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6872782 | /m/0gtn9c | Genius Loci | Ben Aaronovitch | null | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | A young Bernice Summerfield lands a job as an archaeologist on a colony world. She discovers evidence that the planet was previously inhabited by a sapient species. |
6872823 | /m/0gtnd3 | Conan the Buccaneer | Lin Carter | null | {"/m/0dz8b": "Sword and sorcery", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | Conan, now in his late thirties and captain of the Wastrel, becomes embroiled in the politics of the kingdom of Zingara when he seeks the rumored treasure on the Nameless Isle. The fugitive Princess Chabela, the privateer Zarono, and the Stygian sorcerer Thoth-Amon are among those mixed up in the treasure quest. Chronologically, Conan the Buccaneer falls between "The Pool of the Black One'" in Conan the Adventurer and "Red Nails" in Conan the Warrior. |
6875811 | /m/0gttxp | Der Tunnel | null | null | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction"} | Allan, an idealistic engineer, wants to build a tunnel at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean connecting America with Europe within the space of a few years. The idealist's scheme is thwarted for financial reasons, and the tunnel construction (in particular a segment dug under a mountain) experiences several disasters. A fiasco seems inevitable, the army of workers revolt, and Allan becomes a figure of universal hatred throughout the world. After 26 years of construction, the tunnel is finally completed; however, the engineering masterpiece is outdated as soon as it opens, as aeroplanes now cross the Atlantic in a few hours. |
6877204 | /m/0gtwcw | How to Be Popular | Meg Cabot | 2006-07 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Steph Landry has been the target of jokes since sixth grade when she spilled a red Super Big Gulp on Lauren Moffat's white D&G skirt. In response, Lauren coined the phase "Don't be such a Steph Landry" to ensure she never lived it down. Steph has since been content to hang out with her best friends Jason and Becca, but as she enters eleventh grade, she wants more out of high school. Luckily she finds a copy of an old book titled none other than How to be Popular when cleaning out Jason's grandmother's attic. The book is full of useful tips. She follows the book's advice and begins the school year with flat ironed hair and a new attitude. Steph is determined to be confident and enthusiastic about school. She sits with new people at lunch and organizes a talent auction. Steph does not anticipate Lauren being so angry about her attempt to join the popular crowd or that Jason would be so hurt that she is leaving him behind. As her popularity grows, Steph is forced to make difficult choices about who and what is truly important to her. |
6877746 | /m/0gtxd8 | A Land Remembered | Patrick D. Smith | 1984 | {"/m/02p0szs": "Historical fiction"} | A Land Remembered focuses on the fictional story of the MacIveys, who migrated from Georgia into Florida in the mid-19th century. After settling, this family struggles to survive in the harsh environment. First they scratch a living from the land and then learn to round up wild cattle and drive them to Punta Rassa to ship to Cuba. Over three generations, they amass more holdings and money, and move further from their connection to the native, untamed land. |
6879911 | /m/0gtzzg | Conan the Swordsman | Björn Nyberg | null | {"/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/0707q": "Short story", "/m/0dz8b": "Sword and sorcery"} | The seven short stories collected as Conan the Swordsman are set at various points of Conan's career, from his youth as a raider in the north to his maturity as a general of the kingdom of Aquilonia. The two associated non-fiction pieces by de Camp are on the Conan saga in general and the derivation of the names used by Howard in constructing the fictional "Hyborian Age" setting of the Conan stories. Chronologically, the seven stories supplement the tales in the twelve volume Lancer/Ace Conan series, falling into the period covered by Conan through Conan the Warrior. |
6880752 | /m/0gt_wr | Whom the Gods Would Destroy | Richard P. Powell | null | null | Chapter 1: The story begins with the narration of Helios at the age of 70. He reflects back to when he was 8 years old and lived in Troy. En route to deliver a pot of cooked meat to his foster father Polydextus, he is confronted by Milentius. Milentius demands the food from Helios and when he refuses, Milentius trips him. The pot of meat shatters and the food is soiled. Helios threatens that his alleged father, King Priam will find out. Milentius threatens to hurt him unless he denies King Priam as his father. Helios retracts his statement just as Prince Paris approaches. Paris mentions how he heard the rumors of Priam having too much wine and meeting a pretty slave girl in a dark corridor and thus leading to the birth of Helios. Paris tells Milentius he did no wrong, and says the story sounds absurd due to the age of Priam at the time of conception. Helios returns home and shares the salvaged food with Polydextus. Polydextus then tells Helios how important his heritage is, and he has done great wrong by denying it when pushed by a bully. He then whips Helios to both punish him and teach him to deal with pain. Chapter 2: One day Helios climbed a secret stair to the roof of the palace. He decided to offer a sacrifice to the sun, whom his birth mother worshipped. While lying naked on the roof he is surprised by Cassandra, who was the youngest daughter of Priam and several years older than Helios. She says she overheard Paris telling the story of what happened between Helios and Milentius to Priam, and she did not think that Priam cared to hear it too much. After examining Helios she asks him to look into her eyes where he sees a blinding glow. She then insists that the power of the sun will enter him in time. After leaving the roof Helios is attacked by Milentius and another boy. Helios successfully fends them off, swinging a dead branch that fell off the sacred bay tree. He yells that he is in fact a son of Priam. Prince Hector stops Helios from fighting them off, and then shows him to Priam. Priam asked Helios to return home while he considered the matter. Cassandra followed after Helios, giving him the dead branch he swung earlier telling him its an honor of Apollo to receive a sacred weapon. At home he sacrificed the branch with Polydextus as an offering of thanks to the Gods. Shortly after, Hector arrived to inform Helios and his foster parents that Priam is not displeased. He has not officially acknowledged Helios as his son, but would like him to work at the palace as stable boy. Chapter 3: After becoming stable boy, Polydextus and Troilus train Helios in chariot fighting and javeling. Polydextus, Troilus, and Sardon would also discuss battle strategies. Helios would ride a horse on an occasion which were not meant to be ridden due to their small stature, and would be whipped by Polydextus as punishment. Nine summers of training later Helios "gained three fingers in height", and his weight "balanced that of a sack of wheat". This was an improvement, but not by much. One morning Hector allowed Helios to accompany him to meet Paris, who was returning from his mission across the sea. Hector & Helios are introduced to Helen of Sparta, who accompanied Paris back to Troy along with her dowry meant for Menelaus. Paris insults Helios, causing him to leap at him in anger. Paris begins to whip Helios, but Polydextus draws a blade and prepares to fight. A woman screams for Hector, who stops the fight and explains to Paris that Priam has not acknowledged or denied Helios' bloodline. Paris accepts the explanation, but Helios says he knows they will never be friends. They all travel to Troy together. Chapter 4: Soon after the group returned form the beach, Priam called an immediate meeting of the council. Hector & Andromache's bedroom balcony overlooks the throne room. With Hector's permission and guidance, Helios crawled onto the balcony to watch the council meeting from above. Priam enters the throne room and he informs the room that he called the meeting to hear Paris' report from his trip across the Aegean. Paris first lectures the room on his travel, then displays found treasures from his exploits, and then introduces Helen. Antimachus approves of Paris' doings, and cries of approval were heard from the council. Later on Helios learned there was rumors of Antimachus being paid to back this argument. Prince Aeneas is granted permission to speak by Priam, who proposed that allowing Helen to stay may ignite war with Agamemnon, the High King of the Achaeans. Paris insists that it is impossible to have the Achaeans band together, and if that does happen Troy will protect him. Antenor then pushed his way into the open and says allowing Helen to stay would be a violation of customs, disrespectful, and would bring the anger of the Gods. With great respect Helen asks for permission to speak, and tells the story of Gaia, and how she is a woman and has the power to "put away a male". She says she "does things and does not know why", and then asks Priam for "help" understanding the decision she has made to accompany Paris. Priam then announces that it is his will that Helen be welcomed to Troy as the lawful mate of Paris. Suddenly Cassandra cries out from the women's balcony a prediction of Paris bringing death to Troy. Priam ordered her gagged and sent to her room immediately. Helios began to think of her as "his Cassandra" even though they only met once over a year ago. He crawled back into the bedroom and waited for Hector to return. Hector informed Helios that she was whipped by Priam for interrupting council, and after fled to the roof alone. After hearing this, Helios sneaks to the storeroom and fills a jar with salve. He takes off his tunic in order to tie the jar around his neck so that he would be free to climb up a palace wall with both hands. At the top he was greeted by Cassandra, who questions his nudity. She undresses so that Helios could put the salve on her back, bruised from the whipping. She cried and hugged Helios because of his thoughtfulness, but then suddenly recoils. Even though Helios is only 9, she says she wanted to be sure that he does not mate with her. Apollo does not want anyone else to have her. If a man does mate with her he will be punished and Cassandra will lose her gift of prophecy. She then tells Helios that she does not know what she will say whenever she makes a prediction. She mentions one prediction told to Laomedon long ago; "Stone on stone will ever fall, at the dread Earth-Shaker's call." She tells Helios she feels that a spell is coming on and she will perform an oracle for Helios. She smells the salve to become in a "dreamy" state, and she speaks in a trance to Helios. A couple of lines of the oracle caused many thoughts to race in Helios' mind: "First, you ancient in the Earth, Judge for Troy what he is worth." Unaware of what she had just said, she asked Helios if he would remember the words exactly, but not to tell her what it was. She suggests to Helios that it would be a good idea for him to leave the roof, and he climbs down carefully. Chapter 5: The next day Sisycles summons Helios to be taught writing by order of Priam. The next morning he is formally introduced to Cassandra, as it is supposed to be their first meeting. After the first lesson, Cassandra offers to teach Helios additional writing on her own time. She tells Helios that it was her that requested Helios be taught how to write. From that point on every second morning Helios had writing lessons from Sisycles, then Cassandra would give him additional writing lessons or other studies. Late that winter, Troy received news that the Achaen rulers are preparing to make war on Troy. Another serious announcement is made, a change to The Festival of the Scapegoat. This was a carnival marking the end of winter where a goat is sacrificed to eliminate all the sins of the city. This year, a man would be chosen. Names of men suspected of evil would be given to Priam. Sisycles would write the approved names on clay tablets. All the tablets would be left on until it rained, then 2 priests and Priam would choose the name that stands out most clearly. The person named would be sacrificed as the Scapegoat. The first day of sunshine came, and is Helios' 10th birthday. Helios and Cassandra celebrate by having snacks and wine, which in turn made them sleepy. They both undress and lay down on the roof naked to enjoy a sun bath. They are discovered on the roof by Queen Hecuba with a few guards. He is taken to Priam and questioned. We learn that Cassandra is only 15 years old. Hecuba demands that Helios be punished, but Priam is not sure if any wrong was done. They agree to enter Helios' name in the Festival of the Scapegoat. Helios' writing lessons stop, and Troy waits for rain. The day of the ceremony, Helios' name was the most legible and his tablet is chosen. Hector interrupts the ceremony and demands that his life be taken, but Priam denies him. Helios takes a close look at the tablet and points out that someone has switched the tablet, as this one was fired in a kiln, not dried out in the sun. Sisycles confirms that he did not create this tablet, and it must have been switched. Priam cannot decide the next course of action. Cassandra orders Helios to say the oracle of his fate. Helios says "First, you ancient in the Earth, Judge for Troy what he is worth." Priam says that the ancient in the Earth is a calling from Gaia, and Helios unwillingly appeals to her. Priam declares that they must seek an answer from her in order to find out Helios' fate. Chapter 6: Formal arrangements were made to receive an oracle from the Gaia priestess. After nearly 2 weeks pass, the priestess approves. A party is formed to set out for the oracle. They stopped overnight at Lyrnessus and are welcomed by its ruler and his son Aeneas. They continue to the When they arrive Laocoön introduced the party to a handmaiden of the priestess, who inspected the gifts of Priam. The handmaiden only allowed Priam, Hector, Helios, Cassandra, and Helen to see the priestess. The priestess gave readings and chanted "Those who wish to chase a boy, will not succeed in saving Troy." The party was dismissed, and returned to Troy. Another Scapegoat was chosen. Chapter 7: Soon after the return from the shrine Helios and Cassandra were allowed to resume their writing lessons with Sisycles as well as their private talks. One day in early summer the Achaean fleet arrives on the shores of Troy. Battle erupts by sea and on land. Helios follows Troilus and Polydextus, only to witness them killed by Achilles. Helios attempts to defeat Achilles by throwing rocks at him, but he is stopped by Odysseus. Diomedes steps forward leading a captive, Milentius. Milentius is then killed by Diomedes. The three Achaeans discuss what to do with Helios, and Achilles dons him a kitchen pot as a helmet and a ladle as a sword. He then orders his son Neoptolemus to fight Helios to the death. Chapter 8: Neoptolemus wounds Helios in the fight with a slash to his ribs. Helios uses the ladle to scoop up embers from a nearby fire and throw them into Neoptolemus' helmet. Helios grabbed a bucket of water and threw in the boy's face. Achilles hates himself for "blinding his son", but Odysseus calls for Machaon to look at Neoptolemus' eyes. He says that the cold water may have saved Neoptolemus from blindness. Machaon leads Helios and the Achaeans to Achilles' tent set up on the beach. There he chants over Neoptolemus, and says it will be days before they know if Neoptolemus' sight would return. In that time, someone must drip medicine over Neoptolemus' eyes. Helios volunteers to stay and apply the medicine. Achilles reluctantly accepts, and leaves the tent under guard and arranges for another tent to be raised. Machaon stitches Helios' wound and leaves. When they are alone, Neoptolemus compliments Helios' fighting and then goes to sleep. |
6880860 | /m/0gv00y | The Answer | K. A. Applegate | 2001-04 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction"} | After the destruction of the Yeerk pool, Jake, Tobias, and Marco witness the Yeerks destroying the last remnants of their hometown and watch as the Pool ship lands amidst the destruction. After briefly considering destroying the Pool ship, the Animorphs decide that capturing the vessel would be a better strategy. Hoping to gain military assistance for the attack, Jake visits Major General Sam Doubleday. Although Doubleday is initially distrustful of Jake, he eventually listens and agrees to Jake's plan after a Controller-major on the general's staff tries to kill Jake. After a Yeerk attack on the general's base, Doubleday evacuates his troops and confines them and himself for three days to eliminate any remaining Controllers amongst his soldiers. Unfortunately, the confinement of Doubleday and his troops means a three-day delay before the Animorphs can launch their attack on the Pool ship. Sensing that the Yeerks could get the new Yeerk pool that is under construction operational within that time period, the Animorphs decide to take out the Taxxons digging the pool. In the ensuing battle, Jake finds himself underground and in the company of several Taxxons, led by none other than Arbron, a former companion of Eflangor's who became a Taxxon-nothlit several years earlier. Arbron makes Jake an offer: in exchange for allowing his followers to become nothlits and make a home for themselves on Earth, the 1709 non-Controller Taxxons on the surface and on board the Pool ship will defect and join the Animorphs in their fight against the Yeerks. Jake returns to the Hork-Bajir valley and tells the others of Arbron's offer. The brief period of excitement that reigns through the camp is spoiled, however, when Ax tells the others that the Andalites have decided that the war for Earth is lost and are planning on destroying humanity in order to stop the Yeerk menace once and for all. Ax insists that the only way to stop this is to capture the Pool ship and use its communications technology to contact the Andalite people directly, whom he does not expect to support his government's sterilization plan. The Animorphs return to Arbron and his Taxxon followers and secure their support. Jake promises the Taxxons a safe haven on Earth and the opportunity to morph anacondas. Immediately afterwords, Tom arrives and offers to assist the Animorphs in capturing the Pool ship, in exchange for the Blade ship, a hundred of his own morph-capable followers, and safe passage out of the Solar System. Sensing a trap, Jake accepts Tom's offer while simultaneously setting his own plan into motion. Jake dispatches Marco to locate Erek King and bring him to the Hork-Bajir valley, while Cassie and Ax are sent to capture Chapman. Jake manipulates Erek's pacifist programming by threatening to kill Chapman if Erek does not actively participate in the assault on the Pool ship. Erek grudgingly agrees to help. With the attack set to begin, Jake meets up with Tom and the original Animorphs, including a severely beaten Cassie, and proceeds to board the Pool ship. Once on board, Tom, as expected, betrays Jake by having a Taxxon eat Cassie and the other Animorphs, whom he believes to be hiding on Cassie in morph. Unknown to Tom, "Cassie" is actually a holographic projection by Erek, and the Taxxon is Tobias in morph, escorted by free Hork-Bajir led by Toby Hamee. After devouring the hologram, Tobias and Erek, with the other Animorphs in tow, are led off the bridge by Toby so they can begin trying to gain control of the Pool ship's computer systems. Visser One gives Tom command of the Blade ship so he can wipe out the Taxxon resistance. Unbeknownst to the Yeerks and the Animorphs (save for Jake), Rachel is hiding as a flea on Tom's head, with orders to kill him and prevent the Blade ship from escaping with the morphing cube, an assignment that Rachel is not expected to survive. The auxiliary Animorphs and General Doubleday's forces begin their attack on the Pool ship. Visser One lifts the ship off the ground and uses its massive weapons array to kill the auxiliary Animorphs and several of Doubleday's troops. Jake, who is still on the bridge, is forced to watch the massacre until Ax and Erek are able to gain control of the helm and force the Pool ship out of firing range. This act makes Visser One realize that the Animorphs have infiltrated the Pool ship's engineering section and orders his troops to kill everyone in the room. Jake meets up with the others, who escaped the engine room before Visser One's forces could carry out their orders, and tells them of Rachel's part in his plan. The Animorphs continue with their assault and make their way to the Pool ship's on-board Yeerk pool. Hoping to distract Visser One and Tom long enough to save Rachel's life, Jake orders Ax to flush the pool, killing 17,372 unhosted Yeerks. The Animorphs continue to the bridge, where they find a defeated and battle-weary Visser One. Jake asks the visser to fire on the Blade ship with the hope that the shots will disable it, but the Dracon beams miss and Erek drains the remaining power from the weapons. Tom hails the Pool ship to gloat about his victory, and sees Jake in tiger-morph. Enraged at the realization that the Animorphs survived his trap, Tom orders the Blade ship's weapons to be targeted at the Pool ship's bridge. Jake orders Rachel to attack... *The Animorphs make an alliance with a group of Taxxons led by Arbron. *Jake proposes to Cassie, but she opts to wait until a year after the war ends. *The auxiliary Animorphs are killed. *Rachel is sent to the Blade ship, while the rest of the original Animorphs begin their assault on the Pool ship. Marco initially tells Jake that Doubleday, a three-star general, which in the United States Army is a Lieutenant General. However, Doubleday himself later says that he is a Major General, which is a two-star rank. |
6881654 | /m/0gv1l1 | The Sunlight Dialogues | John Gardner | 1972 | {"/m/0hwxm": "Historical novel"} | The novel is set in the 1960s in Batavia, New York. It follows Batavia police chief Fred Clumly in his pursuit of a magician known as the Sunlight Man, a champion of existential freedom and pre-biblical Babylonian philosophy. As Clumly believes in absolute law, order, justice and a Judeo-Christian world view, the two butt their ideological heads in a number of dialogues, all recorded on audiocassette by Clumly. Each of these two characters attempts to exert power over the other—Clumly with the law behind him and the Sunlight Man with his magic and violence—until they wear down not only each other, but many of the other characters with whom they come into contact. A myriad of side-stories provides background for the plot. |
6883700 | /m/0gv58g | Teen Idol | Meg Cabot | 2004 | {"/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature"} | Jen Greenley is a high school junior, who lives in a simple town in Indiana . She is secretly the school newspaper's advice columnist Ask Annie, a job she got due to her ability to keep other people's secrets and help people with their problems - similar to Dear Abby. Teen heartthrob Luke Striker is making a movie about high school, but having grown up on television, he knows nothing about real teens and their lifestyles. Because of this Clayton High's principal assigns Luke as Jen's responsibility; she is expected to show him around the school, help him research his role and most importantly keep secret his true identity from her fellow students. During his time at Clayton High School, he is appalled at the vicious hierarchy of high school and starts to tell Jen that she should start taking a stand for the people who can't speak for themselves rather than just consoling them and letting it happen again and again. Jenny soon realizes that she has voice; using this, she starts making serious changes in the lives of others and herself as well, morphing from "nice little Jenny Greenley, everyone's best friend" to Jen, effector of social change. When Jen finally decides to stand up to Catrina, Catrina becomes furious with Jen and will not speak to her for days. However, despite all the rumors that go around, Jen's feelings for Luke are still platonic. Meanwhile, the school's annual Spring Fling is coming up and Jen has promised to go with Luke, his thank-you for showing him around. At the Spring Fling, Luke reveals that he is going out with Geri Lynn, a senior and friend of Jen's. He also encourages Jen to reveal her true feelings for Geri Lynn's ex, Scott, having found out her affections for him. Also, he has somehow come to know that Jen is secretly Annie, much to her surprise. So Jen, her best friend Catrina along with several other students, head over to a friend's anti-Spring Fling party where Scott is. Nervously Jen agrees to take a walk with Scott during which, after a heated discussion about a book, Scott reveals that the only reason he has not told Jen his true feelings sooner is because he thought that Jen loved Luke. Scott and Jen finally share a kiss and realize their true feelings for one another. |
6889991 | /m/0gvj8d | The Tiger Rising | Kate DiCamillo | 2001 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | Rob Horton is 14 years old and lives with his father in a Florida motel called the Kentucky Star. The father and son have recently moved to Lister, Florida, after the death of Rob’s mother. In the woods near the motel Rob discovers a live tiger in a cage. On the same day he discovers the tiger, Rob meets Sistine Bailey a new girl in school with an angry temper. Rob, having an unnamed skin condition, is asked by the principal to stay home from school until his rash clears up. Rob’s rash is a visible display of his emotional denial as he packs away his difficult feelings in an imaginary suitcase. Rob sees his exile from school as a reprieve, for he is bullied constantly by the other kids at his middle school. Sistine visits Rob daily saying she is bringing him homework. Rob is given the duty of feeding the tiger by the unscrupulous motel manager, Beauchamp With the assistance of Rob, Sistine plots and attempts to set the tiger free. The act of setting the tiger free allows Rob to let go of the painful emotions related to his mother’s death that he has suppressed. However, Rob's dad finds the tiger in the woods and kills it by shooting it. Rob, Sistine, Willie May and Rob's father had a funeral for the tiger, which reminded rob of his mothers funeral. Theme:Their's a lesson to everything Rob. |
6894490 | /m/0gvqsp | Calling on Dragons | null | null | {"/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature"} | This book is the third in the Enchanted Forest series, told from the witch Morwen's perspective. Morwen is having trouble with people who believe that magic should follow traditional forms, specifically one Arona Michealear Grinogion Vamist. Morwen's cats find a large rabbit named Killer as well as the burned-looking splotches that a wizard's staff leaves in the forest, despite the spell on the forest that should prevent it. They then find the wizard Antorell, who tries to escape but is subdued by the cats and then melted by Telemain. Morwen then finds that Killer has eaten one of the magical cabbages in her garden, and has turned into a donkey. Throughout the story, Killer acquires additional spells and changes form. Morwen and Telemain immediately go to the castle of King Mendanbar and Queen Cimorene, who is pregnant. At the castle, Mendanbar and Telemain discover that the sword at the heart of the forest's magic is missing, allowing the wizards free rein in the forest. Morwen, Kazul, Telemain, Cimorene, Killer and two of Morwen's cats must undertake the journey to the headquarters of the Society of Wizards, who stole the sword. Telemain teleports the group twice towards their destination. The next teleport fails and Telemain is unconscious. Killer carries Telemain as they make their way through a swamp. They find a tower occupied by a fire-witch, Brandel. Using Brandel's magic mirror, they try to contact Mendanbar, and find that they cannot because of a problem at his end. Kazul decides to go home and back up Mendanbar. The next morning, again with Brandel's mirror, they find that the sword is not at the headquarters of the Society of Wizards as they assumed, but at the house of Vamist. With the help of the cats, Morwen and Cimorene manage to recover the sword. Telemain teleports them back to the forest. The group realizes that they accidentally brought Vamist along. A battle has also occurred between the dragons and wizards. The wizards encased the castle in a magical bubble, and Mendanbar is missing, presumed inside the castle. As with the bubble shield spell in Searching for Dragons, the only way to break it is with the sword of the King of the Enchanted Forest, and the only one who can wield the sword is the King or his heir. Morwen and Telemain move the spells on Killer onto Vamist, returning the rabbit to his natural form. Cimorene hides the sword in the forest so the wizards cannot find it. She takes her baby and hides in an outer region of the forest. The dragons put up a second bubble around the castle, which only they can take down, so that the wizards can't enter the castle either. The characters wait for the day Cimorene's child is old enough to wield the sword and rescue Mendanbar. |
6894578 | /m/0gvq_x | Talking to Dragons | null | null | {"/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature"} | Cimorene raises Daystar and tells him legends about the Enchanted Forest, swordsmanship, spells, and magical protocols. One day, Antorell, a member of the Society of Wizards who has a grudge against Cimorene, tries to assault them. Cimorene melts Antorell with a spell, which raises many questions in Daystar's mind, as he didn't know that his mother could do any magic. However, Cimorene refuses to answer Daystar's questions, and goes into the Enchanted Forest to retrieve a sword, which she gives to Daystar. She then sends him into the forest telling him not to come back until he can "tell her why he had to leave." When Daystar enters the forest, he meets a talking golden lizard named Suz, who tells Daystar that the sword Cimorene gave him is the Sword of the Sleeping King. Daystar, confused about what all this can mean, is instructed by Suz to "follow the sword." Trying to find a place to spend the night, he enters the middle of a ring of hedges and finds a young fire witch named Shiara, who can do fire magic but only sporadically, as it does not always work for her. She explains that the wizards heard about her lack of control and kidnapped her. However, she burned the Head Wizard's staff, ran away to the Enchanted Forest, and got caught in the middle of the hedges. Daystar tells Shiara about his quest, and she decides to accompany him. Afterwards, when Daystar shows Shiara his sword and they both touch it together, they feel a surprising jolt. The next morning, the bushes let Daystar out but refuse to allow Shiara to leave until she asks nicely, which takes a lot of time as she is not in the habit of politeness. Afterwards, Daystar warns Shiara that she will need to be more polite to people and things in the future. Soon, Shiara apologizes for her rudeness. As they venture through the forest, a wizard who is after Shiara attacks them by making a river turn into a water monster, and although Shiara attempts to burn it, nothing happens. But suddenly, the wizard and monster disappear, leaving only the wizard's broken staff behind. A nearby elf tells Daystar to help himself to the staff, but Shiara soon realizes that the staff pieces turn the moss brown and dead, and when Daystar picks up the middle piece, it explodes, burning his arm in the process. Shiara tries to help him until a cat leads them both to the house of Morwen, a witch who lives inside of the Enchanted Forest. Morwen quickly heals Daystar, gives both Daystar and Shiara a bundle of food, and gives Shiara a kitten which she names Nightwitch. Morwen tells them to travel up the river to find the castle. As they travel up the river, they meet a princess who asks for Daystar's sword. The princess tells them that a wizard told her to take the sword to save a knight she loves. The wizard, who is Antorell, shows up and tries to attack Daystar. But he is interrupted when a dragon who is looking for a princess comes. Shiara offers the princess they just met to the Dragon. The princess fainted when she saw the dragon, but before the dragon can take her away, the princess's love shows up, and the knight, who does not want to fight the dragon, decide to have a tourney for fun, but in the middle of it a small tree pops up and surprises the dragon. In his surprise, the dragon accidentally hits the knight with his tail, which makes the princess hysterical. Daystar tells the princess to see Morwen for help. The dragon decides to travel with Shiara and Daystar and insists on leading them on a "shortcut" to the castle. As they pass through a clearing, an invisible wall stops them. Somehow, Shiara learns how to make things invisible from this, which causes her to panic. As the three pass the castle, an evil sorceress turns Shiara into stone. Daystar fights the sorceress, and she dies, but Shiara is still a stone. Suz shows up and suggests that Daystar kiss her, and although this works, it annoys Shiara. The castle in the meanwhile has somehow disappeared, and when they come to the next clearing, they find a strange tower-house that belongs to a magician named Telemain. After some misunderstandings, Telemain allows them to stay the night and advises them to travel through the Caves of Chance. When the group travels through the Caves, Daystar finds a small key, which a strange, jelly-like creature called a quozzel insists is its responsibility and confronts Daystar. At the end of the caves, the quozzel causes a cave-in that doesn't kill anyone, although Shiara's arm is broken. Daystar causes the quozzel to leave by hitting it with his sword. The adventurers arrive near the center of the forest, meeting the King of Dragons, Kazul, who explains that Daystar must find and save Mendanbar, the King of the Enchanted Forest, who has been trapped in his castle for about 16 years by the wizards; he has not been able to be rescued because of a shield the wizards made around the castle, and the dragons put up a shield around it as well to keep the wizards from doing more harm. When the dragons take down their shield protecting the castle, Daystar uses the sword to break the wizard's shield. The wizards show up and freeze Daystar with a spell, but Shiara hides and is spared, and when the wizards attempt to kill the king, they find out that the figure on the bed is a decoy, and several leave to find the king. The freezing spell soon wears off, and Daystar fights the wizards. Shiara sets Antorell on fire and Daystar sticks the sword into a brazier in the room, shouting a spell his mother taught him, which allows him to see the magical network of the forest and to use it to disable the wizards' ability to use the forest's magic, leaving the wizards with only stored spells and swords and enabling Daystar to throw the key into the fire. The king comes out, and when Daystar hands him his sword, he realizes that the king is his father, which makes Daystar the heir to the Enchanted Forest. Daystar and the others leave and find Morwen tending to a wounded Telemain. They later explained to Daystar what had happened during the first three books. The books end with Telemain and Morwen announcing their engagement. |
6896846 | /m/0gvx9n | The Councillor of State | Boris Akunin | 2000 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Moscow, 1891. Disguised as Fandorin, the leader of a revolutionary organization attempts to murder the governor of Moscow. Fandorin has to catch him to prove his innocence. He is assisted (or is it hindered?) in his investigations by Prince Pozharsky, a fictional descendant of Dmitry Pozharsky, who helped bring the Time of Troubles to an end. |
6898803 | /m/0gw24p | Vampirates: Tide of Terror | Justin Somper | 7/1/2007 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/03npn": "Horror", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | The incredible adventures of twins Grace and Connor Tempest continue in the second Vampirates novel, Tide of Terror Connor may only be fourteen but he’s taken to the life of a pirate like a duck to water. But his loyalties are divided between his shipmates and his sister. Meanwhile Grace isn’t finding pirate life so appealing. She cannot shake the feeling that all is not well on the Vampirate ship she has left behind. Dare she try to return to it? New experiences await them both, including a journey to the fabled Pirate Academy.The book is a really good manufacturing according to the discriptives. |
6899604 | /m/0gw41s | The Quest of the Missing Map | Carolyn Keene | 1942 | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/028v3": "Detective fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Nancy investigates a small ship cottage at the Chatham estate and discovers a connection between the mysterious occurrences at the cottage and an island where a lost treasure is said to be buried. With one half of a map, Nancy sets out to find a missing twin brother who holds the other half. The mystery becomes dangerous when an assailant hears about the treasure and is determined to push Nancy off the trail. |
6899654 | /m/0gw44x | The Clue in the Jewel Box | Carolyn Keene | 1943 | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/028v3": "Detective fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | An antique dealer's revelation about a former queen's priceless heirloom leads Nancy on a series of exciting, yet dangerous adventures. Madame Alexandra, who lives in River Heights in exile, asks Nancy to search for her long-lost grandson. Using an old, faded photo of the prince at age four, Nancy begins her search. Also, a secret in the old jewel box helps Nancy unveil a slick imposter and reunite the separated family. |
6899782 | /m/0gw4fk | The Clue in the Crumbling Wall | Carolyn Keene | 1945 | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/028v3": "Detective fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Nancy and her friends work to discover an inheritance concealed in the walls of an old mansion, before it is discovered by unscrupulous men. |
6899816 | /m/0gw4h8 | The Mystery of the Tolling Bell | Carolyn Keene | 1946 | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/028v3": "Detective fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | Nancy, Bess, and George travel to a picturesque seaside town in search of Carson Drew's missing client. When Carson fails to join the girls, leading to a mystery involving his disappearance and a nearby cliffside cave inhabited by a ghost and his tolling bell. fr:Alice et le Fantôme |
6899842 | /m/0gw4kb | The Clue in the Old Album | Carolyn Keene | 1947 | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/028v3": "Detective fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | Nancy witnesses a purse snatching and runs after the thief. She rescues the purse, but not its contents, then is asked by the owner, a doll collector, to do some detective work. "The source of light will heal all ills, but a curse will follow him who takes it from the gypsies." This is one of the clues Nancy is given to find an old album, a lost doll, and a missing gypsy violinist. The young sleuth never gives up her search, though she is poisoned by a French-swordsman doll, run off the road in her car by an enemy, and sent many warnings to give up the case. |
6899863 | /m/0gw4md | The Ghost of Blackwood Hall | Carolyn Keene | 1948 | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/028v3": "Detective fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | Nancy Drew's neighbor Mrs. Putney asks Nancy and her friends to help recover her stolen jewels. The search for the thieves takes Nancy, Bess, and George to New Orleans. Mrs. Putney's odd behavior and two young women involve Nancy in a case about a cruel hoax of haunting "spirits" at the abandoned Blackwood Hall. |
6899929 | /m/0gw4s6 | The Clue of the Black Keys | Carolyn Keene | 1951 | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/028v3": "Detective fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | Prof. Terry Scott went to River Heights to ask the help of Carson Drew to help him to find Dr. Joshua Pitt. Mr. Drew thought that the case was more of a mystery, so he referred him to Nancy Drew, his daughter who loves detective work. Terry Scott and Dr. Joshua Pitt, together with their teammates, Dr. Anderson and Dr. Graham, found the clue to the treasure during their expedition in Mexico, a cipher carved in a stone tablet and three black keys. Before the professors had time to translate the cipher, the tablet disappeared together with Dr. Pitt, leaving only the bottom half of one of the keys. Terry suspected the Tinos because they vanished when the cipher stone and Dr. Pitt disappeared. Someone tried to steal the half-key. Sergeant Malloy helped them identify the thief, Juarez Tino, but not until after he fled for Florida. Terry gave the half-key to Nancy and that night a burglar broke into the Drews' house. A thief stole Terry's things and documents from the hotel room. Nancy asked her father's advice, and he suggests finding the other expedition members. Nancy and George meet with Dr. Graham, and he says the four expedition members trust one another. Ned Nickerson asks Nancy to drive his fraternity brother in Emerson College, Prof. Terence Scott, to his lecture. Bess and George trail Mr. Porterly, and overhear his telephone conversation planning harm to Nancy. Dr. Anderson tells Nancy that Mr. Juarez Tino telephoned to say that he'd reveal where the cipher and Doctor Pitt are for a price. After Terry Scott's lecture, Mrs. Lillian Wagnell asked him to decipher her sea captain grandfather's old diary. Nancy doubts Mrs. Wagnell's intent, and Mrs. Prescott mentions that Mrs. Wagnell doesn't have a sea captain grandfather. Mrs. Wagnell doesn’t want Terry to borrow the diary so Nancy suggests he take the important pages. Carson Drew received a letter from Caswell P. Breed in Baltimore, a relative of Dr. Pitt. The Drews went to Baltimore but Mr. Breed sent no letter. They guess that someone has lured them out of River Heights for some nefarious purpose.When Nancy came home she can’t contact Terry so she went to the Wagnells' house, only to find Terry imprisoned at their house. Terry discovered that the Wagnells and Porters were related to the stuepeds. After those things happened, Terry went to Mexico and Nancy decided to join the educational trip of Dr. Anderson in the Florida Keys. A day before Nancy went to Florida, Juarez searched their house for the half-key, but couldn't find it. When Nancy got to Florida she asked Dr. Anderson to work on a special assignment with Fran Oakes: to look for the Black Keys amongst the Florida Keys. Fran Oakes introduces Nancy to Jack Walker, her cousin. They went to Two Line Parker who knows about the Florida Keys history. The fisherman told her about the Black Falcon. During their rest, Nancy found the burned letters in Porterlys’ place. There was an unburned part of letter that talked about her, and she concluded that the Porterlys had an evil plan for her. Nancy and Dr. Anderson saw Juarez Tino in a speedboat while they were searching the Florida Keys looking for where the Black Falcon sunk. They tried to follow him but he lost them. Nancy decides to return there the next day. Dr. Anderson won’t allow her to go alone, but Terry joins her. Nancy, Terry, Fran and Jack go to find the Black Falcon. They studied the Florida Keys and were found a hidden island where they found a hidden hut, where Dr Pitt was imprisoned. Jack and Fran called the police. Nancy and Terry stayed with Dr. Pitt until Mr. and Mrs. Juarez Tino, together with the Wagnells and Porterlys, arrived. They were able to get the half-key from Nancy. They asked Dr. Pitt to reveal the remaining clue and tell him that if he doesn't tell, something might happen to Nancy. He said that they can find the treasure in Mexico, in a little-known jungle region. They bring Dr. Pitt to Mexico and leave Nancy to their wives. The police arrived in time to free Nancy and Terry. They told Dr. Anderson that they must go to Mexico to follow the villain and rescue Dr. Pitt. They went to Mexico and captured the thieves. Dr. Pitt thought that they wouldn't be able to see the treasure, but Nancy helped them find it. The treasure belongs to Mexico and not to any of them. |
6899952 | /m/0gw4v8 | The Mystery at the Ski Jump | Carolyn Keene | 1952 | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/028v3": "Detective fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | Nancy, Bess, and George follow the trail of fur thieves to New York and into Canada. While trying to catch the thieves, Nancy must catch a woman who is using Nancy's identity. |
6899999 | /m/0gw4yr | The Ringmaster's Secret | Carolyn Keene | 1953 | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/028v3": "Detective fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | Nancy is given a golden bracelet and discovers one of its horse charms is missing. When she learns the unusual story about the bracelet, she sets out to solve a fascinating mystery. Clues lead Nancy to a circus where she meets an unhappy young aerialist who has a horse charm just like the one Nancy is missing. Nancy joins the circus to uncover the significance of the horse charm and ends up reuniting a mother and daughter. |
6900028 | /m/0gw504 | The Witch Tree Symbol | Carolyn Keene | 1955 | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/028v3": "Detective fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | When a neighbor asks Nancy Drew to accompany her to an old uninhabited mansion, a new mystery opens up, and danger lurks on the second floor. Nancy finds a witch tree symbol that leads her to Pennsylvania Dutch country in pursuit of a cunning and ruthless thief. The friendly welcome the young detective and her friends Bess and George receive from the Amish people soon changes to hostility when it is rumored that Nancy is a witch! Superstition helps her adversary in his attempt to get her off his trail, but Nancy does not give up. She persistently uncovers one clue after another. Nancy's intelligence and sleuthing ability finally lead to the fascinating solution of this puzzling case. |
6900122 | /m/0gw559 | The Clue of the Whistling Bagpipes | Carolyn Keene | 1964 | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/028v3": "Detective fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | Nancy is warned not to go to Scotland, but she ignores the warning. She and her friends, Bess and George visit Nancy's great-grandmother at an estate in the Scottish Highlands. The Drew family's heirloom, a set of bagpipes is missing, and Nancy is determined to find it. While there, Nancy becomes involved in the mystery of missing flocks of sheep and a mysterious bagpiper has been spotted. Clues leading to a discovery in an old caste and a prehistoric fortress lead to the mystery's solution. |
6900192 | /m/0gw5cl | The Invisible Intruder | Carolyn Keene | 1969 | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/028v3": "Detective fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | Nancy Drew and her friends join a ghost hunting expedition and become involved with a gang of thieves who concentrate their activities on collectors of valuable shells. |
6900207 | /m/0gw5dm | The Mysterious Mannequin | Carolyn Keene | 1970 | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/028v3": "Detective fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | The strange disappearance of Carson Drew's Turkish client and a strange gift of an oriental encoded with a message woven in the decorative boarder start Nancy on a difficult search for a missing mannequin. Nancy, Bess, George, Ned, Burt, and Dave travel to Turkey to search for more clues, but then, Bess disappears during the search. |
6900216 | /m/0gw5dz | The Crooked Banister | Carolyn Keene | 1971 | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/028v3": "Detective fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | Nancy, Bess, and George spend an exciting weekend at a mysterious zigzag house with a crooked banister and an unpredictable robot. Nancy becomes involved in the mystery of the strange house and must locate the missing owner who is wanted by police. |
6900811 | /m/0gw6nj | Blood Done Sign My Name | Timothy Tyson | 5/18/2004 | {"/m/0xdf": "Autobiography", "/m/017fp": "Biography"} | The book deals with the 1970 murder of Henry Marrow, a black man. This case helped galvanize the African-American civil rights movement in Oxford, North Carolina, where the book takes place, and across the eastern North Carolina black belt. It helped establish local civil rights activist Ben Chavis' leadership in the black civil rights movement, which eventually led to his becoming the executive director of the NAACP and later an organizer of the Million Man March. This episode radicalized the African American freedom struggle in North Carolina, leading up to the turbulence of the Wilmington Ten cases, which grew out of racial conflict in the port city and the trial of Ben Chavis and nine others on charges stemming from the burning of a grocery store. Tyson, whose father was the minister of the First United Methodist Church-Oxford, a prominent local church, explores not only the white supremacy of the South's racial caste system but his own and his family's white supremacy. He interweaves a narrative of the story and its effects on him with discussion of the racial history of the United States, focusing on the persistence of discrimination despite federal law and on the violent realities of that history on both sides of the color line. Tyson challenges the popular memory of the movement as a nonviolent call on America's conscience led by Martin Luther King. The vision of the movement in these pages is local as well as national and international, violent as well as nonviolent, and far more complicated and human than the myth of "pure good versus bare-fanged evil in the streets of Birmingham," as he puts it. Oxford writer Thad Stem, Jr. is a key figure in the book. |
6903679 | /m/0gwbzn | Strange People, Queer Notions | Jack Vance | null | null | A young Oregonian art student is hired by another American to housesit a villa in a small Italian village. The employer then leads various members of the expatriate community in the village to believe the young man is a blackmailer. |
6905119 | /m/0gwf68 | Yesterday's Son | Ann Carol Crispin | 1983-08 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | While studying the archaeological records of the now-destroyed planet Sarpeidon, a scholar aboard the USS Enterprise finds pictures of an ice-age cave painting that depicts a Vulcan face. Spock realizes that his involvement with Zarabeth in the episode "All Our Yesterdays" resulted in the birth of a child. Along with Captain Kirk and Dr. McCoy, he uses the Guardian of Forever (featured in the episode "The City on the Edge of Forever") to journey back into Sarpeidon's past and rescue his son. Due to a miscalculation, they find a young man of twenty-eight instead of a child, who tells them that his name is Zar and that his mother Zarabeth died in an accident many years before. Spock introduces himself but refuses to allow Zar to call him "Father." Zar returns to the Enterprise and passes as a distant relative of Spock, who oversees his education and attempts to train him in Vulcan telepathic techniques. They discover that Zar is an unusually strong telepath for a Vulcan; he can establish contact without touching the other person. Zar becomes conflicted and hurt by his father's apparent refusal to acknowledge him. The Enterprise is called back to the planet Gateway to protect the Guardian of Forever from a Romulan intelligence raid. It is imperative to the security of the United Federation of Planets that the Romulans not discover the Guardian's powers; if they cannot be driven away, Gateway must be destroyed. The Romulans place a force field around the Guardian and hide themselves behind a ground-based cloaking device. Zar volunteers to help Spock counteract the force field because he can sense whether Romulans are present even if he cannot see them. Their first try is unsuccessful, but when they rendezvous with Kirk the three men discover they are trapped on the planet while the Enterprise with Scotty in command battles the Romulans. They decide to try again, but Spock disables Zar with the Vulcan nerve pinch, wishing to spare him from danger. Kirk and Spock are captured and tortured by the Romulans. When Zar wakes up, he is able to telepathically sense their danger. He also realizes that his father cares about him, since he chose to protect Zar instead of Kirk, his closest friend. The Enterprise defeats the Romulan ships and a rescue party beams down. Zar creates a diversion by causing an explosion, allowing the others to rescue Kirk and Spock. Once the Romulan threat is over, Zar decides to use the Guardian to return to Sarpeidon's past, but to a more settled location than the one he originally inhabited. He has discovered evidence that he is crucial to the planet's unusually rapid cultural evolution. |
6906486 | /m/0gwgsp | Time for Yesterday | Ann Carol Crispin | 1988-04 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | The Guardian of Forever has malfunctioned and is emitting waves of accelerated time that are causing premature star deaths throughout the galaxy. After Spock recalls that his son Zar was once able to communicate telepathically with the Guardian, the Enterprise is placed under the temporary command of Admiral Kirk and detailed to transport a powerful telepath to the Guardian. The telepath manages to partially restore the Guardian's timetravel functions but collapses in a comatose state. Using the Guardian, Kirk, Spock, and Dr. McCoy travel into the past of the planet Sarpeidon to find Zar, hoping that his powerful telepathy combined with Vulcan shield training will allow him to successfully restore the Guardian to its normal state. They find Zar in charge of a small, technologically advanced settlement that is about to engage in a battle with an alliance of less advanced but more numerous enemy clans. His death in the coming battle has been foretold by the priestess Wynn, the daughter of one of the enemy clan chiefs, who declares that the alliance will be denied victory only if "he who is halt walks healed" and "he who is death-struck in battle rises whole." "He who is halt" clearly refers to Zar, who walks with a painful limp because of a leg injury he suffered many years before. In order to increase his city's odds of survival, Zar has Wynn kidnapped and betrothed, forcing her father to change sides. The Enterprise men manage to convince him to come back with them and deal with the Guardian, although he insists that he will return afterward to fight in the battle despite the prophecy. Zar successfully melds with the Guardian and returns its consciousness to its physical structure, along with a burst of energy that turns out to be several beings of pure energy. The Guardian explains that it abandoned its duties to search for its Creators, who long ago evolved into beings of pure energy and entered another dimension. Its fundamental programming required it to answer their summons and bring them home, and the resource drain connected to the search resulted in its apparent malfunction. The Creators are immensely old and senile, and wish to find their home system to die there; but they have forgotten where it is. The Creators assume the form of people drawn from the memories of the Enterprise men in order to converse with them. While some of the beings act in a benevolent manner, a few seem capricious and cruel, and even completely deranged. Eventually, Kirk and the others manage to convince them that their search would endanger intelligent life throughout the galaxy, and they re-enter another dimension via the Guardian. The Guardian, with the assistance of Zar and Spock, is able to force the remaining, less rational Creators to comply. McCoy convinces Zar to undergo treatment and physical therapy aboard the Enterprise, healing his limp and giving him a greater chance of survival in the coming battle. Zar achieves peak physical condition and is able to walk normally again, fulfilling the first half of Wynn's prophecy. When he returns to Sarpeidon's past, Spock follows him, intending to help save him in the battle. Spock is unable to prevent the death-blow from landing, although he deflects it slightly, and Zar is unconscious but still alive. In order to fulfill the second half of the prophecy, Spock puts on Zar's armor and shows himself to the army, leading them to believe their leader has risen whole from being "death-struck". Zar's army wins the battle. After ensuring that Zar will survive the blow and leaving him to Wynn's care, Spock returns to the present. |
6912454 | /m/0gwpyb | A Spot of Bother | Mark Haddon | 8/31/2006 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The novel follows George Hall, a 57-year-old hypochondriac, and his family following George's retirement from a career manufacturing playground equipment. George has hypochondria, an excessive phobia for one's physical health. Certain that a skin lesion on his hip is a fatal cancer, George ignores the doctor's diagnosis of eczema and attempts to remove the area with a pair of scissors. The resulting blood loss nearly kills him, and the bloodied handprints he smears around the house in its aftermath horrify his wife Jean. George and Jean's children confront problems of their own. Daughter Katie, a single mother, announces her plans to marry Ray, a dependable but lower-class man of whom George, Jean, and their son Jamie disapprove. As the story progresses Ray worries that Katie wants to be with him only for his house and so he can act as a father to her five-year-old son Jacob. It is only when Katie visits George in the hospital that she realizes she and Ray are meant to be together: she proposes to Ray herself, and the couple rearrange the wedding. Meanwhile Jamie has an uneasy relationship with his boyfriend Tony. When Jamie fails to pass on to Tony an invitation to Katie's wedding, Tony leaves him. Jamie's problems prey increasingly on George's mind. George begins to suffer from extreme panic attacks, which worsen after he discovers that Jean is having an affair with David, his former colleague. To distract himself from this terrible new insight George occupies himself with other pursuits, as his slow decline into dementia continues. The story ends with George telling Jean that he is not as offended as she thinks he is about her secret love affair. The two end the novel returning to a comfortable atmosphere and an ordinary, settled household. |
6914546 | /m/0gwv30 | The Last Theorem | Frederik Pohl | 8/5/2008 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | The Last Theorem is set in Sri Lanka in the early- to mid-21st century and follows the life of a mathematician, Ranjit Subramanian. While studying at Colombo University, he becomes obsessed with Fermat's Last Theorem, a conjecture made by Pierre de Fermat in 1637, for which he claimed to have conceived a proof that he never wrote down. The proof eluded mathematicians across the world for over 350 years, until in 1995 British mathematician Andrew Wiles published a 100-page proof of the theorem. But not everyone was "satisfied" with Wiles's proof because it used twentieth century mathematical techniques not available in Fermat's time. In the novel's back-story, extraterrestrial sapients, the Grand Galactics, are alarmed when they detect the photon shock waves from nuclear bomb detonations on Earth. The Grand Galactics monitor and control the destinies of a number of high-performance sapient races and order one of these races, the Nine Limbeds, to send "cease and desist" messages to Earth. When these messages have no effect, they order the One Point Fives to launch an armada to Earth to exterminate the undesirable species. Back on Earth, regional conflicts escalate and the United Nations struggles to contain them. In Sri Lanka, Ranjit unwittingly boards a cruise ship that is hijacked by pirates. When unknown security forces free the ship, Ranjit is arrested on suspicion of terrorism. For six months he is interrogated and tortured, but he cannot supply the information his captors want so he is locked up and "forgotten" for a further 18 months. During this period of incarceration, Ranjit dwells on Fermat's Last Theorem and, after several months, solves it with a three-page proof. Later Ranjit is rescued by a friend from University, Gamini Bandara, who will not reveal whom he is working for or where Ranjit was held captive. Ranjit submits his proof for publication and achieves worldwide fame. He marries Myra de Soyza, an artificial intelligence specialist, and embarks on a speaking tour of the world. In the United States, he is briefly recruited by the CIA to work on cryptography. Gamini later reveals that he is working for Pax per Fidem (Peace through Transparency), an undercover United Nations organization established to bring about world peace. To achieve this end, Pax per Fidem has developed "Silent Thunder", a non-lethal EMP nuclear superweapon that renders all electrical equipment in its path inoperable. Silent Thunder is deployed in North Korea and later in South America, and regional conflicts subside. Gamini invites Ranjit to join Pax per Fidem, but the authoritarian nature of Pax per Fidem and its "new world order" worry Ranjit and Myra, and Ranjit turns down the offer. He does, however, accept a position on the advisory board of an international consortium building a space elevator in Sri Lanka, chosen because of its position on the equator. As the One Point Five fleet enters the Solar System, the Nine Limbeds orbit and observe Earth in cigar-shaped craft, sparking numerous UFO sightings. A Grand Galactic member, who happens to be passing by, stops to observe the effects of Silent Thunder and returns to the Grand Galactic collective, who immediately suspend the One Point Fives's destruct orders pending further investigation. The space elevator is completed and, for the first time, people and materials can be lifted into Earth orbit without the need of rockets. Natasha, Ranjit and Myra's daughter, competes in the first solar powered space yacht race from Earth- to Moon-orbit. But soon after the start of the race, Natasha's yacht malfunctions and she is abducted by the Nine Limbeds, who use a projection of her to interrogate prominent people on Earth, including Ranjit and Gamini, about Silent Thunder. Satisfied that Earth has "reformed", Natasha is returned and the Nine Limbeds broadcast a message to Earth in which they announce that the Grand Galactics have decided not to sterilize Earth, and that the One Point Fives, with their Machine Stored navigators, cannot return home and will land and occupy unused areas of Earth. The One Point Fives land in the desolate Qattara Depression in the Libyan Desert, which they find quite habitable compared to their ruined homeworld. The Americans send B52 bombers to attack the One Point Fives' base, but the aliens electronically disable the aircraft, causing them to crash short of their target. When the US President demands reparations, the One Point Fives provide gold distilled from seawater by way of compensation. With the Grand Galactics absent, the aliens make decisions for themselves: the One Point Fives provide Earth with new forms of power and the Machine Stored reveal mind uploading technology. When Myra dies in a scuba diving accident, her mind is uploaded into cyberspace, with Ranjit joining her later. After 13,000 years the Grand Galactics finally return to Earth and are astounded to see how fast the planet has developed. They had always interfered with the evolution of sentient species they had discovered, believing they could not be trusted to evolve on their own. Impressed with Earth's progress, the Grand Galactic relieve themselves of the burden of watching over intelligent life and hand the task over to Earth. |
6914957 | /m/0gwvqd | Mystery of the Glowing Eye | Carolyn Keene | 1974 | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/028v3": "Detective fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | When Nancy eagerly accepts to help her father solve the mystery of a mysterious glowing eye, she has no way of knowing that it will lead to the kidnapping of her boyfriend Ned. A puzzling note in Ned's handwriting sets Nancy, Bess, and George on a dangerous search for a bizarre criminal. Nancy must not only thwart the criminal but also has to contend to the high-handed methods of a female lawyer who threatens to take the case away from Nancy. |
6914967 | /m/0gwvr2 | The Secret of the Forgotten City | Carolyn Keene | 1975 | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/028v3": "Detective fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | Nancy and her friends plan to join a dig sponsored by two colleges to hunt for a treasure hidden in a city now buried under the Nevada desert. Before she starts, the young sleuth receives an ancient stone tablet with petroglyphs on it. A thief also wants the treasure. |
6914978 | /m/0gwvrs | The Sky Phantom | Carolyn Keene | 1976 | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/028v3": "Detective fiction", "/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | Nancy goes to the Excello Flying School in the Midwest to take lessons while her friends Bess and George perfect their horse riding. At once, the young sleuth is confronted with the mystery of a hijacked plane and a missing pilot. Then the rancher's prize pony, Major is stolen. Nancy becomes a detective in a plane and on horseback to track down the elusive sky phantom and the horse thief. A lucky find-a medal with a message to be deciphered on it-furnishes a worthwhile clue. Romance is added when Bess becomes interested in a handsome cowboy. Readers will spur Nancy on as she investigates a strange magnetic cloud, hunts for the horse thief, and finally arrives at a surprising solution. |
6917388 | /m/0gwz4d | The Incorporated Knight | Catherine Crook de Camp | null | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | Squire Eudoric Damberson of Zurgau in the kingdom of Locania wishes to wed Lusina, the daughter of his former tutor, the magician Doctor Baldonius. The price is attaining the status of knight and supplying the magician with a portion of dragon hide for use in his magic. Dragons are locally scarce, so Eudoric and his trusty servant Jillo set out for Pathenia in the east to slay one. But once the two do manage to bring one down (by accident) they face legal complications for violating the local game laws. Returning, Eudoric finds his promised bride has run off with a minstrel, and his feudal lord Baron Emmerhard disinclined to knight him for his heroic exploit; he consoles himself by pursuing a scheme to establish a stagecoach line like those in Pathenia. (This material first appeared as the short story "Two Yards of Dragon.") A subsequent rescue of Emmerhard from a magic spell finally secures him the knighthood, but he remains unlucky in love, as the baron's daughter also shuns his hand. (This material first appeared as the short story "The Coronet.") Next Eudoric pursues the daughter of Rainmar, a local robber baron who has been raiding his coach line. Rainmar tasks him with slaying the giant spider Fraka, and once again matters go awry. While Eudoric's knightly reputation and stage line prosper, his marriage prospects remain nil. (This material first appeared as the short story "Spider Love.") The pattern is repeated when he is commissioned to capture a unicorn for his ultimate overlord Emperor Thorar IX of the New Napolitanian Empire. (This material first appeared as the short story "Eudoric's Unicorn.") But wedded bliss does finally find Eudoric — or does it? Seeking to extend his stage line into Letitia, capital of the kingdom of Franconia that borders the empire to the west, his reputation for getting things done leads to him being deputed to rescue the king's sister, held captive in the rude neighboring realm of Armoria. There he is forced to save her from a sea monster and then wed her, after which he flees back to Franconia with his new bride, whom he finds a less than congenial mate — she is both a control freak and an enchantress. Fighting with each other and dangers along the way, they encounter the restless ghost of a king cursed to endure eternal boredom in his tomb, an orthodox ogre who kills and eats those of the wrong faith, and the soldiers of the hostile duchy of Dorelia. Nor are Eudoric's difficulties left behind on their return to Letitia. Mewed up as a prisoner in all but name in his princess bride's mansion by her supernatural servants, he soon discovers she is a female Bluebeard who regularly collects husbands and petrifies them as she tires of them. By calling on the aid of a Serican sorcerer whose life he had saved during his earlier stay in Letitia Eudoric is ultimately successful in freeing his three co-husbands and escaping this lethal spouse. Safe back in Locania, where his nuptials are not recognized, he receives a message from her pleading for him to return, as he is the only one of her husbands whose loss she regrets. Eudoric prudently ignores her letter, choosing instead to resume his courtship of his first intended Lusina — she is also back, having grown disillusioned with her unreliable lover. Meanwhile he and Dr. Baldonius hatch plans to incorporate his coach line as a limited liability company after the fashion of the hongs of Serica. |
6925525 | /m/0gxb4n | The Pixilated Peeress | Catherine Crook de Camp | null | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | Soldier and aspiring scholar Thorolf Zigramson of Rhaetia is out fishing when he encounters the proverbial damsel in distress in the form of Yvette, fugitive Countess of Grintz from the neighboring kingdom of Carinthia. She is fleeing the forces of the avaricious Duke of Landai, occupier of her fief and aspirant to her hand. But Thorolf gains a burden rather than gratitude by rescuing the self-important peeress from her pursuers. To hide the countess from her enemy Thorolf takes her to the Rhaetian capital of Zurshnitt, where his enchanter friend Doctor Bardi undertakes to magically disguise her features. The spell goes badly awry, mistakenly turning Yvette into an octopus instead. In order to reverse the spell Thorolf must resort to the more powerful wizard Doctor Orlandus, a shady cult-leader. But matters go from bad to worse; while Orlandus cures Yvette all right, he also makes one of his spirit-controlled slaves to advance his scheme of taking over the government of Rhaetia. On top of that, his henchmen murder Doctor Bardi, leaving Thorolf under suspicion of perpetrating the crime. The soldier flees and seeks sanctuary with the trolls, some of whom he has befriended in the past, only to find them more inclined to eat than succor him; he has managed to put himself among the wrong trolls, arch-foes of the band he knows. To gain their favor and protection he promises to rid his captors of a local dragon. Accordingly, he directs them in a successful effort to capture the beast and sell it to the director of Zurshnitt's zoo. But to bind him to them, his new allies insist he marry one of their number. Fortunately the troll lass finds the hapless warrior as unattractive as he does her, and they settle by mutual agreement into a union in name only. Parlaying his membership in the troll band into a bid to reverse his fortune, Thorolf uses their secret tunnels to spy on Orlandus and ultimately to kill the wizard and rescue Yvette. The two are pursued by the late cultist's followers and trapped between them and the forces of Yvette's lordly suitor, which contend over who will get them. The situation resolved only after the duke kills the new cult leader in single combat and is then in turn bested and taken hostage by Thorolf. Meanwhile, the latter's troll wife complication is resolved when the beauty in question elopes with her true love, a stalwart troll lad. Mutually attracted to each other, Thorolf and Yvette have during their adventures alternately quarreled and reconciled, coming close at times to a physical relationship only to be thwarted by circumstances. With the downfall of the countess's enemies, all chance of this is lost; able to act the aristocrat again, Yvette throws herself with a will into raising an army to reconquer Grintz. Thorolf, as a commoner, has no place in this picture. Bowing to the inevitable, Thorolf leaves and enlists as a mercenary in the wars between the contending city-states of Tyrrhennia. Finding a more amenable bride there, he eventually returns to Zurshnitt to find Yvette much reduced in circumstances. Her bid to regain her county has miscarried, and she has had to settle for becoming the wife of a commoner after all – Thorolf's old friend the zoo director. But Yvette chafes in the role. Now seeing her former rescuer in a different light, she proposes they abandon their spouses and run off together. Thorolf, satisfied with his new bride and finally close to achieving his longed-for academic position, declines. |
6926203 | /m/0gxc6x | Tilly Witch | null | null | null | Tilly Ipswitch is a witch and the Queen of Halloween. One day, she tries playing at being happy, reasoning that children use Halloween to play at being evil witches. Unfortunately for her, she is unable to stop being happy once she begins. Tilly Witch then goes out on a quest to cure herself of her happiness. |
6926216 | /m/0gxc7y | A Pocket for Corduroy | null | null | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | A young girl, Lisa, accidentally leaves her stuffed bear, Corduroy, in a laundromat. After a series of adventures, while Corduroy searches for material to make a pocket, he becomes trapped in a laundry basket until he is found the next morning by the laundromat's owner. Corduroy is reunited with Lisa, who promptly takes him home to sew a pocket onto his overalls, so that Corduroy can carry a name card with him. |
6929460 | /m/0gxjy9 | Nightrise | Anthony Horowitz | null | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/08sdrw": "Adventure novel"} | This story begins with two men, Colton Bane and Kyle Hovey, who work for an evil corporation called Nightrise, waiting outside a theatre in Reno, Nevada. They are waiting to kidnap identical twin brothers Jamie and Scott Tyler, who are part of a magic show in the theatre. Their foster parent, Don White, sells the twins off to them, but Jamie and Scott escape and are pursued. Scott is captured but Jamie is rescued by a woman. He awakens at the woman's house, who introduces herself as Alicia and tells that her son, Daniel, was kidnapped by the same corporation after exhibiting clairvoyant powers. She takes Jamie to his foster parents' house only to realize their murders, and escape only when Jamie uses his telepathic powers. Alicia and Jamie go to Los Angeles where he reveals his backstory. He then tells her of his previous foster parents and the weird and inexplicable "accidents" associated with them. He tells her about the strange tattoo he has and that he thinks he is an Indian. After these incidents, he and Scott refused to read or control anyone's minds but each other's. They find a lead to one of the men that kidnapped Scott, Colton Banes, and Alicia persuades Jamie to read his mind to find out where Scott is. Jamie manages to find out where Scott is being held: Silent Creek, a juvenile Centre, where he is being tortured in order to be on Nightrise's side. Alicia decides to seek help from her boss, John Trelawny, who is running for presidency, and manages to convince him about Jamie's powers and to help him get into Silent Creek. Trelawny affirms Jamie's powers and agrees to help him. Jamie is given a false identity and crime and is put into the juvenile Centre to find his brother is there in solitary confinement and Alicia's son Daniel is there too. One night, when he demands that a supervisor named Max Koring take him to his brother, he realizes that his powers do not work in the prison, because of some magnetic field that neutralizes special powers. Koring puts him in solitary confinement for his rudeness and secretly calls Banes to tell him he has found a Gatekeeper. Jamie does not realize that the second gate was opened. In Peru, Richard and Professor Chambers find Pedro by the helicopter. Pedro tells them that Matt went by himself to stop the gate from opening. Thinking Matt is dead, Richard runs until he finds Matt. Matt "looks like all the life was sucked out of him" and is in a coma. After seeing he has a pulse, Richard runs back to bring get help for Matt. Feather had examined him earlier and knew about his mysterious tattoo. He explains to Jamie that the twins are two of the Five, but Scott has already left Silent Creek. They work out a convincing plan to save Daniel and escape, whilst at the same time Colton Banes is on their way to Silent Creek. A fight goes on between Feather's tribe and Banes' men, resulting in Jamie being shot in the shoulder and Banes killed by an arrow. Feather manages to break out with Daniel and Jamie, but Jamie falls unconscious when he is hit by a bullet, and a shaman is called on to bring him back. During this however, Jamie is transported back in time to the height of the war between humanity and the Old Ones ten thousand years ago in England. It becomes clear that the original Gatekeepers are exactly the same as the Gatekeepers in the present, just with different names (except for Matt, who says "I prefer to use my name from your world"). Matt is obviously the leader, and most knowledgeable of the Gatekeepers. He tells Jamie that he sent Sapling to his death on purpose, as the King of the Old Ones would then think he had won, however, should that occur, his counterpart from the future/past would take his place, hence why Jamie was there. Jamie then participates in the battle against the Old Ones, in which the Old Ones are defeated and banished, having mistakenly thought that only four of the Five could come together and letting their guard down. At the place where the Five congregate, a gate is built at the location the Old Ones were banished to, and would be called Raven's Gate by future generations. Jamie sees an eagle which Matt explains is there to take him back. Jamie's body wakes up in the present and with Feather and Daniel travels back to Reno to reunite Daniel with Alicia, parting ways with Feather afterwards. When he is asleep that night, he is spoken to again by a grey man in the dream world of the Gatekeepers, to kill him.' He finally realized what it means, originally mistaking that Scott was telling him that he was the one going to be killed, but he realizes that Scott is the person going to kill John Trelawny. Throughout the book, Nightrise has always wanted the other candidate, Charles Baker, to become president, who will support the return of the Old Ones. However, when Trelawny became too popular, assassination seemed the only option. It becomes apparent that this will take place during his birthday parade in his home town of Auburn. Alicia, Danny and Jamie hurry to Auburn to stop the assassination. Jamie sees Scott with Susan Mortlake, a leader of Nightrise, in the crowd, and he tries to send a telepathic message to him, but it fails. Desperate, Jamie commands Warren Cornfeld, Trelawny's bodyguard and would-be assassin (being controlled by Scott), to aim the gun at Susan Mortlake. Cornfield shoots and kills Mortlake, and in chaos Jamie takes Scott and meets up with Alicia and Danny. They meet Natalie Johnson, a member of the Nexus and a friend of Trelawny, who gives them her car to escape. Policemen immediately come after them and the twins bid farewell to Alicia and Danny. Jamie and Scott use a hidden doorway in a cave at Lake Tahoe, and emerge in Cuzco, Peru at the Santo Domingo church. The twins find their way to the Nazca desert and meet with Matt and Pedro, the first and second Gatekeepers. Meanwhile, Scarlett Adams takes an airplane to Hong Kong to meet her father, who works for Nightrise. As Scarlett is about to go she finds out that John Trelawny has lost the election and that it is suspected that Nightrise has rigged the ballots. |
6931010 | /m/0gxmxn | Romanov prophecy | null | null | {"/m/0mz2": "Alternate history"} | After weak governments and the communist era, the Russian people voted to bring back the new tsar, who will be chosen among the closest relative of Nicholas II of Russia from the surviving Romanov clans. Miles Lord, the protagonist, is tasked to do a background check on the favourite contender to be tsar, Stefan Baklanov. After almost being killed in the center of Moscow, Lord starts to discover new facts and documents that could threaten Baklanov's aspirations. Based on the diary of Felix Yusupov and a prophecy of the famous Rasputin, Lord finds out that there could be a direct descendent of Alexis and Anastasia, children of Nicholas II, living somewhere in the world. In this novel, Lord travels to Moscow, St. Petersburg, Starodub, Vladivostok, Atlanta and San Francisco trying to find the inheritor of the Romanov family. If he has success, Russia will find the real tsar, if not, Stefan Baklanov will obtain power, and nobody knows what he will do with the country. |
6931199 | /m/0gxn8x | Deep Six | Clive Cussler | 1984-05 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/08sdrw": "Adventure novel", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense"} | Deep Six opens in 1966 aboard the refitted liberty ship San Marino on its way from San Francisco to Auckland, New Zealand. The ship is carrying more than eight million dollars worth of titanium ingots as well as a mysterious passenger who goes by the name of Estelle Wallace. Wallace is actually Arta Casilighio, a former bank teller at the Beverly-Wilshire bank who embezzled more than $120,000 and is making her getaway. Unfortunately, for her and the rest of the crew, a group of Korean seamen who came aboard as last-minute crew replacements have hijacked the ship and its cargo, and conveniently dispose of Wallace and the crew by paralyzing them with poison in their food and dropping them over the side into the depths of the ocean. The story then flashes forward twenty-three years to the waters off of Augustine Island, Alaska where an extremely deadly poison is moving through the waters, killing everything it comes in contact with. The poison comes to the notice of the Coast Guard cutter Catawaba when it intercepts a derelict crab boat called the Amie Marie. The men sent aboard to investigate discover that the entire crew has died horribly, bleeding from every orifice and their skin had turned black. The boarding party soon begins to exhibit symptoms themselves. The doctor sent aboard orders the captain of the Catawaba to quarantine the crab boat and calls off his symptoms as the poison overtakes him, hoping that this information will help others in their diagnosis. It is later revealed that the symptoms of the mysterious poison are strikingly similar to those of a deadly biological weapon, called Nerve Agent S, developed by the Rocky Mountain Arsenal outside of Colorado as the ideal weapon for use on troops wearing gas masks and protective clothing. The agent clings to everything and is absorbed through the skin, resulting in almost immediate death. The weapon was eventually discontinued by the Army because it was as deadly to the troops deploying it as it was to the enemy. While en route to be buried in the Nevada desert, an entire boxcar carrying more than 1,000 gallons of Nerve Agent S disappeared. Dirk Pitt and his friend, Assistant Projects Director Al Giordino are called away from their current project to assist the Environmental Protection Agency's Dr. Julie Mendoza in an effort to find the source of the poison in what is assumed to be a sunken ship. Pitt discovers that the liberty ship Pilottown is embedded into the shore of the island with only her stern exposed to the elements. They board her and discover the containers of the nerve agent but while they are attempting to recover the barrels, the volcano on the island erupts, causing the barrels to shift and inadvertently kill Dr. Mendoza when her biohazard suit is punctured, exposing her to the poison. Pitt vows to get to the bottom of who was responsible for the poison being on the ship and to take his revenge for the death of Dr. Mendoza. In his attempts to trace the history of the Pilottown, Pitt discovers information on the wreck that leads him to the Alhambra Iron and Boiler Company in Charleston, South Carolina, and from there turns to NUMA computer expert Hiram Yaeger and St. Julien Perlmutter, a family friend and naval historian. They discover that the Pilottown has been part of a complicated web of insurance scams and piracy which saw her name changed several times, from San Marino to Belle Chase, and finally to Pilottown, as her ownership changed through a number of bogus holding companies. Eventually, they tie the ship to Bougainville Maritime Lines, a powerful company owned by the ruthless and mysterious Madame Min Koryo Bougainville. Bougainville and her grandson, Lee Tong, have entered into an audacious plan with the Soviet Union to engineer the kidnapping of the President of the United States, the Vice President, the Speaker of the House and the President pro tempore of the Senate, the next three men in the line of succession to the presidency, as part of a project code-named Huckleberry Finn. It is revealed that the Soviet economy is in ruins, a famine is spreading amongst the Eastern Bloc nations and the whole Eastern Bloc may be on the verge of collapse. The Soviets have devised a plan that calls for the President to undergo a top-secret Soviet mind control procedure, termed "mind intervention", which uses a combination of an implanted microchip and injected memories from a brainwashed Soviet dissident to allow the Soviet government to control the President's thoughts without his knowledge. The other three men are kept in reserve as the procedure only has about a 60% success rate. In return for carrying out the abduction, the Bougainvilles are to receive one billion dollars in gold, which the Soviets intend to cheat them out of while unaware that the Bougainvilles intend to double-cross them as well. When the disappearance of the President (and those next in the line of succession) on the Presidential yacht is discovered, Secretary of State Douglas Oates, now the acting president, orders a cover-up of the disappearance while a massive search is under way to find the kidnapped men. Congresswoman Loren Smith, the on again-off again lover of Dirk Pitt, who is on a fact-finding mission aboard the Soviet cruise liner Leonid Andreyev off the coast of the United States inadvertently witnesses Speaker of the House Alan Moran smuggled onto the ship by a KGB agent. When the Soviets discover that Smith knows that Moran is on board, they kidnap her as well. Pitt discovers that Loren is missing and he and Giordino sneak about the Leonid Andreyev to find her. But after the Bougainvilles detonate a bomb that sinks the ship (part of their double-cross) she is kidnapped by Lee Tong, disguised as a steward, aboard a rescue boat. Meanwhile, the President, now under control of the Soviets, returns to the White House and announces that while he was gone, he was negotiating a secret disarmament agreement with the Soviet President and has agreed to loan them billions of dollars in hard currency which they may use to purchase food and previously banned American high-technology products. When he further announces his intention to pull the United States out of NATO and bring home all troops and missiles in Europe without the consent of Congress, Congress announces their intention to impeach him from office. The president sends the Army to keep members of Congress from meeting and it appears that the United States now has what the founding fathers feared worst, a dictator in the White House. Using information from Yaeger and Perlmutter, Pitt determines that the secret lab the Bougainvilles are hiding the remaining captives in is on a barge along the Mississippi River near New Orleans. He and Giordino embark on unauthorized rescue mission with the aid of the local office of the FBI. The agents are ambushed by Bougainville's security guards and it's up to Pitt and Giordino to rescue Loren and the Vice President. In a last-ditch effort to intercept the barge before it can be sunk at sea, Pitt commandeers the riverboat Stonewall Jackson and enlists the help of 40 members of the Sixth Louisiana Regiment of Confederate re-enactors. Armed with smooth bore muskets, as well as two Napoleon cannons that fire improvised charges, they launch an attack against the Bougainville's crew of stone-cold killers armed with automatic weapons, while Pitt attempts to board the barge and rescue Smith and Margolin before it is too late. |
6932081 | /m/0gxpx3 | Treasure | Clive Cussler | 1988 | {"/m/017rf8": "Techno-thriller", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/08sdrw": "Adventure novel"} | The book starts with a historical prologue in which Julius Venator, a Roman, along with a group of Roman soldiers and slaves, sail in a fleet of ships ferrying the treasures from the Library of Alexandria before its destruction to a secret location to be buried in underground caverns. After the treasures are buried the people, the Roman soldiers, and slaves are all slaughtered by the natives. While one small ship manages to get away, they never reach land and the secret of the treasure is lost. The story then shifts to an envoy of the US President having a secret meeting with a would be Aztec dictator Topiltzin. He kills the envoy, and sends his skin and heart back to the President. The plot then shifts to a Middle Eastern terrorist secretly hijacking a plane carrying Hala Kamil, the new United Nations Secretary-General, the hijacker bails out of the plane after ensuring that the plane crash lands in Greenland, where Dirk Pitt, Al Giordino, and Rudi Gunn are trying to locate a sunken Soviet submarine. Also in the area is Lily Sharp, who discovers an ancient coin. They rescue Hala from the plane wreck. As the plot unfolds, several more attempts are made on Hala’s life, since she is trying to stop would-be dictator Akhmad Yazid from taking over Egypt. Dirk is distracted by the promise of treasure, however. Locating a shipwreck in Greenland, they soon find a tablet detailing a mission to hide the treasure of the library at Alexandria. As Dirk, Al, and the Special Operations Forces rescue Hala Kamil from a hijacked ship in the Straits of Magellan, Hiram Yaeger locates the treasure—in Texas. The final stretch of the novel involves Dirk trying to hide the treasure from Yazid and his brother, Topiltzin, a would-be Aztec dictator. Eventually, the treasure is discovered and Yazid, Topiltzin and their henchmen are killed. |
6932508 | /m/0gxqgr | Pacific Vortex! | Clive Cussler | 1983 | {"/m/017rf8": "Techno-thriller", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/08sdrw": "Adventure novel"} | After discovering a communication capsule from the lost submarine Starbuck, Dirk Pitt is seconded from NUMA to the Hundred and First salvage fleet and ordered to help get to the bottom of the mysterious disappearance of the top-secret submarine. Pitt discovers that the submarine went missing in an area of the Pacific Ocean north of the Hawaiian island of Oahu nicknamed the Pacific Vortex. Similar in its mysterious reputation to the Bermuda Triangle, the Navy has documented 38 cases of ships vanishing without a trace with all hands in this area of the Pacific since 1956. When the Starbuck originally went missing, the Navy conducted a massive and exhaustive search in the area of the Pacific where the submarine was last reported without finding a trace of wreckage. Pitt determines that it is suspicious that the Navy found no wreckage whatsoever, since the search pattern took them over the area that was reputedly the graveyard of the Pacific Vortex. Even if they did not find the wreckage of the submarine, they should have found some wreckage from any of the 38 ships rumored to have gone down in the area. While doing research in an ongoing hobby effort to find the royal tomb of Hawaiian King Kamehameha, Pitt learns of the mythical island of Kanoli rumored to have existed north of the current Hawaiian Islands, and similar to the lost continent of Atlantis, rumored to have sunk into the sea killing the race of men who lived there. Pitt intuits that the Navy has been searching in the wrong direction and that they should turn around and concentrate their search for a sunken seamount in the area just north of the island of Oahu. Pitt eventually discovers that in 1956 three respected men of science, Dr.'s Lavella and Roblemann, specialists in various areas of underwater science, followed the renowned Dr. Frederick Moran to their deaths in the same area of the Pacific. It is revealed that Moran, a renowned anthropologist and pacifist, who believes that it is only a matter of time before the human race destroys itself with the atomic bomb, has been searching for a place where he and his followers can survive the coming Apocalypse. Pitt believes that Moran and his followers discovered the sunken seamount that was once the island of Kanoli and have been using it as a base to raid Pacific shipping for the last 30 years as a means of financing their project. When Pitt finds the sunken submarine in good condition, he determines that it cannot be immediately raised and also reveals the existence of the sunken fortress of Kanoli. The Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington, DC elect to destroy the submarine with a nuclear tipped missile in an effort to ensure that its top secret design and nuclear missiles do not fall into the hands of Moran, the Soviet Union or any other nation. In an effort to stave off the attack, Moran kidnaps Adrienne Hunter, a long-ago love interest of Pitt and the daughter of the commander of the Hundred and First salvage fleet, Admiral Leigh Hunter. When Pitt discovers that Admiral Hunter will not tell Washington about the kidnapping of his daughter in order to delay the attack, he mounts a last-minute desperate rescue operation intended to rescue Adrienne and if possible snatch the submarine away as well. |
6936781 | /m/0gxxv7 | The Lost Prince | Frances Hodgson Burnett | 1915 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | This book is about Marco Loristan, his father, and his friend, a street urchin named The Rat. Marco's father, Stefan, is a Samavian patriot working to overthrow the cruel dictatorship in the kingdom of Samavia. Marco and his father come to London where Marco strikes up a friendship with a crippled street urchin known as The Rat. The friendship occurs when Marco overhears The Rat shouting in military form. Marco discovers he had stumbled upon a strangely militia-like club known as the Squad. Stefan, realizing that two boys are less likely to be noticed, entrusts them with a secret mission to travel across Europe giving the secret sign: 'The Lamp is lighted.' Marco is to go as the Bearer of the sign while Rat goes as his Aide-de-Camp. This brings about a revolution which succeeds in overthrowing the old regime and re-establishing the rightful king. When Marco and The Rat return to London, Stefan has already left for Samavia. They wait there with his father's faithful bodyguard, Lazarus, until Stefan calls. The book ends in a climactic scene as Marco realizes his father is the descendant of Ivor Fedorovitch and thus the rightful king of Samavia. |
6940376 | /m/0gy179 | Sebastian | Anne Bishop | 2/7/2006 | {"/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | The incubus Sebastian is the bastard child of a succubus and the wizard Koltak. Being an incubus has not made his life easy. Forced to flee every city or town he settled in, he has never known a home. Until one day, his cousin, 15-year-old Glorianna Belladonna, creates a landscape where demons can live, called the 'Den of Iniquity'. It is a 'carnal carnival' filled with gambling, drinking, prostitution and demons. Shocked by her actions and her ability to create a landscape, the wizards and Landscapers question her. She simply responds, "Even demons need a home." The wizards attempt to lock her into her own garden, but fail. She is then declared rogue. Meanwhile, Sebastian, living in the Den of Iniquity and ignorant of the sacrifices his cousin has made for him, begins to tire of the life he lives, finding simply having sex with women no longer interesting. When he first stumbled into the Den when he was a 15 year old boy, he and his first and foremost friend Teaser, another incubus, prowled around the Den, using their abilities to entertain themselves. This life no longer holds any appeal. He yearns for love - and it appears in the form of Lynnea. She is a catalyst whose "heart wish" (a strong wish deeply embedded within her) delivered her to the Den. Her arrival brings about 'opportunity and change'. |
6942354 | /m/0gy3_h | Our Game | John le Carré | null | null | The disappearance of Dr. Larry Pettifer from his teaching position at Bath University shouldn't have concerned a great many people, especially a retired Treasury boffin like Tim Cranmer. But when Detective Inspector Bryant and Sergeant Luck of the Bath Police call upon Cranmer at his Somerset manor house and vineyard late on a Sunday evening, Cranmer finds himself facing repercussions from his secret and not-too-distant past. Pettifer, the reader eventually learns, was a British Secret Intelligence Service operative during the Cold War and Cranmer was his handler for some twenty years. The Cold War is over, the Berlin Wall has come down and SIS has put Cranmer and his agent Pettifer out to pasture. Pettifer turns to teaching at Bath University and Cranmer is content to settle at Honeybrook, his inherited estate in Somerset, growing wine and making love to his beautiful young mistress Emma. Not content with staying cloistered in Bath, Larry begins paying visits to Honeybrook and soon becomes a permanent fixture in their lives. At least, that is, until both Larry and Emma disappear. Panicked by his encounter with the Bath Police, Cranmer contacts his former employers and is summoned to London where he learns that, not only has Larry disappeared, he's absconded with some ₤37 million milked from the Russian Government with the help of a former Soviet spy. Cranmer finds himself suspected as Larry's accomplice by the Bath Police—and, later, by "The Office," or SIS—and decides to track down his protégé and his former mistress. But why would a quixotic intellectual like Larry, a man who had no interest in money, suddenly wish to steal ₤37 million from the Russians? To solve this mystery, Cranmer begins calling on old contacts from Oxford to the arms trade to find out what his former agent and his purloined mistress have been up to in their disappearance. He also visits his secret archive of Office files, stashed away in the abandoned church of St. James the Less, bequeathed to him by the same Uncle Bob who left him Honeybrook. As he peruses his cache of documents, he begins to uncover the plot between Larry and Konstantin Checheyev, the former Soviet handler of Larry (the latter one pretended to work for Soviets during the Cold War). Checheyev, it seems, is not Russian but Ingush, a native of the high Caucasus and begrudged of the Russians who have displaced him and his people from their rightful homes. The Ingush are primed for an uprising against their Russian oppressors and Larry's the man to arm them. Cranmer begins his journey, first to an arms dealer in Macclesfield, England, whom he finds murdered along with his assistants by an Ossetian group called "The Forest;" then to find Emma, who has sought shelter in Paris; then to Russia to track down his former Soviet contacts in hopes of finding Larry; then to Ingushetia to find his friend and try to save him - from the Russians, the Ossetians and from himself. |
6945313 | /m/0gy8bh | Hills End | Ivan Southall | null | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | The story follows seven children and their teacher who are trapped inside a cave while a fierce cyclonic storm destroys the fictional town of Hills End. They face a struggle to survive as well as having to deal with their loss. A mystery also surrounds ancient aboriginal art found in the cave. |
6950337 | /m/0gyj2c | The Hallo-Wiener | Dav Pilkey | 9/1/1995 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature"} | The story begins with Oscar, a dachshund who is half-a-dog tall and one-and-a-half dogs long, and tired of the other dogs making fun of him because of his wiener-shaped body. He is happy because it is Halloween, and he cannot wait to get a costume. At obedience school, he daydreams of Halloween. When he comes home from school his mother has a surprise for him: a hot dog bun with mustard in the middle, and Oscar is supposed to fit in the middle! He thought he would get laughed at, but wears the costume anyway, because he does not want to hurt his mom's feelings. He sees the other dogs showing off their costumes and when they see Oscar's costume they howl in laughter. Oscar's costume is so heavy that it slows him down. Meanwhile, the dogs are getting their paws on all the candy and when Oscar comes to the houses there are no more treats left. The dogs go to a graveyard and they hear a noise, scream very loud and run, diving into a river because they see a scary monster. When Oscar comes to see the monster he notices something strange. He bites the cover of the monster, pulls it off with all his might, and discovers two cats hiding underneath! The cats scream and run away. Then Oscar jumps into the water and uses his costume as a life raft, and rescues the other dogs. The dogs thank Oscar by sharing their candy with him. They become friends forever and Oscar is never made fun of again, for he is then known as "Hero Sandwich". |
6950558 | /m/0gyjb1 | Comfort Food | Noah Ashenhurst | 11/25/2005 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Stan Gillman-Reinhart is a graduate student at a small university in Bellingham, Washington in 1993. Through his experiences and frustrations we meet Delany Richardson, a budding writer and old friend of Stan's; John Snyder, a local musician; Brian Fetzler, Stan's stoner roommate; Dave Greibing, a mountaineer and Delany's ex-boyfriend; and Bridgette Jonsen, a former heroin addict and Dave's current girlfriend. Successive sections of the novel focus on John's earlier trip through Eastern Europe, Delany's previous summer in Alaska, Brian's life after college, Bridgette's earlier road trip through Utah, Dave's ascent of Denali, and a tragic accident that illuminates their lives. Set in the verdant Pacific Northwest, the sandstone deserts of Utah, the gritty streets of Budapest, and the snow covered wasteland of Denali, Comfort Food is a literary work with an emphasis on the importance of human relationships and a sense of place. |
6951095 | /m/0gyk41 | Dolphin Island | Arthur C. Clarke | 1963 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | Late one night (in the world of the future), a giant cargo hovership makes an emergency landing somewhere in the middle of the United States and an enterprising teenager named Johnny Clinton stows away on it. In the space of only a few hours the craft crashes into the Pacific Ocean. The crew ("even the ship's cat") is offloaded onto lifeboats, leaving Johnny (who, as a stowaway, they didn't know was on board) adrift in the flotsam from the hovercraft. His life is saved by the "People of the Sea"-- dolphins. A school of these fantastic creatures guides him to an island on Australia's Great Barrier Reef. Johnny becomes involved with the work of a strange and fascinating research community where a brilliant professor (Prof Kazan) tries to communicate with dolphins. Johnny learns skindiving and survives a typhoon--only to risk his life again, immediately afterwards, to get medical help for the people on the island. |
6960230 | /m/0gywj6 | The Death of Achilles | Boris Akunin | null | {"/m/02n4kr": "Mystery", "/m/05hgj": "Novel", "/m/03g3w": "History"} | Moscow, 1882. When Fandorin returns from Japan with his manservant Masa, he enters the service of Moscow governor Prince Dolgorukoi. Later that day, the White General Mikhail Sobolev, nicknamed the Russian Achilles and an old friend of Fandorin's, is found dead in the same hotel. Officially, he died of a heart attack, but Fandorin becomes suspicious when he talks with the body guards of the general. Fandorin had befriended these cossacks when he rooted out a Turkish spy during the siege of Plevna (see The Turkish Gambit). But the same cossacks now treat him with hostility. Fandorin finds out the reason for their hostility as he discovers that the general had not really died in the hotel, but was moved there from the apartment of his mistress. Found dead in a compromising situation, the cossacks tried to prevent a scandal and protect the reputation of the general. But Fandorin looks even deeper and finds out that a large sum of money is missing. He learns that Sobolev is trying to raise funds to begin a political campaign, and Fandorin begins to suspect foul play. He finds that the general has been poisoned in a very clever manner, and the killer anticipated the cover up, which would ensure his safe getaway. Fandorin further discovers that the plot leads up to the highest levels of the Tsar's government, and that he himself is now viewed as an enemy of the state for his efforts to catch the killer. The killer is Achimas Welde, a hired assassin, who has only failed three times in his career. One of those times was his assignment to kill Fandorin, when he just managed to kill Fandorin's wife, as Fandorin himself was chasing him (see The Winter Queen). The second half of the novel is told from Achimas' point of view and recounts his life story, up to the plot to kill Sobolev and the investigation. By chance, Achimas discovers that the man who hired him to kill Sobolev was Grand Duke Kirill Alexandrovich, the younger brother of Tsar Alexander III. In the concluding chapters of the novel, Fandorin kills Achimas, and prepares to flee Moscow (believing himself to be a target of the plotters), but Prince Dolgorukoi's assistant meets him at the train station and tells him that everything has been covered up and he can continue in the service of the state. |
6961605 | /m/0gyyb0 | Breakfast at Tiffany's | Truman Capote | null | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0l67h": "Novella"} | In autumn 1943, the unnamed narrator becomes friends with Holly Golightly, who calls him "Fred", after her older brother. The two are both tenants in a brownstone apartment in Manhattan's Upper East Side. Holly (age 18-19) is a country girl turned New York café society girl. As such, she has no job and lives by socializing with wealthy men, who take her to clubs and restaurants, and give her money and expensive presents; she hopes to marry one of them. According to Capote, Golightly is not a prostitute but an "American geisha." Holly likes to stun people with carefully selected tidbits from her personal life or her outspoken viewpoints on various topics. Over the next year, she slowly reveals herself to the narrator, who finds himself fascinated by her curious lifestyle. In the end, Holly fears that she will never know what is really hers until after she has thrown it away. Their relationship ends in autumn 1944. |
6961741 | /m/0gyyhx | Hadon of Ancient Opar | Philip José Farmer | 1974 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/08sdrw": "Adventure novel"} | The novel deals with the expedition of Hadon, a young Oparian warrior, to the Wild Lands and as far as the mysterious Ringing Sea, which would one day be called the Mediterranean, with the strange woman whom he meets and brings with him, and with the cataclysmic civil war which breaks out on his return and which he partly (and completely unintentionally) helps touch off. The ancient Khokarsan society of which Opar is a part is a matriarchy (a reasonable inference from the culture of the later-day Opar encountered by Tarzan). A delicate balance between the genders is maintained, symbolized by the co-rule of the high priestess and the king (whose main authority is command of the army), which corresponds to some theories of sociologists and historians on the way actual matriarchal societies may have worked. The same scheme is repeated on a smaller scale on the local level, where towns are co-governed by a local priestess and the commander of the local garrison. The current king, Minruth, tries to subvert this immemorial system and establish exclusive male power, which incidentally would force an incestuous relationship upon the current high priestess, Awineth, who happens to be his daughter. Lalila, the foreign "White Witch from the Sea," whom Hadon brings with him and with whom he falls in love, is used as a pawn in King Minruth's power game; the xenophobic suspicions aroused about her are used in an attempt to undermine the position of women in general. Hadon and his male and female friends rally to the high priestess' banner against the king's evil schemes. |
6961957 | /m/0gyyr9 | The Message | K. A. Applegate | 1996-10 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Cassie and Tobias are having strange dreams about a presence in the ocean. Jake sees a news item on television about debris with what looks like Andalite lettering on it that has washed up on the beach, and when he shows it to the others, Cassie and Tobias have such strong visions that they momentarily pass out. The Animorphs decide to investigate, and acquire dolphin morphs to do so. While out in the ocean, they find a humpback whale under attack by a group of sharks. The Animorphs fight the sharks and drive them off, and Marco is nearly killed in the process. Marco is able to morph back to his human form, and the whale, grateful, saves him from drowning. The whale speaks to Cassie through song, telling her about a strange place of grass and trees under the ocean. Cassie has a feeling that this place is of Andalite origin, and the Animorphs wonder if Cassie's and Tobias's visions are a sort of distress call from an Andalite trapped in the ocean. They decide that the distress call is connected to the morphing ability, and Cassie and Tobias feel it the strongest because Cassie is the most in control of her morphing ability and Tobias is trapped in a morph. They also figure out that Visser Three could be receiving the message and that the Yeerks are probably looking for the lost Andalite as well. The Andalite's location is too far from the shore for the Animorphs to reach under the two hour morphing limit, so they (except Tobias) morph into seagulls and stow away on a large container ship (called the Newmar, from Monrovia, headed towards Singapore) that is heading in the right direction. They abandon ship and morph to dolphin when they are in range and discover the Dome of an Andalite Dome ship deep beneath the ocean's surface. They enter through an airlock and meet Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill. Marco quickly gives him the nickname Ax, and the Animorphs tell him that he is the only survivor of the Andalite-Yeerk battle in Earth orbit and that they met and received the morphing power from Prince Elfangor. Ax reveals that Elfangor was, in fact, his older brother. The meeting is brief however, as the Yeerks discover the sunken Dome ship and begin to drop depth charges. Ax had previously acquired a tiger shark, and he and the Animorphs escape. They are pursued by Visser Three in Mardrut morph; as they tire, Visser Three gains on them. The Animorphs decide to make a last stand, but are saved when Visser Three is attacked and chased off by a pod of humpback whales. The whales give the tired Animorphs a ride back to the shore. Ax pledges to fight with the Animorphs and adopts Jake as his prince. He acquires Jake, Rachel, Cassie, and Marco and mixes the DNA from each to create his own human morph. The Animorphs decide to hide him in the woods near Cassie's farm. *Ax is introduced. |
6963354 | /m/0gz05_ | Hope Leslie | null | 1827 | null | The story begins in England with William Fletcher, a young man in love with a distant relative, Alice, whose father has forbidden her marriage to Fletcher on account of religious difference. Alice's father forces her to marry Charles Leslie instead. In despair, Fletcher decides to leave England and relocate to the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In the Bay colony, Fletcher marries an orphan girl named Martha although he is still in love with Alice. After living in Boston, Massachusetts for a while, William moves the family to the newly founded Springfield, Massachusetts and calls his home Bethel. While there, Fletcher receives a letter that says Alice died while voyaging to the new colonies in New England. The Fletcher's adopt her two children, Hope and Faith. Governor Winthrop procures two Indian servants to help Mrs. Fletcher with the increased domestic workload. The two servants are a sister and brother, Magawisca and Oneco, who are the children of the Pequot chief Mononotto. Monotto is out for revenge. After attempting at peace with the Englishmen, they killed his people, enslaved his family, and beheaded his son, Samoset. Mononotto and two Mohawk warriors attack Bethel. Mrs. Fletcher and her infant son are killed, and Magawisca and Oneco are reunited with their father. Everell and Faith are taken captive. When Mononotto attempts to execute Everell in retaliation to the wrongs he has suffered. Magawisca intervenes by throwing herself between the axe and Everell's neck. Her arm is severed and Everell escapes unharmed. The next scene opens with a letter Hope has written seven years later to Everell who is studying in England. She writes of an episode where Cradock gets bitten by a rattlesnake while climbing Mount Holioke (later renamed Mount Holyoke). Nelema stops by and does a treatment and he is cured. Jennet calls it witchcraft and Nelema is made to stand trial. Hope frees Nelema from jail and Nelema promises to send her sister Faith to her. Hope is sent to live with the Winthrops in Boston for a while. Everell returns to America and stays with Mr. Fletcher, who now lives in Boston. Esther Downing, a niece of Mrs. Winthrop’s, becomes good friends with Hope. She seems to be everything that Hope is not: faithful, prudent, and studious. She is also kind. She tells a story of how Everell came to her death bed and her ensuing recovery. Esther is infatuated with Everell, which saddens Hope greatly. Everyone hopes Esther and Everell will marry, except Mr. Fletcher, who hopes to match the two children he raised. The Winthrops want to pair Hope with Sir Philip Gardiner, a stranger who arrived in town on the same boat as Everell, and who has developed an interest in Hope Leslie. Sir Philip's page, Roslin, seems very odd indeed. It is later revealed that Roslin is Rosa, a former lover of Sir Philip's whom he has disguised as his male page. One evening, Hope and Esther attend a lecture pertaining to the case of Mr. Gorton. Uncharacteristically, Hope appears quite anxious. We later learn that Hope had that day received a visit from Magawisca, whom she had made plans to meet in the cemetery at 9pm that night. On the way home from the lecture, Hope impatiently leaves her escort, Sir Philip, and takes a detour to the burial ground. Hope briefly meets Roslin, who tells her that she must not trust Sir Philip. Unknown to Hope, Sir Phillip follows her and overhears the conversation with Magawisca that night. Magawisca explains that Faith has married Oneco and tries to warn Hope that her sister is very different from the sister she remembers. Nelema managed to tell Magawisca that Hope had saved her and wanted to repay her with a visit from her sister. Magawisca also explains that her sister is now a Catholic. To facilitate her meeting with Faith, Hope arranges for the party to stay on an island belonging to Winthrop, of which Digby is the guardian. While there, she implies to all present that Everell and Esther are going to get married, and puts their hands together. She never notices that Everell longs to be with her. Sir Philip comes, too, and she tells him that she never intends to marry him. Sir Phillip is upset by this. Everyone else agrees to leave the island and Hope goes out to meet her sister on the shore. Hope embraces Faith and tries to talk to her only to realize that Faith no longer speaks English. Magawisca must interpret for them. Hope hugs her and tries to get her to come home with her. She even tries to bribe her sister, but to no avail. As they are meeting, a trap is sprung upon them. Magawisca and Faith are taken by English soldiers. Magawisca is imprisoned. Hope is taken captive by Oneco and meets up with Mononotto. Sir Phillip had laid the trap after overhearing Magawisca and Hope's plans in the cemetery. Mononotto is struck by lightning as Oneco is trying to get away. He stops to take care of his father and while he does so, Hope escapes, but then runs into a group of sailors who chase her. She gets into a boat and the Italian sailor Antonio believes first that she is the Virgin Mary, and later that she is his patron saint. Hope does nothing to disabuse Antonio of this belief, and convinces him to row her to shore. Sir Phillip goes and visits Magawisca in jail. He gives her tools to escape with a promise that she take Rosalin with her. She refuses. Sir Phillip gets choked by Morton, whom he had claimed to be visiting. Sir Philip's true nature is momentarily revealed. Everell attempts to save Magawisca, but fails. Hope also wants to free Magawisca, and comes up with a plan that involves Cradock, Everell, and Digby. Hope takes Cradock with her to the jail and cleverly disguises him to look like Magawisca. She is so pleasant that the guard, Barnaby Tuttle, doesn’t notice the deception. Hope and Magawisca escape from the jail and Everell meets them on their way to the river where Digby is waiting in a boat to take Magawisca anywhere she wishes to go. They say their goodbyes and Hope gives Magawisca the necklace that Everelly had, had made for her while he was away so the Magawisca will remember them both. Magawisca gets away safely. While Hope, Cradock and Everell are gone, suddenly, the Winthrops all realize that Hope is gone. Everell returns Hope to her home in what he believes will be the last time he sees her. By the end of the novel, Esther has realized that Everell and Hope love each other and she decides to return to England for a few years and remain unmarried. As if to right the original wrong of separating William Fletcher from Alice, their children, Everell Fletcher and Hope Leslie, are finally united. |
6963561 | /m/0gz0kv | First Blood | David Morrell | 1972 | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller", "/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The book begins with Rambo, a Vietnam War veteran, hitch hiking in Madison, Kentucky. He is picked up by Sheriff Teasle and dropped off at the city limits. When Rambo repeatedly returns, Teasle finally arrests him and drives him to the station. He is charged with vagrancy and resisting arrest and is sentenced to 35 days in jail. Being trapped inside the cold, wet, small cells gives Rambo a flashback of his days as a POW in Vietnam, and he fights off the cops as they attempt to cut his hair and shave him without shaving cream, beating one man and slashing another with the straight razor. He flees, steals a motorcycle, and hides in the nearby mountains. He becomes the focus of a manhunt that results in the deaths of many police officers, civilians, and National Guardsmen. In a climactic ending in the town where his conflict with Teasle began, Rambo is finally hunted down by special forces Colonel Sam Trautman and Teasle. Teasle, using his local knowledge, manages to surprise Rambo and shoots him in the chest, but is himself wounded in the stomach by a return shot. He then tries to pursue Rambo as he makes a final attempt to escape back out of the town. Both men are essentially dying by this point, but are driven by pride and a desire to justify their actions. Rambo, having found a spot he feels comfortable in, prepares to commit suicide by detonating a stick of dynamite against his body; however, he then sees Teasle following his trail and decides that it would be more honourable to continue fighting and be killed by Teasle's return fire. Rambo fires at Teasle and, to his surprise and disappointment, hits him. For a moment he reflects on how he had missed his chance of a decent death, because he is now too weak to light the dynamite, but then suddenly feels the explosion he had expected—but in the head, not the stomach where the dynamite was placed. Rambo dies satisfied that he has come to a fitting end. Trautman returns to the dying Teasle and tells him that he has killed Rambo with his shotgun. Teasle relaxes, experiences a moment of affection for Rambo, then dies. |
6963715 | /m/0gz0v8 | The Sea Devil's Eye | Mel Odom | 2000 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | Iakhovas has caused more destruction than any force since the Time of Troubles, but his true objective has been a mystery until now. |
6964081 | /m/0gz15_ | Journeys and Adventures of Captain Hatteras | Jules Verne | 1866 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/08sdrw": "Adventure novel"} | The novel, set in 1861, described adventures of British expedition led by Captain John Hatteras to the North Pole. Hatteras is convinced that the sea around the pole is not frozen and his obsession is to reach the place no matter what. Mutiny by the crew results in destruction of their ship but Hatteras, with a few men, continues on the expedition. On the shore of the island of "New America" he discovers the remains of a ship used by the previous expedition from the United States. Doctor Clawbonny recalls in mind the plan of the real Ice palace, constructed completely from ice in Russia in 1740 to build a snow-house, where they should spend a winter. The travellers winter on the island and survive mainly due to the ingenuity of Doctor Clawbonny (who is able to make fire with an ice lens, make bullets from frozen mercury and repel attacks by polar bears with remotely controlled explosions of black powder). When the winter ends the sea becomes ice-free. The travellers build a boat from the shipwreck and head towards the pole. Here they discover an island, an active volcano, and name it after Hatteras. With difficulty a fjord is found and the group get ashore. After three hours climbing they reach the mouth of the volcano. The exact location of the pole is in the crater and Hatteras jumps into it. As the sequence was originally written, Hatteras perishes in the crater; Verne's editor, Jules Hetzel, suggested or rather required that Verne do a rewrite so that Hatteras survives but is driven insane by the intensity of the experience, and after return to England he is put into an asylum for the insane. Losing his "soul" in the cavern of the North Pole, Hatteras never speaks another word. He spends the remainder of his days walking the streets surrounding the asylum with his faithful dog Duke. While mute and deaf to the world Hatteras' walks are not without a direction. As indicated by the last line "Captain Hatteras forever marches northward". |
6965260 | /m/0gz33v | Next | Michael Crichton | 11/28/2006 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/06nbt": "Satire", "/m/017rf8": "Techno-thriller", "/m/0c082": "Utopian and dystopian fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | "This novel is fiction, except for the parts that aren't." In the backstory, Frank Burnet contracted an aggressive form of leukemia and underwent intensive treatment and four years of semiannual checkups. He later learned that the checkups were a pretext for researching the genetic basis of Frank's unusually successful response to treatment, and that the physician's university had sold the rights in Frank's cells to BioGen, a biotechnology startup company. As the book opens Frank is suing the university for unauthorized misuse of his cells, but the trial judge rules that the cells were "waste" that the university could dispose of as it wished. Frank's lawyers advise that, even if he wins an appeal, the university as a tax-funded organization can still claim the rights to the cells under the doctrine of eminent domain. Ruthless venture capitalist "Jack" Watson, wishing to acquire BioGen at a knock-down price, conspires to steal or sabotage BioGen's cultures of Frank's cells. As part of his terms for financing BioGen, Watson previously forced the company to accept his irresponsible nephew Brad Gordon as its security chief. After Brad's carelessness nearly allows one of Watson's sabotage attempts to succeed, the company takes advantage of his attraction to teenage girls, and frames him for aggravated rape of a minor. Watson's price for providing a defense lawyer is that Brad must contaminate BioGen's cultures. Brad's lawyer plans to claim in defense that Brad has a gene for recklessness, and instructs him to engage in various high-risk activities. As a result Brad gets into a fight with a pair of martial arts experts, and is finally shot by the police. After Brad's sabotage, BioGen consults lawyers, who advise that under United States law they have the rights to all of Frank's cell line and thus the right to extract replacement cells, by force if necessary, from Frank or any of his descendants. When Frank goes on the run, BioGen hires bounty hunter Vasco Borden to obtain such cells irrespective of whether the donors consent. Vasco plans to snatch Frank's grandson Jamie from his school, but is foiled by Jamie's mother Alex, whom he tries to seize instead. After escaping, Alex and Jamie also go on the run. Henry Kendall, a researcher at another biotech company, finds that his illegal introduction of human genes into a chimpanzee a few years ago while working at the NIH primate research facility unexpectedly produced a transgenic chimp, who can talk and whose behavior is generally childlike but reverts to chimp patterns under stress. The agency intends to destroy the chimp-boy Dave in order to cover up the unauthorized experiment but Henry sneaks him out of the lab. Henry's wife Lynn strongly opposes bringing Dave into their home, but their son, also called Jamie, becomes close friends with him. Lynn becomes Dave's most determined defender, uploads reports of a fictitious genetic disease and creates an article about it on Wikipedia to explain Dave's odd appearance, and grooms him as a senior female would groom a very young chimp in the wild. Dave is sent to the same school as Jamie and gets into trouble after biting the leader of a gang of bullies who attack Jamie. The chimp-boy becomes increasingly isolated at school; academically, he is backward in some areas such as writing, while in sports, his classmates regard him as unfair competition. Paris-based animal behavior researcher Gail Bond finds that her two-year old African grey parrot, Gerard, into which human genes were injected while he was a chick, has been helping her son to produce near-perfect homework. While she is testing Gerard's abilities, the bird becomes bored and mimics the voices and other sounds of her husband having sex in their home with another woman. After a quarrel Gail's husband, an investment banker, gives Gerard as a "money can't buy this" present to an influential and lecherous client. The client finds Gerard an embarrassment and passes him on to another owner, and so on. Eventually Gerard ends up in the hands of Stan Milgram, who loses patience with Gerard's loquacity while delivering the parrot to yet another owner three days' drive away, and leaves the bird by the roadside. Fortunately for Gerard the series of transfers has made his wings overdue for clipping, and he flies out of danger and off in search of pleasanter surroundings. After a few more narrow escapes, Alex and Jamie head for the home of her childhood friend Lynn. Vasco anticipates this move and tries to snatch Jamie – but abducts Lynn's son Jamie instead. Dave saves Lynn's Jamie, severely damaging both Vasco and the ambulance in which Vasco planned to extract the tissue samples. However Vasco's associate snatches Alex' son while everyone is celebrating the rescue of Lynn's. While the hunt was going on, Biogen's lawyers applied for an arrest warrant against Alex on the grounds that she had stolen the company's property, namely hers and her son's cells. She has to go straight from the fight to the courtroom, where her lawyer outplays Biogen's and the judge adjourns to check details of the relevant laws and precedents overnight. Alex and Henry discover that Alex' son is being moved to a private clinic where the tissue samples are to be taken. As they move in to retrieve him, Gerard, now a resident of the clinic's gardens, reminds Jamie to shout for his mother, who rescues him. Vasco gives up after Dave attacks him and Alex threatens him with a shotgun. The next day the judge rules in Alex' favor and rejects the precedents as attempts to abolish normal human feelings by decree, a violation of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which forbids slavery, and likely to hamper research in the long run as patients will sell their tissues rather than donate them for research. Gerard is welcomed into Lynn's home, however after he mimics telephone dial tones Lynn contacts Gail, and he is reunited with her. Press commentators praise the household as a trend-setting inter-species transgenic family, and Henry is honored by some scientific organisations, while religious and social conservatives condemn the family in lurid terms. In other plot threads: *BioGen researcher Josh Winkler's drug-addicted brother accidentally exposes himself to a "maturity" gene that the company is developing for the control of irresponsible and addictive behavior. After Adam reforms within a few days, their mother pressures Josh to administer the gene to friends and relatives who also behave irresponsibly. By the end of the book all of his rat and human subjects die of accelerated old age. *The staff at a hospital provide samples from corpses for use by unscrupulous relatives in lawsuits, sell corpses' bones for medical uses, and desperately destroy records and samples to cover their tracks. *Henry Kendall's boss Dr. Robert Bellarmino, a mediocre scientist but skillful manipulator, is also a lay preacher and slants his comments to journalists, schoolchildren and politicians according to whether his audience has religious or pro-science inclinations. He is ultimately shot by Brad Gordon at an amusement park. Ironically, Bellarmino was only at the park to look for people who may have the gene for recklessness, and Gordon was only there to bolster the evidence for his lawyer's case that he has the gene. *An orangutan in Sumatra becomes famous for its comments, often obscene, in Dutch and French. An adventurer overdoses the orangutan with tranquillizer while trying to capture it, and has to give it mouth to mouth resuscitation. As a result the orangutan dies from a respiratory infection, and an expert who dissects its corpse finds that its throat is very human-like but concludes from the shape of its skull that its brain is pure orangutan. *An avant garde artist uses genetic modification to change the appearance of animals, while another self-named "artist/biologist" is falsely accused of modifying turtles so that females laying eggs are less vulnerable to predators because the turtles' genetically engineered bioluminescence attracts tourists. An advertising agency proposes to make genetically engineered animals and plants carry advertisements, and claims that this would be a very effective conservation strategy. *Billionaire "Jack" Watson becomes the victim of an extremely aggressive form of genetic cancer, and is very nearly unable to receive treatment due to others' patents on the relevant genes, giving Watson "a taste of his own medicine". He eventually procures experimental treatment, which fails to save his life. The book also features news report boxes, many about the genetics of blondes and of Neanderthals. These two themes combine into reports that Neanderthals were the first blondes, were more intelligent than Cro-Magnon humans and interbred with Cro-Magnons out of pity; and that "cavemen preferred blondes". At one point three successive reports feature a scientist's press release that Neanderthals had a gene that made them both behaviorally conservative and ecologically conservationist, an environmentalist's claim that modern humans need to learn from the Neanderthals lest they too become extinct, and a business columnist's interpretation that over-caution caused the Neanderthals' extinction. In an appendix the author argues against patents on naturally-occurring genes, against corporate ownership of individuals' cell lines, and in favor of legislation to abolish these. |
6965511 | /m/0gz3jw | Ordinary People | Judith Guest | 1976-07 | {"/m/0dwly": "Children's literature", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/059r08": "Psychological novel"} | The novel begins as life is seemingly returning to normal for the Jarretts of Lake Forest, Illinois, in September 1975. It is slightly more than a year since their elder son "Buck" was killed when a sudden storm came up while he and their other son Conrad were sailing on Lake Michigan. Six months later, a severely depressed Conrad attempted suicide by slashing his wrists with a razor in the bathroom. His parents committed him to a psychiatric hospital from which he has only recently returned after eight months of treatment. He is attending school and trying to resume his life, but knows he still has unresolved issues, particularly with his mother, Beth, who has never really recovered from Buck's death and keeps an almost maniacally perfect household and family. His father Calvin, a successful tax attorney, gently leans on him to make appointments to see a local psychiatrist, Dr. Tyrone Berger. Initially resistant, he slowly starts to respond to Dr. Berger and comes to terms with the root cause of his depression, his identity crisis and survivor's guilt over having survived when Buck did not. Also helping is a relationship with a new girlfriend, Jeannine Pratt. Calvin sees Dr. Berger as the events of the recent past have caused him to begin to doubt many things he once took for granted, leading to a midlife crisis. This leads to strain in his marriage as he finds Beth increasingly cold and distant, while she in turn believes he is overly concerned about Conrad to the point of being manipulated. Finally the friction becomes enough that Beth decides to leave him at the novel's climax. Father and son, however, have closed the gap between them. |
6965523 | /m/0gz3kk | Frritt-Flacc | Jules Verne | 1884-12 | {"/m/03npn": "Horror", "/m/0707q": "Short story"} | Frritt expresses the sounds of a roaring hurricane and flacc the sound of falling streams of water during a rainstorm. Trifulgas, a physician, lives in unnamed coastal area. He is rich and works only for the rich. One night, during a storm, a girl knocks at the door. Her father, a poor fisherman, is dying. Since she has no money Trifulgas goes back to sleep. Soon someone knocks again. It is a woman whose husband is dying. She has some money but not enough so the doctor goes back to sleep. The storm becomes worse when another one knocks. The mother of a fisherman with heart attack has enough money—their house was sold shortly ago. The doctor follows her. A look on the dying man horrifies Trifulgas—it is he who lies in the bed. In spite of all effort, Trifulgas dies under his own hands. |
6971483 | /m/0gzbky | Black Powder War | Naomi Novik | 5/30/2006 | {"/m/0mz2": "Alternate history", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | In Black Powder War, Captain William Laurence and Temeraire - along with the surviving members of their crew - are ordered to make all haste and return from the mission to China via Istanbul, where they are to pick up a collection of three dragon eggs purchased from the Ottoman Empire by the British Government. Laurence and his first lieutenant John Granby are confused at the provenance of these orders, as there must surely be some British dragon nearer to Istanbul than they, but the promise of three eggs spurs them on. In a prologue, Laurence also observes the burial of Prince Yongxing, the primary antagonist of the previous novel, and the mourning of his much-distrustred albino dragon Lien. She is seen in company with the French diplomat De Guignes, which Laurence cannot feel bodes well. Deciding to eschew the Allegiance, which suffers fire damage at the opening of the novel, Laurence takes the services of a guide named Tharkay, the well-bred but unwelcome child of a British diplomat and a south-asian woman. With his help, the group survives ambush in the Central Asian deserts, befriends a pack of feral dragons in the mountains of Turkestan, and makes its way to Istanbul. Once there, however, they face clear betrayal; the Sultan has accepted the exorbitant payment offered him by the Crown whilst simultaneously reneging on any intent to hand over the eggs in return, perhaps due to the now-established presence of Lien in his court. Lien makes a private visit to Temeraire and announces that she has set herself to his destruction; as opposed to merely killing him, she wishes to see Temeraire deprived of all he holds dear, and live out the rest of his life in squalor and despondency. In the end, Laurence and his crew decide to steal the promised eggs, especially once they discover that one of them is of the Kazilik breed; when hatched, this dragon will increase Britain's complement of fire-breathers to a grand total of one. She hatches before the end of the book, naming herself Iskierka and accepting Granby as her captain. Temeraire and company escape to Europe, making an eventual landing in Austria. Laurence, who has been out of touch for over a year, learns more details of Napoleon's crushing victory at the Battle of Austerlitz, which he had only received scant details of during the voyage to China. The only good news to emerge from that battle is a Prussian declaration of alliance against Napoleon for what history today calls the War of the Fourth Coalition, and Laurence routes his travel through that nation. However, upon landing, Temeraire is immediately requisitioned: the Prussians were promised twenty dragons by the British Aerial Corps and have received precisely none of them. Temeraire integrates into their ranks without much complaint, but the Prussian tactics, developed by Frederick the Great, are outdated and easily countered not only by the creativity of Napoleon but of Lien, who has once again made common cause with their enemies. Despite the personal presence of King Frederick William III of Prussia and his wife Queen Louise, the Prussians are soundly defeated in the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt, and Temeraire is forced to ferry the royal family away. Thereafter the British crew find themselves at the fortress of Danzig, soon about to fall under siege. The turning-point of the siege is the arrival of Tharkay, now at the head of the flock of Turkish ferals. Using these dragons and techniques observed in China, Laurence is able to rig out the entire flock as public transportation and evacuate the city, dropping the civilians into the waiting arms of the Royal Navy. Despite a harried exfiltration under fire and the loss of the city, Temeraire and Laurence are relieved to finally, finally be returning to Britain. |
6972390 | /m/0gzcrh | The Ultimate Solution | Eric Norden | 1973 | {"/m/0mz2": "Alternate history", "/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/026ny": "Dystopia"} | The book is written in the form of a police procedural, the protagonist being a New York policeman charged with finding a Jew who is reported to have suddenly appeared in the city decades after all Jews are thought to have been exterminated. (There is a reference to a kind of second Wannsee Conference, held at Buckingham Palace in Nazi-occupied London after the extermination of European Jews had been completed, setting up the extension of the Final Solution to the rest of the world; the last few hundred Jews are mentioned as having been discovered and killed by relentless Einsatzgruppen hunters in 1962, having hidden at the ruins of Angkor Wat in Cambodia). As in our own contemporary timeline, there is a Cold War between the former Axis Powers allies, Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, both of whom have nuclear weapons and are engaged in an arms race akin to that between the United States and Soviet Union in our own timeline. The society described and taken by the protagonist as normal is as such: Blacks and Slavs being raised at "laboratories" and "farms" where their vocal cords are cut at birth and having the legal status not of slaves but of "domestic animals"; naked Black gladiators fighting to the death at the Madison Square Garden (the Roman "thumbs up" or "down" are modernised into green and red buttons, with a computer making the tally and automatically electrocuting the losing gladiator); children encouraged by TV programs to torture and kill animals; policemen routinely carrying mobile torture kits for "on the spot interrogations" and having the power of extrajudicial execution against "Enemies of the Reich"; body parts of murdered Jews on sale at souvenir shops, with "collectors" trying to have "a complete collection" of samples from all extermination camps; Christianity (and presumably other religions as well) suppressed in favor of Odinist temples. At the time of the plot, following the recent death of Benito Mussolini who had to some degree resisted Nazi policies, the Germans are contemplating "a change in the racial classification of Italians", and North Italians are desperately trying to save themselves by sacrificing "The Sicilian Ayarabs" to the Nazis. Former extermination camps are open to the public as "national shrines" - not to commemorate the victims, as in our world, but to glorify the murderers and present them as heroes. What we know as the inoffensive town of Croton-on-Hudson is in this world an American Auschwitz where the Jews of New York and the East Coast perished (another camp is mentioned in the Rocky Mountains, for the West Coast). At the entrance to the town, an Elks Club sign proclaims proudly: "Welcome to Croton-on-Hudson, home of the Final Solution! Here perished four million enemies of the Reich." Norden is careful to describe how Nazi doctrine in this world merges with the "American way": a neighboring town whose inhabitants gave refuge to escaping Jews was totally destroyed and its inhabitants massacred, like Lidice; its site was then covered with asphalt and made into a huge parking lot, and later an enormous shopping center was erected on the spot. In an inversion of the normal conventions of a detective book, the "respectable" society is murderous, but when the protagonist starts digging deeper into the underworld, he discovers, hidden but still there, what we would call decent or even heroic people: first, old men still playing chess at the tables in Washington Square; a former Roman Catholic priest who had once broken under Gestapo interrogation and who dreams of a second chance to die as a martyr (the detective protagonist grants him his wish); a member of the underground, known as "Patties" (from George S. Patton, who together with Douglas MacArthur was executed in the "St. Louis Trials") still carrying on a desperate anti-Nazi fight against all odds; finally the hunted Jew himself, who turns out to be from our own world, having fallen into this nightmare world by the worst of bad fortune. The protagonist finally kills him - not out of anti-Semitism which he does not really feel (he was born when Jews had already become a literally dead issue) but in a kind of "kindness" since sending him on to Berlin would have only exposed him to some torture before being killed. At the end of Norden's book, as with Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle (1962), the "Cold War" between the Nazis and the Japanese seems ready to turn into World War III. In the power struggle over the legacy of the completely senile Hitler, a putsch overturns the (relatively) moderate faction of Albert Speer, known as "Axists" because they want to maintain the Axis agreements with Japan. Power is seized by Reinhard Heydrich and the most fanatical "Contraxists", who are determined to destroy "the degenerate Yellow Race" even at the price of an all-out nuclear war in which Germany itself would be annihilated. Thus, having presented the reader with this world, and letting the few characters who tried to present even a token and ineffectual resistance all be killed off, Norden ends the book with the entire world about to end. |
6972946 | /m/0gzdg_ | The Bone Doll's Twin | Lynn Flewelling | 7/16/2001 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | In order for Skala to live in peace and prosperity, a Queen must sit on the throne. Two children one Queen, she will be marked by the blood of passage. A Dark tale entwining an entire kingdom in the fate of a young girl. Dark Magic, Hidden Destiny. For three centuries a divine prophecy and a line of warrior queens protected Skala. But the people grew complacent and Eruis, a usurper king, claimed his young half-sisters throne. Now plague and drought stalk the land, war with Skala's ancient rival Plenimar drains the country's lifeblood, and to be born female into the royal line have become a death sentence as the king fights to ensure the succession of his only heir, a son. For King Erius the greatest threat comes from his own line-and from Illior's faithful, who spread the Oracle's words to a doubting populace. As noblewomen young and old perish mysteriously the kings nephew-his sisters only child-grows toward manhood. But unbeknownst to the king or the boy, strange, haunted Tobin is the princess's daughter, given male form by a dark magic to protect her until she can claim her rightful destiny. Only Tobin's noble father, two wizards of Illior and an outlawed forest with know the truth. Only they can protect yount Tobin from a king's wrath a mother's madness, and the terrifying rage of her brother's demon spirit, determined to avenge his brutal murder. |
6973365 | /m/0gzf2n | The Sorrow of Belgium | Hugo Claus | 1983 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Belgium, 1939. Louis Seynaeve, who becomes eleven in April, goes to a boarding school led by nuns in Kortrijk. Louis has a lot of fantasy. He and his friends call themselves the Four Apostles and they possess seven forbidden books. His father comes to tell him that his mother fell down the stairs, which actually means that she is pregnant. Several months later the baby is stillborn. His family members are Flemish nationalists. Louis' father buys a printing press in Germany and a Hitlerjugend doll. During the German occupation of Belgium in the Second World War his family sympathises with the Germans. Louis attends meetings of the Hitlerjugend in Mecklenburg. Louis discovers more "forbidden books" and becomes interested in Entartete Kunst. Gradually he becomes aware of the narrow-mindedness of his family and his education. He ends up being a writer. He's the author of "The Sorrow", the first part of the novel. |
6974403 | /m/0gzgcn | Psycho House | Robert Bloch | null | {"/m/01jfsb": "Thriller", "/m/03npn": "Horror", "/m/05hgj": "Novel", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/0c3351": "Suspense", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Ten years after Norman Bates' death, a local entrepreneur has rebuilt the Bates Motel in Fairvale as a tourist attraction. Amy Haines travels to the infamous "Psycho House" to write a book about Bates when mysterious murders begin to occur. Haines faces resistance from the community when she enlists the help of a group to investigate the murders. |
6974428 | /m/0gzgf0 | Bunny Lake Is Missing | Merriam Modell | 1957 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Blanche Lake, a 21 year old single mother, wants to collect her three year old daughter Bunny from her first day at daycare but finds out that she is not there. In the course of the ensuing night, she tries everything in her power to find out what has happened to her. Still before daybreak, she thinks she knows where Bunny is. The plot takes place all within the space of 24 hours. |
6975081 | /m/0gzhp2 | The Predator | K. A. Applegate | 1996-12 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Ax wishes to return to the Andalite home world, and to do so, he needs a ship. He intends to build a communicator to broadcast a Yeerk distress signal and lure in a Yeerk ship which he can then hijack. He goes to the mall to buy the equipment to build a communicator. He finds the food court and runs wild sampling food left over on tables. He is chased by security guards and, frightened, demorphs in the middle of the mall in front of many people. He, Jake, and Marco run out of the mall and into a nearby grocery store where they are chased by Controllers. They morph into lobsters and hide in a tank. They later escape. Ax builds his device, but needs a Zero-space transponder. Mr. Chapman regularly communicates with Visser Three from his basement, so the Animorphs morph into ants and retrieve the Z-space transponder that he uses. As they are returning from Chapman's house, they are almost killed when attacked by ants from another colony. They are able to demorph in time. Ax completes his device, and broadcasts the signal, but the Yeerks have changed their distress frequencies, and, sensing a trap, they set one of their own. The Animorphs are captured (in animal morph) and taken aboard the Yeerk mother ship, where Visser One is visiting. Visser One confronts them and her host body is Marco's mother, who is alive after all. The Animorphs are put in a cell, and they are freed by one of Visser One's Hork-Bajir; Visser One and Visser Three are rivals, and Visser One wanted to disgrace Visser Three. The Animorphs reach an escape pod and return to Earth. Marco's father returns to work. Marco asks Jake, the only one who had previously met Marco's mom, not to tell any of the others about Visser One. *It is revealed that Marco's mother has been taken over by Visser One. |
6976596 | /m/0gzkxv | The Capture | K. A. Applegate | 1997-02 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The Animorphs morph cockroaches in order to infiltrate a meeting of The Sharing. They discover that the Yeerks have infested an entire hospital staff and are using them to turn patients into Controllers. Not only that, but next week their state's governor - who is a Presidential candidate - will be checking in for surgery. The Animorphs morph houseflies to infiltrate the hospital, and discover a Jacuzzi that has been converted into a miniature Yeerk Pool. Jake demorphs to human and turns the Jacuzzi on to kill the Yeerks, but the Animorphs are discovered by the Controllers. In the subsequent fight Jake is hit by a sledgehammer blow and his head falls in the pool. He is infested by a Yeerk named Temrash 114 who seeks to escape death. The Animorphs escape from the hospital into the woods, and Jake panics as he realizes that none of his friends have noticed anything different about him. Fortunately, Ax notices something amiss in Temrash's initial reaction to him and accuses Jake of being a Controller. Temrash loses his cool and insults Ax, calling him "Andalite filth" and the others realize he is indeed a Controller. The others decide to hold him for three days until Temrash dies of Kandrona starvation. In the meantime, Ax morphs Jake and takes his place at home and school. The others tie Jake to a chair in an abandoned shack out in the forest, but Temrash still has access to all of Jake's morphs. He morphs to tiger in the night and escapes. He becomes lost in the forest and morphs to falcon and tries to and fly away, but Cassie stops him as a great horned owl. Temrash morphs to wolf and again tries to escape, but is stopped by a rival wolf pack, in fact, the same wolf pack from The Encounter. Rachel escorts him back to the shack in elephant morph. Temrash begins to taunt Jake, revealing that he was once the Yeerk controlling Jake's brother Tom. Jake tells him that he will never give up. The next morning Temrash again tries to escape, this time as an ant, but is forced back by an enemy ant colony. Temrash begins to die of Kandrona starvation. As he does, Jake witnesses his pain, and in the final hours catches his first terrifying glimpse of Crayak. Jake returns to his family to find that he has apparently been acting strangely lately, because Ax is not used to being in human morph. A few days later he morphs partway to wolf (to disguise his voice) and telephones Tom to give him a message of hope. *Crayak is briefly introduced. |
6976754 | /m/0gzl53 | Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits | Laila Lalami | 10/7/2005 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | A group of young Moroccans immigrants seeking a better life in Spain cross the Strait of Gibraltar on a lifeboat. When it capsizes near shore, it is everyone for themselves. The book then chronicles the lives of four of the passengers, Murad, Halima, Aziz and Faten, exploring their lives before the trip and what motivated their attempt at immigration. |
6976884 | /m/0gzld3 | Battlefield Earth | L. Ron Hubbard | 1982 | {"/m/070yc": "Space opera", "/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | In the year AD 3000, Earth has been ruled by an alien race, the Psychlos, for a millennium. Humanity has been reduced to a few scattered tribes in isolated parts of the world while the Psychlos strip the planet of its mineral wealth. Jonnie Goodboy Tyler, a young member of one such tribe, lives in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains. Depressed over the death and disease affecting his tribe, he leaves his village to explore the lowlands and to disprove the superstitions long held by his people involving ancient gods and monsters. However, he is captured in the ruins of Denver by Terl, the Psychlo chief of security. The Psychlos, hairy high, 1,000-pound sociopaths, originate from a planet with an atmosphere very different from that of Earth. Their home world is in fact located in a different/parallel universe, and follows slightly different physical laws, with a slightly different table of elements. As a result, some interactions between the two worlds are problematic. Their "breathe-gas" explodes on contact with even trace amounts of radioactive metals, such as uranium. Terl, a Psychlo, had been assigned to Earth, and he eventually learns that his term has been extended with no word of relief. Fearful at the thought of spending several more years on Earth, he decides to con his way off the planet and return home a wealthy Psychlo. Terl has discovered a lode of gold up in the Rocky Mountains that he wants to get his hands on "off the company books". However, it is surrounded by uranium deposits that make Psychlo mining impossible. Terl captures Jonnie while searching for "man-animals" that he can train to mine the gold for him. After a time, Terl captures Jonnie's childhood friend Chrissie and her little sister and threatens to kill them unless Jonnie helps him. Jonnie is afterwards free to move around the mining area. Shortly thereafter, Terl and Jonnie travel to Scotland and recruit 83 Scottish youth, old women, a doctor, and a historian to help with the mining. Jonnie, however, has different plans. Because Terl does not understand English, Jonnie is able to convince the Scots to help him overthrow the Psychlo rule on Earth. During the next months, Jonnie and the Scots try to mine the gold as well as develop a means of defeating not only the Psychlos on Earth, but also nullifying the threat of counterattack from Psychlo (the Psychlos' home planet). During the semi-annual teleportation of personnel, goods, and coffins (all dead Psychlos are shipped home for burial) back to Psychlo, Jonnie and the Scots manage to pack several of the coffins with "dirty nukes" and "planet busters" in hopes of destroying the Psychlos' home planet. After the teleportation firing, the humans use the Psychlos' own weapons against them and regain control of Earth. This is, however, not the end of the story. Unsure as to whether the bombs sent even reached Psychlo and under the imminent threat of counterattack, Jonnie must now defend his newly-retaken planet against the predatory interests of several other interstellar races, including a race of intergalactic bankers seeking to repossess the Earth in lieu of unpaid debts, as well as a longtime rival seeking to wrest control of Earth from him. In order to ensure the security and independence of humanity, he does something that no other race in 300,000 years has been able to do: uncover the secret of Psychlo mathematics and teleportation, a difficult task compounded by the destruction of planet Psychlo. |
6978236 | /m/0gzn1w | Toward the End of Time | John Updike | null | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Set in New England, like many of his novels, Toward the End of Time portrays a world in which the Chinese and the Americans have attacked one another with nuclear weapons. The aftermath is shown through retired investment advisor Ben Turnbull's journal. Though the dollar and the central government are gone, life in Boston and the surrounding areas goes on thanks to FedEx and other less reputable entrepreneurs. The book is divided into five parts: i. The Deer ii. The Dollhouse iii. The Deal iv. The Deaths v. The Dahlia. i. The Deer Ben expresses his uneasiness about his second wife, Gloria's, obsession with killing the deer who is ravaging her picture-perfect garden. Clearly unhappy with Gloria, Ben begins an affair with a prostitute named Deirdre. ii. The Dollhouse Ben believes he has slid into an alternate universe when Gloria disappears and Deirdre takes her place. Ben has the vague impression he may have shot and killed Gloria. Spin and Phil, young thugs who collect protection money from Ben, clash with Deirdre, who takes a more and more authoritative role in the house. iii. The Deal Deirdre leaves Ben for Phil, and Gloria returns. Ben is relieved that he did not shoot Gloria, and admits that the house and garden flourish under her influence. Spin is killed by a group of younger children who set up house in the woods behind Ben's house and supplant Spin and Phil in the collection business. Ben helps them establish local legitimacy in exchange for commissions on their earnings and sexual favors from their young female companion, Doreen. iv. The Deaths Ben discovers he has prostate cancer. During his long hospital stay, Gloria hires FedEx — for whom Phil is now working — to get rid of the residents of the makeshift house. Metallobioforms designed to clear away large tracts of land for human exploitation are used to raze the house. Ben sees evidence that they also devoured and killed the young people. He is left as impotent to protest Gloria's cruelty as he was left physically impotent by the prostate surgery. v. The Dahlia Gloria's hired deer hunter shoots and kills the young doe who has been nibbling their garden. Ben cannot participate in Gloria's triumph or the deer hunter's communion with nature. Ben regains some control of his bladder, but this is not enough to erase the impression that he has become a ghost wandering around in his own house. |
6978994 | /m/0gzp1y | Young Men and Fire | Norman Maclean | 1992 | {"/m/03g3w": "History", "/m/05h83": "Non-fiction"} | Norman Maclean and Laird Robinson, in an attempt to forensically analyze the Mann Gulch Fire, brought together multiple sources, including the official report of the United States Forest Service of the fire, the testimony of the four men who fought the fire and lived, and the research and report of Robert Jansson and Harry T. Gisborne (who would suffer a fatal heart attack at Mann Gulch two months later trying to get to the bottom of the tragedy). Jansson was ranger of the Helena National Forest's Canyon Ferry District, the area that included Mann Gulch, on duty the day of the fire. Maclean and Laird also took Walter Rumsey and Robert Sallee, the only two living survivors of the fire team (as survivor Wag Dodge died in 1955), back to the scene of the fire in 1978, hoping that walking the ground again would help solve some of the missing pieces. Additionally, Laird and Maclean would use the modern Fire Lab and their mathematical analysis (advances in fire methodology not available in 1949), to search for answers to the fire. With all of these pieces, several trips to Mann Gulch, and ideas bantered back and forth between each other, Bud Moore, Ed Heilman, Rich Rothermel, Frank Albini, and other members of the U.S. Forest Service forest fire investigators, Maclean and Laird came to new conclusions on the fire's events: that the wind went in the opposite direction than was originally thought possible, and once the fire got started, it created its own unique weather system (which few thought possible before this research). It was always assumed that the wind was traveling south, or upstream, on the Missouri River at that time of day. Instead, they proved that the wind was traveling north, or downriver, and that the top of the ridge (which juts out as the river bends sharply to the northwest and separates Mann Gulch and Meriwether Canyon) split this downriver wind in two. These two separate-smaller winds then re-converged (on the other side of the ridge) in the heart of the gulch (at right-angles). This convergence combined with massive heat, produced by the fire and the hot August afternoon. Additionally, the vegetation pattern played a part in how the fire developed and took the lives of the men. The south side of the gulch was of the mountains, with taller forested trees, but the north side of the gulch was of the plains, with smaller trees and dense grasses. This combination of contrasting vegetation, heat, air currents, and right-angle winds, would cause the fire to change direction instantly, trapping and killing most of the fire fighters in its path. |
6981614 | /m/0gzt5d | A Kid for Two Farthings | Wolf Mankowitz | 1953 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | In a lower-class London community of small shops, open-air vendors and flea-marketers, Joe, a small boy, lives with his mother, Rebecca, who works in and rooms above the Kandinsky tailor shop. Joe is innocently and earnestly determined to help realize the wishes of his poor, hard-working neighbours. Hearing from Mr. Kandinsky the tale that a captured unicorn will grant any wish, Joe uses his accumulated pocket change to buy a kid with an emerging horn, believing it to be a unicorn. His subsequent efforts to make dreams come true exemplify the power of hope and will amidst hardship. |
6983867 | /m/0gzx9q | Knight Life | Peter David | null | {"/m/02yq81": "Comic novel", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | :(The following summary is based on the 2002 rewrite.) In a rundown apartment in New Jersey, Morgan Le Fay has finally decided to end her own life. Although kept immortal by magic, she has become apathetic, elderly, and corpulent, and sees no point in continuing with her life. Before cutting her wrist with a steak knife, she decides to look in on her old nemesis, Merlin's prison, one last time, and is surprised to see that he has escaped. Given a reason to live again, she laughs triumphantly. In Manhattan, King Arthur appears on the streets in full medieval armor, which he quickly divests in favor of a tailored suit (thanks to an American Express card that appears in his pocket by magic). He then walks into Central Park, where the Lady of the Lake rises from the pond and gives him Excalibur. Setting up an office under the name "Arthur Penn" (short for Pendragon), Arthur reunites with Merlin, who advises him that the world needs a leader like him, so Arthur decides to enter politics, beginning with announcing his candidacy for Mayor of New York City. |
6986074 | /m/0gz_0h | Mirror, Mirror | Gregory Maguire | 2003 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02p0szs": "Historical fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/0fr3y1": "Parallel novel"} | The story takes place in Montefiore, Italy in the early 16th century, on the estate of a nobleman named Don Vicente de Nevada. He lives there with his seven year old daughter, Bianca, and a small staff, the two most interesting of which are Primavera, an earthy cook and Fra Ludovico. In the beginning of the novel, de Nevada finds a mirror in a pond near his manor. This mirror was fashioned by dwarves but lost when they left it in the pond to temper. Incidentally, one dwarf spends most of the novel following de Nevada to ask the return of the mirror. Life is good for the family until the day Lucrezia Borgia and her brother, Cesare, decadent children of a pope, come to visit. Cesare sends Vincente on a quest for a holy relic. While he is gone, Bianca becomes a young woman and Lucrezia becomes jealous of the girl's beauty and stealing Cesare's attention from Lucrezia. Eventually she hires a woodsman to kill Bianca. The girl escapes, and runs into seven dwarfs, who are looking for the eighth dwarf and their mirror. |
6986999 | /m/0g_0m7 | Hidden Warrior | Lynn Flewelling | 2003 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | Following the events in The Bone Doll's Twin, Prince Tobin awakens after the witch Lhel reveals that he was born as a girl, but in view of the king's purge of all possible female heirs that threaten him, Tobin was disguised by magic, wearing his stillborn brothers shape, whose bones are encased in the little doll his mother carried everywhere with her. Tobin's squire Ki (Kirothius) was gravely injured in coming to find Tobin. They recover for a time under the care of the wizard Iya. Tobin is haunted by the remnants of his brother, who coldly watches over him. Once Ki recovered, they return to the capital city beset by plague, as was prophesied, if the matriarchal throne is usurped. All female warriors and females holding important roles, were ordered to leave, leaving the city completely under male rule. A prominent court wizard, Niryn, directs and leads the city, driving out all other wizards, claiming they are the cause of the city's difficulties. He commands the Harriers, a force dedicated to eradicating opposing wizards. Despite the Harriers, who are busily killing and exterminating all wizards, the old magics are not only being preserved, but the mages are making discoveries that they are determined to use to come back, and put the rightful queen back on the throne of Skala. Niryn however, has provided himself with insurance. After finding a distant relative to the throne, he ensured her pregnancy with a female heir, promptly murdering her to raise the child, Nalia, himself. Tobin, meanwhile, has rejoined the Companions, a small group of nobles and high born boys, including Tobin's cousin, the heir to the throne, prince Korin. Tobin becomes interested in battle strategies and war, and outdoes himself in regards to fencing, though he has the artists touch. As he and the rest of the Companions pass from children to teens and young men, Tobin encounters more and more difficulty in coming to terms with who he really is, and hiding his identity from the other Companions, who have become more uninhibited, Prince Korin impregnating several serving girls, who are quietly disposed of by the wizard Niryn. However, when Lady Aliya is pregnant with prince Korins child, Niryn is unable to prevent a wedding, instead causing Aliya to miscarry a fetus with neither arms nor face. The wizards are gathering, plotting against the reign of king Erius, who possesses the Sword of Gherilain, a symbol of the ruler of Skala, which no king or queen can rule without. Tobin begins to attract attention form the other boys, with his refusals to join them in the brothels and his stunted growth. However, he proves himself in battle, rallying his troops to him, while prince Korin freezes in the heat of battle. Aliya gives birth to a hideously deformed child without face or legs, Niryn's work, quickly blamed on the renegade wizards. Lady Aliya dies in the birth, along with the child, destroying prince Korins royal line. Tobin and Ki, along with a few more companions, get separated from the rest of their Companions in battle. They make their way to Tobins land, a wealthy keep with castle and village, which is closed to the boys as the villagers fear plague carriers. Tobin is revealed as the true queen, taking his true shape of a girl, winning the support of the people. Brother is freed, but not before stopping the heart of the King, leaving Korin to be king in his stead. As all wizards and common people rejoice that the true queen has returned, Niryn spreads lies to the prince, who turns against his formerly beloved cousin. As Tobins army takes the city, Korin flees with the assistance of Niryn, who leads him to the house where Nalia lives, where the frightened girl is told Korin is her new husband, and is taken off, presumably to be impregnated with a rival heir for Tobin's throne. Although Tobin is Queen in name, she still lacks the Sword of Gherilain, which is needed by a queen of Skala. Tobin vows to retrieve it from Korin. |
6987252 | /m/0g_15k | The Lady of the Sorrows | Cecilia Dart-Thornton | 2002 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Imrhein, who has had her face and voice cured but not her memory, has not completed her mission yet. Maeve One eye, the carlin who cured her, gets Imrhein a new identity: Lady Rohain Tarrenys of the Sorrow Isles. Imrhein/Rohain, under cover of night to escape mysterious watchers, heads to Caermelor. After unloading her information with the Duke of Roxburgh, getting assigned a maid, Viviana, and enduring a strenuous dinner with the cruel, jealous Dianella, Rohain heads on a Dainnen frigate to the treasure cache Waterstair where her friend Sianadh was killed. There the plunderers are captured and the treasure is given to the royalty. Rohain is the rewarded with 80 guineas,the Crown estate Arcune, and the title of Baroness. At Court she asks after Thorn, a Dainnen ranger and the love of her life. Rohain also gets a proposal from the Royal Bard and reveals in a drunken state to Dianella that she is Talith, a rare race. While she is at Arcune with the Duchess of Roxburgh and her 7 children, Rohain discovers Sianadh is alive and in prison. After she manages to persuade the Jailer to let him have some free time, Sianadh advises her to go to Isse tower, where she enslaved, and find answers to her past. At first, she refuse to go, unwilling to leave Sianadh, but after Dianella informs her that she and her uncle Sargoth know she's an imposter, Rohain gives her wealth to Dianella and heads to Isse. There, she asks Ustorix, a young lord there, to perform a feat she once saw two servants do: jump on sildron bars which he does to atone for rash behavior. After Rohain discovered from Pod by using threats where she was found, she sets off for Huntingtowers, a place of unseelie residence. However, the owner of Huntingtowers, leads an attack on Isse Tower, which the King Emperor and the Dainnen stop. Unwilling to beg for Sianadhs' life in her ragged state, Rohain remembers words from the Royal Bard and steps onto the balcony. There, she is reunited with Thorn, who recognizes her instantly and asks her to marry him. When messengers call Thorn "Your Imperial Majesty" Rohain realizes Thorn is King Emperor James XVI. The next day he explains everything to Rohain. Then they leave for Caermelor with Caitri, a kind servant who helped Rohain when she was a slave, and Dain Pennyrigg, after Rohain saves Pod from Thorn's wrath. Rohain befriends Prince Edward, visits Dianella, prepared for execution, who tries to intoxicate and drag away Rohain, and gets Sianadh spared. Then Thorn is forced to go to Namarre, and despite her pleas to go with him, sends Rohain, Roxburgh's wife, the Bard, and Prince Edward to the royal sanctuary, Tamhania/Tavaal. There, Rohain meets a woman who looks familiar to her. After an Unseelie decoy where 3 birds go to the peak of the Volcano, Rohain realizes the woman is Silken Janet's mother. When the unseelie birds activate the Volcano, Tavaal is evacuated. Only Rohain, Viviana and Caitri survive the island's destruction(so does the local wizard but he leaves with a sea girl). The girls shelter in a house which seems familiar to Rohain. She sends the others to Isse tower while she continues her journey to Huntingtowers, but they follow her. In the wilderness, she renames herself Tahquil, meaning 'warrior'. When they get to Huntingtowers, Imrhein/Rohain/Tahquil trips, twists to avoid paradox ivy, which caused her suffering in the last book, and discovers a bracelet her father once gave her. This triggers her memory, and she remembers her name, Ashalind, her childhood and how she lost her memory. She also remembers her original quest, to find the exiled Faeren High King Angavar and his entourage and inform him of the whereabouts of the last gate between the Faeren world and Erith, without tipping off his evil brother Morragan, who is also exiled. CHARACTERS Imrhein/Lady Rohain Tarrenys-the heroine of the Bitterbynde Trilogy, formerly mute and deformed. Dianella-the main antagonist of the story, attempts to remove Rohain from the Royal Court. Thomas- a protaginist, Finvarnen duke, a Dainnan commander, Rohain's first suitor. Viviana Wellesly-Rohain part blind, faithful maid. Caitri L.-The liitle girl who was nice to Rohain when she was a slave, one of Rohains compainions. Thorn-The King-Emperor who posed as a Dainnan Ranger/Knight and won Rohains heart. Ustorix-Future lord of Isse Tower Tamlain Conmor-Duke of Roxburg, Commander in Chief of the Dainnan |
6989099 | /m/0g_4mq | The Pure Weight of the Heart | Antonella Gambotto-Burke | 6/29/1998 | {"/m/0488wh": "Literary fiction", "/m/01qxvh": "Romance novel"} | The novel, narrated in first person and divided into three volumes, is the story of Angelica Botticelli, an Italian-born Australian, and astrophysicist from an apparently wealthy background. Born in Italy to an Austrian mother and Italian father, Angelica is a troubled woman in search of love: "From birth, Angelica is destined to fall in love with an angel. At ten, her blissful childhood is destroyed by the death of her father. Only the stars in the sky at night give her hope. Years later, the adult Angelica, beautiful and gifted, and still a student of the stars, drifts through a world of glamour, power and cruelty, until the night she finally finds her angel, in the heart of the extravagance she has come to despise." (Antonella Gambotto, The Pure Weight Of The Heart, blurb, Orion Publishing 1998) The novel is divided into three volumes, and the title of each volume directly refers to its main theme: Book One: Grief is a Sphere, which details her childhood, adolescence and reaction to her father's murder. Book Two: A Lycanthropic God, which details her move back to Sydney from London, secretly hostile relationship with her bogan flatmate, Caroline Brine, and discovery of her "angel", the aptly named Gabriel (his surname, Lagen, is an anagram of "angel"), and their ensuing relationship. Book Three: The Bestiary, which details a trip to Chicago to see her mother, brother and mother's second husband, the truly vile Aldo Belva ("belva" means "beast" in Italian), and the characters attending the week-long party, who form "The Bestiary" for which the volume is named. |
6992045 | /m/0g_9bq | 1945 | William R. Forstchen | 8/1/1995 | {"/m/0mz2": "Alternate history", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | At the start of the novel, the United States, having won over Japan, is in no mood to enter a new war, and Americans accept the fait accompli of German domination over Europe. An alternate Cold War seems in the offing; even the British, with a German-dominated Europe at their doorstep, squander much of their resources on a colonial war in the former French Indochina. US President Andrew Harrison (a fictional character) has a summit with Hitler at Reykjavík, Iceland. The meeting goes badly, the two leaders sharply confront each other, and Hitler secretly decides to accelerate preparations for a surprise attack on both the US and Britain. As part of these preparations, a beautiful German spy seduces and suborns the White House Chief of Staff and makes him a key German spy. The book's protagonist, Lieutenant Commander James Martel, at the incipient Head of Naval Intelligence at the American Embassy in Berlin, is one of the few who suspects the gathering storm, watching the new weapons displayed at the parade commemorating Germany's victory over the Soviet Union and encountering the well-known commando Otto Skorzeny who is his main opponent throughout the book. Skorzeny makes meticulous secret preparations for raids to destroy the US atomic bomb programs in Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory. (During the war with Japan, because the Manhattan Project was put on the backburner so that in 1945, the US is far from already possessing a nuclear bomb.) The bulk of the book is devoted to Martel, back in the US, getting a glimmering of the threatened attack and unsuccessfully trying to sound a warning. The German raid takes place, and though the Germans are eventually beaten back, the raid causes great damage, killing key scientists and setting the US nuclear program behind Germany's; moreover, the Germans seize the uranium mines in the Congo region, while launching all-out war against the United Kingdom. The book ends with a cliffhanger: Erwin Rommel invades Scotland, the British facing a desperate fight, and Churchill imploring the Americans "come quickly, this is much worse than 1940", but a promised sequel, provisionally called Fortress Europa, has yet to be written, though many years have passed and the writers had meanwhile completed a different alternate history trilogy (beginning with Gettysburg: A Novel of the Civil War). In our history, "Fortress Europe" was the Nazi concept of making German-occupied Europe impregnable to the invasion, which was clearly coming since the Allies started massing their forces in Britain in 1943. In D-Day this "fortress" was decisively breached. The projected book's name seems to suggest that the same would happen in this alternate history, some years behind schedule. |
6992237 | /m/0g_9jn | War Trash | Ha Jin | 2004 | {"/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Yu Yuan was originally a cadet at Huangpu Military Academy, an important part of the Kuomintang military system. However, when the Communists gained the upper hand in China, the academy went over to their side, and Yu was made a part of the PLA. He is eventually sent to Korea as a lower-ranking officer. Since he knew some English, he is made part of his unit's staff as a possible translator. He left behind his mother and his fiancee, a girl named Tao Julan. Yu Yuan's unit eventually crossed into Korea and engaged the South Korean and UN forces there. For a period it prosecuted a guerilla war against these allies. Eventually, however, Yu Yuan was injured and is captured. He spent some time in a hospital, where the ministrations of the medical staff impressed him with the humane nature of the medical profession. Subsequently, Yu Yuan is put in a prisoner of war camp. A major political fault line ran through the Communist prisoners, both historically and in the novel. On one side are those who are "loyal" and wish to be repatriated to the Communist side, either North Korean or Chinese; these are called "pro-Communists". On the other side are those who wish to be released to the "Free World", whether that be South Korea or the remaining Chinese Kuomingtang bastion of Taiwan. This group is called "pro-Nationalists". Violence often flares between these two groups, and the chief tension in the book is the narrator's attempts to navigate this political minefield. After his capture, Yu Yuan is registered as a POW in the city of Pusan. He assumes a false identity, in order to hide his rank as a low-level officer. All captured officers give their names and try to mix in with enlisted men so that they will not be subject to questioning and torture by the captors. He is then taken to the island of Guh-Jae-Do, which was cleared of most civilians in order to house POWs captured by the South. Yu Yuan initially finds himself in the pro-Nationalist camp, somewhat against his will. This is not because he is politically passionate, but rather because his main goal is to return home to his mother and fiancee. Going to Taiwan would politically taint him in Communist China and make such a return impossible. His association with Huangpu lends him some breathing room, but when he states his intention to return to mainland China, he is kidnapped by the Nationalists and tattooed with the words FUCK COMMUNISM in English. A decision is made by the administrators of the camp to conduct a "screening" to divide the Nationalists and Communists in the camp and hopefully reduce violence. This period before the screening is an intense time for the camp, as the leadership of both sides wants to convince the prisoners to choose the correct side, thus scoring a propaganda victory. Yu Yuan witnesses incredible acts of torture and coercion committed by pro-Nationalist officers, but motivated by a longing for home, he chooses the Communist side. Now in a Communist camp, Yu Yuan is suspected for his Huangpu ties and his stint with the Nationalists. However, his skills in English are useful and he eventually gains the trust of his superiors. The coordination of the camp is much better than before, and the prisoners organize themselves for resistance. However, they cannot compete with the camp of the North Koreans, who due to their greater local knowledge and better underground networks can carry out stunning logistical feats and are in communication with their capital Pyongyang. Eventually, the North Koreans organize an attempt to kidnap General Bell, the commandant of all the prisoner of war camps. (This is a reference to the historical attempt to capture the American General Francis T. Dodd). They enlist the participation of the Chinese camp through a meeting of emissaries. As a mark of the trustworthiness of Yu Yuan, Commissar Pei, the leader of the Chinese pro-Communist camp, sends Yu Yuan as his representative. The Chinese camp gathers information and passes it to the North Korean camp, which subsequently lures Bell in for negotiations, then kidnaps him, a propaganda coup for the Communists. Soon, the prisoners are sent to better organized camps on Cheju Island. The facilities are better, but the methods of prisoner control are also enhanced, making it harder to resist. Commissar Pei, for instance, is separated from the men. Also, the prisoners begin to feel very isolated from their country, and worry that they will be treated with suspicion when they return to China, as it can be considered treason to be captured rather than fight to the death. However, with ingenious methods of communication developed, Commissar Pei manages to send orders to raise homemade Chinese communist flags on national day, a provocation which creates a confrontation and raises morale, even though lives are lost in the ensuing battle. At some point a small group of pro-Communist officers—including Commissar Pei's right-hand man, Party member Chang Ming—is ordered to Korea to "re-register". Fearing that this will permanently strip him of his English-speaking lieutenant, Pei orders Yu Yuan to assume Ming's identity and go in his place. Fuming at being sacrificed like a pawn for a man no different from him except for Party membership, Yuan obeys and is sent to Korea. It turns out that "re-registering" is not something sinister, but rather bureaucratic processing. However, Ming's subterfuge is discovered and in the confusion he declares his dislike of the Communists. As a result, he is now sent to the Nationalist camp back of Koje Island. Back with the Nationalists again, Yuan is subject to another round of suspicion for siding with the Communists earlier. Fortunately, he weathers this (due in part to his tattoo, which he has kept after having it cleared with the Communists). The officers on the Nationalist side hope that his credentials will elevate him once they get to Taiwan, and in this position he might be able to help them. During this time, the armistice is signed by the UN and North Koreans, and the prisoners begin to look forward, with hope and anxiety, towards their repatriation. Required yet again to declare his allegiance, Yu Yuan, as always, is in a delicate situation. His time on the Communist side means he will always be politically damaged goods in Taiwan, forever handicapped. On the other hand, unless Pei and Ming are still alive and in the good graces of the Party—and therefore able to explain that the Party ordered him to be re-registered—his "defection" to the Nationalists (as well as the lingering taint of being a prisoner in the first place) could be politically devastating if he returns home. Fortunately, he hears that there may be a third option, to emigrate to a neutral country. Quietly, he makes this his plan. However, when Yu Yuan first enters the tent where declarations must be made, he finds that one of the Communist Chinese observers is a friend of his who instantly recognizes him! No longer anonymous, he realizes that if he chooses a third country, his disloyal choice will be traced to his family and they will suffer. Encouraged by his friend about the treatment prisoners receive in China, he makes the decision to return home on the spot. Unfortunately, Yu Yuan's homecoming is not what he had hoped in the more than two years he had been away. His superiors stand up for him, witnessing to the pro-Communist acts he had carried out. However, as party members they are severely tainted (party members swore an oath to fight to the death, and thus their capture is even more dishonorable) and their evidence is worthless. Yu Yuan finds out that his mother has died, and Julan has deserted him as a disgrace. Forever marked by his disloyalty, he is unable to use his college education well, and quietly becomes a teacher. In the epilogue-like final chapter, Yu Yuan describes his eventual marriage, and children. He is not so tainted that he cannot get his offspring into college, and eventually his son goes to the United States for education. Yuan gets his tattoo changed to FUCK...U...S by erasing some of the letters of COMMUNISM. An old man, he learns of the ruin of his communist superiors, and of the success of some of his Nationalist acquaintances in Taiwan. Eventually, he visits his son in America, giving opportunity for one last comical difficulty with his tattoo, once again highly inappropriate. It is here that he finds the time to write the memoir, dedicated to his American grandchildren, which the reader has been enjoying. |
6993238 | /m/0g_c3_ | The Sound of His Horn | null | 1952 | {"/m/0mz2": "Alternate history", "/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/026ny": "Dystopia"} | British naval lieutenant Alan Querdillon becomes a POW during the Battle of Crete during World War II. He awakens in a Nazi controlled world 102 years after World War II. He is hunted (literally) by a "Reichsforester" (a title Hermann Göring had during the Third Reich). He takes refuge with genetically mutilated "undesirables" — one of the first fictional descriptions of genetic manipulation. |
6994837 | /m/0g_fdj | Godaan | Munshi Premchand | 1936 | {"/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The story revolves around many characters representing the various sections of Indian community. The peasant and rural society is represented by the family of Hori mahato and his family members which includes Dhania, Rupa and Sona(Daughters), Gobar(son), Jhunia( daughter in law). The Story starts from a point where Hori has a deep desire of having a cow as other millions of poor peasants. He purchased on debt of Rs.80 a cow from Bhola, a cowherd. Hori tried to cheat his brothers for 10 rupees. This in turn led to a fight between his wife and his younger brother Heera’s wife. Jealous of Hori, his younger brother Heera poisoned the cow and ran away because of the fear of police action. When the police came enquiring the death of the cow, Hori took a loan and paid the bribe to the police and was able to clear off his younger brother’s name. Jhunia, the daughter of Bhola, was a widow and eloped with Gobar after she got pregnant by him. Because of the fear of the action from villagers Gobar also ran away to the town. Hori and Dhania were unable to throw a girl carrying their son's child from their doorstep and gave her protection and accepting her as their daughter-in-law. The village Panchayat takes action against Hori for sheltering a low caste girl and issued a penalty on Hori. Hori again is compelled to take a loan and pay the penalty. Hori is in huge debt from local money lenders and eventually married off his daughter Rupa for mere 200 rupees to save his ancestral land from being auctioned because of his inability to pay land tax. But his determination to pay those 200 rupees and to have a cow to provide milk to his grand son, leads to Hori's death because of excessive work. When he is about to die, his wife Dhania took out all the money she had (1.25 Rupees) and made Hori pay the priest on behalf of (Godaan) (cow donation). This eventually fulfils the traditional dream of Hori but still his desire to pay back the rupees 200 to his son- in- law and to have a cow to feed the milk to his grandson remain unfulfilled. Hori is shown as a typical poor peasant who is the victim of circumstances and possess all the deficiencies of common man but despite all this, he stands by his honesty, duties and judgement when time requires. He is shown dead partially satisfied and partially unsatisfied. Hori is a peasant who is married to Dhaniya and has two daughters and a son. He is an uprighteous man and struggles throughout his life to preserve his uprighteousness. He has two younger brothers and he considers his obligation as the eldest brother to help them and save them from problems,sacrificing his own family. He bribes the police officers who come to the village enquiring the death of his cow. Thus, he saves the police from entering his brother,Heera's house for a search.He is a man who is bound to the community and considers the verdict of the panchayat as final.He is penalized for the death of the cow and accepts. He feels orphaned to be out of the community and hence accepts the penalty levied by the panchayat when Gobar brings home a low caste girl. Similarly, he allows Bhola to take his oxen away as he is neither able to pay the cost of it nor willing to send Jhunia away from his house. They have accepted her as their daughter-in-law and her child as their grandchild. He is kind and generous. He does not hesitate to give shelter to Seliya, a cobbler's daughter who is exploited by Matadin, a Brahmin, and is shirked by her own people. Dhania is Hori's wife, devoted to him and always supportive to him. She is bold and fiery and cannot tolerate injustice. She raises her voice against injustice, against the wishes of Hori and irritates him. She is vexed when Hori puts up with a lot of oppression from the money lenders and the Brahmin Priest. Hori, though beats at times for disobeying him, knows that her arguments are correct. She makes him see the truth and the realty of facts. Unlike him, she is not lost in rigmarole of clichés and ideals. She stands by what she thinks is correct and her dharma, rather than the traditional principles of the community. She knowingly accepts into her household, a low caste girl, as her daughter-in-law .She does not blame only Jhunia for placing them in an embarrassing position. She knows that her son, Gobar, is equally responsible. She is a kind and loving mother and sacrifices much for the sake of her children. She has a generous heart; she takes care of Heera's children when occasion demands, she willingly accommodates and shelters the pregnant Seliya, the cobbler's daughter. Dhania has never known a life of peace and comfort, as throughout the novel we see her struggling along with her husband for a livelihood. She emerges as a powerful woman, who irrespective of caste or creed helps the needy. Gobar is the only son of Dhania and Hori. Born into a poor family,he aspires for a life of comfort. Though initially a simpleton like his father, he gets exposure in the city, lucknow, and learns to be practical and worldly wise. He impregnates Jhunia, Bhola's daughter, and lacking courage to face the wrath of the villagers, runs away to the city, leaving Jhunia at his parents doorstep. His insensible hasty behaviour creates trouble to Hori, who pays the penalty. Gobar works for Mirza Kursheed, but gradually starts his own business. He also lends money to other people. When he comes to the village dressed as a gentleman with pump shoes, on a short visit, he is unrecognized with difficulty. He becomes the centre of attraction in the village,the other young men are tempted to go to the city seeing him. He promises to get them jobs. When he comes to know that Datadin is exploiting his father, he advices his father to come out of the shakles of traditional bindings. He organises a function and with his friends enacts a skit to expose and satirize the mean mentality of the village money lenders and the Brahmin priest. He threatens to drag the priest to court and has a fight with his father on this issue. He realizes that Hori is too simple, god fearing and cannot go against his dharma. Angrily, he leaves the village with his wife Jhunia and returns to the city. His weakness for liquour and short tempered nature affects his relation with Jhunia. He realizes his mistake only when his devoted wife nurses him during his illness. He works in the sugar factory and later becomes the chowkidar at Malathi's house. Dattadin is the village Brahmin Priest and a greedy moneylender. It is ironic that this man with low moral standards goes about the village policing the wrongs of the other villagers. He penalizes Hori for accepting and sheltering a low caste girl, Jhunia, as their daughter-in-law. He is a hypocrite and is blind to the fact that his own son Mataddin is having an affair with Seliya, a cobbler's daughter. He invites pundits from Varanasi to perform the purifying rituals of his defiled son so that he is brought into the main stream of Brahminism. He does not pity Hori's poverty, rather takes advantage of his goodness and exploits him. Matadin is the son of the brahmin priest Datadin. He is young and has an affair with Seliya, a low caste woman who works on the farm for him. The villagers know about it.Seliya does not have entrance to his house. Her parents and relatives hopefully wait for her to be accepted by him. Finally, they decide to punish him and beat him and put a piece of bone into his mouth,a taboo, for the brahmin. Seliya comes to his help and saves him. Matadin becomes an outcaste in his own house. His father performs purifying rituals to bring him back to the mainstream of brahminism.He spends a lot of money on the rituals and pundits from Kashi are called in. Matadin's malarial fever which had taken him to death's mouth has made him realize his mistake in exploiting Selia.When Matadin comes to know that he has a son from Seliya, he longs to see the child and goes on sly in her absence. He is repentant and sends her two rupees through Hori. He realises that he is bound by duty to Seliya and his son. He removes his holy thread and thus liberates himself from the shackles of Brahminism. Now, he is free to live courageously with Seliya as his wife. Bhola is a cowherd of the neighbouring village. He is a widower and has two married sons and a young widowed daughter,Jhunia. Bhola agrees to give Hori a cow on loan and in turn Hori promises to find a companion for him to remarry. Bhola is very upset when his daughter elopes with Hori's son Gobar. He comes to Hori's house on vengenance and claims money for the dead cow. Hori does not have Rs.80, the cost of the cow.Bhola threatens to take his oxen away, that would reduce Hori to a labourer.When Hori pleads with him, Bhola suggests that they should throw Jhunia,their daughter-in-law, and his own daughter out of the house as she had hurt his feelings. This is not acceptable to Dhania, Hori's wife. It is unbelievabe that being Jhunia's father, instead of being contended that Hori and his wife have accepted this girl who became pregnant without her marriage being sanctified, he would like to see her sent away with her infant. He heartlessly takes away Hori's oxen and renders him totally helpless. The urban society is represented by Malati devi( Doctor), Mr. Mehta( Lecturer and philosopher), Mr. Khanna (Banker), Rai Sahib(Zamindar), Mr Tankha( Broker) and Mr. Mirza(social worker). Rai sahib has won the local elections twice. He wanted to marry his daughter off to a rich zamindar to again win in the election and claim the property of his in-laws. Thus,he married his daughter off to another rich, widow and rake zamindar. He claimed and won the zamindari of his in-laws. He won the election and became the municipal minister. But when he planned to get his son married to the daughter of Raja Suryankant for his family’s prestige, his son refused that. He is in love with Saroj, the younger sister of Malati devi. They both married and went away to London. His son claimed and won the entire property Rai sahib won from in-laws leaving Rai sahib in huge debt. His daughter got divorced. This eventually left Rai sahib too dissatisfied despite all his efforts. Miss Malati is a beautiful lady intelligent doctor who is educated in Europe. She is one of the three daughters of Mr.Kaul. She is the centre of attraction in the parties and is flirtatious. Mr. Khanna flirts with her and she is envied and disliked by Govindi. Malati in turn falls in love with Mr. Mehta because of his ideology, his simplicity and intelligence. On a trip to the village of Hori, she explores herself. She starts serving the poor and gets involved in many social activities. After seeing the change in Malati, Mr. Mehta falls in love with Malati.But though Malati loves Mr. Mehta, she refuses his marriage proposal. She now wants to serve the poor and does not want to marry. Mr. Mehta and Malati keep serving the poor and needy people together. Malati devi is the only character shown as conteded at the end of the novel because of her commitment to charitable deeds. Mr Mehtais a scholar and lectures philosopy in a college. He is also authoring a book on Philosophy which he dedicates to Malati. Malati and Govindi are two characters who are influenced by him. Govindi finds solace talking to him as he appreciates her concept of womanhood. Malati loses her ego and understands the true meaning of life through him. She learns to serve the poor. He needs the guidance of Malati as he has mismanaged his funds and income in overgenerously serving the poor. Though he is interested in marrying Malati, the two mutually agree to remain as friends under the same roof. Mr. Khanna is an industrialist and owns a sugar factory. Though married and father of three children, he disrepcts his wife Govindi for her traditional values. He flirts with Malati. He is unable to recognize the virtues in his wife. Govindi is fed up of his behaviour and this goads her to leave home. He exploits the labour class. It is only when his sugar factory is destroyed in a fire accident and Govindi stands by him encouraging him to set it up once again, he realise his mistake.Mr. Khanna eventually starts loving his wife. Govindi is Mr.Khanna's wife, the rich industrialist, and is epitomized as an ideal Hindu wife. She is virtuous and very tolerant with her husband and children.Unfortunately,Mr.khanna is disinterested in her as he finds fault with her traditional values. He takes interest in Miss Malati and flirts with her. Govindi is desperately dejected and decides to abandon him and his house. But it is Mr.Mehta, who has always been appreciative of her ideals,who advises her to return back to the children. She is a moral support to her husband when his sugar factory gets destroyed in fire. It is she who encourages him to set it up again. |
6996239 | /m/0g_h1c | King and Emperor | Harry Harrison | null | {"/m/0mz2": "Alternate history", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | Shef, King of the North, sets out to discover Greek fire and the Holy Grail. By the end of the book, the modern notion of tolerance is endorsed by characters in the novel. |
6997761 | /m/0g_j_v | Marco's millions | William Sleator | 6/4/2001 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction"} | It is about a boy named Marco who likes to travel. He often secretly rides buses far from home, though only his telepathic sister finds out. One day, his sister sees strange lights in the basement, and she and Marco investigate. They find a portal into another dimension, and thus the adventure begins. Marco finds strange insect-like creatures there, who are convinced that Marco/Lilly can save their dimension (and as a result save Earth) from their god, which is a naked singularity. But at what cost? |
6997883 | /m/0g_k50 | New Moon | Stephenie Meyer | 9/6/2006 | {"/m/0kflf": "Vampire fiction", "/m/03npn": "Horror", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/03mfnf": "Young adult literature", "/m/01qxvh": "Romance novel", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | On Isabella "Bella" Swan's 18th birthday, Edward Cullen, the vampire she loves, and his family throw her a birthday party. While unwrapping a gift, she gets a paper cut, which causes Edward's adopted brother, Jasper, to be overwhelmed by her blood's scent and attempt to kill Bella. To protect her, Edward tells Bella that he does not love her and the Cullens move away from Forks. This leaves Bella heartbroken and depressed. In the months that follow, Bella learns that thrill-seeking activities, such as motorcycle riding, allow her to "hear" Edward's voice in her head. She also seeks comfort in her deepening friendship with Jacob Black, a cheerful companion who eases her pain over losing Edward. Bella later discovers that Jacob and other tribe members are werewolves. Jacob and his pack protect Bella from the vampire Laurent and also Victoria, who seeks revenge for her dead mate, James, whom the Cullens killed in Twilight. Meanwhile, a series of miscommunications leads Edward to believe that Bella has killed herself. Distraught over her supposed suicide, Edward flees to Volterra, Italy to provoke the Volturi, vampire royalty who are capable of killing him. Alice and Bella rush to Italy to save Edward, arriving just in time to stop him. Before leaving Italy, the Volturi tell Edward that Bella, a human who knows that vampires exist, must either be killed or transformed into a vampire. When they return to Forks, Edward tells Bella that he has always loved her and only left Forks to protect her. She forgives him, and the Cullens vote in favor of Bella being transformed into a vampire, to Edward's dismay. However, Jacob reminds Edward about an important piece in the treaty: if the Cullens bite a human, the treaty is over. |
6998089 | /m/0g_kgp | Celestial Matters | Richard Garfinkle | 1996 | {"/m/0mz2": "Alternate history", "/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | The story is narrated by Aias of Tyre, a scientist of the Delian League, who is preparing to embark on Project Sunthief as scientific commander. This project is an audacious and desperate mission to sail a spaceship carved out of a piece of the moon herself out through the spheres, to catch a piece of the sun and bring it back to earth to annihilate the Middler capital city. This, the league hopes, will finally end the war and give it victory. The Middlers have been assassinating Delian generals and politicians, so Aias is assigned a bodyguard, Captain Yellow Hare of Sparta, a woman of Xeroki ancestry. Shortly after the launch of the moon-ship, Chandra's Tear, it becomes clear that there is a saboteur on board. Aias' old friend Ramonojon, a mathematician, has expressed doubts about the rightness of annihilating an entire city and is viewed with dark suspicion by Anaxamander, the heroic military commander of the project. Mihradarius, the fire scientist who has devised the sun-catching method, keeps his own counsel. As sabotage, catastrophe, and exhilarating maneuvers overtake the voyage, Aias begins to wonder about the wisdom of the Delian strategy. Eventually he comes to understand the desperation of the Middle Kingdom, thanks to a Middler scientist stowaway, and they try to synthesize between them a way for the two world-spanning empires to resolve their differences. There remains a life-or-death race to earth on a crippled ship in the hope of bringing hope. |
6998260 | /m/0g_knx | Deryni Rising | Katherine Kurtz | 1970 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | The book covers a two-week period in November of 1120, beginning with the death of King Brion Haldane while leading a hunting party outside the city of Rhemuth. Immediately following Brion's death, his son and heir, Prince Kelson sends for his father's closest friend and advisor, Alaric Morgan, the Deryni Duke of Corwyn. Morgan arrives shortly before Kelson's coronation, but his efforts to assist the prince are interrupted by Kelson's mother, Queen Jehana. However, Kelson manages to thwart Jehana's attempts to imprison Morgan, and the duke resumes his efforts to protect Kelson. Morgan informs Kelson that Brion had wielded magical powers of his own, despite the fact that Brion was not Deryni. Known as "the Haldane potential", it is a trait of the Haldane line to acquire Deryni-like powers once they have been activated in the subject. Morgan believes that Brion designed a magical ritual to awaken those powers in Kelson. Furthermore, Morgan suspects that Kelson will need those powers to defend himself from Princess Charissa Furstána-Festila, a Deryni sorceress who intends to attack Kelson during his coronation and claim the throne of Gwynedd. During the course of the night, Morgan and his cousin, Monsignor Duncan McLain, attempt to decipher the clues left by Brion. After a bloody encounter in the royal crypt, the cousins discover that they both possess the Deryni talent for Healing, an ability that has been lost for two centuries. They eventually attempt to activate Kelson's magical abilities, but are disappointed when the ritual appears to fail. Later that night, Morgan encounters Charissa in the palace and the sorceress proudly admits to murdering Brion. During Kelson's coronation the following morning, Charissa appears and challenges the prince to a Duel Arcane, an ancient form of magical combat. Morgan attempts to answer the challenge in his role as King's Champion, but Charissa's own champion seriously wounds the Deryni duke before being defeated, leaving Morgan unable to deal with Charissa herself. However, seeing her son's danger, Jehana attacks Charissa with magic, revealing that her fanatical hatred of Deryni has concealed her own Deryni heritage. Nonetheless, Charissa easily defeats Jehana, and Kelson is forced to personally duel with the sorceress. As the combat is about to begin, Kelson suddenly unravels the last of his father's clues and activates his own powers. Using both his Haldane powers and his newly-discovered Deryni heritage, Kelson manages to defeat Charissa. With the Pretender now dead, Kelson is crowned as King of Gwynedd. |
7000086 | /m/0g_ngt | The Treasure of Tranicos | L. Sprague de Camp | null | {"/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/0707q": "Short story", "/m/0dz8b": "Sword and sorcery"} | "The Treasure of Tranicos." The title story finds Conan in the Pictish Wilderness fleeing native warriors who are hunting him. Finally he turns at bay before a hill, whereupon he sees them inexplicably abandon the chase and turn back. He realizes the spot must be a taboo place to the Picts. The hill turns out to hold a treasure cave, along with the preserved bodies of the pirate Tranicos and his men. Moreover, the treasure draws others to the forbidden cave in quest for it — one Count Valenso, and both Zingaran and Barachan sea reavers. But the bane of Tranicos is quite ready to take new victims, and Conan must outmaneuver all of them if he is to claim the riches. Howard's original story pointed toward a new piratical career for Conan; one of de Camp's major changes was to make it lead instead into the revolution that would bring the Cimmerian to the throne of Aquilonia. "The Trail of Tranicos." The essay following the story relates the circumstances of de Camp's discovery of Howard's manuscript and his revision and publication of it. "Scald in the Post Oaks." The remaining essay is about Howard himself. |
7000227 | /m/0g_nly | Deryni Checkmate | Katherine Kurtz | 1972 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction"} | Deryni Checkmate takes places in March 1121, four months after the coronation of fourteen-year old King Kelson Haldane. The novel opens with the rabidly anti-Deryni leader of the Holy Church, Archbishop Edmund Loris, signing a letter that demands that the Deryni Duke of Corwyn, Alaric Morgan, recant his magical powers and submit to a life of penance. If he fails to do so, Loris threatens to excommunicate Morgan and place his entire duchy under interdict. Additionally, Morgan's cousin, Monsignor Duncan McLain, is suspended and summoned to an ecclesiastical trial to answer for his part in the events surrounding Kelson's coronation. After being warned of the threat, Kelson sends Duncan to warn Morgan of the upcoming trouble, fearing that Duncan's hidden Deryni heritage may be revealed by a trial. Duncan travels to Morgan's capital city of Coroth, where he informs his cousin of Loris' threat. In addition to the ecclesiastical threat, Morgan's duchy is being ravaged by an anti-Deryni fanatic named Warin de Grey, and the neighboring kingdom of Torenth is preparing to launch an invasion of Gwynedd. Fearing that an internal Gwyneddan conflict will weaken the kingdom prior to fighting an external enemy, Morgan and Duncan eventually decide to travel to the city of Dhassa and personally appeal to the Curia of Bishops. However, en route to Dhassa, Morgan is drugged and captured by Warin, who intends to burn the Deryni duke as a heretic. Duncan manages to rescue his cousin, but is forced to reveal his Deryni powers to ensure their escape. When the Curia learns of the cousins' actions, the two are soon excommunicated. Morgan and Duncan realize that appealing to the Curia is no longer an option, so they set out to meet with Kelson. Loris attempts to place Corwyn under Interdict, but a group of bishops refuses to participate in an action that would punish an entire duchy for the actions of its duke. Loris rages against the rebels, but he and his supporters are thrown out of Dhassa, effectively splitting the Curia. Kelson has traveled to the city of Culdi to attend the wedding of Morgan's sister, Bronwyn, and Duncan's half-brother, Kevin. Unknown to anyone, a jealous architect named Rimmell has fallen in love with Bronwyn and seeks to win her affections through the use of a love charm he acquires from an old witch woman. However, Rimmell's plan backfires horribly, and the charm kills both Bronwyn and Kevin. By the time Morgan and Duncan arrive in Culdi, Rimmell has been executed for his crime. Though Morgan is crushed with grief over the death of his sister, Kelson reminds him that he must still see to his duties. Facing an internal ecclesiastical schism, rebel fanatics ravaging his lands, and an imminent invasion from Torenth, Kelson cannot allow Morgan to wallow in his grief. Morgan agrees, and returns to his duties in service to the throne of Gwynedd. |
7000590 | /m/0g_p0d | The Great Controversy | Ellen G. White | 1858 | null | This synopsis is of the final volume of the expanded book sets derived from the original Great Controversy book. It covers just the Christian dispensation. The book begins with a historical overview which begins with the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, covers the Reformation and Advent movement in detail, and culminates with a lengthy description of the end times. It also outlines several key Seventh-day Adventist doctrines, including the heavenly sanctuary, the investigative judgment and the state of the dead. Much of the first half of the book is devoted to the historical conflict between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. White writes that the Papacy propagated a corrupt form of Christianity from the time of Constantine I onwards, and during the Middle Ages was opposed only by the Waldensians and other small groups who preserved an authentic form of Christianity. Beginning with John Wycliffe and John Huss, and continuing with Luther, Zwingli and others, the Reformation led to a partial recovery of biblical truth. In the early 19th century William Miller began to preach that Jesus was about to return to earth; his movement eventually resulted in the formation of the Adventist church. The second half of the book is prophetic, looking to a resurgence in Papal supremacy. The civil government of the United States will form a union with the Roman Catholic church as well as with corrupt Protestantism. There will be an enforcement of a universal Sunday law (the mark of the beast) and a great persecution of Sabbath-keepers immediately prior to the second coming of Jesus. The official Ellen G. White Estate web site views the 1888 version as the original "Great Controversy", with the 1911 edition being the only revision. The "Synopsis" and "Sources" below reflect this, and do not refer at all to the 1858 version, and only partially to the 1884 version. While working to complete the book in 1884, Ellen White wrote: “I want to get it out as soon as possible, for our people need it so much. . . .I have been unable to sleep nights, for thinking of the important things to take place. . . . Great things are before us, and we want to call the people from their indifference to get ready.” In the 1911 edition preface the author states the primary purpose of the book to be: “to trace the history of the controversy in past ages, and especially so to present it as to shed a light on the fast approaching struggle of the future.” |
7001498 | /m/0g_qb6 | The Stranger | K. A. Applegate | 1997-04 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | Rachel's father asks her to move with him to another state. After some reconnaissance work, Marco and Tobias find an entrance to the underground Yeerk Pool, in one of the changing rooms at The Gap. The Animorphs decide to infiltrate the pool and to try to find the location of the Earth-based Kandrona by going in as cockroaches. Once inside the complex, however, they get caught on the tongue of a Taxxon. As they are about to be devoured, time freezes and they feel themselves being forcibly brought out of morph. They are then introduced to an all-powerful being called an Ellimist. The Ellimist tells the kids that he cannot interfere with other species, but when species are in danger of becoming extinct, he can step in and save a sample. He informs them that he wants to preserve part of Earth's beauty, along with some humans, because the Yeerks are going to win the war in the future. The Animorphs ask how much time they have to consider the offer, but the Ellimist tells them that they must decide now. If they choose yes, they and their families would be transported to another planet, but if they choose no, everything would be returned to the way it was before the Ellimist's arrival. The group puts the decision up to a vote, and during the deliberation, Jake and Rachel notice a drop shaft and a human frozen in the act of moving up in it. The Animorphs choose not to accept the Ellimist's offer and are immediately back in cockroach morph on a Taxxon's tongue. They are able to demorph and fight their way to the drop shaft to escape the Yeerk pool. Later, The Ellimist appears to the group again to give them the choice one more time. To aid their decision, he transports them to a grim future in which the Yeerks have enslaved Earth. Rachel notices, with some confusion, that most of the skyscrapers and buildings in the city have been leveled except for the tallest one: the EGS Tower. This tower stood at the base of a large, open Yeerk pool and was covered with a shiny dome. After they return to their own time, the Animorphs reverse their earlier decision and accept the Ellimist's offer. They expect to be immediately whisked away, however, nothing happens. Rachel is disconcerted by this and concludes that the Ellimist did not transport them because he wanted a different answer. While thinking on it, she realizes that only because of the Ellimist's first appearance were they able to see the drop shaft and know that there was a chance to escape the Taxxon's grip. She then determines that during the trip to the future, the Ellimist was once again simply trying to show them something that he could not overtly tell them without interfering. She remembers the EGS Tower, deduces that the Kandrona must be located there, and gathers the rest of the Animorphs for a raid. After a vicious battle just before dawn, the Animorphs manage to take the top floor of the tower and destroy the Kandrona by shoving it out of the window. The Ellimist appears to them again, and confirms Rachel's suspicion that even he cannot tell the future, and humans might win the war yet. Rachel tells her father she can't move with him. *The Ellimist is introduced. *The Earth-based Kandrona of the Animorphs' city area is destroyed, but it is replaced three weeks and a few books later. |
7002018 | /m/0g_r6b | Men Like Gods | H. G. Wells | 1923 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/02xlf": "Fiction", "/m/05h83": "Non-fiction"} | Men Like Gods is set in the summer of 1921. Its protagonist is Mr. Barnstaple (his first name is either Alfred or William), a journalist working in London and living in Sydenham. He has grown dispirited at a newspaper called The Liberal and resolves to take a holiday. Quitting wife and family, he finds his plans disrupted when his and two other automobiles are accidentally transported with their passengers into "another world," which the "Earthlings" call Utopia. A sort of advanced Earth, Utopia is some three thousand years ahead of humanity in its development. For the 200,000,000 Utopians who inhabit this world, the "Days of Confusion" are a distant period studied in history books, but their past resembles humanity's in its essentials, differing only in incidental details: their Christ, for example, died on the wheel, not on the cross. Utopia lacks any world government and functions as a successfully realized anarchy. "Our education is our government," a Utopian named Lion says. Sectarian religion, like politics, has died away, and advanced scientific research flourishes. Life in Utopia is governed by "the Five Principles of Liberty," which are privacy, free movement, unlimited knowledge, truthfulness, and free discussion and criticism. Mr. Barnstaple longs to stay in Utopia, but when he asks how he can best serve Utopia, he is told that he can do this "by returning to your own world." Regretfully he accepts, and ends his month-long stay in Utopia. But he brings with him back to Earth a renewed determination to contribute to the effort to make a terrestrial Utopia: "[H]e belonged now soul and body to the Revolution, to the Great Revolution that is afoot on Earth; that marches and will never desist nor rest again until old Earth is one city and Utopia set up therein. He knew clearly that this Revolution is life, and that all other living is a trafficking of life with death." Men Like Gods is divided into three books. Details of life in Utopia are given in Books I and III. In Book II, the Earthlings are quarantined on a rocky crag after infections they have brought cause a brief epidemic in Utopia. There they begin to plot the conquest of Utopia, despite Mr. Barnstaple's protests. He betrays them when his fellows try to take two Utopians hostage, and Mr. Barnstaple is forced to escape execution for treason by fleeing perilously. |
7004293 | /m/0g_w11 | Danton's Death | Georg Büchner | null | null | The play follows the story of Georges Danton, a leader of the French Revolution, during the lull between the first and second terrors. Georges Danton created the office of the Revolutionary Tribunal as a strong arm for the Revolutionary Government. With this, to be accused of anything real or imagined was to be condemned to death without trial, proofs, evidence or witnesses. Within months he knew this power was a terrible mistake and fought to have it ended. Robespierre stopped him and used the Tribunal to have Danton and all opposition killed, consolidate his power and slaughter uncounted thousands of French men, women, and children. Ultimately he followed Danton to the guillotine. Witnesses describe Danton as dying bravely comforting other innocents executed with him. Three revolutionary groups are presented at the start of the play - Danton's supporters, Robespierre's supporters, and those who do not agree with how the Revolution has evolved. Danton and Robespierre have different views on how to pursue the revolution - Danton's supporters back the end of Robespierre's repressive measures, which have already caused great suffering among the people, and they did not find in the Revolution the answer to the material and moral questions facing mankind. One citizen deplores the fact that his daughter has been forced into prostitution to support her family. Danton accepts his friends' proposal to meet Robespierre but this meeting proves to be fruitless and Robespierre resolves that Danton must be killed, though he still doubts that this decision is just. Danton's friends press him to fight or flee Robespierre's supporters, but Danton does not see any need to do so and does not believe that the French National Convention will dare to act against him. Danton confides the guilt he feels for the September Massacres in his wife Julie. Danton is imprisoned and led before the National Assembly, which is divided - it feels it has no choice but to acquit him. However, Robespierre and Saint-Just reverse its opinion. The prisoners discuss the existence of God and life, and an attempt to prove that God does not exist fails. Danton's supporters are transferred to the Conciergerie. During this time the revolutionary tribunal arranges for its jury to be made up of honest and faithful men. Danton appears confidently before the tribunal, impressing the public with his willingness for justice to be done. Seeing the hearers' sympathy for Danton, the court is adjourned. The tribunal's members invent a plot to change the public's mind. At the tribunal's second sitting, the people stop supporting Danton, due to his lifestyle. Danton's liberal programme is revealed as unacceptable to the masses. Danton and his supporters are condemned to death. Danton and his friend Camille Desmoulins exchange thoughts on life and death. Danton's wife Julie, to whom he has pledged to be loyal beyond death, poisons herself at their home. The people show themselves to be curious and ironic on Danton's way to the scaffold. When Lucile Desmoulins sees her husband Camille mount the scaffold, she goes mad and resolves to die too, crying "Long live the king!" and thus guaranteeing her own death sentence. |
7005213 | /m/0g_xc5 | The Genocides | Thomas M. Disch | 1965 | {"/m/06n90": "Science Fiction", "/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/05hgj": "Novel"} | The Genocides describes the genocide of humans by aliens who seed Earth with enormous crop plants. The Plants are massive and rapidly out-compete terrestrial flora, forming a monoculture. They appear unwholesome to the native fauna, and starvation seems inevitable. The novel opens with a small rural community struggling for survival on the border of Lake Superior. Urban society appears to have collapsed by this point. The community, lead by Anderson and his family, eke out an existence by siphoning sap from the Plants to irrigate their corn crop. Anderson is a conservative and religious man, harsh and uncompromising. His focus on survival has kept the community alive long after many have died. His rules include the harsh treatment of outsiders who are routinely killed unless they are of use to the community. Newcomers arrive bringing with them news of spherical machines that are incinerating every trace of humanity left on Earth, including burning the abandoned cities and remaining survivors. Most of the newcomers are killed and, the novel implies, ground into sausage meat and consumed. The two remaining have useful skills: Alice is a nurse and the Jeremiah a mining engineer. Jeremiah vows a personal revenge on Anderson and his family, but begins by ingratiating himself in the community. Jeremiah courts Anderson's thirteen-year-old daughter, Blossom. He befriends Anderson's educated son, Buddy. During the harsh winter, the spherical machines come to incinerate the community. Jeremiah sees his revenge coming to fruition. Those who survive the initial conflagration flee into a cave. There they discover the Plants' roots are hollow and form a massive and interlocking underground network. Jeremiah suggests they go deeper, pointing out that they will be able to escape the winter underground. They discover the "fruit" of the plants is housed in the root system: a nutritious pulp the community begins to consume. Anderson, who lost his wife Lady when fleeing, is weakened. When he is bitten by a rat, gangrene sets in and he declines quickly. His final words to his brutish son, Neil, are to let Jeremiah take over leading the community and to allow Jeremiah to marry Blossom. Neil is angered by these words, and murders Anderson. The nurse Alice sees the signs of murder on Anderson, but Neil murders her before she can share her revelation. The community breaks up. Jeremiah goes in search of Blossom, planning to kill her when he finds her and commit his ultimate revenge. When he does find her, he experiences a change of heart and falls in love. They try to return, but find Neil has sabotaged their escape and his own. In the dark they cannot find their way back. Neil, Jeremiah, Blossom and Buddy struggle underground. Neil is overcome and abandoned in the dark. When the few survivors return to the diminishing group, they find machines have come to harvest the Plants' crop. Without the pulp to live on, the survivors return to the surface. On the surface it is spring, and a new crop of Plants have been sown by the mysterious aliens. The malnourished group has no chance of survival, and the novel closes on the Jeremiah and Blossom leaving the few other survivors to travel into the wilderness. The pair, starving and mismatched in age, are portrayed as a distorted mirror image of the biblical Adam and Eve and herald the end of humanity instead of the beginning. |
7006524 | /m/0g_z68 | The Goblin Wood | Hilari Bell | 2003-04 | {"/m/014dfn": "Speculative fiction", "/m/01hmnh": "Fantasy"} | Makenna is a hedgewitch. Her mother is killed when a new priest is sent to town. Makenna flees for her life, and tries to flood the town as her last act of vengeance. She flees to the woods and is teased by a group of goblins. Soon, she catches one goblin named Cogswhallop. She spares his life, and to repay his debt, he helps her out and convinces his fellow goblins to stop taunting her. Makenna later meets a friendly trader in the woods who tells her of the events taking place around the world. He tells her that the priesthood is working to eliminate all sources of magic they consider to not come from divine sources, goblins and hedgewitches among them. The goblin Cogswhallop and his friends ask for Makenna's aid in rescuing a small goblin family from being burned to death by a priest. Makenna aids the goblins, and they form an alliance to help goblins and find a place where they can live in peace. Tobin, a young knight, finds his brother out late one night fleeing from the guards for helping the rebels. Tobin assists his brother but is caught himself and is branded as a traitor. To help save his name and family, Tobin accepts a mission to rid the northern lands of the goblins so that settlers who have lost their lands to the barbarians in the south may have a place to live. Tobin sets out alone to the far village to the north to rid the lands of the goblins and their leader, a "sorceress." Tobin travels to the town, where he meets a priest of the Bright Ones. The priest informs him of his mission: Tobin is to seek out the goblin lair and plant the Otherworld stone near the sorceress's headquarters so that they can spy on her through the stone. Tobin sets out to find the lair and is caught by the goblins, and is taken to their village. While trying to escape, he drops the stone. While Tobin is a hostage in the Goblin village, he is kept chained to a post in a small jail. There, he watches and learns the customs of the goblins and how they are not so different from human children. Makenna (the "sorceress") sits in with him one day and performs a spell to learn what information he might have. Makenna tells Tobin that she's only a hedgewitch. Tobin is released from his prison to walk around the village with the children. He meets many goblins and becomes a familiar face around the goblin village. That night, the village is raided by knights that lived in the human outpost where Tobin had met the priest. The knights had been able to find the village because of the Otherworld stone Tobin had dropped earlier. The town is soon overtaken and but Tobin helps many of the goblins flee. Makenna sneaks into the human village as a servant and lives with a small family where she saves a seven year old from choking to death, causing the hiring family to accept her. She flees that night and meets back up with the goblins, where they plan their attack. The next night, Tobin and the goblins try to sneak into the village, but he is caught while trying to raid the priest's tent and steal his books of spells. Makenna then valiantly jumps in to save him and they flee with the books, in hope of leading the goblins to a new world. Makenna, Tobin, and the goblins are all huddled together as Makenna, using a magical wall, performs a spell that opens a portal into a whole new world. Just as the army comes over the hill, the goblins, Makenna, and Tobin disappear into the portal, never to be heard from again. Cogswhallop and some other goblins stay behind to continue to attack the humans. |
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