayan mother. In his final term at school he and two friends set challenges. Logan is to get on to the school's first XV rugby team, Peter Scabius has to seduce Tess, a local farmer's daughter, and Ben Leeping, a lapsed Jew, has to convert to Roman Catholicism. Mountstuart enters Oxford on an exhibition and leaves with a third in History. Settling in London, he enjoys early success as a writer with: The Mind's Imaginings, a critically successful biography of Shelley; The Girl Factory, a salacious novel about prostitutes which is poorly reviewed but sells well; and Les Cosmopolites, a respectable book on some obscure French poets. Mountstuart embarks on a series of amorous encounters: he loses his virginity to Tess, is rejected by Land Forthergill whom he met at Oxford, and marries Lottie, an Earl's daughter. They live together at Thorpe Hall in Norfolk, where Mountstuart, unstimulated by slow country life or his warm but dull wife, becomes idle. He meets Freya whilst on holiday, and begins an affair with her. Just before he departs for Barcelona to report on the Spanish Civil War, Lottie unexpectedly visits and quickly realises another woman lives with him. On his return to England, following an acrimonious divorce, he marries Freya in Chelsea Town Hall. The newlyweds move to a house in Battersea where Freya gives birth to their daughter, Stella. During The Second World War Mountstuart is recruited into the Naval Intelligence Division by Ian Fleming. He is sent to Portugal to monitor Prince Edward, Duke of Windsor and Wallis Simpson; when they move to the Bahamas, Mountstuart follows, playing golf with the Duke and socialising regularly until the murder of Sir Harry Oakes. Mountstuart suspects the Duke is a conspirator after two hired detectives ask him to incriminate Oakes' son-in-law with false fingerprint evidence. Mountstuart refuses and is called a "Judas" by Mrs. Simpson. Later in the war, Mountstuart is interned in Switzerland for two years. After the war's end, he is grieved to discover that Freya, thinking him dead, had re-married and then died, along with Stella, in a V-2 bomb attack. After the war, Mountstuart's life collapses as he seeks refuge in an alcoholic daze to escape his depression. He buys 10b Turpentine Lane, a small basement flat in Pimlico. He returns to Paris to finish his existentialist novella, The Villa by the Lake, staying with his old friend Ben (now a successful gallery owner). After a failed sexual encounter with Ordile, a young French girl working at Ben's gallery, he attempts suicide but is surprised by the girl when she returns an hour later for her Zippo lighter. Ben Leeping offers Mountstuart a job as manager of his new gallery in New York, "Leeping fils". Mountstuart mildly prospers in the art scene of 1960s, meeting artists like Willem de Kooning (whom he admires) and Jackson Pollock (whom he does not); he also moves in with an American lawyer, Alannah, and her two young daughters. On his return to London, he has an affair with Gloria, Peter Scabius' third wife (Peter has become a successful author of popular novels), as well as Janet, a New York gallery owner. He eventually discovers Alannah having her own affair, and the couple split. He reconciles with his son from his first marriage, Lionel, who has moved to New York to manage a pop group, until Lionel's sudden death. Monday, Lionel's girlfriend, moves into Mountstuart's flat; at first friends, they become intimates until her father turns up and Mountstuart discovers – to his horror – that she is sixteen (having told him she was nineteen). His lawyer advises him to leave America to avoid prosecution for statutory rape. In the African journal, Mountstuart has become an English lecturer at the University College of Ikiri in Nigeria, from where he reports on the Biafran War. Mountstuart retires to London on a paltry pension and, now an old man, he is knocked over by a speeding post office van. In hospital he brusquely refuses to turn to religion, swearing his atheism and humanism to a priest. He recovers but is now completely destitute. To boost his income and publicise the state of hospitals, he joins the Socialist Patients Kollective (SPK) (which turns out to be a cell of the Baader-Meinhof Gang). He becomes the SPK's prize newspaper seller and is sent on a special mission to the continent. The trip ends with a brief interrogation by Special Branch, after which Mountstuart returns to his life of penury in London. With a new appreciation of life, he sells his flat and moves to a small village in the south of France, living in a house bequeathed to him by an old friend. He fits into the village well, introducing himself as an ecrivain who is working on a novel called Octet. As he contemplates his past life after the deaths of Peter and Ben, his old school friends, he muses: |
6645172 | /m/0gfzl0 | The Crystal Palace | Phyllis Eisenstein | 1988-11 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | Sorcerer Cray Ormoru and his friend, the seer Feldar Sepwin, craft an enchanted mirror that allows whoever gazes upon it to see their heart's desire. For Cray himself, the mirror remains blank for many years, until one day he sees in it the image of a young girl. With no idea of who she is, he watches the girl transform into a lovely woman over the years, and Cray realizes that he is destined to find her. When he does, he learns that this is Aliza, a sorceress who lives in a crystal palace which is partly within the demon realm and who is dedicated solely to the study of her craft. Cray finds Aliza to be a skilled young sorceress, but also cold, aloof, and entirely focused on sorcery. Cray encourages her to take an interest in the outside world and forms a budding friendship. However, this friendship is strongly discouraged by Aliza's sorcerer grandfather, Everand. Despite Everand's disapproval, Aliza and Cray travel to the demon realm and also to the home of Cray's sorceress mother, Delivev. During this latter journey, Aliza looks into the mirror of heart's desire and causes it to shatter. This causes some initial confusion, but it is quickly revealed this is because Aliza's soul has been stolen from her. Ultimately, her grandfather Everand is shown to be a villain of the worst degree. He uses Aliza's soul and his capture of Feldar as leverage to demand Aliza and Cray's obedience. However, Cray rallies his allies from the demon realm in order to confront and defeat Everand and free Aliza's soul. With her soul freed, Cray and Aliza realize their love for each other. |
6649381 | /m/0gg3x2 | The Worst Band In The Universe | Graeme Base | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | The story follows the adventures of a young groob, named Sprocc, who loves to play with his splingtwanger (a guitar-like instrument). On his homeworld, planet Blipp, creativity is stifled and only the traditional music passed down from many generations is allowed. This stagnant environment quickly becomes too much for the artistic Sprocc and he improvises his own music, this nearly gets him exiled from his homeworld. But, he decides "life on Blipp for him was through", so he goes to an urban planet where he meets a variety of aliens. There he makes some new friends and learns of a competition for the "Worst Band in the Universe". The irony of this title is that within the context of the stagnant music environment, a creative band would be considered bad and the most creative band considered the "Worst". However, after winning the competition, Sprocc learns that the contest is a sham run by the same imperial authorities stifling music creativity. Sprocc and his band mates are sent in exile to the junkyard planet, Wastedump B19, where Sprocc meets another exile called Skat. After a persistent effort by Sprocc, eventually Skat is persuaded to help Sprocc, his bandmates, and the other exiles build a ship, that is powered by music, and return to Blipp one year later. After returning to Blipp, the music exiles perform a grand show but are eventually stopped by the imperial authorities. However, the elder leader of Blipp comes out and explains that the old ways are no longer viable, that Sprocc and his friends represent the new generation of music creativity, and that they should be embraced and supported. With their authority stripped away, the Imperials can do nothing but watch the new generation and their new music. The book comes with a bonus CD. The CD covers some of the music performed at the "worst band in the universe competition" in the novel. All the music was written and performed by Graeme Base. |
6653640 | /m/0gg6j9 | The Class | Erich Segal | 1986 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The Class follows the diverse fates of five members of Harvard's Class of 1958, recording the way their lives intertwine, and coming to a dramatic conclusion at their class reunion, twenty-five years later. Andrew Eliot comes from the Boston Brahmin Eliot family. Due to his background, he always feels the pressure of high expectations, and suffers from a lack of confidence as a result. He is otherwise laid-back and friendly, and a good friend to all his classmates. To experience life without privilege and to fulfill his military obligation, he serves in the navy as an ordinary swabbie. After his military service, he makes an ill-fated marriage to the daughter of one of his father's classmates and takes up a career in investment banking. Unfortunately, his wife is a serial adultress and alcoholic and demands a divorce, leaving him estranged from his own son and daughter, with limited visitation after his wife places both in boarding school at the age of 9 and 6, denying him custodial rights and frustrating his attempts to give them a home life. He has an interest in his family's history during the American Revolution, which in turn leads to him following his conscience and helping organize the Moratorium Day protests on Wall Street. Jason Gilbert, Jr., son of Jason Gilbert, Sr. né Jacob Gruenwald, has the makings of a perfect son, of whom any parent would be proud. Despite this, there is one thing that troubles him: he is in constant conflict with his identity as a Jew, despite his parents' assimilation and conversion to Unitarianism. He experiences prejudice at several points, when denied admission to Yale and when denied invitation to the punches of Harvard's final clubs. He also notes more pervasive racism, when a popular black athlete is denied entrance to the Hasty Pudding Club, and when a drill instructor punishes him during his service in the Marines when he inadvertently invites him to a segregated restaurant off-base, which the drill instructor interpreted as taunting. Over the course of the book, he overcomes this, due to the loss of his Dutch Christian fiancée, a pædiatrician who is killed while attending a sick kibbutznik child during a visit to Israel. The incident leads him to immigrate to Israel and become a kibbutznik himself and join the Israeli paratroopers, in exploring the Jewish identity that had been denied to him throughout his life by his family's assimilation while being externally imposed on him. He is shown as participating in the Six Days' War and the Yom Kippur War, and dies during the rescue of Jewish hostages from Uganda. Theodore Lambros was born to a working class Greek family, and was admitted to Harvard with no scholarship after graduating from Cambridge Latin School, and thus must work as a waiter to support himself throughout his schooling, and does not have the wherewithal to live on campus. During the course of the book, this fact makes it difficult for him to truly "belong" to his class. All the same, he endures and eventually achieves his ambition of securing a professorship in the classics at Harvard. Tragically, he has no one to share it with, after committing adultery while on sabbatical at Christ Church, and his subsequent divorce from his college sweetheart. Daniel Rossi is a talented pianist. His father disowns him due to his choice of Harvard in light of President Pusey's refusal to cooperate with the McCarthy hearings, particularly after the death of his older son in the Korean War. Daniel chooses Harvard on the advice of his mentor in music, Gustav Landau, who likens the McCarthy persecutions to those of the Third Reich which he himself fled. Daniel eventually wins his father's approval due to his success and fame as a pianist, composer of a Broadway musical and conductor of two orchestras, but finds this acceptance meaningless after years of estrangement. However, to maintain this extremely hectic way of life, he becomes alienated from his wife, and a serial adulterer addicted to stimulants and phenothiazine. The drug addiction becomes his downfall and causes severe motor dysfunction that ends his musical career, but redeems him through allowing him to reconcile with his wife and daughters. George Keller, né Gyuri Kolozsdi, enters the United States as a Hungarian refugee following the student uprising in 1956, and is granted a place in the Harvard Class of 1958. He rushes to assimilate as quickly as possible and becomes fluent in English in seven months. He remains highly paranoid and deeply regrets his abandonment of his fiancée, a Budapest pharmacy student, in the rush to flee Hungary. His determination and fierce loyalty to his country of refuge eventually result in a position in the White House, as a protégé of Henry Kissinger. His personal detachment and unresolved emotions leave him unable to form any meaningful relationship with his wife or to consider becoming a father, and they eventually divorce. After a lengthy speech at his 25th class reunion, where he is confronted with the human toll of his policy implementation in the Vietnam War, he commits suicide, asking Andrew Eliot, as his executor, that his money be sent back to his family in Hungary. |
6655945 | /m/0gg8tg | The House on Lily Street | Jack Vance | null | null | A police detective investigates the murder of a solipsistic social worker who had sought the identity of the mysterious "Mr. Big", an extortionist who threatens welfare cheats with exposure unless he is paid off. |
6667762 | /m/0ggnrb | The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs | Irvine Welsh | 2006 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Danny Skinner and Brian Kibby both work for Edinburgh's restaurant-inspection team as environmental health officers. Skinner is a hard-drinking man, who is involved in football hooliganism and supports local team Hibernian F.C.. He is reading a book by Edinburgh chef Alan de Fretais called The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs. He conceives a strong dislike for Kibby and bullies and undermines him mercilessly at work. He relaxes by reading Hugh MacDiarmid, Rimbaud, Verlaine and Schopenhauer, and watching Federico Fellini films. Kibby is shy and inward-looking, and drinks Horlicks, collects model trains, and obsessively plays a computer game called Harvest Moon. Kibby's social life revolves around a hillwalking group called the Hyp Hykers and attendance at Star Trek conventions. The plot describes Skinner's relationship with alcohol and his search for his unknown father. His alcoholism causes him to lose his girlfriend Kay. Gradually it dawns on him that the damage that ought to accrue to his body from his lifestyle is instead inflicted on Kibby. For a while he enjoys this, particularly relishing his promotion at work, but when Kibby becomes mortally ill he realises that he needs him. When Kibby comes out of hospital after a liver transplant (caused vicariously by Skinner's heavy drinking), they both realise that their dependency is mutual. Kibby (who has retired on health grounds) puts on weight and becomes a heavy drinker in his own right. Skinner resigns and goes to San Francisco in search of someone who might be his father. He is disappointed in this as it turns out the man was exclusively homosexual during the period in question, but does find love at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, in the shape of American Dorothy Cominsky. Skinner returns to Leith where he continues the search for his father and starts a relationship with Kibby's sister. When he discovers de Fretais having sex with Kay, he tries to kill them both, succeeding in killing the chef and gravely injuring his ex-girlfriend. By the end of the story Kibby is strongly alluded to be Skinner's half brother, with Brian's father, Keith Kibby being the man Skinner had been searching for. Skinner knows this with reasonable certainty, as he dies at Brian's hand. |
6669168 | /m/0ggqpf | Trip City | Trevor Miller | null | null | Tom Valentine wakes up in an unfamiliar loft apartment - not sure where he is or how he got there. Despite the chic surroundings, there’s blood on his shirt, evidence of a struggle and a Luger pistol on the Persian rug... Valentine is only certain of three things: The girl that he loved has been murdered. His mind has been warped by the effects of a powerful psychotropic drug and he only has one chance to bring the shrouded, corporate killers to justice... |
6669390 | /m/0ggq_t | Encounters with the Archdruid | John McPhee | 1971 | null | While notionally a profile of Brower, Encounters is broken into three sections. The first chronicles Brower's conflict with Charles Park, a mineral engineer hoping to find and exploit mineral reserves in Glacier Peak Wilderness. Charles Park is portrayed as calculating and pragmatic, unwilling to foreclose real economic value from current generations in order to leave the environment pristine for future generations. This pragmatic view was starkly contrasted with Brower's insistence that "I believe in wilderness for itself alone". McPhee facilitates or observes the dialogue between these two contrasted figures as he does for the other two sections in the book. The second section introduces Charles Fraser a real estate developer in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. Fraser's characterization of environmentalists as modern druids who "worship trees and sacrifice human beings to those trees" provides the charge against Brower that forms the title of the book. Brower came to Georgia in order to stop Fraser's plan to develop Cumberland Island. Like Park, Fraser is depicted as nuanced and pragmatic: his vision of development is controlled and regulated land use. Fraser's development of Hilton Head Island is still considered a model for planned development and McPhee notes that Fraser considers himself a true conservationist. Brower would eventually win this battle, with a groundswell of opposition forcing Fraser to sell his development on Cumberland Island to the National Park Foundation. The third section presents David Brower's unraveling. Here Brower battles Floyd Dominy, then the commissioner of the United States Bureau of Reclamation. Displaying only some of the reserve and pragmatism of the previous two figures, Dominy relished the damming of rivers, while Brower considered damming the ultimate offense. Brower struggled to save the Glen Canyon from being flooded by the Glen Canyon Dam but failed and as the story progresses, he is increasingly marginalized in the environmental movement for his perceived militancy. Wendy Nelson Espeland, in The Struggle for Water, argues that the Bureau carries much of the blame (or credit) for "radicalizing" Brower. |
6669763 | /m/0ggrlv | The Skystone | Jack Whyte | 1992 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02p0szs": "Historical fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"} | ;Invasion: The book begins with Publius Varrus laying its framework: he is retelling his history and the history of the Roman withdrawal from Britain. He then begins by talking about an ambush by Celts where he and Caius Britannicus are injured. While thinking about his time spent with Britannicus recovering from these injuries, his thoughts lead to their meeting: Britannicus had been a captive of Berbers and Varrus freed him from them. After this encounter Varrus recalls how he and Britannicus traveled together to Britain to become primus pilus and legate, respectively, of Legion XX Valeria Victrix's Second Millarian Cohort. While they are in command of this unit, Hadrian's wall is overcome by a horde of Picts and other Celtic Tribes. The unit spends a year and a half fighting their way back to Roman Controlled Britain. Outside of Londinium they encounter a legion from the army of Theodosius. ;Colchester: After Varrus recovers from his injuries, he returns to Colchester, the location of his birth. When he returns he finds that his boyhood friend, and his grandfather's helper, Equus had ensured that his Grandfather's smithy was not devoid of tools. Varrus begins to run the business again, striking deals with Cuno, Equus's brother in law. Verrus also gains several contracts with the local legion, because his swords use a higher quality of iron than the other local suppliers. Britannicus visits the Colchester legion and finds Varrus. While they are attending a military party, Britannicus proposes that he may create a colony similar to the Bagaudae's colonies in Gaul. After a visit when Varrus explains his grandfather's use of skystone metal to create the hardest sword and dagger in existence, Varrus and Plautus discover a conspiracy by family enemies of Britannicus, the Senecas. Another encounter with the Senecas follows several years later as Varrus and Plautus interfere with the youngest of the Seneca brothers. There encounters ends with Varrus beating the brother up and carving a V into his chest. The attack leads to a massive manhunt by the military because the youngest Seneca had connections with the emperor and the military hierarchy. Because of the persistent nature of this search and a conviction that the eldest brother, Primus, would eventually figure out who his brother's attacker was, Varrus flees Colchester. First heading to Verulamium, he beds Equus's sister, Pheobe who had previously bedded him for the first time since his injury. From there he leaves for Aquae Sulis, where Britannicus owns a villa. ;Westering: On the road to Aquae Sulis, Varrus encounters several bandits who attempt to murder him. He later, after another assassination attempt, finds out that these men had been hired by the Senecas. He finally arrives in Aquae Sulis and encounters Britannicus's brother-in-law Quintus Varo. Varo invites Varrus to his villa. At the villa, Varrus meets Caius Britannicus's sister Luceiia. Also while at the villa Varrus encounters a Welsh hunchback Cymric. Varrus demonstrates the African bow which his grandfather had left in his collection of weapons. Luceiia and Varrus return to the Britannicus villa. While there Luceiia introduces him to a druid who has knowledge of meteor shower that coincides with when Varrus the Elder discovered his skystone. The local people had called this the return of dragons, a local myth that had revolved around covert smelting and metal working by the Pendragons, a local tribe. The druid leads Luceiia and Varrus to the location where a number of cattle had been killed during that same night. There they find impact craters and a lake unknown to the druid. On a return trip from the site, the party gets caught in the dark during a downpour. The druid leads them to a hamlet where they take shelter in a cottage. While there Luceiia and Varrus express a growing interest in each other and agree to marry each other. ;The Dragon's Nest: Varrus finds seven sky stones in the valley, all marked by donut-shaped impact craters. He digs all of them up but they are all small, and Varrus does not think that these are large enough for the cataclysm that happened to the cattle. Meanwhile Caius Britannicus returns to the villa. Upon his arrival he expresses his approval of Varrus and Luceiia's wedding, invitations are sent out and a number of individual soon begin arriving, among which is Equus with Varrus's smithing materials from Colchester. Also among the arrivals is Bishop Alric who, along with a military friend Atonious Cicero, tell Varrus of Pheobe's death by the hands of Caesarius Seneca, the youngest Seneca. The wedding is a jolly event despite Varrus' grief over Pheobe. A large group of friends stay at the villa for several weeks. Soon after the wedding Britannicus's friends, Tera and Firma, bring news that they lost their trading fleet to pirates. This news shakes the men of the group and they spend a long night discussing Brittanicus's proposition of a military colony. They all agree to begin recruiting in the colony and invest their livelihoods in the purchase of the villas surrounding Caius's and Varo's. Varrus is also able to discover the main part of the meteor, which is buried under the bed of a lake in the valley. By employing a handful of military engineers, Varrus drains the lake and retrieves the stone. ;The Dragon's Breath: While visiting Aquae Sulis Varrus encounters Quinctilius Nesca, a cousin of the Senecas. Varrus escapes with the help of a trader who had been hoodwinked by Nesca and by killing two of Nesca's guards. The man mysteriously dies during Varrus's escape. While he escapes, Varrus also learns that Seneca had returned to Britain. Varrus places him under surveillance and soon hatches a plot which he carries through to kill Seneca. Meanwhile, agents of a the King of the Pendragon clan, Ullic, approaches Britannicus and entreats him for a meeting between the two leaders. They meet and after some vocal sparring the two agree to a protective alliance between the two regional powers as Britons. Soon after Bishop Alaric passes through the region again, telling the Colonists, they now called themselves such, that Frankish cavalry was now running rampant in parts of the empire, and that the political tensions were rising. Also Alaric brings news of Caius's son Picus, who was now aligned with the Roman emperor in Constantinople and the a new military commander Stilicho who favored the use of heavy cavalry. In the final chapter, Varrus reveals that he was able to smelt his skystone and casts a statue of the Celtic goddess Coventina who Varrus names The Lady of the Lake. |
6683299 | /m/0gh3sk | The Conservationist | Nadine Gordimer | 1974 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | In South Africa under apartheid, Mehring is a rich white businessman who is not satisfied with his life. His ex-wife has gone to America, his liberal son (who is probably gay) criticizes his conservative/capitalist ways and his lovers and colleagues do not seem actually interested in him. Out of a whim he buys a farm outside the city, afterwards trying to explain this purchase to himself as the search for a higher meaning in life. But it is clear that he knows next to nothing to farming, and that black workers run it - Mehring is simply an outsider, an intruder on the daily life of "his" farm. One day the black foreman, Jacobus, finds an unidentified dead body on the farm. Since the dead man is black, the police find no urgency to look into the case and simply bury the body on the spot where it was found. The idea of an unknown black man buried on his land begins to "haunt" Mehring. This has been interpreted as the influence of apartheid on the class of privileged white people who profit from it while ignoring its victims. A flood brings the body back to the surface; although the farm workers do not know the stranger, they now give him a proper burial as if he were a family member. There are hints that Mehring's own burial will be less emotional than this burial of a stranger. This can be interpreted to symbolize the white man's position in South Africa: although he "owns" the land on a piece of paper, the black natives have the actual claim on the land. it:Il conservatore |
6686478 | /m/0gh7r9 | Strands of Starlight | Gael Baudino | 1989 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | Miriam's parents expel her at a young age because of her powers of healing, and she wanders for years. At the age of eighteen Miriam falls into the hands of Catholic authorities, denounced as a witch. Grievously injured by her tormentors, Miriam escapes, and Mika, a traveling midwife, takes her in and nurses her back to health. After curing one of Mika's patients of eclampsia, Miriam goes on the run again. As she travels through the forest, she comes upon Baron Roger of Aurverelle, a nobleman out hunting who has been mauled by a bear. After she heals him, he rapes her and leaves her for dead. Inhabitants of Saint Brigid, one of the Free Towns, find her and summon Varden, an elf, to help heal her injuries. While recovering in Saint Brigid, she realizes that the Elves have the power to change people. Formulating a plan for revenge on Baron Roger, she convinces Varden to perform a metamorphosis upon her to make her larger and stronger, able to engage in armed combat. Another Elf, Terrill, agrees to train her in the Elven way of armed combat. The change goes as planned, but she comes to realize that it has made her not completely human, and she is gradually becoming an elf. Aloysius Cranby, the bishop who had imprisoned Miriam, tracks her by imprisoning and interrogating Mika the midwife and comes to Saint Brigid. After days of fruitless searching for Miriam the human, Cranby realizes that Miriam the elf is just one of several elves welcome in the village when she kills one of his companions, though he never realizes the two Miriams are one and the same. Deeming this information more important than completing his original task, he flees the village, and Varden kills him to keep this secret safe. Miriam persuades Terrill to go with her to free Mika from the Inquisition's prison. In a final full-contact sparring match with Terrill, Miriam concludes her transformation into an Elf. As a symbol of acceptance of her completed change, she formally takes the Elvish form of her name, Mirya. She and Terrill go on to infiltrate the prison. Using their Elven senses and agility to find humanly-impossible ways of piercing the tight security, they make their way to the dungeon, free Mika, slaughter the inquisitors, and flee. After leaving the city, Mirya, Mika, and Terrill return to Saint Brigid. Still unable to abandon her quest for vengeance, Mirya uses her Elven powers to search through all of the potential futures, and she forces into reality what had been only a dimly possible future, wherein Baron Roger and she can duel. As a result, Baron Roger conceives the idea of arranging a sham hawking trip in nearby Beldon forest, where Mirya will be waiting for him, so that he will have the privacy to violate a young woman in his care. When Roger arrives, Mirya initiates a sword battle with him. Finally, Mirya prevails over him, wounding him mortally. Realizing only then that keeping him alive is better than killing him, she heals him then uses her powers to remake his mind so that he is less aggressive, less ambitious, and committed to keeping the Free Towns safe. |
6689889 | /m/0ghfl2 | F.P.1 Doesn't Respond | Curt Siodmak | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction"} | Lieutenant Droste wants to build an airstation in the middle of the ocean to allow pilots on intercontinental flights to refuel and repair any damage to their aircraft. With the help of the pilot Ellissen, he manages to win the support of the Lennartz-Werke for the project. Ellissen, who has taken up with the owner's sister Claire Lennartz, shies away from marriage and seeks new adventure. After two years, the platform has become a city on the ocean, with runways, hangars, hotels, and shopping centers. During a storm, the connection to the platform is severed. The last sounds to come over the telephone were gunshots and screams. The weather clears and the best pilots immediately head for F.P.1. Ellissen, in a lovesick depression, is convinced by Claire to accompany her to the platform. Their plane crashes on the island but they survive. The crew of F.P.1 has been the victim of a saboteur, who knocked them out with gas. Before chief engineer Damsky fled in a boat, he opened the valves, causing a danger that F.P.1 will sink. Claire finds the badly injured Droste and takes care of him. Ellissen has to recognize that Claire is slipping away from him. After a short time, he pulls himself together and takes a plane out to get help. He sees a ship, jumps from his plane, is taken aboard the ship, and calls for help via radio. A fleet of ships and planes are sent to rescue F.P.1. |
6692327 | /m/0ghkmw | The Parasites | Daphne du Maurier | null | null | In this novel, Miss du Maurier tells the story of the Delaney family. The Delaneys led complex and frequently scandalous lives; their strange relationship with each other closed their circle to all outsiders; the world in which they lived was sophisticated, gay, and sometimes tragic. Maria Delaney was a beautiful, successful actress, the wife of Sir Charles Wyndham. Niall Delaney wrote the songs and melodies that everyone sang and played. Celia their sister, generous and charming, took care of their father and delighted in Maria's children. Between Maria and Niall there existed a strange affinity—sometimes physical, sometimes spiritual. They were both subtly aware of it, and so was Sir Charles. Perhaps it was this that impelled Maria's husband to exclaim bitterly: "Parasites, that's what you are. The three of you. You always have been and you always will be. Nothing can change you. You are doubly, triply parasitic; first, because you've traded since childhood on that seed of talent you had the luck to inherit from your fantastic forebears; secondly, because none of you have done a stroke of honest work in your lives but batten on us, the fool public; and thirdly, because you prey on each other, living in a world of fantasy which bears no relation to anything in heaven or on earth." |
6692508 | /m/0ghkzl | The Story of Lucy Gault | William Trevor | 2002 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | It begins with Lucy, on a night in 1921. She is the only child of an Anglo-Irish land owner on the coast of Cork County. It starts during the Irish War of Independence, when Protestant landowners caught in the battle between the IRA and the British army had their houses burned http://books.guardian.co.uk/bookerprize2002/story/0,,800890,00.html. The place is under martial law and Captain Gault is disturbed by young arsonists from the nearby village. When he fires a warning shot with his old rifle, he injures a boy in the shoulder. Out of fear, the family plans to move to England. Lucy is not told why her family wishes to move and longs for the house she was kept from and the sea close by. On the eve of their departure, she hides in the woods. Due to a series of events, her parents are led to believe that she drowned in the sea http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9907EFDE1030F93AA1575AC0A9649C8B63. By the time she is discovered, her parents are gone. She thus gets what she wished for, to live in the house, being taken care of by the house servants turned caretaker-farmers. Lucy lives a very lonely life, reading books and keeping bees. She feels very guilty about running away and thus feels that she deserves her loneliness. When another character, Ralph, tries to relieve her of her sad life, she feels that she cannot let him love her without her getting forgiveness from her parents. Her father returns after the Second World War, having spent the previous years in Italy and Switzerland, too late to salvage her happiness. They settle into an uneasy companionship, with too much unspoken. Having lost the love of her life, she forms a bond with the person who was wounded by her father. Lucy spends many years visiting the asylum where the person is incarcerated in his confusion and his silence. Lucy in old age sees people with phones to their ears and hears on the wireless about the Internet, and wonders what it is. |
6693408 | /m/0ghm56 | Epicoene, or the Silent Woman | Ben Jonson | 1609 | null | The play takes place in London. Morose, a wealthy old man with an obsessive hatred of noise, has made plans to disinherit his nephew Dauphine by marrying. His bride Epicœne is, he thinks, an exceptionally quiet woman; he does not know that Dauphine has arranged the whole match for purposes of his own. The couple are married despite the well-meaning interference of Dauphine's friend True-wit. Morose soon regrets his wedding day, as his house is invaded by a charivari that comprises Dauphine, True-wit, and Clerimont; a bear warden named Otter and his wife; two stupid knights, La Foole and Daw; and an assortment of "collegiates," vain and scheming women with intellectual pretensions. Worst for Morose, Epicœne quickly reveals herself as a loud, nagging mate. Desperate for a divorce, Morose consults two lawyers (actually Dauphine's men in disguise), but they can find no grounds for ending the match. Finally, Dauphine promises to reveal grounds to end the marriage (in exchange, Morose must come to financial terms with him). The agreement made, Dauphine strips the female costume from Epicœne, revealing that the wife is, in fact, a boy. Morose is dismissed harshly, and the other ludicrous characters are discomfited by this revelation; Daw and Foole, for instance, had claimed to have slept with Epicœne. |
6695653 | /m/0ghqcp | Owls in the Family | Farley Mowat | 1962-06 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The story concerns two Great Horned Owls found by Billy, Bruce and Murray in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. The owls become part of a larger pet collection. Wol is the larger bird and is a lighter colour (pure white with a little black).Wol was found under a bush after a storm. Weeps is a mottled brown. Weeps was found in a barrel filled with oil. When Billy witnesses children throwing stones at Weeps, who is unable to fly, he trades his scout knife for him. Wol, who is able to fly, was found after a storm. Both Wol and Weeps are given to Bruce before Billy and his family move away to Toronto, Ontario.In the end, they are through with tough times and live a happy life. Farley Mowat was born in 1921 in Belleville, Ontario. He was allowed to roam the countryside while growing up and keep animals at home. His father worked as a librarian during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Mowat's family moved frequently, eventually settling in Saskatchewan. Mowat has written several books about animals, nature, and the Far North. His stories mix humor, personal experience, and his love of nature and wildlife. He is one of the most widely read Canadian authors worldwide. |
6696394 | /m/0ghr9d | The Money Dragon | Pam Chun | null | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Phoenix first heard of Lau Ah Leong when she was eight, never suspecting then that she would become his daughter-in-law. Ten years later, after the death of her father, L. Ah Leong's first son, Lau Tat-Tung, then aged 30, is suggested as a good match for her. Shortly afterward it is agreed that they should marry. Phoenix is excited and happy about the match. They are married at Ming Yang Tong, L. Ah Leong's largest China estate, having 118 bedrooms. After the wedding they enjoy eight months at that estate, but are forced to move because the civil war in China is causing concern that Tat-Tung will be kidnapped by a faction desperate for money. Phoenix and Tat-Tung go to Hong Kong to find a boat to Hawaii. Unfortunately many other people have the same idea. Three months later their first child (though not Tat-Tung's oldest—he has another by his late wife, and one adopted), Fung-Tai is born. She is another two weeks old before they manage to book passage to Hawaii. When they finally reach Hawaii, it seems a beautiful paradise, filled with beautiful women, a cheerful band, and many garlands of colorful flowers. However, immigration officials claim that it will take three weeks to get Phoenix processed—a worry, since she has no more milk for their baby. This was due to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Hawaii had become part of the United States, and because of this act Chinese had to have a special Hawaiian Islands identification card and witnesses living in Hawai'i to testify for them upon exit or entry. Sometimes even Hawai'i born Chinese with papers in order and witnesses could be denied entry or exit. However, soon L. Ah Leong comes to clear things up, and pays a bribe of $1350 to get Phoenix off the boat after only an afternoon of waiting. This is the first time Phoenix meets L. Ah Leong face to face. L. Ah Leong began as a poor beggar in China, and through luck and hard work was noticed by his boss, Ahuna, who brings with him to open a plantation store in Hawaii. He also taught Ah Leong the art of coffee brewing and chose Ah Leong's first wife, Dai-Kam. Ah Leong starts a store in Kapa'au, which goes bankrupt. After his bankruptcy, in 1884, Ah Leong is referred to L. Ah Low for a stock boy and store cook. Dai-Kam is Ah Low's family cook. The store is in Honolulu, and Ah Leong lives there through the Bayonet Constitution and a bloody attempt by Hawaiians to return the monarchy to power in 1889. By 1891 Ah Leong's first son is born, and Ah Leong has become a full citizen of the Kingdom of Hawaii, one of only a few non-Hawaiians to do so. He used the dowry money from his first wife to purchase a shop in Kaka'ako. At first the community doubted he would succeed, as Kaka'ako was a predominantly white community, and Chinese usually patronized Chinese shops. This was lucky, because Ah Leong's shop was not burned when Chinatown was burned down after bubonic plague was discovered there. However, trade was very slow for him because many people lost everything to the flames. Ah Leong interpreted the fire, which burned everything so completely, as purifying the ground, and believed that it would cause him good fortune to build on this ground. Therefore he opened a new store at 11 North King Street (where it can still be seen). His store soon became the busiest in Honolulu. Along with a rise in status and wealth, Ah Leong got three new wives. Dai-Kam was very unhappy about this, but Ah Leong was a charming man, and would talk his way around her. Ah Leong also used his wealth to build huge estates in his home area in China. Tat-Tung supervised construction. After the series of events, the first wife finally decided to take her children and return to China. His third and fourth wives died. Ah Leong was taken into court and fined for cohabitating with too many wives, since none of them were legally married in the United States. The second wife became the only one living in the house, and went behind Ah Leong's back to get a marriage license—she was the only wife legally married to him. Ah Leong got married to another woman, who stayed in China to manage his property there. Dai-Kam returned from China, and in her absence Ah Leong's businesses had grown even more. At this time Phoenix comes into the picture. After her arrival she is treated badly until she moves with her husband to a separate house. Tat-Tung is also harassed by his father, who claims that he is cheating him. This ends when Tat-Tung fights back by not coming to work. Then one day Ah Leong cuts his foot while trying to clip his nails with a knife. He believes that it will heal itself, and waits too long to get medical attention. It becomes so infected that doctors say they must amputate, but Ah Leong believes that he must go to death whole, so he dies after refusing the amputation. Before his death he repents making his will such that his second wife's children will inherit. After Lau Ah leong's death there is a lot of fighting over his money by the children of his second wife. At the time of his death in 1934, Ah Leong had amassed a fortune of approximately a million dollars. At first, Tat-Tung and his family are struggling because they no longer have as much money. However, one of his half-brothers eveutually gets him a store to manage, and this assures Tat-Tung and Phoenix's future. |
6701623 | /m/0gj0vz | But Beautiful: A Book About Jazz | null | null | null | Like Michael Ondaatje's Coming Through Slaughter, But Beautiful takes a fictionalised look at jazz. Divided into seven sections each covering a different legendary jazz figure, it uses historical details, photographs and music to paint the self-destruction and inspiration behind genius. Short vignettes of Duke Ellington and Harry Carney's famous between-gig road trips are interspersed throughout. It concludes with a seven-part analysis of jazz styles and influences that reads more like conventional music criticism. |
6710195 | /m/03n7zn | The Twilight of the Idols | Friedrich Nietzsche | 1889 | {"/m/037mh8": "Philosophy"} | Nietzsche criticizes German culture of the day as unsophisticated and nihilistic, and shoots some disapproving arrows at key French, British, and Italian cultural figures who represent similar tendencies. In contrast to all these alleged representatives of cultural "decadence", Nietzsche applauds Caesar, Napoleon, Goethe, Thucydides and the Sophists as healthier and stronger types. The book states the transvaluation of all values as Nietzsche's final and most important project, and gives a view of antiquity wherein the Romans for once take precedence over the ancient Greeks. The book is divided up into several sections: ===Maxims and Arrow he Problem of Socrate eason in Philosoph ow the "True World" Finally Became Fictio orality as Anti-Natur he Four Great Errors=== In the chapter The Four Great Errors, he suggests that people, especially Christians, confuse the effect for the cause, and that they project the human ego and subjectivity on to other things, thereby creating the illusionary concept of being, and therefore also of the thing-in-itself and God. In reality, motive or intention is "an accompaniment to an act" rather than the cause of that act. By removing causal agency based on free, conscious will, Nietzsche critiques the ethics of accountability, suggesting that everything is necessary in a whole that can neither be judged nor condemned, because there is nothing outside of it. What people typically deem "vice" is in fact merely "the inability not to react to a stimulus." In this light, the concept of morality becomes purely a means of control: "the doctrine of will has been invented essentially for the purpose of punishment, that is of finding guilty." |
6723828 | /m/0gkp7z | The Flying Trunk | Hans Christian Andersen | null | {"/m/0bxg3": "Fairy tale"} | A young man squanders his inheritance until he has nothing left but a few shillings, a pair of slippers, and an old dressing-gown. A friend sends him a trunk with directions to pack up and be off. Having nothing to pack, he gets into the trunk himself. The trunk is enchanted and carries him to the land of the Turks. He uses the trunk to visit the sultan's daughter, who is kept in a tower because of a prophecy that her marriage would be unhappy. He persuades her to marry him. When her father and mother visit her tower, he tells them a story. They are impressed and consent to the marriage. To celebrate his upcoming marriage, the young man buys fireworks and flies over the land setting them off. Returning to the earth, a spark incinerates the trunk, and the young man can no longer visit the princess in the tower. Instead, he wanders the world telling stories. |
6724075 | /m/0gkppx | Treasure Hunters | Jeff Smith | 11/6/2002 | {"/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/01z4y": "Comedy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Thorn, the Bone cousins and Gran'ma Ben reach Atheia at last, and find the city crammed with refugees, creatures of all shapes and sizes who have survived the devastation of the valley. Thorn and Fone meet a young girl, Tanael, who gives Thorn a tiny prayer stone. Phoney and Smiley sneak Bartleby into the city in a hay wagon, while Phoney plots how to make money off the inhabitants of the old city. Later, Gran'ma Ben takes Thorn and the Bones to meet her teacher, an old and wise master of The Dreaming who runs a rooftop kitchen in the city. The Teacher tells them that the inner council who once watched over the city has been replaced with a group calling themselves the Vedu, The Order of the Dreaming Eye, who strongly oppose the Dragons and anyone who associates with them. The Teacher examines Tanael's prayer stone, noting it is engraved with the name Lunaria, Thorn's mother. Just then, the shadow of Briar appears around Fone Bone, beckoning Thorn towards her. Thorn walks towards the apparition in a trance, and it takes the strength of everyone to hold her back. The teacher warns that Thorn will be at risk in her dreams, and must be kept awake. Far away in the Eastern mountains, the real Briar plots with the Lord of the Locusts to attack Atheia. The human warriors of Pawa have joined forces with the Rat Creatures, forming an army larger and stronger than ever, and confident in the knowledge that the Dragons no longer defend the Old Kingdom. Meanwhile, a battered Kingdok lurks in an underground tunnel. Later, while lurking around the Atheian marketplace, Phoney and Fone Bone get into a tussle with a ferocious giant bee. The merchants thank the Bones for chasing the bee off, explaining how he and other bees frequently terrorizes the marketplace (in anger at the merchants selling water rations to the bees at hugely inflated prices). They offer the Bones gold to keep the bees away, and Phoney concocts a plan to gouge the merchants and the bees for his own profit. Meanwhile, Gran'ma Ben and the Teacher have kept Thorn awake all night to prevent Briar and the Locust getting to her through her dreams. The Teacher explains who is behind the movement against the Dragons; Tarsil, commander of the Royal Guard, has blamed them for the appearance of the Ghost Circles and ordered his soldiers to destroy any Dragon shrines. Tarsil, who was injured by the Dragons in his youth while leading an expedition into Tanen Gard, and who resents them still, is on the lookout for any allies of the Dragons, including Thorn and Gran'ma Ben. Before long, word reaches the Royal Guard that Thorn and Ben are in the city, and they conduct a search for them. Meanwhile, Tarsil himself meets with the head of the city's merchants guild to discuss the embargo the Royal Guard has imposed. Word soon reaches him of the presence of the crown princess Thorn, and he orders more men onto the streets to find her and put her to death. Meanwhile, Ted the bug brings Thorn word of activities outside the city; Lucius and the others are still alive, and will reach Atheia in two days' time, but Briar and her army will arrive sooner. Thorn also learns a little about her mother Queen Lunaria (nicknamed Moonwort). Gran'ma Ben tells Ted to carry a message back to Lucius and his army, planning to trap Briar, the Pawans and the Rat Creatures in a pincer movement. That night, Thorn, Ben and the rest of the resistance hold a rooftop meeting to plan for the forthcoming conflict, and to discuss Tarsil's oppression of Dragon lore. However, the meeting is cut short when Fone Bone rushes in to warn everyone that the Royal Guard are closing in on their meeting place. Hiding from the search party, another of Ben's former Teachers continues the meeting. He tells Thorn that she will soon be tested, and that the fate of the world rests upon her. He suggests taking her away from the old kingdom, as her presence is only worsening the situation. Fone Bone loses his temper with the Teacher, and lets slip about his and Thorn's journey inside a Ghost Circle. Thorn confirms the story, telling the Teacher how the spirit of her mother told her to seek the Crown of Horns. The revelation changes his attitude in an instant; the Crown, he explains, is the Dragons' deepest secret, an artifact that is the polar opposite of the Lord of the Locusts. He warns Thorn against finding it, predicting that if she, with a piece of the Locust inside her, were to come into contact with the Crown, it could destroy all existence. Meanwhile, Phoney Bone has found the city's treasury, and despite the danger sneaks out with Smiley to raid it. They are soon caught by the Royal Guard (which were tipped off by the same merchants who hired the Bones to chase off the bees), but as they are about to arrest the Bones, the gang of giant bees turns up due to one of the merchants announcing his selling of water and a ferocious tussle ensues. Gran'ma Ben hears the commotion and rushes to the scene to break the fight up, but the Bones have already been arrested and imprisoned. At the city wall, Thorn reveals her presence to one of the Royal Guard when he assaults Tanael for setting up a Dragon shrine. Though Thorn only scares off the lone guard, he soon returns with a troop to arrest her. However, it is too late; Briar and her vast army of Rat Creatures and Pawans (over 20,000) have arrived at the city's gates, and the battle for the Old Kingdom is about to begin. Up on top of the gate, Gran'ma Ben quietly whispers that they are not ready. |
6724826 | /m/0gkqy9 | Maze of Moonlight | Gael Baudino | 1993 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | Christopher returns to Aurverelle in 1400, more than three years after the Ottoman Empire's victory at Battle of Nicopolis, his health and sanity severely damaged. He is soured on religion and nobility, having seen hypocrisy of all kinds while away. Etienne of Languedoc, a representative of Roman Pope Boniface IX, arrives to have an audience with him, but Christopher refuses to see him. Staying at the local inn, Etienne takes out his frustration on Vanessa, granddaughter of the elf Varden, by brutally beating her nearly to death when she rejects his advances. Christopher kills him and takes Vanessa in. Just as he is about to give up hope of Vanessa recovering from her wounds, Mirya and Terrill arrive, posing as healers from far away, and they heal her completely. Christopher befriends Vanessa and helps her to make sense of the images in her head that make her fear for her sanity, those images being the patterns of reality she can see because of her part-elven blood. She departs for Saint Blaise, but, arriving at the gates of Saint Blaise, she decides at the last minute to seek out whatever family of hers may still remain in Saint Brigid. Christopher's cousin, Yvonette a'Verne, baron of Hypprux, has designs on the wealth of the city of Ypris, so he arranges for several bands of mercenaries to sack the town and split the proceeds with him, not foreseeing that when the bands are done with Ypris, they will begin looting the rest of Adria. Using blackmail, Christopher persuades Yvonette to join an alliance of other noblemen of the area to fight off the mercenaries when they do decide to strike off on their own. After the fall of Ypris, one band of mercenaries, the Fellowship of Acquisition, sacks the Free Town of Saint Blaise and takes over Shrinerock, a nearby castle. Realizing the potential of a castle to hold people in as well as out, Christopher convinces Natil to use her otherworldly powers to fuse the castle's walls, doors, windows, and gates into solid stone, thus giving Terrill time to shepherd the survivors of Saint Blaise's and Shrinerock's fall through Malvern Forest to safety in Aurverelle. Christopher goes to Saint Brigid to rescue Vanessa. He is trapped there with Vanessa, Mirya, and Natil when the Fellowship besiege the town. Using Mirya's elven powers and Christopher's command of unorthodox fighting tactics, they hold the mercenaries at bay. With discord setting in among the ranks of the Fellowship, Berard of Onella, the leader of the Fellowship, is assassinated by one of his own. At the same time, the remaining members of the alliance ambush the Fellowship and slaughter them. |
6724893 | /m/0gkr12 | Shroud of Shadow | Gael Baudino | 1994 | {"/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | Natil returns to Adria convinced that she is the last of the elves on Earth. This realization, as well as the gradual fading of her powers, has provoked a crisis of faith in her; she still wants to aid and comfort all whom she meets, but with every day, her powers wane and she becomes more and more human. She has begun to sleep, something she has never done before. While she sleeps, she dreams of humans in 1990 Denver, George and Sally, who are becoming Elves. Near the fishing town of Maris, she encounters Omelda, a nun recently escaped from Shrinerock Abbey, who is tormented by voices in her head. Every day, Omelda hears the rituals marking the Canonical hours in her head, without fail. Though she fights them, they take over her mind and make her little more than a zombie for people to take advantage of as they wish. On her way to commit suicide by casting herself off the cliffs overlooking Maris, Omelda falls afoul of some village guardsmen, who barter her safe passage for sex. Continuing on, she sees Natil's campfire, hears her harp music, and she finds that the harp music quiets the voices in her head. Traveling with Omelda, Natil takes employment with Jacob Aldernacht, a prosperous merchant: she as a harper, and Omelda as a housekeeper. Omelda quickly falls into the clutches of Jacob's grandsons, Edvard and Norman, who make her their sex toy. Dazed by the constant voices in her head, Omelda can only endure. Natil becomes friends with Jacob and starts trying to comfort him; though he is rich, he is lonely and bitter. One night Natil realizes what the grandsons are doing to Omelda, finds them in their secret lair in the Aldernacht house, and kills them both. Fleeing the Aldernacht house, Natil determines to return Omelda to Shrinerock Abbey. Omelda has developed an infection and is deathly sick due to her misuse by Edvard and Norman, so Natil and she stop in the Free Town of Furze for medical assistance. Due to Omelda's delirious ravings, they fall into the clutches of the Inquisition and are taken to the Inquisition's prison. Hanging in chains, Natil gets a glimpse of the Lady after not having seen her for years. This restores her fully to an Elven state, and while being sentenced, she denounces the Inquisitor for all of the wrongs done to Elves by humans through the ages. When her infection becomes too severe, Omelda gives herself entirely to the song in her head and dies in her cell. Later, forces loyal to the Aldernachts break into the prison and free Natil and everyone else being held there. After healing those torture survivors she can, she leaves Jacob Aldernacht's employ, at a loss about what to do. Imagining she will fade as many of the other Elves have, she stops by the ruins of Saint Brigid for final goodbyes. While lingering there and debating what to do, she spies a strange glow in the distance. Fighting her way to it through a torrential rainstorm, she finds a mystical gateway, resembling one she has seen in her dreams, in the fork of a tree. Stepping through, she finds herself in modern-day Denver with a new mission: guide the newly-awakened Elves. |
6724980 | /m/0gkr2t | Strands of Sunlight | Gael Baudino | 1994 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | Natil is a gardener at Kingsley College, a private university in Denver. She has found a small group of people who have started transforming into Elves and need guidance, though she has not revealed many details of the early portions of her existence, nor has she revealed the divine vision she once had but now cannot even describe to them. In one narrative thread, Sandy Joy comes to Denver at the invitation of a man named Terry Angel. Exploiting the weak emotional condition of the Dean of Kingsley College, Maxwell Delmari, he has been given free rein to set up a sham program, named Hands of Grace, that purportedly uses music to heal people. Referring to obscure or bogus publications and fake references, Terry has hidden the fact that there is no program and no factual basis for his work. Thoroughly insane and plagued by fleeting partial visions of a hidden higher power, Terry tortures himself with self-mutilation in an effort to finally see this higher power. When Sandy states that she has had a vision of a higher power, he comes to envy and loathe her. After she realizes the falsity of his convictions and tries to distance herself from him, he attacks her, slashing her hands with a knife. Fighting for her life, she sprays him in the face with oven cleaner, blinding him. In another narrative thread, T.K. has just recently returned from Desert Storm missing a leg. A Vietnam veteran and a black man, he has been marginalized his entire life and is now working at the same security firm that once employed George Morrison, who is now the elf Hadden. Living in Denver's projects, he sees a crack house operating every day just down the street from him, and he is powerless to do anything about it. Finding employment at Treestar Surveying, he finds his barriers eroding as he comes to realize that he is becoming an Elf too and is no longer subject to the same hopeless future he once had. After Heather, one of the Elves, is shot by drug dealers for TK's efforts at evicting the crack house from his neighborhood, he steals military ordnance and demolishes the crack house with two pounds of C4 after a desperate gun battle that destroys his artificial leg. Concluding his transformation into an Elf while he sleeps a few nights later, he wakes up the following day whole, his leg intact, having finally discharged his last tie to his old life. When the police come to question him about the pieces of his artificial leg, which he left at the ruins of the crack house when Sandy drove him to safety, the presence of both of his legs deflects their attention away from him. As both narrative threads come together, Sandy is held by the police for assault after Terry lies and says that Sandy attacked him first. Out on bail, Sandy's overwhelming grief at her predicament serves as the final catalyst for helping all of the Elves finally learn how to draw strength from the patterns and use all of the powers at their disposal. Natil, seeing no choice, strikes a deal with Terry and uses her regained powers to heal Terry's eyes so that he will tell the truth of what happened to Sandy. Consumed with shame and grief at the banality of bargaining her healing powers for the truth from Terry and knowing that he will soon commit suicide because of what she has done for him, Natil finally gives up her immortal existence of four and a half billion years and fades from the earth. The others search for her and finally find her grieving in the land of sunlight with the Lady. |
6725330 | /m/0gkrm1 | In the Best Families | Rex Stout | null | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/028v3": "Detective fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | Sarah and Barry Rackham have been married less than four years. She is a wealthy heiress, while he is neither employed nor of independent means. Mrs. Rackham has recently cut off Mr. Rackham's allowance due to his escalating demands, and yet he continues to spend considerable sums of money. Mrs. Rackham, along with her cousin Calvin Leeds, comes to the brownstone to engage Wolfe: she wants to know where her husband is getting his money. Reluctantly, Wolfe takes the case. The next day a carton, delivered to his brownstone and thought to contain sausage, turns out to contain a canister of tear gas, which discharges when the carton is opened. Shortly thereafter, Arnold Zeck phones. Zeck heads an organized crime syndicate, insulates himself from publicity by means of several layers of subordinates, and has figured in two of Wolfe's recent cases. Now he calls Wolfe to stress that the carton of tear gas could have contained an explosive, and that Wolfe should withdraw from the work he is performing for Mrs. Rackham. Wolfe hangs up on Zeck. It now seems likely that Zeck is the source of Barry Rackham's income. As arranged with Mrs. Rackham, Archie visits her country home in Westchester, ostensibly to investigate a dog poisoning for Leeds, who breeds Dobermans. His actual purpose is to develop an acquaintance with Mr. Rackham. Over dinner that night, Archie picks up information on several guests, family members and staff. Leeds is to some degree dependent on his cousin for his livelihood: Mrs. Rackham has allowed him to set up a kennels on a corner of her property. Mrs. Rackham's secretary, Lina Darrow, amuses herself by flirting with some of the men present, including Oliver Pierce, a state assemblyman. Dana Hammond, a banker, is trying to establish a closer relationship with Mrs. Rackham's widowed daughter-in-law, Annabel Frey. Archie also has an opportunity to size up Barry Rackham. Although Archie initially expected that Rackham would turn out to be a gigolo who got lucky, he is actually a very clever man, whose interactions with his wife show real character. After dinner and television, Rackham pointedly implies that he knows what Archie's doing there, and just as pointedly urges him to leave early the next morning. Later that night, Mrs. Rackham and her pet Doberman are found stabbed to death in the woods near her house. Archie phones Wolfe to report and, after dealing with the local officials, returns to Manhattan to confer further with Wolfe. When he arrives at the brownstone, Archie finds the front door ajar, Fritz and Theodore in confusion, and Wolfe gone. A brief note, inarguably from Wolfe, instructs Archie not to look for him. Wolfe's disappearance touches off other events. First, a Gazette employee wants to authenticate an order for an advertisement, which announces Wolfe's retirement from the detective business. Then Marko Vukcic, Wolfe's oldest friend, tells Archie that Wolfe came to see him at 2:00 a.m. that morning. Marko spoke with Wolfe for an hour, and has information for Archie. The orchids are to be moved to Lewis Hewitt's nursery on Long Island, and Marko will hire Fritz to work at Rusterman's. Marko has Wolfe's power of attorney, and will offer the brownstone for sale. Finally, Archie is to "act in the light of experience as guided by intelligence" – his standing instructions when Wolfe is not available to provide specific direction. And Archie is recalled to Westchester. He took advantage of District Attorney Archer's imprecise instructions when he returned to Manhattan, and now Archer wants him back to clarify some points. Further, Archer wants to speak with Wolfe. When Archie tells him, truthfully, that he doesn't know where Wolfe is, Archer loses his temper and has Archie jailed as a material witness. Archie's cellmate is Max Christy, who was arrested earlier in a raid on an apparently unsavory establishment. Christy takes an interest in Archie and tries to recruit him for his organization – it goes unnamed, but from Christy's very oblique description, it sounds criminal. For example, it regards the payment of income taxes as optional. And one of the reasons that Christy thinks Archie has potential is that he " . . . has been a private eye for years and so he would be open to anything that sounds good enough." Archie does not commit himself, but he takes Christy's phone number, and is annoyed that Christy gets released before Nathaniel Parker, Wolfe's lawyer, bails Archie out. Days pass, then weeks and months, with no word from Wolfe. Archie sets up shop for himself, of course as a private investigator. He gets a hint that Wolfe is still alive, when Marko has him prepare a check, drawn to cash and charged to travel expense. A log of some of Archie's cases during this period suggests a much more quotidian professional life than he is accustomed to: finding a stolen cat, supervising workers at Coney Island, and catching a cashier dipping into the till. Still, Archie makes enough to cover his living expenses, and then some. He's getting ready to spend a month vacationing in Norway with Lily Rowan when Max Christy shows up with an offer. Christy wants Archie to meet with someone – just possibly Arnold Zeck, Archie guesses – to answer some questions. If Archie's answers pass muster, he'll have a chance to " . . . dip into the biggest river of fast dough that ever flowed." Out of curiosity, Archie agrees to a meeting. That night, he joins a man in a chauffered car. It's not Zeck, but a stranger named Pete Roeder. They drive around Manhattan, discussing Roeder's requirement: an expert tailing job on a man named Rackham, and he wants Archie to get Saul Panzer, Fred Durkin and Orrie Cather for the job. Archie verifies that Roeder means Barry Rackham, the one whose wife, Wolfe's client, was murdered. Rackham is the beneficiary of much of his wife's estate, and since her death he's been living well in a suite at the Hotel Churchill in Manhattan. Roeder won't tell Archie specifically why he wants Rackham tailed, but he's certain that Archie can't turn the job down. As Roeder smugly points out, Archie was there when Mrs. Rackham was murdered, Wolfe disappeared just six hours after Archie phoned him, and Archie was jailed as a material witness. Now he's being offered the job of tailing Rackham, for no apparent reason. How could he turn it down? He can't. Archie wonders who it is that's after Rackham. If it's Zeck himself, or if Roeder works for Zeck, then Rackham has somehow crossed Zeck since the day when Wolfe was told to lay off. If Rackham is still under Zeck's aegis, it would be dangerous to take a job tailing him for Roeder and Christy. Either way, Archie can't resist getting mixed up in it. So Archie arranges with Saul, Fred and Orrie to tail Rackham. They will report daily to Archie, who will then summarize Rackham's activities for Christy. Archie confirms that both Christy and Roeder work in the Zeck organization, and that the organization is worried about Rackham. Before his wife's death, Rackham had been working for Zeck, but quit when he became a wealthy widower. Investigations into organized crime are ongoing in both Washington and New York, and Zeck's syndicate is worried that Rackham is meeting with a DA. Roeder would like to rope Rackham back in to participate in a new scheme he's developed, but first he needs to be sure that Rackham hasn't turned informant. After more than a week of the tailing, Rackham has figured out that he's being followed, and Archie decides that he might as well have a chat with him to see if he can learn anything interesting. Rackham is wild to know who wants him followed, and Archie tells him it's Zeck. Rackham is so frantic that he throws his whisky glass against the wall. He offers Archie $5,000 for further information. Archie tells Rackham about Christy and Roeder, and Rackham tells Archie he'll top any offer that Roeder makes. Archie reports this conversation to Christy: he doesn't dare conceal it, because Roeder might have other operatives watching Rackham. Archie's report apparently has an effect, for Christy returns the next day to say that Roeder wants to see him. A car and driver take them to Westchester, the location of both the Rackham estate and Zeck's. Upon arrival, Archie is relieved of his gun and escorted into a small waiting room that resembles a fortified bunker. There he meets Arnold Zeck, whose appearance is intimidating: Zeck tells Archie that he needs good men, including some he can meet with and work through. Archie might be one such, and Zeck would like to try. He has Roeder brought into the room. Zeck explains that he and Roeder want Rackham frightened in order to ensure his cooperation with Roeder's new operation, which requires a well-to-do man with good social connections. Zeck closes the meeting by placing Archie on the B list. Back in Manhattan, Archie gets a message from Rackham that he wants to meet. Archie arrives at the suite just in time to see Lina Darrow leaving, and he sees that Rackham has deteriorated during the last three days. His skin looks splotchy, his eyes are bloodshot, his muscles twitch, he needs a shave, his clothes are dirty and he's been drinking heavily. Archie turns up the pressure on Rackham by telling him that he has met with Zeck. He adds that because Zeck has evidence that will convict Rackham of murdering his wife, Archie can't help Rackham without becoming an accessory after the fact. He urges Rackham to assist in Roeder's new operation: if he does, Zeck might reciprocate by suppressing the evidence of Rackham's guilt. Rackham tacitly agrees, and Archie makes arrangements for them to meet with Zeck and Roeder. But then the Westchester authorities butt in and call Archie to White Plains for further questioning. There, he finds that Lina Darrow has provided more information. She has had an intimate relationship with Rackham, but now he has refused to marry her. She has learned from him that Wolfe told Mrs. Rackham over the phone that he had determined Rackham's source of income – a criminal source – and that Mrs. Rackham then told her husband it had to stop. This gives Rackham a motive, previously unknown to the police, for the murder. Archie has been summoned to White Plains to confirm what Wolfe told Mrs. Rackham, and to answer for not having mentioned it earlier. But Archie can't and won't do it. He says that Miss Darrow is lying, and it's not merely his word against hers. Her story has Wolfe phoning Mrs. Rackham just a few hours after she left his office – much too soon to have gathered so much information. And Archie points out that the Rackhams were getting along fine at dinner the next evening – not the way people behave when the wife tells her husband she's learned that he's a criminal. The DA buys Archie's version of events and lets him go, so Archie is able to take Rackham to meet with Roeder and Zeck after all. But the meeting turns into a bloodbath. |
6726052 | /m/0gksj_ | Raptor | null | null | {"/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"} | Raptor is an historical novel set in the late fifth and early sixth centuries. It purports to be the memoirs of an Ostrogoth, Thorn, who has a secret: he is a hermaphrodite and takes on the name, "Thorn the Mannamavi", "a being uninhibited by conscience, compassion, remorse- a being as implacably amoral as the juika-bloth and every other raptor on this earth." Thorn discovers his sexuality rather unorthodoxly during his early teens. After he is banished from both a monastery and, later, a convent, he travels throughout the dying Roman Empire on a quest to meet his fellow Ostrogoths (even though it was never confirmed that Thorn was an Ostrogoth; he simply assumed it by reaching several logical conclusions), meeting several characters; among the most crucial to the storyline: Theodoric and the retired Roman legionary-turned-woodsman Wyrd, with whom he forms close friendships. Thorn lives his life chiefly as a man but can easily pass for a woman (he is beardless, has shoulder-length hair, and is relatively small-statured), and he uses this ambiguity for his own benefit. Throughout his life, Thorn conducts affairs with both men and women. The novel treats actual historical events, the fall of the Western Roman Empire and Theodoric's assassination of Odoacer among them. Taking place in most of western Europe (the British Isles and Spain notably excepted), the story has an international feel, heightened by the appearance of several characters from different cultures (not only Romans and Goths but also Greeks, Celts, Huns, Jews and Syrians appear). As is typical in Gary Jennings's novels, the plot is developed with historical detail (including extensive use of Gothic words, which the narrator calls "The Old Language") supplemented by graphic violence and bizarre sexual situations. Again typically, the story not only spans virtually the central character's entire life but also has a recurring theme: those whom Thorn loves, die. |
6727906 | /m/0gkvm7 | M/F | Anthony Burgess | 1971 | {"/m/02yq81": "Comic novel", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | From the blurb of Cape's first edition 'The situation as far as I'm concerned,' says the young-narrator-hero of MF, 'is an interesting one. In two days in a strange country I've acquired a mother in the form of a Welsh-speaking Bird Queen who scares me. I've spent some hours in prison, I've discovered the works of an unknown superlative artist in a garden shed and I've been shot at by a riddling lion-faced expert on Bishop Berkeley. Most interesting of all I'm due tonight to be married by a circus clown to my own sister.' Almost twenty-one, a college throw-out, Miles Faber embarks on a defiant pilgrimage across the Caribbean. His destination: the shrine of Sib Legeru, Castitian poet and painter. In the streets of Castita's capital, gay with a religious festival, a series of bizarre revelations await him: his obscene double, the son of a circus sorceress Aderyn the Bird Queen, and a sister-plump fellow offspring of his father's incestuous union. Unspeakable crimes of blood and lust are perpetrated against both before Miles, solving the final riddle, wakes-like Oedipus to find himself a willing victim of the machinations of dynastic destiny. |
6733237 | /m/0gl3v6 | Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel | Virginia Lee Burton | 1939 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | After many years of working successfully together, Mike and Mary Anne face competition from modern, diesel-powered shovels. Seeking an area of the country where his less modern steam shovel can still find work, Mike finds a small town that is about to build a new town hall. The authorities react with disbelief when Mike makes the claim that he and his steam shovel Mary Anne can dig the cellar in a single day; they protest that it would take a hundred men a week. Mike insists that Mary Anne can indeed finish the job in one day, though he has some private doubts. At sunup the next day, Mike and Mary Anne begin work and just manage to complete the task by sundown. However, they have neglected to dig themselves a ramp so they can drive out. A child who had been watching makes the suggestion that Mike take the job of janitor for the town hall, and that Mary Anne should become the boiler for the town hall's heating system. |
6734450 | /m/0gl6x_ | An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Atheism | Daniel Harbour | null | null | Rather than a history of atheism, as the title may suggest, the book is a guide to why (according to the author) atheism is superior to theism and why the (a)theist discussion is important. According to Harbour, atheism is "the plausible and probably correct belief that God does not exist", while theism is "the implausible and probably incorrect belief that God does exist", and anyone who cares about the truth should be an atheist. Harbour makes his case on the basis of two fundamental worldviews which he labels the Spartan Meritocracy and the Baroque Monarchy. Worldviews are the ways in which we look at and try to explain the world around us; as a result, the validity of our worldviews is extremely important because it determines the validity and reasonableness of our beliefs. The Spartan Meritocracy makes minimal assumptions, that are subject to criticism and possible revision, when trying to explain the world - focusing more upon a proper method of inquiry than on reaching any particular or prejudicial conclusions. The Baroque Monarchy, however, relies upon elaborate dogmatic assumptions in the absence of any evidence — assumptions which are placed beyond question, critique or revision. Harbour spends little time directly comparing atheism and theism; rather, he compares these two opposing worldviews and argues that the Spartan Meritocracy is more plausible, more reasonable, and helps make the world a better place to live. Thus, anyone who cares about the truth should be inclined to adopt it rather than blind obedience to dogmatism as in the Baroque Monarchy. He does not, however, argue that there is a direct and necessary connection between these worldviews and either atheism or theism — he acknowledges that it is possible in theory for an atheist to adopt the Baroque Monarchy and for some types of theist to adopt the Spartan Meritocracy. Strictly speaking, then, the main thrust of his argument is that the Spartan Meritocracy is superior and anyone who cares about the truth should adopt this worldview. Nevertheless, he also argues that it is highly unlikely for theism ever to occur within the Spartan Meritocracy due to the evidence the world presents, and that, consequently, anyone who adopts the Spartan Meritocracy will almost inevitably be an atheist. Harbour constructs an argument throughout the book to demonstrate that the Spartan Meritocracy leads logically and naturally to atheism rather than theism. Much of Daniel Harbour's book is focused on demonstrating the ways in which the Spartan Meritocracy does a better job of helping us to explain the world and make the world a better place to live in. The former involves analyzing the impact of science and technology, pursuits fundamentally based upon a spartan and meritocratic perspective of nature. "It would be one thing to abandon the paradigm of rational enquiry if it were merely a proposal on paper. However, centuries of effort have made it much more: it is the most successful attempt to understand the world that the world has ever seen. By dint of breadth, the paradigm stands out. Through the sum total of its theories, it covers more facts, explains more phenomena, and unmasks the mechanisms of more one-time mysteries than any alternative." |
6737026 | /m/0gldtv | Voyage of the Basset | null | null | null | Miranda is sixteen and concerned with being sensible, while Cassandra, nine years and eleven months, likes and believes in magical things. Miranda is outnumbered in this family, because Professor Aisling lectures on mythology and legends at his university, and believes in mysterious and magical things too. But some of the members of the university think that it is nonsense to teach about myths and legends, because magical and mysterious things cannot be dissected, weighed and measured. One member in particular, Mr. Bilgewallow, takes delight in tormenting Professor Aisling, who wishes, and dreams, of a ship that would take him to the worlds where he might find the creatures of legend. One evening, his wish comes true. As he and his daughters walk along the river, they come across a curious little ship, with a crew of dwarfs and gremlins. One of the dwarfs introduces himself as Malachi, Captain of H.M.S. Basset. He says that it is Professor Aisling's ship, conjured from his wishes and ready to sail on the "tides of inspiration." Aisling is astonished and delighted, and he and Cassandra waste no time in going aboard. Miranda needs a bit more coaxing. The Aislings set sail on a magical voyage where they meet a number of creatures from mythology that join them on board the ship. Included among these are the Harpies, who take over the galley, the Manticore, the Sphinx, the Minotaur and a dryad, complete with tree. Disaster strikes when Aisling becomes distracted by the potential of bringing back measurable proof for Bilgewallow and his ilk. He also insists on bringing the lovely but deadly Medusa on board, with predictable results for one of the crew. But through the help of his daughters and Medusa, he recovers his belief and his balance, as all of them must unite against the evil trolls who pursue him. |
6738103 | /m/0glj2g | Conan and the Spider God | L. Sprague de Camp | null | {"/m/0dz8b": "Sword and sorcery", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | Conan finds himself in the kingdom of Zamora, a fugitive under suspicion of kidnapping Jamilah, the wife of the king of Turan. Discovering she has actually been taken by devotees of the Zamoran spider god Zath, he sets out for the city of Yezud to rescue the captive, and incidentally steal the opals set as eyes in the god's temple image. Characteristically, de Camp's Conan is a more credible if less elemental figure than Howard's, carefully assessing the situation in Yezud and taking the time and effort to lay the groundwork for his foray rather than just barreling in swinging his sword. Chronologically, Conan and the Spider God comes between the short stories "The Curse of the Monolith" and "The Blood-Stained God". |
6740160 | /m/0glm63 | The Man with the Golden Arm | Nelson Algren | 1949-11 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The events of the novel take place between 1946 and 1948, primarily on the Near Northwest Side of Chicago. The title character is Francis Majcinek, known as "Frankie Machine", a young man who is a gifted card dealer and an amateur drummer. While serving in World War II, Frankie is treated for shrapnel in his liver and medicated with morphine. He develops an addiction to the drug, although initially in the story he believes he can control his habit. Frankie lives in a small apartment on Division Street with his wife, Sophie (nicknamed "Zosh"). Sophie has been using a wheelchair since a drunk-driving accident caused by Frankie (although the novel implies that her paralysis is psychological in nature). She spends most of her time looking out the window and watching the nearby elevated rail line. She takes out her frustrations by fighting with her husband, and she uses his guilt to keep him from leaving her. The turmoil in their relationship only spurs on his addiction. He works nights dealing in backroom card games operated by "Zero" Schwiefka. He aspires to join the Musicians' Union and work with jazz drummer Gene Krupa, but this dream never materializes. His constant companion and protégé is "Sparrow" Saltskin, a feeble-minded thief who specializes in stealing and selling dogs; Frankie gets Sparrow a job as a "steerer", watching the door to the card games and drawing in gamblers. Often referring to his drug habit as the "thirty-five-pound monkey on his back", Frankie initially tries to keep Sparrow and the others in the dark about it. He sends Sparrow away whenever he visits "Nifty Louie" Fomorowski, his supplier. One night, while fighting in a back stairwell, Frankie inadvertently kills Nifty Louie. He and Sparrow attempt to cover up his role in the murder. Meanwhile, Frankie begins an affair with a childhood friend, "Molly-O" Novotny, after her abusive husband is arrested. Molly helps Frankie fight his addiction, but they soon become separated when Frankie is imprisoned for shoplifting and she moves out of the neighborhood. Without Molly, he begins using drugs again when he is released. Nifty Louie owed money to politically connected men, and finding his killer becomes a priority for the police department. Sparrow is held for questioning by the police, and he is moved from station to station to circumvent Habeas corpus requirements. Eventually he breaks down and reveals what he knows, and Frankie is forced to flee. While on the run, Frankie manages to find Molly at a strip club near Lake Street. He hides in her apartment and beats his addiction, but in the end the authorities learn where he is hiding. He barely manages to escape and gets shot in the foot, leaving Molly behind. He flees to a flophouse, but without any hope of reuniting with Molly or staying free, he hangs himself in his room. The novel ends with a transcript of the coroner's inquest, as well as a poem for Frankie entitled "Epitaph." |
6743283 | /m/0glqtc | God Game | Andrew Greeley | 1986-06 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | In this book, told in first-person narrative, the lead character—an unnamed Catholic priest—volunteers to playtest a new type of computer game for a relative. Called Duke and Duchess (though the title is changed to God Game at the end of the book), it puts the player in the role of God for a small swords and sorcery world. However, after a violent lightning storm, the narrator discovers that the game's crude CGA graphics have become live video, and that he is now responsible for the inhabitants of a small, but very real, world somewhere else in space and time—a world that threatens to run away from his control and into total chaos. Cast, reluctantly, into the role of God, the narrator, not to be confused with the narrator's author who also provides commentary, the priest strives to create peace between the two warring sides. He finds that both sides pray to him or to the Other Person, aka, God. His closest ally in trying to create this peace is Ranora, an ilel - something of a cross between a fairy and an angel- who has been assigned to the Duke, but dances wherever she wishes to go. The priest finds that it is "hell being God," as most of his characters, even when obeying, create further problems for him. Minor characters want to be major ones, then change their mind, and since he is not God, and lacks omniscience, he cannot always predict that outcome of his directives. There is comic relief provided by groups of dissidents who try to sabotage god's plans, which are always smote by "divine" wrath. At times, characters cross Planck's Wall to speak to him directly in his home, and he finds evidence that they were actually there, not mere figments. Finally, he is able to broker peace and thinks he can walk away from the game, but when he turns his back, those opposed to peace strive to undo all his good work. Ranora crosses the Wall to implore him to return, and it takes a miracle to save the Duke's life, for the bad guys have convinced the Duchess he needs to be sacrificed in a pagan ritual. The minor characters will get their prayers answered as they become major ones and learn how much the Lord Their God loves them. |
6744002 | /m/0glrp0 | The Magic City | E. Nesbit | 1910 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | After Philip's older sister and sole family member Helen marries, he goes off to live with his new step sister Lucy. He has trouble adjusting at first, thrown into a world different from his previous life and abandoned by his sister while she is on her honeymoon. To entertain himself he builds a giant model city from things around the house: game pieces, books, blocks, bowls, etc. Then through some magic he finds himself inside the city, and it is alive with the people he has populated it with. Some soldiers find him and tell him that two outsiders have been foretold to be coming: a Deliverer and a Destroyer. Mr. Noah, from a Noah's Ark playset, tells Philip that there are seven great deeds to be performed if he wants to prove himself the Deliverer. Lucy, too, has found her way into the city and joins Philip as a co-Deliverer, much to his chagrin. |
6745182 | /m/0glsqz | Agent Arthur's Desert Challenge | Martin Oliver | 1994 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | The Action Agency's most active agent finds himself in the heart of the desert and in a murky world of kidnap, stolen gold bullion and old enemies. Can Agent Arthur outwit these sneaky schemers before they silence him once and for all? |
6746723 | /m/0glw4s | Killdozer | Theodore Sturgeon | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | An eight-man construction crew is building an airstrip and related facilities on a small pacific island during the course of World War II. They uncover and break open an ancient stone "temple." This releases an ancient being composed of pure energy, leftover from a war involving sentient machines in a long-lost civilization, which "possesses" a bulldozer being used by the construction crew. The being's purpose was to take over the "enemy's" machines and attack them. When released from the ancient stone temple that contained it, it believes that the bulldozer (called "Daisy Etta" by the workers in the island, a mispronunciation of De-Siete (D7, in Spanish) is important to its intentions, possesses it, and it begins killing the workers. Ultimately, two of the three surviving workers—one goes insane—manage to destroy the bulldozer and (presumably) the creature. While trying to write a report on what happened, the two sane workers are despairing of anyone believing them. Then, bombs fall from the sky, blasting the whole area below them, including the places the killdozer damaged and the graves of their fellow workers. One worker tears up the report he was writing and throws it in the air, thrilled that an explanation is now available -- enemy action in wartime. |
6747619 | /m/0glxg8 | Inferno | Troy Denning | 8/28/2007 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Jacen Solo, now the Sith lord Darth Caedus, continues his quest to "bring order" to the galaxy by taking it over. As he descends ever farther into the dark side of the Force, he becomes increasingly willing to sacrifice anyone and anything to achieve his goals. By the end of the novel, nearly all of Caedus' family and friends have turned against him, including his secret lover Tenel Ka and nearly all of the Jedi. The sole exception appears to be Tahiri Veila, whom Caedus has been manipulating through the memory of his dead brother, and her lover, Anakin Solo. The novel also represents a turning point in Caedus' evolution into a Sith. In the previous novel, Darth Caedus was willing to send a prison arrest warrant to his own parents Leia and Han Solo. Caedus is increasingly willing to commit atrocities (such as targeting the civilian centres and forests of Kashyyyk), and gives no second thought to sacrificing anyone, even family, to his ambitions. He begins to cherish the fear of his subordinates and in one example, orders the arrest and execution of one of his spies who was in danger of being exposed and executed by the Corellian government, in order to motivate others to refrain from returning to the Galactic Alliance when their covers were threatened. Inferno is also marked by the deterioration and termination of many of Caedus' personal relationships as he ravages the galaxy. He sends troops to seize control of the Jedi Praxeum on Ossus, and subsequently orders the murders of all the adult Jedi at the facility, (which include his twin sister Jaina), in order to secure control over the children there. Ultimately this smaller conflict fails, but not without heavy losses on both sides. He manipulates his lover Tenel Ka into handing over her last fleet to him, leaving her and his daughter exposed to a coup d'état before she realizes the depths to which he has sunk and withdraws her support. He manipulates his cousin, Ben, into killing the deposed Chief of State, Cal Omas, only to warn Coruscant authorities that an assassination attempt is imminent. He then tortures Ben as part of a plan to make him a Sith apprentice, which is interrupted by Luke Skywalker, prompting a furious lightsaber duel that ends with Luke sparing Jacen when Ben's danger of falling to the dark side becomes apparent to Luke. A subplot in the book reveals the existence of a hidden group of Sith on Korriban and further reveals the powers of Ship, the Sith vessel Ben recovered from Ziost. |
6751104 | /m/0gm16m | The Pedestrian | Ray Bradbury | 8/7/1951 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/0707q": "Short story"} | In this story we encounter Leonard Mead, a citizen of a television-centered world in 2053. In the city, roads have fallen into decay and people only leave their homes during the day, staying home at night to watch TV. It is revealed that Mead enjoys walking through the city during the night, something which no one else does. On one of his usual walks he encounters a robotic police car. It is the only police unit in a city of three million, since the purpose of law enforcement has disappeared with everyone watching TV at night. The police car struggles to understand why Mr. Mead would be out walking for no reason and decides to take him to the Psychiatric Center for Research on Regressive Tendencies. |
6752089 | /m/0gm326 | Sir Nigel | Arthur Conan Doyle | null | {"/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"} | The tale, at its outset, traces the fortunes of the family of Loring of the Manor of Tilford in Surrey, many of whose scions had been prominent in the service of the Norman and Angevin Kings of England, against the backdrop of the Black Death. The tale starts with the problems the family and its last scion, Nigel Loring, face at the hands of the monks of Waverley Abbey, up to the coming of Sir John Chandos. Playing the host to King Edward III of England, Nigel asks to be taken into his service, a request that is complied with by his being made squire to Sir John Chandos. In order to make himself worthy of the hand of the Lady Mary, daughter of Sir John Buttesthorn, he vows to perform three deeds of honour to her. Nigel and his follower Samkin Aylward arrive at Winchelsea, whence they take passage to Calais. En route, he manages to intercept Peter the Red Ferret, a French spy who had stolen certain papers of Sir John Chandos. Since these papers had some bearing upon the English defence of Calais in view of a projected French attack, it was considered necessary in the extreme to recover them. Having defeated the spy in single combat, Nigel is overcome by the wounds he receives and is laid up in the Castle of Calais. When the King visits the young squire to praise his courage, he mentions that the spy was to be hanged. This outrages Nigel, who had promised the Red Ferret quarter, and he crosses purposes with the King. Though the King is enraged by the squire's impertinence, at the intercession of Sir John Chandos, he yields. Nigel Loring then proceeds to set the Red Ferret free after having taken from him his word not to violate the truce and a visit to the Lady Mary, to fulfil his promise to her. Shortly thereafter, Nigel is sent on an expedition to Brittany under the command of Sir Robert Knolles. In the course of their journey, they encounter a Spanish battle-fleet in the Straits of Dover, and in conjunction with the English fleet from Winchelsea, inflict a severe defeat upon the Spaniards. The tale is a rendition of the Battle of Les Espagnols sur Mer (August 1351), as chronicled by Froissart, with a fictional storyline weaved in skilfully with the history. Nigel Loring carries himself well, but achieves nothing of note besides boarding a Spanish carrack to assist Prince Edward, the Black Prince, under the directions of Sir Robert, when the Prince and his men were outnumbered by Spaniards. As the army marches into Brittany, a Frenchman is observed tracking the English column. Nigel is entrusted by Sir Robert Knolles with the task of capturing the Frenchman, a task he executes admirably. But when in the act of conducting him to the English camp, they find that the English army had been attacked and some of its longbowmen, among them Samkin Aylward, captured by the robber baron of La Brohinière, nicknamed 'the butcher', for his practice of executing captives who refused to join his levées. The English troops try to storm the castle of La Brohinière, by a frontal assault, which fails dismally, with the death of the French captive who, being of noble birth, assists the English in destroying this common nemesis. With the assistance of Black Simon of Norwich, a very prominent character in the series, and man-at-arms in the army, and some of the peasants of the surrounding country who hated La Brohinière for his cruelty and deeds, Nigel penetrates the connecting passage between the main castle and one of its outworks. In the ensuing assault, the castle is taken and La Brohinière killed by his very captives. As a token of appreciation of Nigel's planning and execution of a very difficult task, besides communicating the squire's valour to King Edward and Sir John Chandos, Sir Robert Knolles, at Nigel's request instructs his messenger to convey the news of his deed to the Lady Mary. The English army proceeds to the Castle of Ploermel, which was then in the hands of the English knight Richard of Bambro', to advance the English arms in Brittany against the French at Josselin. However, news of a truce between England and France precedes their arrival and serves to dampen their spirit until a visit by the French seneschal Robert of Beaumanoir, Master of Josselin. The French lord proposes a passage of arms, and since a reason would be necessary to justify such a violation of the truce, to the two kings of England and France, he proceeds to pick a mock-quarrel with Nigel Loring. Beaumanoir observes that "... we have none of the highest of Brittany... neither a Blois, nor a Leon, nor a Rohan, nor a Conan, fights in our ranks this day". Conan was in fact the personal name of several Dukes of Brittany. In the jousts that thus ensue, the English arms are initially routed with Bambro' killed and Nigel felled, severely wounded. Though the English rally and sorely press the Bretons, by an underhand act, one of the Breton squires mounts his horse, when the conflict was supposed to be on foot, and rides upon the English crushing them. This incident is a thinly-veiled account of the famed Combat of the Thirty of March 1351, which is of importance in Breton history and in the annals of chivalry, as being an exemplary passage of arms. It may be worthwhile to note that Sir Robert Knolles, who is held to have participated in the fictional jousts in Sir Nigel, was also one of the original thirty combatants. Subsequent to the joust, where he tries to take on Beaumanoir himself and is severely wounded, Nigel Loring is left to recover at the Castle of Ploermel by his comrades, and proceeds to convalesce in the course of a year, which sees the breaking of the truce, a defeat of French arms in Brittany and the declaration of another truce. Nigel is by then made seneschal of the Castle of Vannes. It is then that Sir John Chandos summons him to Bergerac to accompany the Black Prince on a raid into France. This raid concludes in the Battle of Poitiers (September 1356). In the course of the battle, Nigel overcomes King John II of France but fails to receive his surrender not knowing the identity of his opponent and is thus unable to lay claim to the king's ransom. But since the king himself identifies the squire as his conqueror, the Black Prince awards Nigel Loring his golden spurs and dubs him a knight (the historical Neil Loring is older than the protagonist, and was knighted already in 1340 at the Battle of Sluys). Sir Nigel then returns to England where he weds the Lady Mary. The book concludes with a summary of Sir Nigel's life and the future which had already been documented in The White Company. |
6755380 | /m/0gmb5l | When Eight Bells Toll | Alistair MacLean | 1966 | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The story concerns the hijacking of five cargo ships in the Irish Sea. British Treasury secret agent Phillip Calvert is sent to investigate, and narrates the story for the reader. Calvert manages to track the latest hijacked ship - the Nantesville, carrying £8 million in gold bullion - to the Scottish Highlands and the sleepy port town of Torbay on the Island of Torbay (patterned after Tobermory, on the Isle of Mull). He boards the ship under cover of night and finds the two agents planted aboard have been murdered. Chief suspect is Cypriot shipping magnate Sir Anthony Skouros, whose luxury yacht, Shangri-La, is also anchored in Torbay. Operating out of his yacht Firecrest, Calvert is joined by Skouros's wife, Charlotte, and by his boss Sir Arthur Arnford-Jason, known as "Uncle Arthur". Calvert is a typical MacLean hero, world-weary and sometimes cynical, yet ultimately honorable, who must battle bureaucracy as well as the bad guys to solve the crime. Calvert's frantic search for the hijackers and for the hostages they hold takes him over the remote isles and sea lochs and forces him to make allies of some unlikely locals. As is usual with MacLean, the plot twists and turns, not all characters are as they seem to be at first introduction, and the double-crosses continue to the very last page. |
6755790 | /m/0gmc42 | The prophecy of the stones | Flavia Bujor | 2002 | {"/m/02w77n": "Fantastique", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | The book begins with a chapter introducing Joa, a 14-year-old girl fighting an illness against death in hospital in present-day Paris, and is held only by a dream in life... Joa's name begins with the first letters of Jade, Opal, and Amber's name In a kingdom that is ruled by the Council of Twelve, which aims to deprive people from Fairytale the freedom to live, three girls named Jade, Opal and Amber celebrate their 14th birthdays. Unknown to them, their names fit their birthstones. On their birthday, each is sent away from their home to meet the other two. Together, they should make their way to revive the good in the world, as it is written in a prophecy. This prophecy was many centuries ago by a Clohryun called Néophileus who could see into the future. Jade, Opal, and Amber decided to explore together the secret of their stones, and they take it as simultaneously in the hand. When they do, the stones show a strange symbol in front of their eyes. To learn the meaning of this symbol, they travel to Nathyrnn, a city that is beneficial to the Council of the Twelve as a prison for all advocates of freedom. There they meet Jean Losserand, who can interpret the symbol. It stands for Oonagh, an oracle that lives in a land called Fairytale. In Fairytale, people live peacefully with magical beings, because it is the only country that remains the Council of the Twelve spared. It is surrounded by a magnetic field that can be traversed only with the belief in the impossible. With the help of Adrien de Rivebel, Jade, Opal, and Amber liberate the inhabitants of the city and get to the border of Thaar, where they must fight against the Knights of the Council. They defeat them, but Opal is stabbed by a knight. The people of Nathyrrn refuge in Fairytale, and Adrien, who is in love with Opal, carries her corpse through the magnetic field. They stay a few days at Owen d'Yrdahl's house, from which they will learn that Death is on a strike, and that Opal will survive if her wound is treated. The Army of Light is organized to fight against the Army of Darkness. When Opal is well again, they ride toward the mountains, where Oonagh lives. Along the way, they help the residents of a city sealed by darkness, and the residents thank them by giving a potion that will save them from the birds of prey they will meet when they reach Oonagh's home. By underground passages, they eventually reach Oonagh in the form a small, lively girl, and the oracle sings them a part of the prophecy. Oonagh tells them that on the day of the summer solstice, there will be a battle between the Army of Darkness and the Army of Light, and that they need to persuade Death to end her strike. Jade, Opal, and Amber decide to go into the realm of Death, which can only be reached by crossing the Lake of the Past. They overcome their illusions of the past and go as the first mortals to the realm of death. They manage to convince Death that she is loved, and so Death ends her strike. As the prophecy predicted, Amber recognizes the Chosen One when she sees him (and falls in love with him), who previously served the Army of Darkness, and Opals realizes what the Gift is: Hope. They travel to Thaar and enter a tower in which they meet the Thirteenth Councillor of the Council of Twelve. He is not a man, but the spirit of all the other twelve councillors. He shows the girls a window overlooking Fairytale, and they see the assembled armies on the battlefield. The Chosen One at the head of the Army of Light, but the Army of Darkness seems to be winning. The Thirteenth Councillor tries to make them understand that the battle is already hopelessly lost, because Hope is in the girls' stones, and Hope cannot be freed unless the girls die. Jade finally understands the meaning of the prophecy, and although her friends do not want to die, she persuades them to jump out the window in order to defeat evil and to help the Army of Light to win. They leap out of the window, and their stones dissolve. Golden rain pours over Fairytale, and gives everyone hope. Before Jade, Opal, and Amber hit the ground, they are caught by the birds of prey and carried to the battlefield. There they encounter Oonagh, Adrien, the Chosen One, the defeated Army of Darkness and the victorious Army of Light. A golden nugget falls from the sky, Oonagh tells Adrien to bury in the ground. He does so, and a tree with a golden trunk and silver leaves grows from it. Oonagh tells them that as long as the tree lives, good will reign in the world. The next chapter switches back to present-day Paris. In the hospital, Joa wakes up and demands that the nurse gives her a phone. She contacts a friend of hers, a young man named Eli Ador, and leaves a strange message for him. When he arrives at the hospital, Joa tells him her dream, and the book ends with her dying words: "My dreams gave life back to me. Now I must give dreams back to life." |
6756854 | /m/0gmdqh | The Sword Of The Dawn | Michael Moorcock | 1968 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | The warriors of the Dark Empire of Granbretan have succeeded in conquering all of Europe, though the vanished Castle Brass still eludes Baron Meliadus. Summoned by Count Shenegar Trott, Baron Medliadus heads back to Granbretan to report to King-Emperor Huon. While riding in the alternate plane Kamarg that Castle Brass has been shifted to Dorian Hawkmoon encounters a swordsman called Elvereza Tozer. Hawkmoon takes Tozer prisoner and takes him back to Castle Brass. Under questioning Elvereza Tozer is revealed as a famous disgraced Granbretan playwright who hoped to curry favour with the Dark Empire by travelling to Castle Brass and destroying the machinery that kept it in its different dimension. Tozer travelled by means of a special ring constructed by Mygan of Llandar, and Hawkmoon determines that to ensure the security of the Kamarg they must find this Mygan before the Dark Empire does. In Londra, Countess Flana Mikosevaar, King-Emperor Huon's only living relative, witnesses the return of Baron Meliadus. Baron Meliadus consults his stepbrother Taragorm, Master of the Palace of Time, as to whether his experiments will yet enable him to travel through time and destroy Castle Brass. Count Shenegar Trott has an audience with King-Emperor Huon and is given a secret mission. Baron Meliadus has his own audience to request the assistance of Taragorm in locating Castle Brass, but is told his priority is to act as an envoy to two ambassadors from the mysterious far East Empire of Asiacommunista (China). Meliadus greets the two ambassadors - Kaow Shalang Gatt and Jong Mang Shen - and introduces them to the assembled Granbretan Court, in the hope of learning more about Asiacommunista's forces and technology. Meliadus visits Taragorm at the Palace of Time and learns of the disappearance of Elvereza Tozer. Meliadus vows to find the source of his ability. Hawkmoon and Huillam D'Averc use Tozer's rings to travel back to Granbretan. Meliadus spends the day showing the two Asiacommunista ambassadors the sights of Londra, before meeting Countess Flana. Flana seduces Meliadus in order to get close to the two ambassadors, whom she finds intriguing. Flana enters the ambassadors quarters and discovers that they are really Hawkmoon and D'Averc. Rather than turn them over however she agrees to help them, and the pair disguise themselves as Dark Empire soldiers and flee in her private ornithopter. Upon discovering the disappearance of the two ambassadors King-Emperor Huon chastises Baron Meliadus, and orders him to forget searching for Castle Brass. Meliadus vows to himself to defy him, and sets off to look for the man who enabled Elvereza Tozer to travel through the dimensions. Hawkmoon and D'Averc fly to Yel (Wales) and leave their ornithopter to begin their search for Mygan of Llandar. They are attacked by a group of mutants that are all that remain of the local inhabitants of Yel, and take refuge in the city of Halapandur. Halapandur contains many old scientific devices from the old age and D'Averc pockets the charge from a gun. The pair see Dark Empire forces led by Baron Meliadus searching the area, and leave the city. They find the cave where Mygan lives but it is empty. Hawkmoon and D'Averc are captured by Meliadus, bound and kept prisoner in the cave while Meliadus searches the surrounding countryside for Mygan. Mygan appears in the cavern and frees Hawkmoon and D'Averc. Meliadus returns, a fight ensues and Mygan is injured. Following Mygan's instructions Hawkmoon and D'Averc use their rings to shift themselves into another dimension. Mygan tells them that Hawkmoon must fulfill his destiny and seek Narleen (New Orleans) and the Sword of the Dawn, then the Runestaff in the city of Dnark (New York). Mygan dies from his wounds. Hawkmoon and D'Averc are picked up in a strange machine sphere by a man called Zhenak-Teng. In this new dimension they are in the land of the Kammps - hi-tech underground cities where the inhabitants hide from creatures called the Charki. Zhenak-Teng tells them that Narleen is a trading city on the coast. The Kammp is attacked by a group of Charki and Hawkmoon and D'Averc flee in one of the spheres, though Zhenak-Teng is killed in the assault. The sphere crashes in woodland and Hawkmoon and D'Averc continue on foot. They are attacked by a pool monster in the woods and flee to the River Sayou, where they build a raft to head to Narleen. Hawkmoon and D'Averc are picked up by a pirate ship belonging to Lord Valjon and are pressed into slavery. The pair manage to free themselves and try to escape when the ship is attacked by another. The attacking ship belongs to Pahl Bewchard, a sworn enemy of Lord Valjon. Hawkmoon and D'Averc free the other slaves on Valjon's ship and scuttle it. Bewchard offers to transport them to Narleen. Hawkmoon and D'Averc arrive in Narleen. Bewchard informs them that the Sword of the Dawn is in the possession of the Pirate Lords, who live in Starvel - an enclave within Narleen. The Sword of the Dawn is worshipped by the pirates, as it is said to contain the power of an ancient sorcerer. Hawkmmon and D'Averc learn that they are in Amarehk (America). At Bewchard's house Hawkmoon and D'Averc meet his sister Jeleana, but are summoned to the quayside by the news that Bewchard's ship has been torched in revenge for his sinking of Valjon's ship. While they are gone Valjon visits Bewchard's house and threatens Jeleana. Bewchard vows to continue his fight against Valjon, now aided by Hawkmoon and D'Averc. Bewchard takes Hawkmoon and D'Averc shopping for new clothes, but they are attacked by pirates and Bewchard is taken into Starvel. Hawkmoon and D'Averc scale the outer wall of Starvel and discover Bewchard being prepared for sacrifice by Valjon to the Sword of the Dawn. Hawkmoon and D'Averc attack but are overcome by the pirates. Hawkmoon and D'Averc are laid out for sacrifice alongside Bewchard when the Warrior in Jet and Gold appears and frees them. Hawkmoon kills Valjon and at the prompting of the Warrior in Jet and Gold calls upon the Legion of the Dawn - a group of ghostly warriors who reside in the Sword of the Dawn - to defeat the pirates. Bewchard gives Hawkmoon and D'Averc a ship to continue their journey. The Warrior in Jet and Gold tells Hawkmoon that it is his destiny to seek the Runestaff in the city of Dnark, but Hawkmoon decides instead to escape his destiny by returning to Europe. |
6757150 | /m/0gmf36 | Over the Wine Dark Sea | Harry Turtledove | 2001-11 | {"/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"} | The plot of the book centers around the cousins voyaging around the Greek parts of the Mediterranean Sea. They trade a great many things on their ship, the Aphrodite, including, much to the chagrin of many on board, peacocks. During their voyage they encounter pirates, other traders and get caught up in conflicts between some of Alexander's former generals, including Antigonos. |
6759311 | /m/0gmhym | Emergence | David R. Palmer | 1984-11 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/0hc1z": "Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | Candidia Maria Smith-Foster, an eleven-year-old girl, is unaware that she's a Homo post hominem, mankind's next evolutionary step. Hominems have higher IQs, they're stronger, faster, more resistant to illness and trauma, and have quicker reflexes. Their eyesight, hearing, and sense of smell are superior as well. By the time the narrative opens, Candy has acquired a high school education, some college, and learned karate, having achieved her Fifth Degree Black Belt, from her neighbor, 73-year-old Soo Kim McDivot, who she is led to believe is merely a retired schoolteacher. McDivot, whom she calls "Teacher", is actually the discoverer of the H. post hominem species, and has identified and continues to mentor and lead a group of them, the AAs. As part of her karate training, she has learned to release her hysterical strength, which permits brief bursts of nearly superhuman activity. With international relations rapidly deteriorating, Candy's father, publicly a small-town pathologist but secretly a government biowarfare expert, is called to Washington. Candy remains at home. The following day a worldwide attack, featuring a bionuclear plague, wipes out virtually all of humanity (i.e., Homo sapiens). With pet bird Terry, a Hyacinthine macaw, her "lifelong retarded, adopted twin brother," who tends to "parrot" Candy's words even before she speaks, she survives the attack in the shelter beneath their house. Emerging three months later, she learns of her genetic heritage and sets off to search for others of her kind. First the hunt turns up "Adam," a cheeky, irrepressibly punning, multitalented 13-year-old boy, who immediately sets out to win Candy's heart; next, Rollo Jones, a middle-aged physician with a broad history of survival-in-the-wilds experience ranging from a stint in the Peace Corps to mountain climbing; and finally, Kim Mellon, an early-20s mom whose background is in computer engineering with Lisa, her six-year-old daughter. Rollo reveals himself as a sociopath, whom Candy is forced to kill defending Terry and herself. Adam, Kim, and Lisa join Candy's quest for the AA community. As part of the search, Adam reveals that he is an ultralight aircraft pilot. Later he teaches Candy to fly. Thereafter, an ultralight engine failure separates Candy from the others. After getting it running again, she spots a contrail, which leads her to Vandenberg Space Shuttle Launch Complex, where Teacher and the AAs are laboring to preflight a shuttle, renamed the Nathan Hale. They've identified those who wiped out mankind, the Bratstvo, translated as the "Brotherhood," a cabal of H. sapiens, working from inside the Russian military to destroy all H. post hominems. As insurance, they've placed a doomsday device in geosynchronous orbit, a Strontium-90 bomb whose fallout will render Earth uninhabitable for 200 years. At this point, however, the AAs' plans have come unstuck: They've modified the Hale to reach geosynch orbit, though it's a one-way, suicide voyage for the crew; but the miniature robot handler they've built to penetrate the bomb-carrying rocket and disarm the doomsday device isn't up to the task. Candy realizes, with her small size and hysterical strength training, she's the only one who can get inside the warhead chamber and disarm the bomb. Despite the fact that it's a suicide mission, she volunteers. Meanwhile, as Adam, Kim, and Lisa search for Candy, Terry begins relaying her thoughts, though initially they don't realize that's what they're hearing. Arriving in orbit, Kyril Svetlanov, thought to be a Bratstvo defector, kills Harris Gilbert, the mission commander. Kyril turns out to have been a double agent, whose job ultimately was to sabotage the mission, but he doesn't know about Candy's karate skills. She breaks his neck and assumes responsibility for completing the mission. Navigating across to the bomb-carrying rocket in a spacesuit, she disables the warhead. Then she resets the navigational computer to land on the dry lake at Edwards Air Force Base and tries to secure herself against a bulkhead in preparation for the stresses of reentry. As the missile begins to power-up for reentry, Adam finally realizes Terry is in fact relaying Candy's thoughts; that somehow she is in fact in space, about to attempt reentry in a non-human-rated vehicle, and that she'll soon be landing at Edwards. He, Kim, and Lisa arrive as the missile is touching down, just in time to extract her, resuscitate her, and treat her injuries. The author has left a number of threads trailing at the conclusion, some of which are followed-up on 25 years later in a sequel Tracking, serialized in Analog Science and Fact magazine in the summer and fall of 2008. |
6763328 | /m/0gmpx7 | The Marching Season | null | null | null | Former Agent Michael Osbourne is rerecruited by the CIA when his father-in-law Douglas Cannon, the new ambassador to the Court of St. James, is sent to the United Kingdom to promote the peace process between Protestants and Catholics of Northern Ireland, which has been jeopardized by three bloody attempts to derail them. Michael must once again face the elusive and lethal KGB-trained assassin October, with whom he has unfinished business. |
6763409 | /m/0gmq1r | The Thirteen and a Half Lives of Captain Bluebear | Walter Moers | 1999 | {"/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | In Bluebear's Life 1, where he is a tiny baby, he is floating in a walnut shell in the north Zamonian sea, next to the Malmstrom, a mysterious and giant whirlpool that all the world's sailors take care to avoid. Bluebear is saved by a diminutive crew of Minipirates, who are very mysterious, and who subsequently adopt the bear as their good-luck charm. He grows up on seaweed and water exclusively, and begins to apprentice the nautical way of life from scratch. Aboard their tiny craft he learns much of waves, sailing and knot tying, but before long he has grown too large to remain aboard, and the Minipirates must set him ashore on an island. In Life 2, Bluebear discovers a group of Hobgoblins on the island, who raise Bluebear to celebrity status due to his fantastic displays of crying. Hobgoblins are, according to Nightingale's encyclopedia, semi-ghost invertebrates who feed on emotions. Every night Bluebear gives his crying performances, and elevated to stardom. Eventually repulsed by this, Bluebear builds a raft and sets off on his own. Life 3 finds Bluebear at sea, where he is befriended by a pair of "Babbling Billows", or talking waves, who teach him to speak, and encounters the SS Moloch, the world's largest ship. He makes futile attempts to board the vessel, and in his head hears a voice that whispers repeatedly: "Come! Come aboard the Moloch!". Soon afterwards Bluebear is almost eaten by a Tyrannomobyus Rex, a gargantuan black whale with one eye. Bluebear helps ease the creature's pain by pulling harpoons out of its back (originally intending to construct another raft out of them but, becoming too absorbed in the task, tosses them into the water) and the grateful whale deposits him within swimming distance of another island. Bluebear's Life 4 is spent on Gourmet Island, a fantastic land filled with delicious foodstuffs that mysteriously grow in place of normal vegetation. The bear, after sampling them all, develops a monstrous appetite and craving for nutrition. He eats the addictive foods so much that he fattens up tremendously. Bluebear's last meal (a man-sized mushroom) is interrupted by the discovery that the island is a giant carnivorous plant that ensnares passers-by, fattens them up and eats them at 300 pounds. Seconds from being devoured, Bluebear is saved by Deus X. "Mac" Machina, a pterodactyl Roving Reptilian Rescuer whose job is saving others at the last moment. Life 5 details Bluebear's year-long stint as a navigator for the near-sighted Mac, assisting the Reptilian Rescuer in his daring rescues, one of which was saving a farm of Wolperting Whelps from the dreaded Bollogg: a cyclops varying from 50 feet to two miles high that can survive without a head. On flying over the city of Atlantis (Zamonia's capital), Bluebear promises himself that he will visit it someday. Towards the end of his time with Mac, he rescues a human who threw himself of the Demon Range. This human makes a reappearance in life 10. The year ends with Mac entering retirement and depositing Bluebear at the entrance to the Nocturnal Academy, the headmaster of which (Professor Abdullah Nightingale) owes Mac a favor. In Life 6, Bluebear is taught all the knowledge in the universe with the aid of the seven-brained Nocturnomath Professor Abdullah Nightingale and his intelligence bacteria. This bacteria is literally infectious knowledge. The closer one is to a Nocturnomath, and the more they absorb, the more intelligent they become. Here Bluebear meets Qwerty Uiop (a gelatine prince from the 2364th Dimension who accidentally fell into this world through a Dimensional Hiatus) and Fredda the Alpine Imp (a hairy creature with a crush on Bluebear), when they graduate their successors are: crude Knio the Barbaric Hog and annoying Weeny the Gnomelet. Upon leaving the Academy, Bluebear is infected with intelligence bacteria, and Nightingale transmits an encyclopedia into his head. He meets Qwerty again, who has found a Dimensional Hiatus, which are recognisable due to their unpleasant smell, which Qwerty defines as "Genff", and debating whether to jump in. Bluebear, acting on an impulse, pushes him in the hope that he will land in the right dimension. He is then led astray in a cavern labyrinth by a tricky Troglotroll (the most reviled and sneaky creature in Zamonia). With the help of a Mountain Maggot (an annelid made, curiously, of gleaming steel) Bluebear makes his way out of the caves and into the neighboring Great Forest. In Life 7, Bluebear finds a blue she-bear in the strangely silent Great Forest and falls in love with her. However, Bluebear quickly realizes that she was merely an illusion spun by the Spiderwitch, a giant spider, to trap him. The bear discovers he is caught in an intricate web in place of where he thought the she-bear's house was. Bluebear eventually frees himself and flees from the spider moments before it would have dissolved and eaten him. He proceeds to run for five hours or so to escape the spider, who is in hot pursuit. He begins to hallucinate that he is the fastest and most agile creature on the face of the planet; however this is because of the conditions of oxygen in the Great Forest. When he comes to his body feels too heavy to run. Just as his strength gives out, Bluebear stumbles upon and leaps through a fortuitous Dimensional Hiatus, the same sort of portal through which Qwerty entered Bluebear's universe. In Life 8, the Dimensional Hiatus deposits Bluebear into the past in the 2364th Dimension, where he sets off a chain of events that lead to Qwerty falling into the a Dimensional Hiatus and into our world in the first place. Bluebear jumps into the portal after his friend and comes back out in his own world, with the Spiderwitch nowhere to be seen. Life 9 details Bluebear's treks across the Demara Desert in the company of nomadic Muggs searching for the legendary mirage city Anagrom Ataf. Bluebear helps the Muggs trap the city with sugar flux, but upon finding it already populated with the transparent ghost-like Fatoms. He sets the Muggs roaming again, this time in search of a non-existent city called Esidarap S'loof. Leaving their company, Bluebear spies a Tornado Stop and decides to wait there to catch a ride to Atlantis on the other side of the desert. A tornado arrives, but Bluebear is sucked into its center and is aged nearly eighty years upon entering. In Life 10, Bluebear and the other elderly denizens of Tornado City search for a way to escape the whirlwind. Bluebear is reunited with a man he and Mac once saved, and discovers Phonzotar Huxo, the madman in the tornado who is responsible for the strange laws of the Muggs and their search for Anagrom Ataf. Bluebear realizes that the tornado stops for one minute once a year, so he and the other old men count backwards for a year in anticipation of the next stop. During that stop, they dig through the tornado wall, aging in reverse as they make their escape. In Life 11, Bluebear travels through the discarded head of a Megabollogg giant on his way to Atlantis and meets a bad idea named 1600H (named after the time he came into being) who saves him from falling into a pool of earwax and drowning. 1600H suggests Bluebear becomes a dream composer. The head, being constantly asleep, must always be dreaming, otherwise it will wake up and throw the brain into confusion; as there is no body for it to be attached to . The job of a dream composer is to "play" the head's "dream organ" in order to purchase a map of the head's interior so that he may find his way out. Insanity (a plan of whose was thwarted previously by Bluebear) steals the map, but right before Bluebear is pushed into the Lake of Oblivion, a pool of liquid forgetfulness that totally annihilates anything thrown in, 1600H pushes Insanity into the lake himself. Bluebear escapes the head and enters Atlantis just as the roaming cyclops returns to put his head back on his shoulders and approaches the city. In Life 12, Bluebear meets a Brazilian tobacco dwarf named Chemluth Havanna who becomes his new best friend. He works his way up the Atlantean professions tree, starting as a sweeper in a spitting tavern all the way up to the coveted King of Lies in the Megathon's Congladiator tournaments. The King of Lies and the challenger must exchange fictitious stories and the audience decides who wins each round. Bluebear defends his throne for over a year, eventually battling against everyone's Congladiating idol, an individual named Nussram Fakhir, in an epic 99-round Duel of Lies. Bluebear's boss, Volzotan Smyke asked him to lose this last fight and, when the bear refuses and wins it, Smyke attempts to sell him onto the giant ship, the SS Moloch; which is revealed to be a slave ship. However, Bluebear's escort, one of the Wolperting Whelps saved by Bluebear and Mac, named Rumo, takes the bear below Atlantis, where Bluebear is reunited with Fredda the Alpine Imp and the Troglotroll. Fredda and the Invisibles (creatures from another planet who really are invisible) plan to pilot the city of Atlantis into outer space to their planet; before the continent of Zamonia sinks beneath the waves. Chemluth, who is an inveterate womanizer, becomes smitten with Fredda and decides to stay with her and the Invisibles, but Bluebear elects to remain behind with the Troglotroll as he has no desire to leave Earth. As Atlantis flies away, the Troglotroll betrays Bluebear again and deposits him into the hands of the Moloch's slave crew. In Life 13, Bluebear discovers that the captain of the Moloch is the renegade Zamonium, the only thinking element, he learned about at the Nocturnal Academy. Professor Nightingale reappears piloting a cloud of darkness and reveals reluctantly that, contrary to the meaning of the word "element", he created the Zamonium himself. He does battle with the Zamonium in a war of thoughts. Unnoticed during the battle, Bluebear manages to throw the Zamonium into Nightingale's cloud of domesticated darkness and frees the crew. The Moloch soon becomes trapped by the Malmstrom, where the Minipirates once saved Bluebear in his first life, but the crew, minus Bluebear, is saved by the fortuitous arrival of an army of Reptilian Rescuers. Bluebear is reunited with Mac, who now has a large pair of glasses, but as soon as he tries to save Bluebear, the Troglotroll jumps onto his back and Mac flies off. The unfortunate bear is the only person left on the ship. Bluebear almost falls into the Malmstrom, which turns out to be a Dimensional Hiatus, and he is saved by the arrival of his old friend Qwerty Uiop on a flying carpet, who is soaring up from the whirlpool. Upon rejoining the rescued crew, Bluebear discovers that many of them are Chromobears, members of his own species. Every Chromobear has different coloured fur. They decide to reainhabit the Great Forest. At the end of the book, in Bluebear's final "half-life", he meets a real-life she-bear identical to the one he hallucinated in Life 7. He begins a new life with her, but hints that further adventures await them in the future. |
6763696 | /m/0gmqj1 | Young Bloods | Simon Scarrow | 6/19/2006 | {"/m/02p0szs": "Historical fiction", "/m/098tmk": "War novel", "/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"} | The book begins with the birth of both men in 1769 - Arthur as a weak and puny baby, a third son, to a wealthy Anglo-Irish Protestant couple; Naboleone as a healthy second son to a Corsican couple fighting the French for independence. The story continues with the training of both youths as cadet officers, both encountering social and other difficulties thanks to their birth outside the mainland. Arthur's innate conservatism forms as a result of the Gordon riots and his realization that his Anglo-Irish Protestant lifestyle is dependent on maintaining the status quo. Naboleone, on the other hand, is even more of an outsider, a Corsican among Frenchmen, a quasi-noble among pre-revolutionary noblemen, and an impoverished young cadet among those with money to burn. The story ends approximately in 1796, with Arthur having been turned down by the family of his inamorata Kitty Pakenham because of his lack of prospects, and Naboleone, now called Napoleon Bonaparte, mounting a successful attack on Toulon. |
6767750 | /m/0gmx6h | Acts of War | Tom Clancy | null | {"/m/017rf8": "Techno-thriller", "/m/06wkf": "Spy fiction"} | The mobile Regional Operations Center (ROC) in Turkey investigates a dam blown up by Kurdish terrorists. The ROC is later taken hostage by the Kurdish terrorists who blew the dam. |
6768321 | /m/0gmyd_ | Still Life with Crows | Douglas Preston | 2003 | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller", "/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Agent Pendergast visits Medicine Creek, Kansas after a gruesome murder occurs. With the help of local teenaged misfit Corrie Swanson, he continues to investigate as more citizens are killed. Pendergast is soon led to believe that the murderer must be a member of the community. He soon discovers that the murders are connected to an old curse. |
6771836 | /m/0gn4ys | Conquistador | S. M. Stirling | null | {"/m/0mz2": "Alternate history", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | John Rolfe VI is an infantry captain who comes back from World War II with a war wound and few prospects, but in 1946 a radio he is rewiring malfunctions and creates a gateway to a parallel universe. This universe is one in which Alexander the Great lived a full lifespan, creating an empire that stretched from Spain to India. In this world, the Macedonian Empire proved so strong and durable that it redirected the barbarian migrations of the Goths, Vandals, and others eastward towards China and the rest of the Far East. As a result, what remains of China is a hodgepodge of Indo-European dominated states, the Americas remain undiscovered by the Old World, and technology has barely progressed to a medieval level. Deciding to take advantage of the untapped resources that await in this different California, Rolfe gathers members of his infantry company to help him explore and develop this new world. Over the next 60 years, he builds a new nation, which he calls the Commonwealth of New Virginia. In 2009, two California fish and game officers (Tom Christiansen and Roy Tully) are trying to solve the mystery of how large numbers of pelts from endangered species are showing up. They finally deduce the secret of the gate to the parallel world, but before they can make the secret known to their superiors, they are kidnapped and permanently transported to New Virginia by Rolfe's granddaughter, Gate Security Agent Adrienne Rolfe (with whom Christiansen had been falling in love). Once the two rangers get over their resentment of being forcibly and permanently removed from their lives and world, and being brought to this new world, Adrienne enlists them to help sabotage a coming coup in New Virginia. Giovanni Colletta, head of the second most powerful family, and son of a sleazy and amoral war buddy of Rolfe's, has resented the elder Rolfe's control, and he and some allies are planning to take over by force and violence, with the intention of imposing an authoritarian regime. The rangers decide that Rolfe and his allies are the lesser of two evils, and decide to help Adrienne in her effort to prevent the coup. The group discovers that Colletta is arming post-Aztec and post-Mayan Indians to build a couple of battalions of soldiers (something very illegal under Commonwealth law) in an attempt to capture the Gate, holding the Commonwealth hostage. Colletta duly strikes, giving the other families the grounds to oppose him militarily. The revolt is put down, but at a price: the radio device and the Gateway are destroyed, and with it, the connection to our world. What little talent the Commonwealth has in physics works feverishly to re-establish the Gate. They are successful, but when they look through the new gate, they do not see FirstSide (New Virginia slang for Rolfe's home Earth) Oakland, but instead a snarling saber-toothed cat and a dead giant sloth. |
6772781 | /m/0gn6jw | Destiny: Child of the Sky | null | null | null | As the novel opens, Rhapsody and Achmed set out to save children sired by the F'Dor's minion, the Rakshas, from the damnation that carrying the Rakshas's blood (and through it, the F'Dor's) conveys. Achmed, lacking Rhapsody's selflessness, seeks the blood in the hopes that he can use it to track and identify the F'Dor. The journey is successful, though Rhapsody is almost killed when promised reinforcements fail to arrive and she is left nearly naked in wintry conditions. After the children of the Rakshas are purified through extraction of the demon's blood, Achmed returns to his kingdom of Ylorc. Rhapsody travels to the nearby city of Bethany to attend a state wedding and covertly liaison with her lover, Ashe. Though Ashe is delayed fighting the F'Dor's minions (who sought to wreak chaos during the wedding), the celebration goes off without flaw. On the way back to Ylorc from Bethany, Rhapsody is met by Ashe's father, Llauron, a fourth-dragon and leader of one of the two major human religions. Llauron stages a ritual duel with one of his own followers (corrupted by the F'Dor), feigning his own death. Rhapsody, as an unknowing part of Llauron's plan, immolates him in starfire with the blade Daystar Clarion, unlocking Llauron's dragon nature and allowing him to, by shedding his humanity, attain both greater longevity and power. Ashe, enraged at the F'Dor's minion (and at Llauron's callous use of Rhapsody), destroys the traitor in a fiery display of power. Meanwhile, in Ylorc, Grunthor discovers a secret sect of Bolg (the monstrous citizens of Ylorc) - the Finders, who are compelled to seek artifacts of the previous inhabitants of Ylorc. In the process, Grunthor discovers the treasure which the Finders unknowingly sought - the Great Seal of Canrif, a horn which summons all the Cymrians (survivors of the lost land of Serendair) when it is blown. Rhapsody goes to Tyrian to hide from the world, frustrated and shamed at her self-perceived failure to protect Llauron. In the process, she re-lights the diamond crown of the Lirin, accidentally fulfilling a generations-old prophecy and, accordingly, becoming Queen of the Lirin. At her coronation, attended by the most powerful and influential people in the neighboring countries, Achmed finally identifies the F'Dor: the Blesser of Bethe Corbair, Lanacan Orlando. Realizing that the F'Dor intends to possess Rhapsody, Achmed assassinates the Patriarch, leader of the other major human religion, to provide a distraction. Roughly a month later, Achmed, Rhapsody, and Grunthor travel together to Bethe Corbair, defeating the F'Dor after a very close battle. Rhapsody is worried, however, by the demon's insinuations: that she had unknowingly had sex with the Rakshas, in the guise of Ashe. She grows more concerned in the weeks that follow, as she starts to feel a knot growing in her belly. To seal a lasting peace in the wake of the F'Dor's death, Rhapsody travels to the Great Bowl just outside Ylorc, wherein the Cymrian Council had convened in times past. Blowing the Great Seal, she calls the Cymrians into a third Great Moot, wherein she plans to re-establish the old Cymrian Alliance, traditionally led by a Lord and Lady. Despite opposition from the previous Lady Cymrian, the Seer Anwyn, Rhapsody is (to her own surprise) confirmed as Lady Cymrian. Ashe is, after more debate, named Lord Cymrian; a fact which causes Rhapsody no little concern, as she, though loving him, had thought him wedded to another for purposes of state. Ashe convinces Rhapsody that, in fact, Rhapsody was his wife (through a complicated series of events at the end of the previous book), and furthermore informs her that the F'Dor had lied when it claimed the Rakshas had intercourse with her (the growth of her belly was revealed to the product of a 'seed of doubt'.) Anwyn, infuriated by her rejection, steals the Great Seal, calls up a legion of the dead, and transforms into a dragon to wreak havoc. She is defeated by Achmed, though the Cymrians suffer considerable losses, and a new age begins. |
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