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Dry Bones that Dream | Peter Robinson | 1,994 | One May evening, two masked gunmen tie up Alison Rothwell and her mother, take Keith Rothwell, a local accountant, to the garage of his isolated Yorkshire Dales farmhouse, and blow his head off with a shotgun. Why? This is the question Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks has to ask as he sifts through Rothwell’s life. Rothwell was generally known in the area as a mild-mannered, dull sort of person, but even a cursory investigation raises more questions than answers. When Banks’s old sparring partner, DS Richard “Dirty Dick” Burgess, turns up from the Yard, the case takes yet another unexpected twist, and Banks finds himself racing against time as the killers seem to be dogging his footsteps. Only after he pits his job against his sense of justice does he discover the truth. And the truth leads him to one of the most difficult decisions of his career. |
Innocent Graves | Peter Robinson | 1,996 | When last seen alive, sixteen-year-old Deborah Harrison was on her way home from school. Her friend Megan thinks she saw the shadowy figure of a man behind Deborah as they waved goodbye on the bridge, but the fog was so thick that evening she can’t be sure. Not long after, Deborah’s body is found in the local cemetery. The murder terrorises the wealthy enclave of St Mary’s, Eastvale, and because Deborah was the daughter of a prominent industrialist, high-flying new Chief Constable Jeremiah “Jimmy” Riddle puts pressure on Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks and his team to catch the killer without delay. And soon, partly thanks to the work of new boy Detective Inspector Barry Stott, it looks as if they have done. But Banks is not convinced. While the community breathes a collective sigh of relief and turns into a lynch-mob, Banks examines the loose ends: a vicar, accused of sexually harassing a refugee worker, who lies about his whereabouts at the time of the murder; his straying wife; a schoolteacher with a dark secret; the accused’s vindictive ex-girlfriend; a teenage thug who has threatened Deborah and her family with violence. And then there are Deborah’s own family secrets. With each new piece of information, a different pattern is formed, until Banks is forced to incur the wrath of Jimmy Riddle if he hopes to solve the case. |
Dead Right | Peter Robinson | 1,997 | On a rainy night in Eastvale, a teenager is found in an alley, smashed over the head with a bottle and then kicked to death. At first it looks like a typical after-hours pub fight gone terribly wrong, but Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks and Detective Constable Susan Gay quickly learn that the victim, Jason Fox, was a member of a white power organization known as the Albion League. Football-mad Jason, it seems, was very good at his office job–bright, energetic, quick to learn–but was let go because of his racist views. As Banks follows the leads, he comes up with a number of possible suspects: the Pakistani youths Jason had insulted earlier in an Eastvale pub; Jason’s business partner, Mark Wood, and his shady friends; someone in the Albion League itself, someone who resented Jason’s growing power and influence. Or are things even more sinister than they appear? The investigation takes a surprising twist when Banks is mysteriously summoned to Amsterdam, where he is introduced to the bizarre world of cyber-Nazis on the Internet. As the detectives struggle to solve the mystery of Jason’s death, they also battle their own problems. Susan finds herself in a puzzling relationship with a fellow DC, and tensions that have been brewing for some time between Banks and his wife Sandra finally come to a head. Banks also has to face the challenge of working with Chief Constable Jeremiah “Jimmy” Riddle, a high-flyer who favours a hands-on approach to the job, and who is more concerned with appearances than he is with truth. Just when everything seems cut-and-dried, Banks discovers something that turns the case on its head. Something that might cost him his job. |
In a Dry Season | Peter Robinson | 1,999 | When a boy finds a skeleton buried in a dried-up reservoir built on the site of a ruined village, Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks is brought in by his arch-enemy Chief Constable Jeremiah “Jimmy” Riddle to head what looks like being a dull, routine investigation. It turns into anything but. With the help of Detective Sergeant Annie Cabbot, Banks uncovers long-kept secrets in a community that has resolutely concealed its past. One former resident, now a writer, reveals her memories of Hobb’s End, the village that died before the reservoir was built. Her first person narrative, touched with both innocence and irony, takes us from 1941 to 1945, recreating another age, an era of rationing, of Land Girls, of American airmen, of jitterbugging and movies. And of murder. As Banks and Annie unravel the deceptive and disparate relationships of half a century ago, suspense heightens and the past finally bursts into the present with terrifying consequences. |
The Blind Man Of Seville | Robert Wilson | 2,003 | The novel concerns a series of vicious murders in Seville, and in turn these murders lead protagonist Falcon to look into the shady life of his deceased father, an acclaimed artist who fought in the Second World War. Falcon's investigations cause him to unearth shocking revelations about his father's past, and bring him to an emotional brink. The novel's structure is unusual, being told from the present perspective and also through a series of diary entries penned by Falcon's father during his war-time experiences. |
The Silent and the Damned | Robert Wilson | 2,004 | Falcon, Sevillian Chief Inspector, works in the grinding July heat, with his reliable team, to investigate a series of local suicides. Suspecting that the first death could in fact be a murder, the team follow the links from deaths to political corruption, and abuse on an horrific scale. Hampered by the inevitable difficulties arising from international twists to his investigation, and the constraints of a restrictive hierarchy, Falcon and his fellow detectives nevertheless manage to follow his hunches and insights to ultimate success, showing that some criminals pay some debts, and saving the cousins from their self-destruction. |
The Hidden Assassins | Robert Wilson | 2,006 | The novel tackles themes of terrorism. |
Grimble | Clement Freud | 1,968 | Grimble is a boy of "about 10" who has parents that can be described as eccentric. Returning from school one day, he discovers that they have gone to Peru for a week leaving him with a fridge filled with bottles of tea, an oven filled with sandwiches, a tin full of sixpence pieces and a list of five names and addresses of people he can visit to get help with dinner. Each day he visits a new address, though on each occasion his host is out. The book is a humorous account of his life alone for five days. |
The Generals | Simon Scarrow | 2,007 | In the turbulent aftermath of the French Revolution Napoleon Bonaparte is accused of treachery and corruption. His reputation is saved by his skill in leading his men to victory in Italy and Egypt. But then he must rush home to France to restore order amidst political unrest, and to find peace or victory over the country's enemies, foremost of which is England-and Arthur Wellesley (the future Duke of Wellington). Wellesley is on the other side of the world in India where British interests are under threat. Wellesley leads vast armies against a series of powerful warlords in campaigns that will result in the creation of the Raj-the jewel in the crown of the British Empire. He returns to England a hardened veteran a more determined than ever to end France's dominion of Europe. |
Stone fox | John Reynolds Gardiner | 1,980 | Little Willy and his dog Searchlight find Willy's grandfather lying in bed. Doc Smith, the only doctor in town, tells Willy that his grandfather no longer wants to live. Clifford Snyder, a tax collector, sneaks into Little Willy's house and, with a derringer in his hand, demands to know how much his grandfather owes the state. After seeing some papers he tells Willy that they owe the state of Wyoming 500 dollars. The next day Willy enters a dog sled race that has a reward of 500 dollars. Willy sees a sled being pulled by five Samoyeds (fast dogs used for sled racing). The man on the sled signs up for the race, and Willy learns it is Stone Fox, a Native American who doesn't talk to white people and has never lost a race. During the race, Willy's light one-dog sled shows unexpected advantages in managing tight curves and enabling a perilous short-cut over a frozen lake. However, Searchlight becomes so tired that her heart bursts and she dies instantly about 10 feet from the finish line. Stone Fox makes a line on the ground with his boot, takes out his rifle, and warns that if any other racers cross the line, he'll shoot. He then concedes the match to Willy by letting Willy carry Searchlight across the finish line to everyone's amazement. |
Survival Of The Fittest | Constance M. Burge | null | The plot centers around the murder of the daughter of an Israeli diplomat. The murder seems exceptionally cruel, since the girl was developmentally disabled. From the positioning of the body and location, motive for the killing is not clear, until other people with other disabilities--being blind, having a very low IQ, etc.--and strange symbols are showing up at the scenes. It is only when they learn of a very cruel, self-righteous conspiracy to practice eugenics that Milo and Alex start unravelling this very dark case. |
Cold is the Grave | Peter Robinson | 2,000 | In recent years, the career of Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks has been stalled-and, in fact, very nearly destroyed-by the petty animosities of his politically ambitious senior officer Chief Constable Riddle. But when nude pictures of Riddle’s runaway teenage daughter show up on a pornographic Web site, he turns to Banks for help. The trail leads Banks first to London’s Soho, an area of strip clubs and sex shops, then to the upmarket Little Venice, where Emily Riddle is living with a dangerous gangster with ties to world of rock music. At first she refuses to come home, but later Emily turns up at Banks’s hotel, bruised and frightened and asking for his help. Soon she is back with her family in Yorkshire, and Banks’s work appears to be done. Other concerns occupy Banks’s time. A major reorganization and expansion of Eastvale Regional Headquarters has brought Detective Sergeant Annie Cabbot back into his life, and she soon finds demons of her own to face. As they begin an investigation into the slaying of Charlie Courage, a low-level petty crook, a murder occurs at an Eastvale nightclub, filling the tabloids with headlines that scream of scandal, sex and high-level corruption. It is a cold and savage homicide that shakes Banks to his core, and it soon leads to shocking revelations that suggest it is somehow linked to the Charlie Courage affair. The grim discoveries of the unfolding investigation lead Banks in a direction he does not wish to go: the past and private world of his most powerful enemy, Chief Constable Riddle. |
Aftermath | Peter Robinson | 2,002 | One early morning in May, Banks is called to a steep, overgrown street in Leeds, where two police officers answering a domestic call have stumbled on a scene of unbelievable horror. In the cellar of 35 The Hill, two people are dead, a third is dying, and behind a door more bodies lay buried. This seems to be the end of a grisly case Banks has been working on for some time, but ironically it turns out to be only the beginning. It is apparent who the murderer is, but Banks quickly finds out that nothing in this case is quite as straightforward as it seems. Many people are entangled in this crime–some whose lives are shattered by it, and some with unspeakable secrets in their pasts. The dead, Banks learns, are not the only victims, and the murderer may not be the only person to blame. |
The Summer That Never Was | Peter Robinson | 2,003 | A skeleton has been unearthed. Soon the body is identified, and the horrific discovery hits the headlines . . . Fourteen-year-old Graham Marshall went missing during his paper round in 1965. The police found no trace of him. His disappearance left his family shattered, and his best friend, Alan Banks, full of guilt. That friend has now become Chief Inspector Alan Banks, and he is determined to bring justice for Graham. But he soon realises that in this case, the boundary between victim and perpetrator, between law-guardian and law-breaker, is becoming more and more blurred... |
Playing with Fire | Peter Robinson | 2,004 | Smarting from the break-up with his girlfriend, DI Annie Cabot, and still in shock from his ex-wife's recent pregnancy, DCI Alan Banks welcomes the diversion of a fire on two houseboats on the old Eastvale canal.. even though two bodies are then found on board. But was it arson or accident? And why was the boyfriend of one of the victims found lurking in the woods watching the fire-fighters in action? The case soon widens with another fire, another death, the discovery of art fraud, paedophilia and incest. And to add to it all DI Cabot has a new man - one that Banks doesn't like or trust an inch. As the case unravels and becomes ever more complicated, so Banks' personal life becomes entangled, occasionally blurring both his and Cabot's vision of the real villain in their midst. Crossing the York moors from city to village, Robinson draws a vivid picture of life in the North. This time, Banks may have bitten off more than even he can chew.... |
Strange Affair | Peter Robinson | 2,005 | When Alan Banks receives a disturbing message from his brother, Roy, he abandons the peaceful Yorkshire Dales for the bright lights of London, to seek him out. But Roy seems to have vanished into thin air. Meanwhile, DI Annie Cabbot is called to a quiet stretch of road just outside Eastvale, where a young woman has been found dead in her car. In the victim’s pocket, scribbled on a slip of paper, police discover Banks’ name and address. Living in Roy's empty South Kensington house, Banks finds himself digging into the life of the brother he never really knew, nor even liked. And as he begins to uncover a few troubling surprises, the two cases become sinisterly entwined... |
Piece of My Heart: A Novel of Suspense | Peter Robinson | 2,006 | As volunteers clean up after a huge outdoor rock concert in Yorkshire in 1969, they discover the body of a young woman wrapped in a sleeping bag. She has been brutally murdered. The detective assigned to the case, Stanley Chadwick, is a hard-headed, strait-laced veteran of the Second World War. He could not have less in common with - or less regard for - young, disrespectful, long-haired hippies, smoking marijuana and listening to the pulsing sounds of rock and roll. But he has a murder to solve, and it looks as if the victim was somehow associated with the up-and-coming psychedelic pastoral band the Mad Hatters. In the present, Inspector Alan Banks is investigating the murder of a freelance music journalist who was working on a feature about the Mad Hatters for MOJO magazine. This is not the first time that the Mad Hatters, now aging rock superstars, have been brushed by tragedy. Banks finds he has to delve into the past to find out exactly what hornets' nest the journalist inadvertently stirred up. |
Friend of the Devil | Peter Robinson | 2,007 | When Karen Drew is found sitting in her wheelchair staring out to sea with her throat cut one chilly morning, DI Annie Cabbot, on loan to Eastern Area, gets lumbered with the case. Back in Eastvale, that same Sunday morning, 19-year-old Hayley Daniels is found raped and strangled in the Maze, a tangle of narrow alleys behind Eastvale's market square, after a drunken night on the town with a group of friends, and DCI Alan Banks is called in. Banks finds suspects galore, while Annie seems to hit a brick wall--until she reaches a breakthrough that spins her case in a shocking and surprising new direction, one that also involves Banks. Then another incident occurs in the Maze which seems to link the two cases in a bizarre and mysterious way. As Banks and Annie dig into the past to uncover the deeper connections, they find themselves also dealing with the emotional baggage and personal demons of their own relationship. And it soon becomes clear that there are two killers in their midst, and that at any moment either one might strike again. |
The Almost Moon | Alice Sebold | 2,007 | Artist's model and divorcee, Helen Knightly spontaneously murders her mother, an agoraphobic now suffering from severe dementia, by suffocating her with a towel. But while her act is almost unconscious, it also seems like the fulfilment of a long-cherished, buried desire, since she spent a lifetime trying to win the love of a mother who had none to spare. Over the next twenty-four hours, Helen recalls her childhood, youth, marriage, and motherhood. Her life and the omnipresent relationship with her mother rush in at her as she confronts the choices that have brought her to that crossroads. Partly absent-mindedly, partly desperately she tries to conceal her crime, and in doing so ropes her ex-husband into the conspiracy. |
Playing for Pizza | John Grisham | 2,007 | Rick Dockery is a third string NFL quarterback for the Cleveland Browns, who throws three interceptions in 11 minutes in the AFC championship game, blowing a 17 point lead and resulting in the Browns missing their chance at their first-ever Super Bowl appearance. He is cut from the team, vilified in the press, and is facing legal troubles due to a questionable paternity lawsuit. His agent Arnie tries to find him work in the NFL, but no team will take him. Arnie manages to find him a starting position for the Parma Panthers of the Italian Football league for meager compensation. Rick accepts the job, glad to get away from the negative press and his legal troubles in the United States, but wary of living in Italy, where he doesn't know the language and where American football draws little attention or respect. The Parma Panthers have only two other Americans on the team -- halfback Slidell "Sly" Turner, who ends up leaving early in the season, and Safety Trey Colby. The Panthers win their first game with Rick, then lose a couple for various reasons, including the loss of his American teammates to homesickness and injury. Despite these problems, Italy and the team are growing on Rick, and he begins to feel some loyalty to them despite the fact that Arnie has found him a more lucrative job offer with a more respected CFL team. Rick decides to honor his contract with the Parma Panthers. With renewed resolve, a talented Italian wide receiver and a new strategy, they win each of their remaining regular-season games, then advance to the playoffs and the Italian Super Bowl, a very close and hard-fought game against their rivals, the Bergamo Lions. |
The Bondwoman's Narrative | null | 2,002 | Crafts's novel focuses on the experience of Hannah, a house slave, beginning with her explanation of being taught to read and write as a child by a kind old couple, who were subsequently discovered and reprimanded. Years later, Hannah's master hosts a large wedding. During the party, Hannah notices an unattractive old man subtly following her new mistress. Hannah concludes that “each one was conscious of some great and important secret on the part of the other.” Indeed, in the coming weeks, after observing her new mistress lock herself away most of the day, Hannah comes to learn that the old man is Mr. Trappe, a crooked lawyer who has discovered that the mistress is a fair-skinned mulatto who is passing for white. Hannah and the mistress flee the plantation in the middle of the night, become lost, and stay the night in a gloomy shack in the forest. The shack was recently the scene of a murder, and strewn with bloodstained weapons and clothes. Under these conditions, Hannah's mistress starts to go insane. Months later, the women are found by a group of hunters who escort them to prison. One of them, Horace, informs Hannah that her master slit his throat after their escape. The women are taken to prison, where they meet Mrs. Wright, a senile woman imprisoned for trying to help a slave girl escape. The mistress’ insanity worsens. After several months, the women are moved to a house, where conditions are much better, but they are unable to leave or know the identity of their captor. After a lengthy imprisonment, it is revealed that their captor is Mr. Trappe. The mistress, upon learning this, suffers a brain aneurysm and dies. Hannah is sold to a slave trader. As she is being transported, the cart horse bolts and runs the cart off a ledge. The slave trader is killed instantly. Hannah wakes up in the home of Mrs. Henry, a kindly woman who treats her well. As Hannah recuperates, Mrs. Henry is told that Hannah’s previous owner wishes to claim her. Despite Hannah’s pleas, the young woman is returned to the status of house slave, this time for Mrs. Wheeler, a vain, self-centered woman. When sent to town for facial powder, Hannah hears news of Mr. Trappe’s death. After she returns with the powder, Mrs. Wheeler discovers that it reacts with her perfume, causing a blackening effect on her skin. Mrs. Wheeler has temporary blackface, causing her much discomfort. After the family moves to North Carolina and another house slave replaces Hannah, Mrs. Wheeler suspects her of telling others about the blackface incident. As punishment, Hannah is ordered to the fields to be raped. Before being forced to join the field slaves, she flees again. Hannah comes under the care of Mrs. Hetty, the kind woman who originally taught her to read and write. Mrs. Hetty facilitates Hannah’s escape to the North, where the young woman rejoins her mother. |
The Devil's Law Case | John Webster | null | Romelio is a prominent merchant of Naples. He is fortunate, never having lost a vessel to shipwreck. He is rich; he mocks another merchant who has reached the age of 60 and amassed a fortune of only 50 thousand ducats. And he is arrogant: another character condemns his "insolent vainglory." Romelio directs some of his arrogance toward Contarino, the young nobleman, indebted to the merchant, who hopes to marry Romelio's sister Jolenta. For Romelio, Contarino is just another wastrel aristocrat who hopes to repair his decayed fortunes by marrying into the wealthy merchant class. Romelio instead is trying to arrange a marriage between Jolenta and Ercole, a Spanish noble who commands a fleet against the Ottoman Turks. (Spain ruled Naples and southern Italy during the Renaissance.) Jolenta, however, loves Contarino, and resists having her fate bartered away. Contarino tries to advance his cause by appealing to Leonora, the mother of Romelio and Jolenta, flattering her by requesting her portrait. Leonora remains a supporter of Ercole's suit — but she becomes interested in Contarino herself. When Jolenta remains resistant, Romelio sets the servant Winifred to watch over her and keep her from contacting Contarino. Winifred, however, is sympathetic to the girl, and does just the opposite; in conversation with his intended bride, Contarino learns of Ercole's pursuit of her. The play's subplot introduces Crispiano, a Spanish judge who has assumed a disguise to spy upon his scapegrace son Julio (a plot device that occurs in a number of English Renaissance plays). Julio is overspending his allowance on riotous living, wasting "A hundred ducats a month in breaking Venice glasses." Julio is a friend of Romelio, which blends the two plots. Ariosto, a stern local lawyer, accuses Romelio of exploiting foolish young men like Julio by encouraging them to go into debt and mortgage their inheritances. Contarino confronts Ercole about Jolenta. In their duel, both are seriously and almost fatally wounded, before they are discovered and brought to medical attention. Romelio is informed that the law of averages has caught up with his trading ventures, and that three of his carracks have been lost at sea. Ariosto, who brings the news, tries to counsel patience and fortitude to Romelio, but the arrogant merchant has no time for him. A false report reaches Romelio and Leonora that both Ercole and Contarino are dead; Leonora is devastated by the news of Contarino's loss. Contarino's last will and testament, delivered to Romelio, names Jolenta as his heir. Both learn, however, that each of the duellists is still alive; Leonora rejoices. Because of the will, Romelio has another reason to wish Contarino dead. Masquerading as a Jew, Romelio goes to see Contarino, and talks his way past the two surgeons who treat the wounded man; but they are suspicious, and surreptitiously keep watch. Romelio stabs Contarino along the track of his existing wound; the two surgeons catch him in the act, forcing Romelio to reveal himself and buy their silence. The surgeons had despaired of their patient's recovery — but Romelio's intervention has allowed the "congeal'd blood" and "putrefaction" to flow from the infected wound, and Contarino begins to recover. Romelio thinks he has killed the man, however, and tells his sister so. He has a plot that needs Jolenta's co-operation. She is Contarino's heiress via his will; Romelio can make Jolenta Ercole's heiress too, if he can claim that she bears his child. The child would be legitimate under their precontract of marriage. Romelio has seduced and impregnated a "beauteuous nun," a member of the Order of Saint Clare; Romelio wants to pass off his coming bastard as Jolenta's. Jolenta, testing how far her brother will go, tells him that she is pregnant with Contarino's child; Romelio accepts this, and suggests that when the time comes they can claim she's had twins. Jolenta informs her brother that she is not really pregnant; she vents her Websterian contempt of him and all mankind. Romelio is unfazed; he plots ahead to pack her off to a nunnery after the baby's birth, and to send the two surgeons to the Indies to keep them from blackmailing him. In a long soliloquy, Leonora expresses her disgust at her son, and reveals her scheme to punish and ruin him. With the loss of his ships, Romelio is now dependent upon his family estates for income; Leonora challenges his right to them, by claiming in a court of law that he is a bastard and not her husband's son. (This is the law case of the title, based on an actual case that occurred in Spain in 1610.) In front of the judge Crispiano, she claims that she had an affair with a family friend while her husband was away. Winifred supports her mistress's story — which has a fatal flaw: the family friend who is the alleged father of the bastard Romelio is Crispiano. The judge steps down from the bench, hands the case over to Ariosto, and reveals his disguise. Her falsehood exposed, Leonora expresses the intention of retiring to the religious life. Both Ercole and Contarino, recovered from their wounds, are present in the courtroom in disguise. Ercole reveals himself, and is arrested for killing Contarino; but he challenges Romelio, and a trial by combat is arranged. Julio is Romelio's second, while Ercole is seconded by the still-disguised Contarino. (This part of the plot makes little sense, the biggest of the plotting and structure problems condemned by critics. Contarino senselessly neglects the obvious recourse of showing everyone that he's not dead.) A Capuchin friar comes to see and counsel Romelio, who grows tired of his preachiness and locks him away — preventing the friar from revealing that Contarino is still alive. The duel is held, and the fight goes on for a time without conclusion. Romelio, under a sudden attack of conscience, orders the friar released so that the man can pray for him. The friar arrives in time to reveal Contarino's survival, negating the grounds of the duel. Jolenta, the pregnant nun Angiolella, and the two surgeons arrive; Jolenta is made up like a Moor and one of the surgeons is in Romelio's Jewish disguise, for no good reason. All the skeins of the plot are exposed, and Judge Ariosto resolves them with a set of rulings. Romelio must restore Contarino's fortune, and marry the pregnant nun Angiolella; she, Leonora, and Jolenta must build a monastery to express their penitence. Julio goes off to fight the Turks. The perfunctory conclusion neglects the most obvious feature of the happy ending appropriate to tragicomedy, Jolenta's marriage. The Devil's Law Case is unusual in that it has no specific clown figure; its comic relief is supplied by various minor characters. The play delivers doses of Websterian bitterness, against men, women, lawyers, and doctors. |
Between Mom and Jo | Julie Anne Peters | 2,006 | The main character deals with the struggles of having two mothers, and later, their divorce. |
1945 | Robert Conroy | 2,007 | 1945 depicts what could have happened if Japan's surrender in World War II had been successfully hijacked by extremists, forcing U.S. President Harry S. Truman to order more atomic bombings and an invasion of the Japanese home islands, continuing the war into early 1946. Featured throughout the book includes the viewpoints of infighting among the Japanese officers responsible for the military coup of the Japanese government, the imprisonment and breakout of Hirohito, the vicious combat between Japanese and American soldiers on Kyushu and between the respective navies in the Pacific, the efforts behind enemy lines by intelligence officers and POWs, the death of Douglas MacArthur, the Soviet Union's involvement in the war, and the mass protesting in the US to end the war. |
The Savage Detectives | Roberto Bolaño | 1,998 | The novel is narrated in first person by numerous narrators and divided into three parts. The first section, "Mexicans Lost in Mexico", is told by 17-year-old aspiring poet, Juan García Madero. It centers on his admittance to a roving gang of poets who refer to themselves as the Visceral Realists. He drops out of university and travels around Mexico City, becoming increasingly involved with the adherents of Visceral Realism, although he remains uncertain about Visceral Realism. The book's second section, "The Savage Detectives," comprises nearly two-thirds of the novel's total length. The section is a polyphonic narrative which features more than forty narrators and spans twenty years, from 1976 to 1996. It consists of interviews with a variety of characters from locations around North America, Europe, and the Middle East, all of whom have come into contact with the founding leaders of the Visceral Realists, Ulises Lima and Arturo Belano. Each narrator has his or her own opinion of the two, although the consensus is that they are drifters and literary elitists whose behavior often leaves a bitter taste in the mouths of those they meet. We learn that the two spent some years in Europe, frequenting bars and camp sites, and generally living a bohemian lifestyle. Lima, the more introverted of the two, serves a short sentence in an Israeli prison, while Belano challenges a literary critic to an absurd sword fight on a Spanish beach. The third section of the book, "The Deserts of Sonora", is again narrated by Juan García Madero, now in the Sonora Desert with Lima, Belano and a prostitute named Lupe. The section involves the "Savage Detectives" closing in on the elusive poet and the movement's founder Cesárea Tinajero, while being chased by a pimp named Alberto and a corrupt Mexican police officer. |
City Of The Dead | Brian Keene | 2,005 | Jim finds Danny alive as the book opens but the living dead soon converge on their location. Frankie and Martin join Jim in the house and they are soon trapped in the attic. As they see Danny's neighbor in his panic room across the way the zombies set fire to the house. They rig a ladder between the two houses and everyone but Frankie makes it across, Frankie however has a two story fall into a swimming pool below. Meanwhile: Don, Martin, Jim, and Danny regroup and make a run for Don's Ford explorer. Upon escaping the garage they find Frankie fighting zombies in the front yard badly hurt from the fall and shot several times. They rescue her as she goes into shock. Back in Hellertown Ob has taken Baker's body and is instructing his minions to make a motor pool from all the abandoned vehicles. Ob is distressed that Jim is alive and escaping him, he begins to fantasize killing Martin and Jim. Here he divulges that the Sissquim can see the life auras coming from the living. Ob is then killed by some hiding guardsmen who he discovers. Their escape is short lived as Frankie left the keys in the Humvee and the zombies are in hot pursuit. They use the Humvee to force the car into an accident. Jim regains consciousness as zombies are trying to pull Danny from the wreckage and biting his arm. Jim loses it and violently kills the zombie, punctuating each blow with the words "I told you to leave my son alone." Martin has been thrown from the car and his head had turned a full 180 degrees around. Jim smashes his head in with a rock as he reanimates proclaiming "There is no God". Jim leads the zombies away distracting them from his party including a very badly injured Frankie making plans to meet them in what looks like an abandoned parking structure. There is a legless zombie hiding in a car who alerts more zombies to the groups presence. Jim races back to the structure as the group races for the roof. Almost simultaneously a helicopter shows up using a powerful sonic device that kills all the zombie birds and almost kills Jim. They rescue Jim and take him to Ramsey towers. Ob Reanimates in a new body that is in great shape. His host died of a heart attack while masturbating. His old host had knowledge of secret armories for the NYPD as well as the National Guard. He uses this knowledge to help arm his army as he sends for his forces in Hellertown as well as across the country. He also learns that all human life in Europe and Asia has been eliminated. Ob then lays siege to last remaining humans holed up in Ramsey towers, using heavy artillery he is able to breach the supposedly impenetrable building. With the approaching forces the remaining humans are falling apart as the zombies storm the towers and eradicate them. Jim, Frankie, and a few others escape into the sewers only to be followed by Ob and his forces. Three of the company is killed by Zombie rats, one of a gunshot wound, one eaten by a zombie crocodile, and one having his throat slit by another zombie. Ob personally confronts Jim telling him he is glad to be the one ending his incredible journey; Jim then uses a flame thrower on a gas line killing Ob and the surrounding zombies. Frankie and Danny are eventually killed by zombie rats in their sleep. Sometime before the final act however, Frankie has a dream in which the spirit of Martin talks to her, laying out the complex plan set up by Ob and his minions. The plan shows her that surviving the zombies would have been just the first ordeal. The undead were merely the first wave,, with the purpose of eliminating all human and animal life. Once that task is accomplished, other obots would begin the assimilation of the plants and insects. It is also revealed that Jim, Danny and the rest of the characters from the books are reunited in some sort of afterlife and are happy. |
City of the Rats | Jennifer Rowe | 2,001 | Lief, Barda, and Jasmine leave the Lake of Tears, after they have retrieved the Ruby. They are now searching for the opal, which is located in Hira, or the City of the Rats. While travelling, they find signs which all have the word "Tom" written on it. They then find themselves in a trap that Thaegan's remaining eleven children had prepared. With the help of Filli, the three managed to kill all the children except for one, Ichabod, and continue on their quest. They find and enter Tom's shop and buy useful provisions such as Fire Beads, Water Eaters, Glowing Bubbles, and Instant Bread. They also bought three animals called Muddlets. Muddlets had three legs and can be ridden much like a horse. Despite Tom's directions, Lief didn't listen to him and went the wrong way. The three lost control of the Muddlets as they ran on their own. Lief, Barda and Jasmine followed the Muddlets home, the city of Noradz and become trapped. Noradz has customs that keeps the city vigorously clean. When Filli comes out of hiding from Jasmine's shirt, a Ra-Kacharz mistakes it for a rat and gives the trio two choices, to live or to die. Lief was commanded to pick a card labeled either Life or Death out of a cup. Realizing that both cards say Death, Lief tricks the Ra-Kacharz and the trio is thrown into prison. A girl named Tira managed to free them and shows them the secret way out, by passing through the kitchen trash tube. They survive the dangers of the tube by wearing the Ra-Kacharz clothes that they stole and finally reached the Broad River. Using the Water Eaters, Lief, Barda, and Jasmine crossed the river, only to find that there were rats waiting for them. They managed to escape the deadly rats using the explosive Fire Beads and enter the city's center. The Glowing Bubbles come into use and lights their way as they move through the dark. There, Lief starts to hear voices, which was revealed to be of Reeah's, a huge snake called the King of Rats. The crown atop of Reeah's head housed the opal. Lief realized that the past inhabitants of the City of the Rats were the people of Noradz. He also realized that "Noradz" was a homophone of "No Rats" and "Ra-Kacharz" was a homophone of "Rat-Catchers". The overrun of rats in their city had caused them to move and take up vigorously clean customs. Also, "Noradzeer", which is repeated very often by the people of Noradz, appears to be a homophone of "No Rats Here". Lief realizes that Reeah had set a trap for them. After a fight, Lief and Jasmine defeats the snake. Lief touches the opal to take it, and gets a vision of him sinking into the Shifting Sands. Lief remembers that the opal's vision of the future is not always true, they continue their quest to seek their fourth gem at the Shifting Sands. |
Maria: or, The Wrongs of Woman | Mary Wollstonecraft | null | The Wrongs of Woman begins in medias res with the upper-class Maria's unjust imprisonment by her husband, George Venables. Not only has he condemned Maria to live in an insane asylum, but he has also taken their child away from her. She manages to befriend one of her attendants in the asylum, an impoverished, lower-class woman named Jemima, who, after realizing that Maria is not mad, agrees to bring her a few books. Some of these have notes scribbled in them by Henry Darnford, another inmate, and Maria falls in love with him via his marginalia. The two begin to communicate and eventually meet. Darnford reveals that he has had a debauched life; waking up in the asylum after a night of heavy drinking, he has been unable to convince the doctors to release him. Jemima tells her life story to Maria and Darnford, explaining that she was born a bastard. Jemima's mother died while she was still an infant, making her already precarious social position worse. She was therefore forced to become a servant in her father's house and later bound out as an apprentice to a master who beat her, starved her, and raped her. When the man's wife discovers that Jemima is pregnant with his child, she is thrown out of the house. Unable to support herself, she aborts her child and becomes a prostitute. After the death of the gentleman keeping her, she becomes an attendant at the asylum where Maria is imprisoned. In chapters seven through fourteen (about half of the completed manuscript), Maria relates her own life story in a narrative she has written for her daughter. She explains how her mother and father loved their eldest son, Robert, more than their other children and how he ruled "despotically" over his siblings. To escape her unhappy home, Maria visited that of a neighbour and fell in love with his son, George Venables. Venables presented himself to everyone as a respectable and honourable young man; in actuality, he was a libertine. Maria's family life became untenable when her mother died and her father took the housekeeper as his mistress. A rich uncle who was fond of Maria, unaware of Venables' true character, arranged a marriage for her and gave her a dowry of £5,000. Maria quickly learned of her husband's true character. She tried to ignore him by cultivating a greater appreciation for literature and the arts, but he became increasingly dissolute: he whored, gambled, and bankrupted the couple. Maria soon became pregnant after unwanted sexual encounters with her husband. As Maria's uncle is leaving for the continent, he tells her that women have the right to separate from their husbands. After Venables attempts to sell Maria to one of his friends, a Mr. S—, Maria tries to leave him, but she fails. She initially escapes and manages to live in several different locations, often with other women who have also been wronged by their husbands, but he always finds her. When she tries to leave England with her newborn child and the fortune her now deceased uncle has left them, her husband seizes the child and imprisons Maria in the asylum. At this point the completed manuscript breaks off. |
The Leopard | null | null | The novel begins when the main character Nebu, a Kikuyu tribe member, leaves his Mau Mau people to hunt down a white man who is traveling in the African bush. After catching up to the white man who has also brought his son along, Nebu throws a spear at the white man and kills him while simultaneously, the white man shoots at Nebu, injuring his side. After killing the white man, Nebu realizes that it was his old boss, an English planter. As a result of committing this crime, Nebu feels especially obligated to repay the boss, for having previously slept with his white wife. For this reason, he decides to safeguard the boss’ child, who is in truth, biologically his own, and return him to a white community. The decision to bring the child to a white community is a tough one for him, however, for he is himself very injured from the bullet, and also the child is incapable of walking alone, making the journey twice as difficult. As Nebu carries his son through the bush, the boy, who was raised with mixed emotions towards blacks and whites, continually taunts him. While they travel, they together become closely watched by the leopard, which plots to kill the two concurrently. Nebu’s wound from the bullet continuously weakens him, making him more susceptible to attack from the leopard. At this point, the leopard attacks and brings a tragic ending to the “twisted little cripple’s” life. Before Nebu could spear the leopard, an English army lieutenant shoots at the leopard, killing it instantly. |
Homo faber | Max Frisch | null | During the 1930s, Walter Faber, who works at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, meets an art student Hanna. The two become lovers, and one day Hanna reveals that she is pregnant. Faber asks her to marry him, but she hesitates. Faber receives an offer by UNESCO to work in Baghdad and he accepts it; he and Hanna split up. Before his departure, Faber asks his friend Joachim to take care of Hanna, and Hanna agrees to abort their child. In spring 1957, Faber recounts the events of Faber's travels in America. On a flight from New York to Mexico, his plane makes a forced landing in the desert. During the following stay he meets the German Herbert, who turns out to be the brother of Joachim, Faber's friend. Faber had not heard from his friend since 1936. Faber decides to accompany Herbert, who is on his way to visiting his brother. After an oddysey through the wilderness, they reach Joachim's plantation. But Joachim has hanged himself. Herbert decides to stay behind and manage the plantation. Faber returns to New York City, but meets up with his married mistress, Ivy. Looking to escape their relationship, Faber takes an unplanned cruise to Europe. On this journey, he meets the young woman Sabeth, with whom he falls in love. He proposes to Sabeth at the end of the journey, but she is traveling with a male friend. Faber and Sabeth meet again in Paris and Faber decides to go on vacation and accompany Sabeth on a road trip through Europe. Because of a foreboding, he asks Sabeth for the name of her mother: Hanna. Faber still hopes that Hanna has aborted their child, but it turnes out soon that Sabeth is his daughter. In Greece, where Hanna now lives, a poisonous snake bites Sabeth, who falls down a cliff and dies. Stricken by grief and stomach cancer, Faber realizes the beauty he has missed and finds redemption in Hanna. He dies knowing she will never leave Athens and their daughter's grave. |
The Bourne Ultimatum | Robert Ludlum | 1,990 | The novel follows David Webb, alias Jason Bourne, as he works to find his old enemy, Carlos the Jackal, who is trying to kill him. As the Jackal enters old age and his infamy fades, he decides that he will do two things before he dies: kill Webb/Bourne, and destroy the KGB facility of Novgorod, where the Jackal was trained and was turned away for being a maniac. Carlos the Jackal uses a diverse collective of aged men devoted to his handiwork known as "The Old Men of Paris." The old men, who are mostly criminals, work for the Jackal in return for their family's comfort. Webb sends his wife and children to live with his wife's brother, John St. Jacques, in the Caribbean for protection while Webb himself works with old friend and CIA agent Alexander Conklin, and to a limited degree, the CIA, to hunt down and kill the Jackal first. While in the Caribbean, the St. Jacques Family faces a number of complications. A "War Hero" arrives, who is actually an "Old Man of Paris" is supposed to assassinate the St. Jacques and spray paint "JASON BOURNE" on the wall. At the same time, a former judge, Brendan P. Prefontaine, arrives. The Jackal thinks that Prefontaine was going to foil his murder plan, and bribes a nurse on the island to kill him. However, his plans are foiled when the "war hero" finds out that when he is done with the murder, he is to be assassinated as well. He turns sides and shoots the nurse with his Luger P08 and saves Brendan P. Prefontaine. Upon the close murder, Webb returns to the Caribbean. At the time of his visit, the Jackal himself comes to try to kill Webb, at the same time killing three security guards, the Crown Governor of the island, the "Old Man of Paris" that changed side (strapped explosives on him,) severely beats a kid waiter, and wounds Jason Bourne in the neck by a bullet (ironically, this is the Jackal's trademark and no one has survived it until now). Webb poses as an important member of Medusa (a newer version than the original he was associated with during the Vietnam era) (see Jason Bourne), now a nearly omnipotent economic force that controls the head of NATO, leading figures in the Defense Department, portions of the American and Sicilian mafia, and large NYSE firms. After several assassinations of key Medusa figures he was interrogating, he realizes that Medusa had nothing to do with the Jackal. The people who wanted to kill him were hired by Medusa and not the Jackal. After that, he goes back undercover and finds Jacqueline Lavier, who pretends to help him. She is part of the Jackal's group. She phones the Jackal of the location of Bourne's hotel, but is caught by Bourne. However, Bourne sets a trap for the Jackal, but is foiled by his wife when she sees him. The Jackal realizes it's a trap and runs. Also, John St. Jacques and Bourne's children are relocated to a CIA safe house. However, Mr. Pritchard, a clerk, overhears John St. Jacques and Bourne's phone and tells his uncle, who was bribed by the Jackal for 300 pounds. Then, Alex Conklin, Marie St. Jacques, Jason Bourne, and Mo Panov (Jason's doctor) go to Russia to meet one of Alex's long-time friends. The friend helps them several times. When they first meet, Jackal invades the restaurant they meet at and spray paints on the wall the exact location of Jason's son. Jason immediately calls the CIA and they relocate the children. At the same time, Alex and Jason realize that the Russian contact for the Jackal was high up in the KGB. Their Russian contact searches up a list of 13 people, who he keeps traces on . They catch the traitor when he goes to a church to meet the Jackal, along with Ogilive, an American Medusa traitor. However, Ogilive is set up by the KGB officials and is photographed with the Jackal. Later, the Jackal tells the Russian traitor that he is followed by his own government and shows him proof by killing 2 KGB agents that were following the Russian. The Jackal then kills him. Later, the Jackal meets with a board of Russian traitors. They disavow him and refuse to help him. He goes crazy and kills them all with his Type 56 assault rifle, but leaves a woman barely alive, who identifies the Jackal to the police, who in turn notify Alex Conklin. The Jackal comes to the hotel Webb is at and a furious chase happens, but the Jackal manages to escape to an armory, get weapons, go to Novgorod, and bomb the place. However, Bourne meets him there and they fight. The Jackal runs away, and Bourne throws a grenade, wounding him. One of the officials then closes the gates to the river, and the river rises, drowning the Jackal. Bourne then returns to the Caribbean, where their Russian friend meets them, and the former accepts that Jason Bourne is dead. |
Vous revoir | null | null | When Arthur returns to San Francisco after a self-imposed exile in Paris, he rediscovers his best friend, his job, and the city he loves. The one thing missing is Lauren: the woman he had sacrificed everything to save, only to lose her minutes later. Arthur is resigned to never see Lauren again. But when fate intervenes, it is Lauren’s turn to save Arthur, if she can find him in time. es:Volver a verte (novela) fr:Vous revoir |
The Execution Channel | Ken MacLeod | null | The novel follows the lives of software developer James Travis and his daughter Roisín. Roisín, a pacifist living at a peace camp outside RAF Leuchars, has witnessed and recorded the unloading of a strange device from an aircraft. She then receives a text-message from her brother Alec — who serves in the British army in Central Asia — apparently warning her of impending trouble. As she and her fellow protestors leave the area, an enormous explosion devastates both the air-base and the neighbouring town. She also witnesses an attack on Grangemouth Refinery. Unknown to her, her father has been working as a spy. He witnesses the ethnic cleansing of Britain's Muslims and their migration to France. He also witnesses an attack on Spaghetti Junction. Other characters include a blogger who specialises in conspiracy theories, Mark Dark; and his mother, Sandra Hope, who works at a camp for eco-refugees in the United States. Some other bloggers work for an intelligence agency, writing under various pseudonyms to spread disinformation. In the novel's fictional universe, Al Gore won the 2000 presidential election, to be succeeded by Hillary Clinton, and the September 11, 2001 attacks targeted Boston and Philadelphia rather than New York and Washington. MacLeod explains, "the point made...is that these matters are affected by more powerful forces than the personality of a particular president. In practice the Democratic Party leadership in Congress is just as committed to the war's continuation and possible extension as the Republicans. I didn't want the book to be read as just a fictional form of partisan 'Bush-bashing'." |
Tomorrow | Graham Swift | 2,007 | Mike Hook is a wartime child. His father, "Grandpa Pete," and his mother, "Grandma Helen," both hardly turned 20, hastily get married in 1944 just before Pete rejoins the RAF to fight in the Second World War. He is shot down over Germany, survives, and spends several months in a prisoner-of-war camp. In January 1945, while he is still away from home, his son Mike is born. After the war and his safe return to England, Pete becomes a successful entrepreneur. Mike, who remains an only child, develops an interest in nature quite early in life and eventually, in the 1960s, decides to read Biology at the recently opened University of Sussex. There, in 1966, he meets Paula Campbell, who has come from London to study English Literature and Art, and their relationship soon turns out to be much more than just a fling. Paula is the only child of a divorced High Court judge with Scottish roots. That man, "Grandpa Dougie," born shortly after the turn of the century, contributes to the war effort by deciphering code somewhere in the English countryside. There, already in his mid-forties, he falls for Fiona McKay, a young secretary with pretty legs who is twenty years his junior, and marries her. Paula, also born in 1945, is sent to a girls' boarding school. Already during her years at school Paula feels his father's growing estrangement from his wife, a development which culminates in divorce and "Grandma Fiona" running off with a man her own age "dripping with some kind of oil-derived, Texan-Aberdonian wealth". After that, Paula hardly ever sees or talks to her own mother again. Just as Mike, she remains an only child. After finishing school, she decides to go on to Sussex University. In tune with the spirit of the age, both Mike and Paula adopt a promiscuous lifestyle during their student days. However, they realise immediately after their first meeting that they are meant for each other and, deeply in love, decide to become monogamous and to spend the rest of their lives together. They get married in 1970 at the age of 25 and gradually start pursuing their respective careers—Mike as the editor of a struggling science journal, Paula as an art dealer. In 1972, Paula eventually goes off the pill as they both wish to have children. When Paula does not become pregnant, the couple decide to have themselves tested: [...] We looked sadly and sympathetically at each other, as if one of us might have to choose, heads or tails, and one of us might have to lose. At this stage we still hoped. But I have to say—and you must both be starting to muster an intense interest—that this was, in all we'd known so far, the worst moment of our lives. Little war babies to whom nothing especially dreadful, let alone warlike, had happened. The divorce of your parents, the death of an uncle—these things, for God's sake, aren't the end of the world. But this little crisis, even before we knew it was insuperable, was like a not so small end of the world. In one, strictly procreative sense, it might be exactly that. [...] It was a blow, my darlings, a true blow. And where it truly hurts. It turned out there was a problem and that the problem was your dad's, not mine. [...] Mike's diagnosed infertility prompts them to remain childless (rather than try to adopt children) and to stay together, Paula suppressing the biological urge to procreate and look for a different partner. However, they decide not to inform anybody of the new situation, not even their own parents, who in turn never broach so delicate a subject with their children and just wait passively for the big announcement. In the meantime, when a neighbour offers them a cat they take her up on it and call him Otis, after recently deceased Otis Redding. Otis becomes the focal point of their married life, so much so that when Paula takes him to the vet she is bluntly told that Otis is their "child substitute". The vet becomes Paula's confidant (and lover, but just for one night), and he advises her to reconsider her abandoned wish to have a child while pointing her to the options available to her through the fledgling field of reproductive medicine. In the end Mike and Paula make up their minds to give it a try, Paula is artificially inseminated, and in 1979, after her own father's and Otis's death, gives birth to twins whom they christen Nick and Kate. Again, they do not tell anybody about how their children were conceived, especially not that their natural father is "Mr S", an anonymous sperm donor. As the new day is dawning, sleepless Paula is aware of the fact that the biggest revelation yet in the lives of her two children is imminent. She also makes a mental note to explain to them that they should decide wisely whether to tell anybody the news or not as the implications would be far-reaching: Grandma Helen, for one, might feel cheated out of her grandchildren. On the other hand, Paula can well imagine that her mother-in-law, by sheer maternal instinct, has known about their secret all along. |
The Third Part of the Pilgrim's Progress | null | 1,693 | Tender-Conscience, a native of the town of Vain Delights goes on the pilgrimage of Christian and Christiana to the Celestial City. He stops at some of the same places as they, but he encounters new places not visited by either Christian or Christiana and her party. All of the lands that are outside of the Wicket Gate and the area encompassed by the "walls and borders of that region, wherein lay the way to the heavenly country" are known as the "Valley of Destruction." The time that Tender-Conscience begins his pilgrimage is a time of drought and heat, which is emblematic of a time of the persecution. Some of them are deterred in their progress, and return to their old homes in the Valley of Destruction during the night. Tender-Conscience has a difficult time crossing the Slough of Despond, and he does not get by it without being covered in mud from it. This mud has the effect of weakening the body and blinding his eyes, and Tender-Conscience grope along until he is overshadowed by a bright cloud from which a hand appears that washes away the mud enabling Tender-Conscience to continue his journey with vigor. At the Wicket Gate Tender-Conscience does not escape the arrows shot against callers from the Beelzebub's castle. These sick to his flesh and cause him to bleed profusely. Good-Will lets him in, and registers his name as a pilgrim. He gives Tender-Conscience a crutch that is made of wood from the Tree of Life (Lingnum Vitæ). This crutch stanches the bleeding and strengthens Tender-Conscience, who must bear with the arrows of Beelzebub until he reaches the House of the Interpreter. The Interpreter removes the arrows of Beelzebub from Tender-Conscience's body and lodges him for the night, showing him the same emblems and scenes enjoyed by Christian, Christiana, and their children and companions. The next day the Interpreter goes a little way with Tender-Conscience to where the King's Highway is walled on either side by the Wall of Salvation. Before they reach this wall they come to two farms on either side of the way. The farm on the right is well-cared for and the one on the left is not. The Interpreter tells Tender-Conscience that this provides an example to pilgrim's that they should be like the caretaker of the farm on the right, who gradually improved his farm until it was in its present good condition. Tender-Conscience when parted from the Interpreter comes to the place where Christian found the cross and the sepulchre. On either side of the cross were now erected two houses as competing lodging places for pilgrims. On the right was the House of Mourning, and on the left was the House of Mirth. The House of Mirth is like an ale house with carousing men, but the House of Mourning is tended by pious women called "matrons." Tender-Conscience decides to go to the House of Mourning despite the agitation induced in the men of the House of Mirth, who form a mob surrounding the House of Mourning demanding that Tender-Conscience be handed over to them. Three shining ones appear to Tender-Conscience promising to rescue him. The first shining one breathes on Tender-Conscience making him a new creature, the second clothes him in a white robe in place of his crimson clothes, and the third one gives him a sealed roll. With this change Tender-Conscience is able to get by unrecognized by the men from the House of Mirth and, so, go on his way. At the Hill Difficulty Tender-Conscience had the choice of the three ways: the one going up the hill also called "Difficulty," the one going around the right hand of the hill called "Danger," and the one going around the left side of the hill called "Destruction." The broadness and pleasantness of the two byways induced Tender-Conscience to take the right-hand byway Danger. He thought that this way would also lead him to the top of the hill, but the growing denseness of the forest surrounding the way and the howlings of wild beasts that he heard induced him to go back to the foot of the hill. He then remembered the Bible passages that characterized the right way as narrow, so he chose to go up the hill by way of the steep and narrow path. |
The Proteus Operation | James P. Hogan | 1,985 | Originally the First World War was a complete wake-up call for the human race, leading to greater internationalism and a "Never Again" spirit towards war that would eventually wear away the differences between the various power-blocs. By the 2020s, a global League of Nations oversees a planet totally at peace. The fledgling Nazi Party, in this 'original' timeline, simply faded out after the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch. Many in the modern aristocracy, corporate dynasties, and others feel they have lost out because of the social transformations enabled by decades of peace and co-operation. This group come up with a plan to build a functional "time machine" and change history for their benefit. Their scheme is to go back as far as they can (roughly a century, to the very early 1920s) and mentor the fledgling Nazi Party. They regard the Nazis as the perfect tool for destroying the Soviet Union and establishing an elitist tyranny with which they can live the lives of luxury and entitlement they believe have been stolen from them. This 'Uptime' initiative sends 21st century advisors, armament and nuclear weapons to support Adolf Hitler. The Hitler that they seek to advise soon develops other plans. After learning about the original history from his time traveling advisors, Hitler uses these lessons to ensure that Western Europe falls swiftly, followed by droping a few of the Uptime nuclear weapons to wipe out the Soviet Union. He then destroys his end of the "time conduit" and declares independence from his former sponsors. By the 1970s, Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan have conquered everything other than North America, Australasia, and parts of South America. Africa has suffered an enormous genocide every bit as complete as the one inflicted upon the Jews, and the Axis powers stand poised in 1975 to start a final war that the United States is bound to lose, given the military power of Nazi Germany. An organization in this altered 1975 discovers the secret behind the Nazi successes of the previous decades. The group decides that it will build its own time machine to go back and stop the present nightmare of Nazi world domination. This 1975 time machine is not as advanced or powerful as the original 2020s machine, so they can only open a gate to 1939. The plan is to establish a military alliance between the 1975 America of President John F. Kennedy of the 1939 America of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Things go wrong, and it is up to the 1975 Uptime agents, cut off in 1939, to keep the western Allies, including the United Kingdom and the United States in the fight, while working to close off Hitler's gateway to the alternate 2020s before he gets his atomic bomb and missile advantage. In the end, they succeed, and this second "alternate timeline" they create turns out to be our own world. Historical figures in the book include Isaac Asimov, Wilhelm Canaris, Winston Churchill, Duff Cooper, Anthony Eden, Albert Einstein, Enrico Fermi, Reinhard Heydrich, Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, John F. Kennedy, Frederick Lindemann, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Leo Szilard, and Edward Teller. Of these, only Asimov and Teller were still alive when the novel was published in 1985. |
Mélusine | Sarah Monette | 2,005 | The story revolves around two characters: magician Felix Harrowgate and thief Mildmay the Fox, who live in vastly different parts of the city of Mélusine. They are tossed together by fate when Felix is accused of destroying the crystal Virtu, an orb which channels the magical energy of the magicians in Mélusine. |
The Virtu | Sarah Monette | 2,006 | Felix Harrogate, having recovered from the abuse he suffered in Mélusine, is ready to regain the power and status that he lost. With his half-bother Mildmay and Mehitabel Parr, a young governess, he decides to return to Mélusine to repair the Virtu. |
Just Listen | Sarah Dessen | 2,006 | Annabel Greene is a girl who has it all - at least, that's how it seems on TV commercials. Annabel's life is far from perfect. Her friendship with her best friend Sophie ended bitterly, leaving her alone and friendless at the beginning of a new school year. Her sister Whitney's eating disorder is weighing down the entire family, and Annabel fears speaking out about her past and her lack of enthusiasm for modeling. In the midst of her isolation, she meets Owen - a music obsessed, intense classmate who, after taking an Anger Management class, is determined to tell the truth. With his help, Annabel may start facing her fears - and more importantly, speaking the truth herself. |
Evening Class | Maeve Binchy | 1,998 | A story of many Irish men and women from various backgrounds and how a teacher, Nora O'Donoghue (known as "Signora"), and an Italian evening class changes their lives over the course of a year. Each chapter deals with the life story of one or more students in the class. In a Dickensian way, they bump into each other and are affected by the decisions of those around them. |
Quentins | Maeve Binchy | 2,002 | Ella Brady, a young science teacher, falls in love with a successful businessman (Don Richardson) who is married but tells her that his marriage was "dead". For some time she is happy with the torrid affair, and manages to overlook some inconsistencies in what he tells her. Until the moment when he is exposed as a corrupt swindler and runs away out of the country and out of her life - leaving Ella, her family, and many people in Dublin without their savings. Ella is disgraced and quits her teaching job to work more than 60 hours a week at Quentins restaurant, with the Scarlet Feather catering company, and with a film crew, to help out her family. The book mostly concentrates on Ella's attempt to get funding for her friends' film company for a documentary about the restaurant Quentins. She struggles to get over a man who was deceitful, whom she still loves, and with whether or not to give the fraud squad access to a laptop he left in her possession. Eventually, her efforts to get funding get her to meet a new man, Derry King, an American businessman with an Irish heritage which he hates because of the way his drunken Irish father treated him and his mother. Smaller plot points revolve around the background of Patrick and Brenda Brennan (the owners of Quentins), Ella's girlfriends Deirdre and Nuala, and many of the regulars at the restaurant; the main plot is interspersed with various vignettes in the life of people who had been in contact with the restaurant in one way or another, these inteweaving with each other and with Ella Brady's life in a various unpredicatable ways. |
Love and Other Impossible Pursuits | Ayelet Waldman | 2,006 | Emilia Greenleaf is an attorney living in New York city with her husband, Jack Woolf. Emilia is stepmother to Jack's remarkably intelligent four-year-old son, William. William lives primarily with his mother, the medical doctor Carolyn Soule. It is Emilia's job, however, to pick up William from his nursery school every Wednesday afternoon. When she picks him up, Emilia is often subjected to snide glances and whispers from the other mothers because, it transpires, her relationship with her husband began when he was still with his wife. They had an office affair, and eventually the marriage dissolved. The reader also learns early on that Emilia and Jack recently lost their own child together, a girl they named Isabel. They had the baby home for only one day, as she died overnight of SIDS in Emilia's arms after being fed. The bulk of the story deals with the results of Isabel's death, including the strain this puts on Emilia and Jack's marriage, as well as Emilia's feelings towards William. Emilia does not particularly like William (in fact, she describes him as "insufferable" early on in the story), but tries to be a good parent to him. This is hindered by the fact that William serves as his mother's mouthpiece, and sometimes speaks in a very matter-of-fact way about Isabel's death. |
The Wide, Wide World | Susan Warner | 1,850 | The Wide, Wide World is a work of sentimentalism based on the life of young Ellen Montgomery. The story begins with Ellen’s happy life being disrupted by the fact that her mother is very ill and her father must take her to Europe, requiring Ellen to leave home to live with an almost-unknown aunt. Though Ellen tries to act strong for her mother’s sake, she is devastated and can find solace in nothing. Eventually the day comes when Ellen must say goodbye to her mother and travel in the company of strangers to her aunt’s home. Unfortunately these strangers are unkind to Ellen and she tries to leave the boat on which they are traveling. An old man sees Ellen crying and tells her to trust in God. He teaches her about being a Christian, as her mother had done, and asks her if she is ready to give her heart to Jesus. After talking with the man, Ellen becomes determined to become a true Christian, which gives her strength for the rest of the journey to her aunt’s place in Thirwall. On Ellen’s first night in Thirwall, she learns that her father forgot to inform her aunt that she was coming, so a "Mr. Van Brunt" escorts her to her aunt's home. This aunt, Fortune Emerson, proves to be quite different from Ellen's loving mother: she treats Ellen unkindly and refuses to let her attend school. Ellen hates living with Fortune and comes to find comfort in the society of Mr. Van Brunt and other neighbors as she becomes more familiar with her new surroundings. One day, discovering that her aunt withheld a letter from Mrs. Montgomery, Ellen runs crying into the woods. There she meets Alice Humphreys, the daughter of a local minister. Alice is kind of Ellen and invites her to tea the next day, to give Ellen a chance to tell her troubles; maybe Alice would be able to help. The girls become fast friends and Alice adopts Ellen as a sister, offering to educate her and guide her spiritually, teaching her to forgive others and trust in the Lord. Alice and her brother John, who is away at school much of the time, treat Ellen like family, even inviting her to spend Christmas in the nearby town of Ventnor with them and their friends, the Marshmans. While there, Ellen meets another Ellen, Ellen Chauncey. She also gets better acquainted with John Humphreys, who comforts her many times after the other children tease her. Ellen comes to realize that if she hadn't needed to be separated from her mother, she might never have met Alice and John. About a year later, one day when Ellen visits town, she overhears from some ladies' conversation that her mother has died. Devastated, she turns to Alice and her Bible for comfort. She stays with Alice and John until Aunt Fortune becomes ill and Ellen must look after her. Eventually Aunt Fortune recovers and Ellen returns to Alice and her other friends. After Mr. Van Brunt’s mother dies, he decides to marry Aunt Fortune; soon after, Alice tells Ellen that she is very ill and will soon be "going home" to Heaven; Ellen is not to grieve for her but to trust in God. She also invites Ellen to take her place in the Humphreys household. Ellen immediately moves in and begins by nursing Alice through her final weeks. After Alice dies, Ellen turns to John for guidance. He takes over as her tutor, spiritual advisor, and guiding light. By the time a Humphreys relative dies in England and John must travel overseas to handle the family's business, Ellen (though sad to see him go) is a stronger person. One day Nancy visits Ellen, bringing letters she has found while cleaning Fortune's house. They are for Ellen from her mother and express the wish that Ellen go live with relatives in Scotland; after sharing the letters with Mr. Humphreys, Ellen decides she must honor her parents' wishes so the Humphreys send her to Scotland to live with the Lindsays: her grandmother and uncle Lindsay and Lady Keith. They welcome her into their home and find her delightful, but they become very possessive of her and force her to denounce her identity as an American and as a Montgomery. Mr. Lindsay even makes Ellen call him “father” and refers to her as his “own little daughter.” The Lindsays also discourage Ellen’s faith, as they don’t see religion as being important to someone Ellen’s age. Ellen finds it hard to live without her daily hours set aside for studying religion, but still tries hard to live by her faith and everything that John and Alice taught her. Ellen misses John more than anything, and during a New Year’s Eve party at the Lindsays', he shows up asking for her. The Lindsays try to keep them apart, but they are unsuccessful. During their emotional reunion John reminds Ellen to keep her faith; in a few years, when she will be able to choose where she lives, she can return to America and live with him. When Ellen introduces John to the Lindsays, they actually become fond of him. John must soon return to America, but not without promising Ellen that they will be together forever soon. In an unpublished chapter at the end of the book, Ellen returns to America as Mrs. John Humphreys. |
Fear | null | null | Miles Kendrick suffers from Post-traumatic stress disorder and is in a witness protection program. When his psychiatrist is targeted and killed he feels somehow responsible and sets about trying to find out why she was killed and avenge her death. A constant companion is his best friend who he killed some time in the past. |
Children of God | Mary Doria Russell | 1,998 | Emilio Sandoz is in the process of healing from his experiences on Rakhat, detailed in The Sparrow. He is exposed to Father Vincenzo Giuliani's organized crime "family," the Camorra. At a christening celebration, he meets Celestina, aged four, and her mother Gina, a divorcee with whom Emilio begins to fall in love. Emilio is released from the priesthood. He trains the second Jesuit expedition to Rakhat, composed of Sean Fein, Danny Iron Horse, and John Candotti, in the K'San (Jana'ata) and Ruanja (Runa) languages. He himself refuses to go. Gina is about to go on vacation, after which Emilio plans to marry her. Unfortunately, while Gina is on vacation, Emilio is beaten and kidnapped by Carlo, Gina's ex-husband and Celestina's father. Emilio is kept in a constantly drugged state on the Giordano Bruno, Carlo's ship. They are actually working for the Jesuits and the Vatican, who want Sandoz to return to Rakhat. It is extremely important that the Jesuits put right (as much as possible) what they destroyed on Rakhat; the massacre of the first landing party, and the violent revolution of the Runa serving class that followed, have caused a rift between the Society of Jesus and the rest of the Roman Catholic Church. In fact, the Jesuit order has all but vanished completely. Meanwhile, back on Rakhat, there is an unexpected survivor of the massacre; Sofia Mendes Quinn, grievously injured but her pregnancy intact, has been hidden from the Jana'ata patrols. She commands Runa troops in the revolution and is their Joan of Arc figure. She's been sending packets of information back to the asteroid ship Stella Maris, still in orbit around Rakhat, as was the normal practice of the original landing party. She has her baby with help from the locals. Soon, it is apparent that her son, Isaac, is autistic. Sometime later, the signal from the Stella Maris goes dead, but Sofia does not guess that it's because other Earthmen -- the United Nations Contact Consortium -- came to Rakhat and sent the ship home, let alone that Emilio Sandoz had been rescued and was aboard, headed back for the lengthy inquisition covered in The Sparrow. Meanwhile, up in Inbrokar's ornate capital city Galatna, Hlavin Kitheri, the Jana'ata Reshtar (third-born prince), has fulfilled his promise to ambitious tradesman Supaari. When Supaari gave Emilio to Hlavin as a gift, Hlavin arranged a marriage between Supaari and his sister, Jholaa. Having lived all her life in strict purdah and enforced ignorance, she is not even told of their plans until the wedding is actually taking place. The ceremony includes consummation in front of everyone — actually rape, because Jholaa was unprepared for marriage and did not desire Supaari. She detests him, and when she has a daughter, Supaari is told that the infant is deformed, and by tradition he must kill it. But on first glance he can see it is a lie, and a set-up — a practical joke by Hlavin, to wipe out Supaari's new family line before it can begin. Remembering Anne, the doctor of the earth landing party who became his friend, he names his little girl Ha'anala, "like Anne". Taking her, he leaves behind everything and goes to his family. There, he recognizes that he has no place among the Jana'ata. Now the Runa of Kashan village, where the revolution began, offer to keep him safe as a hasta'akala (total dependent) He has worked with them for decades, selling their merchandise in the city of Gayjur. By law, a hasta'akala's patron must provide all his food. The Runa have been bred for many centuries as not only servants but food for the Jana'ata; but the vaKashani love Supaari to the point of volunteering to die for him and the child to eat (reflecting Jesus Christ's Eucharistic sacrifice, the most important sacrament in Catholicism). Supaari refuses their kind offer. Instead he takes Ha'anala to where Sofia is and becomes a spy, aiding in the extermination of his own species. One day, Isaac leaves. Ha'anala finds him, but recognizes that he will not go back. They stumble upon a group of Jana'ata people in the N'Jarr Valley in the mountains, and stay with them. Ha'anala later marries Shetri Laaks, one of these people, and has many children, although several of them die due to malnutrition; Ha'anala refuses to eat Runa. Hlavin Kitheri, inspired partly by his encounter with Sandoz, begins to revolutionize Jana'ata society by abolishing the stultifying hierarchies, even establishing a sort of democracy. He now seizes the Paramountcy, the highest office in Inbrokar, by killing his entire family and framing Supaari for the murders. One of his first steps is to educate all the women. He hears of an extraordinary Jana'ata female, Suukmel. She advises him; he wants her, but she refuses to give him more than the chance to foster a child with her. In the terrible war that follows, Hlavin fights Supaari, in hand-to-hand combat, without armor, and both die. Suukmel departs with Rukuei and finds the N'Jarr Valley. There Jana'ata and Runa work together, trying to build a new culture based on individual choice. The Jana'ata there believe they must find food other than Runa, but many are starving. There are game animals they could hunt, but they run the risk of being captured and killed by the Runa. Emilio returns to Rakhat with the Giordano Bruno to find that the Runa have killed nearly all the Jana'ata and taken control of the planet for themselves. The Jesuits expected they would have to assist the Runa in their war for independence, but the Runa have won independently. Sofia talks to Emilio. The N'Jarr Valley is found and Sofia sends Runa troops there, convinced that Ha'anala is keeping Isaac, now 40, captive. Ha'anala dies in childbirth, but Emilio saves the baby. One of the Jesuits, a Lakhota named Danny Iron Horse, works with Suukmel to arrange a reservation-like setup for the remaining Jana'ata on Rakhat. In the end, Emilio and the Mafiosi return to earth on the Giordano Bruno, bringing with them Rukuei Kitheri, a poet in his own right. Sofia dies, and Suukmel stays in the N'Jarr valley with Ha'anala's children and Isaac, who thinks he has found proof of the existence of God in patterns of music created by overlapping the genomes of all three sentient species (this has been the mysterious project he has spent his life working on). Emilio comes home. Time has passed — Gina is dead. At her grave, he is greeted by a lady who reveals herself as Gina's second daughter — Emilio's daughter. |
Swordbird | Nancy Yi Fan | 2,007 | The story begins with Turnatt, an evil tyrant hawk and lord of Fortress Glooming, watching the construction of his fortress. Farther in the forest of Stone-Run are two tribes: the Bluewingle tribe of the blue jays and the Sunrise tribe of the cardinals, which are at war with each other, each accusing the other of stealing their eggs and food, not knowing that this is actually the work of Turnatt. A member of the Bluewingle tribe, a female blue jay named Aska, meets a robin named Miltin, a slave at Fortress Glooming , who warns her of Turnatt. Aska leaves and tells the two tribes of Turnatt. The groups make amends in time for the Bright Moon Festival, during which the Flying Willowleaf Theater arrive and help celebrate by telling the legend of Swordbird, a giant dove-like bird of peace with magical powers. The celebration is cut short when a group of Turnatt's soldiers attack, attempting to capture and enslave the two tribes and the members of the Flying Willowleaf Theater. The tribes manage to defeat the soldiers and decide to summon Swordbird, thinking that he is the only one with the power to defeat Turnatt, using his Leasorn Sword. The only problem is that Swordbird can only be summoned by a song and one of the Leasorn Gems, which are said to be crystallized tears of the Great Spirit. There are only seven Leasorn Gems in the world, with an eighth one in Swordbird's blade. All hope seems lost until a recently-escaped Miltin tells them that his tribe has one of the Leasorn Gems. The tribes decide to send Aska and Miltin over the White Cap Mountains to reach Miltin's home, the Waterthorn tribe. While Miltin and Aska are away, Turnatt sends his raven spy, Shadow, to destroy the two villages. Shadow and his group manage to set the Bluewingle tribe's home ablaze. The Bluewingle tribe take refuge with the Sunrise tribe. Shadow and his group attempt to light the Sunrise village on fire too, but are attacked by the tribe members and scattered. At the White Cap Mountains Aska and Miltin are attacked by a group of Slarkills and Miltin is mortally wounded and slowly dying. The two make it to the Waterthorn tribe where Miltin dies and Aska convinces the tribe to aid her tribes against Turnatt. The Winterhorn tribe arrives in time to help the Sunrise and Bluewingle tribes and the members of the Flying Willowleaf Theater in their battle against Turnatt and his attacking army. Aska manages to summon Swordbird, who quickly kills Turnatt. With their leader dead, Turnatt's army leave and the birds of Stone-Run release all those enslaved in Fortress Glooming. Two years later, Aska is married to Cody, an old friend of hers, the Sunrise and Bluewingle tribe have formed together as the Stone-Run Forest tribe, and Fortress Glooming has been made into the Stone-Run Library. The story ends with Cody and Aska visiting the grave of Miltin and leaving one of Swordbird's feathers. |
Rahasia | Laura Hickman | 1,984 | In RPGA1 Rahasia, the heroes seek to save a kidnapped elven maid, and to do so they must enter the Temple of the Sacred Black Rock, break a curse, and capture the evil Rahib. In the revised module B7 Rahasia, the adventures must save a group of kidnapped elven women held in the dungeons beneath a good elven temple taken over by an evil cleric. An elven village is threatened by a dark Priest only known as the Rahib. He has kidnapped two of the village's fairest maidens and now demands that Rahasia, the most beautiful elf, is to surrender herself to free the others. The player characters are drawn into this adventure when they find a plea for help from Rahasia. The only way to free the captured maidens is to enter an old temple, built upon the ruins of a wizard's tower buried under a mountain. |
House of Suns | Alastair Reynolds | 2,008 | The novel is divided into eight parts, with the first chapter of each part taking the form of a narrative flashback to Abigail Gentian’s early life (six million years earlier, in the 31st century), before the cloning and the creation of the Gentian Line. Each subsequent chapter is narrated from the first-person perspective of two shatterlings named Campion and Purslane, alternating between them each chapter. Campion and Purslane are in a relationship, which is frowned upon, even punishable, by the Line. The primary storyline begins as Campion and Purslane are roughly fifty years late to the 32nd Gentian reunion. They take a detour to contact a posthuman known as ‘Ateshga’ in hopes of getting a replacement ship for Campion because his is getting old (several million years old). After being tricked by Ateshga, Campion and Purslane manage to turn the tables on him and leave his planet with a being he had been keeping captive, a golden robot called Hesperus. Hesperus is a member of the "Machine People", an advanced civilization of robots, and supposedly the only non-human sentient society in existence. The two shatterlings hope that the rescue of Hesperus will let them off the hook for their lateness, as returning him to his people (who will be at the reunion as guests of other shatterlings) will put the Gentian Line on good terms with the Machine People. However, before reaching the reunion world, Campion and Purslane encounter an emergency distress signal from Fescue, another Gentian shatterling. There was a vicious attack on the reunion world; an ambush in which the majority of the Gentian Line was wiped out. The identity of the responsible party is unknown, but the attackers used the supposedly long-vanished 'Homunculus' weapons—monstrous spacetime-bending weapons that were created ages ago, but were ordered to be destroyed by another Line. Despite Fescue's warning, Campion and Purslane approach the reunion system to look for survivors. They manage to find the remains of a ship with several Gentian members still alive, and rescue them and the four enemy prisoners they had captured. Hesperus, however, is gravely injured in the process by remaining ambushers. The group escapes and make their way to the Gentian backup meeting planet, Neume, in the hope of re-grouping with any other Gentians who may have survived the ambush. Upon reaching Neume, Campion, Purslane and the other shatterlings they rescued are greeted by the few Gentian survivors of the ambush (numbering only in the forties, compared to the hundreds that existed prior to the ambush). They also meet two members of the Machine People: Cadence and Cascade, guests of another shatterling. During the next few days, the interrogation of the prisoners commences. Another Gentian, Cyphel, is mysteriously murdered, which fuels the Line’s concerns that there is a traitor amongst them. As a way of punishing Campion for transgressions against the Line, Purslane is made to give up her ship, the Silver Wings of Morning (one of the fastest and most powerful in the Line) to Cadence and Cascade, ostensibly so they can return to the Machine People with news of the ambush, in a bid to gain the Line some assistance. Hesperus, still critically wounded following the rescue of the survivors, is taken to the Neumean "Spirit of the Air", an ancient posthuman machine-intelligence, in the hopes that it will fix him. The Spirit takes Hesperus away and returns him some time later, though apparently still not functioning. The robots Cadence and Cascade make preparations to leave on Purslane's ship. They agree to take him aboard and return him to their people, who they promise may be able to help Hesperus. Purslane accompanies them to her ship, where she must be physically present to give the ship order to transfer control over to the robots. On their way to the bridge, Hesperus suddenly springs to life, grabbing Purslane and hiding her while Cadence and Cascade are whisked along to the bridge. Hersperus quickly explains that Cadence and Cascade are actually planning on hijacking the ship. Bewildered by this sudden change of events, Purslane delays in taking action, not sure if she should trust Hesperus, before deciding to ask the ship to detain and eject the robots in the bridge. By then, though, it is too late. Cadence and Cascade hack into the ship's computer, taking it over, and take off from Neume with Hesperus and Purslane still aboard. Campion and several other shatterlings immediately launch a pursuit. Together Hesperus and Purslane find a hideout in a smaller ship in the hold of the Silver Wings of Morning. Using information gained from the other two robots and his own memories, Hesperus (who is now an amalgamation of both Hesperus and the Spirit of the Air) has pieced together what is going on: Cadence and Cascade have discovered that the Line was involved in the accidental extermination of a forgotten earlier race of machine people, dubbed the "First Machines". The Commonality (a confederation of the various Lines), horrified and ashamed of this pointless genocide, erased all knowledge of the event from historical records and their own memories. Unfortunately, Campion, in a previous circuit, unwittingly uncovered information pertaining to the extermination. Hesperus believes that the ambush at the reunion was seeking to destroy this evidence before it could spread, carried out by a shadow Line known as the "House of Suns", tasked with maintaining the conspiracy. Cadence and Cascade, on the other hand, are racing for a wormhole which leads to the Andromeda Galaxy, to where the few survivors of the First Machines are revealed to have retreated. They plan to release the First Machines back into the Milky Way, thus effecting a revenge against the Commonality for the genocide. As Campion and the shatterlings are pursuing Purslane's hijacked ship, transmissions from Neume confirm that a shatterling within their midst, Galingale, is the traitor and a secret member of the House of Suns. The shatterlings open fire on both Galingale's and Purslane's ships, and while they manage to capture Galingale, they are unable to stop Purslane's ship. Unable to get within weapons range, Campion pursues Purslane’s ship for sixty thousand light years, during which time he and Purslane, on their separate ships, are suspended in "abeyance", a form of temporal slowdown or stasis. Despite efforts to stop the hijacked ship from reaching the concealed wormhole by local civilisations, the robot Cascade succeeds in opening the "stardam" enclosing the wormhole and travelling through it to the Andromeda Galaxy. On board Silver Wings of Morning, Hesperus reveals to Campion that while he managed to destroy Cadence before they could leave the Neume star system, Cascade survived and he and Cascade had engaged in a marathon battle, lasting the several thousand years the trip took. Campion, now the only shatterling still in pursuit, enters the wormhole after them and emerges in the Andromeda galaxy, a place apparently devoid of all sentient life. In his search for Purslane and her ship he travels to a star encased in a huge representation of the Platonic solids, lands on a planet orbiting inside the structure and is greeted by a single, mechanical being, which announces itself to be the last of the First Machines in the Andromeda galaxy; the others having left (via wormholes) in pursuit of more advanced technology and knowledge. It states that the First Machines have no hostile intent towards the humans, despite what was done to them. Before preparing to depart Andromeda to follow its kin, the First Machine tells Campion that Purslane and Hersperus barely survived the passage into Andromeda, and Hesperus sacrificed himself to protect Purslane during their landing on the planet. Campion is then shown the sarcophagus that contains the still-living Purslane, and the First Machine offers to help him free her before departing. |
Paul of Dune | Kevin J. Anderson | 2,008 | The book is divided into seven sections, which alternate between Paul Atreides's youth before the events portrayed in Dune, and the early period of his Fremen jihad between Dune and Dune Messiah. Twelve-year-old Paul resides on the planet Caladan with his parents, Duke Leto Atreides and his Bene Gesserit concubine Lady Jessica. House Ecaz of Ecaz and House Moritani of Grumman are embroiled in a generations-long feud, and an Atreides-Ecazi alliance is set to be formalized by Leto's marriage to the Archduke Armand Ecaz's daughter Illesa. At the wedding, Leto and his family escape an assassination attempt, but Armand is injured and Illesa is killed. Leto and Armand lead a retaliatory attack on Grumman, not realizing that the Moritani forces have been supplemented by troops from House Harkonnen, sworn enemies of the Atreides. The Padishah Emperor's Sardaukar warriors also arrive to prevent full-scale war. Viscount Hundro Moritani has planned this entire offensive as a means to assemble the Ecazi, Atreides, and Imperial forces and annihilate them with a doomsday device; the plot fails as Moritani's Swordmaster Hiih Resser disables the weapon. After the fall of Padishah Emperor Shaddam Corrino IV and Paul's ascension to the Imperial throne, Paul's Fremen forces are engaged on multiple fronts, fighting the Houses that refuse to recognize Atreides rule. The Fremen finally capture Kaitain, the former Imperial capital and homeplanet of House Corrino. Paul levels Shaddam's fortress, which he hopes will send a message to the other dissident Houses. He invites Whitmore Bludd, a former Swordmaster of House Ecaz and a friend to Paul's former mentor Duncan Idaho, to help him construct on Arrakis the grandest citadel the universe has ever seen. Meanwhile, Earl Thorvald, the nobleman heading the rebel forces, is being chased across the galaxy by Fremen naib Stilgar and Paul's Fedaykin commandos. Elsewhere, Shaddam's former minion the exiled Count Fenring and his Bene Gesserit wife Margot are raising their daughter Marie on Tleilax, training her as a weapon against the Atreides. The savage brutality of the Fremen pushes more noble Houses into alliances with Thorvald. Bludd is executed after trying to assassinate Paul and make his mark in history. Growing more callous and savage as the years pass, Paul ultimately orders the complete annihilation of Thorvald's home planet after he learns that the rebel is planning an attack against Caladan. Marie attempts to assassinate Paul but is killed by Paul's young sister Alia; a distraught Fenring manages to stab Paul mortally. Saved by an overdose of the drug melange, Paul arises and banishes the Fenrings to live out their days with Shaddam, whom they now loathe. |
Death Masks | Jim Butcher | 2,003 | It’s late February in Chicago – about eight months after the events in Summer Knight. Harry Dresden is taping The Larry Fowler Show. This is his second time on the show as Chicago’s only consulting wizard. Dresden is broke and the producer is paying double his usual fee. Strangely, each of Larry’s guests is on the show to meet Dresden. Mortimer Lindquist, a local spiritualist tells Harry his former lover Susan is alive and in Peru. Father Vincent, a Vatican priest, hires Dresden to recover the stolen Shroud of Turin. And, São Paulo University Professor Ortega, a Red Vampire Duke, wants to kill him to end the war between the White Council and the Red Court. Susan contacts Dresden, but is sidelined by Murphy who shows Dresden a corpse who apparently died of every disease known to man, and is hired to investigate. Outside, Dresden is attacked by the Denarian Ursiel, a fallen angel attached to a mortal host. Michael Carpenter and two other Knights of the Cross, Shiro and Sanya, rescue him and ask him to drop his case, but Dresden refuses. In his Lab, Dresden consults an oracle spirit. He learns the knights received an angelic prophecy: if Dresden is involved, he will die. However, they did not receive the whole prophecy, which states that if Dresden is not involved, all the Knights will die, as will everyone in the city of Chicago. The Archive, a little girl containing the sum of humanity's written knowledge, and her bodyguard Kincaid, arrive to make the arrangements for Ortega’s duel. A neutral mediator selected by the White Council, she is the guarantor that the duel is conducted by the Accords. Dresden decides that she needs a normal name, so he shortens her name to Ivy. Later, Dresden tracks the Shroud to a boat and is captured and handcuffed by the thieves while trying to recover it. Deirdre, another Denarian, attacks the boat and kills one of the thieves. Dresden fools the Denarian into taking a decoy safe that does not contain the Shroud and leaving. To save her life, the surviving thief, Anna Valmont, steals Dresden’s black leather duster and flees with the Shroud. Valmont returns a short time later to un-cuff Dresden and he is able to escape. Since Michael is out of town, Shiro volunteers to be Dresden’s second in the duel with Ortega, whose second is Thomas Raith. They meet at McAnnally’s Tavern to settle the details of the duel: the weapon is "willpower", at sundown the next day, at Wrigley Field. Susan is waiting outside McAnnally’s with a tux and a limo. She has tickets to a high society art sales charity event run by Johnny Marcone, where the Shroud will likely be sold, and which Susan is covering as a last favor. Marcone attempts to evict them, but they evade capture and locate Anna. The sale is interrupted by the Denarians, who seize the Shroud and kidnap Dresden. Nicodemus, leader of the Denarians, father of the other Denarian Deirdre, asks if Harry will become the Denarian Lasciel. Dresden refuses. Before Nicodemus can kill him, Shiro arrives and trades himself for Dresden for 24 hours. Dresden is almost re-captured, but Susan fights Deirdre to a standstill and this allows him to escape. Susan and Dresden are pursued back to Dresden's apartment, where he activates the powerful defenses. However, this means Susan cannot leave until dawn. She is nearly driven mad by the scent of the blood, dripping from his wounds. To save his life, Dresden magically binds Susan and has sex with her in order to quell her hunger. Apparently this works because of the strong emotional bond between. He asks her about this Fellowship. The Fellowship of St. Giles is an organization of half-turned humans. They helped Susan understand and control her new, semi-vampiric nature; and now, she’s helping them exterminate Red Court vampires in South America. Martin is her Fellowship mentor, not her boyfriend. Her commitment to The Fellowship is the reason she is abandoning her old life in Chicago. In the morning, Susan and Harry leave the boarding house and seek out the Knights. They discover that Father Forthill has an Eye of Horus tattoo similar to the one on the unidentified corpse in the morgue, which he and Vincent received. Harry and the knights defeat Saluriel and Harry forces him to reveal that Nicodemus’ plan is to create a deadly plague curse, powered by the Shroud. The spell will be cast that evening at the airport. As an international travel hub, O'Hare Airport is an excellent place to disseminate their plague. With Susan as his new second, Dresden heads to Wrigley Field to fight his duel with Ortega. The Archive brings out a piece of mordite, a stone of anti-life. It is enchanted to move by willpower, the chosen duelling weapon. If it touches either duellist, or either camp cheats, they die. Being overpowered, Ortega draws a weapon but is shot. A swarm of Red Court vampires surge onto the ball field, attacking everyone. The Archive wills the mordite through the remaining vampires, instantly incinerating them. The Archive asks Kincaid who cheated first. Kincaid said he didn’t see it, but that Dresden was winning when the shots were fired. Dresden wins the duel by default. Dresden races to the airport with the Knights to save Shiro and stop the plague curse, finding him severely tortured. Shiro tells Dresden to take Fidelacchius and trust his heart to know who to give it to. Still talking and dying, Shiro says Nicodemus is going to St. Louis by train. But the plague can be stopped, if he loses the Shroud, before expiring. Dresden enlists the aid of Marcone to catch up to the St. Louis train. Dresden, Marcone, and the Knights battle the Denarians to retrieve the Shroud. Dresden strangles Nicodemus with a noose worn as a necktie, which was the same one used to hang Judas and protects the wearer from all harm, save itself. Dresden and Michael almost die while escaping from the train, but Marcone rescues them. Dresden recuperates in Michael’s home. He receives a two-week old letter from Shiro. He had been diagnosed with cancer and came to Chicago knowing he would sacrifice himself to save Dresden. This news comforts Michael and Sanya, making Shiro’s actions into the deliberate acts of a courageous man. The next day, Ebenezar calls and tells Dresden to watch the news. In a freak accident, an old Soviet satellite, Kosmos 5, crashed into Casaverde, Honduras -- Ortega’s secret fortress. There are no survivors. Dresden realizes that McCoy killed Ortega and his warriors in a sneak attack. Dresden trails Marcone to a secluded, rural hospital. He discovers that Marcone had the Shroud stolen to cure a comatose girl. Dresden tells Marcone it will take three days to see if the Shroud will heal the girl. Then, the Shroud must be returned to the Church. Marcone agrees. After the Shroud is anonymously returned to Father Forthill at St Mary’s, Dresden goes to Michael’s house for Sanya’s bon voyage barbecue. Nicodemius drives by, tossing a coin into the yard. Michael’s youngest son Harry is about to pick it up, when Dresden snatches it just in time to prevent the child from becoming a Denarian. Harry rushes home to bury the coin in his basement lab. |
Lost Tomb of Martek | Tracy Hickman | null | Pharaoh is an Egyptian-styled adventure that includes a pyramid map and a trap-filled maze. In Pharaoh, the player characters (PCs) are driven into the desert for a crime they did not commit. The characters journey to the sunken city of Pazar, and from there they travel to the haunted tomb of an ancient pharaoh. While in the desert, the characters encounter the spirit of Amun-Re, a pharaoh, cursed to wander the desert until his tomb is robbed. Amun-Re begs the PCs to remove his staff of ruling and Star Gem from his tomb to break his curse. The tomb was built to be thief-proof, and has so far lived up to its reputation. While in Amun-Re's pyramid, the characters can use an item called the dome of flight to control or reverse gravity; carelessness can cause them to fall upwards, and the palm trees in this room bear exploding fruit. The characters also encounter a maze within which are many traps. The module contains wilderness maps, and includes a number of smaller adventures which complement the main one. In Oasis of the White Palm, the PCs arrive at the Oasis of the White Palm, which is on the brink of turmoil. Shadalah, who is to be the bride of the sheikh's eldest son, has been kidnapped. The sheikh believes her to be held by his enemies somewhere in the oasis. The Oasis of the White Palm module contains wilderness maps, and includes a number of smaller adventures which complement the main one. The goal of the PCs is the tomb of the millennium-dead wizard Martek. |
The Legend of Red Horse Cavern | Gary Paulsen | 1,994 | Apache Will Little Bear Tucker and his friend Sarah Thompson spot a treasure chest, get held captive by the villains and later escape. After Sarah is recaptured, Will rescues her, they solve the legend of Red Horse and Will disposes of a villain. |
Rodomonte's Revenge | Gary Paulsen | 1,994 | It features Brett and Tom who are playing the new virtual reality game, Rodomonte's Revenge, but when the computer infiltrates their minds the game transforms into something dangerously real. It was published on November 1, 1994 by Yearling. |
Escape from Fire Mountain | Gary Paulsen | 1,995 | The story features thirteen-year-old Nikki Roberts who hears a cry for help over her CB radio and sets out to rescue two children trapped in a forest fire. |
The Shape of Water | Andrea Camilleri | null | Warning this gives away the plot right at the beginning: Silvio Luparello, an engineer, developer and aspiring politician from an aristocratic construction family dies of a heart attack while having sex with his nephew and lover Giorgio at his beach house. The nephew panics and, wanting to protect his uncle from the embarrassing circumstance of his death and not trusting himself to be able to move his uncle's body due to his epilepsy, calls his uncle's friend and political crony, Attorney Rizzo, for help. Rizzo assures the nephew he will take care of it and then, instead of trying to help, attempts to take advantage of the situation and betrays his friendship with Luparello by attempting to use his death to gain leverage over his political opponent, Secretary Cusumano. This he does by attempting to cast Cusumano's Swedish daughter-in-law Ingrid as Luparello's lover and implicating her in his death - at the scene of a seamy outdoor brothel. The film version starts off the morning after the death at the outdoor brothel, with two surveyors working as garbage collectors. They discover the body and contact Attorney Rizzo in an attempt to curry favor with him and maybe get proper surveyor's jobs by giving him the chance to move Luparello's body in order to avoid the embarrassment of Luparello being found at the outdoor brothel, dead with his pants down. Rizzo rebuffs the garbage men, much to their surprise as he is known to be Luparello's friend and ally. Meanwhile, one of the garbage men finds Ingrid's very valuable solid gold jewel-encrusted necklace, planted by Rizzo's Ingrid look-alike as part of the frame-up. The handbag with her initials in which she normally kept the necklace was also planted at the brothel in case somebody walked off with the necklace. Montalbano, with the help of his boyhood friend and outdoor brothel pimp, Gege, and also with the help of Luparello's wife (who tips Montalbano to the fact that somebody must have dressed Luparello because his underwear was on inside out) figures out that the garbage men have the necklace and also that Attorney Rizzo is the bad guy. Montalbano initially suspects Ingrid's involvement because of her relationship with Luparello which he formerly thought sexual, but later thought not, but she convinces Montalbano that she wasn't involved. Montalbano then destroys the planted evidence against her and makes sure that Rizzo pays a reward for the necklace (so that the garbage man and his wife can send their sick child out of the country for proper medical treatment). The story wraps up with Montalbano "playing God" by ignoring a gun that he finds in the beach house, thus giving Giorgio the opportunity to revenge his uncle's betrayal by beating up and killing Rizzo. In the end though Giorgio, too, dies - in a car accident - after previously having had one due to an epileptic seizure that required him to wear a neck brace (which we assume is the same one that Montalbano found at the outdoor brothel, and which we also assume was there because of being used by Rizzo and the Ingrid look-alike to make Luparello appear to be alive during the "sex" act at the outdoor brothel). de:Die Form des Wassers it:La forma dell'acqua sv:Vattnets form |
Magic Lessons | Justine Larbalestier | 2,006 | When a golem pulls Reason into New York, she calls Danny Galeano, Jay-Tee's eighteen year old brother, for help. Danny allows Reason to say with him while she tries to trace the golem, although her feelings for him grow until she eventually sleeps with him, despite Danny continually says that it is not right. Meanwhile, Jay-Tee nearly dies while running, and Tom is forced to give her some of his magic. Reason, who is 15 finds out that she's pregnant with Danny's baby and the whole concept is greatly welcomed. Reason's mother was pregnant with Reason at 15. |
The Land | Mildred Taylor | 2,001 | "The Land" follows the life of Paul-Edward Logan. Paul is the child of a white man and a black woman. Paul has three entries from Paul's journal, after the main story ends. The dialogue uses the Southern dialect from the 1870s, and the ‘80s. The novel begins with Paul,when he is nine years old. It describes how his life has been different from that of most freed slaves. The book is narrated from Paul's perspective, and quickly introduces his three brothers, his sister, and Mitchell Thomas, a black boy whose father works for Paul's father and who becomes a vital member of the storyline. In the beginning, Mitchell continually bullies Paul for being bi-racial. Paul's father and brothers' only advice for Paul is to "use his head", and come up with a solution by himself. In "Childhood", Paul's parents are constant reminders of the trials and tribulations of being born biracial. After several months, Paul is able to strike a deal with Mitchell. If Paul teaches Mitchell to "read English, write English, and figure," then Mitchell will teach Paul how to fight and to fend for himself, but, as he reminded Paul, he "can't teach him how to win." Eventually Paul and Mitchell become sick of dealing with Paul's father. When Paul is fourteen, Paul and Mitchell find an opportunity to run away during a horse show in eastern Texas. Having gone against his father's word at the show by riding a man's horse and winning "four times a rider's pay," Paul has trouble collecting his pay. Mitchell uses violent force to ensure that the white man keeps his word and pays Paul the money he has earned. After this incident, the two flee. The novel later tells what happens during the eleven year gap between part one and two. egacy=== In the epilogue, Paul is older and has more children. Cassie sends him a letter saying that their father is very ill. When Paul goes to his father, he brings his children with him so his father can see the grandchildren. His father looks sick but happy and soon after dies in his sleep. *Daddy (Edward Logan): The father of Paul, Cassie, George, Hammond, and Robert. Paul and Cassie are half black because Edward had an affair with a slave he owned. *Cassie: Paul's older sister. Cassie moves and gets married to a man named Howard Millhouse. She helps Paul to cope with being multiracial. *Robert: One of Paul's brothers. Since they are about the same age, they spend their whole childhood playing together and learning from each other. Once Robert goes against Paul their relationship falls apart. *George: Paul's second oldest white brother. He doesn't have any racial bias towards Paul. He seems passionate and quick-tempered. *Hammond: Paul's eldest white brother. He doesn't have any racial bias towards Paul. He seems to be smart and gentle. He also stands up for his brother and appears at the end of the book to meet Paul. *Luke Sawyer: A shop owner. Paul builds furniture for him and, in return, learns many things. *Caroline: An attractive black woman that both Paul and Mitchell are attracted to. *J.T. Hollenbeck: A white landowner who is willing to sell land to Paul for a reasonable price. He is a yankee. *Ray Sutcliffe: A racist man who tries to take financial advantage of Paul. *Sam Perry: The father of Caroline. He is a father type figure to Paul. * Filmore Granger: A racist landowner who makes a written agreement with Paul to give him . * Harlan Granger: The racist son of Filmore Granger. * Wade Jamison: The son of Charles Jamison who is white and a friend of Nathans. Wade is willing to help Paul get the from Filmore Granger. *Rachel Perry: Caroline's mom and Sam's wife. She is an excellent cook, and does not like Paul at first because he looks white. *Nathan: Caroline's brother. Sam Perry sent him to help Paul clear out the of land, but without pay. Instead Paul is to teach him woodworking. |
The Torment of Others | Val McDermid | 2,004 | Several years after Derek Tyler was incarcerated for slaughtering several prostitutes, another lady of the night is found dead under similar modus operandi. Could police be on the trail of a copycat killer, or are there even darker motives at work here? As Dr. Tony Hill investigates, accompanied by the jaded DCI Carol Jordan, he's drawn into a tangled web of degeneracy, psychosis and mind manipulation... |
Scarlet Feather | Maeve Binchy | 2,000 | One of the novel's main characters is Cathy Scarlet, who has married Neil Mitchell, son of the wealthy household where her mother Lizzie used to scrub floors. Neil's mother Hannah was totally against the marriage and makes life hard for Cathy. Cathy and her college friend, Tom Feather, set up a catering business called Scarlet Feather, the fortunes of which are traced throughout the book. Tom is in a relationship with beautiful Marcella, who dreams of being a model, but Marcella's ambitions come between the couple and there is growing distance too between Cathy and Neil. Younger characters are Neil's twin nephew and niece Simon and Maud who are in need of care, as their mother is an alcoholic and their father has disappeared. Their older brother Walter is not willing to take responsibility for them, and they end up spending a lot of time with Cathy's parents, Lizzie and Muttie, in a far less affluent part of town. The novel traces the growth of the catering company which gives it its name and the relationships of the main characters, as well as those of more minor characters such as Shona and James. Scarlet Feather explores familiar themes of family strife and responsibility, relationships and fledgling business ventures. |
Verdigris Deep | Frances Hardinge | 2,007 | The story starts when Ryan, Chelle and Josh stranded without their bus fare home. Josh climbs into an old wishing well and retrieves some blackened coins. The next day, odd things begin to happen. Ryan sees a watery face in the mirror, and finds white lumps on his hands. Light bulbs explode in Josh's house, and Chelle's babbling becomes shockingly strange. Ryan has a vision of the well witch, and understands from her gargled words that, because they took the coins, they are now in her service. She has given each of them powers so that they can find other wishers, discover their wishes and help grant them. She also gives him the name of a nearby village. In the village, they realize that Chelle is speaking aloud the thoughts of a tea-shop man, Will Wurthers. They guess that he wished for a Harley-Davidson and persuade him to enter a competition to win ohe fete where the winner of the motorcycle is to be announced, they hear the thoughts of an unhappy mime who wishes (they think) for fame. In their attempt to grant his wish they inadvertently cause a riot at the fete. Then they learn that Will has been badly injured in an accident. When Chelle overhears the thoughts of someone wishing for bloody revenge she gets frightened, and she and Ryan decide they should not grant any more wishes. Josh, however, is determined to hang on to his increasing power over all machines, metals and electronic devices. When he goes berserk and tries to kill Ryan's mother, Ryan thinks of a way to diminish the witch's power. But Josh also has a plan, and it nearly results in the death of them all. |
Horror on the Hill | Douglas Niles | 1,983 | In this scenario, the player characters must penetrate a cave labyrinth, which turns out to be a three-level dungeon where an army of goblins and hobgoblins is gathering. The scene of the action is Guido's Fort, located at the end of a road, with only the River Shrill, a mile wide, separating it from "The Hill". At the Fort, hardy bands of adventurers gather to plan their conquests of The Hill, the hulking mass that looms over this tiny settlement. They say the Hill is filled with monsters, and that an evil witch makes her home there. No visitor to The Hill has ever returned to prove the rumors true or false. Only the mighty river Shrill separates the player characters from the mysterious mountain. A series of caves awaits, full of goblins and hobgoblins. At the lowest layer lies a young red dragon. Set on a volcanic island in the midst of a river. |
The Veiled Society | David "Zeb" Cook | null | The Veiled Society is set in the city of Specularum, where the players must determine which of three rival factions is responsible for a murder. In the violent city of Specularum, the Veiled Society has spies everywhere. Specularum is the capitol of the Grand Duchy of Karameikos, and the adventure involves the party in a struggle between the city's three major families (the Vorloi, Radu, and Torenescu). |
Night's Dark Terror | Graeme Morris | null | Night's Dark Terror is a wilderness scenario in which the player characters travel by river and over mountains, from the Grand Duchy of Karameikos to the chaotic lands. The characters encounter a town under siege by goblins, a ruined city, and a lost valley. The module teaches the Dungeon Master (DM) how to handle wilderness conditions, and includes new rules for weather. The module also includes statistics for eleven new monsters, and comes with a battle map and counters for use in staging a battle in one of the towns. The wilderness module is set in the area of Eastern Karameikos. According to White Dwarf reviewer Graeme Davis, much of the action in the module has to do with the secret society known as the Iron Ring. The module begins in a beleaguered farmstead. The PCs then explore more than of wilderness, with eighteen locations, including a number of mini-dungeons, a ruined city, a riverside village, a frontier town, and a lost valley, with the minions of the Iron Ring waiting for the PCs at every step. |
The Lost City | Tom Moldvay | 1,982 | The adventure follows a city buried in the desert; the city is torn between two warring factions. Much of the adventure takes place within a huge step pyramid. Other areas of the city are merely outlined, with suggestions provided for the DM to provide detail. At the beginning of the adventure the characters become lost in a desert sandstorm and stumble upon the entrance to a pyramid. The pyramid and the underground city beneath it are located on the site of the ancient ruined city of Cynidicea and inhabited by the descendants of the city's people. These Cynidiceans, now regressed to a subterranean species, are addicted to narcotics and spend most of their time in drug-induced reveries, wandering around in costumes and masks. As the adventure progresses, the characters discover that a monster known as Zargon was responsible for the downfall of Cynidicea. The monster still lives, and a cult of evil human priests and various other monsters has grown up around it. Besides the priests of Zargon, there also exist three other factions of relatively normal Cynidiceans. They worship the city's ancient Gods and are dedicated to the overthrow of the priests of Zargon and the restoration of Cynidicea's lost glory, but their diverging faiths have disallowed them from working together against their common enemy. Although only the upper half of the pyramid is detailed, enough information on the lower half and the underground city is provided for the DM to expand the adventure. After clearing the upper pyramid the players can become involved in the struggle for Cynidicea and, if they grow powerful enough, confront Zargon in his lair and destroy him. |
Queen's Harvest | Carl Sargent | null | In Queen's Harvest, the player characters must enter a dead wizard's lair to obtain the perilous objects he left behind. The characters become embroiled in royal politics as adventure progresses. The first half of the adventure presents a basic dungeon, while the second half offers an extended siege of an enemy stronghold where the player characters are greatly outnumbered and outgunned; they must patiently whittle away at the opponents, then withdraw to regroup and heal. The wizard Kavorquian is dead, but certain items belonging to his adopted son were in the wizard's keeping at the time of his demise. The player characters must venture into the silent vaults of Kavorquian's stronghold and recover the missing property. The story ultimately leads the player characters into the nether reaches of Penhaligon's politics to confront Ilyana Penhaligon, the mad pretender to the throne. |
Cugel's Saga | Jack Vance | 1,983 | The story picks up where the protagonist, Cugel the Clever, had been left at the end of The Eyes of the Overworld: sitting disconsolately on a barren beach far to the north of his homeland of Almery. As in The Eyes, Cugel's goal is to return home and avenge himself upon Iucounu, the Laughing Magician, whom Cugel regards as indirectly responsible for his second banishment. Taking a different route this time, Cugel obtains a deadly relic of an Overworld being, Sadlark; takes service as worminger (a crewmember responsible for the maintenance of huge marine worms) aboard a worm-propelled merchant ship, which he steals along with its owner's wife and his three comely daughters. Cugel is outwitted by the owner's wife and forced to abandon ship and females; and has various other adventures and setbacks, until with the aid of some new friends, he encompasses the defeat of Iucounu. Like its predecessor, the structure of the story is picaresque, and Cugel remains as ambiguously appealing a character as before. The book is currently out of print in its original form, but is included (with The Eyes of the Overworld) in the omnibus collection, Tales of the Dying Earth. In the Vance Integral Edition, it is volume 35, retitled by its editor as Cugel: The Skybreak Spatterlight. An earlier sequel, A Quest for Simbilis by author Michael Shea, was published in 1974. |
A Logic Named Joe | Murray Leinster | 1,946 | *A Logic Named Joe This story was also published in The Great Science Fiction Stories, Volume 8, 1946 Edited by Isaac Asimov and Martin H. Greenburg, DAW Books, November 1982 ISBN 0-87997-780-9 |
Soul Rush | null | 1,978 | In the book, Collier describes her experiences with recreational drug use, including marijuana and LSD, and then her introduction to Eastern spirituality through life on an ashram. At age sixteen, Collier had become friends with Abbie Hoffman, then moved to live first on a commune and later a Divine Light Mission ashram. The book describes her initiation to the Techniques of Knowledge of Guru Maharaj ji (also known as Prem Rawat) and her experiences in the organization. Years later, in an interview published in 2001 in Fast Company magazine, Collier stated that "At the ashram, we did things like staying up all night and meditating, things that taught us how to focus our minds". Skills that she still applies in stressful business situations, and that "drawing on those experiences has definitely helped me maintain perspective." |
The Caribbean Cruise Caper | null | null | The Hardy boys go on a cruise to sail in the Caribbean. This cruise was being sponsord by a magazine called Teenway. The cruise was the location of a contest of teen detectives trying to solve fake crimes. Joe and Frank were called in as judges.But things don't go right when a suspicious character goes off and creates havoc in the cruise. Now, the Hardy Boys must get to the bottom of the case, and find out who is causing the havoc. Will Fank, Joe and the five teen detective find who the culprit is before Colombe d'Or sinks? |
The Hunt for the Four Brothers | null | null | The Hardy Boys try to help a friend of theirs find four precious gems. If they don't find them in time, it will be too late. |
Training For Trouble | null | null | The Hardy Boys decide to go to a sports facility in Bayport. They see many competing, but they find out about a mysterious figure creating 'accidents'. Now they must find him before more accidents happen. |
The End Of The Trail | null | null | Biff Hooper, Phil Cohen, and Chet Morton go with the Hardy Boys on a hike up the Appalachian Trail, but things take a turn for the worse when Biff is hurt. The boys go to Morgan's Quarry, the nearest town, for help, and find a bag of cash in the middle of the road. Now, the Hardy Boys must find the owner, or face death. |
Skin & Bones | Franklin W. Dixon | 2,000 | Cody Chang, an animal collector, calls on the Hardy Boys to investigate the ransacking of the store he owns. Now, the Hardy Boys must find out who is trying to break his business down, before it does. |
The Shifting Sands | Jennifer Rowe | 2,001 | The three go on their way towards the Shifting Sands from the City of the Rats when they spot an Ak-Baba in the sky. In order to hide from it, they dive under the River Broad and hide under their cloak. Surprisingly, they are aided by the fish of the river as well, which are rather intelligent. Later, once the threat has passed, they pass by an apple farm owned by an eccentric old woman known as Queen Bee. Hungry and tired, they decide to steal and eat from the apple orchard. Queen Bee reveals that she is not actually a fragile old woman, but a dangerous threat because of the bees that she hides under her shawl. The trio are promptly chased off by her deadly bees for stealing. After some time on the road, they reach the town of Rithmere and started hearing about a competition called the Rithmere Games. Thinking they can win some money from it, they attempt to enter. But there is an entrance fee of one silver coin, and they have no money whatsoever. Lief, Jasmine, and Barda decide to let the operator of a game called Beat the Bird borrow Kree to spin the wheel thirty times, for a coin. In Beat the Bird, a bird would spin a wheel after a silver coin was paid. If the wheel lands on a number, the better is paid that number of silver coins. But if the wheel lands on a bird, the better only receives a worthless wooden bird figurine. After thirty turns, Kree senses something is amiss and pulls the table sheet, which reveals that the operator is controlling the wheel through the use of a pedal. The cheating operator then flees, leaving the coins that have fallen off the table sheet to the crowd. Lief, Barda, and Jasmine attempt to take some of the coins, but all that is left is a wooden bird. The three decided to enter the Rithmere Games when they meet a scar-faced man named Doom, who they last saw at Tom's shop. They enter the games, and discover that the "games" are in fact fighting matches. Despite this fact, they enter anyway. Lief, Jasmine, and Barda are locked in their room in the night, but Mother Brightly, the host arrives and saves them. After the fights, Jasmine manages to win the one thousand gold prize for first place. Mother Brightly tells the trio about the secret passageway that they can use to leave. However, upon trying to use it, the trio is ambushed by Grey Guards. It is revealed that there was a scandal that the prize money would be returned to Mother Brightly for the next competition while benefitting from the audience. Lief, Jasmine, and Barda attempt to make off with the coins when Doom comes to them and helps them escape. On foot, they finally reach the walls of the Shifting Sands. Lief starts to hear voices. The three hide from the Grey Guards, who are then eaten by a terrible insectile monster called a Sand Beast. Lief sees the Guards' belongings sinking into the sand and travelling to the center, in a place called the Hive. They arrive at the Hive, and Lief enters the hole full of treasures and replaces the lapis lazuli with the wooden bird to keep the structure of the piling treasures stable. He then climbs out of the Hive just before they are eaten by it. Lief fits the gem into the Belt of Deltora and their quest continues to the Dread Mountain. |
Den mörka sanningen | Margit Sandemo | 2,001 | Scene of the novel is Norway in year 1911. Nineteen-year-old shopkeepersdaughter Cornelia Weding has lived with a terrifying and inexplicable memory since the age of five. She has tried to deny it, but it comes back recurrently into her mind in the shape of feelings, words and nightmares. In the memory fragments she wambers as a child alone in the hard of night-time and dark forest and searching for something or the enormous and frightening figures in the black capes stays round her baby bed and threaten to kill her if she would remember. As her missfortune her loved childhood friend will get married to her beautiful and evil cousin. When she takes a trip to their weddings her stepmother's childhood home, she realizes that she has returned to the place where the dark mystery happened fourteen years ago... :Characters: * Cornelia Weding, the principal character. Nineteen-year-old shopkeepersdaughter, who lives with her traumatic memory. Has light strawberry red hair, childish face and surprise of the all world in her wise eyes. * Anna Weding, 24 years old, Cornelia's elder sister. Has the darker hair and skin than Cornelia. Brave, straightforward and outspoken. Her and a lieutenant Sofus Hallgren are seeing each other. * Pontus Weding, 26 years old, Cornelia's and Anna's elder brother. Pontus has grew up the lamppost, very long and inflexible man. He studies. * Jon, 29 years old, a neighbour boy from childhood of Cornelia and her secret love, who will get married to Cornelia's cousin Missy. Studies farming far away from home. * Lars, 26 years old, Jon's younger brother. Silent, interested in cars and has one. * Mari-Lise, called "Missy", 26 years old, a cat woman, the Cornelia's and Anna's and Pontus' cousin. However, she's not a relative of theirs, because she is the niece of brother's and sister's stepmother. Beautiful and evil seduceress; has thick and copper red hair. She hates Cornelia. * Sofus Hallgren, lieutenant, Anna's dearly loved. Visits often in the shore owned by Cornelia's father. * Christoffer Weding, shopkeeper and Cornelia's, Anna's, Pontus' and two little children's father. The sensible and understanding man. * Matilda Weding is his wife, but three eldest siblings of the committee of five children flock isn't her, because their mother died when Cornelia was born. Matilda is a nagging, silly and vain woman, who favours just her own relatives (especially her niece Missy). She thinks that her family is the better people complete to Wedings because of their noble birth (her grandmother was a noblewoman). * Hans and Grethe, Matilda's and Christoffer's two little children. Don't play great role in the novel; they are only sweet and laborious, final turns in the family. * Agnes, Matilda's sister and Missy's mother who has cold, ice blue eyes. She is married with the rich and imposing Knut Jörgen. Agnes' personality is quite similar to her sister's. * Knut Jörgen, the rich and imposing, authority figure in the family, who get married with Agnes after that her former husband went missing. Even though he looks externally a firm and decisive man, he yields without difficulty to his wife's complaining and spoils too much his vain half daughter. * Grandmother, who hasn't a proper noun in the novel. She wears an old-fashioned black dress, haughty and dignifieldly behaving old lady who doesn't consider her daughter's husband candidates by fair means if they don't come from enough noble estate. However, she has a heart under her hard exterior and has more sense than her silly daughters has altogether. * Alfred Pettersen, the Agnes' former husband and Missy's father. The grandmother didn't like him. A pretty rascal, and no-one has ever heard about him since he escaped with circus ballerina many years ago. sv:Den mörka sanningen |
The Fox in The Attic | Richard Hughes | 1,961 | The novel opens in 1923. The protagonist, a young Welsh aristocrat named Augustine Penry-Herbert, is incorrectly suspected of having something to do with the accidental death of a young girl whose body he discovers, and so decides to leave England and visit distant relations in Germany. While there he falls in love with his cousin Mitzi, while in the background the rise of Nazism occurs, including the Munich Putsch. At the end of the novel, Mitzi, who has lost her sight, enters a convent, and Augustine returns to England. The second novel in the trilogy, The Wooden Shepherdess, was published in 1973; it carries on the story to 1934 and the Night of the Long Knives. The third and final novel was left unfinished, Hughes realizing that he was unlikely to see it published. |
Sons of Destiny | Darren Shan | 2,006 | After Darren was told by Steve that Darius is also Darren's nephew, Darren couldn't bear to kill him. He was later shown taking Darius back to his house and there he also revealed his true identity to Annie, his sister. Darren also told Annie that Darius was blooded by Steve as a Vampaneze and he would kill everyone he feeds from. Annie was told about the life and history of Darren. Darren blooded Darius so he wouldn't have to kill as a Vampaneze and becomes a vampire instead. Darren, Alice Burgess, and Vancha would have to prepare for a break in at the stadium to save their friends and the Cirque performers. Darren and Vancha, as the prophecy goes, tailed Gannen Harst and Steve from the stadium and were ready for a final battle. The battle is brief. Vancha first fights both Gannen and Steve using only his hands. He then is wounded by Gannen, making him incapable to fight. Gannen was knocked out cold by R.V., who at the same time was killed by Steve after that moment (because Steve stabbed him in the neck), leaving Darren and Steve to worry about each other only. As Darren predicted, he must face Steve alone. As Darren and Steve are fighting next to a riverbank, Darren eventually almost kills Steve. Mr. Tiny then approaches Steve and Darren, telling them that Darren and Steve are actually half-brothers and that Mr. Tiny is their real, biological father. He planned this whole thing as to see which son was worthy enough to become the ruler of the shadows with him. Darren feels as though he would rather destroy himself than wipe out all of humanity, so Darren taunts Steve before he dies, saying, "You were right. I did plot with Mr Crepsley to take your place as his assistant. We made a fool of you, and I'm glad. You're a nobody. A nothing. This is what you deserve. If Mr Crepsley was alive, he'd be laughing at you now, just like the rest of us are." Steve, full of rage, stabs Darren several times in the gut. Darren pulls Steve into the river while getting himself caught in the current, drowning both and avoiding the prophecy. Darren's soul then goes to the Lake of Souls, where his soul is caught by Evanna, his half-sister. Evanna had made a deal with her father, Mr. Tiny, agreeing to make Darren a little person so he could go to Paradise. The only exception was that Darren could be spared if Evanna became pregnant by either Vancha or Gannen, hoping that the child will destroy the human race themselves. However, Evanna had taken the DNA of both Vancha and Gannen, and let the child become twins. She says that the twins will be part Vampire,part Vampaneze and part Evanna, so the twins will know both sides very well and convince the two clans to become equal. Annoyed by seeing Darren again, Mr. Tiny is at first reluctant to help Darren. But, Evanna reminds him of their deal, so, he agrees, much to his dislike. Mr. Tiny changes Darren into a Little Person, but avoids adding a tongue so that he can't speak. Mr. Tiny sends Darren into the past not knowing that Evanna has given Darren his diaries. He is sent back to the first day that he set eyes on the Cirque Du Freak. Darren then sees himself and Steve when they went to go visit the show. Darren then scares himself away so he wouldn't become a vampire in the future, knowing from a conversation with Evanna that someone else will take his place in history and hoping that whoever it is will be able to pass on peacefully after fulfilling his destiny. He also gives his diaries to Mr. Tall to be given to Darren when he's older so everyone will know the truth of what happened, intending to release them after the time of his 'death' in future so that the present cannot be altered. Darren then dies on top of the theater where he goes to wherever the judgement of the vampire gods will bring him. It is implied, though not directly confirmed, that he passes on to paradise, a book that ends in epic tragedy. fa:پسران سرنوشت |
The Candle in the Wind | T. H. White | 1,958 | The story begins with Mordred and Agravaine, both discontent. Mordred hates his father, King Arthur, and Agravaine hates Sir Lancelot. Their views are not shared by Gawaine, Gareth, or Gaheris. The relationship of Lancelot and Guinevere has gone on for some time and everyone in the court knows of it. No one, however, publicly speaks of it as law would require Lancelot to be killed and Guinevere to be burned at the stake. In order to wreak their revenge, Mordred and Agravaine decide to go to the king and officially charge the Queen with adultery. Troubled by this, King Arthur agrees to leave on a hunting trip to give the knights a chance to catch the Queen with Lancelot, although he does say that if they are caught, he hopes that Lancelot will be able to kill all witnesses and adds that if the two fail in backing their claims, he will see to it that they are pursued by the law themselves. At the same time, he confesses to Guinevere and Lancelot a terrible secret: When Mordred was born, Arthur had been told by many people that the child would be evil, as a result of the incest. Pressured, the king commanded all babies born in the approximate month Mordred would be born to be placed on a boat which was then sunk. Mordred managed to survive this, however, and Arthur lived with the guilt of causing the death of the other babies. When the king leaves for his hunting party, Lancelot prepares to sneak over to Guinevere's room. Before he can leave, Gareth visits him and warns him of Mordred and Agravaine's plot. Lancelot receives him warmly, but does not take the threat seriously as he does not believe that Arthur would entertain such an idea. He leaves for the Queen's room without weapons or armor, assuring Gareth that they would all laugh together about this when the king returned. In Guinevere's room, Lancelot laughingly tells her of Gareth's warning. Unlike him, however, the queen takes the threat seriously and tries to convince the knight to leave before they are caught. Too late, however - they find a group of knights attempting to break into Guinevere's room. Lancelot manages to kill one of them (later revealed to be Agravaine) and takes his weapon and armor to defeat the rest. Mordred, however, escapes to tell Arthur of the Queen's faithlessness. Lancelot is forced to flee Camelot, however promises to return to rescue Guinevere. Though unwilling to kill his wife, Arthur is obliged to obey his own laws and prepares for her execution. Mordred faces scorn and anger from his brothers, who are furious with him for turning in the queen and accuse him of being a coward for running away from his fight with Lancelot. Arthur later explains to them that Mordred survived because Lancelot was unwilling to kill Arthur's son. When Mordred learns that Lancelot will return to prevent Guinevere's execution, he demands that Arthur put more guards in the town. While Gawaine refuses to take part in the events, Gareth and Gaheris are stationed as additional guards. Just as Guinevere is about to be burned, Lancelot rides in and rescues her. Much to Gawaine's horror however, it is discovered that in his haste to reach the queen, Lancelot killed Gareth and Gaheris before he could recognize them. Guinevere and Lancelot flee to France, and request forgiveness from the Pope. It is granted and Guinevere is permitted to return to Camelot. Lancelot remains in France, where Arthur is forced to fight him for honor. During the siege, Gawaine receives a blow to the head that gravely injures him. In Camelot, Mordred is left to rule in Arthur's stead. He corners Guinevere and tells her that he intends to overthrow Arthur's rule and take her as his wife (as revenge for Arthur sleeping with Mordred's mother). Guinevere manages to send a message to Arthur and upon hearing the news, Gawaine dies. Arthur then returns to England to stop Mordred. On the eve of battle, in a state of semi-consciousness, he remembers Merlin's lessons. To make sure that his legacy lives on even if he dies in the battle, he explains his ideas to a young serving boy, Tom of Warwick (implied to be Thomas Malory of Warwickshire). He tells the boy how his idea of peace was like a candle in the wind, which he had kept alight with an effort. The book ends with Arthur sending Tom away to safety, and then he is ready to face the coming battle "with a peaceful heart." Arthur acknowledges that he shall perhaps come again to try to create another perfect Round Table. He remembers before death, the times he spent with Merlyn doing missions. At the thought, Merlyn 'might' have appeared, but he dismissed it for though he is locked up, though in The Book of Merlyn this moment is when Merlyn appears to him and takes Arthur away for a debate on war, humanity etc... We are meant to know already how the battle goes, (see Battle of Camlann). We end on a note of hope as Arthur accepts his fate with a clear mind, as if he is refreshed. Although the details of the battle are not recounted, according to legend all of the knights are killed, and Arthur kills Mordred, and Mordred mortally wounds Arthur. White puts forth both that Arthur died, or the other story where he is set adrift to Avalon where his wounds may be healed that he might rule again. |
The Scent of the Night | Andrea Camilleri | null | Inspector Montalbano must track down a lost financial manager who seems to have absconded with all of his clients money. Along the way, he encounters a lovelorn secretary who believes her boss could do no wrong. |
The Last Boleyn Book | Karen Harper | null | In 1512, it is decided that Mary will be sent first to the court of Archduchess Margaret of Austria and then to the French court as maid-in-waiting to Louis XII's English wife, Mary Tudor. Although this decision leaves her mother, Elizabeth devastated, Mary is keen in working towards pleasing her father and advancing the Boleyns in society. Mary grows to love her mistress, the Queen, and the two form a special companionship when the ailing Louis XII dismisses the other English ladies-in-waiting from court. Mary Tudor confesses that her brother, King Henry VIII, has promised that she will be free to marry whomever she chooses upon the death of Louis. Describing women as pawns to the desires of men, she gives Mary a chesspiece as a constant reminder of this; green and white, it symbolizes that they are both mere Tudor pawns. With the death of Louis XII, his nephew, Francois, (with whom the young Mary is besotted), inherits the throne, and Mary Tudor is married to Charles Brandon in secret. With the marriage discovered by an angry King Henry, Thomas Boleyn decides to withdraw his daughter from the dowager queen's service, and have her instead in the household of the pious Queen Claude. Mary's younger sister, Anne arrives at the French court two years later, in 1517. Avoiding the flirtations of Rene de Brosse, Mary is eventually cornered by the youth as he physically expresses his desires. The Italian Leonardo da Vinci, a favorite of the King, rescues Mary, and advises her to forever keep her eyes open if she desires to survive court. William Stafford, a servant to Henry Tudor, makes Mary's acquaintance, but she is altogether unimpressed and annoyed by his mannerisms. As Francois's feelings towards his royal mistress, Francoise de Foix wane, he begins an affair with Mary. Although she is frightened of the possible backlashes, her father encourages the liaisons. Mary is seen as a possession by the King, and is traded amongst his friends as a whore; she quickly realizes that she was foolish to think that he could ever love her. When the English court visits France again in 1520, William Stafford warns Mary against allowing King Henry Tudor to take her as his mistress, while Catherine of Aragon and Thomas Boleyn discuss Mary's future in England. When Mary returns to England, she is quickly married to William Carey, a gentleman of the royal privy chamber, who agrees to allow his newlywed wife to be mistress to the King of England. Unlike her predecessor, Bessie Blount, Mary is able to hold the King for five years. When Mary gives birth to a baby boy (Henry Carey) in 1522, the identity of his father is unknown. Her sister, Anne, is a flirtatious, pretty girl at court, and catches the king's eye. Mary finds herself falling in love with William Stafford, the handsome man who sees and loves Mary for who she truly is. She has a love affair with him even though she still has a husband, but he loves her not. When her husband is killed in the summer sweat plague, her secret love affair with Stafford continues. They are eventually married in secret and it remains a secret until she becomes pregnant and has to tell Anne-who had been Queen for quite some time, and the King. They are sent away to live at Stafford's Manor house. They live a very happy and peaceful life there as their love child is born. For well I might a' had a greater man of birth, but I assure you I could never a' had one that loved me so well. I had rather beg my bread with him than be the greatest queen christened. |
Pity is Not Enough | Josephine Herbst | null | Pity is Not Enough follows the Trexler's history after the American Civil War and before World War I. While the main narrative focuses on the Trexler family, the chronology is often disrupted by inter-chapters focusing on Victoria's childhood. Victoria recalls her mother, Catherine, telling the story of her unfortunate brother Joe Trexler, a man who had left his family's home in Philadelphia to work as a carpetbagger in Reconstruction-era Georgia. When trouble began to hound him, he escaped first to Canada, where he made acquaintances with the Governor of Georgia, and then returned home for a short while. He manages to escape from the local law by moving again, this time to the west where he joined the gold rush in the Black Hills in Dakota Territory. Future promises of financial success do not become fruitful for Joe or for the majority of his family. His favorite sister Catherine dies relatively young, his two other sisters marry failures who are unable to support them properly, and his younger brother, Aaron, becomes a moderate success but is relatively unhappy. His youngest brother, David, does have some success. Over time Joe slowly falls into dementia. Victoria eventually comes to the conclusion that her Uncle Joe's failure, like her father's failure in business, is not due to personal shortcomings, but to capitalist economic forces beyond their control. |
The Story of Holly and Ivy | null | null | The orphanage outside Mill Valley has closed for Christmas, and the children have been dispatched to various homes for the holiday. Only one child, Ivy, is overlooked. The head of the home cannot take Ivy home with her, so she decides to send her to an infants' orphanage some distance away. Ivy suggests that she could instead go to her "grandma's house" – but she has no grandmother. Ivy is put on a train, which passes through the town of Mill Valley. While it is stopped, Ivy looks out of the window and notices that, due to a malfunction, the illuminated welcome sign no longer reads MILL VALLEY but instead reads I V Y. She takes this to indicate that she really does have a grandma, and that she lives in that town. She leaves the train, and it departs without her. Meanwhile, a beautiful new Christmas doll named Holly is standing in the display window of Mr. Blossom's toy store, wishing for a little girl to come and take her home. The toy owl next to her, Abracadabra, treats her with undisguised contempt, and suggests that, since no one will want Holly after the holiday, she will wind up spending the year in the back room with him. Elsewhere in Mill Valley, Mrs. Jones suggests to her husband that they have a Christmas tree that year, but her husband refuses, saying that it would be a waste of money since they have no children to enjoy it. Despite his words, Mrs. Jones buys a Christmas tree and decorates it. After a very hectic afternoon, Mr. Blossom's toy store finally closes. Neither Holly nor Abracadabra has been sold. Mr. Blossom is tired from a long day's work, so he asks Peter to lock up the store for him, telling him that he can pick a toy for himself as a bonus. Peter locks up the store, but the key slips out of a hole in his pocket without him noticing, landing in the snow outside the shop. Meanwhile, Ivy's search for her grandma has not gone well. Feeling very discouraged, she is walking past the toy store when Holly catches her eye. The doll is exactly what she wanted, but she is outside, and the store is locked. She finds the key that Peter dropped, and decides to keep it. Night falls, and she takes shelter in a nearby alley. The next morning, she returns to the toy store to look at Holly, and overhears a conversation between Peter and Officer Jones, who has been on patrol all night. Peter is distraught about losing the key to the shop. Ivy realizes that was the key that she found, and returns it. Peter goes in to check the store. Officer Jones quickly realizes that Ivy is on her own, and decides to take her home for breakfast. Peter ensures that the store has not been robbed. Since little Ivy saved his job, he decides to use his bonus to select a present for her, and chooses Holly. Abracadabra, furious that Holly's wish is about to come true, hurls himself at Peter and winds up in the trash. When Mr. Blossom goes to retrieve him later, he has mysteriously vanished. At the Jones's house, Ivy realizes that they have a beautiful Christmas tree and no children, which means that she has found her grandma. Shortly after, Peter delivers a beautifully wrapped box, which contains Holly. Everyone's wishes have come true: Ivy has a family and a Christmas doll. Holly has a little girl love her. And when they adopt Ivy, the Joneses have the child they always wanted. |
The Overlook | Michael Connelly | null | The Overlook reunites Bosch with his most recent former flame, FBI agent Rachel Walling. Bosch must break in a new and much younger partner, Ignacio "Iggy" Ferras, when they're called to take over the investigation of the execution-style murder of medical physicist Stanley Kent on a Mulholland Drive overlook. When a special FBI unit, headed by Walling, arrives and tries to usurp his case, claiming it's a matter of national security, Bosch refuses to back down. Walling's focus on the theft of radioactive cesium from a hospital where Kent assisted in cancer treatments, and her unwillingness to share information only makes Bosch more determined to solve the case. Evidence mounts that the murder is part of a terrorist plot to build and deploy a dirty bomb, justifying the FBI's moves to push the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and Bosch to the sidelines. Refusing to be sidelined, Bosch aggressively works around the FBI in order to track down Stanley Kent's killers, much to the chagrin of his young, inexperienced partner, who sees his career at the LAPD jeopardized by Bosch's actions. The FBI agents, including Rachel Walling, view Bosch as endangering their attempts to retrieve the missing cesium and to track down known terrorists. Relying on instinct and experience, Bosch relentlessly pursues his line of inquiry, ultimately revealing secrets that were darker than anyone could imagine. The principal players in the story are: Harry Bosch, the lead detective on the case, who is the principal protagonist on this and thirteen previous Harry Bosch novels. Rachel Walling, who was romantically involved with Harry in a number of previous Harry Bosch novels. In this story, while Harry has hopes of re-connecting with Rachel, their relationship is strained, owing to conflicting views on how the investigation should be carried out. Ignacio "Iggy" Ferras, Bosch's young partner. Iggy wants to play by the book and is seriously disturbed by Bosch's let's-break-the-rules attitude. At one point, he tells Bosch that he can't work with him and will be requesting a new partner. Stanley Kent, the murder victim who has stolen 32 sources of cesium from a Los Angeles hospital in response to demands from unknown parties who have taken his wife hostage. If used in a dirty bomb, tens of thousands of people could die from radiation exposure. Alicia Kent, the beautiful wife of the murder victim, who was taken hostage in her home by two intruders. She was used by the intruders to pressure Stanley Kent to steal the cesium from the hospital. Jack Brenner, Rachel Walling's FBI partner and superior and the lead FBI agent on the case. His primary concern is dealing with the terror threat associated with the stolen cesium. To him, Bosch's homicide investigation is a secondary concern. Cliff Maxwell, an FBI agent working on the case, with whom Bosch has two violent encounters. it:La città buia sv:Hotet (2007) |
Ragged Dick | Horatio Alger, Jr. | 1,868 | The text of Ragged Dick is based on the 1868 first book edition, annotated for student readers. "Contexts" begins by looking at Ragged Dick through the lenses of 1860s New York and Alger's own life there. Ragged Dick is a fourteen-year-old bootblack – he smokes, drinks occasionally, and sleeps on the streets – but he is anxious "to turn over a new leaf, and try to grow up "'spectable". He won't steal under any circumstances, and gentlemen impressed with this virtue (and his determination to succeed) offer their aid. Mr. Greyson, for example, invites him to church and Mr. Whitney gives him five dollars for performing a service. Dick uses the money to open a bank account and to rent his first apartment. He fattens his bank account by practicing frugality and is tutored by his roommate Fosdick in the three R's. When Dick rescues a drowning child, the grateful father rewards him with a new suit and a job in his mercantile firm. With this final event, Richard is "cut off from the old vagabond life which he hoped never to resume", and henceforth will call himself Richard Hunter, Esq. |
Sword Song | Bernard Cornwell | 2,007 | Uhtred is serving Alfred, King of Wessex, by building one of the fortified towns that will make up Alfred's system of defense against attacks by the Danes when he learns that two powerful Norse leaders have occupied nearby London, giving them the ability to interfere with traffic on the Thames to and from Wessex. He is contacted by his former friend, Danish chieftain Haesten, who invites him to a meeting across the Thames in Mercia. Haesten takes Uhtred to a graveyard, where a corpse appears to rise from the earth to tell Uhtred that the Fates have decreed he is to be King of Mercia. Torn between his oath to Alfred, whom he dislikes, and the temptation to become a king in his own right, he follows Haesten to London, where he meets the Norse leaders Sigefrid and his brother Erik. Haesten and the Norse brothers have a proposition for Uhtred: if Uhtred convinces his foster-brother Lord Ragnar of Northumbria to bring Ragnar's men to join them in attacking East Anglia, Mercia and Wessex, then Uhtred will be given the throne of Mercia while the others rule East Anglia and Wessex. Uhtred ponders this offer while Sigefrid invites him to watch the crucifixion of some Christian prisoners. Among the prisoners Uhtred recognizes his old comrade at arms, the Welshman Father Pyrlig. Uhtred decides to save Pyrlig (and lose his chance to join Sigefrid's plot). Knowing Pyrlig to be an experienced fighter, Uhtred tricks Sigefrid into promising the prisoners can go free if Pyrlig beats him in single combat - which he promptly does. Uhtred, Pyrlig and the prisoners leave London. Returning to Wessex with Pyrlig, Uhtred is summoned by Alfred and ordered to plan an attack on London to dislodge the Norse brothers and turn the city over to Alfred's son-in-law and ally Earl Aethelred of Mercia. By stealth Uhtred's seaborne assault works and the defenders of London are caught out in the open as they sally forth to confront Aethelred larger attacking army. Wedged between what was their safe London refuge and the Saxons in front of them and Uhtred force behind, the Norse are defeated. A particularly cruel blow is struck by Osferth (King Alfred's illegitimate son) who leaps from the walls onto Sigefrid and injures him, leaving him crippled. Sigefrid, Erik, and Haesten retire to East Anglia and fortune smiles on them again when Aethelred mounts a seaborne raid on their hurt forces. However they stay too long amongst their enemies after initial success and in the process, Aethelred manages to lose his wife, Aethelflaed. Alfred is distraught at the threat to his daughter and is willing the ransom her from his foes. Uhtred is sent to negotiate the price and terms with Sigefrid. Whilst in their camp he learns that Erik and Aethelflaed have fallen in love, whereupon Erik and he plot to spirit her away from her captors; all without either of their leaders knowing what they plan. The battle in the mouth for the inlet where the Vikings have holed up is as desperate as they come, with it often being none too clear who is fighting for whom. This climax to the narrative is fought over marshland, waterside, on ship and across ships. Erik is killed by Sigefrid, but Uhtred and his crew quickly gain victory over Sigefrid's own warriors, and Sigefrid himself is killed by Osferth. Aethelflaed is rescued and the story ends with Uhtred taking her back to her father. |
Claudine at St.Clare's | null | 1,943 | When Pat and Isabel arrive at school, they are surprised to meet a new matron. Then French teacher Mam'zelle introduces Claudine, her niece, who will be joining them for this term. Alison O'Sullivan, the twins' rather silly cousin, meets and befriends Angela, who is rich, beautiful and well dressed. Soon, Alison is completely under the spoilt, snobbish Angela's thumb. The new Matron's daughter Eileen is a reserved girl who is later identified as a sneak. Pauline is soon discovered to be a snobbish and conceited girl who continuously brags about her family's 'wealth'. During the inevitable midnight feast the girls find themselves in trouble when Matron is spitefully locked for hours in a broom cupboard by Claudine while they were having the feast. She is furious to find that she is released by her daughter, Eileen, and thinks that she was with the other girls, while actually she was speaking with her brother Eddie, who lost his job but doesn't dare to tell his mother. Eileen is in trouble. Pauline suffers a worse fate than Eileen when her mother visits unexpectedly and is happened upon by Alison and Angela, who mistake the poor, worn-out woman for one of the cooks. Pauline, like Eileen, is exposed as working class. Angela is scornful to discover that all Pauline's boasts of wealth are lies, and that she is ashamed of her lower-class background. The more compassionate Alison, however, takes pity on Pauline's mother, and to her credit, stands up to Angela's snobbish and domineering attitude, vowing to be less in her thrall in future. Alison also makes this action because of the awful behavior of Angela's mother at half-term. Even she felt that though beautiful, Angela's mother was horrible and was also secretly pleased when the brave and mischievous Claudine fell into the water from a balcony so that Angela's mother gets wet even though Claudine hates the water. Near the end of the book Matron reveals that someone is stealing food, money and even stamps from her. It is written that Eileen stole the things in order to feed Eddie and apply for a new job. When Eddie does get employed, Eileen and Eddie go to Miss Theobald to confess about the stealing, for they heard that Pauline had been accused of this even though she had been taking money from her mother's bank account (In a short section also Claudine is suspected for stealing, for she suddenly has a lot of money and buys expensive birthday presents, but it turns out that she sold her lovely cushion cover that Mam'zelle showed to everyone at half term to Alison's mother.) Miss Theobald sends Eileen and Eddie into her other room next door, and calls for Matron. She tells her that she knows who stole from her, and asks Matron whether the girl should be expelled or not, since it was Matron who had been stolen from. The unkind Matron insists that the girl should be expelled, and is then lead to Eileen and Eddie. Matron cannot believe her eyes, and then sees the trap she fell into. She leaves St. Claire's at the end of the year with her children, but Eileen sends a last letter to Alison thanking her for inviting her to eat together at half-term. |
Pop. 1280 | Jim Thompson | null | Pop. 1280 is the first-person narrative of Nick Corey, the listless sheriff of Potts County, the "47th largest county in the state" (probably Texas). He lives in Pottsville which has a population of "1280 souls" (a number much reduced by the story's end). The narrative suggests that Sheriff Nick's tale dates to the Russian Revolution in 1917. Sheriff Nick Corey presents himself as a genial fool, simplistic, over-accommodating, and harmless to a fault (given he is Pottsville's sole lawman). Early chapters are related in comic style representative of farce rather than hard-boiled crime fiction. From the outset Nick's problems appear to be those of a harmless fool, managing his shrew wife and idiot brother-in-law while simultaneously having affairs in town; a difficult election campaign against a more worthy candidate; negotiations with criminals and undesirables in Pottsville; and the evasion of work and physical exertion. Throughout a narrative that plumbs psychological depths particular to the novels of Jim Thompson, the farcical tone of Pop. 1280 is undermined by the emergence of a man far more cunning, ruthless, and psychotic than he presents himself. |
The Witch of Portobello | Paulo Coelho | null | As the book begins, Athena is dead. How she ended up that way creates the intrigue sustaining the book. The child, Sherine Khalil renames herself Athena. As a child, she shows a strong religious vocation and reports seeing angels and saints, which both impresses and worries her parents. She grows into a woman in search of answers to many questions that arise within a person. She has a contented life but her mind is not at ease. So she sets out to find answers to the classical question of "Who am I?" through many experiences. In her quest, she opens her heart to intoxicating powers and becomes a controversial spiritual leader in London. |
The Gingerbread Girl | Stephen King | null | After her only daughter Amy suffers a crib death, Emily takes up running as a way to deal with her pain. She believes that "only fast running will do"—she pushes her body to its limits, often vomiting and sweating profusely. Her husband, Henry, finds out about this habit, and treats it as a psychological reaction to grief. Emily is hurt and runs out of the house, down to a local Holiday Inn. She contacts her father and explains her situation; after their conversation, Emily decides to stay in her father's summer home, near Naples, FL. (In the story, she takes Southwest Air to the Naples Airport, even though, as is noted later, Naples Airport is a private airport, without commercial service.) She also speaks with Henry, and the two agree that a trial separation is a good idea. Emily's life becomes quite simple—she eats plain meals and runs for miles every day. As her body shrinks, she gets to know the few people that hover around the island; Vermillion Key is mostly devoid of tourists. The only person Emily regularly contacts is Deke Hollis, an old friend of her father who runs the drawbridge on the island. During a chance meeting, Hollis tells Emily that Jim Pickering, one of the men who owns a home on the island, is back. He has brought along a "niece"—Hollis's polite name for the young women Pickering lures to his home. Emily prepares to continue, but Hollis warns her that Pickering is "not a very nice man." As Emily continues her daily run, she notices a shiny red car outside one of the "McMansions" along the beach. She deduces that it must be Pickering's car, and must satisfy her curiosity—which turns to concern as she hears a low moan coming from around the vehicle. Emily cautiously approaches...and notices a trail of blood running toward the trunk. She sees a young woman lying in the car with her throat slashed, meaning that she could not have made the groaning noise she heard. The moment she reaches this conclusion, though, someone cracks her on the back of the head. When Emily awakens, she finds herself imprisoned on a kitchen chair with duct tape. Pickering stands before her, licking his lips and acting excited. He is particularly aroused by Emily's powerful legs, which have become lean and muscular due to her continued runs. Emily realizes that Pickering is insane, and hints that she let someone know where she was going. When Pickering presses her for details, Emily blurts out Deke Hollis's name; Pickering leaves, presumably to kill the old man. Emily knows that she does not have much time, and hears her father's voice in her head, giving her advice. She uses her strong legs to splinter the tape that binds her; the pain is excruciating, but she manages to free her lower body. She looks for a knife to release her arms, but settles on the corner of the island in the middle of the kitchen. She undoes all of her restraints just as Pickering returns. Emily fights Pickering in the kitchen, using the broken legs of the chair to attack. After temporarily knocking him out, she runs through the house, eventually stumbling into the bedroom. She hears Pickering chasing her, and realizes the only way out is to jump out of the window. Emily again recalls her father's advice from her youth—"Gravity is everyone's mother"—and leaps. She runs to the beach and hears Pickering behind her, and realizes, in a rather odd coincidence, that she has been "training" for this moment. Though exhausted from her imprisonment, Emily's months of running serve her well. She keeps well ahead of Pickering, who now carries a pair of scissors as a weapon. She eventually meets a young Latino man on the beach, and begs for help, but he does not understand her cries. Pickering appears and tries to use Spanish to convince the man that Emily is with him, but Emily's fearful expression convinces the young man otherwise. He pushes Emily behind him; incensed, Pickering brutally slaughters the man with the scissors. Emily, tiring quickly, runs into the ocean. Pickering follows her, but begins to flounder. Emily gasps as she figures out what is happening—Pickering cannot swim. Emily manages to escape him, and sits on the shoreline watching as Pickering drowns. When he finally goes under, Emily tells herself that a shark or some other creature attacked him. She wonders why, and guesses that it is a part of the human condition. Her long ordeal over, Emily stands and shouts at the birds flying about, and prepares to go home. |
Tonto Basin | Zane Grey | 1,921 | The story begins with 24 year old Jean Isbel in the last stages of a multi-week trip from Oregon to the frontier in Arizona where his family had moved four years earlier to start a cattle ranch. As he nears his destination he meets a woman in the woods, and falls in love at first sight. As they part they learn that they are mortal enemies. She is, Ellen Jorth, and her family is locked in a deadly feud with his. Jean dreads the part his father, Gaston, wants him to play in the feud. He can’t get Ellen out of his mind. They meet again and his words awake in her doubt and fear that her father, Lee Jorth, is not an honorable man but in fact a horse thief and cattle rustler. As events unfold her fears are proved true. Through thick and thin Jean Isbel defends Ellen’s honor and believes the best of her. The feud erupts into fatal gun battles, first at the Isbel ranch house, and then at the general store in the nearby town. Most of the Isbel and Jorth clans are killed, with several of their allies. The remnant of the Jorths flee with Ellen in tow to a hide-out hidden in a deep box cañon. Jean and his allies track them and there is a deadly gun battle in the woods nearby. Ellen is forced by one of the three remaining Jorth allies to flee once again. During their flight their horse is shot out from under them. Ellen now on foot meets one of the dying Isbels and finally learns the certain truth that her father, family, and their allies were horse thieves and cattle rustlers as she feared. When she finally makes her way back to the hide-out, she arrives just after Jean has been forced to take refuge in the loft, unknown to her. One of the two remaining rustlers attacks her with rape in mind but is interrupted by the arrival of the other rustler. Ellen discovers Jean during this interruption. When the rustler returns a few minutes later, Ellen is forced to kill him to protect herself and Jean. A minute later Jean kills the last rustler. The story ends with Jean and Ellen declaring their love for each other. |
The Epicurean | null | null | The narrative begins with Alciphron's election to the leadership of the "school" or "sect" of Epicurus. He has a flash of insight indicating to him that "eternal life" awaits him in Egypt. Unsure of its meaning, he decides to pursue this premonition. He travels there and undergoes various adventures including initiation into the mysteries of the state religion, in pursuit of the beautiful priestess Altethe. She, a crypto-Christian, escapes the mystery rites with Alciphron, and they journey together along the Nile into Upper Egypt, heading for a Christian monastery, which is run by a follower of Origen. Alciphron endures initiation into the Christian religion in hopes of remaining with Alethe. Imperial edict soon establishes the persecution of all Christians who will not renounce their faith, and Alciphron's companions, including Alethe, are captured and killed. |
Echo Park | Michael Connelly | 2,006 | In 1993, Harry Bosch and his partner Jerry Edgar caught the Marie Gesto case. Marie was a young equestrian who went missing. Her car and clothing turned up in a garage but her body was never found. Bosch and Edgar had pegged a likely culprit — the son of a wealthy and powerful industrialist, but the detectives never found enough evidence to charge the suspect and the case went cold. Between then and the start of this novel, Bosch had retired from the LAPD and worked as a private investigator for three years but returned to the force because things didn't work out the way he thought they would in retirement. Now, nearing 60, Bosch is working in the prestigious Open-Unsolved Unit at Parker Center, going over cold cases with his most recent partner, Kizmin "Kiz" Rider. A serendipitous traffic stop in L.A.'s Echo Park neighborhood nabs Reynard Waits, a man with body parts in his van on the floorboard in front of the front seat. Detective Freddy Olivas is working the case and Richard O'Shea is the prosecutor assigned. Soon Waits has confessed to a string of slayings involving prostitutes and runaways, as well as to two earlier murders: one of a pawnshop owner during the 1992 riots, the other of Marie Gesto. When the Gesto case files are reexamined, it seems that Waits had called the police shortly after the murder, pretending to be a tipster, but Bosch and Edgar never followed up on the tip. Without this costly error, Waits could have been implicated within a week of Gesto's disappearance. it:Il cerchio del lupo sv:Räven (roman) |
Skinner's Rules | Quintin Jardine | 1,993 | The novel, like all in the Skinner series, is set in Edinburgh. It features, Head of CID, Detective Chief Superintendent Bob Skinner and his assistant Detective Inspector Andrew Martin. It begins when they are called to a close in the Royal Mile where an advocate by the name of Michael Mortimer has been savagely murdered and mutilated. It isn't long before another murder takes place in a similar location and the police think that it is likely to be the work of a psychopathic serial killer. However, the case takes a dramatic twist when Mortimer's fiancee is also found dead and it appears to Bob Skinner that there is a definite connection despite three seemingly random murders in between, leading to what could be a deep-rooted international conspiracy. The book also introduces us to Skinner's future wife, Dr Sarah Grace, an American physician who works with the police force. |
The Daughters of the Late Colonel | Katherine Mansfield | null | In bed, Constantia suggests giving her late father's top hat to the porter, but her sister Josephine disagrees. After thinking about letters to be sent to Ceylon, they hear a noise coming from a mouse. Constantia thinks how sad it must be for the mouse with no crumbs around. The last time the sisters saw their father, Nurse Andrews was stationed by the bedside; the Colonel opened only one eye, glaring at his daughters before dying. Nurse Andrews, whom they invited to stay for a week after the Colonel died, is annoying them by overeating. Mr. Farolles, a clergyman who offers to arrange the funeral, visits and suggests they take Holy Communion, to feel better, but the sisters demur. Two mornings later, the daughters go to sort out their father's belongings. Josephine feels he would have been angry at the cost of the funeral. They consider sending their father's watch to their brother, Benny, but are concerned that there is no postal service there. They think of giving the watch to their nephew, Cyril. As they talk about the watch, they recall Cyril coming over for tea, and their conversation. Kate the maid asks boldly how the sisters want their fish cooked for dinner, for which she is fired. They wonder whether she snoops inside their dresser drawers. They hear a barrel organ and realize they need not stop it, because it no longer disturbs their father. They wonder how things would be, if their mother, who died in Ceylon, were still alive. They've never met men, except perhaps in Eastbourne. Finally, the sisters talk about their future, but cannot remember what they wanted to say. |
Prelude | Katherine Mansfield | null | I There isn't enough room left on the buggy for Lottie and Kezia to get in because of all the stuff from the removal. A neighbour, Mrs Samuel Josephs, will look after them until another van comes in the evening to pick up other stuff. The children are told to mingle with the neighbours's children, and they are given tea. II Then Kezia goes back into her old house, looks about a few remaining items, then gets scared of something behind her. Lottie draws by and says the storeman is there to pick them up. They leave. III On the road the storeman refers to a lighthouse on Quarantine Island, thus suggesting that the story is set in Wellington. When they arrive, they are greeted by the grandmother; Linda has a headache; she and Aunt Beryl are having tea. Aunt Beryl and Stanley have argued over the fact that he was at work while she was left alone to deal with the removal. IV The grandmother tucks the children in: Lottie and Isabel in the same bed, Kezia with her. Lottie says a prayer. Aunt Beryl dreams of being independent from Stanley. Stanley brags about buying the new house so cheap, then goes to bed with Linda. Pat and the servant girl turn in too. The grandmother goes to bed the last. V The next day, Linda wakes up to a sunny weather and a husband boasting about his physique - she ridicules him slightly. Bored, she thinks of how she dreamt of birds. VI The grandmother is doing the dishes in the kitchen and remembers how, when they lived in Tasmania, Beryl was once stung by a red ant...Then Aunt Beryl wonders where she can put up some paintings she doesn't like. Linda comes up and is sent to the blooming garden to look after her children; Kezia and she look at an aloe. VII Stanley comes back delighted from work with cherries, oysters and a pineapple, willing to see his wife; Linda seems less happy; Aunt Beryl is 'restless'. VIII The girls play to be grown-ups, until Pip and Rags, their cousins arrive IX Pat chops off a duck's head to show the children that the duck still walks on for some instants after being killed; Kezia is shocked by the episode and demands Pat to "Put head back" X In the kitchen, Alice is reading a book on dreams; Aunt Beryl comes in and bosses her round, then feels better and walks out. XI They eat the duck for tea. Stanley and Aunt Beryl play a game of cribbage, and he wins. Linda and her mother take a turn in the garden to look at the aloe. To Linda, the tree gets her thinking that she loathes Stanley, and dreams about leaving the house; Mrs Fairfield thinks it would be good to make jam out of the berries in the vegetable garden. XII Aunt Beryl writes a letter to her 'nan', saying she is bored with living in the countryside, then thinks to herself how despicably false and unhappy with herself she is, until Kezia calls for her to come to dinner. |
At The Bay | Katherine Mansfield | null | I The shepherd is with his dog on Crescent Bay. II Stanley Burnell goes for a swim early morning, and Jonathan Trout is there; the two men wanted to be the first in the water, and Jonathan expresses sympathy for Stanley. III Aunt Beryl tells Kezia not to play with her food. Stanley leaves for work, to the women's relief. IV Out in the countryside, Kezia helps Lottie with the stile to Isabel's disapproval. The Samuel Josephs children are said to be rowdy and they don't play with them any more. Then they come upon Rags and Pip, and the latter shows them a 'nemeral' he has found in the sand. V At the beach, Aunt Beryl joins Mrs Kember, of whom Mrs Fairfield disapproves. Beryl gets changed in front of her friend. VI Linda is alone in the bungalow. She thinks back of when she was living in Tasmania with her parents, of how her father said they would go down a river in China, of how her father agreed on her marrying Stanley whom she loves for being soft underneath the veneer. Her baby boy comes along and she says she feels no motherly love for him; he keeps on smiling, then plays with his toes. VII After a description of the seashore, Mrs Fairfield and Kezia are taking an afternoon nap in the bungalow. The grandmother is thinking of Uncle William, one of her sons who died of sunstroke while working as a miner; Kezia asks her if she is sad, then attempts to make the grandmother promise never to die. VIII Alice visits Mrs Stubbs in town; the latter shows her photographs, then talks about how her husband died of dropsy, and adds that 'freedom is best'. IX Kezia, Lottie and Isabel are playing a card game similar to 'snap' with Pips and Rag in the washhouse. Uncle Jonathan turns up to take the boys home. X Before picking up the boys, Uncle Jonathan meets Linda in the garden. She is charmed by him. He confesses to loathing his job but believes he lacks the willpower to change his life. XI Stanley comes back and apologises profusely for not saying goodbye to Linda in the morning. He has bought gloves for himself. XII Aunt Beryl is worried about being single and growing old alone; Harry Kember turns up and asks her for a walk; at first she goes along with him, but repudiates his advances when his intentions become clear. XIII A brief description of the bay. |
Something Childish But Very Natural | Katherine Mansfield | 2,007 | At a train station, Henry looks at books and comes upon Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem. Then he jumps onto the train as he is late, and has left his portfolio behind. On the train, he starts talking to a girl, until she tells him she will be there again every evening. On the following Saturday, he goes to the station and sees her; they get on the train and start talking like old friends. Later, they go to a concert, and she appears somewhat distant. They walk down the streets of London and come upon a pretty village nearby. There, they visit a house and decide to rent it. Then Henry receives a telegram, and things fall apart. |
Englishmen for My Money | William Haughton | null | The play is set among the contemporary merchant class of London in its own era, the men who dealt on the Royal Exchange founded by Sir Thomas Gresham. The merchant and moneylender Pisaro has three half-English daughters, Laurentia, Marina, and Mathea. The daughters face two trios of suitors, one foreign and one domestic. The foreigners are Delion, a Frenchman, Alvaro, and Italian, and Vandal, a Dutchman. Pisaro, himself from Portugal, favours these candidates because of their wealth; but his daughters prefer their English suitors, Harvey, Heigham, and Walgrave. The play is rich in courtship, dialect humour, and disguises and gender cross-dressing, with abundant comic material from the clown character Frisco. In the end, as the title indicates, the Englishmen win their brides (which helps to cancel out the debts they owe to Pisaro). |
South By South East | Anthony Horowitz | 1,991 | The Diamond brothers are horney as usual. They have just moved into a cheap apartment when suddenly a mysterious man (Jake McGuffin), bursts into their office, tells Tim someone is trying to kill him, an assassin who is trying to murder a Russian diplomat, offers Tim a wad of cash for his coat and disappears as quickly as he came, leaving his own coat behind. When Nick bends down to pick up the coat, something falls out of one of the pockets: a key. There is a plastic tag attached to it and in bright red letters: Room 605, London International Hotel. When Tim and Nick go outside, they find the man lying in a telephone box, dying from a gunshot wound. His last words, drowned out by a train, sounded like "suff bee suff iss", or was it "south by southeast"? Suddenly, the Diamond Brothers are thrown into an extremely hazardous and risky adventure involving MI6 and their chase for Charon. Charon is the code name of an assassin, the head of a gigantic murder organization. Nobody knows who Charon is as he can disguise himself extremely rapidly. There is only one way of recognizing Charon - he has lost a finger, therefore he only has nine. Charon's men are responsible for the murder of Jake McGuffin, who was aware of Charon's plan to murder a Russian diplomat, Boris Kusenov. The Diamond brothers become wanted by the Police after Charon gives Tim a suitcase containing a bomb when he is going for an interview at the bank and it goes off. The boys' later find out what Jake McGuffin said was 'Sotheby's, Tsar's Feast.' They race over to Sotheby's (a famous art auction house in London), where they know that TNT is under the seat. They get into a wrestle which gets the two police officers involved, and the painting gets destroyed. The police officers get credited, and they refer to Nick as 'an unknown boy.' Charlotte Van Dam, a woman they meet in Holland, invites Tim to the tunnel of love at a fair, where she plans to kill him. Nick finds out that Charlotte is Charon, and goes to stop her. Nick's clever thinking makes Charon fall into the river, and she gets electrocuted. |
Eva Luna | Isabel Allende | null | The story is told from Eva's first-person point of view, with some sections narrated from Rolf Carlé's point of view. The story opens as Eva describes her mother's life, and how her mother (Consuelo) ended up working for a Professor. One day, the Indian gardener is bitten by a snakebite and whilst on his deathbed, Consuelo makes love to him, thus conceiving Eva. Miraculously, Eva's father recovers. Eva's mother then dies after choking on a chicken bone and leaves Eva to fend for herself. After the Professor dies, Eva moves on and eventually stumbles upon Huberto Naranjo, who places her in the care of La Señora, the owner of a brothel. After living in harmony for a few years, a new police chief moves in and immediately storms the brothel. Eva is forced to flee and eventually stumbles upon Riad Halabi, a man with a cleft palate. Eva moves to Agua Santa with Halabi and settles into her new life, living with Riad and his wife, Zulema. After a few years, Riad's cousin Kamal moves in to live with them. Zulema is instantly infatuated with Kamal and when Riad goes on a trip, she seduces him, after which Kamal immediately leaves. Then Zulema loses interest in life, eventually committing suicide by shooting herself in the mouth. After Eva is detained on suspicion of murdering Zulema, Riad bribes the police to release Eva. Eva and Riad realize that she must leave to escape the rumors, but before she leaves they share one night of passion. When Eva returns to the city, she reunites with the beautiful and engaging transsexual Melisio, now known as "Mimi". Eva then reunites with Huberto Naranjo for infrequent sexual encounters, which Eva treasures as the only time she can see her loved one. Huberto is leader of a guerrilla unit fighting a revolution. As time goes on, Eva realizes that Huberto, although a dear friend, is not the man for her. Throughout the novel a parallel narative is told—the life of Rolf Carlé, traced from childhood to adulthood. The book's narrator tells us at the beginning that he is the man Eva will fall in love with and marry. Rolf grows up in Eastern Europe with a sadistic father who returns from the war and regularly torments and humiliates his wife. After his father is killed by some local boys, Rolf's mother resolves to send him to South America to be raised by his Aunt and Uncle. As Rolf grows up, he becomes interested in reporting news and becomes a leading journalist, shooting film footage from the front line. Rolf films the guerrillas, meeting Huberto, and later Eva. As the two slowly fall in love, they help the guerrillas in releasing nine prisoners from jail as an act of rebellion. When the rescue is complete, the two retreat to his cousins' home. There they profess their love for each other, consummating their relationship and agreeing to marry. |
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