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The Anybodies | null | 2,004 | Fern has lived all her life with the Drudgers, extremely dull adults who worked at a firm, Beige & Beige. One day, the Beige family, the owners of the firm, visit the Drudger's house, three other visitors arrive as well. They are the Bone, Howard, and Mary Curtain, the nurse who delivered the Drudger's baby. Mary confesses that she had accidentally swapped their kids. Fern belonged to the Bone family, and Howard actually belonged to the Drudgers. After the Beiges leave, the Bone (Mr. Bone) and the Drudgers discuss and conclude that they will try unswapping for just the summer and see how it goes. While the Bone drives Fern and Mary Curtain back to his house, Mary Curtain is not really Mary Curtain. She is a man named Marty. He and the Bone tell Fern that they are Anybodies, who can be anybody or anything. The Bone and Marty were once great Anybodies, but they are slowly losing the powers. The only thing that can improve their skills is Fern's dead mother Eliza's book, The Art of Being Anybody. But no one knows where the book is, for Eliza (a great Anybody) died before she could tell anyone about it. Now, Fern and the Anybodies are in search of the book. Fern suspects that the book may be hidden in Eliza's mother's house. They head off, the Bone disguised as Mr. Bibb, an encyclopedia seller, and Fern as Ida Bibb, his daughter. At the boarding house, Fern discovers that the Bone's enemy, the Miser, is looking for The Art of Being Anybody as well. Fern and the Bone must find the book before the Miser, who may be plotting something terrible with his Anybody skills. At Mrs. Appleplum's (a name Fern came up with when asked to do so by Mrs. Appleplum) home, Fern finds out that she has magical powers to shake things out of books. Fern's Grandmother(Mrs. Appleplum) is the Great Realdo, a fantastic Anybody. The book has many elements similar to Cornelia Funke's Inkheart. |
Sam and the Firefly | null | null | Sam, an owl, wakes up one night looking for someone to play with. However, since it is the middle of the night, all the creatures are asleep. Sam then comes across a series of flying lights, one of which hits Sam in the head. It is Gus, the firefly. Gus shows Sam the trick he can do, which is he can make glowing lines in midair using his light. Sam is amazed, and decides to have fun by having Gus follow him directly as he flies. Sam flies in the shape of various words; Gus finds this fun and decides to do more on his own. However, he has mischief on his mind. First, he causes several cars to crash at an intersection by displaying "Go left", "go right", "stop", and "go" above. Sam wants to talk to him about this behavior, that is dangerous and bad; however, Gus abandons Sam as he thinks Sam doesn't know how to have fun. Gus then continues to cause mischief; he causes several airplanes to get crossed up by displaying random directions, he causes people to overflow into a movie theater by displaying "COME IN! FREE SHOW" above it, and changes a sign from "HOT DOGS" to "COLD DOGS", deterring the hot dog maker's customers. The hot dog maker immediately nets Gus and puts him a jar and into his pickup truck. Sam sees this and is determined to save him. Gus regrets not listening to Sam in the first place about having too much fun, when all of a sudden the aforementioned pickup truck stall on a railroad crossing with a train coming. Sam arrives at the scene and breaks the jar containing Gus, freeing him. Gus, now free, displays "STOP" several times in large letters; the engineer aboard the locomotive, seeing this and the truck on the tracks, pulls the brake and stops the train just in time. The hot dog maker and the engineer and brakeman all call Gus a hero, and Gus and Sam fly off into the night, but then dawn arises, so they must go back to their homes to sleep, since they are nocturnal. Gus now comes to Sam's tree home every night to play. |
Die Jungfrau von Orleans | Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller | null | The play loosely follows the life of Joan of Arc. It contains a prologue introducing the important characters, followed by five acts. Each dramatizes a significant event in Joan's life. Down into Act IV the play departs from history in only secondary details (e.g. by making Joan kill people in battle, and by shifting the reconciliation between the Armagnacs and the Burgundians from 1435 to 1430). Thereafter, however, the plot is entirely free. Joan is about to kill an English knight when, on removing his helmet, she at once falls in love with him, and spares him. Blaming herself for what she regards as a betrayal of her mission, then, when at Reims she is publicly accused of sorcery, she refuses to defend himself, is assumed to be guilty, and dismissed from the French court and army. Captured by the English, she witnesses from her prison cell a battle in which the French are being decisively defeated, breaks her bonds, and dashes out to save the day. She dies as victory is won, her honour and her reputation both restored. The play reflects the new nationalism and militarism of the budding nineteenth century, and also the Kantian ideal of the need to subject emotion to moral principle. The line (III, 6; Talbot) is the origin of the English expression "Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain." This was the most performed (at least in Germany) of all Schiller's plays down to the Great War. In modern post-war Germany, its militarism is an embarrassment, but the dramatic power of the last two acts keeps the play on the stage. |
The Sirens of Surrentum | Caroline Lawrence | 2,006 | June, AD 80: When Flavia Gemina's father Marcus leaves on another sea voyage, she and her three friends – Nubia, Jonathan, and Lupus – accept an invitation from their friend Polla Pulchra to spend the rest of the month at her father's luxurious villa in Surrentum. Behind the invitation is a plea for help: Pulchra's mother, Polla Argentaria, seems to fall ill whenever they have houseguests, and Pulchra suspects someone is trying to poison her mother. On the pretext of a matchmaking party, Pulchra has convinced her father to invite all of Pulchra's suspects: three young widows and three bachelors. Romance is thick in the air: Flavia still nurses a secret love for Pulchra's father, the charismatic Publius Pollius Felix, despite the difference in their ages. She is flustered to find that the male guests include the young lawyer Gaius Valerius Flaccus, who shared a past adventure with them (in The Colossus of Rhodes). Pulchra also takes a shine to Flaccus, even while growing closer to Jonathan. Flavia also meets, for the first time, the young senator's son she has been betrothed to: Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus. The two do not make a favorable impression on each other, but gradually she is won over by his inquisitive nature and willingness to help in their investigation. Flavia assigns each member of her new "team" to watch one of the young bachelors or widows, but no obvious suspect turns up. However, their surveillance does reveal the disquieting fact that Felix regularly cheats on his wife, with the female houseguests, the young slave girls, and several women from the nearby town of Baiae (whilst there are no explicit depictions of sexual activity in the novel, there is certain implicit material which might surprise in a children's novel). They consider whether one of the young widows (or even Felix himself) is trying to poison Polla to make way for a new marriage. Tranquillus has the idea of consulting a poisoning expert in Baiae, Locusta (purportedly the daughter of the famous poisoner employed by Nero). Locusta says Polla's symptoms are consistent with poisoning by hemlock, which shows that the poisoner must be an amateur: hemlock is only lethal if used in the correct dose, and when it is fresh. Locusta draws the conclusion that Polla has built up a resistance to hemlock because of this. Flavia has the idea of laying a trap: she lets the adults overhear her angrily scolding Tranquillus for bringing back a packet of incredibly lethal poison from Locusta for "research purposes," and tells him to hide it in an isolated part of the villa. They lie in wait to see who steals it, and the poisoner turns out to be Polla herself. Driven to despair by her husband's repeated infidelities, she has been trying (somewhat half-heartedly) to commit suicide. Flavia watches her swallow a cup of wine laced with the non-existent poison, then faint from its imagined effects. Flavia then confronts Felix, telling him how much his selfish behavior has wounded his wife. Pulchra, who once idolized her father, is so distraught by her parents' behavior that she makes her own half-hearted attempt at suicide, swimming out to sea to drown herself. Flavia convinces her to come back, telling her that her parents can mend their relationship, and to remember that Flavia and the others are still her friends. Felix calls Flavia into his study to thank her in private for helping his wife and daughter. To her surprise, he moves closer, as though wanting to kiss her. Though she has dreamed about him doing this before, now that it is about to happen, she is suddenly repulsed, and excuses herself in a hurry. She runs out, deciding to forget that she has ever loved him. Tranquillus receives a harsh letter from his father, who has heard about some of the wilder goings-on at the villa, and put a scandalous interpretation on some of his innocent exchanges with Flavia. The letter ends with his father ordering him to end the betrothal and return to Rome. Tranquillus is furious, but has no choice but to obey. Flavia is saddened, as she was honestly getting to like Tranquillus. As the four friends depart the villa, she decides that she is in no hurry to fall in love and get married. Instead, she is determined to enjoy her childhood for as long as possible, and have as many adventures with her friends as she can. |
A fekete város | Kálmán Mikszáth | 1,910 | Before Rákóczi's war of liberty, during a hunting expedition, Pál Görgey, the arrogant but noble leader of the Hungarian county of Szepes, shoots Károly Kramler, Saxon magistrate of Lőcse, for having killed Görgey’s favourite dog. When their magistrate is fatally injured, his company, on the advice of one of their members, Nustkorb, takes the still-living body and marks with his blood the boundaries of a large field owned by Görgey. This was because during the conflict between king Róbert Károly and Máté Csák, the ruler gave a special and bizarre privilege for the magistrate of Lőcse for his service in combat - “Let the magistrate of Lőcse have land-claiming-blood.” Thus the field marked out by the magistrate's blood became a possession of the town Thirsting for revenge the city embalms one of the dead magistrate's hands, and orders all citizens to wear black clothes until Kramler's death is revenged. To protect his daughter, Rozália Görgey, her father hides her in Lőcse in secret under the name of “Rozália Otrokócsy”, hoping that she will not be sought for, being so close to home. Rozália falls in love with Antal Fabricius, the youngest senator of Lőcse. The next magistrate is Nustkorb, who tries to catch Görgey but all his plans fail. He dies when the statue of the dead magistrate falls and kills him. The traumatized citizens now believe that Nustkorb was the true murderer, and that the murdered magistrate has made his own revenge. Antal Fabricius then becomes the magistrate. Fabricius makes a trap for Görgey, catches and executes him - but realises too late that he was Rozália’s father. He is shocked by this discovery; but on the streets all the folk of Lőcse are glad, singing, dancing and burning their black clothes now that the revenge has been completed. |
Island | Richard Laymon | null | The novel is structured as a series of journal entries made by Rupert, a young man who finds himself stranded on an island in the Bahamas (along with six other people) when their yacht mysteriously explodes. After an ax-wielding maniac claims the lives of two of the castaways, Rupert and the other survivors are forced to try and outwit the mysterious killer in order to save their lives. Since the concept of the novel is that Rupert is making his journal entries as events happen (with no knowledge as to how future developments in the "plot" will unfold), the reader is left uncertain as to whether any of the book's characters, including Rupert himself, will survive (unlike most first-person narratives, where the survival of the narrator, at least, tends to be a foregone conclusion). The novel plays with these expectations at several points, with Rupert's life constantly being in danger right alongside those of his compatriots. |
Plunder of the Sun | David F. Dodge | 1,949 | The adventurer Al Colby is persuaded by Anna Luz and her antiquities collector husband, Thomas Berrien, to help them smuggle a parcel back into Mexico where its true value can be ascertained. Warned that a man named Jefferson traveling on the same freighter might try to steal it, Colby ultimately forms a partnership with Jefferson following the fatal heart attack of Berrien aboard ship. Jefferson betrays and shoots him, but Colby saves himself and the rare documents in time. They will be returned to a museum while he and Anna can enjoy a $25,000 reward. |
Blood Games | Richard Laymon | null | The novel centers on a group of young women, best friends since college, who go on an annual vacation together, each year to a different location of one member of the group's choosing. This year's trip takes them to the Totem Pole Lodge, an abandoned resort that was allegedly the site of a gruesome mass murder ten years earlier. When one of the women, Helen, mysteriously disappears, her friends begin a search of the resort and the surrounding wilderness in an effort to discover what happened to her. The novel employs a flashback structure alternating between present-day events at the resort and the group's experiences together in college, beginning when the girls met during their freshman year and proceeding through their graduation and three previous reunions. The story is told from the point of view of one of the women, Abilene, but focuses mainly on her four friends: tough, confrontational Cora, tomboyish Finley (the practical joker), fashion model Vivian, and timid, insecure Helen, whose disappearance and eventual fate are foreshadowed by a frightening experience in a dormitory restroom during her freshman year. |
The Twelve Kingdoms: Sea of Shadow | Fuyumi Ono | 1,992 | Yoko Nakajima's life had been fairly ordinary until Keiki, a young man with golden hair, tells her that she is his master, and must return to their kingdom. With the help of a magic sword and a magic stone she fights against the demons on her trail. Yoko begins her quest for both survival and self-discovery in her new land. |
Off Armageddon Reef | David Weber | 2,007 | Humanity is at war with a genocidal alien race known as the Gbaba, and after a long war, it becomes obvious that humans are losing. In order to preserve the species, several colonization expeditions are sent out to other stars, but all are tracked down by the Gbaba. Finally, a colony fleet manages to sneak away via trickery. The passengers of the colony ships spend a decade in hyperspace in cryogenic sleep, and then arrive at a planet thousands of light years away from and slightly smaller than Earth, which they colonize and name Safehold. The original plan for this society was to wait for the immediate danger to pass, rebuild the technological base from records and artifacts left behind, and prepare a force large enough to defeat the Gbaba. However, the mission command is split into two groups. The first group is led by a Machiavellian administrator named Eric Langhorne. Langhorne believes that unless the humans in hiding on Safehold are permanently restricted to a Medieval level of technology, they will be eventually detected and destroyed by the Gbaba. During the trip to Safehold, the group alters the colonists' memories so they believe upon awakening they are the first humans and that they were created by a god. The radical leaders create a new religious institution called the Church of God Awaiting, which proscribes advanced technology and effectively deifies the members of mission command (they are hereafter called angels and are led by "Archangel Langhorne"). The second group, under the administrator Pei Shan-wei, wishes to preserve advanced technology and concepts, but not to use such knowledge until humanity is ready. In this way, the knowledge would be preserved and available for future generations. Once the human population had recovered, they could gradually ramp up the technology until they were capable of defeating the Gbaba. To this end, the second group establishes a city named Alexandria to house its members and technological information. The two groups break into open warfare, and Langhorne has the city of Alexandria, and all its inhabitants (including Shan-Wei, who is made into the Safeholdian version of Lucifer by the Church), destroyed by orbital bombardment. The city ruins and the surrounding land mass are sunk beneath the ocean, creating what the now-superstitious colonists call Armageddon Reef. In a counter-attack, Shan-wei's supporters manage to eliminate most, but not all of, Langhorne's inner circle, including Langhorne. Shan-wei's group also managed to hide an android, with the personality and memories of Nimue Alban, a dead female starship tactical officer, deep within a secret mountain base, along with technology, an electronic library and a room full of weapons. When Nimue awakes some 800 years later, the situation is explained to her by a recording created by Shan-Wei's now deceased husband, Pei Kau-yung, and she is offered the mission of reversing the plans of the radicals and helping prepare mankind for the inevitable re-encounter with the Gbaba on more favorable terms. Nimue accepts the mission and uses mobile spy technology to examine the world. However, it becomes clear that as an apparent woman, her influence would be less than it should be. She therefore changes into an apparent male and takes the name of Merlin before travelling to the Kingdom of Charis which is a relatively advanced region of Safehold with a somewhat free-thinking approach to religion. Merlin gains the trust of King Haarahld of Charis by interfering in an assassination attempt on Haarahld's son, Crown Prince Cayleb of Charis, saving his life. Merlin is made Cayleb's personal guardian and a de facto adviser to the king. He begins to introduce technology that, while not technically proscribed by the Safeholdian Bible, is advanced. While most of Safehold is at a 14th century level of technology, Merlin introduces better sailing vessels, improved gunpowder, and greatly improved seaborne cannons, very equivalent to the 17th century in Europe. Events come to a head when the Church organizes an attack on Charis by most of its neighbors. Largely due to the technology introduced by Merlin, the combined attacking fleets of galleys are annihilated by the small Charis fleet of heavily-armed galleons, although King Haarahld is killed in battle. The book ends at his funeral, about one month after the end of the battle, with Cayleb being crowned king without the Church's consent and with the beginning of a reformation movement emerging in Charis. |
By Schism Rent Asunder | David Weber | 2,008 | Nimue Alban, known to the people of the planet Safehold as "Merlin Athrawes", has been very busy. Over the course of several months, Nimue has continually steered the Kingdom of Charis towards confrontation with Safehold's all-powerful Church of God Awaiting. The combined duties of being the guardian and adviser of Charis' King Cayleb, as well as the source of Charis' rapid advancements in military technology, are tiring for even an android. Her only escape is space, somewhere nobody else on Safehold can follow her. Meanwhile, she is forced to remain concerned about the very same kinetic bombardment platform that killed her mentor Pei Shan-Wei and most of her supporters after the Church's founder Eric Langhorne used it to destroy her Alexandria enclave. Planetside, the Kingdom of Charis has been emboldened by its devastating naval victory over the forces sent to destroy it by the Church. Archbishop Mikael Staynair of Charis, who has become the effective Martin Luther of Safehold, declares a schism between the Church of God Awaiting and his see on Charis, accusing the "Group of Four" which controls the Church of being responsible for the massive sneak attack that was launched on Charis during the events of Off Armageddon Reef. King Cayleb, who has ascended to the throne following his father's death in the attack, is locked in a desperate struggle with the Church. The Charisian Navy, which now essentially rules the seas of Safehold, extensively disrupts international commerce and communication with swift and well armed privateer fleets. Meanwhile, the Group of Four set plans into motion to build a force capable of challenging Charis, and in the meantime to attack the Kingdom in any way possible. They order the brutal public execution of the previous Archbishop of Charis, Erayk Dynnis, although things do not exactly go as planned, and they suffer a setback after Dynnis bravely publicly denounces them before his death. They also declare that Cayleb and Staynair are apostates and enemies of God, which creates domestic problems for Cayleb. Merlin barely manages to prevent the assassination of Archbishop Staynair at the hands of Charisian Church loyalists, who also burn the Royal College. The Group of Four urge all of the nations loyal to the Church to close their ports to Charisian shipping in an attempt to attack Charis via economic means. In the nearby Kingdom of Delferahk, the Church's Office of Inquisition is resisted by Charisian merchants as it attempts to seize docked vessels. The ensuing massacre by the Inquisition pushes Safehold to brink of Holy War. Cayleb, on the advice of Merlin, decides to try to become allies with whomever possible to prepare for the inevitable conflict. This proves to be a very difficult task, as most of the nations of Safehold have aligned with the Church. He sends his Prime Minister Earl Grey Harbor to the Kingdom of Chisholm, which had very reluctantly complied with the Church's demand to attack Charis in the previous book. Originally expecting the Prime Minister to merely seek to restore relations, Queen Sharleyan of Chisholm is shocked when Grey Harbor instead proposes a political marriage between her and Cayleb. Knowing that Chisholm will inevitably be the Church's next target if Charis is defeated, she accepts. Despite her best efforts, Nimue's true nature is eventually uncovered, although in a favorable way. One day, during a private meeting, Staynair reveals himself to be part of a secret Order which has uncovered irrefutable proof of humanity's true history. It is revealed that King Haarahld was a member of this group, as were most of his ancestors, and that he had made it his goal to model Charisian society on the principles of the past, and eventually reveal the truth to the world. The decision is made to inform Cayleb of the truth, as Haarahld had died before he could do so. The members of the Order agree to keep the number of people who are aware of the truth as low as possible. Merlin reluctantly agrees to exclude Cayleb's Head of Government Earl Gray Harbor, and even Queen Sharleyan herself, in order to ensure that the secret of humanity's true history is kept until the people of Safehold are ready. Cayleb decides to exact retribution on the Kingdom of Delferahk. A large Charisian fleet sails to the Kingdom's largest port and site of the massacre, where it quickly reduces all coastal defenses to rubble and lands a large force of Charisian marines. The city's defenders surrender and by Charisian order evacuate before the commander of the invasion burns the entire town to the ground. The precise fate of Delferahk is left unknown. Sharleyan arrives in Charis for the wedding, and by chance, she and Cayleb end up falling in love. They decide to combine their two kingdoms into a new Empire of Charis, with both of them ruling over Charis and Chisholm together. Cayleb also reaches out to his father's archenemy, Prince Nahrmahn of Emerald, offering him very fair terms of surrender and even betrothing Cayleb's younger brother to Nahrmahn's daughter and making Nahrmahn his Master of Espionage. Cayleb and Sharleyan decide that the nearby League of Corisande, a longtime of enemy of Charis, will also need to be subjugated before it can be reinforced with Church support. Unlike Nahrmahn, Corsiande's Prince Hektor will not go down without a fight. Shortly after he and Sharleyan are married, Cayleb assembles an armada and a force of almost 50,000 Charisian Marines. Sharleyan is left to rule Charis in Cayleb's stead as the fleet, led by Cayleb and Merlin, embarks to Chisholm, where it will combine with forces there to stage a massive invasion of the League of Corisande. |
The Final Passage | Caryl Phillips | null | The year is 1958. Leila is a 19 year-old woman who has to care for her very sick mother. She has never known her father, and her mother, who is only 40, has even refrained from telling her about him. As her skin is lighter than that of most of the other islanders she believes that she was the product of an affair her mother must have had with a white man. That, she thinks, would also explain her mother's distrust of white people, an attitude she has always tried to pass on to her daughter. Leila has a very good friend in Millie, who is more down to earth and knows much better what she wants to achieve in life. Leila's boyfriend Michael, who is in his early twenties, is an irresponsible young man whose main interests are sex and drink. He does the odd delivery job on his scooter for his friend Bradeth, but most time of the day the two men can be seen outside one of the small bars getting drunk on beer. Michael has fathered an illegitimate child but has not made any real effort to move in with its mother. Rather, as his own parents are dead, he still lives in his grandmother's house. Rather than wait for Arthur, who has declared his love for her but left the island promising to come back soon, Leila has set her eyes on Michael, who before long agrees to become her husband. However, their marriage gets off to a bad start and cannot even be patched up when their son Calvin is born, whom Michael at first does not even come to visit. One day Leila is shocked to find her mother gone. A letter informs her that on her doctor's advice she has left for England in order to seek medical treatment there. Leila finds life on the small island increasingly unbearable, and her wish to emigrate to England and to reunite with her mother becomes stronger and stronger. It turns out that Michael is not averse to the idea, and so Leila arranges everything for her young family's "final passage." Bradeth and Millie, who are also a couple now expecting their second child, cannot be persuaded to leave with them: [...] But Millie was adamant. "Too many people beginning to act like it's a sinful thing to want to stay on this island but there don't be no law which say you must go to England, you know. People here too much follow fashion." Leila did not have time to answer. "So Michael, why you don't say something? You being too damn quiet for my reasoning." "Well, I think you right some of the way but I don't think it can be anything but good for a young family. I mean there is where all the opportunity is, and it don't mean to say we can't come back here with some profits after we finish working over there if it's so we choose to do. Millie was quick to speak again. "So just tell me how many people you see coming back from England with anything except the clothes they standing up in?" "No, Millie, it's not fair." Michael wanted to get up to make his point but he remained seated. "People only been going out there a few years so why they should be coming back now? It's just starting." People leave in masses, the huge ship is packed with emigrants most of whom are lured away from their home by the prospect of a better life. All they can go on, however, are snippets of pseudo-information, misconceptions, things they picked up when they were at school, exaggerated stories told by returnees, and second- or third-hand advice on how to tackle life in England. Michael, for example, just like other young black men on board their ship, is secretly looking forward to having promiscuous sex with white women, having been told by his friend Bradeth that he heard "about one coloured man out there who writing home saying he be having at least three or four different white girls a week." After a two-week voyage, Michael, Leila and Calvin finally set foot on English soil, have "nothing to declare except their accents", and eventually arrive at Victoria on the boat train from Dover with only her mother's address and some money to start a new life with. They take a taxi to the fictitious Quaxley Street only to be faced with a shabby, overcrowded house divided into several bedsits, and her mother gone again. Leila learns that she has been in hospital for some time, and during the following weeks regularly visits her there. However, the heart-to-heart she has wanted to have with her never takes place as her health rapidly deteriorates. She dies soon afterwards. As newly arrived immigrants belonging to a visible minority who are looking for suitable accommodation and a regular income, Leila and Michael experience the kind of racism, petty and otherwise, prevalent in a city inhabited almost solely by whites which is suddenly being flooded by dark-skinned "foreigners". They fall prey to unscrupulous estate agents, and Michael soon returns to his habit of coming and going whenever he chooses to, leaving all household chores to Leila. He stops talking to his wife, is frequently drunk again and quits his job after only a few days to "go into business" together with a newly-found friend of his. Also, Leila discovers a blonde hair on the shoulder of his jacket and draws her own conclusions. When she realises that they have run out of money she starts working on the buses, but on her first day she has a breakdown and is informed by the examining doctor that she is pregnant again. At the end of the novel Leila has come to realise that Michael is not going to be part of her future. The novel is divided into five chapters of unequal length entitled "The End," "Home," "England," "The Passage," and "Winter." Basically narrated in chronological order, it does contain a series of flashbacks mainly outlining episodes of Leila's past life in the Caribbean island. The Final Passage won the Malcolm X Prize in 1985. |
Ingo | Helen Dunmore | 2,005 | In a flashback, Sapphire (Sapphy) remembers her father, Mathew Trewhella, showing her the carved Zennor mermaid who was slashed with a knife a long time ago by an angry human. She had been in love with a human man who eventually swam away with her and became Mer. By an apparent coincidence the truant man has exactly the same name as Sapphy's father. He is apparently her ancestor. Sapphy is haunted by her father's disappearance because he does not come back from the cove after an argument with her mother. Many people say he ran away with another woman, or has died, but Sapphy and her brother, Conor, who is two years older than she is, refuse to give up hope and secretly promise to never stop looking for him. About a year later Conor also disappears. Fearing that the same thing that happened to her father has happened to Conor, Sapphy sets out to look for him. She finds him speaking to a mysterious girl in the water at the nearby cove, and waits until the girl suddenly disappears. When asked about the girl, Conor behaves as if she were never there, and is shocked (and at first doesn't believe) that hours have passed since he went for a "quick" swim. The next day, Conor leaves again for the cove after their mother has left for work. Searching for him at the cove, Sapphy hears a beautiful voice singing a familiar song that her father had sung to her in the past. She calls out for her father and the singing stops. Suddenly she notices a boy perched on a rock. At first she thinks he is wearing a wetsuit pulled down to the waist but later realises that he actually has a seal's tail instead of legs. She nearly falls into the sea but the Mer boy, named Faro helps her keep her balance. When she calls him a "mermaid", he gets very scornful of humans, saying that him being a mermaid is "anatomically impossible" as he is, firstly, male and secondly, "all that scaly-tails and hair-combing mermaid and merboy and merman stuff comes from humans". He takes her through the Skin (the surface) and into the world of Ingo which is extremely painful at the beginning for a human, and you have to forget about Air to be able to survive. She also finds out that it works the other way for the Mer: it hurts them when they go into the Air, and if they stay to long, they will die. After an amazing time, Sapphy leaves Ingo only to realize that she has been there all day long instead of a few hours. As time goes by, Sapphy is affected more and more by Ingo, craving salt and the call of the sea. Ingo calls to Sapphire more strongly than it does to Conor. Her brother, worried Sapphire will "disappear," takes her to the wise Granny Carne, who imparts her knowledge about Sapphire and Connor's Mer inheritance. Granny Carne has earth power and can communicate with owls and bees, maybe even other animals. Roger, a diver and a new boyfriend of Sapphire's mother, plans to go diving near the Bawns. Sapphire learns that this is where the Mer go to die and Ingo is deeply hostile to anyone who goes there and that all of Ingo is prepared to defend what is held there. She also remembers that her father told her and Conor to never ever go near them and that it was dangerous. Sappy and Conor do their best to save Roger and his diving buddy Gray from the fierce seal guardians that protect that area. Conor is able to hear the seals song that they sing to the dying Mer, so he sings their song and makes them calm down. At first Faro and Elvira do not help, but then realize how brave Sapphire and Conor are so they help them. Sapphire and Conor, with Faro and Elvira's help, they get Roger and Gray back into the boat and cover them with foil blankets. Then when that night, as Roger is sleeping on the couch, he wakes up screaming from a nightmare and tells Sapphires mother that he was being thrown by underwater bulls. At this, Sapphire realizes that the memory of the incident still resides in Roger's mind, just below the surface. |
Relentless | Simon Kernick | 2,006 | One Saturday afternoon, Tom Meron, a happily married middle class man, receives a phone call from his old friend Jack Calley, a high-flying city lawyer whom he hasn't seen or heard from in years. While on the phone, Tom hears Jack being murdered on the line; his last words being the first two lines of Tom's address. Tom, terrified and confused, grabs his children and flees the house. While leaving the neighborhood, he passes a suspicious vehicle heading towards his house. He leaves his children with his mother-in-law and goes to find his wife only to be attacked in her office by a balaclava-clad man wielding an already bloody knife. He is then quickly arrested by the police on suspicion of murder. Tom is questioned about the murder of Vanessa Blake (his wife's work partner), telling him that there was evidence that he was at the crime scene. Meanwhile Mike Bolt is working in to a suicide–murder case of the chief justice and he thinks it might have something to do with Jack Calley because he was his solicitor. He finds out that the last call Jack made was to Tom Meron's landline so he goes to Tom's house to question him. Though Tom has just been released on bail, Mike orders Tom's re-arrest in order to question him. Officers attempt to apprehend Tom after he exits the station, but Tom decides to make a break for it. He manages to get a good way away but a car pulls up beside him. Thinking it is the police, he turns around (admitting defeat) when he is violently subdued by a man in a baseball cap, and subsequently forced into the back of the car. Tom quickly learns that the two men who kidnapped him mean to question Tom. |
The Burning Court | John Dickson Carr | 1,937 | Edward Stevens, an editor at Herald and Son's publishing house, is on the train home, recounting the story of the death of the uncle of his boss, Mark Despard. Mark's uncle, Miles, had died recently of gastroenteritis, which had caused him to be bedridden for days. Although Miles' death was considered death by natural causes, two strange things were reported surrounding the death. A housemaid reported spying into Despard's room, through the shade of one of the glass doors leading in, and reported that a woman had left, through a door that had been bricked up for years. After Despard died, under his pillow was found a strange piece of string, tied in nine knots. Stevens shrugs both events off as nothing. Instead, he opens the book he is bringing home to edit. The book is a book on true crime, by famous true crime writer Gauden Cross. Cross's book is on murder trials, and the book begins with the trial and execution of Marie D'Aubray, in 1861. There is a picture of Marie D'Aubray attached to the section, which causes Stevens to jump. The picture of Marie D'Aubray, is a picture of his wife, Marie Stevens. Stevens gets home, and confronts his wife, who tries to convince him that the picture means nothing. Stevens goes up to wash his hands, and when he returns, the picture is gone. Before Stevens can figure it out, the doorbell rings. It is Mark Despard and a doctor named Partington. Mark Despard explains he believes his uncle was murdered, and that he, Partington, and Stevens, are going to dig up the body, and do an autopsy. Miles Despard is buried in a crypt, sealed with cement. Mark, Partington, and Stevens begin the long process of breaking up the cement. After they do, they climb down the long steps, to retrieve the body. They find Miles' coffin, open it, and reveal nothing. A quick search confirms that the body has disappeared from the sealed crypt. |
Sten Adventures Book 5: Revenge of the Damned | Allan Cole | 1,989 | Sten and Alex are now POWs in a Tahn prison camp. They were taken captive during the last story (Fleet of the Damned) when their ship was rendered hors de combat. The first half of the book covers their time in the prison camp (from which they could easily escape if their duty did not prevent them) and their eventual escape from said camp. The second half involves being sent back to the same Tahn world by the Eternal Emperor to help topple the Tahn regime and end the Tahn War. They are successful in all accounts, but afterwards an internal assassination plot succeeds in killing the Eternal Emperor. As the story ends, however, there is evidence that he will be back. (Well, that's why he's called the "Eternal" Emperor- but that's a story for the next book.) |
Sten Adventures Book 6: The Return of the Emperor | Allan Cole | 1,990 | The Eternal Emperor had been assassinated at the end of the last book. Apparently, he is not so immortal after all. Sten takes his leave of Imperial service, then takes it upon himself to hunt down and kill the members of the Privy Council that took over after the demise of the Emperor. He gathers proof they were responsible for the assassination but can not touch them. Finally, after a failed assassination mission, he organizes a grand tribunal to try them for their crimes, even though they are not present. This book also follows a mysterious character named Raschid that wakes up in a strange spaceship, in a strange portion of space, with no memory. He leaves, finds himself drawn to a dive of a diner and becomes the cook. He is very successful and things look good for him until his internal clock tells him it is time to leave. He can not even explain it to himself, it is just time to go. He signs onto a smuggling ship, organizes a mutiny and takes over the ship, mostly to prevent the bloodshed that would occur if the other members of the crew were to carry through their own mutiny. He lands the ship at its scheduled point, a planet called Dusable. Dusable is the most corrupt planet in the known universe. Everything about the planet revolves around politics; the only thing you can say about Dusable, is that it works. Raschid wades in and in a dazzling display of political cleverness and guile, rigs the election. Again, he does not know why he is doing this, just that he is supposed to. After the election, he borrows a ship and takes off. Something in his heads has clicked and he knows what he is supposed to do. He makes a few stops along the way and shows up to the grand tribunal that Sten is running and stuns everyone by parading out of his ship with his Imperial Gurkha bodyguards. He is the Eternal Emperor reborn. The book ends with the Privy Council captured or killed and the Eternal Emperor in charge once again. It looks like it is smooth sailing for Sten from here on out. |
Sten Adventures Book 7: Vortex | Chris Bunch | 1,992 | Sten fulfilled many tasks in service to the Eternal Emperor and his Empire as special forces agent, tacship fleet captain and admiral. Now he is going to add a new one - a diplomat. The Eternal Emperor, who was assassinated 6 years ago, is back from the grave and once again he can lead his merchant Empire. However, domestic situation is desperate. Tahnwar followed by 6-year shortage of Antimatter Two brought many regions of Empire to the brink of economic collapse that can't be prevented with restoring flow of AM2. Even the Eternal Emperor can't manage this whole situation alone, so he asks his friends for help. Friends like certain Karl Sten. Sten, after proving his worth on the field of diplomacy, is sent to Altai Cluster, a very important region of the Empire, which shows a lack of stability. Altai resembles a Middle East-like war zone, where various ET and human factions are trying to kill each other and take control of the Cluster. One of Sten's tasks is the support of dictator Khaquan, whose rule by an iron hand is the only thing that keeps whole Cluster in check. Sten goes to Altai as prepared as never before, with plenty of information (especially one provided by his friend and former boss, admiral Ian Mahoney), his best friend Alex, Cind, Sten's lover and excellent sharpshooter, contingents of Bhor, Gurkha and also Emperor’s personal flagship Victory. Upon arrival to the Cluster central world Jochi Sten discovers that dictator Khaquan is dead and there is a bloody civil war between all major factions. Sten brilliantly stops all fighting, but he receives an unpleasant wake-up call in the form of an extremely well prepared assassination attempt, which he and his friends barely survive. Over Sten's objections, the Emperor (who is showing signs of instability) assigns a banished member of one faction as ruler of the whole cluster. This new ruler proves as big a despot as Khaquan, with storm troopers and mass arrests being daily order. Sten is powerless to stop him, his complains to the Emperor fall on deaf ears. While Sten and Alex are collecting evidence to compel the Emperor to rescind his decision, the Emperor secretly agrees with Sten's conclusion and decides to assassinate his newly appointed ruler, and in the same time make Sten a martyr, to cover suspicion. However, Cind and her sniper team kills the assassin before he can kill Sten. Fortunately, Sten knows about Emperor’s wavering loyalty. He receives many warnings from his friends, that not only the Eternal Emperor is the actual cause of continuing economic downfall, but also he doesn’t trust his former friends anymore and plans to dispose of Sten in case of failure. This is cemented when admiral Ian Mahoney, who was sent to help Sten, is imprisoned and charged with treason against the Empire. The situation on planet continues to spin out of control (thus the title of the book). Sten tries one last attempt at peace solution, which horribly fails (not to his fault), and Sten and his entourage are forced to flee under fire from Altai, against the order of the Emperor. As they are leaving, Sten hears that admiral Mahoney was executed. Few minutes later, Admiral Mason, whom we met in an earlier part of Sten's career, is ordered by the Emperor to use a planet buster to destroy Jochi. We leave Sten and his fleet in shock after Sten and a tacship pilot destroy Mason's ship, making Sten and company mutineers and rebels, declared outlaw by Imperial forces. |
Sten Adventures Book 8: Empire's End | Chris Bunch | 1,993 | The book begins moments after Sten prevents Admiral Mason from destroying a planet to cover up the Emperor's poor handling of its internal politics. Once-Admiral and Ambassador, Sten and his band of black ops semi-outlaws are now full outlaws, wanted dead or alive, preferably dead. In an extended flashback, we discover how the Emperor rose from slums of Hawaii to control AM2, his true source of power (both politically and practically). We learn how he became "immortal", how he discovered the location of AM2, and, that in his current "incarnation", he is not truly the same as before his most recent assassination. The book describes Sten's attempt to remove Emperor from power with the help of many races and planets from across the galaxy. Sten and his partners are finally able to track the Emperor back to his hideout in an alternate universe. Sten tracks the Emperor to his hideout and eventually kills him, using his signature crystal knife. The universe is now free of the Emperor, but the problem of AM2 supply is foremost on everyone's mind. Sten finds himself frustrated that so many races still want someone to lead them as the Emperor once did. He plays with the idea of keeping the secret to AM2 and becoming such a leader, but rejects the idea and chooses instead to broadcast the location of AM2 to everyone and let other beings find their own way. |
Doomed Queen Anne | Carolyn Meyer | 2,002 | The story begins when Anne is at an event called the "Field of the Cloth of Gold" in the summer of 1520. She has no great beauty (olive skin, dark hair and dark eyes in a time when pale-faced blonds were seen as the coveted image), no wealth and no title. She meets up with her older sister Mary, who is a lady-in-waiting in Queen Catherine's court. Anne's sister is rumoured to be the mistress of King Henry VIII of England. The King is tiring of his wife/queen because she has produced no sons, only a daughter, Mary (later known as Bloody Mary) Anne's somewhat difficult childhood before the event is outlined. Always ill-favored by her parents, constantly antagonized by her older sister Mary, and disgusted by her own "deformities" (a small sixth finger and mole on her neck) she develops an ambition to rise to the top. Anne, jealous of her sister's rumoured affair when Mary flaunts the fact that she has the King's favor, vows to become the second wife of King Henry VIII. Anne, too, is a lady-in-waiting in the Queen's court. When the King tires of Mary, Anne uses her wits to gain the King's heart. While courting the King (and strategically defending her virginity), Anne manages to persuade Henry to defy everyone, including the Queen and the Roman Catholic Church, and to marry Anne. Everybody hates her, claiming that she has magic powers and that she is wicked because of her sixth finger and the mole on her neck. She finally gets her way and becomes the wife of Henry and Queen of England. They have a child together, but it is a daughter, Elizabeth (who will later ascend the throne after the death of her half-sister, Bloody Mary). Anne's vow has come true, but the lack of male heirs causes it all to end badly for Anne Boleyn. Meanwhile, Mary Boleyn, Anne's sister who has now since been discarded by the king and widowed when her husband dies of the sweating sickness, remarries a commoner in secret. On learning that she is pregnant, she reveals this to Anne, who banishes her from court. The two never reconcile. When Anne fails to give Henry a son after three years of marriage, the Seymour family begins plotting. Jane Seymour catches the king's attention. Realizing that the king may toss Anne aside for her, Jane refuses to become the King's mistress and instead drops heavy hints of marriage. After Anne miscarries a second time, she is falsely accused by the King, and by his daughter Mary, and by Lady Rochford, the wife of Anne's brother George, of committing adultery with five other men, her own brother George among them. Anne is executed in the end as a result of her "adultery". |
Runcible Jones: The Gate to Nowhere | Ian Irvine | 2,006 | Set in an alternate modern-day Earth where magic is known to exist, and is forbidden to all, The Gate to Nowhere tells the story of twelve-year-old Runcible Jones, a young boy whose father died during an explosion while writing a book about magic, and whose mother is currently imprisoned for attempting to protect said book. Despite his social problems, Runcible inadvertly manages to befriend a girl named Mariam. However, when an unexpected and desperate accident involving Runcible's powers transport the two to the dangerous world of Ilitor, the duo are forced to cooperate to survive in their harsh new surroundings. But when a chance encounter with a mysterious sorceress ends with both of them being cast away into the wilds of Ilitor, it is only through the help of the shady Sleeth and their strange new friends (and enemies), that they will be able to return home to Earth, and see their families again. |
Runcible Jones: The Buried City | Ian Irvine | 2,007 | Runcible and Mariam are back and they are in big trouble. Lord Shambles has returned, stronger than ever before and once he finds the lost Citadel of Magic there will be no defence against his evil sorcery. To put a stop Lord Shambles, the children must journey to Iltior and descend to the uttermost pole. But even if they find the Codex of Dreadful Spells, Runcible still has to unravel the mystery of the tainted children, then face his most terrifying nightmare, the sting of the giant scorpion. The Buried City is book two of the Runcible Jones series. |
Is He Dead? | Mark Twain | null | The play takes place in Paris, 1846. Jean-François Millet is a gifted painter, but has trouble selling his paintings. Because of this, he and his three friends/pupils Agamemnon "Chicago" Buckner, Hans "Dutchy" von Bismarck, and Phelim O'Shaughnessy are in debt to the evil picture dealer Bastien Andre. Also in debt to Andre is Papa Leroux, father of Millet's girlfriend Marie and Cecile, who has a love-hate relationship with Chicago. Andre arrives at Millet's apartment to collect both debts. Millet points out that their contract states that Andre can take Millet's paintings for 100 francs each to pay off the debt, but Andre (who is also in love with Marie and wants to ruin Millet) refuses on the grounds that he is free to take the paintings as he likes. Andre proceeds to remind Leroux that his payment is due tomorrow, unless Marie agrees to marry him. When Leroux refuses to force his daughter to marry Andre, Andre angrily leaves. Soon after, Millet's land ladies Mdme. Bathilde and Mdme. Caron arrive and Millet pays them in rent in paintings (they do not mind because they love his work). The two take the Leroux family for dinner while Millet and his friends try to sell his paintings at an auction. Only one person arrives, a ditzy man named Thorpe, who, despite liking Millet's paintings, refuses to buy any because Millet is not dead. When he leaves, Dutchy bemoans that when the world has a master, he is not recognized and rich until long after he's dead. This gives Chicago an idea: Millet can fake his death which will result in the demand and prices for his paintings increasing, thereby giving the group enough money to pay off Andre. In order to prevent Millet from being caught, they'll disguise him as his fictional twin sister "Daisy Tillou", a widow. Millet is against this plan, but the other three proceed with it. The next day, Dutchy and O'Shaughnessy are driving up the prices of Millet's paintings, while Chicago has leaked to the press that Millet has come down with a terminal disease and has gone to the Barbary Coast to live out his remaining days. (This becomes a running gag as whenever a character asks where the Barbary Coast is, no one can answer.) Millet comes out dressed as the Widow and complains about his costume but Chicago assures him the plan will work (even though the Widow has trouble acting like a woman.) Indeed, everyone is overjoyed when Thorpe comes back to buy some paintings and buys three paintings (two of which aren't even Millet's) for 100,000 francs, instantly freeing them of their debt. The Widow is then forced to have tea with Mdme. Bathilde and Mdme. Caron alone, but fortunately they take her strange behavior as signs of grief over her brother's death. The Leroux family arrives to wait for Andre. Cecile becomes suspicious with the way the Widow and Chicago interact with each other while Marie is depressed over Millet. Andre arrives and the Widow hands him two checks to pay off the debts and stands up against his cruel behavior. Unfortunately, Andre declares that since now the paintings are worth far more than the checks, he will take them instead. When the Widow asks if there is anything she can do to stop him, he says he will not do it if the Widow marries him! The Widow faints into Dutchy and O'Shaughnessy's arms as the act ends. Act 2 begins months later in the Widow's new luxurious apartment in downtown Paris. Everyone is now rich because of the value of the paintings and the Widow has a butler named Charlie. Millet has since been declared dead and today is the day of Millet's funeral. Andre has continued attempting to court the Widow and Papa Leroux has even become smitten with "her" and proposes while they are alone. The Widow struggles to keep him at bay, when Inspector Lefoux (actually Cecile in disguise) comes to question the Widow over Millet's death and her relationship with Chicago. To keep the two at bay, the Widow admits Chicago is her lover. When Charlie announces more visitors, the Widow has them wait in separate rooms. Mdme. Bathilde and Mdme. Caron arrive with Marie, grieving over Millet's "death". The Widow talks to Marie alone, while the other two wait with Leroux in another room. Marie tells the Widow that Andre truly loves "her" and "she" should marry him. Andre then arrives and tells the Widow the second she says yes to marriage, the contract is destroyed. Once he is gone, Chicago, Dutchy, and O'Shaughnessy arrive with Millet's casket (which is closed and filled with bricks). The trio are excited by the stir Millet's death has caused: prices are higher than ever and the King of France is even attending the funeral. As they celebrate, Marie comes back and shames them. As Marie and the Widow continue talking, Marie says she will never marry and then the Widow gets an idea. The Widow reveals the disguise and tells an overjoyed Marie to tell Andre to come at 6:00. Suddenly, O'Shaughnessy comes in panicking. The King of France and other royals have come to view the remains. Chicago, for once is out of ideas, and Dutchy invites the royals in to view the body. The coffin is opened and they are all blown back by the terrible smell (Dutchy filled the coffin with limburger cheese in case someone wanted to look). As they leave, the friends celebrate as Lefoux comes back and questions Chicago. He sees through the disguise and tells "Lefoux" that he is in love with Cecile. The two embrace and go off into another room where Chicago explains everything. Just before Andre arrives, the Widow takes Dutchy and O'Shaughnessy into another room and tells them the Widow's plan. Alone, Andre reveals he lied to Marie and only wants to marry the widow for her money. Knowing he is in the room, the trio stage a conversation and actions that make it seem as though the Widow has ceramic body parts and false hair. Andre, disgusted, tears up the contract and runs off as the Widow chases him. Dutchy and O'Shaughnessy are left alone with Charlie who reveals that he is actually Inspector Gaston of the Paris Police. He brings everyone except the Widow and Andre into the room where he exposes Millet's remains as bricks and that Lefoux is actually Cecile (there actually is a real Inspector Lefoux who is on vacation). Leroux reveals that instead of the Widow, he will marry either Bathilde or Caron. Gaston is about to send everyone to prison when Millet comes into the room dressed in his normal clothes. He tells Gaston that he was at the Barbary Coast on a break and came back to find his funeral going on. When Gaston tells him his sister stated he was dead, Millet tells him he has no sister. Everyone is overjoyed at Millet's return and Gaston leaves to find "the Widow". Millet and Marie are reunited and will be wed, along with Leroux and one of the ladies and Cecile and Chicago. Chicago reminds Millet that the entire country thinks he is dead, but Millet assured him that France will not admit she was wrong and that now he is a celebrity. Millet proposes a toast to the groups benefactor: the Widow Daisy Tillou. |
The Book of Lies | James Moloney | 2,004 | A young boy wakes up in an orphanage one night with no memory of who he is. The only thing he remembers is his name, Robert. But Robert isn't his name, and a little girl called Bea knows this. She was there when Lord Alwyn, a once powerful sorcerer, erased all of his memory using the powerful Book of Lies. He meets Bea, who tells of his name. His real name is Marcel. He encounters the mighty Fergus and the haughty Nicola during his stay at the orphanage, both of whom's memories are nothing more than lies. One day a mysterious man called Starkey claims to know the real lives of Nicola, Fergus and Marcel. Upon meeting his mother, imprisoned by the evil usurper King Pelham, he suddenly isn't sure. Is Starkey all that he claims to be? Is his mother his real mother? Is King Pelham really evil, or was that a lie as well? Danger lurks at every corner, and Marcel must stop the most feared Mortregis, beast of war, from rising once again. |
Master of the Books | James Moloney | 2,007 | The book mostly deals with Fergus's attempts to kill Damon, who tracks Damon all over the Mortal Kingdoms. When Marcel puts a curse over Elster to prove that Fergus would never kill the king, the curse backfires on Fergus, putting him in mortal danger, and Marcel journeys to Noam to try and undo the curse. |
Web of the City | Harlan Ellison | 1,958 | The plot revolves around the character of Rusty Santoro, a member of a fictional Brooklyn gang. In the novel, Santoro is caught between his meager prospects in the neighborhood, and obligations to his gang The Cougars. Throughout the book he struggles with the prospect of leaving his neighborhood and his life behind. The novel depicts street fights, murders, and other realities of gang life in urban areas. simple:Web of the City |
The Dreaming Void | null | null | At the centre of the Milky Way galaxy an object called the Void resembles a massive black hole. The Void is not a natural system. Inside there is a strange universe where the laws of physics are very different to those we know. It is slowly consuming the other stars of the galactic core - one day it will have devoured the entire galaxy. In AD 3589 a human has started to dream of the wonderful existence inside the Void. He has a following of millions of believers. They now wish to make a pilgrimage to the Void to live the life they have been shown. Other star-faring species fear their migration will cause the Void to expand again. They are prepared to stop the pilgrimage fleet no matter what the cost. |
Spinneret | Timothy Zahn | 1,985 | The novel is set on year 2016 Earth, with several interstellar ships being launched by the US and the EU in the hopes of finding habitable worlds to alleviate the overpopulation of Earth, only to find that while inhabitable worlds exists aplenty, they are all taken by a Commonwealth of alien races. This device allows the author to explain why his colonists are sent to the one world available, devoid of any life form because of its unexplainable lack of metals. Zahn describes briefly the conflicts between the military and civilian parts of the Astra expedition, the latter further divided between scientists and colonists, then introduces the main device of the novel - the planet itself somehow absorbs the metal, leading to equipment literally vanishing into the ground. Soon after the disappearance, what was thought to be a dormant volcano launches into orbit a cable of an unknown material, which turns out to be superconductive, of great tensile strength and with the ability to atomically bond with anything it touches. From this fact the author derives the novel's title: Astra is actually the "Spinneret" of this cable. What once was a resource-less dirtball soon becomes the most popular factory in the galaxy, with several alien races, the UN and the United States all jockeying for rights to the cable, with the colonists stuck in between. Looming over this tableau lies the question of who the Spinners were - or are, why they disappeared, and what they could have used such huge amounts of cable for. In the epilogue, an Astra expedition on a newly recovered Spinner craft discovers the Spinner world - englobed in a Dyson sphere of Cable material, designed to project the same spectrum of a red giant. The scientists conclude that the Spinners, involved in a war with some other than extinct race, had decided to disguise their home star in the unsuccessful attempt not to be found and destroyed. The Spinners' world becomes the new Earth population outlet, with the proceedings of Cable sales bootstrapping its economy. The alien races depicted by Timothy Zahn are the ctencri, shrewd merchants not unlike Star Trek's Ferengi; the rooshrike with their warrior code of honour; the m'zarch, a foolhardy race bent on war for war's sake, reminiscent of Klingons; the pom, a marine race resembling dolphins; the orspham; and the whissst, a race whose whole culture is based upon humour and practical jokes. |
The Winter Prince | Elizabeth E. Wein | 1,993 | Medraut, the illegitimate son of Artos the king, returns from his travels in Africa and elsewhere to watch over his younger half-brother, Lleu. Though Medraut, a child of incest, can never be High King, Artos knows that Medraut is a far better statesman and fighter than his younger brother; thus, Artos gives Medraut the task of making Lleu fit to be High King, promising Medraut the position of Regent in return. Medraut doesn't know if he loves or hates his brother; even from the beginning, he is disgusted by Lleu's naïve, careless use of power and jealous of Lleu's easy claim to Artos's affection. Their relationship intensifies when Medraut's lessons begin to stick, and Lleu starts to seem a suitable High King. Matters are further complicated by the entrance of Medraut's mother Morgause, whose disturbing similarities to Medraut are revealed even as she tries to slowly poison Lleu. Expecting Medraut's tacit approval of the poisoning, Morgause is unhappily surprised when Medraut protects Lleu and reveals Morgause's treachery to Artos. Artos banishes Morgause from the castle, and Morgause vows to erode Medraut's loyalty to Lleu. At first, Morgause's vow seems an empty threat. But while Lleu becomes more and more competent, an accident strips Medraut of his power and (he thinks) his father's affections. Resentment simmers between Medraut and Lleu, and by the time Morgause visits again, Medraut barely needs a catalyst. He kidnaps Lleu, intending to turn him over to Morgause, who in turn, plans to trade Lleu's life for the throne. But when Lleu steals Medraut's weapons and attempts to escape, the brothers are put in a unique situation; Medraut is ill and weaponless, Lleu is completely lost, and both are stranded in the middle of the woods. Medraut, struggling with regret as well as with his own envious desire to break Lleu's spirit, proposes a sadistic bargain; if Lleu can stay awake and alert for five days straight, Medraut will betray Morgause and lead him back to Camlan. Lleu agrees to the bargain, but as Lleu begins to hallucinate from lack of sleep, Medraut realizes that nothing his brother has said or done should have pushed him to this extreme. The book ends with Medraut carrying Lleu back to Camlan, where Lleu, in turn, invokes his power as High King to save Medraut from being punished as a traitor. |
Great Kings' War | Roland J. Green | null | Great Kings' War begins near the end of the colder than usual "Winter of Wolves" which has followed the war between Hostigos and its neighbours and the founding of Hos-Hostigos. While Great King Kalvan of Hos-Hostigos (formerly Corporal Calvin Morrison, Pennsylvania State Police) leads wolf and bandit hunts throughout his realm, the archpriests of Styphon's House plot their next move against Kalvan. As spring arrives Kalvan learns through the work of his intelligence officers Klestreus and Skranga that, in addition to the threat from Styphon's House, he must also face the armies of King Kaiphranos of Hos-Harphax, who seeks to regain the princedoms lost to Kalvan the previous year. To meet this two-fronted war Kalvan sends his father-in-law Ptosphes, Prince of Old Hostigos, as well as Princes Balthar of Beshta and Sarrask of Sask to meet the Holy Host of Styphon's House under Grand Master Soton in Beshta while he personally invades Hos-Harphax in the hope of capturing Harphax City and ending the reign of King Kaiphranos. Kalvan's campaign goes very well and he decimates the Harphaxi forces in the Battle of Chothros Heights, killing Crown Prince Philesteus of Hos-Harphax. Kalvan is preparing to press his advantage when he receives news that Ptosphes has been defeated by the Holy Host at Tenabra Town because of the treachery of Balthar of Beshta. Kalvan immediately abandons his plans and rushes to reinforce Ptosphes and defend Hostigos from the Holy Host at the climactic Battle of Phyrax a few miles from Kalvan's artillery foundry and the new University of Hostigos. With both sides taking extreme casualties during the day-long battle the forces of Hostigos manage to repel the Holy Host and send Soton back to Styphon's House disgraced in defeat. In the immediate aftermath Kalvan receives news that his wife Queen Rylla has been safely delivered of a healthy daughter, Princess Demia. Afterward Kalvan sends Ptosphes north to fight Great King Demistophon of Hos-Agrys who has invaded Hos-Hostigos believing it to be defenceless where he defeats them in multiple small battles. Meanwhile Kalvan invades Beshta and besieges Tarr-Beshta using siege tactics from his own timeline and executes Balthar for treason and seizes the miserly prince's massive treasury. The story ends with Kalvan happily reunited with Rylla and his new daughter for a peaceful winter while he prepares for the next year's battles. |
Prophecy: Child of Earth | Elizabeth Haydon | 2,000 | Rhapsody travels with Ashe to deliver a dragon's claw, long ago hidden among the treasures of Ylorc, for fear of the dragon's wreaking vengeance upon those who would keep her claw from her. On the journey, Ashe and Rhapsody develop a degree of comfort with one another, punctuated by arguments. Upon their arrival, Rhapsody finds the dragon surprisingly friendly, and she stays for several days before departing. Meanwhile, in the halls of Ylorc, Grunthor and Achmed discover a hidden tunnel, leading to the Loritorium: the unfinished masterpiece of Ylorc's builder, centuries past. To their surprise, Gruthor and Achmed are confronted by a Dhracian as they investigate: one of the last of a near-legendary race, to which Achmed owes half his heritage. The Dhracian, who calls herself the Grandmother, instructs Achmed and Grunthor to return with Rhapsody. Rhapsody, after leaving the dragon's cave, travels to Tyrian, the forest home to the Lirin, so that she can meet and train with the former bearer of her elemental blade, Daystar Clarion. While in training, she sees a horrific vision of the world engulfed in blood after the death of the Patriarch, leader of one of the two major human religions. Rhapsody journeys to Sepulvarta, home of the Patriarch, and successfully defends the Patriarch against an attack by a F'Dor demon and his minion, the Rakshas. She then travels back to Ylorc, where Grunthor and Achmed lead her to the Grandmother. The Grandmother tells them of the Dhracian colony that had lived in the mountains of Ylorc for centuries, destroyed by the same saboteur who murdered the inhabitants of the Loritorium. She also shows them the treasure the Dhracian colony was founded to protect: the sleeping Child of Earth, whose second rib can be used as a key to open the Vault of the Underworld imprisoning most of the F'Dor. The Child of Earth's sleep is restless, rocked with prophetic nightmares, but Rhapsody is unable to help. After finally figuring out Ashe's secret, Rhapsody summons Ashe to her underground home in Ylorc with a carefully crafted song. Once he arrives, Rhapsody explains her realizations: Ashe is Gwydion, long believed dead after he failed in an attack on the F'Dor and had part of his soul torn out in the process. Gwydion was secretly resurrected by the power of the star which once adorned Daystar Clarion's hilt, however, awakening his dragon side in the process, and had wandered the land in secrecy for the decades following the attack. The lost piece of his soul was used to create the Rakshas, which wreaked havoc with Ashe's appearance. Ashe and Rhapsody become lovers, causing Jo (Rhapsody's adopted sister) no end of jealousy. The Rakshas uses this to trick Jo - pretending to be Ashe, he has sex with her, bringing her partially under the control of the F'Dor in the process. In an attempt to reclaim the stolen piece of Ashe's soul, Rhapsody sets out with Grunthor and Achmed to destroy the Rakshas. The demonically-influenced Jo nearly kills Achmed at the end of the battle, forcing Rhapsody to kill her to save Achmed, and subsequently battle to save her soul from the clutching vine of the F'Dor. Some days later, Ashe and Rhapsody meet again for a night of revelations. Ashe locks the memory of the night in a pearl, expecting the only thing said to be of his father, Llauron, concocted to use Rhapsody in a bid for power. In the course of the discussion, Ashe and Rhapsody learn to their surprise that they are (respectively) Sam and Emily, who loved one another one and a half millennia ago (It's complicated.) They get married, but Rhapsody agrees that she will have to forget it all so that Llauron's selfish plot can succeed. Then a tree root that the Rakshas corrupted attacks the Child of Earth, attempting to seize it (and thereby gain the key to the Underworld), but Grunthor, forewarned by a dream, manages to get Rhapsody and Achmed into position soon enough to avert the threat. Then they realize that the Rakshas conceived children with demon-tainted blood, who Rhapsody resolves to rescue. |
Tessa | Margit Sandemo | 1,997 | Tessa is the story of Tessa, a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl who has a vivacious imagination but is, in spite of this, a loner. There is a crime or a riddle to solve in that novel, which is typical of Margit Sandemo. The story begins when a burglar makes a wrong phone number. He inadvertently calls Tessa and tells her about his upcoming crime. Tessa plans to check his intentions. |
The Ten Teacups | John Dickson Carr | null | Chief Inspector Masters receives a note that reads "There will be ten teacups at number 4, Berwick Terrace, W. 8, on Wednesday, July 31, at 5 p.m. precisely. The presence of the Metropolitan Police Is respectfully requested." The note troubles Masters because, two years earlier, he received a similar note that was ignored requesting that the police go to a different location. On the previous occasion a man named William Dartley was found shot dead, in a room with ten very expensive teacups (patterned with a peacock feather motif). The house where Dartley was found had no furnishings in any room, except for the room where his body was found. Masters takes the note to Sir Henry Merrivale, who assumes that Dartley was murdered over the teacups but realizes that that doesn't make sense, because the murderer brought the cups. H.M. then focuses on the second note, finding out that 4 Berwick Terrace is also an empty house. Inspector Masters reports that the day before some furniture was delivered to the house, and he responds by having the house guarded and having a police officer posted outside the newly-furnished room at all times. Masters discovers that a room in the house, a strongroom on the top floor, is going to be a meeting place for a man named Vance Keating and an unknown man or organization. Although Keating doesn't want police protection, Detective-Sergant Pollard guards the door. At 5 p.m., two gunshots are heard. Pollard rushes into the room where he finds Keating shot dead, with a gun lying beside him. There is a thick layer of dust on the carpet that reveals only Pollard's and Keating's footprints. Pollard notices the window is open, and runs to it, noting that Sergeant Hollis stands directly under the window. Pollard suggests that the killer jumped out the window, to which Hollis's reply is "No one came out this window." |
Renovation of the Heart | Dallas Willard | 2,002 | Renovation of the Heart proposes that the human self is made up of several interrelated components: one's spirit, i.e. one's "heart" or "will"; one's mind, or the collection of one's thoughts and feelings; the body; one's social context; and one's soul. Willard argues that one's identity is largely a function of how those components are subordinated to one another, and whether the whole is subordinated to God. Willard argues that popular rejection of subordination to God and the dominance of the body and feelings has resulted in addictions and futile pursuits of stimulation for the body or feelings. Willard argues that the subordinated alignment of one's being can be corrected through apprenticeship to Jesus Christ, which renovates one's heart. |
Cop This! | Chris Nyst | 1,999 | In 1969, in Brisbane's Fortitude Valley a car bomb explodes. Eleven people are slain. The repercussions threaten the stability of the government. Johnny Arnold, a low-level criminal is charged with the crime. This brings a father and son duo in conflict with the state's leaders. |
The Ogre Downstairs | Diana Wynne Jones | 1,974 | When their mother Sally remarries, Caspar and Johnny Brent immediately dislike their new stepfather, Jack McIntyre, though their younger sister, Gwinny, is less judgemental. For one thing, Jack brings with him two sons of his own, Douglas and Malcolm, and the two sets of brothers do not get along. Tensions are increased by the small house the seven must live in to make ends meet. Jack himself proves to be prone to harsh comments, and Johnny soon dubs him "the Ogre". To calm things down, the Ogre buys chemistry sets, one each for Johnny and Malcolm. It is not too long before the children discover that some of the chemicals have magical properties. Douglas and Malcolm discover this after Johnny accidentally makes Gwinny fly, and a race begins between the two groups to find out which chemicals are magic. Caspar, Johnny, and Gwinny go flying, but the effect wears off away from home. Fortunately, Douglas has had to visit the mysterious store the chemistry sets came from to find out the antidote for a chemical which has turned Malcolm small, and they are able to attract his attention. He assists them in getting home, but the effect wears off again as they approach home, leaving Douglas stranded outside the house. Douglas (the oldest of the boys, perhaps fifteen) is caught by the Ogre, who assumes he has been sneaking out, and strikes his son. Later in the book, Johnny and Malcolm will also be struck by the Ogre. The other chemicals can do interesting things too, and the misadventures forge a bond among the children, as well as a common front against the Ogre. One chemical causes Malcolm's mind to enter Caspar's body, and vice versa. They spend a miserable day in each other's place before Douglas detects the substitution and figures out how to switch them back. But the experience has caused them to understand each other a little better. The poor relations between the Ogre and the children cause bitter arguments between him and Sally, which culminates in her departure (we learn later that she intends to send for the children as soon as she has a new place of her own). The Ogre lies about why Sally has left, pretending things are fine between them. This leads the children to assume, thinking the worst of the Ogre, that he has done away with Sally. Fearing that the Ogre has killed her mother, and upset about the Ogre's actions, Gwinny decides to kill the Ogre by baking him a cake filled with poison. She includes chemicals from the set, which, after she leaves it for the Ogre, turn the cake invisible. When Gwinny sees the cake "gone", and hears the Ogre making noises in his sleep, she assumes her scheme succeeded and is filled with remorse. She awakens the snoring Ogre, and confesses that she has poisoned him. However, she realises, the cake has not been eaten, but is simply invisible because of the chemicals. The Ogre assumes that much of this is childish nightmares, and talks to her for a while before sending her to bed, promising the girl that he will work on trying to understand the children better. Johnny's attempt on the Ogre's life is less subtle. He has also discovered invisibility, and uses it to try to kill the Ogre with a falling vacuum cleaner. The children realise Johnny has gone too far, and save the Ogre's life, though he does not fully realise his danger. Johnny also tries to make it look like the Ogre has killed him and disposed of his body, but his attempt is frustrated by Caspar and Douglas. The Ogre does realise Johnny is not to be seen, and Caspar claims he has run away to a distant aunt. The Ogre has Caspar get in the car with the stated intent of driving to the aunt's house where Johnny has supposedly gone. It turns out that the Ogre has taken Caspar in order to question him, since Caspar, as the Ogre puts it, is the worst liar he knows. The Ogre clearly heard Johnny's voice in the house, and knows he could not have run away. Caspar soon tells all, from the magic chemistry sets to the Johnny's attempt on the Ogre's life. The Ogre is convinced by one of Caspar's fingers, which Johnny's experiments have turned partially invisible. At the end of the talk they also understand each other a bit better, and the Ogre realises the effect his behaviour is having. The two drive home to find Johnny slowly being turned visible by being forced outside into the rain by the others, as water is the antidote to that chemical. The Ogre takes Johnny for a long talk behind closed doors, at the end of which the Ogre looks tired and Johnny looks smug. Sally is located at a relative's home, and she is persuaded to return. The Ogre then returns the chemistry sets to the mysterious store from which they came. After the Ogre and the children clean the house, and following one more adventure with at the supermarket with chemicals the children held back, Sally does return. But there is one more chemical, and this turns base metal into gold! There is enough to generate enough gold to allow them to buy a larger house, and the tensions dissipate. The children run wild in the new house as they realise the Ogre's bark is worse than his bite. |
Ball Four | Jim Bouton | null | Bouton befriended sportswriter Leonard Shecter during his time with the Yankees. Shecter approached him with the idea of writing and publishing a season-long diary. Bouton, who had taken some notes during the season after having a similar idea, readily agreed. Bouton chronicled the season—the turning point year in which Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, the Woodstock Festival was held, and the year of the Miracle Mets. In so doing, Bouton provided a frank, insider's look at professional sports teams. The book's context was the Seattle Pilots' only operating season, though Bouton was traded to Houston late in the year. Ball Four described a side of baseball that was previously unseen by writing about the obscene jokes and the drunken tomcatting of the players and about the routine drug use, including by Bouton himself. Bouton wrote with candor about the anxiety he felt over his pitching and his role on the team. Bouton detailed his unsatisfactory relationships with teammates and management alike, his sparring sessions with Pilots manager Joe Schultz and pitching coach Sal Maglie, and the lies and minor cheating that has gone on in sports seemingly from time immemorial. Ball Four revealed publicly for the first time the degree of womanizing prevalent in the major leagues (including "beaver shooting," the ogling of women anywhere, including rooftops or from under the stands). Bouton also disclosed how rampant amphetamine or "greenies" usage was among players. Also revealed was the heavy drinking of Yankee legend Mickey Mantle, which had previously been kept almost entirely out of the press. |
Simple Genius | David Baldacci | 2,007 | From the book (Paperback Edition): Near Washington, D.C., there are two clandestine institutions: a laboratory developing advanced technology, and a secret CIA training camp. Sean King, financially hard-pressed and trying to help his professional—and platonic—partner, does something he had decided to never do: look for a "job" from his ex-girlfriend Joan Dillinger, a fellow ex-Secret Service agent who has gone private running her own PI agency. She gives him a case at a lab. The murder of a scientist by the name of Monk Turing draws Sean King to the lab. While searching for answers, he soon stumbles on Camp Peary, the CIA training facility which leads him to a more complicated puzzle. While working on the case, he soon comes across Turing's autistic daughter, Viggie Turing, who is also an extraordinary genius. She helps Michelle only because she trusts Michelle. She hates Horatio, the psychologist who is there to help both Michelle and Viggie. He works together with his partner, Michelle Maxwell, who has attempted suicide after a psychological breakdown. In the end, Sean and Michelle are able to crack the case, but for that they had to undergo torture at the hands of their enemies. Sean's generosity is evident when instead of taking up the treasures money he gets it divided in three parts for three different people, though his financial condition wasn't very good. |
Jackie & Me | Dan Gutman | 1,999 | Joe Stosh is severely insulted during one of his at-bats in a baseball game by the opposing pitcher, Bobby Fuller, and loses his temper. He charges the mound, determined to teach Fuller a lesson. Mass chaos follows, and Joe ends up getting suspended indefinitely from Little League. He then goes to school the next day to receive an assignment to write a report on an important African American figure in United States history. Being a baseball fan, he chooses Jackie Robinson. He uses his special ability to travel through time with baseball cards to go back and witness Jackie Robinson’s first [[Major League Baseball. Joe realizes he is black. After meeting the Robinsons, they take Joe to see the Opening Day game. He becomes a batboy along with Ant, a prejudiced and mental teenager. Joe also buys valuable baseball cards for his father. Soon, Ant thinks Joe is a Communist and steals his Ken Griffey Jr. card, but Joe takes it back and travels back to the present. Joe goes back in time again, this time he is white. Joe travels to Yankee Stadium for the 1947 World Series with Jackie. There, Ant discovers Joe's Game Boy, but before he can call the cops, Joe leaves. Ant decides to break into Jackie's house. He steals Joe's million-dollar baseball cards. Joe wants to stay for Game 7, but with the cops after him, he knows it is not possible. Joe leaves 1947, this time for good. Back in the present, Joe gives his report and states that Jackie Robinson had to endure all the prejudice going on. It ends up being outstanding, and the teacher proclaims it the best in the class. His suspension from the Little League is lifted for the last game of the season. He again meets Bobby Fuller in the bottom of the last inning with the score tied, but this time ignores his heckling and gets a single. After that, he manages to successfully steal second base, third base, and home plate, getting the ultimate revenge. Historic baseball figures appearing in the book include Pee Wee Reese, Dan Bankhead, Hugh Casey, Dixie Walker, Bobby Bragan, Eddie Stanky, and Babe Ruth. |
Ballet Shoes | Noel Streatfeild | 1,936 | The narrative concern three adopted sisters, Pauline, Petrova and Posy Fossil. Each of the girls is discovered as a baby by Matthew Brown (Great-Uncle-Matthew, or Gum), an elderly, absent-minded paleontologist and professor, during his world travels, and sent home to his great-niece, Sylvia, and her childhood nanny, whom everybody called 'Nana'. Gum (Great-Uncle-Matthew) embarks upon an expedition of many years, and arranges for money to support the family while he is gone. He then disappears. Despite trying to save money until Gum's return, he does not return in the promised five years, and the money is soon almost gone. As they have no way to contact him, or track him down, Sylvia and Nana decide to take in boarders to help make ends meet, which introduces a variety of people who become important to the children. Boarders include Mr. Simpson, who runs an auto repair garage and is as interested in engines as Petrova, and his wife, Mrs. Simpson; also, Dr. Jakes and Dr. Smith, a pair of tutors who take over the children's schooling after Sylvia can no longer afford their school fees and has tried, but failed, to teach the children herself; last of all, Miss Theo Dane, a dance teacher, who arranges for the children to begin classes at the Children's Academy of Dancing and Stage Training. They all have very different views of dancing and acting. Pauline soon find she has a talent and passion for acting. Petrova loathes all acting and dancing, and, if it wasn't for the money they could earn acting when they reach the minimum age for performing professionally at twelve, she would quit. Posy doesn't think much of anything but dancing, for which she has a real talent. When she is about six, Madame Fidolia, a famous and retired Russian dancer, teaches Posy entirely herself, which has never happened before. As the children mature, they begin to develop their own talents, and take on some of the responsibility of supporting the household. Much of the drama in the plot comes from the friction between the sisters and from balancing their desire to help support the family financially against the laws limiting the amount of time they may spend on stage and the rules set by the London County Council, such as "one-third of a child's earnings must go into the post office (bank)". Pauline's talent for English and drama means she is picked for important parts early on in her career. This early success goes to her head during the production in which she has her first lead role, but after being set down a peg when the producer replaces her with her understudy, she learns enough humility to balance her talent and goes on to play many successful lead parts. Though she is still too young to perform on stage by the end of the book, Posy is developing into a brilliant ballet dancer, though she also clashes with her sisters as she is so focused on dancing that she can be insensitive about anything that gets in her way. Petrova's struggle differs slightly from her sisters' in that she is not interested in the performing arts at all, and has little talent for it, but she must keep attending the classes and performing in order to help support the family, meanwhile trying to hold onto her own dream of flying airplanes. All three sisters are inspired and kept up by their repeated vow: "We three Fossils vow to try and put our name in the history books, because it's our very own, and nobody can say it's because of our grandfathers." The book ends with Pauline going off to Hollywood to make a film, accompanied by Sylvia. Posy is going to a ballet school in Prague, accompanied by Nana. Petrova wonders what will become of her, as she is still too young to live on her own, and she doesn't want to dance or act. At this moment, Gum miraculously walks through the front door. He has been away so long that he doesn't realise who the three girls are at first, but after they convince him they are the babies he left all those years ago and tell him what has happened, he decides he will take Petrova under his wing and help her to achieve her dream. Although the book ends while the girls are still teenagers and their futures unclear, the narrator implies that they will be successful. |
Le Jour Des Fourmis | Bernard Werber | 1,992 | The Day of the Ants again, just as its predecessor has several connected plotlines, some of which take place in the world of humans, while others - among ants. A year has passed since the time of The ants. 17 people including several relatives of the pioneer of the deceased inter-species communication Edmond Wells are still trapped under an ant nest. Since a new queen has been in charge in the ant nest, the supplies of food given by the ants to human are growing smaller and smaller. Meanwhile strange murders are happening in the city of Paris, when several producers of insecticides are found dead in peculiar circumstances and no explanation of how the murders were committed. A wolf-fearing police detective and a woman afraid of humans, the daughter of Edmond Wells, combine their knowledge in order to find out who or what is behind these murders. |
The Book of Renfield | Tim Lucas | null | The Book of Renfield works mainly as a companion piece to Stoker's original novel. In some cases, excerpts from the actual book are used but are modified and expanded under the pretense that Dracula is nonfiction and that Seward's entries were "edited, and in some instances, rewritten by John L. Seward before he provided them for the use of Mr. Bram Stoker, at the request of Mr. and Mrs. Jonathan Harker". As such, whenever the text from Dracula is used, it is bolded to differentiate the changes. The book starts with a man discovered outside the ruins of Carfax Abbey, feasting on a rat, whose only form of identification is a handkerchief that reads "R.M. Renfield". He is taken in to Seward's asylum, where his sessions with the doctor reveal fragments of his tragic past and how he came to be Count Dracula's pawn. |
Dark Fire | C. J. Sansom | 2,004 | It is 1540 and the hottest summer of the sixteenth century. Matthew Shardlake, believing himself out of favour with Thomas Cromwell, is busy trying to maintain his legal practice and keep a discreet profile. But his involvement with a murder case, defending a girl accused of brutally murdering her young cousin, brings him once again into contact with the king's chief minister – and a new assignment ... The secret of Greek Fire, the legendary substance with which the Byzantines destroyed the Arab navies, has been lost for centuries. Now an official of the Court of Augmentations has discovered the formula in the library of a dissolved London monastery. When Shardlake is sent to recover it, he finds the official and his alchemist brother brutally murdered – the formula has disappeared. Now Shardlake must follow the trail of Greek Fire across Tudor London, while trying at the same time to prove his young client's innocence. But very soon he discovers nothing is as it seems ... |
Axis | Robert Charles Wilson | 2,007 | Axis takes place on the new planet introduced at the end of Spin, a world the Hypotheticals engineered to support human life and connected to Earth by way of the Arch that towers hundreds of miles over the Indian Ocean. Humans are colonizing this new world — and, predictably, fiercely exploiting its resources, chiefly large deposits of oil in the western deserts of the continent of Equatoria. Lise Adams is a young woman attempting to uncover the mystery of her father's disappearance ten years earlier. Turk Findley is an ex-sailor and sometimes-drifter. They come together when showers of cometary dust seed the planet with tiny remnant Hypothetical machines. Soon, this seemingly hospitable world becomes very alien, as the nature of time is once again twisted by entities unknown. A quasi-religious group of "Fourths" from Earth, led by Dr. Avram Dvali, lives in the desert seeded by falling dust. They've created a child they call Isaac with a Martian upgrade (fatal to adults) that connects him with the Hypotheticals. The Fourth-hunting "Department of Genomic Security" is searching for this group or for a visiting Martian Fourth who disapproves of Isaac's creation. |
A Gathering of Heroes | null | null | A Gathering of Heroes is a prequel, taking place approximately twenty years before the events in The Lost Prince and King Chondos' Ride. Istvan Divega, a mercenary and famed swordsman, is approached by a mysterious figure with an urgent request for aid. He joins a band of heroes on a journey to defend the fortress city of Rath Tintallain against a great army that includes sorcerers, goblins, demons and werewolves. Y'GORA IS THREATENED... Goblins, demons and worse spill over the Dark Border, attacking Rath Tintallain and the priceless treasure it holds. The Hasturs fear that the fall of Rath Tintallain will bring utter destruction, and summon a gathering of the greatest heroes-elves, dwarves, and mortal men- for a desperate stand. And Istvan DiVega is called to join the fray, fighting shoulder to shoulder with men of legend. They are the last defense against the Shadow... |
My Boring Ass Life: The Uncomfortably Candid Diary of Kevin Smith | Kevin Smith | 2,007 | The title is a reference to Smith's blog My Boring Ass Life. The book's content is from entries Smith has written about on said blog, from mundane daily activities to a series of writings detailing his friend and frequent featured actor Jason Mewes' heroin addiction. Smith also chronicles the making of and release of his seventh film Clerks II and describes the filming of his acting roles in Catch and Release and Live Free or Die Hard. Smith talks about his several encounters with many Hollywood stars, both old and upcoming. Once, during his daughter Harley's elementary school Fairy Tale Breakfast party, he ran into Johnny Depp, still wearing part of his Jack Sparrow makeup, who was in-between filming the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels. He also recollects on the time in which he met Burt Reynolds after "stealing" his donuts. An unlikely meeting with Bruce Willis resulted in Smith getting a major supporting part in Willis' film Live Free or Die Hard. In addition, he mentions a humorous encounter Mewes had at a club during the shoot of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back with Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire, who had recently been cast as Spider-Man. After realizing it has been seven years to the day they "did it", Smith recounts how he first met his wife, Jennifer Schwalbach Smith. During the promotional tour for his 1999 film Dogma, he was interviewed by Schwalbach ("Jen"), then a reporter for USA Today at the Independent Spirit Awards. Having half a day to kill before he had to go home, they dined on pizza breadsticks before he left for his flight back to New Jersey. A few months later, he met her again, had a few drinks, and they went back to her apartment where they made love for the first time. At this point, Smith stops and writes, "The rest can be seen in An Evening With Kevin Smith," in which he recounts how he was injured in the act of love-making. Lasting about nine pages, Smith talks about how he intended to have a much more elaborate opening prologue/credits scene for his sophomore film Mallrats. In this, Jeremy London's character, T.S Quint, goes on a game show and loses after flubbing an answer and inadvertently giving the other team the answer. An altercation with the team ensues, and he accidentally punches the show's host after the team captain ducks his head. According to Smith, the studio felt it was too long, ordered it to be cut, and replaced it with a smaller scene taking place at a party instead. However, that scene was later scrapped during post-production. Due to this setback, as well as some other scenes, including a Silent Bob masturbation joke, he was forced to excise from the script, he feels this hurt the movie's chances for a bigger box office reception. As in Evening With Kevin Smith, he revealed that while he removed the masturbation scene, a similar scene took place in a film released four years later: There's Something About Mary. Of all the entries in the book, this section is the longest and probably most serious subject that Smith deals with: his friendship of Jason Mewes and the latter's massive drug addiction. It starts off with detailing Mewes' troubled childhood and upbringing. His mother was a drug addict, and he never learned the identity of his father, who took off shortly after his birth. Whenever selling drugs to support him and his sister, his mother would send an oblivious nine-year old Jason on his bicycle to deliver the goods to customers with strict instructions not to look in the bag. As a high school freshman, he met the nearly-four years older Smith, who was working at RST Video and the Quick Stop. Despite hearing the many rumors about the supposedly bad-boy Mewes, which were mostly fictional, he inadvertently became Mewes' surrogate older brother. Although unsure about letting the younger Mewes hang out with him and Walt Flanagan, Smith was won over by the kid's love of comics and his offbeat, crazy sense of humor. During his recount of making Clerks, it is revealed that he had to talk the reluctant Jason, working in construction at that time, into playing Jay. Smith says that he only drank during this time period. When they were given the go-ahead to make Mallrats, Mewes had to re-audition for the part against favorites Breckin Meyer and Seth Green to convince studio executives he was right for it, because they were concerned over his new heroin addiction. Eventually, they caved in and allowed Mewes to reprise the role, but Smith was forced to fly him out to the location at his own expense with the threat that Green would replace him should anything bad occur. During Chasing Amy, Dogma, and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Mewes goes from drug-addicted to sober for varying lengths of time. Being oblivious to the symptoms of drug use, Smith noticed his drowsy, narcoleptic-like behaviour during the recording of the DVD commentary for Chasing Amy. After much denial, Mewes admitted he used heroin and marijuana during the Mallrats shoot and cocaine during his diner scene. Realizing he needed help, Smith moved him out of his mother's house and into his apartment with the promise of another Jay and Silent Bob film and to get him clean. For nearly two years, he helped Mewes take his mind off drugs while preparing for Dogma. While shooting the film, Smith was amazed when Jason claimed to have memorized the script and was at the top of his game, especially during scenes with Alan Rickman, but he was oblivious that Mewes had begun using Oxycotin with his new girlfriend, Stephanie. With Mewes earning the money, she would be getting him the drugs he needed. It was also during this time that Mewes' mother developed AIDS. Following Smith's marriage, he moved in with them prior to their daughter Harley's birth, because Kevin felt that his mother was the worst influence. Tensions erupted between them after he discovered a drug dealer was wanting Mewes to pay up on a sale, and it did not help matters when he found out his friend caused a car crash involving a police officer. While the officer accepted payment for the damage done, Smith and Mewes were forced to abandon their car to the car market. As for the dealer, Mewes agreed to be involved as a witness in a sting operation to arrest the dealer, but his relationship with Stephanie failed as a result. Another woman named Jamie, whom he was briefly engaged to, soon left him after getting fed up with his drug habits. After another period of rehab, Smith finally learned that Mewes was using again after his friend stole his credit card in an attempt to buy drugs. Then, he caused a panic on an airplane just before landing. The last straw came when he kept disappearing to shoot up while playing with Harley. His wife ordered him to make Mewes leave the house, to which he reluctantly did. After a brief stint in rehab, funded by Ben Affleck, he was almost forced to leave after raising hell. After a tense phone conversation with Smith, Mewes escaped from the clinic before being caught again. Showing the tough love technique, Smith made it clear that he could not come near him or his family anymore until he got clean. As a result, he started living with his girlfriend in Los Angeles. By this point, his mother had also died, and he could not come back to New Jersey due to the bench warrant for possessing heroin and syringes in his girlfriend's car during a routine police search. He had to appear in court as part of the sentencing, but he strangely failed to show up. Originally, Smith had written the Jason Biggs role in Jersey Girl for Mewes, but he could not accept it. Upon getting a scare after a rumor spread about his death, he finally went back to Jersey and surrendered to the police. Given the choice of six months of rehab or jail, Mewes chose to go to rehab, and he has been clean of drugs ever since. Hence the plot point of Jay and Silent Bob's rehabilitation in Clerks II. As in the documentary found on the Clerks II DVD, Smith recounts the process of the film (his "first" true sequel) being made. Several facts are included: the original 1999 script had Dante and Randal working at a Boardwalk Waterfront Pier, how Matt Damon was supposed to appear in Jason Lee's cameo, and convincing original Clerks stars Brian O'Halloran and Jeff Anderson to come back. While O'Halloran was eager to reprise Dante ten years down the road, Anderson was the most difficult to convince to return, but he finally agreed to appear in the film. In addition, Smith details Mewes' embarrassment and reluctance to do a parody of the infamous Buffalo Bill nude-dance scene. Smith writes about the reaction Clerks II got from critics, particularly Joel Siegel. About forty minutes into the film, specifically the scene where Randal orders a donkey show as a going-away present for Dante's bachelor party, Siegel exited the theater rather loudly, allegedly shouting "Time to go! This is the first movie I've walked out on in thirty fucking years!" Despite this incident, Smith felt that "if you can send Joel Siegel screaming from your movie, you've got something good on your hands," because getting a bad review from Siegel (according to Smith, after the review called it "Jerks II") is like "a badge of honor." However, he admits that he was not hurt by the critic's trashing of the film, but rather the manner in which he left it. He states that had Siegel not left the film, the actual donkey show would have been revealed and been funnier. After mentioning his confrontation with the so-called "cum catcher" (in reference to his prominent mustache) on The Opie and Anthony Show, he says he has no animosity towards the critic, but that one should never walk out on a film and ruin it for others. For the next few entries of his diary, he reveals that Clerks II made over thirty million dollars at the domestic box office. |
Bows Against the Barons | Geoffrey Trease | 1,934 | Bows Against the Barons takes place during the final months of Robin Hood's life, beginning in early June, and ending in the following year during or after February. It is largely told from the viewpoint of Dickon, a sixteen-year-old peasant boy from the village of Oxton. The novel opens by depicting Dickon's hardships as a serf on a baronial manor. It shows the boy being whipped by his bailiff for missing work and harassed by his village priest for the tithe. Despite his youth, Dickon has to serve as his family's breadwinner because his father Dick has been conscripted as an archer for the Crusades. His troubles are compounded when the King's deer from nearby Sherwood Forest ravage his garden's crops. Moved by anger, Dickon kills one of the deer with an arrow. He flees into Sherwood to avoid the penalties of poaching. Eventually, he meets Alan-a-Dale, who leads him to Robin Hood's band. Proving adept at archery, Dickon is welcomed into their company. Disguised as a weaver's apprentice, Dickon embarks on a mission as Robin's messenger to Nottingham's rebels. Led by a bridle-smith, Dickon and the populace assemble in the market-place to protest working conditions and demand the release of imprisoned workers. The Sheriff of Nottingham attempts to disperse them. Robin and his outlaws arrive to help the protesters, who overwhelm the Sheriff in the resulting riot and free the imprisoned workers. However, mounted soldiers from Nottingham Castle arrive to quash the riot. Pursued by a horseman, Dickon escapes through secret passages and reaches Sherwood. There, he is captured by royal foresters and escorted north to be tried for poaching. However, Alan manages to make contact with Dickon, having disguised himself as a blind minstrel and his messages as doggerel. On Alan's instructions, Dickon attempts to delay the foresters' journey. His plans almost go awry when he meets his former master Sir Rolf D'Eyncourt, who has returned from the Crusades and now attempts to reclaim Dickon. Fortunately, the head forester refuses to hand over the boy, insisting on the priority of royal justice. As his journey resumes, Dickon learns that his father has been killed in battle and vows revenge. Dickon and the foresters eventually reach a village. Led by their blacksmith, the villagers protest Dickon's captivity. In the ensuing struggle, a forester almost kills Dickon, but Alan arrives in time and saves him. Together, they join the villagers in defeating the foresters. Later, soldiers are dispatched from Nottingham to punish the villagers. However, Robin and his band ambush and defeat the soldiers before they reach their destination. In the meantime, Sir Rolf exploits and oppresses his tenants in his pursuit of wealth and luxury. The outlaws of Sherwood oppose him, stirring up his serfs to resist and subvert his tyranny. Allied with neighbouring barons, Sir Rolf pens the outlaws in Sherwood and attempts to hunt them down. The outlaws defeat him by hiding in the trees and picking off his men with arrows from their camouflaged positions. As they celebrate their victory, Robin reveals to them his ultimate goal for their actions - the overthrow of all masters and freedom for all people in England. The outlaws now prepare for an attack on D'Eyncourt Castle, gathering money during autumn for their needs. Alan leads Dickon and a group of outlaws to waylay the Abbot of Rufford, disguising themselves as a knight's household and luring him into an ambush. Seeing Dickon's talent in disguise, Robin sends the boy to infiltrate D'Eyncourt Castle and acquire information about its defenses. Disguised as a page with bleached hair, Dickon manages to penetrate D'Eyncourt on Christmas but is betrayed by an undyed curl of hair. Pursued, he hides on the chapel's beams and eventually escapes from the castle, surviving a crossbow shot. With Dickon's information, the outlaws finally attack D'Eyncourt Castle during winter. Alan leads Dickon and a group of outlaws to infiltrate and capture the castle keep. Taking up positions on its battlements, they pick off D'Eyncourt's defenders with their arrows while Robin launches the main assault on the outer walls. His combined force of outlaws and serfs eventually breaks through and razes the castle. Dickon kills his former bailiff, while Little John kills Sir Rolf. Heartened by their success, the outlaws attempt to march on Nottingham. However, the Earl of Wessex traps them in a pincer movement between Nottingham and Newark and defeats them in battle. Alan, Friar Tuck and Will Scarlet are among those killed. Dickon, Robin and Little John survive the battle and flee north with other survivors to Yorkshire, undergoing much hardship on their journey. Dickon almost drowns in a bog. Wounded, Robin takes refuge in Kirklees, whose prioress bleeds him to death in order to claim a reward from the Earl. Alerted by an arrow shot by Robin from his deathbed, the outlaws reclaim his body and burn down the priory in revenge. After burying Robin, the outlaw band breaks up. Dickon and Little John are the only ones who remain dedicated to Robin's cause. They depart for the High Peak in Derbyshire, determined to continue Robin's work and fulfil his visionary ideal. |
The Beekeeper's Apprentice | Laurie R. King | 1,994 | After losing her family in a tragic motor accident, fifteen-year-old Mary Russell goes to live with her aunt. Wandering the Sussex Downs in April 1915, she comes across fifty-four-year-old Sherlock Holmes, who has retired from his London practice and keeps bees. They become friends, and Holmes trains Russell in detecting. |
Blindsight | Peter Watts | 2,006 | Eighty years in the future, Earth becomes aware of an alien presence when thousands of micro-satellites survey the Earth; through good luck, the incoming alien vessel is detected, and the ship Theseus, with its artificial intelligence captain and crew of five, are sent out to engage in first contact with the huge alien vessel called Rorschach. As they explore the vessel and attempt to analyze it and its inhabitants, the narrator, Siri, considers his life and strives to understand himself and ponders the nature of intelligence and consciousness, their utility, and what an alien mind might be like. Eventually the crew realizes that they are greatly outmatched by the vessel and its unconscious but extremely capable inhabitants. When the level of this threat becomes clear, Theseus runs a kamikaze mission using its antimatter as a payload, while Siri returns to Earth, which he eventually realizes is being overrun by a non-sentient offshoot of humanity, beginning to exterminate what may be the only spark of consciousness in the universe. |
The Proposal | K. A. Applegate | 1,999 | Marco's mother, the host to Visser One, is revealed to have survived the events of book 30. Marco's father, still believing her dead from the "boating accident" several years earlier, marries Nora Robbinette, Marco's math teacher. The stress from his father's actions cause Marco's morphs to go haywire, the results from his morphs are (in order of appearance): an osprey crossed with a lobster, a trout with the arms of a gorilla, a wolf spider crossed with a skunk, (A "Skider" or "Spunk" as Marco called it), and finally a poodle and a polar bear (a Poo-Bear as Marco called it). The Yeerks try to use a popular TV Icon named William Roger Tennant to try and persuade people to join The Sharing, but the Animorphs expose him on national TV when he is terrorizing Marco (in poodle/polar bear morph) which ruins Tennant's reputation. The book ends with Marco getting a phone call from Visser One, which is covered in greater detail halfway through Visser. *Marco's father marries Nora. |
An Antarctic Mystery | Jules Verne | 1,897 | The story is set in 1839, eleven years after the events in Arthur Gordon Pym, one year after the publication of that book. The narrator is a wealthy American Jeorling, who has entertained himself with private studies of the wildlife on the Kerguelen Islands and is now looking for a passage back to the USA. Halbrane is one of the first ships to arrive at Kerguelen, and its captain Len Guy somewhat reluctantly agrees to have Jeorling as a passenger as far as Tristan da Cunha. Underway, they meet a stray iceberg with a dead body on it, which turns out to be a sailor from Jane. A note found with him indicates that he and several others including Jane's captain William Guy had survived the assassination attempt at Tsalal and are still alive. Guy, who had talked to Jeorling earlier about the subject of Pym, reveals himself to be the brother of William Guy. He decides to try to come to the rescue of Janes crew. After taking on provisions on Tristan d'Acunha and the Falklands, they head South with Jeorling still on board. They also take aboard another mysterious sailor named Hunt who is eager to join the search for undisclosed reasons. Extraordinarily mild weather allows the Halbrane to make good progress, and they break the pack ice barrier, which surrounds an ice-free Antarctic ocean, early in summer. They find first Bennet's islet, where Jane had made a stop, and finally Tsalal. But the island is completely devastated, apparently by a recent massive earthquake, and deserted. They find lots of remains of Tsalal's natives, who apparently died long before the earthquake, and the collar of Pym's dog, Tiger, but no trace of Jane. At this point, Hunt is revealed to be Dirk Peters. On their travel south of Tsalal, he and Pym had become separated, and only Peters made it safely back to the States where he, not Pym, instigated the publication of their voyage. Pym's diary, in Peters' possession, had apparently been significantly embellished by Poe. Upon returning home, Peters took on a new identity, because he was too ashamed of having resorted to cannibalism on the wreck of Grampus. Guy and Peters decide to push further south, much to the chagrin of a part of the crew led by one seaman Hearne, who feels they should abandon the rescue attempt and head home before the onset of winter. Not much later, in a freak accident, Halbrane is thrown upon an iceberg and subsequently lost. The crew makes it safely onto the iceberg, but with only one small boat left, it is doomed to drift on. The iceberg drifts even past the South Pole, before the whole party is cast ashore on a hitherto unknown land mass still within the pack ice barrier. Hearne and his fellows steal the last remaining boat, trying to make it to the open sea on their own, and making the situation even bleaker for those behind who now face the prospect of wintering in the Antarctic. They are lucky, however, as shortly thereafter they see a small boat of aboriginal style drifting by. Peters is the first to react as he swims out towards the boat and secures it. But Peters finds more: In the boat, there are captain William Guy and the four surviving seamen of his crew, semiconscious and close to death by starvation. Peters brings them ashore, and the men from Halbrane nurse them back to life. William Guy then recounts their story. Shortly after the explosion of Jane (and presumably the departure of Pym's company), Tiger appeared again. Rabid, he bit and infected the natives who quickly fell victim to the new disease. Those who could fled to the neighboring islands, where they perished later in the course of the earthquake. Up to this point, William Guy and his men had lived fairly comfortably on Tsalal, which was now their own, but after the quake found their position untenable and made a desperate attempt in the boat to escape north. The combined crews of Halbrane and Jane decide to try to make it north in their newly acquired boat. They make good progress, until they notice the appearance of strong magnetic forces. They find the source of it, the Ice Sphinx: A huge mountain magnetically "charged" by the particle streams that get focussed on the poles through Earth's magnetic field. Here, they find the remains of Hearne's team, which came to grief when the Ice Sphinx' immense magnetic forces attracted their iron tools and boat components to it and smashed them on its rocks. The boat of Joerling and the others only escaped destruction because, being built by the natives, it contained no iron parts. At the foot of the Sphinx, they also find the body of Pym, who came to death the same way. Peters dies from grief on the same spot. The others embark again in their boat, and finally reach the open ocean and are rescued. In Arthur Gordon Pym, Tiger isn't mentioned again after Pym and the others take Grampus back from the mutineers; presumably the dog died in the storm. Tiger's appearance on Tsalal means the dog actually survived and was aboard the Jane as it entered the Antarctic waters. This would in turn mean that Pym and the others on the Grampus slew the mutineer Parker and ate him, while Tiger was still alive. Worse than that, the fact that Tiger survived the starvation ordeal implies that he, too, was fed from Parker's body. |
Queste | Angie Sage | null | Queste takes Septimus, Jenna and Beetle in search of Nicko and Snorri, to bring them back from the past. They go to Marcellus Pye, who has remembered some information from his 500 year old memory and provides them with some notes from Nicko and Snorri. The notes say that they planned to travel to the House Of Foryx where all times meet, and there they expected to come back to their time. Jenna takes the notes back with her to the Palace. In the meantime, Merrin Meredith travels to the Castle in hope of destroying Septimus. He bumps into Jenna who drops all the notes of Nicko and Snorri, they fall into a puddle and get wet. Jenna goes to the The Manuscriptorium and asks Beetle to help her replace the notes. Beetle then takes her to the restoration specialist Ephaniah Grebe. Ephaniah is a half man-half rat being. He Restores the pages and binds them in to a book, but they still miss one piece, the center of the map to the House of Foryx. Merrin, in the meantime, takes the job of a scribe in the Manuscriptorium. There he meets the ghost of Tertius Fume, the first Chief Hermetic Scribe. Tertius makes him transfer the loyalty of the Thing (a creature he aquired from reciting words from a book written by Tertius Fume) to him and assures that he will send Septimus on the perilous Queste. Tertius Fume arrives at the Wizard Tower along with the ghosts of all the previous ExtraOrdinary Wizards and announces that they are about to draw the Questing stone. Septimus feels a Darkenesse inside the urn where the stone is kept and tells that a Thing is there to sabotage the draw. They escape the Wizard tower as Tertius Fume puts it under Siege. But Septimus takes the Questing stone from Hildegarde thinking it to be a SafeCharm as Hildegarde tells him. Marcia tells Septimus not to take SafeCharms or Charms from strangers, but Septimus doesn't regard Hildegarde as a stranger. Marcia disagrees with that just to contradict and blame him for taking the Questing Stone. We find out that Hildegarde was actually InHabited by Tertius Fume's Thing. Septimus, Jenna and Beetle start their journey to the House of Foryx. Ephaniah Grebe promises to get Morwenna Mould, the Witch Mother of the Wendron Witches to show them the Forest Way. Ephaniah promises Morwenna anything in exchange for showing Septimus, Jenna, and Beetle the Forest Way. Septimus and Beetle overhear the witches talking that the Witch Mother will ask for Jenna and Ullr (who tags along with Jenna while Snorri is 500 years in the past). They escape the Coven and go to Camp Heap. Sam Heap shows them the Forest Way. They eventually reach the House and find Ephaniah near it. He had found the last missing piece of the map but was possessed by the Thing. Septimus, Jenna and Beetle enter the House of Foryx, but accidentally all three of them go inside. There Septimus is taken inside a door by a girl named Talmar Ray Bell and Septimus finds himself face to face with Hotep-Ra, first ExtraOrdinary wizard. In the meantime Jenna and Beetle find Nicko and Snorri and all of them try to escape the House of Foryx. Just as they were about to leave, Marcia and Sarah arrive outside the house on Spit Fyre, so all of them are able to return to their own time. |
Me and the Pumpkin Queen | null | null | The plot centers around an eleven-year old girl named Mildred whose mother, a former "pumpkin queen", died in Mildred's sixth year of life. Inspired by an image of her mother "wearing her Pumpkin Queen crown," Mildred tries to grow giant pumpkins in order to win a contest at the Circleville Pumpkin Show. |
Voice of the Whirlwind | Walter Jon Williams | 1,987 | Etienne Steward is a clone, also known as a beta. When he awakes, his memories are fifteen years old, because the original Steward -- the alpha -- never bothered to have his memories updated. In those fifteen years, the entire world has changed. An alien race known as The Powers has established relations with humanity. The Orbital Policorp which held his allegiance has collapsed. He fought and survived the off-world Artifacts War, but dozens of his friends did not. Both his first and second wives have divorced him. More importantly, someone has murdered him, causing the activation of the beta back-up. Now Steward has to figure out who wanted him dead, if he doesn't want to die again. |
Hardwired | Walter Jon Williams | 1,986 | The Orbital Corporations now control the world. In the ruins of an America ravaged by the Rock War, ex-fighter pilot Cowboy, who can be "hardwired" via skull sockets directly to his ride, has become a panzerboy, a hi-tech smuggler riding armored hovertanks through the balkanized countryside. He teams up with Sarah, another tough-as-nails gun-for-hire, to make a last stab at independence from the rapacious Orbitals. They gather an unlikely gang of misfits for a ride that will take them to the edge of the atmosphere. |
The Day After Judgment | James Blish | null | In the first book, a wealthy arms manufacturer comes to a black magician, Theron Ware, with a strange request: he wishes to release all the demons from hell for one night to see what might happen. The book includes a lengthy description of the summoning ritual, and a detailed description of the grotesque demons as they appear. Tension between Ware and Catholic white magicians arises over the terms and conditions of a covenant that provides for observers and limitations on interference with demonic workings. Black Easter ends with Baphomet announcing to the participants that the demons can not be compelled to return to hell: the War is over, and God is dead. The Day After Judgment develops and extends the characters from the first book. It suggests that God may not be dead, or that demons may not be inherently self-destructive, as something appears to be restraining the actions of the demons upon Earth. In a lengthy Miltonian speech at the end of the novel, Satan Mekratrig explains that, compared to humans, demons are good, and that if perhaps God has withdrawn Himself, then Satan beyond all others was qualified to take His place and, if anything, would be a more just god. It has been suggested that Blish got the name for his black magician from the titular character in Harold Frederic's 1896 novel, The Damnation of Theron Ware. |
The Prophecy | K. A. Applegate | 1,999 | Cassie comes home in owl morph to find a Hork-Bajir leaving the barn. Cassie realizes that if the Hork-Bajir is a Controller, the Yeerks might suspect that she is one of the "Andalite bandits". She attacks it, and nearly blinds him with her talons when she realizes it is in fact Jara Hamee. When she asks why he is there, he tells her that an Arn has come to the Hork-Bajir valley, and Toby wishes for their advice on what to do. Cassie tells the other Animorphs about the Arn the next day and they all agree to go. The Arn's name is Quafijinivon, the last of the Arns. He tells them that he wishes to create a force of Hork-Bajir to fight the Yeerks on their home world, by taking a sample of each Hork-Bajir's DNA. The Hork-Bajirs accept, but Quafijinivon also wishes to find a stash of weapons hidden by Aldrea - Seerow's Daughter. They ask him how will he do this if she is dead, and he tells them about the ixcila of Aldrea he preserved, an electronic copy of her personality, thoughts, and brainwaves. The Arn says Aldrea must choose a host to enter, and they decide it will be either Rachel, because of her dangerous attitude, or Toby because she is her granddaughter. During the Atafalxical ceremony Cassie is chosen as the host instead, she is asked if she accepts and Jake shouts "No". Cassie feels she has no choice, and says yes. The Chee take their place as humans while they're gone. When they make to the Hork-Bajir solar system, the ship is attacked by another Andalite ship. They cannot contact the ship because the Yeerks will pick up their signal. Ax refuses to fire back at the ship because he says he cannot attack a fellow Andalite for doing his job. Jake asks if Aldrea can do it and she says yes. She fires at the ship and destroys the engines, saving them. More Bug Fighters show up and Marco suggest that they move on, but Ax begs Jake to save the Andalite. Jake says they cannot leave, and they assist in destroying the Bug Fighters. Jake cuts the ensuing celebration short so they can focus on the task at hand. When they make it to the Hork-Bajir home world, Quafijinivon goes to his lab to work on the DNA samples. Aldrea has an idea where the weapons might be stashed and they travel deep into the woods. To their horror, they find that the place has been turned into a giant Yeerk pool. That is when they come up with an insane plan to get into the pool, which Aldrea is totally against. Cassie morphs into an Osprey and the others morph insects, and go into Cassie's mouth. She gets as much altitude as she possibly can, and starts to demorph but keeps her wings and starts to morph into a Humpback Whale as well. She has to let her wings go and go full Humpback Whale at just the right moment or the plan will fail, but the Hork-Bajir Controllers already spot her in the sky, although they cannot make her out as a human because she is partly in whale morph, and start firing at her. This causes Aldrea to panic and try to convince Cassie to go full whale now. When she cannot she tries to take over, but Cassie overpowers her and waits until the time is right to morph fully. When she is in the pool, Jake and Rachel demorph and remorph into Hammerhead Sharks and attack the Taxxon Controllers, while Tobias and Ax go as Andalites and attack Hork-Bajir Controllers. Marco goes as a Hork-Bajir shouting, "Andalites everywhere, thousands of them run" causing them to flee. They break into the weapons stash, take them, and escape in a Yeerk ship, delivering them to the Arn. At the end, Toby Hamee says that she wishes to stay on her homeworld and fight the Yeerks there. Aldrea does not want her great-granddaughter to suffer this fate, and thus comes up with a plan with Cassie and Ax to force her to stay in the Hork-Bajir Earth colony. Cassie successfully convinces Jake that Aldrea is trying to take control of her, leaving Ax to tell Aldrea that she will never take over the Animorphs because her great-granddaughter is with them. Satisfied, Aldrea leaves Cassie's body. |
The Mutation | K. A. Applegate | 2,002 | While using their aquatic morphs to chase the Yeerks' new Sea Blade, which was after the Pemalite ship, the Animorphs and Ax find themselves beached inside an underwater cavern. The cavern seems to be littered, however, with several different types of air and sea craft, with what appears to be human statues inside. Further inspection by Cassie and Ax reveals that these people were real, and were killed and stuffed for preservation. While attempting to escape and locate Visser Three, whose ship was taken by a strange, humanoid aquatic species, Jake, Cassie, Ax, Rachel, and Marco, all in their natural forms, are captured by these life-forms, who reveal themselves as Nartec. (Tobias was on lookout above, and therefore was not captured.) The Nartec queen explains that they once were humans who lived above water, and when their city sunk, they began to adapt to underwater life. Ax realizes that radioactivity is what aided their ability to evolve so quickly. He also surmises that the Nartec have inbred for years, except for possible breeding with their captives prior to killing them, so their genetic code is breaking down. After the Nartec queen makes it clear that she intends to "preserve" the Animorphs, she permits them to do some sightseeing, but warns them not to try and escape. Of course, the Animorphs have no interest in being killed, stuffed, and added to a collection, so they plan to locate Tobias, figure out where Visser Three is hiding, and capture the Sea Blade to escape. However, their plans are foiled by a Nartec ambush from the water, and the Animorphs are taken to an operating room of sorts to be "preserved." Given a mind-numbing agent, Jake begins to slip away, when he notices a Nartec suddenly attacking the other Nartecs in the room and wiping them out. The rogue Nartec demorphs into a Red-Tailed Hawk, Tobias, and aids the others in escaping. The Animorphs climb on board the Sea Blade, only to be challenged by hordes of Nartec, wielding weapons ranging from spears and clubs, to automatic rifles and machine guns. While the Animorphs, in their standard combat morphs, had no difficulty attacking the Nartec and holding them at bay for a while, they began to be worn down by sheer force of number. Finally they struck a reluctant alliance with Visser Three (who had been hiding on the ship the whole time while his crew were killed and stuffed), who guided them in starting the Sea Blade and escaping. Under Jake's orders, Marco, whose gorilla morph was gutted by a sword, opened the hatch to the Sea Blade, and the Animorphs swam to the surface. Visser Three survived as well, though separated from the Animorphs. |
Gladiator at Law | Cyril M. Kornbluth | 1,955 | The action takes place in and around a future Monmouth City, New Jersey. The city proper consists of luxurious GML bubble homes which can change shape at the whim of their occupants, and anticipate their every need. At the edge of Monmouth City is the slum of Belly Rave, originally a gimcrack suburb built on a landfill and sold to unsuspecting young couples. Charles Mundin and Norvell Bligh first meet when Bligh is trying to adopt his stepdaughter, mostly at the behest of his upwardly mobile wife, Virginia. Bligh then returns to work on the next gruesomely spectacular Field Day to be organized by his company, while Mundin visits Republican Party headquarters, where he is introduced to the Lavins by his friend, the local Ward Chairman whose brother also knows Bligh. Bligh finds himself tricked out of his job by his assistant, abetted by one of the secretaries who is keen to marry a man with a job whose benefits include a GML home. Bligh is arrested when he tries to drown his sorrows, only to find his company credit card has been cancelled. Mundin uses his political connections to have Bligh freed, but then Bligh and his family are unceremoniously dumped in Belly Rave. Virginia is no stranger to the place, but Bligh needs the help of a local, who calls himself Shep. With Shep's guidance Bligh negotiates the "public assistance" system which ensures that nobody starves, without actually making life worth living. Shep scrapes together materials so he can paint "rainscapes", views of Belly Rave in the rain. Other residents indulge in a kind of barter, or petty theft, extortion, and gang crime, or simply anaesthetize themselves with liquor made from the desserts in their ration packs. Virginia, opportunistic as ever, begins eyeing Shep as a replacement for Norvell. Mundin eventually visits the Lavins, who live in a different part of Belly Rave, and meets Ryan, a broken-down corporate attorney addicted to "yen-pox", an opiate in the form of crude pills. Ryan has a plan for recovering the shares which Donald Lavin hid away before he was brainwashed, but the initial effort at obtaining records from GML result in Norma Lavin being kidnapped. Ryan is strangely elated, as it is evident that GML seems to think their activities are a threat, which could give him some leverage in negotiations. He decides to send Mundin to a shareholder's meeting. This entails buying a GML share on Wall Street, which has become a hybrid stock-market and public casino. Mundin braves the touts and thugs of the market to trick his way to buying a share, normally impossible because of the activities of certain brokers. Hiding out in Belly Rave, he meets Bligh, who has become adept in negotiating with the gangs there. Bligh arranges Mundin's safe passage to the company meeting, in a deliberately obscure building on Long Island. At the meeting Mundin, learning to play off the power brokers against each other, gains access to Norma who was a "guest" of one faction. Mundin also gains an ally in Bliss Hubble, a "Titan of Industry" who sees in the Lavin's shares a way to unseat the faction currently in control of GML. Recruiting a few more Titans to his cause, he takes the entire party to his elaborate GML bubble-house, which is currently configured as a Gothic mansion, thanks to a household servant with a grudge. With Bliss's backing, Ryan and Mundin are suddenly a full-fledged law firm with expensive offices. The plan Bliss hatches is to bankrupt GML rather than indulge in a proxy battle. Mundin is dispatched to sabotage certain GML houses, including the model in the Smithsonian, at the same time spreading rumors through his political connections. Bliss bankrolls some illegal medical treatment for Don Lavin, in order to reverse his brainwashing. After this, they are able to recover the Lavins' stock certificates from a bank in Ohio, where GML was founded. Norvell, meanwhile, is becoming an important man in Belly Rave. His experience catering to crowds in the Field Days allows him to organize the otherwise listless residents to clean the place up and even try some local policing. Shep, meanwhile, has become too close to Virginia, and Bligh has applied corrective action with a piece of lead pipe. At this point the much dreaded firm of "Green, Charlesworth" intervene. They occupy the entire Empire State Building on the otherwise uninhabited island of Manhattan. Rather than send their minions to shut down the plot, they grant Norma Lavin and Mundin an "audience" at their headquarters. Here they are revealed to be a grotesque pair of ancient human beings, a man and a woman, trapped in husks of bodies in glass cases, but able to exert influence with their minds, their devices, and their money. They own GML and have used it to rule their world. They claim to be centuries old, having "fixed Mr. Lincoln's wagon" and they threaten to do the same to Mundin and the Lavin's. Mundin identifies them as the Struldbrugs described by satirist Jonathan Swift. Returning to their offices, Mundin and Norma find that only Bliss Hubble and the increasingly comatose Ryan are still on their side. They resolve to carry on regardless, but then chaos ensues as listening devices planted by Green, Charlesworth explode around them. In the confusion, Donald disappears, responding to a subliminal signal as if he is still brainwashed. They find him at the Field Day, entered in an event where he walks a tightrope across a pool of piranha fish while under a hail of rocks from the crowd. Despite their efforts at bribing the mob not to throw anything, aided by threats from Bligh's teenage gangsters, Donald falls into the pool. Bligh is ready to sacrifice himself to save Donald, but instead the tortured artist Shep throws himself in with the fish. Declaring war on GML and Green, Charlesworth, they return to Wall Street where Mundin starts a run on the market by carefully selling off large chunks of the GML stock. After a while the selling takes on a life of its own, despite the efforts of various people, acting unwittingly on behalf of Green, Charlesworth, to have Mundin arrested on trumped-up charges, or to discourage him from selling. As the market collapses, the plotters are left with large amounts of cash, which they use to buy up GML and other companies at bargain prices. At the end they are counting their riches and savoring their triumph, just as Green, Charlesworth, across the water in Manhattan, destroy themselves in a nuclear explosion. |
Love, Stargirl | Jerry Spinelli | 2,007 | Stargirl, living now in Pennsylvania, tells her own story this time, in "the world's longest letter," which is actually a series of journal entries. New in town, homeschooled, and feeling rejected by Leo, the 16-year-old narrator of the first book who had fallen under her spell, she is lonely and sad -- her "happy wagon," where she keeps stones representing her level of happiness, is almost empty. She befriends Dootsie, a loud but lovable 6-year-old who takes a shine to Stargirl and her pet rat. Dootsie introduces her to Betty Lou, an agoraphobic elder woman. She is quite nice and Stargirl soon becomes friends with her as well. With the arrival of autumn, Stargirl's life is affected when, arriving at her Enchanted Hill to plant another spatula in her solar calendar, a calendar counting down the days to the Winter Solstice, she sees a house on fire, and in her attempt to break in to warn any possible residents, she ends up in the hospital with smoke-damaged lungs and a sprained ankle. She stays in the hospital for five weeks, getting visited by Dootsie (in her Halloween costume), Alvina, a grumpy young girl who delivers donuts to Betty Lou, Perry, a teen boy who she is falling in love with, and his harem: The Honeybees. She is also getting calls from Betty Lou. Once Stargirl recovers, she returns to her Enchanted Hill to plant the next spatula, only to find Perry has been planting them in her absence. Perry and Stargirl share a sunrise kiss, ending Stargirl's confusion over having feelings for both Leo and Perry, but leaving her to deal with the reality of living with uncertainty. As winter sets in, Stargirl turns herself to planning her Winter Solstice party, inviting all of the people she has encountered in her new town to celebrate the beginning of winter by joining her at sunrise on the Enchanted Hill, which she nows calls Calendar Hill. Stargirl also discovers the truth about Perry. He has been very mysterious about his family and personal life. She learns his mother has a new baby, whom Perry has been trying to support by working several jobs last summer and by resorting to "stealing" to avoid burdening her with feeding him. In the end, Stargirl becomes worried that no one will show up for her solstice party, but is reassured by Archie, her former teacher and friend from Arizona, who arrives to attend her celebration and comforts her with his wisdom. On the morning of the Winter Solstice, Stargirl is overwhelmed and surprised when a huge crowd of her friends and acquaintances, and several other people she's unfamiliar with, flock to Calendar Hill, including her friend Betty Lou who hasn't left her house in nine years. The magic moment of sunrise is magnified by a special tent her parents have built, allowing the sunlight to stream in through a hole in the tent, forming a single beam that cuts through the crowd of people and pierces the back wall. Everyone is profoundly affected by the start of this new day, and returns home to the start of cold winter. In the end, Stargirl asks Archie what she should do about missing Leo, and also what is happening with Perry. He tells her to remember who she is and do what her heart tells her. |
Dog Wizard | Barbara Hambly | 1,992 | The story opens with the exiled wizard Antryg Windrose and his companion Joanna living in California after their escape through the void to Earth, after being condemned to death in the previous book, The Silicon Mage. The story continues as Joanna is kidnapped from her apartment by a mysterious person wearing the robes of a mage. Antryg is forced to respond to the call of the wizards who condemned them in order to track her whereabouts. After he arrives at the Citadel of Wizards, he realizes that he was brought there for a completely different reason, and that the wizards have no idea where Joanna is or who kidnapped her. |
The Book of Everything | Guus Kuijer | 2,004 | The book, set in Amsterdam, relates the tale of a nine-year-old boy named Thomas who see things no one else can, such as invisible hail that "ripped all the leaves from the trees", and tropical fish in the canal. Thomas lives in a family of four: his parents and his sister, Margot. They are not, however, a harmonious family, as their father repeatedly hits their mother, and punishes Thomas by beating him with a wooden spoon. He is a very religious man, but he fears embarrassment and is said to "not belong with people". Thomas writes down everything in his "Book of Everything", a diary which holds his thoughts. |
The Arrival | K. A. Applegate | 2,000 | When the Animorphs see a front-page article about the Sharing in the Chronicle, they attempt to break into the office of the major local newspaper to determine how deeply infiltrated it is by the Yeerks. Mr. King (a Chee android) is captured and is about to be destroyed, and the group bursts out of hiding to rescue him. It is soon evident that the situation is a trap set up by Visser Three, and he joins the battle, engaging directly with Ax and the others in Andalite form. As the Animorphs try to run, a small group of new Andalites appear out of the elevator, and turn the tides of the battle. Tobias informs them that the police are coming, and the groups call an uneasy truce and depart to maintain secrecy. Ax, excited to see his own people after so long, is afraid to leave them without knowing how to make contact them, but a female who fought next to him reveals that they know his identity and will find him. Back at Cassie's barn, Ax is excited that the Andalite fleet has finally arrived, but the others aren't so sure. After a few assertions that Ax is not seeing the situation clearly, in part because of a crush on Estrid (the female Andalite), and a jab from Rachel about where his loyalties lay, Ax leaves the barn in anger after assuring them that he will follow Jake's command. He runs until his anger cools, at which point it is revealed that he is deeply infatuated with Estrid. Having found a $20 bill, Tobias and Ax go to the food court where they discover Estrid in human morph making a scene that attracts mall security. They escape with her because Tobias pretended that Estrid was his sister. They set up a meeting with her superiors. The newcomers are offended that Ax disobeyed their orders by bringing Jake (and the others, they soon find out) to the meeting, and that he is following a human's command. After much in-fighting amongst themselves, the small group of Andalites with an out-of-date ship accidentally reveal that they are the only Andalites in the area, and not fore-runners of the fleet as Ax had assumed. The group has been sent to Earth on a mission to assassinate Visser Three. Ax finds himself (competitively) fighting with the aristh Estrid, whom he beats, but just barely. He admires her skill in tailfighting, but is confused by her lack of military decorum. The letdown of the further delay of the fleet causes the Animorphs to split up in a dramatic scene at Cassie's barn. Each member leaves for reasons typical of their character, with Jake finally releasing Ax to "try to go home, if [he] can". Ax, once the humans are gone, calls out Estrid, who has been hiding in the barn in rabbit morph, but poorly concealed due to a lack of understanding of the animal's typical behavior. He tells her he will teach her about Earth, and she takes him back to the Andalite ship. The other members of the ship are Commander Gonrod-Isfall-Sonilli, Intelligence Advisor Arbat-Elivat-Estoni, and the assassin Aloth-Attamil-Gahar. Ax is shown around the ship by Aloth, who reveals that he was in prison for selling organs off of a battle field prior to the current assignment. Aloth, who is deeply cynical about the whole group, reveals that Gonrod, while an excellent pilot, was also in prison for cowardice during battle, and that Arbat has the Andalite War Council wrapped around his finger. There is some ambiguity as to who the real "leader" of the expedition is. It is revealed to Ax that Arbat is the brother of Alloran-Semitur-Corrass, Visser 3's host. The ship, the Ralek River, is an old laboratory ship, whose lab-level has been sealed off to conserve energy. Ax notes the strangeness of the situation, and is certain that Estrid is not really an aristh, after she audaciously announces that she is going to the Gardens and wants Ax to show her around. The two fly to the Gardens and explore in Andalite form. Estrid asks Ax about jelly beans, and in response he kicks some M&Ms out of a vending machine for her to try in human morph. The two assume human forms, and after eating, they kiss. They agree that it is pleasant (though not as much as chocolate). Ax is clearly smitten, and on the flight back, silently contemplates for a moment the idea of running away with Estrid and leaving behind the difficult shades of gray of his life. He shakes off the reverie and they return to the ship to plan for the morning's attack on the Visser. Ax later suddenly realizes that Estrid had made a joking reference to plintcorhythmic equations, which are employed in an incredibly complex bioengineering field involving clear thought in n-dimensions, but uneasily writes it off as a figure of speech. The Andalites (minus Estrid, whom Arbat forces to stay behind) infiltrate the Community Center and make it all the way to the inner sanctum without raising the alarm. Arbat, who has demanded he have the first shot out of pride after Aloth implies that he might not give the order to kill his brother's body, misses an easy shot, even though he has proved himself a competent fighter earlier in the book. A battle ensues, and Ax fails to kill the Visser out of a morality-induced hesitation. Aloth is injured when he breaks concentration for a moment to look for Gonrod, who has fled back to the ship. Arbat kills Aloth under the pretense that he "was too injured to save", which is a lie. Furious and confused, Ax is certain that something very strange is going on. Ax gets a Chee to help him hack into the ship's computers and gain access to the high-security files concealed by Arbat. All of the members of the Andalite team are officially listed as dead in combat, and Estrid is not on record at all in the military. The ship was listed as destroyed in the same battle. Ax realizes that the ship is on a suicide mission, and that Arbat has something planned that the Andalite War Council does not "officially" know about. Hearing motion on the supposedly empty laboratory level of the ship, Ax confronts Estrid and forces her to talk by threatening to open a vial of some unknown substance of which she is terrified. Estrid reveals that she was never in the military, but learned to tail-fight from her famously-skilled brother. She was a young genius, and after initially being ignored because of her gender, was discovered by Arbat at the university. She took up plintconarhythmic physics under his guidance, and has created a programmable prion virus (the vial that Ax puts down) that will destroy the Yeerks—and very possibly wipe out humans as well. Arbat finds them and traps them, and Ax explains to Estrid that their mission doesn't officially exist and is not sanctioned by general Andalite society, like she was led to believe. Arbat takes the vial of the disease and leaves them. As Estrid apologizes, the Animorphs are revealed to be on board, as their "split-up" was simply a ploy to get Ax in with the Andalites. The Animorphs and a Chee free them, and the group of 7 finds evidence of Arbat and follows him to the Yeerk pool in human form, except for Tobias, who stays as a hawk. Ax spots Arbat's human morph by his Andalite instinct to keep looking around now that he has only 2 eyes, and stops him on the pier over the Yeerk pool, prolonging the chaos by yelling that the Hork Bajir are Andalite Bandits in disguise. In the ensuing confusion, the Animorphs begin to attack, and Ax and Estrid move to a hidden spot to demorph. Estrid, terrified and disgusted by the Yeerk pool, refuses to demorph and fight to protect the humans, who are not part of their species. Ax leaves to protect his friends, telling her that she is beautiful and brilliant but he "doesn't think he likes her very much". The battle is bloody and the group is outnumbered, though their backs are covered by human hosts who have linked together into a living shield. Arbat makes it back to the pier, and Ax cannot reach him in time. He is about to drop the vial into the pool when Estrid vaporizes it (and Arbat's hand) with a Dracon beam. At that moment Gonrod (at Tobias' urging) burns a hole through the roof of the cavernous complex, and rescues the Animorphs with the Andalite ship. Ax leaves Arbat to die at the hands of the Taxxons. Ax gives Estrid a cinnamon bun as a parting gift, but refuses to return home with her. She does not understand his loyalty and dedication to his non-Andalite friends. The fate of Estrid and Gonrod is unknown. The Animorphs and Ax all assume human forms and enjoy their victory. They walk to get food (though not at the McDonald's, as Tobias and Gonrod had destroyed the place to burn into the Yeerk pool). Despite the unawareness of most of the others, Cassie picks up on Ax's pain, and holds his hand as the group walks, as he cries, invisibly, in the dark. |
The Hidden | K. A. Applegate | 2,000 | The Yeerks repair a downed Helmacron ship and use its sensors to track the Escafil Device and the Animorphs morphing abilities. Cassie is forced to relocate the Escafil Device. During the process, a Cape buffalo and an ant inadvertently gain the morphing ability. The buffalo morphs Chapman and begins to learn speech, and the ant morphs Cassie. Cassie kills the ant when it demorphs, and near the end of the book the buffalo is killed by a Dracon beam. However, the Animorphs come up with a plan similar to Megamorphs #1, in which Cassie morphs a humpback whale in midair to destroy the helicopter carrying the Helmacron ship. |
Innocent Traitor | Alison Weir | null | This book tells the life of "The Nine Day Queen" through various characters' eyes, from Lady Jane to Queen Mary. This book tells of Jane's childhood and offers explanation to her conversion to the Protestant faith. It tells of her relationship to the future Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth I along with her forced and unwanted marriage. It ends with her final days. |
The Abyss | Marguerite Yourcenar | 1,968 | Zeno, an illegitimate son is born in the Ligre household, a rich banking family of Bruges. Zeno renounces a comfortable career in the priesthood and leaves home to find truth at the age of twenty. In his youth, after leaving Bruges, he greedily seeks knowledge by roaming the roads of Europe and beyond, leaving in his wake a nearly legendary — but also dangerous — reputation of genius due to the works he accomplishes. |
The Treasure of El Patron | Gary Paulsen | 1,996 | The story is about Tag and Cowboy who spend their free time searching for treasure from sunken ships off the coast of Bermuda. They find themselves involved in drug dealings when asked to locate a bag that fell to the ocean floor. |
Skydive! | Gary Paulsen | 1,996 | The story is about 13-year-old Jesse Rodriguez who has an exciting job working for his friend Buck at a small flight and skydiving school near Seattle. But he can't wait to turn 16 and finally be able to make his first free-fall jump from a plane. |
The Seventh Crystal | Gary Paulsen | 1,996 | The story is about Chris Masters who is having problems with bullies at his school, stealing his lunch money and threatening him. His next biggest problem is a video game called The Seventh Crystal which came in the mail with almost no instructions. |
The Creature of Black Water Lake | Gary Paulsen | 1,997 | The story is about Ryan Swanner and his mom who have just moved to the mountain resort of Black Water Lake. The locals tell of a giant, ancient creature which lives beneath the lake's seemingly calm surface. |
Time Benders | Gary Paulsen | 1,997 | The story is about Zack Griffin and Jeff Brown who both win trips to a famous science laboratory. There they discover that one of the machines in the lab can "bend" time, and they end up in ancient Egypt. |
Fire Bringer | David Clement-Davies | 2,000 | This is the story of Rannoch, a red deer born in ancient Scotland. The story begins on the night his father, Brechin, was murdered, and his mother, Eloin, taken by the servant of the Lord of the Herd, Sgorr. But Rannoch is no ordinary deer; he is special, for he bears a white mark on his forehead resembling an oak leaf. To the Herla, as the deer are called among the world of the animals, this white mark holds great meaning and power. It was stated in a prophecy that the deer who was born with the mark would bring freedom to all Herla in the future, and that the bearer of the oak mark would be a healer and have the ability to communicate with all animals. The Lord of the Herds, Drail, wants Rannoch killed out of fear of The Prophecy. Drail is tricked and murdered by Sgorr, who has militarized the herd by making the stags sharpen their antlers, training and drilling the young bucks, having them bore each other in the forehead to make permanent scars, and will take no resistance. He realizes the threat Rannoch poses to his leadership. Rannoch escapes from the herd, accompanied by Bracken, not his real mother, and his companions Thistle, Tain, twins Peppa and Willow, Quiach, Bankfoot and their mothers, and Bhreac, an old doe who promised the herd storyteller to protect Rannoch. Growing up outside of the herd, he struggles to choose between the life of freedom he now has and the future laid out for him by the prophecy. He knows that he must return, in order to unite the deer, and end Sgorr's reign of terror. |
The Masked Rider: Cycling in West Africa | Neil Peart | 1,996 | In November 1988, Peart joined David Mozer's Bicycle Africa for a month-long tour of Cameroon. Along with David, Neil would travel with three other strangers. Leonard; an African-American electrical engineer who is also a Vietnam vet. Elsa; a slender 60-year-old pacifist who would struggle to keep up with everyone and complain about everything. And Annie; a 30-something administrative assistant who was often scatterbrained. Peart, an avid reader, brought two books on the trip with him, Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle and Dear Theo by Vincent van Gogh, to read at rest stops and before bedtime. He would entwine thoughts about these two books throughout The Masked Rider. They all met in Douala, where they would first travel west along the coast of the Atlantic Ocean and then turn north to the heart of the former British Cameroon, stopping at many towns in Southern Cameroon along the way, like Tiko, Buea, Limbe, Kumba, Nkongsamba, Bafang, Bafoussam, Mbouda, Bamenda, Bafut, Ndop, Kumbo, Jakiri, and Foumban. As they travel, Elsa starts complaining and is so tired after a few days she contemplates quitting, but it was David who encouraged her to keep going. Neil and the others also experience many things about each town; how nice some are (Bamenda) and how not so nice the others are (Kumba). Peart called Kumba "a real hell hole." They also meet a Peace Corps volunteer named Kim in Jakiri who cooked them all hamburgers. After the Southern tour is over, all five of them are crammed into a bus in Foumban to go to Yaoundé where they spend two days before boarding a train to Ngaoundéré. Once there, they board another bus for Garoua. However, this bus would have problems, starting with the bus driver allowing both of one set of dual tires to blow out, and managing to obtain another tire to fix it all before continuing on (as there was only one spare tire, which was useless when two tires are blown out). Eventually, about 30 miles from Garoua, the bus's engine would give out, and they decide to start cycling again from there. From before Garoua, the gang starts cycling again to towns and villages in the north. After Garoua, it would be Hama Koussou, Dembo, Tchevi, Roumsiki, Guave, Mabas, Tourou, Mozogo, Mora, Waza, Ndiguina, Maltam, Kousséri, and finally, to N'Djamena, Chad. During this time, Neil would get nervous while being accosted by a very, very drunk Cameroon soldier in Dembo, he and Leonard would almost wind up in Nigeria, they would enjoy looking at wildlife in a game park, Campement de Waza, while enjoying a bit of luxury, and finally continuing onto N'Djamena, where they would have further adventures concluding the trip. First, they had to obtain exit visas to leave Cameroon, then they would be told they would need one to leave Chad, which they were afraid they could not get in time for the one flight per week. Peart would get so ill the night before worrying about all this, he could not face dinner, but the next morning was much better, and they all managed to leave the country and conclude the tour. Neil, Leonard, and Elsa would fly UTA to Paris, while David and Annie would fly Air Afrique to Mali. At the end, Neil would spend a week with his then-wife, Jackie, in Paris. |
Esther Waters | null | null | Esther Waters is born to hard-working parents who are Plymouth Brethren in Barnstaple. Her father's premature death prompts her mother to move to London and marry again, but Esther's stepfather turns out to be a hard-drinking bully and wife-beater who forces Esther, a natural beauty, to leave school and go out to work instead, thus greatly reducing her chances of ever learning how to read and write, and Esther remains illiterate all her life. Her first job ("situation") outside London is that of a kitchen maid with the Barfields, a nouveau riche family of horse breeders, horse racers and horse betters who live at Woodview near Shoreham. There she meets William Latch, a footman, and lets herself be seduced by him. Dreaming of a future with Latch, she is dismayed to find that he is having an affair with the Barfields' niece, who is staying at Woodview. After Latch and his lover have eloped together, Esther stays on at Woodview until she cannot hide her pregnancy any longer. Although she has found a kindred soul in Mrs Barfield, who is also a Plymouth Sister and abhors the betting on horses going on all around her, Esther is dismissed ("I couldn't have kept you on, on account of the bad example to the younger servants") and reluctantly goes back to London. With the little money she has saved, she can stay in a rented room out of her stepfather's sight. Her mother is pregnant with her eighth child and dies giving birth to it at the same time Esther is at Queen Charlotte's Hospital giving birth to a healthy boy she calls Jack. Still in confinement, she is visited by her oldest sister who asks her for money for her passage to Australia, where her whole family have decided to emigrate. Esther never hears of them again. Learning that a young mother in her situation can make good money by becoming a wet nurse, Esther leaves her newborn son in the care of a baby farmer and nurses the weakly child of a wealthy woman ("Rich folk don't suckle their own") who, out of fear of infection, forbids Esther any contact with Jack. When, after two long weeks, she finally sees her son again, realizes that he is anything but prospering and even believes that his life might be in danger, she immediately takes him with her, terminates her employment without notice and then sees no other way than to "accept the shelter of the workhouse" for herself and Jack. But Esther is lucky, and after only a few months can leave the workhouse again. She chances upon Mrs Lewis, a lonely widow living in East Dulwich who is both willing and able to raise her boy in her stead, while she herself goes into service again. However, she is not able to really settle down anywhere: either the work is so hard and the hours so long that, fearing for her health, she quits again; or she is dismissed when her employers find out about the existence of her illegitimate son, concluding that she is a "loose" woman who must not work in a respectable household. Later on, while hiding her son's existence, she is fired when the son of the house, in his youthful fervour, makes passes at her and eventually writes her a love letter she cannot read. Another stroke of luck in her otherwise dreary life is her employment as general servant in West Kensington with Miss Rice, a novelist who is very sympathetic to her problems ("Esther could not but perceive the contrast between her own troublous life and the contented privacy of this slender little spinster's"). While working there, she makes the acquaintance of Fred Parsons, a Plymouth Brother and political agitator, who proposes to Esther at about the same time she bumps into William Latch again while on an errand for her mistress. Latch, who has amassed a small fortune betting on horses and as a bookmaker ("I am worth to-day close on three thousand pounds"), is the proprietor of a licensed public house in Soho and has separated from his adulterous wife, waiting for his marriage to be divorced. He immediately declares his unceasing love for Esther and urges her to live with him and work behind the bar of his pub. Esther realizes that she has arrived at a crossroads and that she must make up her mind between the sheltered, serene and religious life Parsons is offering her—which she is really longing for—and sharing the financially secure but turbulent existence of a successful small-time entrepreneur who, as she soon finds out, operates on both sides of the law. Eventually, for the sake of her son's future, she decides to go to Soho with Latch, and after his divorce has come through the couple get married. A number of years of relative happiness follow. Jack, now in his teens, can be sent off to school, and Esther even has her own servant. But Latch is a gambler, and nothing can stop him from risking most of the money he has in the vague hope of gaining even more. Illegal betting is conducted in an upstairs private bar, but more and more also across the counter, until the police clamp down on his activities, his licence is revoked, and he has to pay a heavy fine. This coincides with Latch developing a chronic, sometimes bloody, cough, contracting pneumonia, and finally, in his mid-thirties, being diagnosed with tuberculosis ("consumption"). However, rather than not touching what little money he still has for his wife and son's sake, the dying man puts everything on one horse, loses, and dies a few days later. With Miss Rice also dead, Esther has no place to turn to and again takes on any menial work she can get hold of. Then she remembers Mrs Barfield, contacts her and, when asked to come to Woodview as her servant, gladly accepts while Jack, now old enough to earn his own living, stays behind in London. When she arrives there, Esther finds the once proud estate in a state of absolute disrepair, with Mrs Barfield the only inhabitant. Mistress and maid develop an increasingly intimate relationship with each other and, for the first time in their lives, can practise their religion unhindered. Looking back on her "life of trouble and strife," Esther, now about 40, says she has been able to fulfil her task—to see her boy "settled in life," and thus does not see any reason whatsoever to want to get married again. In the final scene of the novel, Jack, who has become a soldier, visits the two women at Woodview. |
The Sweet Dove Died | Barbara Pym | null | Leonora Eyre, an attractive and elegant, but essentially selfish, middle-aged woman, becomes friendly with antique dealer Humphrey Boyce and his nephew James. Both men are attracted to Leonora, but Leonora prefers the young, good-looking James to the more "suitable" Humphrey. While James is away on a buying trip, Leonora discovers to her annoyance that he has been seeing Phoebe, a girl of his own age. Leonora makes use of Humphrey to humiliate Phoebe, and turns out a sitting tenant in order that James can take up a flat in her own house. She does this in an apparent attempt to control his life. While abroad, the bisexual James has begun a relationship with an American, the amoral Ned, who later follows him to London. Ned prises James out of Leonora's grasp, only to reject him for another lover. James attempts a reconciliation with Leonora, but she refuses to give him a second opportunity to hurt her, and settles for the admiration of the less attractive Humphrey. As with all Pym's fiction, the novel contains many literary references, notably to works by Keats, John Milton and Henry James. |
Extremes | Kristine Kathryn Rusch | 2,003 | During a marathon race that takes place on the Moon in the future, a corpse is discovered lying in the path the runners take. Noelle DeRicci, a detective, is sent to investigate. The corpse is initially identified as Jane Zweig, a famous business person who operates an extraterrestrial "extreme sports" corporation. Miles Flint, the retrieval agent who used to work for DeRicci, is almost simultaneously hired to also look for Frieda Tey, who they think has been living under the name Jane Zweig. Frieda Tey had been hiding from the results of her biological experiments. The most infamous being a virus that killed more than 200 subjects in an experiment that reminds this person of Josef Mengele. By the time that the police determine that the murder scene was staged, the fast-acting virus that Tey had used on Io was starting to affect the runners in the marathon. |
The Emperor's Children | Claire Messud | 2,006 | The novel focuses on the stories of three friends in their early thirties, living in Manhattan in the months leading up to September 11, 2001. All three are well-educated and privileged, but struggle with realizing the lofty expectations for their own personal and professional lives. |
The Unquiet Earth | Denise Giardina | null | The Unquiet Earth is a novel written from the perspective of multiple narrators. The three main narrators are Dillon, Rachel, and Jackie who are all family. Dillon is Rachel's younger cousin, and Jackie is most likely their child. The story begins prior to the birth of Jackie and is narrated by Dillon and Rachel, children living on their family land, the Homeplace. From the beginning, Dillon makes claims that he loves Rachel partially because she is the only one who has memories of his father. They both narrate parts of their childhood and the beginning of the novel mainly depicts how their relationship grows and how their love for one another begins. They are first cousins - therefore, their mothers are sisters. The first instance in which their love is really shown is when Rachel falls into a river and Dillon is forcibly restrained by his mother from diving in to save her because of her fear of losing him as well. He is forced to watch Rachel suffer and nearly be swept away by the current, but luckily she was dragged out by the mule she was riding. They rush her home, and Dillon watches through a window as his mother helps a cold and naked Rachel recover. The story continues as they grow older and continue to fight for love. Rachel ends up leaving the Homeplace to attend a nursing school, where she spends several subsequent years. Dillon then, in what everyone believes is out of anger of Rachel leaving him, enlists in the British army to fight against Hitler. Upon Rachel's graduation from nursing school, she and her friend Tommie Justice enlist as nurses in the war as well. Rachel returns to find out that the Homeplace is no longer their land as Dillon had forewarned her many times. They are reunited at the number thirteen mine in Justice County where the remainder of the story takes place. Rachel continues working there as a county nurse, and Dillon works for the mine while avidly fighting for the union against the American Coal Company and Arthur Lee, who owns it. Arthur Lee is already an acquaintance of Rachel's because he dated her friend Tommie previously and introduced her to his friend Tony. Rachel and Dillon continue to fight and disagree about their love for one another. Rachel is scared that they would be deemed illegitimate by society and tries to deny her love for her cousin. This offends and angers Dillon, who is against the social norms and wishes to love Rachel even if society believes it is the wrong thing to do. He wants to marry Rachel, but it is illegal to marry a first cousin. When the trouble with the coal company gets worse, Dillon asks that Rachel leave her job for the county, and help him in the fight against the coal companies as the other wives were doing. However, Dillon and Rachel were raised differently, and the words of her dying mother echoed in her head. She was raised by her mother to believe that men want a prim and proper lady, certainly not one who has sex before marriage. It would be wrong for kin to sleep with kin, and even more wrong for two first cousins to marry one another. Standing strong in these beliefs, Rachel ends up marrying Tony, an Italian man that Tommie and Arthur Lee set her up with. She has trouble having kids with Tony and continues to stay close to Dillon. Eventually, she gives into the fact that she loves Dillon and they make love in the secluded area of Trace Mountain where they conceive their daughter, Jackie. However, throughout the rest of the novel this escape to the mountain is kept quiet and Jackie believes until the very end that Tony is her father. After Rachel and Tony finally divorce due to an unhappy marriage and his escapes to the bar, Tony gets remarried and has trouble again having babies. Rachel fears that this will cause him suspicion of Jackie being his and that he will try to take her away. Dillon's prior paranoia is justified at the end of the novel. The book closes with the breaking of the dawn above the towns, and eventually shows once again that the mining company's guarantee of safety was untrue. Jackie is left alone after the deaths of Tom and Dillon in the flood and moves away. The story closes with Jackie wanting to forget the place she called home. The book does a good job of creating a scene of mountain utopia that was slowly eroded away by the mining to an area that was undesirable and almost uninhabitable. |
Possessing the Secret of Joy | Alice Walker | 1,992 | It tells the story of Tashi, an African woman and a minor character in Walker's earlier novel The Color Purple. Now in the US she comes from Olinka, Alice Walker's fictional African nation where female genital mutilation is practiced. Tashi marries an American man named Adam then left Olinka because of the war. Tashi chooses go back to Olinka to undergo circumcison because she is a woman torn between two cultures, Olinkan and Western. Instead of feeling free from not having the procedure done as a child it ends up bothering her. She wants to honor her Olinkan roots and has the operation in her teen years, although it is usually performed on female children. Tashi later sees several psychiatrists because she goes crazy due to the trauma she has suffered before finding the strength to act. The novel is told in many different voices, which are the characters in the novel. The novel explores what it means to have one's gender culturally defined and emphasizes that, according to Walker, "Torture is not culture." |
File Under Popular | null | null | The essays in File Under Popular tackle the subject of "popular music", what it is, its origins and the political and marketing forces behind it. Chris Cutler charts the history of music and how it was changed by written notation and then recording technology. Three of the essays dwell specifically on individual musicians and groups, namely Sun Ra, The Residents, Phil Ochs and Elvis Presley, but their stories are told within the context of the evolution of music. "Necessity and Choice in Musical Forms" is the first sketch of an analytical theory that shows how memory systems underpin the forms that music can take; part III of this essay is a personnel memoir of Cutler's that explains how his former band, Henry Cow functioned outside the music industry and their involvement in the establishment of Rock in Opposition. The last two essays deal with the development of progressive rock in the United Kingdom, its significance and the politics behind it. Cutler continued his analysis on "popular music" in 1986 in two articles, "Skill, Part 1: The Negative Case For Some New Music Technology" and "Skill, Part 2: Heavy Metal, Punk and the New Wave", published in the RēR Quarterly sound-magazine, Volume 1 Number 3 (1986) and Volume 2 Number 2 (1987), respectively. These articles were later reworked by Cutler into a single essay entitled "Skill", which was included in the 1996 expanded Japanese edition of File Under Popular. |
Grizzly | Gary Paulsen | 1,997 | The story is about Justin McCallister who loves life on his aunt and uncle's sheep ranch in Montana. Until a grizzly bear begins terrorizing the livestock, injuring Justin's collie, Radar, and killing his pet lamb, Blue. |
Thunder Valley | Gary Paulsen | 1,997 | The story is about Jeremy and Jason Parsons who are left to take care of their grandparents Thunder Valley Ski Lodge while their grandma goes to visit their grandfather in hospital with a broken hip. Strange things begin happening once Grandma leaves, though. |
Curse of the Ruins | Gary Paulsen | 1,998 | The story is about Sam, his thirteen-year-old twin sister, Katie and their cousin Shala who are trying to find their dad who is lost on a New Mexico ruin while escaping danger from bad guys who want to find a secret map, which their dad left them. |
Flight of the Hawk | Gary Paulsen | 1,998 | The story is about Andy who is sent to live with his mysterious Grandfather Hawkes after his parents' deaths. Andy soon finds out his grandfather isn't what he seems but actually an inventor, for one thing and also discovers that his parents' deaths may not have been an accident. When Grandfather Hawkes's life is threatened, Andy decides he's not going to lose another person he loves. So using his grandfather's inventions, Andy becomes The Hawk. |
The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde | Peter Ackroyd | 1,983 | The novel is written in the form of a diary which Oscar Wilde was writing in Paris in 1900, up to his death. The diary itself is completely fictional, as is the detail contained, although the events and most of the characters (such as the characters of Lord Alfred Douglas, Robert Ross and the Earl of Rosebery and his incarceration, at Pentonville, later Reading) are real. In this diary he looks back at his life, writing, and ruin through trial and jail. Included are fairy tales much like those Wilde wrote, although again these are wholly Ackroyd's invention. The last pages are written in the character of Maurice, Wilde's valet. |
The Mystic Masseur | V.S. Naipaul | null | The novel is about a frustrated writer of Indian descent who rises from an impoverished background to become a successful politician on the back of his dubious talent as a 'mystic' masseur - a masseur who can cure illnesses. |
The Bastard | John Jakes | 1,974 | The story begins in November 1770 in Auvergne, France, near Chavaniac. Philippe Charboneau, a seventeen-year old boy, is living with his mother, Marie, in an inn inherited from her deceased father. The young Philippe never knew his father. Having kept it a secret from him for years, she finally told him his father was James Amberly, the 6th Duke of Kent. The Duke began a love affair with Marie when she was performing on stage in Paris, but he never married her, making Philippe illegitimate. Their affair was brief and when he returned to England, Amberly married and had a legitimate son, Roger; however, he continued to support Marie and intended for Philippe to inherit half of his fortune. When Philippe and Marie received word that the Duke had taken ill they immediately made plans to travel to Kent, England and stake their claim to his inheritance. Once at Kent, the Duke’s wife, Lady Jane Amberly, and Roger, her son, refused to recognize Philippe as the son of the Duke. Marie insisted otherwise and was determined not to leave Kent until her son inherited what she felt was rightly his, half of the Amberlys' wealth. Philippe and his mother stayed months at an inn in hopes that Lady Jane would reconsider, but she never did. The situation became even more tense when Philippe began a sexual relationship with Roger’s fiancée, Alicia Parkhurst. When Philippe and Marie were informed that the Duke had died they returned to his home, but they were not allowed to see the body. Instead Philippe and Roger brawled, and Roger’s hand was badly wounded. Philippe escaped with his life, though he remained in danger. Alicia warned him to leave Kent because Roger was bent on killing him for injuring his hand. Lacking the funds to return to France, they fled to London and hoped to remain hidden there until the situation cooled. Not knowing their way around the city of London, they made for St. Paul’s Church, hoping to find sanctuary there. What they found instead were violent beggars who tried to rob Philippe and his mother. They were saved by Esau and Hosea Sholto, the sons of Solomon Sholto, a deeply religious man who believed in charity and compassion. Philippe and his mother were allowed to stay with the Sholtos and Solomon offered to train Philippe as his apprentice. The Sholto family owned and operated a printing company and a lending library. Convinced that his claim to Kentland would never be validated, Philippe decided to take Solomon’s advice and learn the trade. When Philippe confided his desire to emigrate to America, Solomon introduced him to Benjamin Franklin, who was at that time an American trade representative to England. To convince Philippe that America was the place he should be, Franklin praised his native country for its boundless opportunities, but also warned that trouble between the British and the colonies was brewing. Marie was adamantly opposed to leaving England without settling the claim for her son, but then Philippe was attacked by an agent hired by Roger, who had never given up on trying to eliminate his rival claimant. London was no longer safe for Marie and her son and they fled again, this time to the port city of Bristol, to find passage to America. During that trans-Atlantic journey, Marie, heartbroken over the destruction of her dream, died of dysentery and was buried at sea, and Philippe decided to adopt an Anglicized version of his name, Philip Kent. Philip arrived at Boston, Massachusetts penniless and for several days he was homeless and starving. Having been in Boston not long he angered a British soldier by accidentally splashing mud on him. He was saved from a beating by William Molineux. Through his connection with Molineux, Philip was introduced to Samuel Adams and Paul Revere. More importantly he was introduced to Benjamin Edes, the editor of the Boston Gazette, who gave Philip a job at his publishing firm. It was through this job that Philip met Abraham Ware, who often contributed articles to the paper, and his daughter Anne, whom Philip began courting. Philip participated in the Boston Tea Party, and then joined the Boston Grenadier Company under Henry Knox. A number of measures were enacted after the Tea Party to punish the citizens of Boston. One of these acts, the Quartering Act, particularly angered Abraham Ware, because he was required to house a British soldier in his home. George Lumden, the sergeant who was assigned to the Wares' house, fell in love with Daisy O’Brian, the Wares' cook, and decided to desert the British army. Philip, who wanted Lumden’s musket, encouraged the sergeant to do so and even employed a local boy to assist with that task. But the boy found it more profitable to betray Philip and inform on Lumden to the commander of his unit. That commander was none other than Roger Amberly. Roger went to the Wares' house in search of Lumden, but found only Anne. When Philip arrived, Roger attacked him, but Philip stabbed his half-brother in the belly with a bayonet. Thinking him dead, Philip fled the city with Lumden and went to stay on Daisy’s father’s farm, near Concord, Massachusetts. Anne and Daisy joined them at the farm some time later and they informed him that Roger had not died. He was taken to Philadelphia to be treated privately and that Alicia Parkhurst was with him. Anne gave Philip a letter that Alicia had written to him and he left Concord to see her in Philadelphia. Roger died before Philip reached that city. Philip met with Alicia, who made her intentions known to him; she wanted to marry him. Philip was torn, because, though he continued to have feelings for Alicia, he also had feelings for Anne. In a chance reunion with Benjamin Franklin, Franklin gave Philip some information that Philip used to make his decision. Franklin told him that James Amberly was still alive and Philip realized that Alicia only wanted to marry him now because he remained the Duke’s only heir. Philip confronted Alicia and informed her that he no longer loved her and had decided to give up any claim to his inheritance, believing that the immense wealth would corrupt him as it had corrupted the Kent family. On his return from Philadelphia to Concord to be reunited with Anne, he ran into Paul Revere, with William Dawes and Samuel Prescott, on their famous “midnight ride” to warn the patriots that the British army was coming. Philip tried to see Anne, but her father would not allow him to, telling him Anne was too distraught when he left her. Then Philip returned to O’Brian’s farm to get Lumden’s musket. Once there, he told Daisy to tell Anne that he loved her. Philip participated in the Battle of Concord and after the battle he was finally reunited with Anne. He told her that he planned to marry her, then left her to continue the fight against the British. |
I Was Dora Suarez | Derek Raymond | 1,990 | As the fourth novel in the Factory series opens, young prostitute Dora Suarez is axed into pieces. The killer then smashes the head of her neighbour, an 86-year-old widow. On the same night, a mile away in the West End, a shotgun blows the top off the head of Felix Roatta, part-owner of the seedy Parallel Club. As the detective obsesses with the young woman whose murder he investigates, he discovers that her death is even more bizarre than he had suspected: the murderer ate bits of flesh from Suarez’s corpse and ejaculated against her thigh. Autopsy results accrue the revulsion as they compound the puzzle: Suarez was dying of AIDS, but the pathologist is unable to determine how she had contracted HIV. Then a photo, supplied by a former Parallel hostess, links Suarez to Roatta, and inquiries at the nightclub reveal her vile and inhuman exploitation. |
The Teahouse Fire | Ellis Avery | 2,008 | Set in late nineteenth century Japan, The Teahouse Fire is the story of Aurelia, a young French-American girl who, after the death of her mother and her missionary uncle, finds herself lost and alone and in need of a new family. Knowing only a few words of Japanese she hides in a Japanese tea house and is adopted by the family who own it: gradually falling in love with both the Japanese tea ceremony and with her young mistress, Yukako. As Aurelia grows up she devotes herself to the family and its failing fortunes in the face of civil war and western intervention, and to Yukako's love affairs and subsequent marriage. But her feelings for mistress seem doomed never to be reciprocated and, as tensions mount in the household, Aurelia begins to realise that to the world around her she will never be anything but an outsider. |
The Dying Days | null | 2,006 | Christopher Prescott, a mathematics graduate student at Memorial University of Newfoundland in St. John's, has just been asked by his girlfriend to move out. In a deliberate attempt to "get on with his life", he goes bar hopping. There, he sees a beautiful red-headed woman drop what appears to be a credit-card or driver's license (in fact, a powerful magical artifact known as a fios stone). He goes to fetch it, hoping to use it as a way to introduce himself, but the woman has walked out. Christopher follows, only to see her walk through a wall in the alley behind the bar. This is Christopher's introduction to The Ways and the world of the Five Clans. The Ways allow those who can perceive them to travel through the memories of the City. His act of kindness plunges Christopher into this world, where arcane deeds and strange creatures are still to be found. He encounters Emma Rowlin, a woman who crossed over from his own world some time ago. Familiar with both frames of reference, she offers to help him find the mysterious red-headed woman. She takes him to the Wandering Parliament, a meeting of the people of the Five Clans: the People of the Cat, the People of the Caribou, the People of the Great Auk, the People of the Codfish, and the People of the Serpent. The Parliament is disrupted by the murder of the Cabinet of one of the Clans, and Christopher finds himself in the middle of apocalyptic changes that threaten to destroy both this world and his own. They also encounter Donovan Chase, a mysterious diminutive Englishman who is trying the find the red-headed woman for his own reasons, and who knows far more than he is willing to share. They soon discover that the murder at the Wandering Parliament is part of a campaign by a new Sixth Clan to take over the Ways. They must stop them, if they are to protect both of the worlds from this new threat. Chase leads Christopher and Emma to the Forgotten Cemetery, where they can ask one of the murdered Cabinet members about the attack. They discover that the purpose of the attack was to steal the Clan's eochair. The eochair are the Keys that control the Ways, and each of the Five Clans controls one. On the way back, the three are separated. Christopher is found by talking cats; in fact, high-ranking members of the People of the Cat. Following prophecy, the Cat's leader imbues him with their eochair. Christopher is destined to be the harbinger of a great change, but whether the change will be for good or for ill nobody knows. Later, reunited with Chase, Christopher finally finds the red-headed woman: Aislinn, a member of the People of the Serpent. The fios stone contains her Clan's eochair. Aislinn was performing a dead drop that was disrupted by Christopher's interference. She has also captured Emma and uses her as a hostage to ensure her escape. Aislinn delivers her Clan's eochair to the Sixth Clan, a gestalt swarm of insects who have already obtained three other eochair. Aislinn receives a reward for her treachery to her own Clan and leaves Emma to the Sixth Clan. Chase and Christopher confront the swarm; to prevent the fifth and final eochair to fall into their hands, Christopher asks Emma to stab and kill him, which she does. This places the eochair beyond the reach of the swarm; thwarted, the enraged swarm loses their cohesion and release the energy of the other eochair, which in turn effectively destroys their ability to recreate the gestalt. Though Christopher dies, he is brought back from the brink by the dissipating energy of the eochair he carried. He is taken back to the cats, who succeed against all odds in healing him. The dissipation of the eochair preserved the Ways, and may even help restore the declining world of the Five Clans. Christopher and Emma are not yet in love, but they are certainly fond of each other and willing to explore the possibilities. And Donovan Chase still has his original task to complete: he finds Aislinn, hiding in the Russian Arctic. |
Scorpion's Gate | Richard A. Clarke | 2,005 | A coup in Saudi Arabia topples the sheiks and installs an Islamic government in its place. The weaknesses of the new government, combined with the oil riches of the country, attract attention from all over the world as larger, oil-hungry countries attempt to realign the map of the Middle East. |
A White Heron | Sarah Orne Jewett | 1,886 | Nine-year-old Sylvia has come from the city to live in the Maine woods with her grandmother, Mrs. Tilley. As the story begins, Sylvia has been living with her grandmother for nearly a year, learning to adapt to country ways. She helps the old woman by taking over some of the more physical chores, such as finding Mistress Moolly, the cow, each evening in the fields where she grazes and bringing her home. By means of this and other tasks, along with her explorations in the forest, Sylvia has become a country girl who dearly loves her new home. She has taken to it easily and immerses herself in her new life completely, as evidenced by the description of her journey home each evening with the cow: “..but their feet were familiar with the path, and it was no matter whether their eyes could see it or not.” One evening she is approached by a hunter, who is in the area looking for birds to shoot and preserve for his collection. This young man is searching in particular for the rare white heron and he is sure that it makes its nest in the vicinity. He accompanies Sylvia on her way with hopes of spending the night at her grandmother’s house. Once he has received this invitation, he makes himself at home, and after they eat, he says that he will give a sum of money to anyone who can lead him to the white heron. The next day Sylvia accompanies the hunter into the forest as he searches for the bird’s nest, but he does not find it. Early the following morning, the girl decides to go out and look for the bird by herself so that she can be sure of showing the hunter its exact location when he awakes. She decides to climb the tallest tree in the forest so that she can see the entire countryside, and she finds the heron, just as she had thought she would. But Sylvia is so affected by her tree-top observation of the heron and other wildlife that she cannot bring herself to disclose the heron's location to the hunter after all, despite his entreaties. Sylvia knows that she would be awarded much-needed money for directing him to the heron, but she decides that she can not play any part in bringing about the bird's death. The hunter eventually departs without his prize. As Sylvia grows older she is haunted by the idea of what she gave up that day, and in the last paragraph of the story, the narrator, as an omniscient observer, urges nature to reward her for her selflessness by offering her its secret. |
Crown Duel | Sherwood Smith | 1,997 | Young Countess Meliara swears to her dying father that she and her brother will defend their people from the growing greed of the king. That promise leads them into a war for which they are ill-prepared, which threatens the very people they are trying to protect. But war is simple compared to what follows, in peacetime. Meliara is summoned to live at the royal palace, where friends and enemies look alike, and intrigue fills the dance halls and the drawing rooms. If she is to survive, Meliara must learn a whole new way of fighting-with wits and words and secret alliances. In war, at least, she knew in whom she could trust. Now she can trust no one |
Deathstalker Rebellion | Simon Green | null | - --> <!- |
Deathstalker War | Simon Green | null | - --> <!- |
Deathstalker Honour | Simon Green | null | - --> <!- |
Deathstalker Destiny | Simon Green | null | - --> <!- |
Shakespeare's Memory | Jorge Luis Borges | 1,983 | The main protagonist and narrator is Hermann Sörgel, a self-described devotee of Shakespeare. After giving a short list of works that he has written on Shakespeare, he tells the story of how he came to be in possession of Shakespeare's Memory: He meets a man named Daniel Thorpe at a Shakespeare conference, and after relating a story about a ring that had a price so high it could never be sold. Thorpe then offers Sörgel Shakespeare's memory, and after a short retelling of how he managed to get hold of it, passes it on to him. The memory, Thorpe says, has to be 'discovered': Sörgel whistles melodies he has never heard, and slowly starts seeing unknown faces in his dreams. Later, he gains insights into Shakespeare's works and techniques, and considers but decides against writing a biography. Soon after, Shakespeare's memory almost overwhelms his own: one day he becomes confused as he does not recognise engines and cars. Finally he decides to give away the memory by telephone: he phones random numbers (sparing women and children from the memory), and at last gives the memory to a man on the other end of the phone. |
Imaginary Friends | Nora Ephron | null | The play focuses on writers Lillian Hellman and Mary McCarthy, who reunite in hell and reflect on their decades-long antagonistic relationship. Dating back to their first meeting at a conference at Sarah Lawrence College in 1948, it came to a head in 1980 when McCarthy, in a television interview with Dick Cavett, asserted every word written by her rival, including "and" and "the," was a lie. Hellman subsequently sued McCarthy for slander. As the play progresses, the two women recall, among other things, Hellman's 1952 testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee, McCarthy's childhood abuse by an uncle, and their romantic involvements, McCarthy with Philip Rahv and Hellman with Dashiell Hammett. Throughout it all, McCarthy accuses Hellman of repeatedly presenting fiction as fact, while Hellman insists McCarthy always portrays fact as fiction. |
The World Is Not Enough | Raymond Benson | 1,999 | The World Is Not Enough was adapted by then-current Bond novelist Raymond Benson from the screenplay by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and Bruce Feirstein. It was Benson's fourth James Bond novel and followed the story closely, except in some details. For example, Elektra does not die immediately after Bond shoots her; instead, she begins quietly to sing. The novel also gave the Cigar Girl a name: Giulietta da Vinci, and retained a scene between her and Renard that was cut from theatrical release. Also, Bond is still carrying his Walther PPK instead of the newer P99. |
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