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Love's Metamorphosis | John Lyly | null | Set in Arcadia, the play's plot contains two strains: the main plot features Ceres and three of her nymphs, Nisa, Celia, and Niobe; the three foresters or shepherds who love them, Ramis, Montanus, and Silvestris; and Cupid. Cupid punishes the nymphs for their disdain of the shepherds, by transforming them into a rock, a rose, and a bird. The subplot involves the churlish and brutal peasant Erisichthon, who chops down a sacred tree and thereby takes the life of Fidelia, a transformed nymph. Ceres punishes him with famine, and he responds by selling his daughter Protea to a merchant. Protea escapes her servitude via a prayer to Neptune and a disguise as a fisherman; she returns home, and masquerades as the revenging ghost of Ulysses to rescue Petulius, her beloved, from a Siren. Ceres appeals to Cupid to release her nymphs; Cupid agrees, if Ceres will pardon Erisichthon. (The faithful love of Protea for Petulius has earned her Cupid's protection.) The nymphs are restored to their original forms once they agree to accept the three humans as husbands; the quadruple wedding is held at the house of Erisichthon. Love's Metamorphosis differs from most of Lyly's plays in that it lacks the overtly comical and farcical elements that Lylian dramas normally possess. Strikingly, the play features none of the witty pages that are standard for Lyly. As a result, some critics have speculated that the extant text is a revised version of a more typical Lyly original. |
Witch World | Andre Norton | null | During World War II, Simon Tregarth had risen from a common soldier to the rank of lieutenant colonel. In post-war Europe, he had become involved, almost accidentally, in the black market, only to be caught and discharged in disgrace from the military. He had also managed to anger a powerful criminal organization enough for it to send assassins to dispose of him. After months on the run, he knew his time was running out. Then, Tregarth is contacted by Dr. Jorge Petronius, a man with an amazing reputation for hiding men in dire straits. Petronius recounts a fantastic tale of a stone of power, the Siege Perilous of Arthurian legend, that has the power of opening a gateway to a world attuned to the person who sits on it. Disbelieving, but with little to lose, Tregarth gives up all the money he has left and is transported to a land where magic vies with more mundane swords and bows. He arrives in a nearly empty countryside, just in time to witness a savage hunt: a lone woman being chased down by hounds followed by two horsemen. Tregarth rescues the witch Jaelithe and enters the service of Estcarp, a land ruled by witches and threatened by many enemies. One of these is the land of Gorm, which was bloodily taken over by the far-off, mysterious realm of Kolder. Estcarp's sole trusted ally is Sulcarkeep, a nation of seafaring traders. When Magnis Osberic, leader of Sulcarkeep, requests help against a common enemy, Tregarth and Jaelithe join a party of warriors sent to its aid. On the way, they are ambushed by men of Gorm who appear to be controlled by some unseen entity. The attack is defeated. Afterwards, Koris, Captain of Escarp and refugee from that land, recognizes some of the bodies. The group reaches the island fortress of Sulcarkeep. However, most of the Sulcarmen are away in the season of trading, and an attack overwhelms the few defenders. While a handful of survivors flee in small boats, Osberic remains behind to blow up the island, taking many of the enemy with him. The violence of the explosion causes the tiny vessels to founder; Tregarth and Jaelithe both reach land, but become separated. Jaelithe is captured by Fulk of Verlaine, a coastal lord, but is helped to escape by Loyse, his only daughter. Together, the two women make their way to Kars, the capital of Karston, Estcarp's restive southern neighbor. Tregarth, guided by a mental link with the witch, is reunited with her there. Soon afterwards, Karston erupts in frenzy of killing aimed at those of the Old Race, the principal ethnic group of Estcarp. Tregarth, Jaelithe, Koris and Loyse flee the carnage. Tregarth organizes a guerrilla force using his prior military experience, but is caught and shipped to Gorm to be turned into a mindless slave, like others he has already encountered. Fortunately, he is able to escape. The witches of Estcarp launch an attack on the capital city of Gorm. When Tregarth fights and kills the enemy leader, during the intense struggle, he inadvertently achieves a mental rapport with his opponent and learns that the people of Kolder are like him in some respects; they are a small number of refugees from another universe, though one with a higher level of technology than Earth. Estcarp is victorious, but the threat from Kolder remains. |
Dear Enemy | Jean Webster | null | As Daddy-Long-Legs traced Judy Abbott's growth from a young girl into an adult, Dear Enemy shows how Sallie McBride grows from a frivolous socialite to a mature woman and an able executive. It also follows the development of Sallie's relationships with Gordon Hallock, a wealthy politician, and Dr. Robin McRae, the orphanage's physician. Both relationships are affected by Sallie's initial reluctance to commit herself to her job, and by her gradual realization of how happy the work makes her and how incomplete she'd feel without it. The daily calamities and triumphs of an orphanage superintendent are wittily described, often accompanied by the author's own stick-figure illustrations. |
All Passion Spent | Vita Sackville-West | 1,931 | All Passion Spent is written in three parts, primarily from the view of an intimate observer. The first part introduces Lady Slane at the time of her husband’s death. She has been the dutiful wife of a “great man” in public life, Viceroy of India and a member of the House of Lords. Her children plan to share her care between them much as they divide up the family property but, completely unexpectedly, Lady Slane makes her own choice, proposing to leave fashionable Kensington for a cottage in suburban Hampstead that caught her eye decades earlier, where she will live alone except for her maidservant and please herself — for example allowing her descendants to visit only by appointment. Part 1 concludes with Lady Slane’s developing friendships with her aged landlord Mr Bucktrout and his equally aged handyman Mr Gosheron. Part 2, shorter than the others, is composed of Lady Slane’s thoughts as she muses in the summer sun. She relives youthful events, reviews her life, and considers life’s influences and controls, happiness and relationships. Summer is over. Part 3 takes place after Lady Slane has settled into her cottage, her contemplative life, and approaching end. To her initial annoyance, her past life still connects her to people and events. In particular Mr FitzGeorge, a forgotten acquaintance from India who has ever since been in love with her, introduces himself and they form a quiet but playful and understanding friendship. Mr FitzGeorge bequeaths his fortune and outstanding art collection to Lady Slane, causing great consternation amongst her children. Lady Slane, avoiding the responsibility of vast wealth, gives FitzGeorge’s collection and fortune to the state, much to her children’s disgust and her maid’s amusement. Lady Slane discovers that relinquishing the fortune has permitted Deborah, her great-granddaughter, to break-off her engagement and pursue music, Deborah taking the path the Lady Slane herself could not. |
The Father Hunt | Rex Stout | 1,968 | Lily Rowan has employed Amy Denovo, a recent Smith graduate, to assist her in collecting material about her father for a book. After a brief acquaintance with Archie Goodwin, Amy intercepts him one afternoon in the lobby of Lily's building. "It's very personal," Amy tells Archie as she asks for a few minutes of his time. Amy has never known her own father, and she asks Archie to help her find out who he is, or was. She believes her mother took the name Denovo — "de novo," Latin for "anew," "afresh" — because she began a new life after Amy was born. She can't be certain because Elinor Denovo was killed three months before, in a hit-and-run. Amy is curious about her mother, but she must know about her father — and the inquiry must be kept secret. Amy knows Archie is the only person she can trust. Although he is intrigued, Archie turns Amy down. Nero Wolfe charges high fees, and the $2,000 Amy has in the bank would not begin to cover what promises to be a long and expensive job. Archie floats the idea of having Lily supply the funds — she undoubtedly would — but Amy is adamant that no one is to know about the father hunt. Leaving Amy at a loss to know what she should do next, Archie goes to Saul Panzer's place to play poker — but the cards do not cooperate. The next afternoon, Amy arrives at the brownstone with $20,000 in hundred-dollar bills — a retainer. Archie parks Amy in the front room, explains the situation to Nero Wolfe, and introduces her. Wolfe wants reassurance that the money is in Amy's possession legally. Amy says that her mother's death has brought to light the fact that Elinor Denovo had received $1,000 a month since Amy was born — a total of $264,000 — and that this money is from Amy's father. She recites her mother's letter verbatim. Wolfe keeps the money, but only for safekeeping pending Archie's verification of the letter. A visit to Elinor Denovo's apartment tells Archie next to nothing about her. He reviews documents in her handwriting, finds the letter is authentic, and tells Amy she is now a client in good standing. "I doubt if there's another girl anywhere who had a mother for twenty-two years and knows so little about her," Archie tells Wolfe when he returns to the office. Amy has no photographs of her mother. She knows nothing of her mother's friends, her background, her childhood. She doesn't know what her mother did for a living before she was born. She isn't even sure what kind of work she did for Raymond Thorne Productions, a television production company. She doesn't know where she herself was born. At the Gazette, Archie gets what little Lon Cohen can give him about the hit-and-run that killed Mrs. Denovo, and concludes that the police were getting nowhere. On his way out, Archie stops at a phone booth to call Sergeant Purley Stebbins, and casually asks how the case is progressing. "It's hanging," Purley tells him. "But we're not forgetting it." Inspector Cramer visits the brownstone the next morning, indicating the police will also not be forgetting that Archie is asking questions. Archie visits the Madison Avenue office of Raymond Thorne Productions, Elinor Denovo's employer for more than 20 years. He tells Thorne that Amy is convinced that her mother was deliberately killed and has hired Nero Wolfe to find the murderer. Thorne says there is no chance anyone working there killed her. He, too, knows nothing of Mrs. Denovo's life before she began working for him. One day in July 1945 she had walked in, he was short staffed, and after a week he didn't care where she'd come from because she was so good. When she died she was vice-president of the company. Thorne isn't surprised there are no photographs in the apartment, because Mrs. Denovo could never be persuaded to have one taken, not even for professional purposes. But Thorne has one — two, actually, captured by accident and without her knowledge. He will give copies to Archie. Archie traces the checks Elinor Denovo received every month to the Seaboard Bank and Trust Company. Wolfe imposes upon the good will of a director of Seaboard — Avery Ballou, who had paid Wolfe well for rescuing him from a predicament a year and a half before. Ballou soon tells him that the checks were drawn by Cyrus M. Jarrett, who was president of Seaboard and 54 years old when Amy was born. Jarrett has a daughter living in Europe, and a son, Eugene, age 43. Ballou doesn't like Jarrett — a lot of people don't, he says — and when Archie meets the old man, he knows why. Ballou arranges for Archie to have lunch with Bert McCray, a vice president at Seaboard who once had been Jarrett's protégé. McCray recognizes the photographs of Elinor Denovo, whose name was Carlotta Vaughn when they both worked for Cyrus M. Jarrett. Freelance detective Orrie Cather is sent to Washington, D.C., to check on Cyrus M. Jarrett. Saul Panzer and Fred Durkin try to turn up something, anything, about Carlotta Vaughn. Archie follows two promising leads that end in humiliation. Wolfe drafts a display ad to run in all of the New York papers, offering a $500 reward for information about the whereabouts of Carlotta Vaughn, alias Elinor Denovo, between April and October 1944. After placing the ads, Archie leaves to spend the weekend at Lily's place in the country. Some uninvited people drop by, but following custom there is only one other weekend houseguest. This weekend Lily has invited Amy Denovo, who makes the mistake of calling Archie by his first name in Lily's presence, after dinner on the terrace. The weekend is less than perfect, and Archie is annoyed by the presence of Floyd Vance, an obnoxious press agent. By 3 p.m. Thursday, few leads have been turned up by the newspaper ad. When Saul, Fred and Orrie call in, Archie will not be disappointed since he expects nothing. Wolfe has exceeded his quota of beer, and Archie has come back to the office with a slug of Irish whiskey. Sitting with his eyes closed, Wolfe declares that he has decided to assume that Amy's father killed her mother, since a three-month-old murder will be easier to solve than a 22-year-old mystery. They will begin by speaking to Raymond Thorne. During a long, rambling interview that extends into the wee hours, Archie gets something. After hearing that something, Wolfe goes to the kitchen for beer and brings Archie a glass of cognac. The next morning Archie tells Wolfe he'll brief Saul, Fred and Orrie during breakfast. "Only Saul," Wolfe says. "We won't risk it with Fred and Orrie." Archie arranges for Lily to play bodyguard to Amy, since it is now a certainty that Elinor Denovo was murdered and she may be next. Then Archie and Saul go to work. |
White Boots | Noel Streatfeild | 1,951 | Harriet Johnson has been ill and her doctor arranges for her to take up ice skating in order to build strength in her legs. When she gets to the rink Harriet meets Lalla Moore, a young skater who has been training since she was three years old; Lalla's parents were killed in a skating accident, and her Aunt Claudia is determined that Lalla will be the greatest figure skater in the world. Harriet and Lalla soon become friends and as Harriet is still not well enough for school, it is arranged that she will share Lalla's governess and her various dance and fencing lessons. Harriet soon shows herself to be a talented skater, and she starts to take, and pass, the same skating tests that Lalla does. Lalla, on the other hand, is much more of a performer than a figure skater and starts to have trouble with various figures she needs to learn for tests. Lalla becomes jealous of Harriet and tells her that if she takes and passes her next skating test, Lalla will tell her aunt that she does not want Harriet to have lessons with her any more. Distraught, Harriet pretends to once again be ill while she decides what to do. But when Lalla hears that Harriet is seriously ill, she faints and later explains how nervous, miserable and guilty she feels. Lalla and Harriet go for a holiday together with their families and they talk about their futures. Lalla's coach tells her that she will never be a good enough figure skater to succeed in competitions, but that she could be a fantastic show skater and performer; whereas Harriet has potential to be a great skater one day, as she is better at the figures required to do well. Both girls are thrilled with their 'plans' and the story closes with them as children, though it is implied that both are successful. |
A Gun for Dinosaur | L. Sprague de Camp | null | The story takes the form of a first-person narrative by the protagonist, time-traveling hunter Reginald Rivers, told to Mr. Seligman, a prospective client of his time safari business; Seligman's contributions to the conversation are omitted, and must be inferred from those of Rivers. Rivers informs the client he is not big enough to hunt the dinosaurs of the Cretaceous period, illustrating his point with an extended anecdote from a previous expedition, which forms the main portion of the tale. On the occasion in question, Rivers and his partner Chandra Aiyar conducted two other clients to the past. One of them, Courtney James, was a vain, arrogant and spoiled playboy; the other, August Holtzinger, was a small, timid man recently come into wealth (time safaris are not cheap). Before the journey, they test-fire some guns on the firing range to settle on weapons for each of them. Holtzinger's small size makes him incapable of effectively handling a heavy-caliber weapon (the recoil knocks him over) and, against his better judgment, Rivers lets Holtzinger travel on the safari with a lighter caliber weapon. James proves unmanageable, shooting at every creature in sight and spoiling Holtzinger's shots. Ultimately James' foolishness gets him in real trouble, when he inadvertently empties his rifle over a slumbering Tyrannosaurus, which consequently wakes and makes for him. Holtzinger defends James by shooting the dinosaur, but his gun is not of a heavy enough caliber to kill it, and it is only distracted—towards Holtzinger. Despite the best efforts of Rivers and Aiyar to save Holtzinger, the Tyrannosaurus snaps him up and makes off with him. A furious quarrel with James ensues, he and the guides each blaming the other for their companion's death. James tries to kill Rivers, but is knocked out by Aiyar. Afterwards he swears revenge. Later, after the expedition has returned to the present, James bribes Professor Prochaska, the scientist operating the time chamber, to send him back to the Cretaceous again—but at a point just prior to the emergence of the safari's earlier visit. His plan is to shoot Rivers the moment the latter originally came out of the time machine. Since that obviously had not happened, however, the space-time continuum avoids the paradox by spontaneously snapping James back to the present, the forces involved instantly killing him. Rivers then concludes his story, emphasizing Holtzinger's fate to make his point with Seligman. |
Beyond Einstein | null | null | Beyond Einstein is a book that tries to explain the basics of superstring theory. Michio Kaku analyzes the history of theoretical physics and the struggle to unite a unified field theory. He explained that the superstring theory might be the only theory that can unite quantum mechanics and general relativity in one theory. This book avoids complex mathematics and it is useful for both professional physicists and general readers who have more than a passing curiosity in physics. |
The Furies | John Jakes | 1,976 | The story begins in March 1836, during the Battle of the Alamo, twenty-two years after the event depicted at the end of The Seekers, book three of the series. Amanda Kent, daughter of Gilbert Kent and Harriet Lebow, was among the women and children who survived the ensuing massacre. After the massacre, she was taken before Santa Anna, who led the Mexican forces against the Texans, and he was willing to grant her clemency, an offer she declined, putting her life in danger. She was saved by Major Luis Cordoba, one of Santa Anna’s officers, who did not fully support him. Cordoba put Amanda to work as his servant and they eventually fell in love. She remained a camp follower with the Mexican army until April 21, when she witnessed the Battle of San Jacinto, during which Cordoba was killed. Amanda gave birth to his son in January 1837, and named him Louis in his honor. After the Texas rebellion, Amanda left Texas and settled in San Francisco, which at the time was called Yerba Buena. There she founded a small, but profitable tavern. She fell in love with Barton McGill, a sea captain, who made regular trips from California to New York, and through him she discovered that a publishing firm called Kent and Son still operated. The firm was once owned by her father, but had been lost in a game of craps by her stepfather to Hamilton Stovall. McGill told her that Stovall still owned it and from that moment on, Amanda became obsessed with buying it back from him. The California Gold Rush, in part, provided her the means. When the Gold Rush began, Amanda expanded her tavern into a hotel and because so many came seeking gold, the establishment made her a great deal of money. Jared Kent, Amanda’s cousin, was one of many men who came to California in search of gold. With two partners he found a profitable gold claim. Amanda had not seen her cousin in thirty-four years, but they were unexpectedly reunited for a brief time. Men who were opposed to American immigrants attempted to kill her because she employed foreigners to work in her establishment. They missed Amanda and killed Jared instead. Amanda replaced Jared as the third partner to his gold claim and with that financial backing, she returned to Boston to reclaim the Kent and Son publishing firm. On returning, she discovered that, unbeknownst to her mother, her father had invested in a textile company late in his life. This investment made her a millionaire and, with this money, she attempted to buy Kent and Son. Amanda used her married name, de la Gura, because of Stovall’s rivalry with the Kent family, but when she incautiously made it known that she wanted to publish more liberal leaning literature Stovall rescinded the offer. This did not deter her from her goal. She proceeded to buy stocks in Kent and Son in an attempt to become the majority shareholder. Jared had had one son, Jephtha. He would have preferred his son to stay with him in the west, but Jephtha moved to Lexington, Virginia and became a Methodist minister. Though he lived in a southern state, Jephtha became morally opposed to slavery and he became a conductor on the Underground Railroad. He mailed a female slave belonging to his father-in-law in a wooden box to Amanda in New York, where she was now living, and she inadvertently also became a conductor. While she was opposed to the Fugitive Slave Act, she had previously believed it should be obeyed simply because it was the law of the land, but she aided her cousin. When Jephtha’s father-in-law came to Amanda’s house in search of his slave, Amanda kept her hidden. Then, after he left, she sneaked the runaway out of her house disguised as another woman, who was visiting Amanda. This event was published in the newspapers and it inadvertently revealed Amanda as Jephtha’s cousin. When Stovall read the article, he blocked Amanda from ever gaining a majority of the stocks in Kent and Son, then called on her and threatened to ruin her life and the life of her son. During their conversation, an Irish gang vandalized Amanda’s home (in retaliation for Louis' raping an Irish maid in Amanda's employ). As Stovall fled, he knocked Louis unconscious with his cane. Thinking her son was dead, she shot Stovall to death, immediately after which one of the gang members shot Amanda. She lived seventeen days afterwards, long enough to discover that Stovall’s heirs were willing to sell Kent and Son to the Kent family. |
Flinx Transcendent | Alan Dean Foster | 2,009 | After his realization that civilization, both humanx and otherwise, is worth saving, Flinx sets out to find the ancient weapons platform built by the long extinct Tar-Aiym race to use against the Great Evil approaching the Commonwealth. |
Tree of Smoke | Denis Johnson | 2,007 | Johnson's novel revolves around the associations and interactions with Francis X. Sands, a retired air force colonel and war hero, now a CIA official in Southeast Asia. The story is told primarily from the point of view of his nephew, William "Skip" Sands; Infantry Private James Houston and his brother Bill; and Kathy Jones, a Canadian NGO worker. The plot also includes minor but important characters Major Eddie Algonado, a Filipino fighter pilot; Nguyen Hao and his nephew Minh who work for Colonel Sands; Trung Than, Nguyen Hao's Vietcong friend turned double agent; Sargent Jimmy Storm, a henchman of the Colonel; and a German assassin named Dietrich Fest. |
A Lion Among Men | Gregory Maguire | 2,008 | The story opens with an impending battle between the Munchkinlanders and the Emerald City (EC) troops. In the middle of the hotbed's Mauntery, the center that's been the epicenter for Elphaba, Yackle, Liir, and Candle. Yackle still lives despite losing her eyesight, and longs for death. At her request, the Maunts bury her in their crypt alive with only a few candles and some wine. She's eventually forgotten, but not by all. Elsewhere, a young woman wanders the Land of Oz until her path crosses "the dwarf", whom she calls Mr. Boss, the caretaker of the Clock of the Time Dragon. The Clock has awakened... Back at the Mauntery, Brrr, the Cowardly Lion, and his pet, a Glass Cat that he has nicknamed Shadowpuppet, arrive looking for Yackle. The maunts claim she's deceased but Yackle rises from the crypt, still alive. Yackle and Brrr begin a game of wits - Brrr demands information on Madame Morrible and in exchange he'll tell Yackle about himself. Brrr doesn't remember his parents or where he's from. He grew up by himself in the Great Gillikin Forest, learning language from the hunters that travel through his forest. One day he meets a soldier, Jemmsy, who's caught in his own hunting trap that was supposed to catch Animals. He implores Brrr to go to Tenniken and get help. Instead, out of fear and the naive belief that since this is the first person he's conversed with, then Jemmsy's a friend and can't be abandoned, Brrr stays with Jemmsy until he dies, claiming the books that lie beside him and taking Jemmsy's medal for courage to give to Jemmsy's relatives. Thus begins the Lion's unhappy personage as a coward. After Jemmsy dies, Brrr goes out to find Tenniken. Not long after he sets out, Brrr finds a terrified Bear Cub. The Bear soon reveals that his name's Cubbins, and takes Brrr to his family. They're the Northern Bears under rule by Queen Ursaless. She tells Brrr that to get to Tenniken, he must travel through the Cloud Swamp, a wet land inhabited by the Ozmists (ghost-like beings). Brrr and Cubbins have an "all but fatal" interview with the Ozmists. Brrr soon leaves Cubbins with the pile of books as he leaves the Great Gillikin Forest for the first time. When Brrr first ventures out of the forest, he finds out he isn't in Tenniken at all, but Traum, a market town east of Tenniken. Brrr soon finds himself involved in a massacre of Glikkun trolls. Not knowing what to do, Brrr tells some trolls to play dead, as he thinks that it's the only way to bypass the slaughter, but they take his advice too late and become captured. The people of Traum celebrate the Lion for refusing to help their enemies, the Glikkuns, and Brrr safely gets out of Traum by train. While on the train, however, Brrr decides that his refusal to help the Glikkuns is really a badge of shame, and knowing that in Tenniken his reputation will precede him, he ultimately can't bring himself to go there, instead arriving in the University town of Shiz. Brrr sets himself up in an apartment, and spends time in and around Shiz. The Lion soon finds a poem dedicated to humiliating him. Feeling embarrassed, Brrr packs up and leaves into the wilderness. Brrr wanders around the woods aimlessly for a while, until he finds a pride of Lions trying to make it in the forest. Brrr lives with the Lions for several years. But some of the Lions mock him, prompting him to leave... again. The next group that Brrr encounters is the Ghullim, a streak of Ivory Tigers in Wend Fallows. He'd happily pass right through their tribe without stopping, but they force him to stay with them for a while, if only to assess his status as a threat. While there, he befriends and ultimately falls in love with Muhlama H'aekeem, princess and heir to the Chieftaincy of the Ghullim. But when they're discovered mating by Ivory Tiger scouts, her father Chief Uyodor H'aekeem announces that he suspects him of attempting to thwart his regime due to Muhlama being seriously wounded from the lovemaking, once again prompting him to leave, before they have his head on a trophy background. Within the following weeks, Brrr meets a strange group of travelers. One a little girl named Dorothy, one a Scarecrow and the other was Nick Chopper, the Tin Woodman. Brrr decides to go with them to meet the Wizard of Oz. They soon find themselves on a quest to kill Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West. But Dorothy wants to reason with her instead. Once at Kiamo Ko, where Elphaba lives, she locks the Lion in a room with Liir while she and Dorothy have at it. They soon break out in time for Elphaba to be vanquished. The five go back to the Wizard and get their rewards. All but Brrr got what they wanted (Brrr getting a terribly manufactured Badge of Courage, even more so than Jemmsy's. Liir gets nothing for he was left outside.) Brrr promises Dorothy that he'll protect and look after Liir, but Liir vanishes in the streets and crowds of the Emerald City. Brrr then goes off on his own path, like before. The Lion has hit the outback again. With the other members of Dorothy's party laughing it up and having their own affairs, Brrr soon meets two old bachelors; Mister Mikko, an Ape, and Professor Lenx, a Boar of some kind. The three Animals discuss current events and past events. They soon rile Brrr up to retrieve money from the banks of Oz for them. The Lion soon becomes a broker for Animals, retrieving their money that is held in the banks since before they were forced to leave Oz. The forces of Oz soon discover that Brrr is bringing money into the Free State of Munchkinland and try him for being a Collaborationist. He strikes a plea and is assigned to go find the whereabouts of the Grimmerie, which leads him to his interview with Yackle. This recaps the first part of the book. |
Il castello di Eymerich | Valerio Evangelisti | 2,001 | The plot of the book is divided into three threads: Takes place in Montiel in Castile, Spain, in 1369, during the civil war between king Peter of Castile and pretender Henry of Trastamara. Peter of Castile is defending Montiel, besieged by the pretender's forces, which consist mostly of mercenaries commanded by a historical figure Bertrand du Guesclin. Inquisitor Nicholas Eymerich is called in to investigate the use of black magic by the besiegers and the use of cabal by the defenders. This thread takes place prior to the main one. It depicts a group of Dominicans sent by the Pope to the Castle of Montiel in a mission to use demonology against cabalistic magic . Takes place during World War II in a concentration camp Dora, where Sturmbannführer SS Viktor von Ingolstadt is conducting an experiment to revive a dead body to support his quasi-scientific research concerning electricity. |
The Twenty-Second Day | Muhammad Aladdin | 2,007 | A young man, a pianist who hates piano, goes into a stormy relationship with a divorced woman who's older than he is for ten years. This woman, a painter and artistic trainer for children, was his first choice in 26 years of life as a slave for his father's wishes, or maybe it's the cosmic wishes of fate itself, as he might feel as a crushed young man who wished to be anything but being what he is. He received a total shock when the woman dumped him at last, did an abortion for his baby, and tells him that they can't live up the relation they have, because it goes to be crushed, sooner or later. in the final scene, we see the painter watches the TV, we could understand he's witnessing the US forces entering Baghdad, then he begin to prepare his suitcase, which gives us a hint he's going to leave the country. |
What I Was | Meg Rosoff | 2,007 | The book is framed as the reminiscence of an old man recalling the year he discovered love. It is written as a first-person narrative. The novel opens with the protagonist, Hilary, a sixteen-year-old boy arriving at a grim East Anglian boarding school in 1962 after being twice expelled from previous institutions. He has no interest in study, no aptitude for sports and a great dislike of both pupils and teachers. He compares the school to a prison and finds life there unbearable. While slacking on a school cross-country run, he meets Finn, who lives alone in a beachside shack and sustains himself by fishing and working at the market. Hilary thinks Finn has an ideal life, and admires and envies him. He begins to visit the silent, enigmatic boy, and they are able to spend some afternoons together. He lies to his parents and the school so that he can stay at the shack during the Easter holidays. On one visit to Finn, Hilary realizes his friend is ill, and suspects he may have given the other boy glandular fever, which had spread through the school several weeks before. He tries to look after Finn himself but after a while becomes frightened and calls the emergency services. Finn runs away from the shack but Hilary later finds him in hospital. Both schoolboys and adults misunderstand the innocent nature of their friendship, particularly when it is discovered that Finn is only fourteen, two years younger than Hilary, and is actually a girl. He leaves the school and does not see Finn again for many years. Eventually he returns to the coast, stays in Finn's by then abandoned shack, and realizes his dream of "becoming" Finn. |
Death of a Dude | Rex Stout | null | Archie Goodwin is part of a house party at Lily Rowan's vacation home in Montana when a murder brings Nero Wolfe from New York to take a hand. |
A Family Affair | Rex Stout | null | A waiter at Rusterman's Restaurant turns up at Wolfe's front door late one night, claiming that a man is going to kill him. Shortly after Archie puts him in one of the spare bedrooms, the waiter dies when a bomb planted in his coat pocket explodes. Wolfe, outraged at the thought of such a violent act taking place in his own house, resolves to find the murderer without sharing any information with Inspector Cramer. Soon Wolfe and Archie find themselves investigating two additional murders: the earlier killing of a customer at Rusterman's, and the subsequent death of the waiter's daughter. For much of the story, Stout leads the reader to believe that the central murder mystery is related to the Watergate scandal. Ultimately, Wolfe discovers that the killer is one of his closest associates, a character who had been appearing in Nero Wolfe mysteries for over forty years. A Family Affair is an unusual Nero Wolfe mystery in that Archie reveals his (correct) opinion of the killer's identity well before Wolfe does so in the closing chapters. |
The Flower Drum Song | null | null | Lee's novel centers on Wang Chi-yang, a 63-year-old man who fled China to avoid the communists. The wealthy refugee lives in a house in Chinatown with his two sons. His sister-in-law, Madam Tang, who takes citizenship classes, is a regular visitor and urges Wang to adopt Western ways. While his sons and sister-in-law are integrating into American culture, Wang stubbornly resists assimilation and speaks only two words of English, "Yes" and "No". Wang also has a severe cough, which he does not wish to have cured, feeling that it gives him authority in his household. Wang's elder son, Wang Ta, woos Linda Tung, but on learning that she has many men in her life, drops her; he later learns she is a nightclub dancer. Linda's friend, seamstress Helen Chao, who has been unable to find a man despite the shortage of eligible women in Chinatown, gets Ta drunk and seduces him. On awakening in her bed, he agrees to an affair, but eventually abandons her, and she commits suicide. Impatient at Ta's inability to find a wife, Wang arranges for a picture bride for his son. However, before the picture bride arrives, Ta meets a young woman, May Li, who with her father has recently come to San Francisco. The two support themselves by singing depressing flower drum songs on the street. Ta invites the two into the Wang household, with his father's approval, and he and May Li fall in love. He vows to marry her after she is falsely accused by the household servants of stealing a clock, though his father forbids it. Wang struggles to understand the conflicts that have torn his household apart; his hostility toward assimilation is isolating him from his family. In the end, taking his son's advice, Wang decides not to go to the herbalist to seek a remedy for his cough, but walks to a Chinese-run Western clinic, symbolizing that he is beginning to accept American culture. |
Morality Play | Barry Unsworth | 1,995 | The book is set in Medieval England sometime near the end of the 14th century and the events described in the book take place in an unnamed village in Northern England (north of the Humber). A priest fleeing from his diocese joins up with a group of traveling players. The players are traveling toward their liege lord's castle where they are expected to play at Christmas but, short of money, they decide to stage their plays at a village en-route. When a morality play from their usual repertoire fails to earn them enough money, Martin, the leader of the group convinces them to stage 'the play of Thomas Wells', a play based on the story of the murder of a young boy from the village. The murderer has already been found, a young woman from the village, and the play seems simple enough, however they soon find that the facts don't fit. The line between the play and reality blurs and, line-by-line, they arrive at the truth about the murder. |
Man Crazy | Joyce Carol Oates | null | Man Crazy follows the early life of Ingrid Boone, from early childhood to adulthood. But instead of following the usual journey of a coming of age story, where the character and personality of the central character are developed and formed, her character and personality become weaker, almost to the point of annihilation. At the beginning of the novel her father Luke, a hot tempered Vietnam veteran, is already absent and seemingly hiding out after some unspecified trouble with the law. Her beautiful mother, Chloe Boone drifts from place to place with Ingrid, having many affairs with many men. Ingrid seems neglected by her mother who seems unable to provide the love and attention that her daughter so desperately needs. As Ingrid hits adolescence she begins to compulsively scratch her face and body inflicting sores upon herself. This is obviously a sign of her inner anxiety and pain. During her high school years she is known as "Doll Girl" as she sleeps around and openly gives herself to much of the school's male population. She is incredibly lonely and doesn't have any real friends. She does excel at English though and her poetic ability is recognised by her English teacher who gives her an award and she is asked to read one of her poems for the school's closing/graduation ceremony. The prospect of being ridiculed by her peers and her belief that the poem is no good, brought on by her low self esteem, causes her to appear in front of the school, her face bloody from scratching, and reading not her own, but another poets work. After this she leaves home and eventually gets involved with the Enoch Skaggs, a brutal, charismatic leader of the motorcycle gang/cult, Satan's Children. At this point her name has changed to 'Dog Girl', for her blind devotion and awe she feels and displays for her cruel master. She undergoes one brutal act after another, from gang rape, physical mutilation, to being locked in a cellar for days and watching a sacrificial killing. Only through luck is she rescued when her death seemed almost certain, the police burst onto the scene and justice is served. After much needed counselling she puts her life back together and forms a partnership with her psychiatrist. |
Blart: The Boy Who Didn't Want to Save the World | Dominic Barker | 2,006 | Blart is a young and quite unattractive boy, who lives on a small pig farm with his grandfather. All he cares about is himself and pigs. One day, Capablanca, a very proud and powerful wizard, arrives on Blart's grandfather's doorstep. He tells Blart that he is destined to save the world, by destroying the great Zoltab. But, selfishly, Blart refuses. But, by force, Blart is swept up from his home and sent on a perilous quest around the land, fighting the forces of evil. He meets many strange characters, some even stranger than him! And it all leads up to one final confrontation with the evil Zoltab and his most powerful minions... |
Athabasca | Alistair MacLean | 1,980 | When the operations manager of an oil company operating in Prudhoe Bay in Alaska receives a mysterious anonymous threat of sabotage, his superiors call in Jim Brady Enterprises, a firm of oilfield specialists. Dermott and Mackenzie, tough ex-field managers and now anti-sabotage specialists, arrive, but initial investigations get them nowhere. Then the operations manager is murdered and one of the pump stations in the Trans-Alaska Pipeline is damaged, with further loss of life. Jim Brady himself arrives to direct operations but to no avail. Then the company's operations at the Athabasca Oil Sands in Canada are disrupted and Dermott is nearly killed. Despite assistance by the Canadian police and FBI, suspicions fall on many employees, but nothing can be proved. As bodies and equipment damage mount up, Brady and his two investigators play a hunch and finally expose the men they believe to be responsible. But even they are not the main instigators of the events, as the final chapter of the novel reveals. de:Die Hölle von Athabasca nl:Athabasca (boek) |
The Wreck of the Zanzibar | Michael Morpurgo | 1,995 | Taken from the book's blurb, "Life on the Scilly Isles in 1907 is bleak and full of hardship. Laura's twin brother, Billy, disappears, and then a storm devastates everything. It seems there's little hope... that is until the Zanzibar is wrecked on the island's rocks and everything changes." The book is presented as a diary written by a young girl on a small island off the coast of Cornwall, where the Atlantic meets the English Channel. The area is subjected to severe storms, one of which destroys the island's buildings and kills the livestock; many families are left hungry and plan to leave the island. However, the residents rescue the crew of the ship Zanzibar when it runs aground, and this is the catalyst that brings new life to the island. A major subplot is the sea turtle that the girl (Laura) nurses back to health and returns to the sea.In the end Michael closes the diary and is sad but,he decides to tell everybody about the diary(The Wreck Of The Zanzibar) and in the end the girl says to Zanzibar "Come on Marzipan" and Michael says "His name is Zanzibar" and she says "That is what I said". simple:The Wreck of the Zanzibar |
The Butterfly Lion | Michael Morpurgo | null | A young boy runs away from a boarding school in Wiltshire. He meets an old woman (Millie), who tells him the story of Bertie and the butterfly lion. When living in Africa, Bertie rescued a white lion cub, but was forced to part with it when he went to boarding school and the lion was sold to a circus. Bertie promises to find the lion one day. At boarding school, he sneaks away and befriends the young Millie. Later, when fighting in France in the First World War, Bertie is reunited with the lion. He marries Millie and brings the lion back to England, where they live happily for many years. When the lion died, Bertie and Millie carved a lion out of the chalk in the hillside in memorial, before Bertie died himself. After being told the story, Michael returns to school. He finds a plaque commemorating Bertie's heroic acts in the war, and learns from a teacher that Millie died only a few months after Bertie. Michael goes back to the house, finding it deserted. He hears Millie's voice asking him to look after the chalk lion. |
War Horse | Michael Morpurgo | 1,982 | Joey is a young horse who has come to love Ted and Rose Narracott's son Albert and their horse Old Zoey. At the outbreak of World War I, Joey is sold to the cavalry and shipped to France. His rider Captain Nicholls is killed while riding Joey. The horse is soon caught up in the war; watching death, disease and fate, taking him on an extraordinary odyssey, serving on both sides before finding himself alone in no man's land. But Albert cannot forget Joey and, still not old enough to enlist in the British Army, he embarks on a dangerous mission to find the horse and bring him home to Devon, England. |
Waiting for Anya | Michael Morpurgo | 1,990 | In the French Lescun during the Second World War, Jo Lalande is a young shepherd who is enjoying his childhood, but when his father goes to fight in the war, Jo has to become the man of the house. After an incident with a bear, Jo meets a mysterious man in the forest. He follows the man to his home and learns his secret - he is a Jew named Benjamin that is responsible for smuggling Jewish children across the border into Spain, and safety, with the help of his mother-in-law (Widow Horcada). Jo starts helping them, and proving that he is one person who can be trusted. When German soldiers move into town, things becomes much more difficult. Although most of the town's inhabitants come to accept the German occupation, the task of getting the Jewish children across the border becomes more dangerous. Jo, his grandfather[Henri], Benjamin and Widow Horcada devise a plan to get the children across. The plan requires the whole town help the children escape, and relies on the German soldiers not noticing what is happening. But if they are caught, their lives will not be worth living... There is only one question left un answered. Where is Anya? |
Misquoting Jesus | Bart D. Ehrman | 2,005 | Ehrman recounts his personal experience with the study of the Bible and textual criticism. He summarizes the history of textual criticism, from the works of Desiderius Erasmus to the present. The book describes an early Christian environment in which the books that would later compose the New Testament were copied by hand, mostly by Christian amateurs. Ehrman concludes that various early scribes altered the New Testament texts in order to deemphasize the role of women in the early church, to unify and harmonize the different portrayals of Jesus in the four gospels, and to oppose certain heresies (such as Adoptionism). Ehrman contends that certain widely held Christian beliefs, such about the divinity of Jesus, are associated not with the original words of scripture but with these later alterations. |
Pool of Twilight | Jim Ward | 1,993 | The conclusion of the Pool series. Kern, son of Shal and Tarl, and Daile, daughter of Ren search for the missing Warhammer of Tyr, stolen by the god Bane at the end of the previous novel. |
An History of the Corruptions of Christianity | null | null | Priestley's major argument in the Institutes is that the only revealed religious truths that can be accepted are those that also conform to the truth of the natural world. Because his views of religion were deeply tied to his understanding of nature, the text's theism rests on the argument from design. Many of Priestley's arguments descended from 18th-century deism and comparative religion. The Institutes shocked and appalled many readers, primarily because it challenged basic Christian orthodoxies, such as the divinity of Christ and the miracle of the Virgin Birth. Priestley wanted to return Christianity to its "primitive" or "pure" form by eliminating the "corruptions" which had accumulated over the centuries. The fourth part of the Institutes, An History of the Corruptions of Christianity, became so long that he was forced to issue it separately. Priestley believed that the Corruptions was "the most valuable" work he ever published. Schofield, Priestley's major modern biographer, describes the work as "derivative, disorganized, wordy, and repetitive, detailed, exhaustive, and devastatingly argued." The text addresses issues from the divinity of Christ to the proper form for the Lord's Supper. Thomas Jefferson would later write of the profound effect that Corruptions had on him: "I have read his Corruptions of Christianity, and Early Opinions of Jesus, over and over again; and I rest on them . . . as the basis of my own faith. These writings have never been answered." Although a few readers such as Jefferson approved of the work, it was generally harshly reviewed because of its extreme theological positions, particularly its rejection of the Trinity. |
The Last of the Jedi: Against the Empire | Judy Blundell | null | Power grows, rebels face a choice: give in... or fight. Some form pockets of resistance on battleground planets . Some go undercover, trying to fight the Empire from the inside, and others watch and wait. For Ferus Olin, hatred for the Empire is personal. The things that have been closest to him have been destroyed. The order he once belonged to has been decimated. And the future isn't looking much brighter... Unless a true rebellion can be born. Ferus Olin is so decimated by Roan's death that the only thing that keeps him going is the fact that the Emperor has promised to teach him in the ways of the dark side. He believes that this will make him strong enough to kill Darth Vader. He only lives for Revenge. The Emperor has also put him in charge of finding possible Force adepts. During their last mission, in which Roan was killed Amie Antin was captured and this has left Wil, the new leader of the eleven heartbroken. Ferus arranges a plan to have her taken back before she is transferred off planet. He calls his own strike force of Ry-Gaul and Solace formerly known as Fy-Tor-Ana. Clive Flax is also on the team. Ferus goes through lesson one which Palpatine does not attend. He tells him he does not need a lightsaber; only to let his anger flow through him instead of accepting it and releasing it like a Jedi would. He destroys the room much like Vader did after he learned of Padme's fate. Vader meets with the evil scientist Jenna Zan-Arbor because he has learned that she has found a way to erase memory. She can erase certain memories and Vader wants the ones of Padme and Obi-Wan erased. She was always greedy and she accepts Vaders High price. Trevor Flume has enlisted in the Naval academy that Lune was taken to. Lune is a Force adept and naturally landed in his advanced class. Trevor is there to get him out, but during their escape they are caught and Lune is taken to his dad, Bog Divinian. Bog offers Lune to be used as a test subject for Zan-Abor's experiments, because he was to get in good with the Emperor and he also wants Lunes memories of his mother, Astri Oddo, erased. The instructor Maggis, helps Trevor escape because he is sick of the Empire. They ultimately save Ferus and Lune at the medical facility. Ferus was promoted to Head inquisitor and was sent to work over Hydra, the former head after Ferus took Malorum out. He gets a look at the list of possible Force adepts. He finds promising subjects and ignores the report about the little girl on Alderaan. This is probably Leia, but Ferus does not know it. Ferus first had to see Roan's family and tell them of his death. Contrary to his belief they did not blame him, but took him into consideration as well. Overtaken by grief, Ferus leaves the room and is met by Roan's first cousin. He learns that she turned down a job at a large medical facility. He asks her to take the job because he believes he can get information on Vader's identity. He believes this is the key to defeating him. She takes the job and gets him in. This may be the same facility that Vader was created at, because there was said to be a terrible scream at the end of the Clone Wars. Ferus lets his anger get to him and almost turns his back on Lune! He used the Force to distract Zan Arbor and escapes with the boy. He returns him to his mother back on Coruscant. Amie was successfully rescued, but Flame was injured in the process. Clive thinks hes seen her before and does not trust her. He ventures to her homeworld to find some answers but before he can get them, his contact was killed. He asks Astri to help him, and she accepts the distraction. Ferus makes a contact with Obi-Wan by which he is instructed to file a report dismissing the importance of the little girl on Alderaan. He does not want to waste his time because, again, he does not understand and Obi-Wan won't tell him. And in order to file the report he has to go to Alderaan and pretend to investigate. But he feels the pain in Obi-Wan's heart and decides to leave immediately. es:Against the Empire |
Gideon Planish | null | null | Gideon Planish (1943) takes aim at less-than-honorable fundraising organizations. In a similar manner of his other works, the reader follows the self-titled character through his life and numerous (but slightly related) professions dealing with professional "organizationality" which is better known as the for-profit industry of pompous fundraising run by shady "philanthropists" running a wide variety of guilds, committees, foundations, leagues and councils for selfish and greedy purposes. The focus of the book begins with a young Gideon demonstrating a knack for public speaking, and these skills follow him through his self-motivated and selfish undergraduate years at Adelbert College. The book then picks up an older but still vacuous Gideon, now a Professor of Rhetoric at Kinnikinick College, when he finally meets the girl of his dreams; young coed Peony Jackson of Faribault, Minnesota. Motivated by vague dreams of importance, including a dream of becoming a U.S. senator, Gideon begins his campaign for social ascension by moving from one job to another with the hopes of meeting "like-minded thinkers" with vague goals and even more flexible morals when it came to raising money for a wide variety of causes. Over the years, Gideon's path to easy money with no accountability leads him to: * The Dean of Kinnikinick College where he begins to use this role as a springboard of notoriety by banishing books (Garfield County Censorship Board) and join do-nothing boards (including the Sympathizers with the Pacifistic Purposes of the New Democratic Turkey) to get his name out in the marketplace of opportunity. * Editor of Rural Adult Education publication * Itinerant Lecturer (between jobs) reusing his inventory of high style/low content messages. * Managing Secretary of the Heskett Rural School Foundation * Administration of the Association to Promote Eskimo Culture * Ghostwriter of the autobiography of William T. Knife, creator of Okey-Dokey, a beverage juiced with maximum caffeine for the masses * Assistant General Manager of the Citizen's Conference on Constituational Crisises in the Commonwealth (Cizcon) * Director General of "Every Man a Priest Fraternity" office * Directive Secretary of the Dynamos of Democratic Direction At 50 years old, when fatigued with the never-ending demands of generating self-importance combined with his realization that he lacked substance and true gravitas, Gideon has an opportunity to return to Kinnikinick College as its next President and allow him to finally begin to achieve something valid. Through a series of realizations by both himself and Peony, he remains in New York and daily regets their decision. |
Memoirs of an Infantry Officer | Siegfried Sassoon | null | Sassoon's account of his experiences in the trenches during World War I, between the spring of 1916 and the summer of 1917, creates a picture of a physically brave but self-effacing and highly insecure individual. The narrative moves from the trenches to the Fourth Army School, to Morlancourt and a raid, then to and through the Somme. The narrator, George Sherston, is wounded when a bullet passes through his lung after he incautiously sticks his head over the parapet at the battle of Arras in 1917. He is sent home to convalesce, and while there arranges to have lunch with the editor of an anti-war newspaper, the Unconservative Weekly. He determines to speak out against the war, though this contravenes military regulations and could result in his execution. The book finishes as George Sherston prepares to attend 'Slateford War Hospital' (Craiglockhart War Hospital, Edinburgh) after a medical board had decided he was suffering from shell-shock.http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0571203183 |
Bloodstained Oz | Christopher Golden | 2,006 | 1930s dust bowl Kansas natives and an alternate version of the Wonderful Land of Oz collide during a huge dust storm. The Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Cowardly Lion may or may not help them on this adventure because the other inhabitants of Oz include vampire flying monkeys, emerald eyed demonic creatures, and other horrors beyond imagination. Down home farm girl Gayle Franklin and her family, escaped convict Hank Burnside, and Roma gypsies Elisa and Stefan along with their infant son Jeremiah, all find themselves face to face with the unbelievable terrors from Oz. The creatures have taken over Oz and now they are threatening to take over Earth too. |
The Surgeon | Tess Gerritsen | null | A terrifying new serial killer begins stalking the streets of Boston, using his vast medical knowledge to systematically torture and kill vulnerable women, a modus operandi which has earned him the nickname "the Surgeon". As Jane Rizzoli, accompanied by detective Thomas Moore, works the case, she comes across trauma doctor Catherine Cordell, who almost died in the same fashion at the hands of another psychopath several years before, but killed him before he could kill her. Rizzoli soon establishes a connection between the two cases, concluding that she may be on the trail of a deranged copycat. The story opens up with the death of Elena Ortiz at the hands of the Surgeon, and Thomas Moore is sent to investigate. The murder is tied to another murder by the Surgeon, Diana Sterling, a year previous. Rizzoli and Moore note that both had no contact or connection whatsoever, and are perplexed by these two murders. Meanwhile, the Surgeon begins targeting his third victim, Nina Peyton, while Cordell continues to save lives, starting with Herman Gwadowski. |
King of Ayodhya | Ashok Banker | 2,006 | Directly following the events of Bridge of Rama, after Hanuman's destruction of the new Lanka, Ravana is shown overseeing the apparent total destruction of his realm. Fuming, he resolves to be craftier. Sita taunts him, telling him that he will fail against the odds which have been pitted against him. Ravana retorts by claiming that what Hanuman destroyed was little more than the surface level of Lanka, underneath which the ancient, dark realm slumbers, waiting to be awoken. Using an Upanishadic chant, he begins the birth of millions of new rakshasas as part of his great army. To Sita's horror, he is able to command Varuna, Deva of the Ocean, and force him to cause a tidal wave powerful enough to decimate Rama's army. Rama, Lakshman, and the rest of the army anxiously await Hanuman's return. Upon his return, Hanuman expresses his disappointment that he was unable to bring back Sita, but Rama, overjoyed at the his return and awed by his deeds, tells him that he is worth more to him than ever. The bridge-building is renewed with intense vigour and Hanuman joins in the effort, speeding up the process considerably. Hanuman soon spots an oncoming tidal wave heading towards them. In horror, he warns the vanar army to run back, and expands himself to a size in order to block the wave. Unfortunately, it is not enough, and the tidal wave hits Rama, Lakshmana, and the vanar and bear armies with shattering force. Nearly a tenth of the force is destroyed. Rama, in considerable pain and fury, roars at the sea after witnessing the destruction and is once again able to recall the Bow of Vishnu and the Arrow of Shiva using his reawakened, latent Brahman Shakti. He threatens to wipe out the ocean and all life in it, and fires a warning shot into the ocean, tormenting the creatures and causing the world under the water to writhe in agony. Varuna appears out of the ocean in complete submission, pleading for mercy, but Rama is unrelenting through his rage at the unfair loss of so many lives. Varuna promises Rama that he will never again serve Ravana and vows to remake the bridge using long platoons of sperm whales in order for the army to cross over. Rama is slightly pacified and agrees. Lakshmana watches in total horror and confronts Rama about why Rama did not use his acquired Shakti to spare them fourteen years of war. Rama states that his Shakti was returned with a simple caveat - to only use it when dharma is violated. If he used the Shakti at any other time, his power would become illegitimate. Lakshman only reluctantly agrees. Back in Lanka, Vibhishan and Mandodhari are tending to the rakshasas left in distress at the end of Hanuman's path of destruction. When Vibhishan once again pleads with Mandodhari to release Sita, he is banished from the kingdom by royal decree, and he resolves to join Rama in an effort to save Lanka. Ravana is surprisingly unmoved by this, stating that he wishes his brother would "realize his full potential". Rama and his army meanwhile complete the crossing of the bridge, meeting Vibhishan en route. He joins them with Hanuman's support and tells them that Ravana had secretly been building Lanka for the express purpose of a siege after his awakening. Upon their arrival, they are surprised to find a lush environment - but Ravana treacherously uses Brahman Shakti from afar to raise walls capable of blocking any assault and impervious to all siege machines. The army is intentionally walled into a section of Lanka accessible through only one gate. The assault kills scores of bears and vanars. Hurt but not shaken, Rama, Lakshmana and Jambavan begin to formulate their strategy against the vast armies of Ravana. They intentionally feed false information to rakshasa-vanar hybrid spies in order to deceive Ravana's main general, Vajradanta. On the first day of assault, two fields of battle are formed - the "front line" of vanars and hidden regiments of bears and vanars in forests and under the ground. The kumbha-rakshasa elite warriors plow through the front line of Sugreeva's vanar army but to their chagrin find themselves evenly matched against sheer numbers and ingenious vanar tactics. Sugreeva realizes throughout the battle that he is growing stronger and more energetic, not weaker. Meanwhile, the Lady of the Mandara-vanars, Mandara-devi, and her sons Mainda and Dvivida, mount an assault on a kumbha regiment that has attacked them through the forests and trees. In single combat she emasculates and slaughters the kumbha general, although being killed herself in the process. In a rage, both lines charge each other but the rakshasas, demoralized by the loss of their general, are mowed down. On another plain of battle, the Jatarupas, another tribe of vanars, face off against sorcerously bred lizard-rakshasas who have a hive mindset able to calculate strategies within mere seconds. The Jatarupas are unable to hold off the attack and the entire tribe is destroyed. However, in the nick of time, a bear regiment buried under the ground rises up, taking the lizard-rakshasas by surprise, and completely decimating them. Rama's forces are victorious against the hordes, despite sustaining significant losses. However, they soon realize that Ravana has been keeping an ace up his sleeve which he unleashes in the form of incredibly powerful asura shakti. A regiment of flying rakshasas attack them, even severely injuring Hanuman who nevertheless fends them off. But the most evil of his designs comes into play as he reanimates the dead on both sides, creating an unliving army which is indestructible. Lakshmana pleads with Rama to fight this evil power and he finally relents, raising the Bow of Vishnu and unleashing an arrow which dispels the asura shakti that had clouded the battlefield and was responsible for reanimating the corpses. The first day of battle leaves Rama's army victorious. Ravana's kumbha and elite hordes have been eradicated, so he decides to fight using conventional battle tactics which are sanctioned by dharma. This shrewdly prevents Rama from using any more divine shakti during the battle, as he can only use it in self-defense or in fair battle against opposing asura shakti. The two armies line up against each other and Indrajit, the battle commander, calls out champions to fight against the opposing champion, Hanuman. Single-handedly and with practically no effort, Hanuman defeats every single one of them while following the dharmic code of war. Fed up, Indrajit issues the order and both armies collide in a full frontal battle. Rama and Lakshman fight upon the ground bravely, vanquishing hundreds of rakshasas by their own hands. As they cut through the swath of warriors, however, they come to Indrajit, who uses the serpent weapon of Takshak against them. Their body becomes infested with snakes and they are knocked out cold and on the verge of death. Hanuman, refusing to admit defeat, flies off in search of the two holy mountains Chandra and Drona, which contain necessary medical herbs for resurrection, despite the fact that they exist on an alternate plane of existence. Remarkably, however, a flock of birds appears out of literally nowhere and coalesces into a cloud that forms a giant eagle, Garuda in an earthly form. He states that Indra sent him to revive him, as he has a personal vendetta against Indrajit. Rama and Lakshmana, revived, continue the fierce battle, mowing down enemy soldiers and officers alike. Ravana, who had been surveying the battle from the air the entire time with a hostage Sita, decides to pull a desperate card. After making Surpanakha take the form of Sita, he executes her in public with Rama watching, killing Surpanakha and instilling a sense of horror into the vanar and bear troops. Rama, believing that Sita is genuinely dead, grows once again into a divine rage and takes out the celestial weapons, systematically eradicating the inner palaces of Lanka and slowly destroying the city. The vanar and bear armies are finally able to break through the city walls, destroying it and killing all those who oppose them. However, Ravana finally reveals his greatest secret - he has awoken Kumbhakarna, his younger brother, a giant of colossal size who threatens to single-handedly wipe out the entire army. Vibhishan explains that Kumbhakarna cannot be destroyed with the use of celestial weapons, as he was granted the gift of invincibility. As Kumbhakarna is about to crush Rama, Hanuman arrives in the nick of time (along with the two holy mountains) and while carrying the mountains on his shoulders, grows to a huge size, lifts Kumbhakarna into the air by his legs, and drops him in the ocean. He drops the mountains off on the plains of battle outside the gates. Jambavan, who was mortally wounded during battle, explains to Rama that the execution he witnessed was not of the real Sita, and that he must not lose hope. Jambavan dies on the battlefield, but thanks to Hanuman's expedience in bringing the mountains, he is resurrected by vanar physicians and rises to fight once more. The mountain herbs are used to heal numerous wounds and the morale and battle strength of the vanar and bear armies rises considerably. Meanwhile, Hanuman pits his strength against Kumbhakarna and finds that the latter is very powerful but nevertheless has some key weaknesses. Using an ingenious strategy, he manages to lure Kumbhakarna back to the coast of Lanka and forces him into the volcanic center of Lanka, burning him to death. Back in the city, Rama fixes the arrow of Takshak to the Bow of Vishnu and uses it to decapitate Indrajit. Ravana, sensing the death of his son, rides out in a horrified fury to confront Rama. However, with the aid of the divine weapons, Rama calmly disarms Ravana, destroys his chariot and his crown. Refusing to kill an unarmed enemy, he allows Ravana to return back to his palace to refresh himself and come back armed. Uncharacteristically, Ravana agrees. Following his return to his palace, Ravana's wife Mandodhari, heartily sick of the war, asks him whether the war was justified for Sita and whether they have any chance of winning. He states that Sita was only a part of the war and that it represented something much greater and more significant, a development of fate and karma over time that had led to the demise of his kingdom and his powers. In a shocking revelation, he reveals to Mandodhari that by executing Surpanakha, he lost all of his asura shakti and cannot use it as a battle advantage anymore. Mandodhari realizes that if he goes back onto the battlefield, he will die, but Ravana, consigned to having lost the war, his family, all of his greatest warriors, and his most trusted friends, tells Mandodhari that she is now a widow. He goes back to the plain of battle. Ravana confronts Rama in a simple angavastra and wearing the caste-marks of Pulastya on his forehead. He tells Rama that he knew this day was coming, as he knew that his death was inevitable and that it was foretold by his destiny. He reveals indirectly that he is Jaya incarnated, brother of Vijaya, both the gatekeepers of Vaikuntha, cursed by the Four Kumaras to cause destruction upon the Earth for their misdeeds. Rama, not understanding, simply states that he is ready to kill him. Ravana states that he is willing to risk death in the hope of his eventual salvation. He throws a spear at him, prompting Rama to "defend himself" (although the weapon lands short), and Rama systematically slices off each head of Ravana's, and then decapitates his main central head, killing him once and for all. Following the end of the war, Vibhishan is made the king of Lanka, which has been reduced to stragglers and fragments by the invasion, leaving the rakshasa race on the verge of extinction. Nevertheless, they agree to an armistice and that no future conflicts will occur between the two races. Sita, although rescued, is put under doubt and scrutiny by Lakshmana who requests that she undergo the agni-pariksha, an acid test of fidelity. Although Rama flatly refuses to do so, Sita herself agrees out of the reasoning that Ayodhya needs to know that their queen is legitimate. She passes the test without a flaw, and Lakshmana asks her forgiveness. Commandeering the Pushpak, Sita, Rama, Lakshmana, Hanuman and the entire army fly back to Ayodhya, the term of exile complete. They find a grand celebration awaiting them, with old faces tearfully rejoicing in their arrival. The novel ends on a note of happiness. |
Quite Ugly One Morning | Christopher Brookmyre | 1,996 | After renting a flat from a friend in Edinburgh (which just happens to be opposite a police station), investigating the unpleasant murder of a gambling medic in the flat below proves too much to resist and Parblane soon finds himself involved with a number of characters including Darren, a hit-man from Essex, the dead doctor's ex-wife, a lesbian detective constable with attitude and crooked hospital trust administrator, Stephen Lime. The book takes its name from a song from Warren Zevon's 1991 album Mr. Bad Example. It was followed by the best seller Country of the Blind in 1997 which again involved Jack Parlabane. |
Parallel Worlds | Michio Kaku | 2,004 | From the back of the book: "In this thrilling journey into the mysteries of our cosmos, bestselling author Michio Kaku takes us on a dizzying ride to explore black holes and time machines, multidimensional space and, most tantalizing of all, the possibility that parallel universes may lie alongside our own. Kaku skillfully guides us through the latest innovations in string theory and its most recent iteration, M-theory, which posits that our universe may be just one in an endless multiverse, a singular bubble floating in a sea of infinite bubble universes. If M-theory is proven correct, we may perhaps finally find an answer to the question, "What happened before the big bang?" This is an exciting and unforgettable introduction to the cutting-edge theories of physics and cosmology from one of the preeminent voices in the field." |
The Man in Grey | Baroness Emma Orczy | 1,918 | Set in Napoleonic France in 1809, the west of the country is being terrorised by a group of reckless criminals known as "Chouans" (Screech Owls) because they inflict terror by night and go to ground during the day, hiding out in the remains of chateaux left in ruins after the revolution. The group, which contains some of France’s most historic names, commit their crimes under the guise of Royalist convictions, but whether they really seek to reinstate the Bourbon royal line, or whether they are just a pack of lawless brigands is open for debate. "Theirs were the hands that struck whilst their leaders planned--they were the screech-owls who for more than twenty years terrorised the western provinces of France and, in the name of God and their King, committed every crime that could besmirch the Cause which they professed to uphold." They are as much an enigma as the one man who has succeeded in bringing some of these fugitives to justice, a mysterious figure known only as “The Man in Grey”, who is a secret agent for the Government. |
The Host | Stephenie Meyer | 2,008 | Melanie "Mel" Stryder is one of the surviving rebel humans left after the invasion of the "Souls", parasitic aliens which take over human bodies, erasing the original occupants. Wanderer is a Soul who has lived on eight other planets previously, Mel being her ninth body host. She was inserted under emergency conditions, with the intent of using her to access any information Melanie might have about other free humans like Mel's brother and boyfriend. This investigation is headed by an individual identified only as "The Seeker", who pressures Wanderer to produce information, and views her with implied contempt for her failure to do so. Melanie remains partially conscious despite her infestation, an aberration for which Wanderer feels some shame, and no small amount of concern. She bombards Wanderer with her memories and emotions, and Wanderer develops emotional connections of her own to both Melanie's former lover and her brother. When enough information arises for her to find them, rather than report it to the Seeker, Wanderer sets out on her own to find them, nearly dying in the desert before Melanie's uncle, Jeb, finds her. He brings her into his hideout, a complex of caves containing more than two dozen free humans who survive by scavenging from distant cities. Jeb is unwilling to kill her because her host body is a relative, so she remains in the caves, where she has to deal with the antagonism and distrust of most of the group, including Jared, Mel's boyfriend. She eventually develops feelings for several of the humans, in particular Ian O'Shea who becomes a constant protector and friend. Her help and support with a dying member of the group makes the others view her more sympathetically. Only a few humans maintain their dislike of her, notably Ian's brother Kyle, who makes at least one attempt of her life, for which he is threatened with expulsion from the group. Wanderer's peaceful life with the group is disturbed by the realization that the humans have not given up on reclaiming those the Souls have enslaved; by experimenting with ways of removing Souls from their hosts, both always die in the process. Severely traumatized upon discovering the remains of extracted souls, she enters a period of mourning, withdrawing from the group. She is only roused by news that Jamie is injured and has developed a serious infection. She and Jared sneaking out of the complex together to seek medicine at a Soul-run hospital, using Wanderer's credibility as a Soul to gain access. After this, she becomes a regular participant in scavenging missions. When the Seeker is captured for getting too close to the caves, Wanderer finally reveals the method of detaching a Soul without killing the host. This allows them to rescue several friends and family members taken by the Souls, including Kyle's girlfriend. She reveals the technique to the group's medic, on the condition that he not harm the Souls after they are removed, and that she also be removed from Melanie and be buried. The latter condition proves controversial, especially with Ian, who forcibly takes her to his cave where he confesses his love for her. However Wanderer, undeterred, sneaks away after he falls asleep to complete her plan. She is removed, but awakens in the body of a girl who had not had a chance to develop a personality, since the Soul "Pet" was inserted during her childhood. Kyle's girlfriend turns out to have been utterly destroyed in the insertion, and he develops a relationship with the Soul in her body instead. Wanderer's association with the humans continues. In the final scene this is revealed to not be a unique situation, when they meet another group with a human-sympathizing Soul. The ending is a setup for a second book, although one is not yet in the works (2012). |
The Shock Doctrine | Naomi Klein | 2,007 | The book has an introduction, a main body and a conclusion, divided into seven parts with a total of 21 chapters. The introduction sketches the history of the last thirty years where economic shock doctrine has been applied throughout the world, from South America in the 1970s to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Klein introduces two of her main themes. #That practitioners of the shock doctrine tend to seek a blank slate on which to create their ideal free market economies, which usually requires a violent destruction of the existing economic order. #The similarities between economic shock doctrine and the original shock therapy – a psychiatric technique where electric shocks were applied to mentally ill patients. Part 1 begins with a chapter on psychiatric shock therapy and the covert experiments conducted by the psychiatrist Ewen Cameron in collusion with the Central Intelligence Agency: how it was partially successful in distorting and regressing patients' original personality, but ineffectual in developing a "better" personality to replace it. Parallels with economic shock therapy are made, including a digression on how government agencies harnessed some of the lessons learned to create more effective torture techniques. Torture, according to Klein, has often been an essential tool for authorities who have implemented aggressive free market reforms – this assertion is stressed throughout the book. She suggests that for historical reasons the human rights movement has often portrayed torture without explaining its context, which has made it frequently appear as pointless cruelty. The second chapter introduces Milton Friedman and his Chicago school of economics, whom Klein describes as leading a movement committed to free markets even less regulated than before the Great Depression. Part 2 discusses the use of shock doctrine to transform South American economies in the 1970s, focusing on the coup in Chile led by General Augusto Pinochet. The apparent necessity for the unpopular policies associated with shock therapy to be supported by torture is explored. Part 3 covers attempts to apply the shock doctrine without the need for extreme violence against sections of the population. The mild shock therapy of Margaret Thatcher is explained as being made possible by the Falklands War, while free market reform in Bolivia was possible due to a combination of pre-existing economic crises and the charisma of Jeffrey Sachs. Part 4 reports on how the shock doctrine was applied in Poland, Russia, South Africa and to the tiger economies during the 1997 Asian financial crisis. Part 5 introduces the "Disaster Capitalism Complex", where the author describes how companies have learnt to profit from disasters. She talks about how the same personnel move easily from security-related posts in US government agencies to lucrative positions in corporations. Part 6 discusses the occupation of Iraq, which Klein describes as the most comprehensive and full-scale implementation of the shock doctrine ever attempted. Part 7 is about the winners and losers of economic shock therapy – how narrow groups will often do very well by moving into luxurious gated communities while large sections of the population are left with decaying public infrastructure, declining incomes and increased unemployment. Conclusion is about the backlash against the shock doctrine and economic institutions that propagate it like the World Bank and IMF. South America and Lebanon post-2006 are examined as sources of positive news, where politicians are already rolling back free-market policies, with some mention of the increased campaigning by community-minded activists in South Africa and China. |
The Reluctant Queen: The Story of Anne of York | Eleanor Hibbert | 1,990 | The novel begins in with a prologue, in the year 1485. Anne, the narrator, knows she is dying and has decided to write her memoirs before death slowly takes her. She worries about the fate of her family including that of her husband Richard, the King of England. Richard is severely maligned by his people, and Anne fears that his power and position would be greatly jeopardized after her death. This leads to her reminiscing on happier days. She recalls growing up in the English countryside with her noble family: her father Richard, her mother Anne, and sister Isabel. At the age of five she meets her future husband, eight-year-old Richard Plantagenet who is studying under the tutelage of her father. Richard's brother Edward has recently been proclaimed King by the English people, usurping the throne from mentally unstable King Henry VI and his aloof consort, Margaret of Anjou. Richard enthralls young Anne with tales of his brother and the Wars of the Roses. Anne's father as the Earl of Warwick has played a crucial part in placing Edward on the English Throne, and plans to marry him to French noblewoman, Bona of Savoy, much to his daughter Isabel's chagrin as she secretly wants to be Queen Consort. Soon all of England is shocked to discover that Edward has secretly married a young widowed mother, Elizabeth Woodville Grey who is five years older than he is, and is considered by many to be a "commoner". The Earl is disgusted with Edward's choice of a bride, as is Edward's mother Cecily Neville, Duchess of York, who out of spite informs her son that she had him illegitimately. He does not believe her and refuses to have the marriage annulled, something which will have calamitous results in the future. Isabel, dismayed that the King did not choose her for a bride, sets her sights on his younger brother George, Duke of Clarence. George and Isabel marry just as Warwick severs ties with King Edward and joins the Lancastrian side of the War of the Roses. A pregnant Isabel is so distressed by the sudden move that she gives birth to a stillborn daughter. Warwick proposes that Anne marry Edward, Prince of Wales Henry and Margaret's son. Anne is terrified that Queen Margaret will be her mother-in-law until she gets to know her better. Anne's parents, along with Isabel and George, head back to England, while Anne remains with her future in-laws. Soon Anne marries and travels back to England with her husband and mother-in-law as Princess of Wales. She is horrified to discover that her father has died in the dreaded Battle of Barnet. Prince Edward also dies in battle, much to the grief of Queen Margaret. Soon she and Anne are taken prisoner by the Yorkist soldiers. The King releases Anne, believing her the victim of her father's ambition. Queen Margaret is imprisoned and Anne is sent under the watchful eye of George and Isabel, as her mother in fear of her life is living in sanctuary in a abbey. Anne and Richard meet again after a long years absence and soon fall in love. Richard proposes marriage to her and she accepts, much to George's horror. George, wanting the inheritance of Warwick only for himself, drugs Anne and arranges for her to be spirited away to be taken in by servants and force her to believe that she is a disillusioned scullery maid. Anne manages to see through the facade and asks for one of the deposed servant girls for help. The girl alerts Richard who rescues Anne. The entire court as well as Isabel believed Anne to have run away after her marriage was refused by her guardian's. Despite several setbacks, Anne marries Richard and becomes Duchess of Gloucester. With her relatives restored to favor, Anne's mother is reunited with her children, and is delighted to learn that Isabel is pregnant again. Isabel gives birth to a daughter Margaret Plantagenet. Anne wants to give Richard a child and is dismayed to learn that he had had a mistress before the marriage, and shares two children with her. Anne is shocked and hurt but soon forgives Richard, and they eventually have a son christened Edward after the King. Isabel becomes pregnant again twice, but dies along with her last infant son. Richard's one-time mistress also dies leaving Anne as stepmother to her two young children. George, distraught over his wife's death, confronts the King and dies mysteriously. After several years, King Edward dies suddenly, leaving his young son as heir. It is soon discovered that the late King had betrothed marriage to another, making his marriage to Queen Elizabeth invalid, and barring her children from the throne. Richard, and a reluctant Anne assume rule as King and Queen. Anne worries about the health of her young son, and her own imbalances of illness which leads her to believe that Richard is attracted to his niece Elizabeth of York. When Edward dies, Anne's health takes a turn for the worse. Rumors envelop the countryside after Richard's nephews vanish without a trace. Richard invites his widowed sister-in-law and her daughter's back to court, despite Anne's paranoia about Elizabeth. Anne realizes her mistake too late. With the last ounce of her strength she writes her memoirs, then silently dies on the night of an eclipse. Unmentioned in the novel are Richard's eventual downfall and death at the battle of Bosworth and Elizabeth's rise as consort of the new king, and mother of a new dynasty, and the fate of Isabel's children Edward and Margaret who were executed in 1499 and 1541 respectively. |
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team | Patrick Lencioni | null | According to the book, the five dysfunctions are: * Absence of trust—unwilling to be vulnerable within the group * Fear of conflict—seeking artificial harmony over constructive passionate debate * Lack of commitment—feigning buy-in for group decisions creates ambiguity throughout the organization * Avoidance of accountability—ducking the responsibility to call peers on counterproductive behaviour which sets low standards * Inattention to results—focusing on personal success, status and ego before team success |
Shroud for a Nightingale | P. D. James | null | Student nurses Heather Pearce and Josephine Fallon have died of mysterious circumstances in the hospital nursing school of Nightingale House. As Scotland Yard’s Commander [he is not yet Commander, but Chief Superintendent] Adam Dalgliesh uncovers sexual secrets and blackmail within the closed community of the hospital, he finds himself in mortal danger. |
Let Time Pass | Svend Aage Madsen | null | Johanna who is a lector at a Danish university gets involved by her colleague professor Jeyde in a time travel experiment. Jeyde has discovered that he can put the time 23 days back. The background to the invention is that Jeyde perceives the time as split up into small sets, among which time stands calm. Jeyde compares his theory with films, where every second 24 still pictures are shown. If you happen to cut the time "tape" the world gets rewound to the previous secure point (which would be 23 days before the moment of the cut). The problem that Jeyde has encountered is that after the time cut neither he nor anybody else can notice that there was a cut because everything that happened between the safe point and the cut is erased from their memories as it never had happened (and theoretically it hasn't happened indeed). He can't even be sure about any event whether it's the first time it's happening or not. To be able to understand the possibilities of his invention better, Jeyde sends Johanna to a psychiatrist who "opens up her mind" so after a time cut she'd be able to remember the destroyed time. When Johanna gets tired of being repeatedly sent by Jeyde back in time (since Jeyde sends back the entire Universe and not just Johanna he doesn't need Johanna's participation or agreement to send her back) she manages to lock Jeyde up in a psychiatric hospital and wants to leave time travelling behind her, but then she suddenly realises how much freedom it can give her. This way Johanna gets the unique chance to outplay different variations of her relationship with Sverre, one of her students, as she can always correct a mistake that she has made. Another bonus she gets is in no need to spend time tidying up at home because she can always come back to a time when everything was still clean. However she quickly discovers that too much knowledge about upcoming events tends to make things more complicated. Her relationship with Sverre cannot recommence from where they left off and she has trouble remembering which events are real and which are fictional in any given situation. Finally she decides that the only solution to let time flow normally is for her to first kill Jeyde and then herself. |
Darwin's Angel | John Cornwell | 2,007 | In this book, Cornwell adopts the persona of the guardian angel of Charles Darwin and Gregor Mendel, who is now looking after Richard Dawkins. He pens a letter to Dawkins in 21 chapters. # A Summary of your Argument suggests that Dawkins regards all claims about God's existence as "the exclusive province of science and reason". # Your Sources suggests that the book ignores distinguished scholarship and uses inappropriate sources. # Imagination suggests that Dawkins takes things too literally. # Beauty suggests that Dawkins misunderstands the links between beauty, creativity and faith, and suggests he studies George Steiner, William Blake, T. S. Eliot and C. S. Lewis. # What is Religion suggests that religion is not science and that Dawkins should study sociologists of religion such as Émile Durkheim. # Is God Supernatural? claims that Dawkins' image of God is not what most theists believe in. # Celestial Teapots suggests that the comparison with Russell's teapot is misplaced because Cornwell claims there are prima facie, albeit inconclusive, grounds for believing in God. # God's Simplicity claims that Dawkins imagines that God is an object but this is not how theologians think about God. # Theories of Everything claims that Stephen Hawking and others now believe a "Theory of Everything" is impossible due to Gödel's incompleteness theorems. # Dawkins versus Dostoyevsky suggests that Dawkins mistakenly attributes the nihilistic views of Ivan Karamazov to Dostoyevsky. Dawkins responded to this chapter specifically by saying that he was either misunderstood or misquoted. # Jesus, the Jews and the "Pigs" suggests that Dawkins relies on a single source when he discusses "the moral consideration for others" in Judaism and Christianity being originally intended to apply only to a narrowly defined in-group. # Dawkins's Utopia claims that Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Hitler all used "science as an ideology combined with militant atheism". He also claims that Stalin's atheism was foundational to his entire ideology, and that as atheism doesn't necessarily lead to violence, nor does religion. Cornwell received some criticism for this section, noting that Hitler not only did not endorse atheism, but carried out measures to stamp it out. # Fundamentalism suggests that it is important to distinguish between tolerant and violent forms of faith. Cornwell also claims it is a category error to confuse creationism and the "doctrine of creation". # Is Religious Education Child Abuse? questions whether being indoctrinated in a faith is tantamount to child abuse. He goes on to claim the Amish are a living testimony to the advantages of frugality and simplicity. # Life After Death suggests that most religious believers hope for an afterlife, In Dawkins' response to the book, he criticised Cornwell for quoting him out of context in this section. # Religious People Less Clever than Atheists? suggests that scientific eminence does not guarantee sound judgement, and that scientists are prejudiced against religious believers. # Does our Moral Sense have a Darwinian Origin? claims that there is more to morality than evolution can explain. # The Darwinian Imperative claims that attempts to explain religion via evolution are simplistic. # Religion as a Bacillus discusses Dr Gerhard Wagner, and states that describing all religious believers as infected with a virus has deplorable overtones. # Does God Exist? suggests that Dawkins does not understand the question "why is there something rather than nothing?", which is why he finds it ridiculous. Cornwell goes on to say "the ludicrous anthropomorphic deity that rightly appals" Dawkins is not the God in whom most Christian theologians believe. # Being Religious suggests that being religious is not a question of factual beliefs but a personal relationship and quest based on prayer and love. |
The Bear Went Over the Mountain | William Kotzwinkle | null | Arthur Bramhall is known by his colleagues to be a poorly performing teacher of English with little talent as a writer. But Bramhall isolates himself in a forest cabin and manages to write a great novel; he goes off to buy champagne in celebration. Whilst he is away, a bear digs up his manuscript. The bear travels to New York, where he is accepted as a talented author and desirable party guest, while Bramhall's increasing animal-like desperation leads to him being shunned by his former friends. In its use of humour and a character of very limited abilities—the bear—to comment on aspects of modern life, the book resembles stories like Forrest Gump and Being There. It also continues a trend well established in Kotzwinkle's work. |
Dreamer | Daniel Quinn | 1,988 | Awake, Greg Donner falls in love with the beautiful red-headed Ginny Winters, a woman with a mysterious past. Asleep, Greg dreams of pursuing Ginny through a terrifyingly deserted Chicago. Awake, Richard Iles is confined to a sanatorium in Kentucky and trapped in a loveless marriage to Ginny Winters. Asleep, Richard dreams he is Greg Donner. And when he next wakes up, he IS Greg Donner. But Ginny has gone. |
The Bible in History: How Writers Create a Past | null | null | The theme of "The Bible and History" is the need to treat the bible as literature rather than as history: "The Bible's language is not an historical language. It is a language of high literature, of story, of sermon and of song. It is a tool of philosophy and moral instruction." Part 1 deals with general historiogaphical issues, including the importance of understanding the types and purposes of different biblical stories, the dangers of treating myth and poetry as history, and the use of origin-myths as recurring motifs, concluding that the bible was intended to provide an ancient people with a common past, and thus was very different from our own tradition of critical history-writing. Part 2 is a history of ancient Palestine and the surrounding region from the earliest human settlement to the Hellenistic period drawing on the most recent archaeological and historical studies, and Part 3 concludes with a survey of the theological implications of the preceding study. |
The Wool-Pack | Cynthia Harnett | 1,951 | Set in the Cotswolds near Burford, Oxfordshire, The Wool-Pack begins in 1493 when Nicholas Fetterlock, the twelve-year-old son of a rich wool merchant, learns from his father that he is betrothed to Cecily Bradshaw, the daughter of a rich cloth merchant. Nicholas learns villainy within the guild that may ruin the trade or his father's business. |
The Load of Unicorn | Cynthia Harnett | 1,959 | Benedict, known as Bendy, has been apprenticed by his forward-looking father to the printer William Caxton. This infuriates his mean half-brothers who are scriveners and fear that the new-fangled printing press will drive them out of business. They have secretly waylaid the printer's delivery of new paper and are hiding it. Bendy knows about it but is worried about the consequences of telling, especially as his half-brothers may be involved with Lancastrian rebels. Caxton sends Bendy and another apprentice on a quest to find the complete manuscript of Thomas Mallory's stories of King Arthur, but it proves dangerous as others are also on the trail. |
Lord John and the Succubus | Diana Gabaldon | 2,004 | Briefly stationed at Gundwitz with a group of English and Hanoverian soldiers, Grey was at first sceptical when he received reports of a local succubus. Joining the search at the town's graveyard for the strange creature only to placate the townspeople, he soon discovered that reality was a lot more complicated than he thought. pl:Lord John i sukub |
Lord John and the Haunted Soldier | Diana Gabaldon | null | In November 1758, following the events of June in Brotherhood of the Blade, the surviving members of the gun crew manning the cannon "Tom Pilchard" at Krefeld are brought before a board of inquiry, including Lord John Grey. Grey, who commanded the cannon crew upon the abrupt death of Lt. Philip Lister, is both troubled and insulted by the questioning, and stalks out of the inquiry. He does see the remains of the burst cannon, and briefly presents a missing piece; shrapnel from the gun that had been removed from his chest by surgeons, but Grey refuses to surrender it. Eventually, this piece will be the only remaining evidence that the cannons were poorly manufactured. At least one piece of metal remains in Grey's chest, and this along with residual damage leave Grey with severe chest pains and uncontrolled shaking. Harry Quarry warns Grey about Col. Twelvetrees willingness to use the cannon inquiry to goad John into action that will be used to discredit either him, his brother Hal, or both. He suggests Grey be seconded to the 65th or 78th regiments temporarily to stay out of Twelvetrees' way for a while, but Grey instead begins to investigate the cannon failures himself. When Grey returns Lt. Lister's sword to the man's father, the elder Lister begs Grey's assistance in locating the missing fiance and child of his late son. While on these tasks, he discovers political intrigue surrounding his half-brother's government contract for supplying black powder to the military, and meets Captain Fenshaw and the other members of Edgar's consortium. Grey writes on two occasions to his paroled charge, James Fraser; starkly honest confessions of his cares and worries that are never sent, but serve to help ground Grey's thoughts and emotions. |
Lord John and the Hellfire Club | Diana Gabaldon | null | While at the Beefsteak Club, Lord John Grey is introduced to Robert Gerald, a cousin by marriage to Grey's friend and colleague, Harry Quarry. Gerald asks Grey to meet him in secret that night, hinting at intrigue. Before the meeting, however, Gerald is killed in front of Grey and Quarry, and the two men begin to search for clues pertaining to Gerald's murder. A few days later, during a high-society party, Grey is invited to a Hellfire Club meeting by one of its members, George Everett (one of Grey's former lovers). When Grey attends the meeting at the club's hideout, Medmenham Abbey, he soon discovers that his life might be in danger as well! |
Maximum Ride: The Final Warning | James Patterson | 2,008 | The story begins with Jeb, Max, the oldest of the siblings, and the Flock holding a funeral for Ari, Max’s half-brother and Jeb’s son. The next day they go to a private conference with the Danning Administration in Washington who are trying to decide what would be best for the Flock. The meeting does not go smoothly and ends with the Flock flying away to Dr. Martinez’s home where they are currently staying. But soon their short period of bliss is ended when they are forced to leave as an unexpected bomb in the form of a pizza arrives at their doorstep shortly after attending the government meeting. They flee to a safer place and there Max is thrown into a world of longing and confusion as Fang kisses her on a dock when they snuck out of their hotel during the night while everyone was asleep. Since Max runs from him, afraid to display her feelings, the atmosphere between the two grows cold and unfriendly. Then her mom, Dr. Martinez, calls them and tells them she has a surprise for them. The surprise is that they're going to go on a special mission – all the way to Antarctica, the point of the mission is to record data on how the world was changing due to pollution/global warming and how they could help stop it. After agreeing to take part in the mission, the flock meet up with a crew of environmentalists on the polar research vessel, The Wendy K. There, they meet an attractive 21 year old scientist named Brigid Dwyer, who immediately finds a liking in Fang. Max is getting even more jealous as Bridgid talks to Fang more. Certain members of the Flock gain more skills – Iggy can feel colors and see things if surrounded by white, Nudge can attract metal, Gazzy develops the ability to release almost toxic gas at will, Fang gains the ability to blend in with his surroundings and Angel gets yet another skill – she can change her appearance. And much to the group's surprise, Total, the talking dog the Flock rescued in Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment starts to grow wings! While in Antarctica, a member of the research team is attacked by a leopard seal and killed. However she was a mechanical impostor created by an unknown group of enemies attempting to capture the Flock. Meanwhile, Max and Fang’s relationship gets steadily more and more strained. The Flock faces big problems when Angel goes to find a baby penguin in the middle of a blizzard and they are captured by a mutated group of genetically enhanced humans. After being kidnapped, the Flock awakes in an office building located in Miami which has been evacuated due to the threat of a category 4 hurricane. The Flock faces the emotionless Uber-Director (who is described as having many of his internal organs connected via plastic "boxes" which his head sits upon). As they make an attempt to escape, they find themselves trapped by the Uber-Director's mutated body guard. When all hope seems lost, the windows to the skyscraper shatter due to the high speed winds, sucking the Flock, the Uber-Director, and his bodyguard into the eye of the hurricane where the Flock were the only ones that didn't free fall to the ground. After the events, the Flock returns to the home of Dr. Martinez where they are offered the opportunity to attend the Lerner School for Gifted Children (a.k.a. Ye Olde Academy for Mutants and Other Kids). As Max declines the offer, she and the Flock take off amidst the circle of reporters, ushering the fact that their existence and other genetic mutations have gone public. |
Tear of the Gods | Raymond E. Feist | 2,000 | The story opens with a closer look at the person behind the plots to force the Kingdom of the Isles into war with its neighbors. The sorcerer Sidi is using a pirate named Bear to create chaos in the Kingdom. Squire James of Krondor is sent by Arutha, Prince of Krondor, to escort the newly-appointed court magician, Jazhara, to the palace. In doing so, they discover a silk maker using child labor to make profits. Jazhara discovers that the trader is actually a spy for her great-uncle, Hazara-Kahn, Ambassador of the Empire of Great Kesh. James and Jazhara proceed to kill the spy and his guards, and to free the children. After searching the shop, they discover that the spy was a double agent, working for the crime lord The Crawler. After the new court magician, Jazhara is introduced to the Prince, Arutha, James is tasked with taking Jazhara on a tour of Krondor. Jazhara has, in the past, had a love affair with young William (the son of Duke Pug, the master magician). She is eager to speak to William about their affair. James leads Jazhara to the Rainbow Parrot Inn, where they are greeted with a scene of carnage. Upon entering the scene is a massacre, William is alive and confronted by 3 armed men. Squire James and Jazhara immediately go to William's aid and the men are soon dispatched. William's new sweetheart is lying close to death and they discover that the man "Bear" is behind the attack. Talia soon dies, with William vowing to avenge her death. Soon after, there is a loud rocking explosion and the three investigate and finds the prison in chaos, as apparently Bear broke into the prison to reach a person with a specific knowledge that Bear's master needed. Having tortured the information out of the prisoner, Bear escapes, but not before killing the man. Soon after, a high priest of the Temple of Ishap sheds light on some recent events: that the Temple had been transporting a divine artifact by ship, when it was raided and sunk, the artifact included. The artifact, called the Tear of the Gods, allows the priests of various temples to channel the divine will of the gods, without which, humanity would be cut off from the gods. William, Jazhara, and James are tasked by Prince Arutha to retrieve the artifact. Joined by a representative of the temple, a warrior priest, they recruit a member of a magicians' guild to raise the sunken ship. Having successfully retrieved the artifact, they are beset by Bear, who proves to be immune to nearly any attack. Talia's final gift to William then manifests; as Talia was an acolyte of Kahooli, the God of Retribution, her final gift turns William into an avatar of the deity for a short time, and he defeats Bear. fr:Krondor : La Larme des dieux |
The Company | null | 1,976 | The protagonist is Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) William "Bill" Martin, a longtime CIA agent who was appointed DCI by Democratic President Esker Scott Anderson. Anderson, as Vice President, succeeded William Curry, who was killed in a crash of Air Force One in the early 1960s. Martin's friendship with Anderson dates from the 1950s, when he was a lower-level agent and Anderson held a great deal of power as Senate Majority Leader. As Deputy CIA Director, Martin was responsible for planning an undercover invasion of the Dominican Republic by emmigres trained and supported by the U.S. However, President Curry, worried about negative repercussions from the invasion, ordered the murder of a priest who led the rebel movement, in order to ensure the invasion's failure. CIA Inspector General, Major-General Antonio Primula, wrote a report blaming Martin, then-DCI Horace McFall and, in part, President Curry for the invasion's failure, and recommending the firing of McFall and Martin. After Curry's death, Anderson appointed Martin as DCI and promised to keep the Primula report secret, in return for Martin's loyalty. Anderson becomes seriously ill during his elected term and declines to run for a second, leaving his Vice President Ed Gilley as the Democratic nominee. Despite Martin's hard work behind the scenes to help elect Gilley, he is defeated by Republican Richard Monckton. Martin sees Monkton, a longtime political enemy of Curry and Anderson, as a threat to himself and the CIA. But Martin retains his position, due mainly to the support of support of Monckton's National Security Advisor Carl Tessler, a former foreign affairs aide to Governor Thomas J. Forville. Despite his relatively weak position in the new administration, Martin discovers illegal practices of Monkton administration operatives, and uses this knowledge to make a deal with Monkton: he must destroy the Primula Report and assign Martin as ambassador to Jamaica in exchange for Martin's silence on Monkton's illegal activity. Despite Martin's efforts, Monkton's activities are revealed by an investigative reporter, initiating the fall of his administration. |
Eva Trout | Elizabeth Bowen | null | Part I-Genesis The novel opens with Eva's excursion to a lake in the neighborhood of Larkins where she is staying as a paying guest since her father's death. The lady of Larkins, Iseult Arble, is a former teacher of Eva's whom Eva is very fond of during the school days. However, Eva does not presently fancy Arbles' guardianship and often travels to the Danceys' house where she can enjoy the company of Catrina, Henry, Andrew and Louise Dancey. In the first section, readers get to know the two schools Eva went to as a young girl. The first school, owned by her farther Willy Trout and administered by Constantine's lover Kenneth,is one of the rare places where Eva feels at home but it also has a traumatic effect on her insofar as Eva's roommate Elsinore attempts to commit suicide by drowning herself in the lake. It is in the second school that Eva meets Iseult Smith from whom she receives the attention she has craved all her life. As Eva approaches her 25th birthday after which she will be able to access the fortune her father left behind, both the Arbles and her legal guardian Constantine Ormeau question her capacity to take care of herself and her wealth. To escape the confining guardianship of both Iseult and Constantine, Eva rents a house in Kent. In a conversation with Iseult at Cathay, Eva tells her that she is to give birth to her baby and flees to America where she would purchase a child to make up for her lie. By Eva's departure time, Iseult already suspects a sexual relationship between her husband Eric and Eva and she cannot help thinking that the father of Eva's child is Eric. This suspicion leads to the dissolution of the Arbles' household. Part II-Eight Years Later The second part of the novel is infused with Eva's reconsiderations of her past in her quest of becoming who she is. After her return from the USA with her child Jeremy, a boy both "deaf and dumb," Eva falls in love with one of the children she used to hang out with at the Dancey's, Henry Dancey, who is now a student at Cambridge University. Although Henry does not feel the same way about Eva in the first place, on their mock hymeneal departure at Victoria station, Henry declares his sincere love for Eva. This unexpected declaration, which makes Eva shed tears of joy, is immediately spoilt by Jeremy who accidentally shoots Eva killing her instantenously at Victoria Station. |
Mr. Monk in Outer Space | Lee Goldberg | 2,007 | When Conrad Stipe, creator of the popular science fiction TV series Beyond Earth, is gunned down outside a Beyond Earth convention, Monk and Natalie are called in, and Monk soon finds that there is more going on behind the scenes than is visible to the naked eye, and also learns that his brother Ambrose is a big expert on the show. |
Native Tongue | Carl Hiaasen | 1,991 | Joe Winder is a journalism dropout employed to compose press releases for the Amazing Kingdom, a Florida based theme park that aspires to achieve the greatness of Disney World. The park is owned by a former “wise guy” whose court testimony forced him to seek refuge in the Federal Witness Protection Program. A new identity and a change of venue, however, did nothing to alter the morals of Francis X. Kingsbury. He thinks nothing of faking wildlife exhibits, destroying the fragile environment of the Florida Keys, or using lethal means to protect his nefarious schemes from public exposure. When an equally amoral environmentalist resolves to thwart Kingsbury’s designs. Winder comes out of retirement as an investigative reporter to attempt to rescue the last of a near-extict species. He finds himself in alliance with an ex-governor seeking absolution in the life of a hermit, law enforcement officials with a peculiar sense of justice, two of the most bumbling burglars ever to circumvent an alarm system, and an incredibly bloodthirsty senior citizen. This motley group, with the assistance of a contract killer sent by the mob to eliminate Kingsbury, put paid to those who would damage the environment and subvert the democratic process. |
Iron & Silk | Mark Salzman | null | Salzman, a member of the Yale-China expedition crew, is offered a position to teach English at the Changsha Medical University for two years. While he is there, he learns Chinese martial arts of many different kinds. He studies from the martial arts master Pan Qingfu. He encounters political activists, travels, and deals with many different kinds of people, some of them very traditional. |
Yankee in Oz | Ruth Plumly Thompson | 1,972 | The story begins with Thomas P. "Tompy" Terry, an athlete and musician son of a physicist, star drummer in his marching band at Pennwood prep in fictional small town, Pennwood, Pennsylvania, swept away by then-fictitious Hurricane Hannah on his way to the Labor Day parade. He lands on the shore of Winkie Lake, where he meets Yankee, the first American dog in space, a bull terrier delighted at his newfound ability to talk. The nearest town is Wackajammy, in the northeastern part of the Winkie Country, which is the breadbasket of the West. The King, Jackalack, believes that Tompy and Yankee are there to fulfill a prophecy to rescue their princess, his aunt, Doffi, who instructs all of the bakers of the town, who refuse to do any work without her present. Yammer Jammer, the king's advizer, using a book called the Mind Reader determines that the two have no intent to do the search when they leave, and locks them in prison. Yankee is able to dig out during the night and get the key, and when they leave, they steal the Mind Reader. Though determined to get home, Yankee in particular wishes to rescue the princess anyway. They next encounter an anteater, a town of powdered and packaged workaholic people, Tidy Town, whose king wants to force them to be listeners, cross into the Gillikin Country with the aid of Tim Ber the Trav-E-Log, meet a kindly but private woodsman named Axel, and a village of pleasant people with cold light paper lanterns for heads who are active only at night. Climbing Mount Upandup, they meet a flower fairy named Su-Posy who mentions that she delivers flowers to an imprisoned princess nearby to cheer her up. Also resting on this mountain is Jinnicky the Red Jinn, with whom Tompy and Yankee make fast friends. Also living on the mountain is Badmannah, who has kidnapped Princess doffi, and soon after, uses a magic magnifying glass to abduct Princess Ozma and the entire Emerald City palace. Regrouping at the Red Jinn's palace, Yankee procures a net and attaches it to Jinnicky's jinrikisha as a drag net, using it to capture Badmannah and lower him to the bottom of the Nonestic Ocean. He cannot drown here, being immortal like all Ozites, but it will get him out of the way for a while. That leaves the task of restoring the Emerald City palace. Except for Ozma, the residents are all crammed into a magic box that Jinnicky has not allowed to be opened until the palace is restored, except when Yankee is briefly trapped as well. Once opened, Ozma is still missing. Using the Magic Picture, she is seen in Badmannah's cave, Ozma having wished herself via the Magic Belt to the nearest safe place, and with Badmannah gone, it was. Using his red magic, Jinnicky restores the Emerald City. Jinnicky flies Tompy home in his jinrikisha, and gives him a little jar to open when in need of his magic. Yankee is recognizable from newspapers, and Mr. Terry returns him to the Army, requesting that he be given an honorable discharge to be Tompy's pet. The Army representative initially declines, but when Tompy opens the jar, relents. Yankee retains the ability to speak once a week, and together, they decide to read The Purple Prince of Oz a chapter a night to learn about the adventures of their friend, Jinnicky. Tompy is not the first traveler to Oz to be familiar with it from reading the books, which are explicitly referenced as being available in the United States as fairy tales--Peter Brown in The Gnome King of Oz briefly mentions having read an Oz book (Betsy Bobbin and Trot are aware of Oz before they get there, but we are not told how). It is, however the first to mention another Oz book within the text, although John R. Neill had drawn an image of a shelf in Oz full of the Oz books, one being read. The book has no subplot, and moves straightforwardly through its single plot, uncharacteristic of previous Oz books, but typical of the deuterocanonical books of which it is the first. |
The Sterkarm Handshake | Susan Price | 1,998 | The Sterkarm Handshake deals with a British corporation, the FUP, who create a Time Tube back to the 16th Century Scottish-English border, initially to exploit its then untouched mineral resources of gold and oil, though they later plan a tourist resort. They fatally underestimate the natives. A local clan, the Sterkarms, are welcoming at first, regarding the 21st-century travellers as magical Elves because of their medicine and technology, but increasingly refuse to cooperate. The clansmen, who have always lived by plunder, begin robbing the FUPs, which leads to the FUP's power-hungry boss kidnapping the only son of the Sterkarm chieftain. The Sterkarms' retaliation is savage. A young 21st-century anthropologist, Andrea Mitchell, who lives with the Sterkarms as a translator and liaison, finds her loyalties divided when she falls in love with Per Sterkarm. |
The Nobodies | null | 2,005 | Fern Drudger has the ability to shake things out of books, but lately, only Diet Lime Fizzy Drinks seem to pop out of them. The Fizzy Drinks always have messages from a mysterious group called the Nobodies. As it turns out to be, Nobodies are people or animals that are shaken out of books and haven't been returned yet. The Nobodies seem to have a terrible enemy, and they say that Fern is the only one who can save them. Fern, now reunited with her real parents, is sent off to Camp Happy Sunshine Good Times, a camp for young Anybodies. Anybodies are people who can transform themselves or others into different objects through hypnotism. At the camp, Fern meets Mary Stern, the counselor for girls. However, it turns out that the counselors and director of the camp seem to have deadly secrets. Camp Happy Sunshine Good Times has strict rules, and Fern easily breaks one of them. And when she receives her punishment, Fern discovers that she is destined to help the Nobodies, who are trapped by the evil Mole (animal)|Mole]], or BORT. BORT is a giant mole who had trapped a family of Nobodies in a Diet Lime Fizzy Drinks factory in a basement at the Avenue of Americas. The Mole can only be shrunk down to the size of normal mole when it touches water. Fern must somehow get BORT to touch water and bring peace to the second earth. |
A Mango-Shaped Space | Wendy Mass | 2,003 | In a prologue, Mia first experiences ridicule at the hands of her third-grade classmates when she is called to the front of the room to do a math problem. She uses colored chalk to make the numbers fit into the synesthetic form in which she sees them. Her teacher tells her to stop making up silly stories and that numbers have only shape and value and no colors. Mia is left confused and alone, because she thought everyone saw this way. After that, Mia keeps it secret and everyone soon forgets about that incident. When Mia is twelve, her beloved grandfather is gravely sick, he later passes from a deadly disease known as phishemiasmosis. During her grandfather's funeral, Mia finds a white and grey kitten with eyes the same color as her grandfather's. She believes that part of her grandfather's soul is living in that kitten. She takes him home and names him Mango the Magnificat, but decides to call him Mango for short; not because of his orange eyes, but because his meows and his heavy wheezing are different shades of orange and yellow to her, like a mango in different seasons. The wheezes are actually caused by a deep rip in the lining of one of Mango's lungs, which cannot be repaired, but Mango copes with it by taking pills. One day, when Mia is at the grocery store with her mother, she meets someone who could very well share her condition. A little 5-year old boy named Billy Henkle, who sees her name as orange with purple stripes. Mia is shocked, but his mother quickly retorts that he has an overactive imagination. After failing two math quizzes, she is forced to admit to her parents about her condition. Mia's father sets up an appointment to her pediatrician Dr. Randolph. Her mother takes Mia to Dr. Randolph, who recommends her to a psychotherapist. After her appointment, Mia soon tells her best friend Jenna about her colors. Jenna bursts into tears, and gets angry at her for not telling her before. Mia and Jenna start to get into a fight. At her appointment with the psychotherapist, Miss Finn, she tells Mia that her colors are just her imagination, and she has "middle child syndrome." Mia denies it. Miss Finn suggests that Mia go to a neurologist to see what is wrong with her. The next day, Mia visits Jenna apologizing for not telling her before. Jenna also apologizes for being angry. Jenna explains that she was worried about her and tells her that she had an experience when someone she really cared about was sick, referring to her mother, who died of cancer three years before. Jenna tells Mia that when she was still angry with her she told Kimberly-one of their school friends-about Mia's colors. Mia becomes well-known at school because of her synesthesia. When Mia visits the neurologist she finds out what case she has. She has synesthesia, a condition where two of your senses are connected, such as your hearing and sight (like Mia) or smell and touch, though it could be any two. Then the neurologist invites Mia to a meeting for synesthetes in a few weeks, and access to a website that allows people with synesthesia to interact with each other. After only one day, another synesthete, a boy named Adam, shows interest in interacting with Mia. Adam is a year older than her. Mia becomes obsessed with her email, constantly seeing if there are any emails from Adam. One night she gets a call from Adam, saying he is going to the synesthesia meeting too. During the meeting, Adam appears very gentlemanly, kissing her hand and inviting her outside for a walk. During the "walk", Adam asks if he could kiss her, to which she says yes. She kisses him once, and she almost does again, but then her mom finds her outside with him, and says they need to leave, obviously angry. Mia thinks about Adam for a while, and wonders if he should be her boyfriend. Because she is so preoccupied with her condition and life, Mia forgets to give Mango his medicine the night of the meeting. She wakes up in the middle of the night to find him not breathing. She convinces her dad to fly him to the animal hospital in their helicopter, but it is already too late, and Mango dies. After Mango dies, Mia is traumatized and her colors disappear temporarily. She feels guilty and believes that Mango's death is her fault, although her family constantly tells her that she didn't kill Mango. Her father tells her Mango seemed to have been planning to die, for his food was left uneaten; it was his time. Meanwhile, Adam emails her saying that "even though he's sorry about her cat, she still should have come to the meeting" (the second one, which she missed) and that "kissing her was fun and that it would be fun to do it again sometime". She realizes that he is a jerk, and she wishes she could print out his email and crumple it up. She regretted kissing him and even saying yes when he asked her if she wanted to go for a "walk". The next day at school, Mia realizes a boy named Roger, who has always been nice to her, really likes her and she decides she likes him better than Adam. Soon, Billy Henkle, the boy that she met at the grocery store who shares her condition, visits and Mia is able to offer him the help that she never received when she was young. She then realizes that she has to move on to be able to help other synesthetes. Her colors return and she finally accepts Mango's fate, believing he is with Grandpa now. Later, at a Hanukkah party, Mia finds a kitten who she believes to be Mango's kitten. Mia eventually ends up taking the kitten, who is mustard yellow, according to her synesthesia. |
Tomorrow and Tomorrow | Charles Sheffield | null | Originally, Drake is a professional musician, with minor celebrity. When his wife Ana is diagnosed with an unspecified incurable brain disorder, Drake exhausts every option attempting to cure her. Only then does he decide to have her body cryogenically stored, in the hopes future generations will discover effective treatment. However, Drake is extremely cautious, and in case the future culture doesn't care about her plight, he has himself frozen as well. Furthermore he devotes all his energies for a decade prior to his freezing, in becoming an expert primary source on the musically notable people of his era. Assuming that if you become the world's foremost expert in any subject, and given infinite time, someone will want to write a book on that exact subject. At that time the hypothetical future writer will want to awaken Drake, and he can in turn awaken his wife, if treatment is available. Drake's thinking is correct and he is awakened in the year 2500. Although society is vastly different, there still exists no cure for Ana. He spends six years apprenticed to a musical historian to pay for his reviving costs and to gain a foothold in this new world. Drake is continuously laid dormant and revived, exponentially further into the future. Human civilization alters radically over the eons, but Ana's mangled brain proves an extremely difficult problem. Despite the incomprehensible changes surrounding in each successive awakening, Drake never loses sight of his mission. Eventually, in the extremely remote post-human future few billions years later, Drake's original biological body has disintegrated, despite the cryogenic treatment, and he has become an uploaded consciousness, though still in stasis. At this point the descendants of humanity have colonized the entire milky way galaxy, yet an inexplicable threat is wiping out their colonies in a widening arc. The leaders of this civilization have exhausted every answer they can conceive of, and have zero information as to the even the cause of the threat. Their last hope is Drake, an ancient holdover, who may have ideas new to them - namely war. The main problem is that the beings have no idea what is happening as the planets that are wiped out seem exactly the same, but do not respond to signals and outside communication is impossible. All probes sent do not return, nor reply once they reach the surface of the planet. Drake becomes the commander of the residents of the galaxy, in designing weapons and defenses, ideas that have long vanished from the minds of these beings. At this time, their technology allows for extremely powerful and deep manipulation of matter at a fundamental scale. An experimental technology called caesura is used as the plot-device to carry the novel. It is a means of instantaneous teleportation using exotic physics, which has by now developed to a stage where it will have no meaning to the causal being. This caesura is not guaranteed teleportation but has a low chance of succeeding. Billions upon billions of copies of Drake are thus sent out to the planets on the border of the invasion, and by means of caesura are teleported back to the base to collect information about the threat. Eventually it is discovered that the threat is an exotic inter-planetary plant-type life with spores that migrate between systems. These plants do not intentionally destroy the living beings on the planet, but as a result of their growth they do so. After the cause of the problem is found, the post-humans decide that the militant Drake is no longer needed or deemed a positive influence - he is seen as too warlike. They tell him to merge with all the returning Drake copies, of which there are billions. This he agrees to, and over billions of years, he collates these copies together - forming a collective-mind of copies of himself. There is a subplot of a version of him that was randomly teleported by the caesura to a distant galaxy, and how he manages to return over a few billion years. Finally, the collective version of Drake resolves to use the Omega Point to gain complete knowledge of everything and to restore Ana. The story ends on an ambiguous note as Ana is potentially revived, and they seek to create a new universe by means of caesura to live in. |
SoMa | Kemble Scott | 2,007 | Raphe is a casualty of the dot-com collapse, a former website designer now forced to work as a clerk at a mailbox shop in order to make ends meet. He discovers the shop is actually a front for a scam. His exposure to this seedy underground sparks his curiosity and eventually leads him on a journey into some of the more bizarre subcultures of San Francisco. Through a series of intense personal encounters, he realizes he’s not quite the man he thought he was. Lauren (Lolly) is a take-no-prisoners woman drawn to the city to find the type of man she can’t find in the suburbs. She discovers the hunt for love is far more complicated than she expected, especially when looking in all the wrong places. Mark Hazodo is a rich, successful video game entrepreneur whose love of games extends into a sordid secret sex life filled with extremes. The journeys of these three main characters intersect, overlap and eventually collide with outrageous, provocative and sometimes disturbing consequences. |
Hitman: Enemy Within | William C. Dietz | 2,007 | The story follows Agent 47 as he is sent to destroy a biker gang led by Big Kahuna. He gets in one of their homecomings but his cover is blown by Marla Norton a puissance trieze agent. But 47 is successful in his job and later is dispatched to find a leak in the agency, 47 finishes his job and again runs off to save wrongfully convicted Diana. 47 then proves Diana's innocence and kills the traitor. |
Scuppers | Margaret Wise Brown | 1,953 | Scuppers the dog has an irresistible urge to sail the sea. His little gaff-rigged sailing boat hardly looks seaworthy, with colorful patches on its sails. Though not a luxurious boat, Scuppers keeps it neat and "ship-shape." He has a hook for his hat, a hook for his rope, and a hook for his spyglass. Unfortunately, Scuppers gets shipwrecked after a big storm. Being a resourceful dog, he soon makes a house out of driftwood. Eventually, Scuppers repairs his ship and sails away, arriving at a seaport in a foreign land. The street scene is straight from a canine Kasbah. There are lady dogs dressed in full-length robes with everything but their eyes, paws, and tails covered, balancing jars on their heads. Scuppers needs new clothes after all his travels. He tries on various hats and shoes of different shapes and colors. Life at sea soon calls Scuppers back to his boat. After stowing all his gear in its right place, he is back "where he wants to be — a sailor sailing the deep green sea." |
The Wealth of Networks | Yochai Benkler | 2,006 | Benkler describes the current epoch as a "moment of opportunity" due to the emergence of what he terms the Networked Information Economy (NIE), a "technological-economic feasiblity space" that is the result of the means of producing media becoming more socially accessible. Benkler states that his methodology in the text is to look at social relations using economics, liberal political theory, and focuses on individual actions in nonmarket relations. Benkler sees communication and information as the most important cultural and economic outputs of advanced economies. He traces the emergence and development of various communications (radio, newspapers, television) through the 19th and 20th centuries as functions of increasingly centralized control due to the high cost factor of production, and believes that media was thus produced on an industrial scale. With the emergence of computers, networks, and increasingly affordable media production outlets, Benkler introduces the concept of the NIE, which sees media access as a form of power, and recognizes decentralized individual actions in said media as a result of the removal of physical and economic constraints to the creation of media. To Benkler, this is due to a new feasibility space: lowered costs of access via digital production and radical decentralization rather than centralized messaging ("coordinate coexistence", 30). This results in emerging productions of information that use non-proprietry strategies (such as GNU licences and collaborative production formats, like Wikipedia). The forms of cultural productions — music is an example Benkler uses frequently — are either rival or nonrival. Rival products decrease as they are used (e.g. pounds of flour), the consumption of nonrival products (e.g. listening to a song) does not decrease their availability for further consumption. Static vs. dynamic efficiency: one premise of exclusive rights has always been that only financial incentives can facilitate participation in information production. Benkler argues that in an age where computers reduce the cost of production, that the equation of innovation-to-rights shifts as well. The declining cost of communication means that in the networked society there are less barriers for individual cultural production that are "meaningful" to other users. Thus, in network economy, "human capacity becomes primary scarce resource". To close this section, Benkler argues that the networked environment makes possible a new modality of organizing production: that of commons-based peer production. He discusses the parameters of the commons and gives the example of FLOSS Free/Libre/Open/Source/Software. He discusses shared acts of communication (utterances, reviews, distribution of information) and goods (like server space). Lastly, he draws a contrast to the regulation and rival resource of radio spectrum bandwidth and the sharability of space in a digital commons. Benkler argues here that the networked society allows for the emergence of non-hierarchical groups that are committed to information production. Open software is one of the ways we can view the emergence of this new form of information production. "Commons-based" peer productions eschews traditional rational choice models offered by economists. Benkler details some of the key components of this new economy based not on financial remuneration but on user-involvement, accreditation, and tools that promote collaboration between individuals. In order to understand why people engage in production aside from financial incentives, Benkler argues that we can distinguish two types of motivation: # Extrinsic motivation: motivation that comes from outside in the form of financial reward, punishment, etc. # Intrinsic motivation: motivation that derives from within ourselves, such as the pleasure involved in completing a task. In this section, Benkler examines the relationship of individual access to participation in the dissemination and creation of information via communication systems, building on his earlier ideas of commons based peer production. He examines the historical emergence of the mass media, looking at the relationship between print and radio and ever-broadening, industrial broadcast models of production which became supported by advertising. The criticisms of mass media which Benkler brings up include: * its commercialism, because he sees that as supporting the development of programs that appeal to large audiences rather than specific interests, in the name of mass broadcasting; * limited intake of information, due to the relatively small amount of people gathering information; * too much power assigned to too few people. Benkler moves from this overview and criticism to exploring what this text describes as the potential for networked communications to do: :"Better access to knowledge and the emergence of less capital-dependent forms of productive social organization offer the possibility that the emergence of the networked information economy will offer up opportunities for improvement in economic justice, on scales both global and local." Unlike the prior period of industrial production, the costs of entry in terms of communication technology are low and no longer is this technology centralized. Benkler argues that this provides additional autonomy, as people can do for themselves what before required access to centralized communication and technology infrastructure. At the same time, because we are more autonomous in our engagement with these communication technologies, we are no longer subject to their domination. Proprietary media forms like television are slowly being replaced with more diffuse forms of engagement and entertainment, which is less mediated by dominant corporate interests. This diffusion is accompanied by a new constellation of sources such that we have access to a more plural public sphere and more alternative voices not controlled by dominant institutions. For Benkler, the accessibility of alternative views provides for more critical thought among users. For Benkler, another key component of the network society is that individuals are more active in producing their education and cultural production. Online encyclopedias such as Wikipedia allow for users to create rather than just consume knowledge and information. Benkler begins chapter 10 stating two early views on the anticipated social impact the internet would have on the users and their community: Firstly, the internet removed the user from society and allowed the individual to lead a life that was no longer molded by the interactions and experiences of a physical tangible civilisation with others. The second view was that using the internet would widen the field of a user’s community by providing a novel system of communication and interaction. He observes that users show enhanced relationships with their close contacts while increasing the numbers of less close contacts with relationships maintained through internet mediated interaction. He believes this latter change stems from the shift from the one-to-many model of media distribution to a many-to-many model where it is more user centered and controlled. Benkler remarks that the early views were made on the premise that internet communication would replace real world forms communication rather than co-exist alongside it. He introduces the idea of the networked-individual who govern their own interactions and microcommunity roles in both real and virtual space and dynamically switch between when needed, eventually concluding that the early views were nostalgic and somewhat fatuous. A definition is offered whereby cultural freedom occupies a position that relates to both political and individual autonomy, but is synonymous with neither. Benkler then goes on to add that culture is significant because that is the context within which we exist – these are our shared understandings, frameworks, meanings and references. |
Lost Light | Michael Connelly | 2,003 | Lost Light is the first novel set after Bosch retires from the LAPD at the end of the prior story. Having received his private investigator's license, Bosch investigates an old case concerning the murder of a production assistant on the set of a film. The case leads him back into contact with his ex-wife Eleanor Wish, who is now a professional poker player in Las Vegas, and Bosch learns at the end that he and Eleanor have a young daughter. The poem referenced in this work is from Ezra Pound's "Exile's Letter:" What is the use of talking, and there is no end of talking, There is no end of things in the heart. |
Blood Work | Michael Connelly | 1,998 | After receiving a heart transplant, retired FBI criminal profiler Terrell "Terry" McCaleb is contacted by Graciela Rivers, the sister of his donor Gloria, and asked to investigate her death, which occurred during an unsolved convenience store robbery. McCaleb had become a minor celebrity as the head of the FBI task force on the "Code Killer", an L.A.-based serial killer (similar to the Zodiac Killer) who always signed his notes with the code "903 472 568", but he is now living on his fishing boat and has been inactive to prevent rejection of his new heart (to the extent that he cannot even drive). He reluctantly agrees to help Graciela but finds the police handling the case to be extremely hostile. However, he is able to match the style of another killing to Gloria's and gets a copy of the files for both cases from Jaye Winston, the sheriff's deputy on that case. He surprisingly discovers that the call reporting Gloria's shooting was placed slightly prior to the actual shooting, leading him to suspect that Gloria was targeted for murder. He interviews the only witness to the second crime, a man called James Noone, but fails to learn much. As he continues to investigate, with Winston's support but against the wishes of his doctor, he finds that the two cases plus a third case are linked through the use of a common gun and a common line said by the killer after the shooting, "Don't forget the cannoli," from The Godfather. He then learns that the first two victims had McCaleb's blood types and were on a list of people who had previously donated blood. If the victims died, McCaleb would benefit from their death as a potential organ recipient. Because of this, the police on Gloria's case focus on him as the possible killer and get a search warrant for his boat. Then, the real killer begins to plant evidence implicating McCaleb on his boat, expecting the police to find it, but McCaleb finds and then conceals the most incriminating evidence. Examining the facts again, McCaleb realizes that the distinctive attribute of the "Code Killer" was that the nine-digit identifying code did not include a one, and that "Noone" ("no one") is actually the Code Killer. By following the contact information on Noone, McCaleb and Jaye Winston find the Code Killer's files, which prove that he had deliberately killed three people to get McCaleb a new heart. Although McCaleb is thus cleared, the fact that Gloria's death was directly due to his illness creates a rift in his increasingly personal relationship with Graciela and her nephew Raymond, Gloria's son. McCaleb, who is still supposed to be inactive, secretly continues to trace the Code Killer from information that he learned during his interview with "Noone" and drives to a location in Baja California that matches one Noone described. He then finds and is overpowered by the Code Killer, who tells him that he has kidnapped Graciela and Raymond and buried them alive. Despite serious medical problems from so much activity, McCaleb is able to kill him and then uses the little information he has to locate and rescue Graciela and Raymond. Upon his return, he apologizes to his doctor and says that he went to Mexico because he needed a vacation. Only Jaye Winston among the law enforcement officials figures out what really happened. |
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Fallout | David Michaels | 2,007 | The plot begins with Sam Fisher undergoing unfamiliar spy techniques training in the streets of San Francisco in a joint exercise between the Central Intelligence Agency and Third Echelon. Fisher is soon after summoned to Maryland by Colonel Irving Lambert. Turns out, Sam's estranged brother, Peter, has been found barely alive off the coast of Greenland. Sam is told that Peter has developed a strange disease and has few days to live. It is soon revealed that Sam's brother died of poisoning caused by plutonium hydride-19, or PuH-19. This deadly powder is 1,000x finer than flour and is capable of wiping out New York's entire population with just a cup's worth of the chemical. Although driven at first solely by vengeance, Sam soon realizes that Peter's death should be the least of his worries as a network of Kyrgyz Islamic fundamentalists have toppled the moderate government of Kyrgyztan and, with the help of the North Korean government, have devised the ultimate antidote against the pervasive influence of the West and its technology: they will try to mutate a species of petroleum-eating Chytridiomycota fungus into a strain capable of making the whole world's oil supply disappear, a threat Fisher and Lambert continually refer to as Manas, in reference to the Kyrgyz epic poem. In order to do this, the terrorists snatch some of the world's leading scientists and force them to cooperate. Sam gets his final lead by tracking one of the abducted scientists in a search that will lead him to a place such as the streets of Montreal, Quebec, Canada, an isolated Kyrgyz community in Cape Breton Island, the Great Rift Valley, Kenya, Pyongyang, North Korea and a Kyrgyz complex hidden in the Tian Shan mountain range. |
Salem Falls | Jodi Picoult | 2,001 | Jack is a highly educated high school teacher at a private school for girls in New England. When Jack is falsely accused of having an inappropriate relationship with one of his students, he pleads guilty to a lesser charge and is sentenced to eight months in prison. Jack's mother, a crusader for women's rights, running an improvised "halfway house" for prostitutes refuses to believe his claims of innocence and abandons him. After serving his sentence, Jack wants to have a fresh start, which he finds when he wanders into a diner in Salem Falls, New Hampshire. Without revealing the details of his past, he is hired on as a dishwasher, assisting the owner in the kitchen. He begins a romantic relationship with Addie Peabody, the woman who co-owns and operates the diner with her father and is mourning the death of her young daughter, Chloe, from bacterial meningitis at ten years old. Under New Hampshire law, Jack is required to register with the local police department as a convicted sex offender. As this is a matter of public record, soon the entire town becomes aware of his past. Addie Peabody does not change her attitude towards Jack. The novel also revolves around local teenage girls who experiment with Wicca: manipulative, disturbed Gillian, daughter of Amos Duncan the most prominent businessman in Salem Falls; Chelsea (in whom Jordan McAfee's son, Thomas, takes an active interest); Whitney and Meg take an interest in Jack. Although he does his best to stay away from them, one night he accidentally stumbles upon them in the woods while they are celebrating the Wiccan holiday of Beltane. Because of his past and the prevailing attitude in Salem Falls that Jack should not be there, he is quickly accused of sexually assaulting Gillian. Due to his intoxicated state at the time, Jack is unable to recall where he was that night. Jack is defended by Jordan McAfee and assisted by Selena Damascus. Throughout the trial, Jordan manages to cast reasonable doubt on Gillian's testimony. Meg, however, confides in Addie that she remembers Jack touching her in a sexual manner. Addie believes her because she thinks that "no woman would lie about something like that", and takes Meg to report the incident to policeman Charlie, who is Meg's father. Clues begin to unravel that Gillian has been lying about the assault. Sources tell that she and her clique were taking drugs on the night of Beltane that cause hallucinations. The initial blood screening when Gillian was given a rape exam showed no evidence of drugs in her system. Jordan does not believe this and hires a private toxicologist to run tests on the blood samples, which reveal extreme amounts of a hallucinogen. It is also discovered through her previous psychiatric records that Gillian was known for being a compulsive liar as a child after the death of her mother. Chelsea gets an attack of conscience, though, and mails "The Book of Shadows" (a witch's handbook, and proof that they are part of a witch's coven) to Thomas, who takes it to Jordan. Jordan then uses it against Gillian, who claims she "didn't want to be labeled a slut". Jack is pronounced not guilty. After the trial, Meg reveals to Charlie that Gillian convinced them to make it all up, as a game, to see if they could ruin his life because Gillian was attracted to Jack and he turned her down. Her reports of Jack having touched her inappropriately are revealed through flashback to have been accidental contact with her breast while saving her from a fall. Charlie reluctantly agrees to protect her. It is revealed that Addie, too, was gang-raped at sixteen by Charlie and Amos, so therefore Addie never knew the true identity of Chloe's father. Charlie apologises and Addie appears to accept this. Jack offers to move with Addie to New York, to reconcile with his mother. She agrees. Jordan and Selena - who have been battling their mutual attraction - get together. It is revealed that Chelsea and Thomas conspired - via witchcraft - to do so. The final twist is saved for the final paragraph, when it is revealed that Amos has been raping and otherwise sexually abusing his daughter, Gillian, since she was young, and as the novel ends, seems to continue doing so. It then seems likely that the semen found on her thigh is his, not Jack's. |
The Flame and the Flower | Kathleen E. Woodiwiss | 1,972 | The novel is set at the turn of the 19th century. After Heather Simmons, a penniless orphan, kills a man named William Court who was attempting to rape her, she flees the scene. Near the London dockside, she is accosted by two men who mistake her for a prostitute and escorted onto a ship. Heather believes she has been arrested for murder. Unaware of the misconceptions on both sides, the captain of the ship, Brandon Birmingham, has sexual intercourse with her. The following morning he discovers the truth and offers to make Heather his mistress. She declines. The encounter left Heather pregnant, and a magistrate forces Brandon to marry her. Neither is pleased with their new situation. Over the next few months, as they prepare for and undertake a voyage to Brandon's home in Charleston, South Carolina, their feelings for each other begin to soften. Once in the United States, Heather is plagued by Louisa Wells, Brandon's jealous former betrothed, who attempts to drive a wedge between the couple. Other jealous girls, including Sybil Scott, also try to cause problems between Heather and Brandon. Heather and Brandon continue to misunderstand each other's motives, leading to much tension between them. Heather eventually gives birth to a healthy son, Beau. Several months later, Heather and Brandon resolve their differences, profess their love to each other, and share a bed for the first time as husband and wife. The following morning, Sybil Scott is found murdered. Although Brandon is accused of the crime, Heather is able to provide him an alibi. Soon after, Heather is blackmailed by Thomas Hint, the former assistant to William Court. He threatens to tell the authorities that Heather had killed Court. Hint also informs Louisa that Brandon had discovered Heather on the streets. Louisa believes that Heather was a prostitute, and confronts Brandon and promises to forgive him for his dalliance if Brandon will send Heather back to London and allow Louisa to take her place as wife and mother of Beau. Brandon threatens Louisa and sends her away. When she is found dead the following morning, Brandon is arrested. Heather confronts Hint, who confesses to killing both women and then tries to rape her. She is saved by her husband, who had been released from jail. During the ensuing confrontation, Brandon is shot in the arm. Hint escapes, but the skittish horse he chose bucked him to the ground. A tree limb collapsed on him, killing him immediately. The charges against Brandon are dropped, and he and Heather live happily ever after. |
Illegal Alien | Robert J. Sawyer | 1,997 | An alien spacecraft arrives on Earth, contact is established, and the two peoples begin to learn about each other. Frank Nobilio, Science Advisor to the American President, and Cletus Calhoun (a Tennessee hillbilly popularizer of science, somewhat like Carl Sagan), are the two main ambassadors to the aliens (who call themselves Tosoks). The Tosoks explain that their ship was damaged in the Kuiper belt (during initial attempted repairs, one of the eight Tosoks died), and they are assured that humans can provide or build the tools necessary to fix it. This will take about two years. Things go well for over a year, with the Tosoks taking a tour of the major civilized countries of Earth, during which they view and are impressed by the August 11, 1999, total solar eclipse. Then Cletus Calhoun is found dead, under circumstances that place one of the aliens, Hask, under suspicion. Calhoun bled to death when his leg was completely severed with a tool unknown to human forensic pathologists; also, his jaw, one eye, and his spleen have been removed and are never found. Hask appears while the police are investigating and, in the Tosok fashion, has shedded his skin; it is speculated that he did so in order to hide any tell-tale blood splatters. Hask is arrested for murder, and the remainder of the novel concerns Hask's trial in a Los Angeles, California court. Hask maintains that he never murdered Calhoun, who was his friend. His attorney, Dale Rice, an African-American who is famous for defending civil and political rights cases, believes that another Tosok murdered Calhoun for deviant reasons; the Tosoks have as strong a taboo about internal anatomy as most humans do about sex: it is a private matter, not to be shared with others, except for extreme cases, such as surgery. Rice speculates that the Tosok surgeon might be the murderer, or the Tosok named Ged, who shows signs of unnatural interest in the courtroom discussions of internal anatomy, or even the eighth Tosok, reported dead, who might be alive and in hiding. When Rice brings this last hypothesis to the courtroom, Hask is alarmed and announces that he wants to change his plea to guilty. Rice tells Hask that his duty is to defend him. Small things that the other Tosoks do (for example, the surgeon, Stant, pleads the Fifth while on the witness stand) lead Frank and Rice to suspect that the Tosoks are hiding more than one truth from them. At last Hask persuades Rice to take a day off court duty, and they and Frank secretly travel to the Arctic, where the eighth Tosok, Seltar, is indeed alive. They explain to Frank and Rice that the other Tosoks are determined, because of a combination of religious beliefs and a desire to protect the Tosok species, to destroy all intelligent life on Earth, including animals that might evolve intelligence. Most Tosoks share this determination, and they have already exterminated life on other planets. Hask admits that he was responsible for Calhoun's death, but had not wanted to kill him, only to restrain him. Calhoun had come across Hask secretly communicating with Seltar, his beloved mate; Seltar was to be responsible for destroying the mothership when the Tosok leader, Kelkad, had received repairs to the ship and could then wipe out the humans, hence the need for the story about her death. Armed with this information, the police confront the six complicit Tosoks. Kelkad realizes that Hask has betrayed them and runs to kill him; Hask kills Kelkad instead. The remaining five Tosoks are imprisoned. In the Epilogue, aliens from yet a different planet arrive on Earth, explain that they were to be victims of the Tosok genocide but succeeding in fighting back, and will take the Tosok prisoners with them to make them pay for their crimes. Dale Rice, always the champion of the underdog, goes with them into space to become defense attorney for the accused Tosoks. |
The Lariat | null | null | The Lariat is a story told through a myriad of voices with frequently shifting verb tenses, ultimately dissolving into a patchwork collection of scenes and impressions. Sometimes, we hear the voice of an unknown historian/narrator attempting to piece together the life of protagonist Fray Luis through family records and Luis's own diary entries. At other times the story is told in the present tense, using the voices of talking animals. Through these voices emerges the story of Fray Luis, a Spanish Franciscan monk with a wild secular past, who comes to Mission Carmel in Northern California with the goal of converting the local Native Americans to Christianity. The reader learns that the Esselen Indians are notoriously difficult to convert. Fray Luis, however, is able to convert a single Esselen girl who voluntarily comes to the Mission, and from her he learns the Esselen language. She was the wife of a medicine man, Hualala, whom she left after their son died. Ruiz, a Mestizo vaquero associated with the Mission, begins a covert relationship with the Esselen girl, sneaking her out of the nunnery at night. Ruiz makes plans with Mission leader Fray Bernardo to marry the girl, but Fray Luis, who envies Ruiz, does not want this to happen. It is ambiguous whether this is because she is Luis's convert and he claims her spiritually, or whether his sense of spiritual ownership has developed into a sexual desire for her. Fray Luis goes to Hualala's funeral, where he is involuntarily involved in a ceremony to relieve the Esselen community of the burdon of the death. A mouse takes pity of Fray Luis and attempts to help him, but he refuses to be led by the mouse. Fray Luis ends up living for a few weeks at the house of Esteban, Ruiz's Spanish father. Ruiz decides that he wants to kill the bear that has been eating their cattle, and asks the Mission Indian Saturnino to make him a lariat. Saturnino, who hates Ruiz, uses a piece of Fray Luis's monk's cord to weave a lariat. The lariat looks and feels perfect but its integrity is compromised by the addition of the cord, so it does not work properly when the time comes. Ruiz hunts down the bear with his cousin, Pawi. When Ruiz throws his lariat around the bear, the lariat becomes entangled in the saddle, and while Pawi's arrows bounce off the bear, the bear kills Ruiz. Fray Luis attempts to leave Mission Carmel on his donkey, but it transforms into a beetle and carries him down a ladder into a ceremonial hut, where a medicine man seems to transform into a bear. As Fray Luis flees back up the ladder that goes out the hole in the center of the hut, he puts his head through the loop of a waiting lariat, and is hung. It is ambiguous whether he was tricked, or has committed suicide. The narrative is open to interpretation. The chapter titles provide clues, though sometimes they do not seem directly connected to their context ("Fray Luis tries to double-cross the Devil," for example). By using information provided in the first chapter to decipher the titles' meanings, the reader can more fully grasp what is taking place in the often confusing final chapters of this text. |
The Last Dog on Earth | null | 2,004 | Logan Moore is a troubled 14-year-old boy living with his mother Marianne and stepfather Robert in Newburg, Oregon. Logan does not get along well with Robert or his mother, and holds a grudge against his biological father for leaving when he was young. After an incident at a barbecue, Robert decides to purchase a Labrador Retriever in order to teach Logan responsibility. Eager to rebel against his stepfather, Logan convinces his mother to adopt a dog from an animal shelter. He plans to choose an ugly dog and teach it destructive behavior. At the shelter, Logan encounters a young female mutt who immediately takes a liking to him. Logan adopts the dog and names her Jack after Robert's former dog. Meanwhile, a new prion disease named Psychotic Outburst Syndrome (or POS) is affecting dogs, causing friendly pets to become violent. Officials struggle to control the disease and immediately terminate any dogs that catch it. Humans soon begin to contract the disease. Logan quickly bonds with Jack and values her as his only friend. After getting into trouble whilst attempting to protect her, Logan is sent to boot camp while Jack remains at home. Both he and Jack manage to escape, find each other, and begin traveling together. During their journey, they encounter another dog called White Paws: Jack's brother who has become infected with POS. White Paws attacks Jack and severely wounds her before dying. Logan worries that Jack may have contracted the disease through contact with White Paws. The pair continue their journey until they reach the town of Dayville. Logan faintly remembers that his biological father lives in the town and decides to find his father and confront him. While Logan is shoplifting food, Jack is found by three men who, fearing that she may be infected, beat her. Logan is arrested and manages to find his father's address at the police station before escaping. He returns to find Jack nearly dead and carries her, attempting to find his father's house, until he faints from exhaustion. He awakens in the house of his biological father, Dr. Craig Westerly, who had found Logan unconscious by his car. Logan learns from Craig that he had not abandoned him and his mother, but that Marianne had divorced him. Logan fears for Jack's life, afraid that she is infected or will be euthanized. Craig runs tests on the dog and learns that Jack, despite having been in contact with POS, isn't infected: she is immune. Craig decides to take Jack to a doctor so that a vaccine can be created. During the meeting, Rudy Stagg, a man infected with POS who had been killing dogs in order to contain the outbreak, stumbles into their room. Rudy ignores pleas to spare Jack and shoots at her, but Logan dives in front of the dog and is shot instead. Logan suffers a collapsed lung and falls into a coma. He awakens weeks later and learns that Jack is on life support. He says a final goodbye to Jack before her life support is turned off. Jack's immunity to POS leads to the creation of a vaccine and cure, and Logan is finally able to reconcile with Robert, Craig, and Devon Wallace—a childhood enemy whose dog died due to POS. The novel's epilogue, written as a newspaper article, reveals Logan and his family hold a private ceremony to honor Jack. |
The Marvelous Effect | null | null | The novel tells the story of 13 year-old Louis Proof, an African-American native to East Orange, NJ who is a CLE. (Celestial Like Entity), and how a race of CEs (Celestial Entities) called the "eNoli" (E-No-Lie) led by Galonius, try to drive the world into chaos. Louis's best friend, Brandon, his younger cousin Lacey, and the iLone (Eye-Low-Nay) Timothy, team together to free the world from Galonius's influence, as Louis masters his CLE abilities. The story is heavily action driven being influenced by on the author's love of video games and action films. Surprisingly, the book rests upon a foundation of classical literature and the philosophy of Immanuel Kant and David Hume. |
Vampire of the Mists | Christie Golden | 1,991 | The story concerns Jander Sunstar, an elf vampire who, despite his affliction, attempts to remain as good as possible. On at trip to Waterdeep to drink the blood of patients of a mental hospital there, Jander falls in love with an inmate who introduces herself as Anna. For about one hundred years the immortal vampire visits Anna regularly, and Anna seems to be similarly ageless. Anna begins to become ill, and Jander, afraid of losing her, tries to turn her into a vampire. Anna refuses. In her last moments of life, when Jander asks her what ruined her mind, she answers "Barovia." In a rage, Jander kills every last occupant of the asylum, and is transported to the Demiplane of Dread. There, he has his fortune told by a Vistani gypsy before befriending Count Strahd Von Zarovich. The predictions made by the fortune-teller all prove to be true later in the book, sometimes in multiple ways. After a very long period of time spent in Barovia, Jander discovers that the woman he knew as Anna was in truth Tatyana, wife of Strahd's Brother, Sergei, and the woman who drove Strahd to murder his own family. She escaped the castle as it entered the demiplane, but lost her mind in the process. Shocked, Jander bands together with a local cleric and a young thief, to the end of killing Strahd. They fail, though the severe damage they inflict on him forces him to into an extended healing cycle thereby limiting the speed with which he increased in power as a spell-caster. To that end, Jander somewhat succeeded, at least for the time being, and more so prevented Strahd further access to any more of his own knowledge when he walks into the sunlight for his final death. |
Yonnondio: From the Thirties | Tillie Olsen | 1,974 | The novel begins in a small Wyoming mining town, where Jim Holbrook works in the coal mine. As the narrative progresses, the reader discovers that Jim drinks heavily and beats Anna and their children. Mazie follows Jim into town one evening and is nearly thrown down a mineshaft by the deranged miner, Sheen McEvoy. Mazie is saved by the night watchman, and instead McEvoy falls down the shaft to his death. Mazie immediately develops a fever, and the Holbrooks make plans to move east in the spring. Anna takes on a variety of short-term employment to financially prepare for the move. Jim is involved in a mine explosion, attributed to the carelessness of the new fire boss, and goes missing for five days. When Jim returns, it is with a firm resolve to remove his family from the town. In the spring, the Holbrooks leave the mining town, traveling across Nebraska and South Dakota, where their wagon is briefly immobilized by a storm. At their South Dakota tenant farm, the scene is pastoral and the Holbrooks are initially optimistic about the farm’s prospects. For the first time, the family is healthy and well-fed, and Mazie and Will begin attending school. Mazie begins to take an interest in education and befriends the learned Old Man Caldwell next door, who passes on some books to Mazie when he dies, though Jim promptly sells them. As the winter approaches, Jim realizes that after a year of working the land, the family remains in debt. With the arrival of winter, the Holbrooks no longer have enough food. Anna becomes pregnant and ill, and after a marital dispute, Jim leaves the family, returning after ten days. After the birth of Bess in the following March, the family leaves the farm and moves to Omaha, Nebraska. They take up residence in a city slum near a slaughterhouse. The smell from the slaughterhouse makes the children ill and Anna is no longer able to control them at home. Mazie becomes dreamy and detached, fantasizing about the farm as an escape from the horrors of the city. Jim gets a job in the sewers, and he and Anna are unable to support their family. Anna suffers a miscarriage and is bedridden for several days. When she regains mobility, Anna begins taking in laundry to supplement Jim’s income, though Jim explicitly disapproves. Jim gets a job at the slaughterhouse, where he earns a little more money, and he buys fireworks for the family on the Fourth of July to celebrate. When she is excluded from the celebration, Mazie becomes acutely conscious of the social and political implications of her gender. During a heat wave, Anna continues to work alone, canning fruits to feed the family through the winter, while the children run the streets and scavenge in the dump. The novel terminates in the Holbrook apartment, with Anna singing to Ben. Bess enthusiastically bangs a jar lid against the floor, and the family listens to the radio together for the first time. |
Bridge of Rama | Ashok Banker | 2,005 | Hanuman is meditating in a cave, waiting for an emissary of a mysterious race to arrive. As he meditates upon the name of Rama, the emissary arrives. The unknown creature states over Hanuman's requests that they are readily willing to go to war without need of old alliances. Pleased but surprised by this turn of events, Hanuman listens to the creature's instructions to meditate upon his untapped potential... The story takes place approximately two weeks following the end of the events of Armies of Hanuman, beginning in Lanka. Sita wakes up from an apparently groggy sleep to Rama's voice, awakening in a garden with a supernatural feel. As she recalls the events of her kidnapping, Rama appears and tells her that he is ready to rescue her from Ravana's clutches. She realizes something is wrong, however, as she recognizes being drugged with opium. He hides as Ravana himself then appears upon the scene and tells Sita that she is welcome as a guest, and that her every need will be met. After a brief exchange, Rama then returns and says that he will kill Ravana and rescue Sita. As he's about to carry her off, Sita recognizes that "Rama" is actually Surpanakha in disguise. She attempts to kill Sita but is foiled by Ravana, who simply makes sure that Sita is unhurt and walks off. Sita makes an attempt to escape the garden, but to her shock finds out that she's actually in a garden of maya created by the Pushpak in the Tower of Lanka, and that the ground is miles beneath her. Ravana appears at her side and explains to her that so long as she is trapped in the tower garden, she will be unable to escape, and that she should not attempt it. On the other side of the ocean impasse, Lakshman and Rama wait anxiously for Hanuman to return with the heavy reinforcements for the Kishkindha vanar army. Lakshman feels slightly disgusted that they are not approaching their own clansmen for help, but Rama adamantly states that he will not break the terms of his exile and will continue to rely on King Sugreeva's help. Slightly irritated, Lakshman states his feeling that the army of "talking monkeys" is simply not enough. At that point, Hanuman returns, and to the surprise of the collected vanars, appears physically more powerful and divine than he was before he left. To the utter astonishment of the gathered beings, he states that every single living vanar male and female capable of fighting has joined the forces of Rama's army, creating an army unparalleled to that of any other ever collected in living history. He uses the term janaya-sena, or generation army, to describe the gathering. Rama sees with further amazement that Hanuman has also brought a massive force of bears, each one powerful enough to take on ten armed humans. Rama meets Jambavan, king of the bears, who tells him that he is a son of the mother bear he saved earlier and therefore owes a life debt to him. Further discussion ensues regarding how to cross the ocean. Jambavan flatly refuses to create boats, a feat that would have been impossible given the timespan allotted anyway, citing it as an act of murder to chop down trees. They instead decide to use large stones, rolled into the ocean with the help of the vast army, in order to create a huge bridge. The work begins, taking many days and many lives as bears and vanars alike are maimed and crushed by fallen stones. During the backbreaking work of the stonelifting, an extraordinary event occurs. As a large stone rolls awry down the hillside and threatens to crush a huge contingent of vanars and Rama himself, Hanuman steps in front of the stone and grows to a size that allows him to literally lift the stone in the palm of his hand. Amazed, the army asks him to repeat the feat but Hanuman is unable to control whatever occurred to him. Jambavan takes him off for meditation and training, as the bridge-building continues. Upon his return, Jambavan states that he knows exactly what is going on with Hanuman. He reveals that Hanuman's mother, Anjana, was a cursed apsara named Punjikasthala, a celestial dancer in the court of Indra and lover of Vayu, deva of the winds. As a cursed vanar she nevertheless retained her beauty and was married to Kesari, a noble vanar. She loved her husband but wished to return back to her previous state as an apsara. Indra sympathetically found a loophole in the curse which bound her, and she was able to return to her form as an apsara for one night. Vayu appeared before her, but initially although she flatly refused his advances, he stated that she is not committing a sin, and she allowed them to consummate their love. Later, Anjana had absolutely no memory of the incident but nevertheless gave birth to Hanuman. This made Hanuman none other than the son of Vayu, god of the winds. This shocking revelation that Hanuman is part deva - and therefore worthy of worship - brings tears to Sugreeva, who states that if he had known all along, he would have gladly abdicated his kingship. Hanuman reproves him and states that he wishes for no-one to worship him, as he only regards his master as Rama. Sugreeva agrees to allow Hanuman to remain under the mastership of Rama, who is deeply honored. Hanuman reveals that he now has complete control over his power, and with rapid succession the bridge-building continues. Spurred by a new, safer, and more efficient discovery made by Nala and Hanuman's sheer strength, the building of the bridge rapidly begins to speed up, and the completion of the bridge nears. On one fine morning dawn, Rama travels out to the edge of the bridge in order to perform his morning prayers, when Dasharatha descends from Heaven to give him a warning - that Sita will die by the end of the night if Rama does not intervene. Horror-stricken, Rama asks Hanuman for his help, when Jambavan reveals that he is capable of flight. Hanuman makes a gigantic leap which sends him airborne at supersonic speed towards Lanka. On the way he encounters a number of tests, including the Lady of the Serpents, Sarasa, and Mainika, the mountain. Ravana detects Hanuman's presence as he is flying over the sea and seeks to crush him by controlling his shadow, but Hanuman breaks free, uncorrupted. Upon arriving in Lanka, Hanuman is met by a spirit who calls herself the Lady of Lanka, a being formed from what seems like ocean mist. She takes corporeal form and guides Hanuman through the city into the Tower of Lanka. Hanuman initially begins to develop feelings for her (despite having taken a vow of celibacy) but realizes that something is wrong. He attacks her and she is revealed to be none other than Surpanakha, who was under Ravana's orders to take him to Ravana's lair. He forces her to take him to the grove where Sita is being held. Upon arriving, Sita initially refuses to believe Hanuman is a messenger of Rama. However, over a period of time, he recounts Rama's exploits up to that point and she swiftly believes him. However, when he offers to take her back (under Rama's orders), she adamantly refuses, saying that if he does, history will regard Rama as a coward and refuse to accept him as anything but a genocidal fool who didn't have the courage to face up to Ravana. Hanuman finds out that Sita was framed for the murder of a female rakshasi who was sympathetic to her, when in reality the murderer was another rakshasi acting under Mandodhari's orders. Mandodhari, thoroughly brainwashed by Ravana into believing Sita was a threat to their society, had plotted to have her killed. Sita had been tried by a court led by Ravana and through a complete mockery of judicial process, had been condemned to death by being eaten alive, despite Vibhishan's attempts to save her. Hanuman, in his rage, begins to systematically destroy the tower of Lanka. Hanuman begins tearing his way through the domain of the tower, destroying the buildings and killing hordes of rakshasas made to guard areas of the tower. Ravana's generals are sent to battle with him but they and their troops are completely annihilated aside from Prahasta, Ravana's highest commander. Nevertheless, his son Jambumali is slaughtered by Hanuman, who continues his rampage of death. Ravana finally decides to send his sons against Hanuman. He sends Akshay Kumar, who fights skillfully against him but is no match for Hanuman's sheer strength, and is literally mashed into pieces. Furious, Ravana sends Indrajit after him despite reproaches by Mandodhari. Indrajit utters part of the incantation for the Brahmastra - the same weapon used by Rama on the battlefield in Mithila - and threatens to use it against Hanuman unless he surrenders. Hanuman surrenders out of fear that use of the weapon will destroy much more than himself, and he relents. He is captured and tortured by Indrajit, who brings him before Ravana. Incensed by Hanuman's defeat and killing of Akshay Kumar, he immediately orders Hanuman put to death. However, Vibhishan once again intervenes on his behalf, and states that according to the code of conduct, as a messenger, Hanuman cannot be killed. Hanuman begins to recount the reason he came, while simultaneously extolling Ravana's presence. Confused, the court decides to go with Vibhishan's recommendation, and Ravana level-headedly makes a decision to spare Hanuman's life but mutilate him by burning off his tail, the most precious part of a vanar's body. Hanuman does not protest, and agrees with his judgment. Hanuman is paraded through the streets and his tail is set on fire. However, as the flames threaten to consume the rest of his body, he makes the last-second decision to increase the length of his tail size so that the fire will spread in the opposite direction, and his ploy works. Using his burning tail, he destroys most of Lanka and expands to an enormous size. He takes Sita and puts her down in a safe area, then using his sheer strength, mashes the Tower of Lanka to shreds. Triumphant, he douses his tail and with the blessings of Sita, flies back over the sea to the mainland, where Rama waits. |
The Bowstring Murders | John Dickson Carr | 1,933 | Elderly eccentric Lord Rayle has a priceless collection of medieval arms and armour housed at Bowstring Castle. When he is found strangled by one of his own bowstrings, it is up to John Gaunt to solve the crime. |
The White Priory Murders | John Dickson Carr | null | Marcia Tait is a Hollywood star who has come to England to make a historical film. She's found beaten to death in the Queen's Mirror pavilion, the 17th-century trysting place of King Charles II and Lady Castlemain. The problem is particularly puzzling because the pavilion is surrounded by newfallen snow, with only one set of footprints leading to it and none leading away. The suspects include a man who thought he was marrying her — and her husband, whose marriage was unknown to all. Sir Henry Merrivale lends a hand to Inspector Masters in the investigation, but is too late to stop the second murder before Merrivale solves the case. |
The Red Widow Murders | John Dickson Carr | null | An oddly assorted group of people draw cards to see who will spend the night locked into a room said to be haunted by the "Red Widow" -- a legendary figure who was married to the executioner who guillotined French aristocrats. In the morning, the victim is found dead, locked inside a room whose door was continuously under observation. He has been poisoned by curare, which must be absorbed into the body through a break in the skin, but no wounds of any kind are found on the body. Henry Merrivale must solve the mystery. |
The Unicorn Murders | John Dickson Carr | null | Kenwood Blake is with the British Secret Service and romantically involved with another agent, Evelyn Cheyne. Together with Sir Henry Merrivale, they become embroiled in a battle between Flamande, the most picturesque criminal in France, and his arch-enemy Gaston Gasquet of the Sûreté. Both Flamande and Gasquet are masters of disguise, and no one knows what either man looks like. Blake, Merrivale and an assorted group of strangers are in an airplane that is forced to land near the Château de l'Ile, where the Comte d'Andrieu is apparently expecting visitors and offers them all his hospitality. One of the plane's passengers falls to the ground with a hole in his forehead, as if he had been gored by a unicorn, and the area where he fell was under observation by impartial witnesses such that it seems impossible for anyone to have committed the murder. Sir Henry must sort out the twin problems of who's really who and whodunnit. ja:一角獣の殺人 |
Transparent Things | Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov | null | This short novel tells the story of Hugh Person, a young American editor, and the memory of his four trips to a small village in Switzerland over the course of nearly two decades. He first visits the village as a young man, along with his father. In his second trip, Person's publisher sends him to interview R., a gifted and eccentric author. His third trip involves tragedy, murder, and madness. Finally, Person's fourth trip provides an opportunity for reflection on his turbulent past. In recounting Person's story, the narrator(s) guide(s) the reader through themes of time, love, authorship, and the metaphysics of memory. fr:La Transparence des choses ru:Прозрачные вещи |
Cosmographia | Bernard Silvestris | null | The work is divided into two parts: "Megacosmus", which describes the ordering of the physical universe, and "Microcosmus", which describes the creation of man. 1 (verse): Natura (Nature) complains to Noys (Divine Providence; Greek ) that Hyle (Primordial Matter; Greek ), although held in check by Silva (the Latin equivalent of hyle), is chaotic and unformed and asks that Noys impose order and form on the confused matter. 2 (prose): Noys reveals her status as the daughter of God and asserts that the time is right for Natura's plea to be granted. She then separates out the four elements of fire, earth, water, and air from primordial matter. Seeing that the results are good, she begets the World Soul, or Endelechia, as a bride for Mundus (World). Their marriage is the source of life in the universe. 3 (verse): This long poem in elegiac couplets presents the results of the ordering of the universe. Ether, the stars and sky, the earth, and the sea have become distinguished, and the nine orders of angels attend on the God who exists outside the universe. There follows a catalogue of the stars and constellations, along with the planets and their natures. Then the earth and its creatures are described, with catalogues of mountains, beasts, rivers, plants (which are treated in particularly loving detail), fish, and birds. 4 (prose): The relationships between the powers operating in the universe are analyzed. All things under the heavens form part of a cosmic cycle, controlled by Natura, which will never cease, since its maker and cause are eternal. Hyle is the basis, whom the rational plan of God and Noys has ordered in an everlasting system, although subject to time: "For as Noys is forever pregnant of the divine will, she in turn informs Endelechia with the images she conceives of the eternal patterns, Endelechia impresses them upon Nature, and Nature imparts to Imarmene [Destiny; Greek ] what the well-being of the universe demands." 1 (prose): Noys displays the created universe to Natura and points out its various features. 2 (verse): With the work of Noys, Silva has recovered her true beauty. Noys (still speaking to Natura) declares herself proud of the harmony she has brought to the universe. 3 (prose): Noys says that for the completion of the cosmic design, the creation of man is needed. For this it is necessary that Natura seek out Urania (the celestial principle) and Physis (the material principle). Natura sets forth and searches through various regions of the heavens. When she reaches the outermost limit of the heavens, she encounters the Genius whose responsibility it is to delineate the celestial forms on the individual things of the universe. He greets Natura and points out Urania, whose brightness dazzles Natura. 4 (verse): Urania agrees to descend to Earth and collaborate in the creation of man. She will take with her the human soul, guiding it through all the heavens so that it may become acquainted with the laws of fate and learn the rules that govern its behavior. 5 (prose): To gain the sanction of the divine powers, Natura and Urania travel outside the cosmos, to the sanctuary of the supreme divinity, Tugaton (the Good; Greek ), whose favor they pray for. They then descend, one by one, through the planetary spheres. 6 (verse): Having reached the lower boundary of the sphere of the Moon, where the quintessence meets the terrestrial elements, Natura pauses to look about her. 7 (prose): Natura and Urania see thousands of spirits. Urania tells Natura that, in addition to the angels who dwell beyond the created universe and in the heavenly spheres, there are spirits below the Moon—some good, some evil. 8 (verse): Urania bids Natura to review the totality of the universe and note the principles of divine concord that it manifests. 9 (prose): Natura and Urania descend to Earth and reach a secluded locus amoenus (called Gramision or Granusion—the readings of the manuscripts are disputed). There they meet Physis, accompanied by her daughters Theorica (Contemplative Knowledge) and Practica (Active Knowledge), who is rapt in contemplation of created life in all its aspects. Suddenly, Noys appears. 10 (verse): Noys explains that Natura, Urania, and Physis can collaborate to complete the creation by fashioning a creature who participates in both the divine and earthly realms. 11 (prose): Noys assigns Urania, Physis, and Natura specific tasks in the creation of man, providing a model for each. Urania, using the Mirror of Providence, is to provide him with a soul derived from Endelechia; Physis, using the Book of Memory, is to provide him with a body; and Natura, using the Table of Destiny, is to unite the soul and the body. 12 (verse): Natura summons her two companions to begin the work. Physis, however, is somewhat angry, since she sees that matter is ill suited for the fashioning of a being that requires intellect. Urania assists her by eliminating the evil taint from Silva and containing the matter within definite limits. 13 (prose): Physis—making use of the imperfect aspects of Silva that had (somewhat uncertainly) submitted to the will of God and had been left over from the rest of creation—fashions a body. The four humors are described, along with the tripartite division of the body into the head (seat of the brain and the sensory organs), the breast (seat of the heart) and the loins (seat of the liver). 14 (verse): The powers of the senses and the brain, heart, and liver are detailed. The organs of generation will prevent human life from wholly passing away and the universe from returning to chaos. |
The Mystery of Cloomber | Arthur Conan Doyle | null | Near their residence, Branksome, is The Cloomber Hall, for many years untenanted. After a little while it is settled in by John Berthier Heatherstone, late of the Indian Army. General Heatherstone is nervous to the point of being paranoid. As the story unfolds, it becomes evident that his fears are connected with some people in India whom he has offended somehow. People hear a strange sound, like the tolling of a bell, in his presence, which seems to cause the general great discomfort. Every year his paranoia reaches its climax around the fifth of October, after which date his fears subside for a while. After some time there is a shipwreck in the bay and among the survivors are three Buddhist priests who had boarded the ship from Kurrachee. When John Fothergill West tells the general (to whose daughter Gabriel he is engaged) about the priests, he resigns himself to his fate and refuses any help from West. One night the three Buddhist priests summon General Heatherstone and Colonel Rufus Smith (who had been together with the general in India and apparently was under the same threat that was faced by the general) out of The Cloomber Hall. With their psychic powers, they have a complete hold over the two erstwhile soldiers. The priests take them through the marshes to the Hole of Cree, a bottomless pit in the centre of the marsh and either throw the soldiers in or order them to jump in. The General had given his son a parcel and instructed him to hand it over to West in case of his death or disappearance. When West opens the parcel he finds a letter and some old papers. In the letter the general tells West to read the papers, which are pages from a diary that the general had kept in his days in the army of the English East India Company. As West reads the papers he understands the mystery of Cloomber. When he was in the army forty years ago, during the First Afghan War, the general was fighting against the Afridis in the passes of the Hindu-Kush. After defeating the Afridis in a battle, he chases them to a cul de sac to slaughter them. As the general was closing in on the remnants of the enemy forces, an old man emerges from a cave and stops him from killing them. The general, together with Rufus Smith, kills the old man and proceeds with the massacre. As it turns out, the old man was an arch-adept, a buddhist priest who had reached the zenith of buddhist priesthood. His chelas (students) vow to avenge his death. The three chelas let the general live on for forty years to prolong his misery.The sound that appeared to emanate from above the general's head was the tolling of the astral bell by the chelas to remind him that wherever he goes, he will never escape their wrath. |
Le Bossu | null | null | Si tu ne viens pas à Lagardère, Lagardère ira à toi! ("If you don't come to Largardère, Lagardère will come to you!") Such is the oath given by the adventurer Lagardère to the wicked Prince de Gonzague, who has plotted to murder the daughter and seize the fortune of the dashing Duc de Nevers. In the first volume, Le Petit Parisien, the Prince de Gonzague murders the Duc de Nevers. Henri Lagardère rescues Nevers' daughter Aurore and raises her in exile, where she makes friends with a gypsy girl named Flor. The second volume, Le Chevalier de Lagardère, describes Lagardère's triumph over the Prince de Gonzague. |
The Armourer's House | Rosemary Sutcliff | 1,951 | The story revolves around a 10-year-old girl named Tamsyn, who has been orphaned and is being raised by her uncle, a shipowner in Bideford. She is brought to live in London by another uncle, who works as a swordsmith, or armourer, being the owner of the house after which the novel is titled. Tamsyn is a dark-complected girl, contrasting with the entirely red headed family which has taken her in; showing Sutcliff's reoccurring themes of outsiders, belonging, red heads, and light vs. dark. She is homesick for her West Country life, but slowly adapts to London city life and being part of a larger family. Through the novel she witnesses Morris dancers on May Day; visits the market in Cheapside, the Billingsgate Fish Market, and the Royal Dockyard in Deptford. She watches King Henry VIII and his current queen Anne Boleyn proceed up the Thames in his royal barge, transiting from his palace in Greenwich to his palace in Westminster. The mother of the house tells them the tale of Tam Lin on Halloween, which parallels the theme of a girl who struggles to pursue her dreams. She watches tall ships at the docks, consistently showing a strong interest in sailing, which she shares with one of the Armourer's sons, Piers. Both Piers and Tamsyn dream of sailing away and exploring the word, adventuring with the backdrop of the Age of Exploration. Piers is restrained by being bound as an apprentice to his father, while Tamsyn is restrained by being a girl. The oldest son, who had been thought drowned, returns to the family on Christmas Eve while they are home singing Christmas Carols. This frees Piers from his obligation, so he is welcomed to sail with the ship-owning uncle in the coming spring. Tamsyn is overjoyed, as he has promised to bring her along when he is older and becomes master of a ship. |
Under the Lilacs | Louisa May Alcott | 1,878 | When Bab and Betty decide to have a tea party with their dolls a mysterious dog comes and steals their prized cake. The girls find a circus run-away, Ben Brown, hiding in their play barn. Ben is a horse master, so when the Mosses take the Ben in they find him work at a neighbor's house driving cows. Eventually Ben finds out his beloved father is dead. Miss Celia, a neighbor, comforts him and finally offers to let Ben stay with her and her fourteen-year-old brother Thornton. Many adventures and summer-happenings go on in Celia's house. Sancho gets lost, Ben is accused of stealing, Miss Celia gets hurt and Ben takes a wild ride on her horse, Lita. |
The Runaway Skyscraper | Murray Leinster | 1,919 | "The Runaway Skyscraper" concerns Arthur Chamberlain, an engineer who works in a midtown Manhattan office building called the Metropolitan Tower. When the sun suddenly begins moving backwards in the sky, setting rapidly in the east, he is the only one to realize what is actually happening: a flaw in the rock beneath the building has caused it to subside, but instead of moving in space, the building is falling backwards into the past. When the subsidence finally ends, the building is located several thousand years in the past, and its 2000-odd inhabitants find themselves stranded in pre-Columbian Manhattan. Chamberlain also realizes that the same seismic forces that caused the building to drop back into the past can also be used to return it to the present, but that doing so will require several weeks of intensive work by the building's inhabitants, and in the meantime they must concentrate on feeding themselves. Chamberlain convinces the president of a bank on the first floor that he can return them to the present, and together they are able to organize the other inhabitants into hunting and fishing parties. Two weeks later, Chamberlain is ready to implement his plan. He forces a jet of soapy water into an artesian well beneath the building, and this allows the pressure that has built up in the rock to be released. The building travels forward in time again, returning to the exact moment when it began to travel into the past. |
The Problem of Cell 13 | Jacques Futrelle | null | Like Futrelle's other short stories, "The Problem of Cell 13" features Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen as the main character, although most of the story is seen through the perspective of a prison warden. While in a scientific debate with two men, Dr. Charles Ransome and Alfred Fielding, Augustus, "The Thinking Machine", insists that nothing is impossible when the human mind is properly applied. To prove this, he agrees that he will take part in an experiment in which he will be incarcerated in a prison for one week and given the challenge of escaping. He achieves the goal with great ingenuity (and aid from his frequent confederate, newspaper reporter Hutchinson Hatch) and explains fully how he did it. Everyone around Augustus is amazed at his explanation, and they wholeheartedly believe his point that nothing is impossible, though the warden asks what would have happened if many of the key elements of Augustus's escape had not been present. Augustus smiles smugly and states that there were also two other ways out, and leaves it at that. |
The Punch and Judy Murders | John Dickson Carr | null | Kenwood Blake, introduced in the previous Sir Henry Merrivale mystery The Unicorn Murders, is about to marry his fellow British Secret Service operative, Evelyn Cheyne, 24 hours from now. He is sidetracked by an urgent telegram from Sir Henry asking him to come to Torquay to play an undercover role under an alias by which he is already known, "Robert Butler". Paul Hogenauer, a German polymath with many skills and interests, has aroused the suspicion of Sir Henry and Colonel Charters, the Chief Constable of the county by his recent interest in ghosts and spiritualism. Sir Henry and Colonel Charters feel that anti-British espionage may underlie recent events, and they suspect the involvement of a German spy known only as L. A police officer observing Hogenauer's house reports "the room was dark, but that it seemed to be very full of small, moving darts of light flickering round a thing like a flower-pot turned upside down." Blake, as Butler, drives Sir Henry's car to Hogenauer's house and is promptly arrested—to his great surprise, Sir Henry and Colonel Charters disavow any knowledge of his actions. Blake/Butler escapes, breaks into Hogenauer's house and finds Hogenauer, dead in his easy chair, grinning from the rictus of strychnine and wearing a Turkish fez. A colleague of Hogenauer, Dr. Keppel, is soon found to be dead in a hotel halfway across town, apparently killed simultaneously with Hogenauer. Blake/Butler and his fiancee must stay a step ahead of the police and race around investigating espionage, counterfeiting, spiritualism, and multiple impersonations. Finally Sir Henry examines and discards three complex possible solutions, revealing the murderer just in time for the wedding. ja:パンチとジュディ (推理小説) |
Death in Five Boxes | John Dickson Carr | null | Dr. John Sanders, a serious young forensic scientist, is stopped by a pretty young girl late at night. Marcia Blystone asks him to accompany her to the top floor of a four-story building, to the apartment of Mr. Felix Haye, because she is afraid to go up alone. Before they reach the apartment, he finds an umbrella-swordstick with bloodstains on it, and they are immediately stopped by a clerk from the Anglo-Egyptian Importing Co. Ltd., one floor below Mr. Haye's flat. He mentions grumpily that Haye and his guests have been laughing uproariously and stomping their feet on the floor. When the couple finally enters Haye's flat, they find the host stabbed to death, and his three guests—including Miss Blystone's surgeon father—unconscious due to atropine poisoning. The couple make their way back to the importing company, where the clerk offers them the telephone and promptly disappears. Upon their recovering consciousness, each of the three guests is questioned about the unusual contents of their pockets. The doctor is carrying four wrist watches; a beautiful dealer in art is carrying a bottle of quicklime and another of phosphorus; and the owner of the Anglo-Egyptian Importing Company is carrying the ringing mechanism of an alarm clock and a convex piece of glass. All three swear that their cocktails were prepared from unopened bottles in the presence of all of them, yet someone has managed to poison them. Chief Inspector Masters brings in Sir Henry Merrivale to investigate the bizarre circumstances. At the offices of Charles Drake, Haye's lawyer, they find the evidence of five small boxes, all empty. They are each labeled with a name—the three guests, the clerk, and someone named "Judith Adams", who turns out to be a deceased author who wrote a book on legendary dragons. It takes all Sir Henry's ingenuity to work out the tangle of relationships and motives and reveal not only who stabbed Felix Haye, but also poisoned the cocktails and how—and why Judith Adams is the key to it all. |
Diary of an Oxygen Thief | null | null | Purporting to be an autobiography, Diary of an Oxygen Thief begins with the narrator, an Irish advertising executive living in London, describing the pleasure he used to receive from emotionally abusing women. After the narrator starts attending AA meetings, he sobers up, abstains from sex for several years, and looks back on his past relationships with a measure of remorse. After taking a job in the United States, the narrator is confronted externally by the absurdity of corporate America, culture shock, and the conflict of moving from the lower to upper-middle class. Internally he grapples with paranoia, addiction, and a legacy of pain. Later, he meets a young, aspiring photographer in New York and falls in love with her. The relationship rapidly goes south and culminates in her humiliating him in public, thereby giving him a taste of his own medicine. The titular Oxygen Thief refers to the low self-esteem of the narrator who, because of his sense of self-loathing, seems to go through life unworthy of the very air he breathes. |
Life's Lottery | Kim Newman | null | Life's Lottery opens speculating on the question of free will and predestination. The reader is invited to decide for themselves which philosophy to follow in reading the book and then is presented with Keith's birth in England on October 4, 1959. Keith is raised in England by a successful banker and has, as the author points out, "been dealt a better hand than many". The boy is spoiled by his parents and enters primary school shy and timid. The book offers its first choice on the first day, when Keith is confronted and teased by a gang. The consequences of the choice - "Napoleon Solo or Illya Kuryakin?" - set Keith on a path that determines his lifelong friends, enemies, and opportunities. Following this key point, the plot paths diverge wildly, and range from Keith winning the lottery, becoming a distinguished novelist, making a bomb threat, having an incestuous affair, committing a murder, and making a deal with the Devil. Should the reader decide to disregard the novel's interactive nature and read through it as any other book, he is presented with both immediate outcomes of the first decision and perspective then switches to the two doctors who are observing Keith; one confirms that this is Keith Marion, "of Marion syndrome", and the other remarks that although he is in a coma, he looks "quite ordinary", considering his symptoms. The rest of the novel includes every possible scenario that the reader could encounter, all of them playing out in Keith's mind. The stream of thought is occasionally interrupted by another scene with the doctors, each of which slowly leaks information to the reader, who eventually learns that he is not assuming the role of a man named Keith Marion. Rather, the protagonist is a woman named Marion Keith, who, in her coma, spends her time speculating on what her life might be like had she been born a man. Eventually, she settles on an outcome in which she is a man laboring for a living in Tibet. |
Mississippi Jack | null | 2,007 | The story follows Jacky Faber as she is captured by British forces to be taken back to England for her past crimes. Captain Rutherford is able to keep her aboard his ship, HMS Juno, before a Colonel Swithin (Higgins iin disguise) comes aboard to take custody of Jacky for "interrogation.". He gives Rutherford the reward he was expecting for capturing her (actually money he received from people at the Lawson Peabody school) and takes Jacky away. Higgins and Jacky meet up with Jim Tanner, her coxswain, and they go to hide out in the American Wilderness. They run into Katy Deere, who was a serving girl at the Lawson Peabody School. Katy has a goal; to kill her uncle. However, as soon as they get to the farm where he lives, Katy learns he is dead. Jacky, Higgins, Tanner, and Katy travel for miles exploring the U.S. frontier till they wind up in a small town on the Allegheny River. They meet and trick Mike Fink out of his keelboatboat and set off down the Allegheny River, having turned the boat into a casino showboat. Unknown to her, Jaimy is following her just days behind, but he is not alone. After being robbed, beaten, and left for dead by a pair of bandits, Jaimy is rescued by 14-year-old Clementine Jukes, who believes he is God-sent and becomes his lover. They run away together from Clementine's abusive father in search of Jacky; Clementine is unaware of the fact that Jacky is a female and betrothed to Jaimy. They almost catch up to Jacky in Pittsburgh with the help of Mike Fink, who wishes to kill Jacky for stealing his boat, but Jaimy and Mike land in jail for a few weeks while Clementine finds work aboard Jacky's boat. Clementine does not tell her about how Jaimy and she traveled alone together for several hundred miles, and Jaimy does not know that Clementine is going away with Jacky. They allow several people aboard as guests on the showboat. The first is Yancy Cantrell, a master at cards and widower, and his African-American daughter. Cantrell and his daughter operate a scam by making selling the daughter to a slavemaster, whereafter Chloeuses lockpicks to escape and meet back up with her father. New Orleans is the destination of 'The Belle Of The Golden West', Jacky's showboat/casino. Also aboard are Crow Jane and the Hawkes boys, Nathaniel and Matthew 'Matty'. Crow Jane is hired as the cook and the Hawkes boys are boat crewmen Clementine is Crow Jane's assistant and develops a relationship with Jim Tanner. While stopping at a town for two days on the way down the river, the whole crew goes off to spend their money. The day they leave, the Hawkes brothers return with their new wives, Honeysuckle Rose and Tupelo Honey, whom Jacky reluctantly let on board. The Very Reverend Clawson comes aboard and does an act in Jacky's show, which is a song-and-dance, a revival led by Clawson, and a medicine show that advertises her Elixir. He is also heading to New Orleans. While on their cruise, one of the passengers forewarns them about a group of bloodthirsty bandits that resort at Cave-in-Rock on the outskirts of town. The last person aboard the ship is a runaway slave, Solomon. The crew sail past the Cave-in-Rock, running into a "gentleman" sailor who knows the American rivers like the back of his hand. His name is Frederick Fortescue and he is actually a fraud. The trick is to lure the showboat into Cave-in-Rock so the bandits can kill the crew but Jacky catches onto the scene, having Fortescue imprisoned and later thrown overboard after they kill the bandits. Another group of people taken aboard are the Injuns, Lightfoot and Chee-a-quat. While they are on the way to New Orleans, they help out the crew along the way and Jacky gets to meet up with the two Indians' tribes that live in a massive town of tepees. Unbeknownst to Jacky who goes to meet with the Indians, they are secretly killing people in America for the British. Jacky gets to meet Tecumseh and takes up with some of the Indians. But while venturing with Tepeki, an Indian girl, Jacky Faber runs into Captain Lord Allen, a womanizing British captain of high rank. Lightfoot has Allen taken from Jacky's presence and soon, Jacky meets Flashby and Moseley who know instantly who she is. With the revelation of Jacky's past to the Indians, they soon turn against her and have the British take her away. Flashby and Moseley torture Jacky during an interrogation aboard their ship but Allen detests them intensely and has them go back to the Indians. Jacky charms Allen with wine and the past, convinces Allen to untie her and steals his gun. Soon, Higgins and the crew come to rescue Jacky. Jacky maintains the role as the captain of her 'Belle of the Golden West' and has Moseley and Flashby walk the plank. While she has Allen journey with them to New Orleans, Jaimy soon catches up with them after escaping Mike Fink and their jail term. He meets up with Jacky but catches her cheating so he intends to return back to Britain. Jacky finds out the puzzling connection between Clementine and Jacky; angering her deeply. When all is calm, Jacky and the crew sail into Baton Rouge where Captain Allen and his crew decide to get off at instead of New Orleans. Jacky bids them a personal farewell and as they go looking for some supplies, Jacky and the crew run into another enemy: slave hunters. The feared Beam family of Louisiana imprison Jacky, Solomon and Chloe Cantrell because they claim Jacky is Abolitionist and loves the black race. Yancy tries to fight for her but ends up being wounded in the process. The Beam family takes the three to their farm where they shackle Solomon and Chloe to their barn and plan to hang Jacky. Jacky rants on about being pregnant and at first, the family of strictly men (Ma Beam must have died before this story happened) plan on hanging but then say they plan on keeping Jacky till she has her baby. Pa Beam, being a Bible-thumping yet hypocritical man of God, goes to pray in the nearby woods. When he comes out, he claims the Lord has told him to tar-and-feather Jacky so they do just that. But soon they find out Jacky is lying about being pregnant. Lightfoot, Chee-a-Quat, the Hawkes boys and Katy Deere come to save Jacky. Katy mortally wounds a son of Pa Beam - Ezekiel, and Lightfoot then bluntly kills him. The group are only able to kill three of the Beam family before they can carry Jacky, Solomon and Chloe to the safety of the 'Belle of the Golden West.'Jacky is covered in tar so Crow Jane has to soak her in water, cut her hair very short and peel the tar off with knives and alcohol. Things back at the ship have taken a turn for the worse, Yancy Cantrell's wound from being shot by one of the Beams turns out to be a mortal wound and he soon dies from it. After Lightfoot and Chee-a-Quat come back saying they've killed all of the Beam family and burned their house with the bodies in each bed, they bury Cantrell; the Reverend Clawson preaching the funeral. Katy Deere then soon decides to leave the group, going out on her own. Jacky is saddened by this but allows Katy to leave. Later that night, a horrible storm passes through and knocks Jacky off the showboat into the waters below. Within a day or so, Jacky winds up in the port of New Orleans, at long last. Without a clue on how her crew is or how to navigate New Orleans, she goes looking for the House of the Rising Sun, a brothel and a casino that the ever-so mysterious Mam'selle. Jacky stays with Mam'selle Claudelle de Bourbon, whom she had met in Boston and who practices "the oldest profession", until she finds Jaimy. Jacky is almost murdered simultaneously by Mike Fink because she stole his boat, British Lieutenant Flashby (a minor character from the second book), because he wants the prize money for Jacky's head, and the pirate brothers Lafitte because Jacky stole quite a bit of loot from them during her time as a privateer. She manages to escape them all and buys a small ship so that, with the help of her newly-reunited crew, she can get to Jaimy, who is in Jamaica. She finds him there, all is forgiven, and Jaimy sets off for China for a year or so because he is once again in the Royal Navy. Though some of her crew choose to marry and become pioneers, and others choose to marry and run a floating tavern docked at New Orleans, Jacky and the remainder of her crew leave for Boston after setting Jaimy off in Kingston, Jamaica. =Characters= * Jacky Faber- The main protagonist of the entire series; now sixteen years old and proclaimed a pirate by King George, Jacky takes up the American Wilderness and starts a casino showboat business. * James 'Jaimy' Emerson Fletcher- Jacky's lover for the entire book series; throughout the series, he's always been one step behind Jacky. On grounds of their distant relationship, Jaimy has an affair with country girl, Clementine Jukes. * Master Higgins- Jacky's devoted butler and right-hand man throughout Jacky's adventure through America. * Mike Fink- An American keelboat legend and feared by the Yankee townfolk, Mike Fink knows the rivers like the back of his hand and being victim to Jacky's wit, he loses his keelboat to her and vows to kill her. * Clementine Jukes- The daughter of an alcoholic, murderous farmer; Clementine saves Jaimy from death and sails with Jaimy in pursuit of Jacky before she learns Jacky is another woman and Clementine takes up a position on Jacky's showboat. * Yancy Cantrell- The sharp card-dealing Creole gentleman, Cantrell's widowed and raises a daughter that serves a purpose in an Abolitionist scam of his. Cantrell serves a primary role in the book as he is one of the many guests that take the entire route to New Orleans aboard Jacky's casino-boat. * Captain Lord Richard Allen- A womanizing young captain of King George's fleet who is in charge of a deal with the American Indians to kill for scalps and money. Jacky begins an affair with Allen as soon as they come to terms. * Jim Tanner- Another right-hand man of Jacky's; Tanner is always given secondhand jobs and it's obvious he does not appreciate some of the assignments he is given but after Clementine's split from Jaimy, she takes up perfectly with Tanner. * Lieutenant Flashby- An antagonist of the book, Flashby is part of Allen's partnership with the Indians and secretly knows who Jacky Faber truly is and he has Allen kidnap her and take her aboard their ship but when Higgins and the 'Belle of the Golden West' crew go to save Jacky from going to be executed in Britain, Jacky captures Flashby and his cohort Moseley and have the walk the plank separately. * Crow Jane- Jacky's showboat cook and personal bodyguard. * The Hawkes Boys ('Thaniel and Matty)- Some hoodlums Crow Jane used to run with that hired as Jacky's bodyguards. * Mam'selle Claudelle de Bourbon- A prostitute from New Orleans, Jacky resorts with her once she reaches New Orleans. * Lightfoot, Tepeki, Chee-a-Quat, and the Indian tribe- An Indian tribe Jacky befriends before being exposed by Flashby; even though Lightfoot and Chee-a-Quat are evidently angered and shocked, they come back to rescue her from the British. * Solomon- A negro slave that Jacky and the crew up with and save from slave masters. Solomon is proven to be very intelligent with a guitar and is the reason Jacky is tarred and feathered in New Orleans for by the feared Beam family. * Katy Deere- Another dear friend of Jacky's, in the beginning she is a vital character in helping start Jacky's 'Belle of the Golden West' but since business picked up for everybody, she faded into the position of one of Jacky's many assistants. * Chloe Cantrell- The colored daughter of Yancy Cantrell and a motherless child, Chloe is usually mute but cunning and is found out to be good with a harpsichord. * Reverend Clawson- A Christian preacher that leads a revival as part of Jacky's routine show. He is one of the many guests that go with Jacky the whole route to New Orleans. * Daniel Prescott- A boy who fell victim to the Cave-in-Rock bandits. He travels with Jacky the whole way to New Orleans. * The Beam Family- A Bible-thumping group of hypocritical racists that has Jacky arrested and punished (tar and feather) for helping Solomon escape to freedom. * Mr. McCoy and Mr. Beatty- Two highwaymen that nearly kill Jaimy. * Captain Rutherford- The ruthless captain in charge of arresting Jacky and sending her back to King George in the beginning. * The Lawson Peabody School Girls- Jacky's allies that try to help free her from Captain Rutherford and the British. * Ezra Pickering- A trusted attorney of Jacky's that seldom writes to her to tells her the status of everybody from Mistress Pimm's to the School girls. |
Drop to His Death | John Dickson Carr | 1,939 | A businessman dies in an elevator in such a way that it seems as though no one could have committed the murder. |
The Reader is Warned | John Dickson Carr | null | Sir Henry Merrivale must solve an impossible crime when a man dies in his home in such a way that it seems no one could have been sufficiently close to him to have committed murder, and it is unclear exactly how or why he died. The circumstances are complicated by the presence of the victim's wife, a writer of clever detective stories, the disappearance of a book in which she jots down unusual methods of murder, and a strange house guest who believes that he can kill people at a distance by the use of something he calls "Teleforce". |
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