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No Coffin for the Corpse | Clayton Rawson | 1,942 | Ross Harte, newspaperman and friend to The Great Merlini, has finally fallen in love—with Kathryn Wolff, daughter of irascible millionaire Dudley Wolff. Dudley decides to put huge obstacles in the path of Kathryn's romance, including disinheriting her. But most of his life is taken up with his investigations into the nature of death. To that end, he's filled his country estate with his second wife (a former medium), an experimental biologist, and a number of other odd characters. When a private detective decides to blackmail Wolff, he won't stand for it; he strikes the man, who falls to the floor dead. Wolff forces his hangers-on to help him bury the little man—who comes back to haunt Wolff, and forces him to call in The Great Merlini to explain the situation. Merlini has to explain a spirit photograph, a vase broken by ghostly means, Dudley's shooting, the identity of "Zareh Bey, the Man who Could Not Die", a murder by dry ice, why Ross should have been tied hand and foot and thrown into Long Island Sound, and where a professional medium can conceal a gun that no one else can. Finally Merlini works out the causes of the ghostly apparitions, identifies Dudley's murderer, and makes it possible for Harte and Kathryn to get married. |
Salaam, Paris | Kavita Daswani | null | The novel is based on a story of a Muslim girl named Tanaya Shah; a young Indian girl mesmerized by western culture. She was raised by her mother and grandfather, as her father abandoned Tanaya's mother when Tanaya was a young child. Tanaya's grandfather treated Tanaya with the utmost respect. He treated her like his own daughter, but Tanaya still felt that she was neglected. Because Tanaya's mother was abandoned, Tanaya's grandfather (Tanaya's mother's father) would remain extremely cautious of Tanaya's roundabouts. This became difficult for Tanaya, as she wanted to explore the world outside of Mahim; place she Tanaya was born and raised. Adding to this, Tanaya was born in a family where women had the best facial features. This was true for all women in her family, except for her mother. As the story progresses, we learn that Tanaya's mother was thought to have been abandoned because of this lacking feature. Unfortunately, Tanaya's mother was well aware of this fact, and thus hated Tanaya. Over the years, her mother had become sarcastic and cruel towards Tanaya. This was one of the reasons that Tanaya was more attached to her grandfather. Getting back to Tanaya's fantasy of the western culture; like every young girl, Tanaya was also amazed by the glossy magazines that portrayed women in a stylish way. Tanaya with her best friend, Nilu, would read all western magazines, especially, Teen Cosmo. In private conversations with Nilu, she would often confide about leaving Mahim to Paris. She wanted to become like one of the models. However, modeling was not her passion. All she wanted was freedom, and a new change in her life. Her grandfather saw it a bit differently. He attested this new change with her married life. Call it a fortunate event, but Tanaya received a proposal. He happened to be the son of Tanaya's grandfather's friend. His name was Tariq Khan, who happened to live in Paris. Tanaya saw this as an opportunity to see Paris. Fate of luck strikes, and her grandfather allows her to visit Paris, where she became part of the modeling industry. (The book has a detailed account of the difficulties she faces to become a model). In the end, Tanaya finally gets married to Tariq Khan, and realizes that she was pursuing rather a mere image of herself. |
Dragonsdale | Steve Barlow | 2,007 | The novel takes place in a fictional location called the Isles of Bresal which are protected by a bank of mist called The Veil. On Bresal there are stables that train dragons. Cara, the protagonist, cleans dragons for the stable Dragonsdale. Many children attend Dragonsdale to learn to train dragons and take them to competitions, but Cara is forbidden to ride any dragon even though her father is the head of Dragonsdale. This is because her mother had died in an accident during a flight with dragons, and her father, Huw, couldn't afford to lose Cara as well. However, Cara is allowed to help clean the dragons, and she has a favorite one called Skydancer. She ends up having to train a young farm boy called Drane to muck out the stables and do all the things she does. But all is not what it seems about him as Cara and Drane slowly become better friends. Now, many children at Dragonsdale are preparing for the dragon riding competitions. Although Cara cannot participate in it, she supports her friends Breena and Wony. Cara is still determined to convince her father to let her ride dragons and one day go to the competitions with Skydancer. Dragonsdale follows Cara as she goes through obstacles, such as an arrogant child called Hortense, who is constantly making Cara mad, and finally achieves her goal when she buys Skydancer, but she loses control and declares he must be destroyed. Cara runs away with Skydancer to the mountains. In the mountains, Cara loses way and follows a path leading in the wrong direction. The path leads Cara off a cliff and she nearly falls off of it, but Skydancer takes the back of Cara's shirt and pulls her to safety, it is after that that Cara and Sky Hear the Firedogs and Howlers for the first time. When they hear the Firedogs and Howlers for a second time Cara finds out that Drane was following her. When they're being circled in by the Firedogs and Howlers Sky dancer runs out of flame and Drane encourages Cara to ride Skydancer. While Drane is trying to make Cara ride Skydancer Cara is encouraging Drane to ride Sky (Skydancer) and be saved from death as well. But Drane refuses. While all this is happening, back in Dragonsdale Huw, Cara's father, is worried. Back in the mountains, Drane finally gets Cara to ride Skydancer... only to be picked up in Sky's talons! Together, Sky, Cara and Drane fly back to Dragonsdale after promising that they won't say that Cara rode Sky. She secretly trains Skydancer to fly through obstacles. Hortense and Huw discover this and Huw banishes Cara from riding Skydancer ever again. A competition comes up and Hortense is to ride Skydancer. Skydancer makes mistakes based on Hortenses confusing signals and they lose the competition. When Cara goes to the ring she sees Hortense yelling at Sky, then Hortense rewards him with a whip on the muzzle. Skydancer gets mad and gets ready to flame Hortense. Just on time, Cara stops Skydancer, and they decide to do the obstacle course together. Cara does an excellent job, but she knows her father is mad. Surprisingly, Huw lets Cara ride again and banishes Hortense from riding Skydancer ever again. The dragon and dragonrider live happily ever after and fly off into the noon sun, at least until the novel's sequel. That is called Riding the Storm. |
Thursday's Child | Sonya Hartnett | 2,000 | Harper Flute is an adolescent girl living with her family in Australia during the depression. Harper Flute's little brother Tin was born on Thursday and he has far to go. Harper starts out by saying how she and Tin go out to the creek, and start watching fish. Harper soon catches one out of the creek, and she tries to search for Tin to let him see it. She notices that he's gone and starts crying out to her house. Her dad, whom she calls Da, comes out and starts searching all over for Tin, and they eventually find him in the mud. Harper notices that he dug his way out, but she won't tell anyone about this special event. Back at the house, Audrey, her older sister, scolds Harper for letting him get away like that. Mrs. Murphy, the neighbor, starts worrying about Tin and starts talking about the new baby. Later on in the book, her mother, whom she calls Mam, is pregnant and gives birth to a new baby boy named Caffy. Tin is considered Da's "little pet", and Harper notes how she, her older brother, Devon, and Audrey aren't pets, but they aren't nothing. She remarks how Caffy is nothing to Da though. Harper notices how Tin loves to dig and he spends most of his time under the house. She sees how he's digging tunnels, and spends most of his year there. Mam is worried and distressed about Tin because her neighbors are asking why he doesn't come out, and how he needs to, and Da supports Tin because it reminds him of the war and how they dug tunnels. People at school come to see Tin's tunnels. Mr. Cable, a "friend", comes over and notes how they need a farm. Da fights back, but Mr. Cable asks Devon if he can work for him for a week's wages. Devon agrees, and decides to travel the next day so he can get there sooner. Harper notes how much she misses Devon, and guesses that Caffy misses Tin, but Mam and Da argue that Caffy doesn't know Tin and he can't miss what he never had. Devon comes home a week later, and starts crying. He notes how Mr. Cable sent him home without a penny and an hour's instruction to build the fences. His dream to own a pony named Champion was ruined and he ignores everyone for a whole week. Da tries to talk to Mr. Cable, but he notes how Devon made two of his sows run away with his "lousy" fences. Da apologizes and goes back, saying "Mr. Cable has no heart, you can't talk him out of it." Soon, Da's father dies and in his will, Grandpa gives the money to Devon. Devon wants to buy a pony and he rubs it in Audrey's face. Audrey gets very upset and asks him not to. Devon decides to buy what they need, not what he wants. He is willing to sacrifice his dream pony, but Da suggests not, and decides to buy the pony. Devon is not very optimistic about this, so when they come home, Mam starts arguing how Harper never got new clothes in her life. Devon screams out, "I told you so!" and Mam slams the door and starts crying. Da says she'll get over it. One day, a seventeen year old boy named Izzy moves to their town, and Audrey begins to have a crush on him. Audrey tells Harper she's going to marry Izzy one day, but Harper wonders what it feels like to get married. One day going to school, their house collapses. Da had wanted to start a farm, just like Mr. Cable wanted them to. Harper runs back, and tries to find Tin, while Audrey and Devon try to find their parents. Da screams out in rage how this is all Tin's fault. Mam argues that it's not his fault, they'll just rebuilt it. Da is so upset that he's biting his fingernails and digging them into his skin. Harper is so upset to see Da like this, so she tries to stop him from doing that, but he slaps her. Mam gets very upset and cries out, "Don't you dare slap this child! Get to your feet, you disgust me. How dare you take your misery out on a poor infant." Harper doesn't care, she wants her Da to stop digging in his skin. Mam tells Da to build the house while she finds a place to stay for the while. One day, Caffy falls into a well, and they try to save him, but he sadly dies. Audrey is sent to work for labor and Harper is very upset with the death. Da soon rebuilds the house, but Harper feels that Tin is growing farther away from the family. He keeps on digging and digging, and won't talk to anyone, not even Mam. Harper is worried, but she doesn't talk about it. What's even worse is that their chickens and cows were stolen by some salesmen. Mr. Cable had offered Audrey to work for him as a housekeeper. She said no, then the next morning their chickens and cows were stolen. Audrey asks Harper if she's sick of eating rabbit, and Harper says yes, but she doesn't mind. Audrey doesn't want to see her family suffer so she decides to tell yes to Mr. Cable to be his housekeeper. Harper follows Audrey when she leaves, and Audrey goes to Izzy. She tells Izzy that she has decided to work for Mr. Cable, but Izzy tells her that people have been saying that Mr. Cable paid the salesmen to take the animals away so that Audrey would say yes. Audrey doesn't believe him at first, but then she does, and she decides to tell Mam and everyone that she is leaving. That is the last that Harper sees Audrey this month. Mr. Cable comes back, complaining about how Tin keeps eating all the honey of his beehive. He complains and Da apologizes, and sees Tin wounded. Mam goes and gets clean rags to clean the wounds off. After that, Tin leaves the rags on the dirt and runs away. Mam sighs and wants Tin to talk to her, to be part of her family. When Mam finds the rags outside, she folds them neatly and puts them in a box. She keeps Tin's things in there. She put a lock of hair inside and what she can find from Tin. Audrey comes home one day from Mr. Cable's, and bursts out crying. She tells her mother, that she had been raped by Mr.Cable and had ran back home. Da, who is so upset, takes his rifle and charges to Mr. Cable's house. Mam begs Harper to chase after him and bring him back. Harper tries, but Da argues that she should go home and walks away, looking for Mr. Cable. Harper suddenly falls into one of Tin's tunnels, and she starts thinking of Caffy while crawling. Suddenly, she starts saying "sorry" and Tin helps her out. Harper thanks him, and finds her Da. They go on home. The next few months, Mr. Murphy tells Da that people said that Mr. Cable ran away after hearing that Da was going to defend Audrey, and that he was the most admired man in the town now. It is also strongly hinted that Mr Cable was killed by Tin. The family then parade around the small town to soak in the fame. The next few days, the Flute family is given a chunk of gold that Tin finds in one of his tunnels. They dance around, happy, and Tin was just digging to find something to help his poor family all along but Harper still thinks that Tin dug because he loved to do so. Harper and Audrey move to a new house near the beach, and Mam and Da moved to find more gold. Harper proclaims that Da got bit by the mining bug. She says she misses Devon, who moved to the front, and Izzy, Audrey's sweetheart, who went to war. She misses Caffy, she misses her past, and she misses her Mam and Da. She says she misses Tin. "It was Tin, who was mythical, and he looked just that way. He looked nothing like the boy he was supposed to be, ten going on eleven. He seemed to hover above the earth somehow, the curious glow of his flesh illuminating him. I would not have been surprised if wings had opened up behind him…… he looked into the room at us. He looked first at Mam, then Da, then at Audrey, then me. When his eyes settled on mine I felt something inside me shake free, and go to him. I didn’t give it—he wanted it, and it went to him. Then he smiled, only slightly, but enough so we agreed, afterward, that we had seen it done. With that he turned and vanished…" -Quote from the book, Thursday's Child. |
Surrender | Sonya Hartnett | 2,005 | Seven-year-old Anwell lives in a prestigious but coldly distant family with a mother who is always sick and a father who punishes him with physical abuse. Anwell has no friends and is on a very tight leash. He is sitting in the back yard one day when he meets wild boy his age named Finnigan, his alter-ego or second personality. Anwell now named Gabriel is never to be angry and never to fight. Finnigan is to always be angry and to always fight. If Gabriel (Anwell) wants revenge or anything bad done, he asks Finnigan to do it for him. Finnigan becomes Anwell's only friend, and Anwell confides in him what he has never told anyone else, of how he accidentally killed his handicapped older brother Vernon. His brother, though he was three years older than Anwell, "was never the elder of us". His parents, disgraced and humiliated by Vernon, refuse to take care of him, leaving Anwell to do the job at the young age of seven. Enjoying his task, Anwell routinely feeds, washes, and entertains his brother. One Sunday, while his father is out to church and his mother is sleeping due to a migraine, Anwell is again taking care of Vernon. When Anwell is trying to feed Vernon, he refuses, would not stop crying, and scratches Anwell on his cheek, drawing blood. Out of frustration, and anxiety their mother will wake up and be irate, Anwell puts fabric in Vernon's mouth to quiet him and throws his brother in a refrigerator. Finnigan becomes the town arsonist, lighting the town aflame piece by piece in an act of revenge for Gabriel, but Finnigan is soon out of control and the only way for Gabriel to stop Finnigan is for Gabriel to kill himself at the young, "martyr's age" of twenty by condemning himself to a mentally caused illness. |
Teneke | Yaşar Kemal | null | In Teneke, Kemal depicts the tragic conditions, under which the landowners (aghas) in the region Çukurova in southern Anatolia of Turkey live and the way, in which the rice planters exploit them. A young and idealist district governor (), who is newly appointed there, tries to back the landowners struggling against oppression and injustice by a rice planter. |
The Exile Kiss | George Alec Effinger | 1,991 | Married to Indihar, though from his perspective in name only, Marîd Audran gets invited to a reception at the palace of the amir of the city. Shaykh Mahali, the amir, thus wishes to end the rivalry between Friedlander Bey and Reda Abu Adil, two of the most powerful men in the city. Both Audran and Bey, or "Papa" as he's known in the Budayeen, become suspicious when their sworn enemy Abu Adil designates Audran as an officer of the "Jaish", an unofficial right-wing outfit working for Abu Adil. However, it is not until after the party that Abu Adil's scheme unfolds: Audran and Bey are put under arrest by Lieutenant Hajjar and charged with the murder of a police officer named Khalid Maxwell. They're sentenced on-the-spot into exile, never to return to the city under pain of death. Left to die amongst the burning sands of a vast desert, their luck finally turns as they are rescued by a Bedouin tribe of Bani Salim, allowing them to start planning the vengeance they'd exact upon Abu Adil and prove their innocence— if they ever make it back to the city alive. |
Darkness, Tell Us | Richard Laymon | null | While attending a party thrown by one of their English professors, six college students use a Ouija board to contact a spirit that identifies itself only as 'Butler'. Butler promises the six a treasure if they will go to a remote mountain location called Calamity Peak. The professor, who knows from experience that messing around with the supernatural can be dangerous, attempts to dissuade them, but the kids steal the board and set off for the mountain anyway. Once they arrive they are menaced be a machete-wielding killer, and soon begin to wonder if Butler might be trying to harm them. After discovering that the Ouija board is missing, the professor, along with her lover, sets out to rescue her students. Unlike many of Laymon's novels, the book contains frankly supernatural elements, alongside the more realistic horrors common to Laymon's work (including homicidal maniacs, rape, and childhood sexual abuse). |
A Romance of the Halifax Disaster | Frank McKelvey Bell | 1,918 | Vera Warrington and Tom Welsford enter the narrative while floating and flirting on the Saint Lawrence River. Years later, Vera is engaged to the wealthy William Lawson and has not heard from Tom. Shortly before the explosion, Tom returns to Halifax, Nova Scotia for orthopedic surgery for a war wound. Tom is still in hospital when the disaster occurs. As a volunteer with the Voluntary Aid Division, Vera darts to the hospital only in time to witness Will’s death and her liberation from the marriage which was to occur later that day. Now free, Vera finds Tom in a hospital bed and accepts his proposal: the last line of the book belongs to Vera, agreeing to marriage. |
Brendon Chase | null | null | Both the novel and the TV series were based around the Hensman brothers, Robin (played in the TV series by Craig McFarlane), John (played by Howard Taylor) and Harold (played by Paul Erangey (died 2004), who spend eight months living as outlaws in the forest of Brendon Chase. As in much British children's literature of the era, their parents are absent, and living in India, at the time part of the British Empire, while in the TV series their mother has died and it is only their father who is abroad. They are cared for by their Aunt Ellen, a strict and somewhat cold spinster (played in the TV series by Rosalie Crutchley). At the end of the Easter holidays, Harold falls ill with the measles, so Robin and John are unable to return to boarding school (described as "Banchester" - the name is similar to Winchester College, but it was inspired by Rugby School where the author taught Art). They decide to run away and fend for themselves, taking some food from their aunt's house, and also taking a rifle and ammunition so they can survive in the wild. Despite continued attempts to catch them (usually involving Police Sergeant Bunting, played in the TV series by Michael Robbins, and the Reverend Whiting, played in the series by Christopher Biggins) the three brothers - Robin and John are later joined by Harold when he recovers from his illness - prove sufficiently quick-witted and ingenious to evade capture for eight months, surviving on what they can kill (the acceptance of which is one of the most interesting aspects of both the book and the TV series today) and on supplies occasionally taken from other sources. In the book, though not the TV series, Robin is known as "Robin Hood", John as "Big John" and Harold as "Little John". A recurring subplot only in the TV series involves the brazenly cynical journalist Monica Hurling (played by Liza Goddard) from a fictional newspaper called "The London Planet" (clearly based on the more populist papers of the 1920s, such as the Daily Express), who has written a number of stories stirring up public interest in the Hensman boys, while the paper has offered a £50 reward to whoever can find them. She represents an amoral, sophisticated London, and the conflict between her and the conservative rural community where she is reporting has wider resonance in terms of social history. This character, however, does not appear in the book. In the later part of their time living in the wild, the boys - who by this time have long been wearing rabbit skins, their clothes having worn out - encounter an eccentric elderly charcoal burner called Smokoe Joe (played in the TV series by Paul Curran), who becomes a close friend. When Smokoe Joe is seriously injured, one of the boys saves his life by running for the doctor, thereby risking capture. After a Christmas spent with Smokoe Joe in his hut, the boys are 'run to ground' when the doctor, who has kept their secret until that moment, arrives with their father who has returned, and the story ends there in the forest (Christmas is not specifically referred to in the TV series). The bear that had escaped in the forest near the end of their adventure settles down to hibernate for the winter in the hollow oak tree where they had lived. |
Lettice and Lovage | Peter Shaffer | null | Lettice and Lovage is set in England. The action takes place in three primary locations: the Grand Hall of Fustian House, Wiltshire, England; Miss Schoen's office at the Preservation Trust, Architrave Place, London; and Miss Douffet's basement apartment, Earls Court, London. This synopsis delineates the action of the production seen by American audiences in 1990. Lettice Douffet is showing a group of tourists around Fustian House, an old, dreary, and (as the name suggests) fusty sixteenth-century hall. The rain-drenched tourists are clearly bored and miserable. Lettice is reciting a rehearsed monologue pointing out the not-very-interesting history of the hall. As the tourists leave in a kind of stupor, Lettice feels dejected. The scene shifts to several days later at the same spot. Lettice is again reciting her boring monologue, but suddenly she is filled with inspiration and begins improvising a wildly untrue (yet entertaining) story about the staircase in the hall. The tourists are jolted from their reveries and thoroughly enraptured by her tale. Some days later, Lettice is once again telling the "history" of the hall, only her tale has become even more fanciful and grandiose. She is filled with confidence and the (larger) audience of excited tourists hangs on her every word. Lettice is challenged by a disagreeable fellow who demands to see her references for the story. She successfully averts his questions, much to the enjoyment of the rest of the crowd. The next scene reveals Lettice telling an even larger version of the now completely ridiculous yet salacious story to salivating tourists. She is this time interrupted by Lotte Schoen, who dismisses the rest of the crowd, insisting she must speak to Lettice alone. Lotte reveals she works for Preservation Trust, which owns Fustian House. She tells Lettice she must report to the Trust the next day to have her position reviewed. The next afternoon Lettice is shown in to Lotte's office. She defends her embellishment of the facts by stating that the House's architecture and history is too dull. Lettice says she lives her life by a code her mother taught her: "Enlarge! Enliven! Enlighten!". Lotte chafes at the discovery that Lettice's mother was an actress and sits dumbfounded at Lettice's assertions of her mother's colorful past and its influence on her. Lotte tells Lettice that she has twenty-two letters of complaint about her false recitations at Fustian House. She fires Lettice, who despairs and wonders what a woman of her age can do. She leaves the Trust, but not before telling Lotte a story about Mary, Queen of Scots. Mary had dressed herself in a red dress the day of her execution to defy her accusers. As she tells the story, Lettice drops her cloak to reveal a red nightdress. It is ten weeks later. Lettice is in her basement flat with her cat, Felina. The apartment is adorned with theatrical posters, furniture, props, and relics. Lotte Schoen unexpectedly arrives at the flat and is dismayed by the sight of the cat, saying she has an aversion to them. Lotte then produces a letter of reference she has written for Lettice to obtain a new position giving tours on boats on the Thames. Lettice is very moved by her gesture and apologizes for behaving rudely. She insists they have a celebratory drink together. They spend a long scene drinking and talking, where they begin to find similarities in their very different personalities—notably, a disgust with modern English architecture and all things "mere". Inebriated, Lotte begins telling of a man with whom she was once in love, who aspired to be a terrorist by blowing up modern buildings in London to oppose the destruction of historical architecture. Lotte divulges he and she had a secret alliance called E.N.D.—Eyesore Negation Detachment. She says she ran out on her end of the bargain and did not plant a bomb intended to blow up a wing of the Shell Building. Her betrayal of the agreement ruined the relationship and, consequently, her life. Lettice listens with much sympathy. Lotte invites her to dinner and tells her it is her Mary, Queen of Scots story that really prompted her to come. Lettice tells her the rest of the story—how Queen Mary also wore a wig to her execution, prompting the executioner to grab her wig and not her head after it was detached. Lotte reveals that she is wearing a wig and requests Lettice to take it off, in an act of solidarity. Six months later, Lettice is being interviewed in her home by a lawyer, who says she is accused of a "peculiarly unpleasant crime". We learn through a series of questions and answers that Lotte and Lettice had become fast friends and taken to enacting famous historical trials and executions in Lettice's flat. It becomes clear that, during one of these theatrical displays, Lotte was inadvertently injured and that the lawyer is at Lettice's home to inform her of an indictment against her. Lotte again shows up unexpectedly. The lawyer insists on hearing the whole story, claiming Lettice's defense relies upon it. Lotte insists it cannot be spoken at a trial. As Lettice continues her story (acting it out along the way and embellishing it with stories of Lotte's now rather theatrical behavior), Lotte becomes more and more agitated. We learn Lettice's cat startled Lotte in the midst of their performance, causing her to become injured. The lawyer tells them both that they must testify to this to get the case against Lettice thrown out. Lotte says, if the information gets out, it will ruin her life and career. Lotte claims Lettice tricked her into the acting games and suggests her theatricality is one big act. She cruelly insults Lettice and walks out. Lettice stops her with a heartfelt speech about how the technological modern age is leaving her behind. Lotte storms back in, outraged that Lettice is "giving up". They make up and decide to re-invent E.N.D., only without bombs. They plan to give tours at the "fifty ugliest new buildings in London", using Lotte's architectural knowledge and Lettice's flair for the dramatic (and propensity for lying). The play ends with the two women toasting the audience. |
When Santa Fell to Earth | Cornelia Funke | null | Gerold Geronimus Goblynch leads the Great Christmas Council and outlaws all of the old magical ways. Snowmobiles are to replace reindeer, elves and angels are banned, and Santas who go against these policies are turned into chocolate. Niklas Goodfellow, a spirited, humorous young Santa, emerges as the last, and thus real Santa. He and two angels named Matilda and Emmanuel, an invisible reindeer, and a bunch of elves go into hiding from the Council. Two children named Ben and Charlotte and Charlotte's dog, Mutt, join forces to save Niklas from being turned into chocolate. |
Noman | William Nicholson | 2,007 | At the start of the book, Seeker is hunting down the last two savanters. He chases them through a mountain, through a mysterious valley and through the Glimmen. He finds Echo Kittle, who helps track them to a place called the Haven (which is an expensive refuge for fleeing people). He fights briefly with one of the savanters, who he does not manage to kill, instead becoming possessed by her. The other savanter flees, and manages to escape on a boat to other lands. Meanwhile, the Wildman is head of the spiker army which formed at the end of Jango; Morning Star is there too. There is restlesness in the Spiker camp, and the Wildman is forced to kill Snakey, his childhood friend, in a leadership battle. Morning Star, sickened by the events, leaves and returns to her home village. When she arrives there, she finds it mysteriously empty. Soon she finds where everyone has gone; a huge assembly of people who call themselves 'the Joyous'. The leader of the Joyous is a young man called the Joy Boy. He claims to be leading people to the 'Great Embrace', which is when all his followers will become God. Morning Star is suspicious of the Joy Boy, especially because he has no aura, but he infects her with joy, and she complies to find Seeker for him, under the premise that the Noble Warriors need joy more than anyone else. Soon after Morning Star leaves, the Wildman and the Spiker army join the Joyous. In the middle of a sea of grass, Seeker comes across a strange house, similar to Jango's, containing hardly anything but a blue cornflower. Upon leaving though, Seeker finds he is rather lost, and that the house has disappeared. He then comes across an old looted mansion. He enters the great hall, the walls of which are covered in cracked mirrors. In one of the mirrors an old man appears to him: Noman. He gives Seeker much advice and reveals that the last savanter did not escape but was still in the old kingdom; his name is Manlir and that he was at the centre of a great gathering. He also talks about the 'experiment' (See below). Morning Star finds Seeker and Echo sleeping. When they wake up, she tells them about the Joy Boy and the Great Embrace. Seeker realises that the Joy Boy is actually Manlir- the last savanter. He sets off immediately and soon finds the Joyous. When he gets there, though, he finds that Manlir has sent the Wildman to stall him, whilst himself starting the Great Embrace. Seeker is forced to kill the Wildman in order to get to Manlir. By the time Seeker and Manlir meet, the Great Embrace had already started. They have a battle to suck out one another's lir. Just before Manlir is about to die, he releases his own lir from his body. After the battle, Seeker goes back to Wildman and resurrects him by giving him some of his own lir. Seeker travels to the door in the wall, where he first met Jango. He meets him there again and is told that Manlir didn't die, and that by releasing his living lir, Manlir was now inside everything that has lir. Jango tells Seeker to go to the 'True Nom' and 'call on the strength of the All and Only'. Seeker goes back to the mysterious valley through which he chased the Savanters at the beginning of the book. At sunset, there is a spectacular display, as the sunlight dances all over the valley, and through a hole in one of the mountains. Seeker crawls through this hole, and comes out in the Garden. Seeker moves through the garden, crossing a long bridge, and finds a chair in which he knows his God is sat. Seeker fears his God's nonexistence, but Jango appears, and reveals that he and Seeker are one and the same person. Jango tells Seeker to look with 'the eyes of faith'. Seeker looks at the chair and sees the All and Only. Then Noman, who has now also entered the Garden, tells Seeker to look with his own eyes. Seeker does so reluctantly, and in the chair sees his father, then his brother, then the Elder. Then the chair is emptied and Seeker himself sits in it. When Seeker rises from the chair, Jango asks him what he sees in the chair. When Seeker replies 'nothing', Jango exclaims that Seeker is the assassin. Noman then reveals that he, as well as Jango, is an older Seeker, and explains that when he entered the Garden over 200 years ago, he had found it empty and realised that, in his quest for knowledge, he was the assassin of the All and Only. Seeker also learns that the Savanters are a necessary evil, created to keep the Noble Warriors' faith strong. Seeker leaves the Garden to have his final duel with Manlir. The duel takes place through the valley, the Glimmen and finally the coast where Anacrea once stood. Seeker eventually overpowers Manlir through the help of the former Noble Warriors who come to his aid. Manlir goes back to his body and, with Noman, sets off on his funeral boat out to sea. Seeker meets Echo, who is now inhabited by the last Savanter (having transferred it from Seeker by kissing him). He explains to her that she will be a lord of knowledge (as the Savanters had been), and persuades the last Savanter to let herself die within Echo. Seeker returns to Radiance which is now ruled by the Spikers and Orlans. The Wildman hands over the Spiker army to Shab, and Caressa (who became the next Jahan when Amroth died near the start of the book) gives the silver whip of the Jahan to Sabin (the last living son of Amroth). The next day, Seeker, Morning Star, The Wildman and Caressa set off on Wildman's old ship down the river and to other lands. |
Master of the Moon | Angela Knight | null | Diana Londen, werewolf, works as the city manger of a small South Carolina town, while moonlighting for the Verdaville Police Department as a police dog. While helping investigate a brutal murder, Diana learns she's not the only magical creature in town. A female vampire has decided to make Verdaville her murderous playground. But Diana is not the only one after the vampire. Llyr Galatyn is the king of the Cachamwri Sidhe--an other-worldly warrior with fantastic abilities. He has sworn to take down the murderous vampire and he's willing to give Diana any help she needs. And not just with the case. Diana is in her Burning Moon, a time of sexual heat for werewolves. When needs rides her hard, Llyr is delighted to answer her erotic prayers. As they hunt for the rogue vampire, an even more deadly enemy urges the vampire to turn her sights toward Llyr. Llyr, it turns out, isn't the only king of the Sidhe-and his brother Ansgar wants him dead. |
Dark Melody | Christine Feehan | null | The hero Dayan is a lead guitarist renowned for mesmerizing performances. His songs have a strong effect on Corinne Wentworth, bringing back forgotten memories. Being hunted by the fanatics that had killed her husband, she risks her life being involved with Dayan. He realizes she is his life mate. The links between them are strong. Then Dayan discovers she is with child because he perceives two heartbeats. |
The Suffering of God: An Old Testament Perspective | null | null | The first traditional view that Fretheim seeks to undermine, or perhaps more accurately to bring balance to, is the idea of divine transcendence. He argues that both the monarchical and organismic views are present in scripture, but that the organismic, immanent image is dominant. This “relationship of reciprocity” (p. 35) between God and the world is the foundation for all of Fretheim’s conclusions. God affects and is affected by the world He has created, and this relationship is key to understanding what kind of God He is. The second widely-held position that Fretheim challenges is the doctrine of divine omniscience. (chapter 4) Fretheim uses solid biblical exegesis to argue compellingly against a view (at least in the Old Testament) which classifies omniscience as one of God’s fundamental characteristics. Divine foreknowledge, he believes, is limited because of God’s relationship with creation. There is no doubt, he says, that God always knows what He will do in the future, but He does not always know what free moral agents outside of Himself will do. For Fretheim, the widespread use of words like “perhaps” and “if” in divine speech point to a lack of certainty in God’s mind about the future. God’s bargain with Abraham over Sodom is an excellent example of God’s mind being open to change depending on the unforeseen actions of human beings. The issue of foreknowledge is not presented as complex or difficult. Rather, Fretheim quickly lays out his argument and in less than fifteen pages and moves on to the addresses the issue of God’s presence in the world. (chapter 5) While acknowledging that God is everywhere at all times in a structural or general presence, Fretheim describes what he calls, the “intensification of the divine presence.” This intensity of presence can be affected positively or negatively by human beings. Fretheim argues that sin drives away God (as in Ezekiel 8:6) and actually results in the intensification of divine presence in the form of God’s wrath. Conversely, righteousness or “receptiveness” can move God to draw near. The most intense experience of God’s presence occurs in the form of theophany. In what is probably Fretheim’s most controversial chapter (chapter 6), he describes the appearances of God in the Old Testament and the human reaction to them. To Fretheim, the spoken word delivered by God is no more important than the appearance itself, the visible word, as he calls it. He suggests that modern theologians need to broaden their understanding of the Word of God to include the visual aspects of revelation as well as the spoken/written word. Fretheim makes a thorough examination of several different Old Testament theophanies noting their similarities and differences before coming to his surprising conclusion: All theophanies involve God taking on human form (chapter 6). Theologically, this is key for Fretheim. The consistent use of human form shows God’s vulnerability. It proves that there is nothing fundamentally ungodly about the human form, and it shows that “the finite form is capable of the infinite.” (p. 102) In wrestling with the theological implications of such a statement, Fretheim questions whether God uses the human form for the sake of appearances or whether there is a fundamental continuity between the two. Not surprisingly, he argues for the latter position, and from the argument establishes that God is fundamentally connected to His creation and that He is fundamentally vulnerable because of this relationship. This leads to his actual discussion of the suffering of God. In three short chapters Fretheim describes God as suffering because of His creation (chapter 7), for His creation (chapter 8), and with His creation (chapter 9) . These chapters flow logically out of the groundwork established in the first one hundred pages of the text. Each chapter is neatly summarized in numbered points making it easy to review and synthesize. The final chapter of Fretheim’s book deals with the special relationship between the suffering God and His suffering servants, the prophets. In men like Jeremiah, the divine word is incarnated to the point that the prophet shares in the divine suffering and God shares in the prophets suffering. The lives of the prophets are tied up in the divine life to the point that they embody the word of God in their lives as well as their words. The suffering servant in Isaiah experiences the same phenomenon as prophets like Moses and Jeremiah, but in him, Fretheim sees another level intensification of presence. Despite his strong claims about the shared suffering of the prophets and God, Fretheim acknowledges that in the Old Testament God Himself did not become completely incarnate in an entire human life. That act is reserved for the incarnation of Jesus Christ, but Fretheim sees it, not as something radically new, but as “the culmination of a long-standing relationship of God with the world that is much more widespread in the OT than is commonly recognized.” Fretheim’s work is incredibly successful at accomplishing its stated purpose of bringing balance to the church’s image of God in the Old Testament. He powerfully synthesizes the work of feminist, liberation, and process theologians while relying firmly on his expertise as a biblical exegete. The real strength of this work is that Fretheim manages to make many of the same critiques common to these movements without sounding like a feminist or a liberation theologian. While he acknowledges their influence on him, the author’s tone and focus remain overtly biblical throughout the book. Fretheim brings an air of authority and experience in the task of exegesis that is missing in the works of systematic theologians addressing the same issues. Influences like Abraham Heschel help him keep Christian bias to a minimum when approaching the Old Testament text. Furthermore, he does not limit himself to one or two proof texts to support his position. On the contrary, I found myself flipping through my Bible constantly while reading his work. He challenges the reader to draw theology from the biblical text rather than to allow our pre-conceived ideas about God to distort our reading of the Old Testament. Fretheim’s book is a marvelous example of inductive logical organization and rational approach to a complex topic. His argument is well-formed and easy to follow. The reader may be confused as to why a book called The Suffering of God takes over one hundred pages to actually discuss any pain endured by the deity, but Fretheim is not rushed into embracing a position before laying the biblical and philosophical groundwork necessary to support that position. Indeed, laying the foundation is the difficult part. After chapter six, the reader already anticipates the conclusion. The author is conversant with a wide range of modern scholarship as evidenced by his excellent endnotes and bibliography. The relative brevity of the book is amazing considering the wide range of topics addressed. Here again, Fretheim’s organizational skills are at work. When a related but unessential issue arises, he usually adds a note to refer the reader to good sources on the topic and continues on without interrupting his argument. One of the nicest things about this work is its energetic and engaging style. Fretheim hopes this book will change the church’s view of God in the Old Testament, and readability is essential to influencing preachers and teachers within churches. The provocative nature of the topic and Fretheim’s willingness to make bold claims leads the reader into dialogue with the text. Ward characterizes it as “bold and challenging, inviting vigorous response,” saying that the margins of his review copy are “filled with comments” While the content is too technical for direct use in most church settings, the ideas that Fretheim lays out can easily be transferred to a sermon or Bible class. Certainly, The Suffering of God is not a popular level book, but it is also not so technical as to exclude ministers or seminary students from its audience. |
Fatal Revenant | Stephen R. Donaldson | 2,007 | Linden Avery is determined to save her adopted son, Jeremiah, from the hands of the Despiser. However, before she begins her search, it appears that Jeremiah and Thomas Covenant have ridden into Revelstone, despite the voice of Thomas Covenant previously telling Linden to 'find me.' The behaviour and demeanour of her two loved ones arouse suspicion and doubt in Linden. The Masters (haruchai) act as hosts whilst the group are in Revelstone. Avery seeks to wash away some of the effects of her adventures and "Kevin's Dirt" by bathing in the Earthpower-rich lake above Revelstone, called Glimmermere. It is there that the ever-conflicted Esmer informs Linden that she must be the "first to drink of the Earthblood". Linden returns to Revelstone and accomplishes her immediate goal of cutting off the Demondim's access to a fragment of the Illearth Stone, but shortly afterward she is transported thousands of years into the Land's past by the forms of Thomas Covenant and Jeremiah. Covenant reveals to Linden that he and Jeremiah plan to partake of the Earthblood in an attempt to thwart the dire plans of both Lord Foul and Kastenessen, the renegade Elohim. However the trio soon encounter a mysterious and knowledgeable character dubbed "the Theomach", a puissant figure who is a member of a learned race known as the Insequent. Linden is informed that she must be careful not to upset the Law of Time whilst journeying through this age. Linden and her companions encounter the Land's ancient hero, Berek Heartthew, the Lord-Fatherer, and his sorely depleted army. The Theomach guides Linden through this meeting, mindful that their presence in this time could have a profound effect on the Law of Time. It is during this meeting that the Theomach reveals the Seven Words of Power to Berek. The Insequent explains Avery's odd appearance and presence by dubbing her the first of the "Unfettered Ones", thus keeping the Law of Time intact. Berek senses Linden's White Gold ring, which turns out to be the Land's first encounter with the powerful alloy. Linden, Covenant and Jeremiah depart Berek's camp, leaving the Theomach behind to fulfill his chosen role as Berek's guide. Whilst Covenant and Jeremiah attempt to teleport the trio to Melenkurion Skyweir, the source of the Earthblood, Linden is separated from them, and finds herself lost amongst the ancient forest of Garroting Deep. Here she encounters an ancient race, the Viles. Avery knows from her time in the Land that the Viles will be corrupted by Lord Foul's Ravers in the centuries to come; eventually they will spawn the Demondim, who in turn will spawn the Ur-Viles and Waynhim. During this encounter Linden risks the Law of Time by attempting to dissuade the Viles from their path of self-loathing, informing the Viles of the Raver's part in their corruption. However in the midst of her revelation, Covenant and Jeremiah contrive to instigate a confrontation between the Viles and Garroting Deep's puissant Forestal, Caerroil Wildwood. During ensuing battle, Linden is reunited with her two companions, who hasten her towards Melenkurion Skyweir. The trio enter the caverns of Melenkurion Skyweir. Linden's doubts and misgivings concerning her companions reach a crescendo, and as the three approach the Earthblood, Linden resolves to partake of the powerful, wish-granting substance before Covenant or Jeremiah. Once she has drunk of the Earthblood, Linden commands that the truth be shown concerning her companions. Instantly their true forms are revealed; Thomas Covenant's son Roger Covenant has been wearing the guise of his father, whilst Jeremiah is shown to be under the malign influence of a croyel. A raging battle takes place in the caverns of Melenkurion Skyweir, during which the ancient mountain is torn asunder. Roger Covenant and the croyel-driven Jeremiah eventually escape, leaving Linden in a state of despair. Half-catatonic, she eventually once again finds herself amongst the trees of Garroting Deep. Here Linden finds the Mahdoubt, another of the Insequent who had previously befriended her in Revelstone during her "proper" time. The Mahdoubt acts as Linden's liaison during a meeting with Caerroil Wildwood, at which point the Forestal bestows Linden with runes for her Staff of Law. After the gift of the runes is given, the Mahdoubt's facility with time-travel allows Linden to return to her proper time, where she is reunited with her friends. When Linden recovers from her ordeal, her friends tell her that they have communicated with the voice of Thomas Covenant via Anele. They also tell her of a mysterious man who has rid Revelstone of the hoarding Demondim. Linden confronts the man, who turns out to be of the Insequent: the Harrow. He attempts to wrest Linden's White Gold ring and her Staff of Law from her, but the Mahdoubt intervenes and forces the Harrow's forbearance, at the cost of her sanity. Linden eventually resolves to seek out Loric's krill, a powerful tool which will allow her to channel the power of her White Gold ring and the Staff of Law. Accompanied by her friends and the Humbled - three self-maimed haruchai - Linden leads a quest to Andelain, the last known resting place of the krill. However the company is besieged when an army of Cavewights and kresh, led by Roger Covenant, attacks them along their way. Esmer materialises, as does the Harrow. The Ur-Viles which had served Linden during her search for the Staff of Law also join the fray. A mighty battle ensues, during which Linden summons the Sandgorgon Nom for aid. An army of Sandgorgons appears and enters the melee, turning the tide of battle in favour of Linden's company; Roger Covenant retreats, and the Harrow and Esmer vanish. The Sandgorgons, communicating telepathically with Stave of the haruchai, inform Linden that they consider their service to her to be over and they will no longer obey her summons. Linden and company continue to the relatively new forest of Salva Gildenbourne, a wild, jungle-like expanse which surrounds Andelain. Here the threat of Kastenessen and his skurj becomes apparent; the company soon encounters one of the fiery serpent-like skurj, during which time Linden finds she is unable to channel sufficient power from the Staff of Law as a consequence of Kevin's Dirt. As the company struggle to give battle to the single skurj, Linden is attacked by a crazed Giant. The Giant is quickly subdued by a group of female Giant-warriors, who agree to join Linden's company on their journey to Andelain. Their leader explains to Linden that the actions of the crazed Giant, Longwrath (who is the grandson of Linden's old friend the First of the Search), has been the focus of her group's activities; they have pledged to discover the focus of Longwrath's madness, which seems to be Linden herself. With Longwrath imprisoned by his fellow Giants, the company encounters Esmer, who warns them that Kastenessen, his grandsire, has sent a pack of skurj to thwart Linden's attempt to gain the krill. Making a desperate stand on the outskirts of Andelain, the company manages to hold off the skurj long enough to enter Andelain, a place into which the skurj seem unable to follow. As Linden and her companions enter Andelain, the Wraiths guide her to the krills resting place. Linden is beseeched by both the Harrow and Infelice of the Elohim to turn aside from her desires for both the powerful blade and her hidden intentions. The Harrow tells Linden that he knows where Lord Foul is keeping Jeremiah, and that he will trade the knowledge for the White Gold ring and the Staff of Law. But Linden will not be turned aside, and as she approaches the krill, her Dead appear to her; Sunder, Hollian, Honninscrave, Cail, the Old Lords - but not Thomas Covenant himself. Yet the Dead refuse to give her counsel. Reaching the apex of her hidden intention, Linden summons the breakers of the Laws of Life and Death; Elena and Caer-Caveral. Through their presence the spirit of Thomas Covenant is invoked. Yet he too refuses to give her counsel; he cannot. The Humbled attempt to intervene too, but Linden's friends win her freedom to choose by thwarting the Humbled's attempts. Finally Linden grasps the krill, and is exalted by a transcendent surge of power; she is now able to wield both wild magic and Earthpower combined; too much power for any one being without the krills facility to channel such forces. With her newly-acquired power, Linden enacts her secret desire and hidden intention; she resurrects Thomas Covenant, the only person she feels can help her in her quest to find Jeremiah and defeat the Despiser. But Thomas Covenant appears distraught at her actions; "Oh Linden, what have you done?" Infelice replies that with her conflagration of extreme power, Linden Avery has roused the Worm of the World's End, endangering the Arch of Time itself and all life in the Land. |
Just One Look | Harlan Coben | 2,004 | An ordinary snapshot causes a mother’s world to unravel in an instant. After picking up her two young children from school, Grace Lawson looks through a newly developed set of photographs. She finds an odd one in the pack: a mysterious picture from perhaps twenty years ago, showing four strangers she can’t identify. But there is one face she recognizes—that of her husband, from before she knew him. When her husband sees the photo that night, he leaves their home and drives off without explanation. She doesn’t know where he’s going, or why he’s leaving. Or if he’s ever coming back. Nor does she realize how dangerous the search for him will be. Because there are others interested in both her husband’s past and that photo, including Eric Wu: a fierce, silent killer who will not be stopped from finding his quarry, no matter who or what stands in his way. Her world turned upside down, filled with doubts about her herself and marriage, Grace must confront the dark corners of her own tragic past she struggles to learn the truth, find her husband, and save her family. he:דיו חיוור pl:Tylko jedno spojrzenie zh:死亡印記 |
Nightmare Academy | Dean Lorey | 2,007 | The novel begins in a small town describing the life of Charlie Benjamin. Charlie doesn't socialize, and unknowingly brings Nethercreatures into his room when he has a nightmare. One night, Charlie brings a Silvertongue into his room. Charlie wakes up before the Silvertoungue kills him, and sees a team of three people, Rex, Tabitha, and Pinch attempting to bring the creature back to where it belongs. After the fight, Charlie's parents meet the team. Pinch explains that Charlie has the Gift, which allows him to open portals into the Nether and bring creatures across them. Charlie's gift is too strong, which can become dangerous. Pinch suggests that Charlie follow them to the Nightmare Division, who will decide what should be done with such a dangerous boy. Charlie's mother reluctantly allows him to go. At the Nightmare Division, the Director instructs Charlie to open a portal. Charlie proceeds to accidentally open a portal to the Named, which are huge powerful beasts. Chaos ensues, and Barakkas, one of the four named creatures of the nether, reaches out his hand and attempts to enter. Charlie quickly closes the portal, which cuts Barakkas's arm off, including his bracer. After a debate about Reducing (a process that removes IQ points in order to lower gifted peoples power) Charlie, the Headmaster brings him to the Nightmare Academy. There, Charlie meets two classmates, Theodore and Violet. The school trains two different groups, the Banishers and the Nethermancers. Banishers, like Rex, fight and hold off Nethercreatures whereas Nethermancers, like Tabitha, open portals to send them back. Students who lose their Gift are trained as Facilitators, who provide help to the other two. After meeting the Trout of Truth (a creature that determines whether you are a Banisher or a Nethermancer), Charlie finds out that he is a Double Threat, a combination of both a Banisher and Nethermancer. Charlie is then taken by the Headmaster to Charlie's old house. Verminion, another of the Named who was portalled to Earth some years ago, kidnaps his parents and tells him to exchange his parents for the bracer. Charlie, Rex, Tabitha, and the Headmaster then go to find the Hags of the Void. The Hags of the Void, in return for Rex's memories of his parents, allow Charlie to go through the Gorgon Maze to find the Shadow(a thing which helps find what you want the most). At the end of the maze, the Shadow fills Charlie, allowing him to find his parents. Charlie's shadow now points to his parents' exact location. The group tries to find his parents, and arrives in a volcano. Verminion tricks Charlie into opening a portal, allowing Barakkas to enter. After the incident, Charlie, Violet, and Theodore steal Barakkas's bracer from the Nightmare Academy to exchange his parents. Brooke, a Facilitator, tags along, and they manage to bring themselves back to the volcano. Charlie tries to trick Barakkas and Verminion by pretending to exchange himself and the bracer for his parents. Verminion doubts Charlie, and exposes his plan. While Violet and Theodore finds his parents and tries to rescue them, Charlie causes the two Named to fight and flees with Brooke. While they are running, Brooke opens a portal, proving that she still has the Gift. The two jump through the portal back to the Academy. Meanwhile, Barakkas has his bracer back. Both of the Named reminded each other that they both have to be alive to summon the fifth, more powerful Named with their Artifacts. The Headmaster hides Charlie's parents from the Named, and Charlie, with his two best friends, Theodore and Violet goes into the beach and reiterate how they will be together all the way. |
Bretherton:Khaki or Field Grey? | null | null | The novel begins with Gurney, a young British officer, entering a deserted chateau as the British advance in November 1918. Inside he finds three corpses, and is astonished when he recognises one of them as a fellow officer, Gerard Bretherton, the more so since Bretherton is wearing the uniform of a German general. The story of how Bretherton met his fate is built up over a two-year period over the rest of the narrative. The story is told from the points of view of several of Bretherton's friends and acquaintances. Gerard Bretherton, English but brought up partly in Germany and a fluent speaker of the German language, is taken prisoner during an attack on the enemy lines, and loses his memory, taking on the identity of a German officer with whom he was acquainted before the war. Having recovered his memory, he escapes and returns to Britain, where, after telling his story, he is recruited by the security forces who persuade him to masquerade as a German officer in order to infiltrate the German armed forces and supply them with information. While joining an escape attempt from a British P.O.W. camp (set up by the authorities) along with a German officer, Bretherton is trapped in a barrel in which he has hidden during the sea voyage across the Channel. The traumatic experience causes him to lose his memory again, and he reverts to the personality of a German. Recovering his memory on the brink of the end of the war in 1918, he returns to his own side, but heroically volunteers to re-cross the German lines in an effort to minimize the loss of life before the Armistice is officially signed. He succeeds in his task, but is himself killed before the British troops arrive on the scene. |
The Pea-Pickers | Eve Langley | 1,942 | The novel has a thin plot: two sisters, dressed as men and taking men's names, Steve and Blue, decide to work as agricultural labourers in Gippsland, the place their mother has told them about throughout their childhood and with which they feel they have a "spiritual link". The book is divided into four parts: *Part One: "For the best! For the best!" Steve and Blue leave home in Dandenong and travel to Gippsland, near Bairnsdale, where they work as apple-pickers. Steve meets and falls in love with Kelly. They then go to Rutherglen to look for work pruning vines but aren't successful due to their gender, and return home to Dandenong. This title of this section, Maxwell suggests, "reflects the general mood and optimism of the first section". *Part Two: "The Glitter of Celtic Bronze against the Sea" Steve and Blue return to Gippsland where they work, mostly, as pea-pickers. Kelly had not responded to Steve's letters, and in this part she falls in love with Macca. Maxwell writes that the title of this section "is from Steve's idealisation of Macca, her lifelong love, whom she sees sometimes as Charon, the mythical Greek boatman on whom the goddess Venus bestowed youth and beauty. The Celtic bronze of his reddish hair is set against the colour of the sea". *Part Three: "No Moon Yet" Steve and Blue travel to the Ovens Valley in Northeastern Victoria and obtain work harvesting hops and maize. They spend some of this time out of work, and struggle to feed themselves. They thieve food to survive, most often from the Italian itinerant workers living near them. Steve pines for her love, Macca. The title, Maxwell writes, "expresses Steve's growing impatience and despair as she waits for sings of affection from Macca, her one true love, who has gone up-country". *Part Four: "Ah, Primavera" Steve and Blue return to Gippsland for another season of pea-picking. Macca is not there, and Steve learns that he has gone droving and has another "girl". At the end of picking, Blue returns home to marry, at Steve's encouragement, and Steve remains alone in Gippsland. |
The Fortunate Fall | Raphael Carter | null | The protagonist is Maya Andreyeva, a "camera" for a major news network in a 24th century after the fall of an US world empire, where every nation is a third-rate power except hypertechnological Africa, which requires a blood test of aspiring immigrants. As a "camera", Maya is heavily wired with sensory and telecommunications gear so that she can broadcast her perceptions, combining the functions of an on-location reporter and her camera crew, presenting both audiovisual data and its interpretation. (Related concepts include simstim in William Gibson's Sprawl trilogy, or the "gargoyles" of Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash.) Carter uses the protagonist's occupation as a focal point for analyzing the role of the media in packaging, selling, and, thus shaping history and historical truth. The reader is taken through not only the familiar slanted research and writing of a piece, but also the careful cooking of raw sense data for broadcast by a screener, the one person who experiences the camera's full sense experience, precisely so that others do not. The screeners experience high turnover because of their unfortunate tendency to identify too closely, and fall in love, with the cameras who cannot share their unidirectional intimacy. The novel begins with Maya finding herself saddled with a new and problematic screener - one who appears to her only through the net, never in person, and who is a woman, contrary to all custom in her heterocentric dystopia. In the virtual company of this mysterious woman, Maya grapples with conspiracy, totalitarianism, mind control, race, sexuality, as well as the nature of the mind and free will. |
Revenge in the Silent Tomb | null | 1,984 | The book opened at a Saturday, 2:47pm, with a New York teen Stephen Lane, and his uncle Richard Duffy, in a car chase over the Saharan desert in Al-Karesh, a fictional country in North Africa. They were pursued by gunmen. The chase ended with Richard Duffy about to be knifed by one of their pursuers. This was followed by a flashback to a recent past, specifically, Friday 9:00pm in New York, which showed that the two, despite being closely related, have actually just met just a couple of month before, despite Stephen's stamp collection being filled with stamps his uncle sent from all over the world. Stephen Lane was a typical teenager who liked nothing more than to watch videos of old movies and action movies, in the comfort of his home. His movie-marathon hobby was interrupted when his mother's younger brother, Richard, moved into the family's four-storey brownstone on East 61st Street, New York, one day. Richard was described as retired engineer, despite the fact he was only in his thirties. He was thought to be boring by his nephew. Richard was left in charge of Stephen when the latter's parents had to go away for the weekend. Shortly after their departure, Richard received summons from his past and announced he had to make a long trip ... to the Sahara desert in Africa. Instead of making alternative arrangements that could prove awkward to explain later, Richard decided to bring Stephen along and revealed during the trip that he was no mere engineer. Richard invited Stephen to meet Jack Hartford, the lead actor of The Caves of Gold, an action movie which Stephen was planning to watch on video the whole weekend. Knowing Jack Hartford was in Africa shooting The Deep, Dark Secret, Stephen accepted, thinking it was a joke. It was revealed that Richard had a secret past as an adventurer/mercenary. Jack Hartford was one of his old friends and needed his help. Richard was not one to say no, especially when a beautiful woman like Lorelei Blake was involved. During the journey, Richard passed a Kronom K-D2 watch to Stephen, telling him it was a very special computer-watch. Amidst an action movie set in the Sahara, Jack Hartford was accused of murdering Ian Stone, a stuntman. Richard was brought in to help clear Jack's name. Richard and Jack had previously worked together to capture a notorious bandit chief name Ali Ben Kir. As Richard refused to take credit and disappeared, Jack got the credit and was noticed by Hollywood film makers, who signed him as a star. Ian Stone did not take his fellow stuntman's rise to fame well. There was trouble between the star and the stuntman during the filming, and when Ian was killed, Jack became the prime suspect. To better investigate the case, the uncle-nephew duo agreed to be part of the cast to help complete filming the movie, with Richard replacing Jack in some scenes not involving close-ups. The chase became complicated when Jack was kidnapped and brought to an old tomb which served as Ali Ben Kir's previous headquarters. The eponymous series title was due to the time limit the duo had to solve the case and be back before Stephen's parents discover they had been absent. |
The Devil's Heart | null | null | The novel primarily explores the consequences of Captain Jean-Luc Picard's possession of—and near-possession by—a legendary object of power. |
Daughter of Earth | Agnes Smedley | 1,929 | The novel begins in the 1890s with the Rogers family farming in Missouri. Though they are poor, Marie is unaware and enjoys her childhood for the most part. She does suffer physical abuse at the hands of her mother who believes that Marie lies. Marie’s parents’ marriage is not a happy one; Marie’s father wishes to make more money by leaving the farm and moves the reluctant family in order to obtain work cutting wood. The family bounces back and forth between John Rogers’s temporary jobs and life on the farm. Marie’s Aunt Helen comes to live with the family and works doing laundry for wealthy women. As a working woman, she is respected on the same level as John Rogers. Marie attends school regularly and becomes one of the smartest in her class. When she attends the birthday party of one of the wealthier students, Marie is made aware of class difference. She sees that not everyone lives as she does, and she is humiliated. When John discovers Aunt Helen is working as a prostitute he kicks her out of the house. Elly and Marie are left to support the family when John leaves them again. Marie begins stealing to keep the family fed and clothed. John Rogers returns and the family moves to a mining camp. Annie, Marie’s older sister, marries at the age of sixteen. Her husband is the former beau of Aunt Helen. Annie dies only a few years after this. Jim, one of the men who works for John, proposes marriage to Marie and she accepts. Marie is fifteen. John and Elly explain the implications of marriage to Marie, and she breaks off the engagement. Due to financial troubles, the family continues to move for work. As a teenager, Marie becomes a teacher and moves to New Mexico. A pen pal relationship begins between Marie and Robert Hampton. Marie admires him for his education and the success middle-class status affords him. Marie leaves her second teaching job when she discovers her mother is deathly ill and goes home to be with her as she dies. As a traveling subscription saleswoman, Marie discovers her father and siblings living in squalor. She spends what money she has feeding and clothing the children and leaves. Marie ends up in New Mexico with no money. While starving to death in a hotel, she learns two men have raped a woman they mistook for Marie, believing Marie to be a prostitute. The bartender, one of the rapists, nurses Marie back to health. When he finds out that she is a virgin and not a prostitute, he proposes marriage. Marie is extremely offended and leaves town. She reunites with Big Buck, a man who used to work in the mining camps for her father. He takes care of her while she recuperates and offers to pay for her to go to school for six months. He also proposes marriage, which Marie turns down. While in school in Arizona, Marie meets Karin and Knut Larson. The siblings fascinate Marie because they are well educated. Marie becomes romantically involved with Knut. Knut and Karin decide to move to San Francisco. Marie receives a letter from George stating that their father has sent them to work as farmhands for an abusive man. Marie is torn between helping her family and pursuing her education. She sends George what money she has and leaves for San Francisco. Marie and Knut get married with the understanding that it will be an equal partnership. She is introduced to the socialism through friends of Karin. Marie becomes pregnant and has an abortion. Beatrice, her younger sister, moves to live with her. Marie recognizes how hard life has been for her younger siblings. Marie becomes pregnant and once again has an abortion. While on the ride home, Knut instructs Marie to sit up so as not to cause a scene. Marie cannot accept Knut’s orders as a husband to his wife. This is the final straw, and their marriage ends. While at school, Marie meets an Indian who introduces her to the Indian independence movement. She is asked to leave school because of her liberal activities. On her way to New York, Marie stops to meet her old pen pal, Robert Hampton, and is disappointed by his appearance and strong Christian beliefs. He attempts to convert her to Christianity. Once in New York, Marie lives with Karin and works as a stenographer for The Graphic. Marie becomes increasingly involved in the socialist movement, though she feels little emotional connection to the cause. She receives a letter from George requesting financial help. He is in jail for stealing a horse. Marie responds with a hateful letter and money. Not too long after, she receives a telegram from Dan informing her that George, who was released from jail because of his young age, has died in a ditch cave in. Marie is guilt ridden. Struggling financially, Dan decides to join the military and fight in World War I. Marie worries about him constantly. Marie, still working vigorously as a journalist for The Call and attending school, meets an Indian named Sardar Ranjit Singh. Through him she becomes involved in the Indian independence movement. Talvar Singh, an Indian, asks her to hide a list of addresses for him. Juan Diaz, another member of the movement, breaks into Marie’s apartment. When she arrives home, he interrogates her about Talvar Singh’s whereabouts. Marie claims ignorance. Juan Diaz makes sexual advances and rapes Marie. Marie attempts suicide and is hospitalized. After returning home, she is arrested and interrogated about her involvement with the Indian independence movement. When Marie refuses to cooperate she is imprisoned. After her release, she meets Anand Manvekar. The two fall in love and are soon married. Marie finds happiness in this marriage, but soon Anand’s jealousy about Marie’s sexual past becomes an issue. Marie’s marriage and work with the movement are destroyed when Juan Diaz announces to a comrade that he and Marie engaged in sexual intercourse. At the end of the book Marie has begged Anand to leave her because they will never be happy again, and she will only hold him back from his work. Marie sits alone in their apartment, her marriage and life work destroyed. |
My Lucky Star | Joe Keenan | 2,006 | Gilbert Selwyn's mother has remarried once more—this time to a successful but aging Hollywood producer. Gilbert, ever the schemer, lifted a few plot points from Casablanca (i.e., plagiarized the entire film and put a new title on it) and convinced his new stepfather to promote the script to actor Stephen Donato's producer. Gilbert convinces his friends, Philip Cavanaugh and Claire Simmons, to move to Hollywood to help him rewrite the script. They quickly uncover his deception. But since Gilbert told the studio executives that the script was mostly Philip and Claire's, they must help rewrite the screenplay or else find any chance of a career ruined. Claire refuses to go along with the stunt, but Gilbert offers her the chance of a lifetime: Gilbert's agent, having heard of their success selling a screenplay, has offered the trio a chance to write actress Diana Malenfant's new film. The movie will be the first time Diana and her son, Stephen Donato, have acted together on screen since Stephen was 10, and it may prove the jump-start to Diana's career which she's been searching for. Gilbert is able to wrangle an appointment with Diana Malenfant, who is not particularly interested. But Lily, her drunken and estranged sister, is writing a tell-all book. Philip convinces Diana and Stephen that he has a job assisting Lily with her memoirs, and that he could find out what Lily intends to say in her book. Shrewdly, Diana agrees to hire Gilbert, Philip and Claire to write her new film while Philip spies on Lily. Stephen, who is gay, soon makes a secret rendezvous with Philip. He's worried that Aunt Lily might attempt to out him in her book. Stephen convinces Philip that he should not only spy on Lily but actually sabotage the book. Philip agrees. Lily's older brother, former child actor Monty Malenfant (and an openly gay man), is suspicious of Philip but goes along to keep Lily happy. As if events were not complicated enough, Moira Finch suddenly shows up at Gilbert, Philip and Claire's home. She has heard about their deal with Diana Malenfant, and threatens to expose them as frauds. But Moira offers the three a deal: Moira has recently opened a ritzy Hollywood spa, but is lacking clients and cachet. Get Stephen Donato to show up for a free weekend at her spa, and Moira will forget all about how "Casablanca" happened to be sold (again) to one of Hollywood's biggest producers. Philip soon finds that Monty is on to him. Monty confirms that Stephen is indeed a homosexual, which thrills Philip and leads to numerous fantasies. But Monty also threatens to expose Philip to Diana. Monty offers him a deal: Philip helps Lily turn her book into a best-seller, and nothing will be said to Diana. Now Claire, Philip and Gilbert are caught in a bind. How do they help Lily while also ruining any chance her book might have? And what of Moira? Claire begins to suspect that her spa isn't quite what it seems, for Moira has far too much money and too many friends. The trio quickly get caught in a downward spiral of sex, closeted movie stars, hustlers, blackmail, secret videotape, a homophobic district attorney, a cute bartender, false fire alarms, car theft, impersonating a police officer, a sleazy public-access television host and a "night with Oscar" that has nothing to do with the Academy Awards. |
Gringo Viejo | Carlos Fuentes | null | An elderly American writer and journalist for the Hearst media empire decides to leave his old life behind and seek a glorious death in the midst of the Mexican revolution. A widower, whose two sons had earlier committed suicide, this unnamed old man eventually comes across part of the army of Pancho Villa. This particular group, led by General Arroyo, has just liberated a massive land holding which had been owned by the Mirandas, a wealthy landowning family. Arroyo is the mestizo product of the rape of his Indian mother by his Miranda father. At that same hacienda, the old man meets Harriet Winslow, a woman from Washington D.C. hired to tutor the young Miranda children. However, by the time she arrived there, they had long since fled with their parents from Arroyo's army. At first, she has a patronizing view about the revolutionary army and the Mexican people, saying "What these people need is education, not rifles. A good scrubbing, followed by a few lessons on how we do things in the United States, and you'd see an end to this chaos." "You're going to civilize them?" the old man asked dryly. "Precisely." As the novel progresses, Winslow begins to learn to accept the truth of her past, as well as to appreciate the Mexican culture she finds all around her. By the close of the novel, she decides that instead of attempting to change Mexico, as she had early wanted, she wants "to learn to live with Mexico". The novel ends with the deaths of both the old man and General Arroyo. When the 'old gringo' burns some historical documents as a means of encouraging Arroyo to leave the Miranda household and continue with the revolution, Arroyo responds by murdering him. Later, when Arroyo finally meets up with Pancho Villa's army, he is executed for this crime as a means of preventing any American response. Like many of Fuentes' works, The Old Gringo explores the way in which revolutionary ideals become corrupted, as Arroyo chooses to pursue the deed to an estate where he once worked as a servant rather than follow the true goals of the revolution. |
The Art of Being Right | Arthur Schopenhauer | null | The following lists the 38 stratagems described by Schopenhauer, in the order of their appearance in the book: # The Extension # The Homonymy # Generalize Your Opponent's Specific Statements # Conceal Your Game # False Propositions # Postulate What Has to Be Proved # Yield Admissions Through Questions # Make Your Opponent Angry # Questions in Detouring Order # Take Advantage of the Nay-Sayer # Generalize Admissions of Specific Cases # Choose Metaphors Favourable to Your Proposition # Agree to Reject the Counter-Proposition # Claim Victory Despite Defeat # Use Seemingly Absurd Propositions # Arguments Ad Hominem # Defense Through Subtle Distinction # Interrupt, Break, Divert the Dispute # Generalize the Matter, Then Argue Against it # Draw Conclusions Yourself # Meet Him With a Counter-Argument as Bad as His # Petitio principii # Make Him Exaggerate His Statement # State a False Syllogism # Find One Instance to the Contrary # Turn the Tables # Anger Indicates a Weak Point # Persuade the Audience, Not the Opponent # Diversion # Appeal to Authority Rather Than Reason # This Is Beyond Me # Put His Thesis into Some Odious Category # It Applies in Theory, but Not in Practice # Don't Let Him Off the Hook # Will Is More Effective Than Insight # Bewilder Your opponent by Mere Bombast # A Faulty Proof Refutes His Whole Position # Become Personal, Insulting, Rude |
The Sunrise Lands | S. M. Stirling | null | Ingolf Vogeler, a mercenary from the Republic of Richland arrives in Mackenzie lands in the Willamette River region of Oregon. He is being stalked by soldiers from the Church Universal and Triumphant (known as Cutters), which is located in Paradise Valley, Montana, and controls parts of Montana and Wyoming. Ingolf arrives in a tavern run by Tom Brannigan, and during the night, is attacked by these soldiers. As he is attacked, Rudi Mackenzie, Mathilda Arminger, Odard Liu, and the twins Ritva and Mary Havel join the fray. Odard and Rudi kill several assassins until Rudi shouts to take one alive. The assassins realize they can't escape and commit suicide before the party can react. Odard and Rudi break the door that Ingolf is hidden behind, and take him to a hospital. Ingolf is saved, and he relates his tale to the Mackenzies. It turns out that he had traveled to Nantucket with his mercenary company during an expedition to collect pre-Change relics. Along with two mercenary scouts (Kaur and Singh) and Kuttner, a guard of the bossman of Iowa travelling with the company, Ingolf saw a vision that told him to: Travel from sunrise to the sunset, and seek the Son of the Bear Who Rules. The Sword of the Lady waits for him. The party traveled back to the mainland to hook up with the remainder of the mercenaries, but they were all found dead somewhere in Illinois. Ingolf led the party west, but they are stopped by Cutter forces. The party is then betrayed by the guard, Kuttner, who turns out to be a Cutter officer. While fleeing, Kaur is wounded, and she and her brother dismount and turn to hold off the Cutters while Ingolf flees. Kaur and Singh make Ingolf swear to avenge them. Ingolf is able to escape the Cutter forces due to the sacrifice of the scouts, however he is later captured and taken to the C.U.T capitol, but manages to escape later on. Ingolf then arrived at Mackenzie territory and tells Juniper and Rudi Mackenzie his story. Both interpret the vision to mean that Rudi, who was prophesied to be the Sword of the Lady, has to go east to Nantucket. After a brief debate, Rudi, Ingolf, Mary, Ritva, and Edain Aylward, set off for Nantucket. As they travel, they split up, and meet back up at the house of John Brown, an important member of the Central Oregon Ranchers Association and ally of the Mackenzies. In the meantime Mathilda, Odard, as well as Odard's servant Alex, and the monk Father Ignatius, have joined the party, fleeing Protectorate territory and avoiding being brought back by Regent Arminger's men-at-arms. The party travels further east saving a group of Mormons from Rovers, nomadic brigands of southeastern Oregon. They learn that the Church Universal and Triumphant are at war with the Mormon state of Deseret and are on the verge of defeating them. Later the party runs into a Cutter army in southern Idaho. They warn President Thurston, leader of the United States of "Boise", who defeats the force with his personal soldiers while Rudi and Edain save him from an assassination attempt by his own guards. The party travels to Boise to figure out why the Church wants Thurston dead, while Boise prepares for war against the Church. Taking the army of Boise south, Thurston meets with a demoralized Deseret army and agree to fight together against Cutter forces besieging the Deseret city of Twin Falls. During the combat, President Thurston is assassinated by his son, Martin Thurston, who is allied with the Cutters in an effort to make himself the dictator of Boise. Rudi and Thurston's younger son witness this and flee, warning the rest of the party. The party splits up to avoid being captured by the Cutters, traveling east and planning to meet up at a rally point. Mathilda, Odard, and Alex are cornered in a rocky ravine when Odard's horse is killed and Odard becomes injured. He and Mathilda turn to make a last stand, but Alex, under orders from Odard's mother to protect him at all costs, betrays them to the Cutters, and the trio are captured. Edain, Father Ignatius, Thurston's youngest son, Mary, and Ritva arrive at the rendezvous point but flee because of advancing Cutters. They encounter Boise forces and are taken in a foot-pedaled power airship to save Rudi from pursuing Cutter forces. In the meantime, Ingolf is captured by the Cutters, who are led by Kuttner, who mysteriously forces Ingolf to drop his machete and takes him prisoner. Meanwhile, the forces of the C.U.T. succeed in breaching the walls of Twin Falls, capturing the city and on the orders of their leader the Prophet Sethaz, massacres the entire population. |
The Woods Are Dark | Richard Laymon | 1,981 | The plot concerns two groups of people, a family and a pair of college students, who are kidnapped after stopping in a small California town and taken into the forest to be sacrificed to a group of mysterious creatures, called "Krulls," who roam the surrounding wilderness. The identity of the Krulls, and their relationship to the town of Barlow, are revealed gradually over the course of the novel. |
CHERUB: Dark Sun | Robert Muchamore | null | Greg "Rat" Rathbone is on an undercover mission to befriend the son of notorious activist, Kurt Lydon, and change the plan of his nuclear system. Rat is soon invited to a sleepover by Lydon's son George and after defeating a group of bullies in a fight earns further popularity from George and his overweight Chinese friend, Zhang. Back at campus, Lauren Adams, Jake Parker and Andy Lagan are forced to do physical training on the assault course after messing around in front of a guest speaker. Although overseen by volunteers James Adams and Bruce Norris, Andy is severely injured but still takes part in the mission, posing as Rat's Scottish cousin. At the sleepover, Rat and Andy sedate George, Zhang and Lydon's wife and begin hacking into Lydon's laptop but are interrupted by George's older sister, Sophie. She badly injures Rat by breaking a vase over his head. After a vicious struggle, the boys sedate her and finish the job. The book ends with Lydon and several other suspects being imprisoned and a new library being opened at campus on World Book Day. |
San Manuel Bueno, Mártir | Miguel de Unamuno | null | The novella tells the story of the local Catholic Priest (Don Manuel) in fictional Valverde de Lucerna, Spain as told through the eyes of Angela, one of the townspeople. Throughout the course of the story Manuel is adored by the people of the town. He is constantly in the service of the townspeople. He refrains from condemning anyone and goes out of his way to help those whom the people have marginalized. Instead of refusing to allow the holy burial of someone who committed suicide, don Manuel explains that he is sure that in the last moment, the person would have repented for their sin. Also, instead of excommunicating a woman who had an illegitimate child, as the Catholic Church would have done, don Manuel arranges a marriage between the woman and her ex-boyfriend, so that order will return to the town, and the child will have a father figure. The people of the town consider him their "Saint" because of all of the good deeds he does. Angela, after a brief stint away for education, returns to the town to live with her mother where she continues to be amazed at Manuel's devotion. Later, Lazarus, Angela's brother returns from the New World, disgusted with the poverty both mental and physical he finds in the town. He too is amazed at Manuel's devotion but believes that "He is too intelligent to believe everything he teaches." It is clear that Lazarus does not have a sense of faith. Angela's and Lazarus's mother passes away. On her death bed she makes Lazarus promise to pray for her- he swears he will. Her dying wish is that Manuel can convert him. Lazarus begins following don Manuel "to the lake" where Manuel is known to walk and think. Time passes and Lazarus takes Communion- to the towns people and he appears to be converted. In reality, Lazarus is only praying for his mother, because it was her wish, not because he has faith. Immediately following the Communion, Lazarus sits down with Angela and tells her that he has something he must tell her: Both Manuel and Lazarus have no faith in God, specifically no belief in an after-life. Angela is upset and incredulous but confronts Manuel about what Lazarus has said. In their conversation it becomes obvious that what Lazarus has said is accurate. Manuel believes that religion and the preaching of religion is the only way for the people to "live content"- Lazarus through their talks had come to admire Manuel's determination to do what he thinks is right despite his lack of belief in the veracity of what he teaches. To that end, Lazarus felt it best to continue that same path by coming back into the fold. Lazarus and don Manuel have a unique connection and understanding at this point in the story, because both are displaying faith when neither truly has faith. Although Angela questions the goodness of such a deed, Lazarus insists that don Manuel is a saint for what he has done all his life for the town. Manuel grows increasingly weak. He is unable to bear the weight of teaching the resurrection when he does not believe it is real. He falls further and further into a depression, the towns people see this as a reflection of Christ in their local priest. When Manuel dies he chooses to do so publicly in the center of the town, and the people see it as their "second Christ." Lazarus takes on Manuel's role until his own death. Angela moves out of town. She finishes her narration by explaining that Manuel was being considered for beatification and that he is being held up as the ideal and exemplar priest. |
Putting on the Ritz | Joe Keenan | 1,991 | Philip and Claire's latest efforts at breaking onto Broadway have flopped, but their efforts have not gone unnoticed by Gilbert's employer, Tommy Parker. Tommy is a gofer for billionaire Boyd Larkin, who wants to insert a spy into the household of his arch-rival billionaire, Peter Champion. Peter's wife, Elsa, is seeking to launch a singing career and needs just the right songwriting team. Gilbert, on the other hand, is hoping that helping Parker and Larkin pull off their scheme will advance his own chances at snagging the world's wealthiest sugar daddy. Philip and Claire are soon hired. Unfortunately, Elsa can't carry a tune and her acting abilities are nonexistent. Nonetheless, they have to make her look good: Champion could destroy their careers if they don't. But if they manage to pull it off, they'll be on the fast track to fame. It's not long before Philip and Gilbert are caught spying, which leads them to become double-agents, double-double agents, and triple-agents. And when the man of their dreams turns out to be a homosexual, suddenly Philip and Gilbert are competing for his financial (and sexual) favors and betraying one another as well. |
Blue Heaven | Joe Keenan | 1,988 | Gilbert Selwyn and Moira Finch usually can't stand each other. They have only two things in common: an aversion to honest work, and wealthy stepfamilies. But they have a plan: they intend to get married. Gilbert recently went to his "fat cousin Steffy's wedding", where he realized that his normally tight-fisted stepfather's family became overwhelmingly generous for a family wedding; Moira's stepfather, the Duke of Dorsetshire, is likewise poised to shower the couple with cash, checks, and gifts worth tens of thousands of dollars. Gilbert estimates that he and Moira might clear $100,000 each by marrying, living together for a decent interval, and then divorcing. But to make the plan work, Gilbert has to have a best man and someone who'll swear that his homosexuality was "just a phase." That someone is Philip Cavanaugh, the narrator of the story: Gilbert's best friend, former lover, and an aspiring songwriter. At first Phillip wants no part of the plan - having suffered the disastrous fallout of Gilbert's previous get-rich-quick schemes - but agrees as soon as Gilbert offers him a cut of the take, enough to afford a computer and some decent Scotch. But there's a snag: Moira's mother, the Duchess, says on the phone that she doesn't have enough ready cash to pay for the wedding, so she asks Moira to pay for it from her trust fund. Only, Moira has already induced her banker, Winslow, to embezzle the funds, and blown her inheritance on several zany investment schemes. She quickly comes up with a new plan: convince Gilbert's stepfather, Tony Cellini, to pay for the wedding, with the "promise" that the Duchess will reimburse Moira for what "she" has spent from her trust fund - in effect, doubling the couple's take from the wedding. Over lunch with Gilbert's perky but extremely naive mother, Maddie, Phillip becomes nervous at hearing about Tony's mysterious comings-and-goings, and the surprisingly high number of "accidental" deaths in his family. Phillip starts to suspect that Gilbert and Moira's future in-laws (and victims) are mafiosos. Both Gilbert and Moira find the notion preposterous, but Phillip cracks and confides all to his songwriting partner, the brainy Claire. At the Cellini family's Christmas party, Claire needs only one quick look to confirm that Gilbert's in-laws are mafiosos, the patriarch of the clan being infamous gangster Freddy "the Pooch" Bombelli. She and Phillip pull Gilbert into a bathroom and acquant him with two hard facts: first, attempting to swindle mafiosos is stupid; and second, attempting to do so partnered with Moira is suicidal - she has already ingratiated herself with Gilbert's family far more successfully than he, and would throw him and Phillip to the wolves in a heartbeat if anything went wrong. Everything seems to be going smoothly. That is, until Gunther Von Stiegel decides to ruin the wedding by revealing that Gilbert is gay, until Vulpina becomes enraged that she cannot design the wedding dress and colludes with Gunther to destroy Moira, until Gilbert suspects Moira of sleeping with Freddy Bombelli, and until the wedding arrives and the Duchess has to make an appearance. Gilbert, Philip, Claire and Moira get caught up in Mafia politics, blackmail, transvestitism, funding a Broadway production, the cologne business, seduction and much more. Events come together at a wedding where bullets are as likely to be tossed as rice. |
Tomoe Gozen | Jessica Amanda Salmonson | 1,981 | Tomoe Gozen, a warrior of incredible skill, is the vassal of warlord Shojiro Shigeno. In the process of defeating Shigeno's enemy, the Chinese monk Huan, Tomoe is nearly killed. Huan resurrects her on the condition that she turn against her former master, and after committing a series of evil deeds under Huan's power, Tomoe manages to free herself and goes ronin. The story mostly traces Tomoe's attempts to regain her honour, leading her into conflict with enemies, friends and the samurai culture that created her. |
An American Dream: The Life of an African American Soldier and POW Who Spent Twelve Years in Communist China | Clarence Adams | null | Adams was one of 21 Americans who refused repatriation to the United States in favor of going to China after being a POW during the Korean War. The book follows Adams's youth in Memphis, Tennessee through his time in the Korean War as a POW and his return to Memphis with his Chinese wife and children. It deals heavily with race relations in the South in both the 1930s and 1940s of Adams's youth and following his return to the US in 1966 during the Civil Rights Movement as well as the red scare of the Cold War. Throughout the book, Adams cites racism, lack of opportunity, and curiosity as his main reasons for defecting and maintained his right to do so despite investigations into and questioning of his activities in China by the FBI. |
Cast of Criminals | null | null | The action in this novel takes place in and around Bayport, New York and New York City. Frank and Joe are called upon to assist the Bayport Players in a production revival of a famous play, Homecoming Nightmare. The lead actress is Frank's girlfriend Callie Shaw. But the production is seriously threatened when someone in the cast decides they want Callie's part- and will do anything to get it. A tiara Callie purchases for the play is missing. She has received threats and pleads with Frank and Joe to stop the prankster before opening night. The Boys take on the case, but little do they know that the troublemaker is right in their midst. |
A Good Man Is Hard to Find | Flannery O'Connor | 1,955 | This story initiates with an unnamed grandmother complaining to her son, Bailey, that she does not want to go to Florida but to Tennessee instead, for the family vacation. The family goes to Florida anyway. She spites them by getting up early and waiting in the car, dressed in her Sunday best, so that if she should die in an accident she will be recognized as "a lady." The grandmother talks almost continuously during the trip, recalling her youth in the Old South and commenting on various things they come across. She says children used to be more respectful of their home states and their parents, and that people did right in those days. She then catches sight of a "cute little pickaninny" waving from the door of a shack, and remarks that he probably doesn't own any britches. When the family stops at an old diner for lunch, she engages the owner, Red Sammy, in conversation about an escaped convict, a murderer known as "The Misfit." The grandmother agrees with Sammy's assertion that a good man is very hard to find. After they return on the road again, the grandmother, trying to detour the family away from Florida, begins telling the children stories about a nearby home that she had visited as a child. Upon hearing that it has secret passages, the children become fascinated and want to visit the house, and they pester their father until he agrees to let them go and follow grandmother's directions. When her directions lead them down a dirt road, she realizes that the house is, in fact, in Tennessee and not Georgia. Flustered, she upsets her cat, which panics, causing Bailey to flip the car and end up in a ditch below the road. The children are excited and view the accident as an adventure, and the grandmother fakes an internal injury to evoke sympathy. The family waits for help. A car pulls up and three men get out, the leader a shirtless, bespectacled man. All three have guns. The man in glasses instructs his cohorts to inspect the family's car and engages Bailey in polite conversation until the grandmother identifies him as an escaped convict known as "The Misfit." The Misfit shot his own father, he says, though he says that's only what he's been told—he doesn't believe it. As The Misfit instructs his accomplices to murder the family one by one, the grandmother begins pleading for her own life by flattering The Misfit. When The Misfit ignores her pleas, she becomes speechless. Panicked, she attempts to witness about Jesus. The Misfit becomes visibly angry: he is angry with Christ for having given no physical evidence for His existence, casting doubt about the legitimacy of Christianity. He does not want to waste his life serving a figure who may not exist, nor does he want to displease an almighty God who may exist; he has settled on the idea that "There's no pleasure but meanness." The grandmother suddenly exclaims "Why you’re one of my babies. You’re one of my own children!", and reaches out and touches The Misfit. He recoils and shoots her three times. When the accomplice finishes murdering the family, The Misfit takes a moment to clean his glasses, concluding that "she [the grandmother] would have been a good woman, if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life." He echoes O'Connor's traditional Christian view that this is properly the role of the conscience informed by the Holy Spirit. When his accomplice comments on the fun that they've had in killing, The Misfit tells him, "It's no real pleasure in life." Again, in O'Connor's view, a phony Christian—that is, the grandmother—through an act of violence finally comes to be genuinely converted. A good man/woman is indeed hard to find. At last the grandmother humbles herself, realizing that she's no better than a murderer and misfit herself--for such are metaphorically her babies, part of the fallen human family. (He is wearing her son's shirt by then--as if to increase symbolically the connection.) She can finally receive saving grace. |
Chasing the Dime | Michael Connelly | 2,002 | A hot-shot entrepreneur is on the verge of announcing a historic (and potentially very lucrative) breakthrough in nanotechnology. In an attempt to escape the pressure of his work, he becomes fascinated with a peculiar puzzle: what happened to the woman who had his telephone number before him, and why are so many lonely men calling her. The trail leads him into an entangling jungle of murder and betrayal. fr:Darling Lilly it:Utente sconosciuto |
Broken April | Ismail Kadare | 1,978 | The story tells of Gjorg Berisha, a 26-year-old Albanian man living on the high plateau. He is forced to commit a murder under the laws of the Kanun. As a result of this killing, his own death is sealed; he is to be killed by a member of the opposing family. |
Warrior's Refuge | null | 2,007 | The book opens with a short summary of the past events of the previous book, The Lost Warrior. Coming to the current time, Graystripe and his traveling companion, Millie, can see Highstones in the distance. As they are traveling through a corn field, a combine pursues them. Graystripe and Millie are separated as they flee from the monster. Graystripe manages to get to a nearby barn, and asks for help from the cats inhabiting the barn. The barn cats agree to help Graystripe find Millie. They find Millie and learn the hard corn leaves cut and damaged Millie's eyes. Graystripe and Millie are allowed to stay until she recovers. Husker, one of the barn cats explains to the two cats that they used to live in the nearby Twoleg nest (human house). Unfortunately, the Twolegs (humans) died, and a new family moved in. The new residents disliked the cats, so they were chased out. They had lived in the barn ever since. Graystripe and Millie face the pet dogs of the family after they wander into the barn. Millie can speak dog and is able to send the dogs away. The barn cats are amazed by Millie's ability and she teaches them how to speak dog. A few days later, Millie and Graystripe see a Twoleg kit in pursuit of a frog. She approaches dangerously close to the edge of a pond, almost falling into it. Graystripe manages to catch the child's attention and lead her away. The Twoleg's parents are very grateful to the cats. Over time, the Twolegs accept the barn cats as well and even adopt them as their kittypets through a plan of Graystripe's. The two travelers continue their route towards home. However, when they arrive at the forest, they find the territory is destroyed and ThunderClan is gone. |
The World at Night | Alan Furst | 1,996 | The story takes place in and around Paris between May 1940 and June 1941. Jean Casson is a French motion-picture producer who specializes in gangster films and who possesses no political views to speak of. When the Germans defeat and conquer his country, Casson at first tries to continue his life and career as if nothing had happened. But that proves impossible; when the Germans arrest a few of his friends and associates Casson finds himself helping others to hide or escape. He is seen talking to questionable people, and before long his line is tapped and his movements followed. Eventually Casson must choose between a life of resistance or no life at all. |
Katharine the Great | null | null | This biography of Katharine Graham, including details of the death of her husband Philip Graham in 1963, advances some theories that have been met with considerable controversy. For example, Davis claimed that the source behind the Watergate scandal, popularly known as Deep Throat, was a CIA officer named Richard Ober (in fact, it was later revealed that Deep Throat had been FBI Associate Director Mark Felt). She also claims that the Washington Post's executive editor, Benjamin C. Bradlee, was part of a CIA propaganda plan to support the convictions of spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. |
Dreamland | Sarah Dessen | 2,000 | The book is split into three parts. Caitlin O'Koren has just realized that on her 16th birthday, her 18 year old sister, Cass, has run away. Everybody completely forgets about Caitlin's birthday. Her parents are broken-hearted, since she was supposed to attend Yale two weeks later. Everyone searches for Cass, but she soon makes a call saying she is with Adam, her boyfriend. Her father is furious, saying he had better expectations for her. Later on, Caitlin's friend, Rina, asks her to join the cheer leading squad, but Caitlin keeps refusing. Caitlin gives in and makes the squad, much to Boo's dismay. Caitlin's mother is very excited. Caitlin says that it's probably best to take her mind off Cass's departure. It turns out that Caitlin hates cheer leading, but she remains on the squad because of her mother, who sees Caitlin as Cass' replacement. On her 1st game at half-time, Caitlin goes to the top of the pyramid. While on top, she hears someone calling Cass's name. So, while thinking of Cassandra, Caitlin reaches up to find the scar from the shovel incident. She feels it, then falls to the ground, and someone from the bottom of the pyramid, runs out from under everyone to catch her. Luckily, the worst injury out of the pile of cheerleaders is a broken nose. Later on, Caitlin meets a boy named Rogerson Biscoe at the car wash, who is a drug dealer. They meet at a party. They make out in the car, and soon become a couple. Caitlin and Rogerson's relationship becomes more physical. Rogerson introduces Caitlin to drugs and a woman in her mid-twenties named Corinna. They become fast friends and begin to smoke pot. Caitlin begins to forget school which causes her to not attend classes and fail every class possible. Rogerson helps her with this, claiming that "he knows everything." Caitlin soon gets abused by Rogerson, because she does not tell Rogerson where she is and she is seen talking to other boys. Caitlin begins writing in the gift that she received from Cass. Caitlin begins to see Cass in a TV show that Cass's boyfriend works on. Caitlin's mom engages in the show, not caring about what's happening but finally seeing her daughter again. On Christmas Eve, Catilin finally agrees to sleep with Rogerson. She says later in the book that whenever they have sex it is the only time she feels safe. One day, Caitlin's friend, Rina, decides to take her out for some fun. They go to Rina's step fathers' lake house, but Caitlin was terrified because she knew that Rogerson was waiting outside of her house. She tried calling him, but he never picked up the phone. Caitlin walks away and heads home. She sees Rogerson parked in front of her house. She gets into his car and Rogerson starts yelling at her and beats her until she is literally out of the car. He pounds on her and Caitlin's mom shoved Rogerson away from Caitlin and calls for help. Then one of the neighbours called the police to arrest Rogerson. Caitlin joins the Evergreen Rest Care Facility after Rogerson is arrested. She comes in because of drug addiction, and after all Rogerson did to her, she still loved Rogerson. She begins counseling and begins a slow improvement. Caitlin gets a letter from her friend, Corinna, saying that she left her longtime boyfriend, Dave, and is in Arizona living her life, trying to forget her past. She says she hopes to see Caitlin again soon. She also gets a letter from her sister, Cass, saying that she did not want to go to Yale. She was having a tough time and wasn't happy with her parents' plans for college, which explains her sudden departure. She also said that she was never perfect and that she envied Caitlin for having always been able to make choices. At the end of the book, Caitlin comes home a better person, and her family throws her a party with Cass as a special guest. |
Blind Justice | Bruce Cook | 1,995 | Young Jeremy Proctor, recently orphaned, is taken in as ward by blind Sir John Fielding, Magistrate of the Bow Street court and organizer of London's first police force. When Sir John investigates the apparent suicide of Lord Goodhope, it is Jeremy's eyes which note the crucial clue. |
The Fairy Gunmother | Daniel Pennac | 1,987 | The novel is set in the modern Parisian quarter of Belleville. It starts with the dramatic death of a policeman, shot by a "grannie" he was trying to help, and witnessed by at least four others who conveniently forget all details of what they see. The inspector Van Thian goes undercover as a Vietnamese old woman to investigate. Three other investigations follow: one into the attempted murder of a young woman, another into the serial killings of small old women in the district, and a third into drug trafficking by old men. Benjamin Malaussènne, professional scapegoat, quickly becomes suspect number one of all four investigations, owing to the numerous children of his prolific mother he lives with, the various old men with obsolete talents that he shelters, and his repeated abortive romantic affairs. Like all novels in the Malaussène saga, the setting is anything but conventional, the streets of Paris brimming with immigrants in open celebration of their diversity, the situations rarely Gallic yet authentically Parisian. |
My Theodosia | Anya Seton | 1,941 | The story begins on Theodosia's seventeenth birthday in the year 1800, where her father Aaron Burr introduces Theodosia to her soon to be husband Joseph Alston. Theodosia is not keen on her father's choice for a husband, for she does not realise that her father hopes the marriage will increase his political support in the southern states, as well as lead to financial gain. During Theodosia and Joseph's official courtship, by chance Theodosia meets Meriwether Lewis, and the two are instantly attracted to each other. However Aaron Burr spots the two together, and stops any chance of a romance before it begins. Reluctantly but dutifully, Theodosia capitulates to her father's wishes and marries Joseph Alston in February 1801. The couple then settle in Joseph's home state of South Carolina, and Theodosia soon gives birth to her first and only child. However Theodosia is never happy in the South and constantly longs for the company of her father (and a reunification with Meriwether Lewis). The story moves on through Aaron Burr's time as Vice President: his controversial actions dueling Alexander Hamilton; his working to take over Mexico, naming himself as king; and his subsequent trial. Theodosia is always behind her father, even if it is at the cost of her marriage to Joseph, and her romance with Meriwether. |
Stormy, Misty's Foal | null | null | Misty is close to foaling and the Beebe family is anxious about it. Paul and Maureen check on her every day before and after school at almost every possible time. Unfortunately, a terrible storm system arrives first, setting up over Chincoteague with floods, hurricane winds, ice, and snow. At first reluctant to accept the threat of the storm, then reluctant to leave the island, the inhabitants are, in the end, forced to accept the devastation that lays waste to chicken farms and pony herds. This leaves the Beebes no choice: They keep Misty in their kitchen for the time being, while they evacuate. Paul also insists on getting a nanny goat if Misty didn't accept her foal. When Misty is taken to the vet on the mainland of Virginia (along with the goat), she has her foal there: a brown filly with a white moon on her forehead. She is named "Stormy" after a suggestion sent in by letter. Most of the novel is about the storm and its aftermath; the title character only arrives toward the end of the novel. The Beebes are concerned with restoration of Chincoteague and Assateague, and Misty and Stormy play a key role in this effort, giving shows in order to collect donations for the residents of Chincoteague. |
The Ghost | Eve Bunting | 2,007 | The greater part of the action is on Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts, where Lang has been holed up in the holiday home of his billionaire American publisher in order to turn out his memoirs on a deadline. Other scenes are set in Notting Hill, New York and Whitehall. Lang's former press aide Mike McAra has been struggling to ghost his master's memoirs but, as the novel opens, McAra drowns when he apparently falls off the Woods Hole ferry. The fictional narrator of The Ghost, whose name is never revealed, is hired to replace him (his girlfriend walks out on him over his willingness to take the job: "She felt personally betrayed by him; she used to be a party member."). He soon suspects foul play and stumbles across evidence of possible motive, buried in Lang's Cambridge past. Having located what may be the lethal secret, the replacement ghostwriter begins to fear for his own safety. Meanwhile Lang, like his real-life counterpart, has been accused by his enemies of war crimes. A leaked memorandum has revealed that he secretly approved the transfer of UK citizens to Guantanamo Bay to face interrogation and possible torture. One Richard Rycart, Lang's disillusioned and renegade former foreign secretary (loosely based on Robin Cook), who before and during his early days in office made much of his wish to adopt an "ethical" foreign policy, is now at the UN, in a position to do his former boss serious damage. Unlike Blair, Lang thus appears in imminent threat of indictment at the International Criminal Court. The narrator tussles to reconcile his obligation to complete the ghosting job with its attendant abundant payment on the one hand and, on the other, the pressing need, as he sees it, to reveal Lang's true allegiances. The action really heats up when he contacts Rycart. The narrator comes under increasing jeopardy: romantically and politically, as well as physically. |
Murder in Grub Street | Bruce Cook | 1,995 | A printer and his household are horrifically slaughtered, and a mad poet is caught red-handed at the scene. But Sir John doubts that the real culprit has been found. |
Watery Grave | Bruce Cook | 1,996 | When the captain of a British warship falls overboard and drowns, a Naval court martial is convened to investigate a charge of murder. Sir John is petitioned by an old friend to aid in the investigation. |
The Revealers | null | null | Russell Trainor is the good guy in the story, who seems to get picked on lately. Nobody talks to him, nobody likes him, he's a nobody. Until one day Richie, one of the bullies at his school, starts to follow and threaten him, to the point where he punches Russell and pours root-beer over his head. Russell seeks advice from the school's most-picked-on boy, Elliot Gekowitz. Elliot and Russell soon become friends with a Filipino girl called Catalina, who receives horrible notes from the popular girls especially queen bee Bethany Demere. Using the school's internet service, KidNet, they tell their stories to all the seventh-graders, eventually the whole school, and form The Bully Lab. The site's purpose is to talk about any events of bullying a person may have witnessed or suffered. It turns later into "The Revealers" and soon, dozens of affected kids confess their stories to The Revealers to show how bad this conflict has become in middle schools all over. However, the popular student Bethany sends The Revealers a false report and the principal, who's being threatened with being sued by Bethany's father, ends up shutting down the bully lab and KidNet. But thanks to the help of Richie, Bethany's scam is foiled and they win the science fair. The lesson in this book is that people should not be bullied just because of the way they look or where they come from. |
Fluffy | null | null | The story begins with Fluffy asleep in the living room in a cardboard box at night. He awakes when he hears a noise to find Miss Owers in the house, leaving Michael's room. Miss Owers is Fluffy's nursery school teacher who has an infatuation with Michael. The next day Michael and Fluffy go to the library where Fluffy gets a book on tractors. Michael is oblivious to Fluffy telling him how he is going to cut the pictures out of the book when they get home. When they get back to Michael's flat, he confesses to Fluffy that he isn't his father. Fluffy gets angry at this, and refuses to believe Michael. We then see Michael opening a letter from Miss Owers, which she has written as Michael hasn't been returning her calls. We also see lots of emails from Miss Owers in his inbox. This shows how needy she is being towards Michael, when he clearly doesn't want anything to do with her. The story then cuts to 'a few days later' and the general chaos of the house is shown as the phone is constantly ringing and Fluffy is making a general nuisance of himself. Michael then thinks about how he wants to get away from everything and decides to go and see his family in Sicily over land because he has a fear of flying. Michael and Fluffy travel to Waterloo to get the train. Fluffy is anxious as he is worried that they won't know what time it is as there won't be a clock with 'English numbers'. At this point in the story a dust particle is brought in to narrate parts of the story that need explaining. The pair arrive in France and Fluffy decides he wants McDonalds. Michael suggests eating frogs legs which upsets Fluffy and he decides he hates France. They finally get on the train to go to Rome where they meet some eccentric characters on the train. One of the people they meet on the train is a young girl called Sylvia who tells Fluffy 'I love you rabbit!' and he gets upset because he doesn't think that he is a rabbit. Michael has some strange dreams on the train, one of which involves Sylvia eating Fluffy. He awakes to a start and finds that Fluffy is not in bed any more. He frantically searches around and goes to Sylvia's cabin where he finds her holding what looks like Fluffy but turns out to be a kipferl. He is reunited with Fluffy when a man who looks like the farmer in Fluffy's tractor book comes and finds Michael and returns Fluffy to him. Some snap shots show Fluffy and Michael on the journey to Sicily and it ends with Michael on the phone to his sister, Rosetta. She tells him that their mother has become a new found Catholic and that his 'girlfriend' (Miss Owers) has been ringing their house. This starts with the Pulcino family eating dinner together. Michael's mother - Alice, father - Joe, sister - Rosetta, and brother-in-law - Fabrizio are all eating steak together. Michael also has a brother - David, who the family doesn't mention much. AT dinner, Michael receives a phone call from Miss Owers gushing that she misses him a lot. The next day Fluffy's grandparents take him to Santa Maria La Scala for a picnic. Fluffy likes his ice cream because of the jam sauce on it, which he mistakes for ketchup. Michael was making the most of being alone, although sometimes being irritated by Miss Owers' persistent calls. Alice takes Fluffy to see Jesus at the cathedral, however Fluffy seems more interested in talking about tractors. Later on Fluffy draws a picture of Jesus and Spider-Man together which causes Alice and Rosetta to have an argument, as Rosetta is getting aggravated by her mother's new found religion. When the family are at dinner Alice noticed that Fluffy wasn't eating his, and Fluffy says that he's not meant to eat steak because he is a bunny which shocks Michael, as he never thought that Fluffy would admit to being a rabbit. He then comforts Fluffy and tells him that it's okay because 'you're my fluffy bunny'. Michael then goes out to meet Fabrizio for drinks, but he does not turn up, and when Michael returns to the flat Rosetta calls him, saying that Fabrizio isn't answering his phone. They decide that she is just worrying about nothing as she had a recent argument with him and leave it at that. A few minutes later Miss Owers calls saying that she is in Sicily. Michael is shocked and looks stunned that Miss Owers would go that far. Part 4 opens with Fluffy playing underneath the table whilst Alice is shouting that she is convinced that the Mafia has got Fabrizio. Michael receives a call from Miss Owers who says that she is outside the flat. He goes to see her and is quite distant towards her. After walking around for a while they sit on a bench and we see inside Michael's mind. He first imagines being completely honest with her and telling her that she is annoying and clingy, at which she literally melts away. He then realises that she's the only one that likes him so he decides to give it a go. It is at this point that Miss Owers realises that she feels horrible when she is with Michael and decides that it is best that she just left anyway. Later on Michael is left with Fluffy, and they go for a walk, where they see a horse which Fluffy dislikes. On the way Fluffy finds a tractor that was left on the floor, and as this is happening Michael is on the phone to his mother who is telling him that Fabrizio was mugged by some youths on mopeds. Michael feels empty and lonely, until he realises that Fluffy was always there for him and he should have been a lot more like Fluffy and just enjoy the simple things. The dust particle then goes on to narrate how perfect everything was in that one moment. The story ends with Michael and Fluffy walking away with the tractor. After the story ends, there is a short sketch between the dust particle and a flake of dandruff. They explain what happens between the other characters after the story is over. Rosetta and Fabrizio become much closer after the accident. Miss Owers discovers a new independence through traveling. Joe and Alice spend quality time together, and they receive a letter from David, telling them that they have a grandson. Finally, Sylvia has found happiness as she broke her leg and the nurse who looked after her was kind to her and looked after her. |
What We Believe But Cannot Prove: Today's Leading Thinkers on Science in the Age of Certainty | John Brockman | 2,006 | The essays cover a broad range of topics, including evolution, the workings of the human mind, and science itself. A common focus of responders are the issue of extra-terrestrial life and the question of whether humanity has a supranatural element beyond flesh and blood. Among the more esoteric topics is the question of cockroach consciousness. A pervasive theme, according to Publishers Weekly, is the discomfort responders felt in professing unproven beliefs, which Publishers Weekly declared "an interesting reflection of the state of science". The question inspired implicit or explicit reflection in a number of responders about the scientific method's reliance on observable, empirical and measurable evidence, with a good many of what The Observer points out as largely American responders defending against "a return to an age of uncertainty in which creationism and intelligent design hold sway in the public mind". "What's really at stake here", Wired said in its review, "is the nature of 'proof' itself". |
Freaks: Alive on the Inside | Annette Curtis Klause | 2,006 | The story is of a young man, Abel Dandy, who is born in a freak show to his "freak" parents. Growing up normally in a world of oddities is hard for Abel, for he wishes for some type of oddness to enable him to fit it. A departing pair of Siamese twins gives Abel a ring from ancient Egypt that seems to have been made for him. Soon he begins to have dreams of a mysterious dancing girl calling for him. Abel leaves the show at the dead of night to find his fortune only to be followed by Apollo, the dog-boy. A chain of events lead off to Abel finding what he most desired, and a lesson that preaches: freak or not, we're all human. |
Lust, Caution | Eileen Chang | null | In China, during the Japanese occupation in World War II, a young student and former actress named Wong Chia Chi has agreed to be the central figure in the assassination of a Japanese collaborator, Yee. Using the alias of Mak Tai Tai (Mrs. Mak) and the fictional Mr. Mak, Chia Chi befriends Mr. Yee's wife, Yee Tai Tai, and eventually seduces her husband in order to kill him. However, she falls in love with him and just before her comrades try to kill him, she warns him. He escapes and has the whole group executed, including Wong Chia Chi. |
Emily Climbs | Lucy Maud Montgomery | 1,925 | Emily Byrd Starr longs to attend Queen's Academy to earn her teaching license, but her tradition-bound relatives at New Moon refuse. She is instead offered the chance to go to Shrewsbury High School with her friends, on two conditions. The first is that she board with her disliked Aunt Ruth, but it is the second that causes Emily difficulties. Emily must not write a word during her high-school education. At first, Emily refuses the offer, unable to contemplate a life without any writing. Cousin Jimmy changes the condition slightly, saying that she cannot write a word of "fiction". Emily does not think this much of an improvement but it turns out to be an excellent exercise for her budding writing career. Although Emily clashes with Aunt Ruth and Evelyn Blake, the school's would-be writer, she starts to develop her powers of storytelling. Through a series of adventures, Emily is furnished with materials to write stories and poems, and even sees success with the short story "The Woman Who Spanked the King." In the meantime, Emily also begins to see romantic possibilities for her life. She and Teddy Kent draw closer, but due to misunderstandings and interference from Teddy's mother, the romance stalls. Emily also refuses a proposal from Perry Miller, and continues her long-lasting friendship with Dean Priest. At the end of the novel, Emily, now a budding young writer, chooses to remain at her beloved New Moon rather than leaving for New York with famous writer Janet Royal. |
The Stuff of Thought | Steven Pinker | 2,007 | Pinker argues that language provides a window into human nature, and that "analyzing language can reveal what people are thinking and feeling." He asserts that language must do two things: # convey a message to an audience, and # negotiate the social relationship between the speaker and the audience. Therefore, language functions at these two levels at all times. For example, a common-place statement such as "If you could pass the salt, that would be great" functions both as a request (though formally not a request) and as a means of being polite or non-offensive (through not directing the audience to overt demands). Pinker says of this example: Through this lens, Pinker asks questions such as "What does the peculiar syntax of swearing tell us about ourselves?" Or put another way, "Just what does the 'fuck' in 'fuck you' actually mean?", - as discussed in the chapter The Seven Words You Can't Say on Television. The arguments contained within ride on the backs of his previous works, which paint human nature as having "distinct and universal properties, some of which are innate – determined at birth by genes rather than shaped primarily by environment." |
Colonization: Down to Earth | Harry Turtledove | 2,000 | Following the nuclear attack on the colonist ships in Second Contact, the Race continues to try to find the responsible nation, along with the purpose of the Lewis and Clark, a large space station launched by the United States. At the same time, the range animals brought by the Race's colonists begin to spread into the human nations, causing ecological trouble and causing conflicts between them. In Nazi Germany, Heinrich Himmler, the Führer, dies and is replaced by Ernst Kaltenbrunner. Kaltenbrunner, angered by the policy of accommodation Himmler carried out towards the Race, including his refusal to invade Race-occupied Poland, causes him to initiate a nuclear war between Germany and the Race. |
Colonization: Aftershocks | Harry Turtledove | 2,001 | The nuclear war between Nazi Germany and the Race ends with a German surrender after Ernst Kaltenbrunner, the Führer, is killed and replaced by Walter Dornberger. Dornberger agrees to disband the Axis Forces, withdraw German troops from occupied France, and disband the German rocket and nuclear forces. The German withdrawal results in instability in the governments of its allies, such as the British Union of Fascists in Britain, as well as clashes between the Free French Forces and the new government of liberated France, and radioactive drift into the Soviet Union. However, Dornberger secretly begins stockpiling weapons and missile parts, allowing Germany the option to rearm itself in the future. Meanwhile, the nuclear attack on the Race's colony fleet from Second Contact is finally revealed: it was an American attack, ordered by Earl Warren. When it is revealed, Fleetlord Atvar gives Warren a choice: dismantle the American space program, or allow the Race to nuke Indianapolis for revenge. To the surprise of all, Warren allows the Race to destroy Indianapolis, and then commits suicide, with Vice President Harold Stassen taking over. It is eventually stated that the reason Warren allowed the city to be destroyed over the space program was that the Americans were working on a starship that would allow them to journey to the Race's homeworld and repay their visit to Earth. During this time, the Race itself undergoes large social unrest, due to the effects of ginger on their females. Drug addiction, the black market, and prostitution all arise from it, along with a reproductive system that is unregulated, much like that of humans. |
The Conch Bearer | Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni | 2,003 | Anand is a twelve-year-old boy who lives in modern India. A believer in fairy tales and magic, he used to go to school until his family could no longer afford to pay for his lessons. His father had left two years before the start of the story. His sister, Meera, on the other hand, had been hurt mentally when she witnessed a murder. Thus, Anand and his mother had been forced to work. Anand has been employed by a tea shop owner, Haru, who is frequently displeased with Anand's work and pays very little. One day, the shop was visited by an old man, whom Haru assumes to be a beggar. Ordered to take the beggar out of Haru's shop, Anand gently guides the old man out and, feeling sympathetic, gives the old man his lunch of stale pooris and weak tea. Later that night, Anand find the old man at his door. The man, who introduces himself as Abhaydatta, tells his story of a group of Healers, known as the brotherhood, who wield magic in a place called the Silver Valley, hidden deep within the Himalayas. He also reveals that a powerful magical item, the Conch, has been stolen from the brotherhood by one of its members, Surabhanu. This resulted in the weakening of the Brotherhood, thus, they sent four pairs of Healers to search for the conch. Abhaydatta and his partner have, indeed, retrieved the conch, however, his partner died buying Abhaydatta time to escape from Surabhanu. Abhaydatta asks Anand for help in his journey back to the Silver Valley. He revealed that it is Anand's belief in magic that drew Abhaydatta and the Conch to Kolkata. Sensing Anand's hesitation, Abhaydatta healed Meera. However, Anand's mother arrived and, finding no visible effect on Meera, ordered Abhaydatta out of the house, despite Anand's protests. Abhaydatta left, informing them where he will be and what time he will leave, with or without Anand. The next morning, Anand was awakened by Meera's voice; she was cured during the night and was able to speak normally again. His mother gave her consent and let Anand go. Unfortunately, for Anand, Abhaydatta had already left. Anand meets Nisha, a girl sweeping in front of a soft drinks stall, who tells him she knows where Abhaydatta will be waiting. After Anand reluctantly agrees to let her come, she leads him to the train station. There, they ran into Surabhanu, disguised as a wealthy passenger. He manages to hold the struggling children until a mysterious candy vendor helps them escape. Outside the station, they meet a blind beggar woman who, after receiving alms from Anand, points the two children in the direction of the meeting point where Anand and Nisha finally find Abhaydatta. The Healer was initially disapproving of Nisha but relented, nonetheless. The three started on their journey towards the Silver Valley. Along the way, Abhaydatta told the children of the journey ahead and what to do if they get separated from him. He told of the dangers they will face and the three trials they will have to pass before reaching the Silver Valley. Abhaydatta also secretly entrusted the Conch to Anand; Surabhanu would not expect the Healer to trust the Conch to a boy. Surabhanu, however, caught up to the three. In the duel that ensued, Anand and Nisha escaped but Abhaydatta has mysteriously vanished. As they journeyed, Anand began hearing the conch talk to him and respond to his thoughts. It reveals to Anand that it will allow itself to be used only after all human solutions have been exhausted. A mongoose also joins the two children, saving them from trouble a few times along the way and earning Nisha's appreciation. They finally reach the first trial of the Brotherhood: a raging river none of them can cross. The mongoose, however, steps into the river, which stilled as the animal and the two children made their way across. Upon reaching the second trial, an enchanted rocky pass, Anand was forced to decide between going on alone or staying with Nisha. A bit of ingenious thinking allowed both of them to cross the pass, however, Nisha was injured badly. Unfortunately, Surabhanu caught up to the two children in the form of a red snake. He reveals that Nisha had been under his control since their encounter at the train station. Surabhanu orders her to smash Anand's head with a rock but the mongoose, which had been Abhaydatta all along, fought with Surabhanu. The mongoose was defeated, which pained Nisha and caused her to betray Surabhanu. The conch finally allows Anand to use it, defeating Surabhanu in a wave of fire. Anand arrives at the gate to the Silver Valley. There, in the final trial, he was made to choose between glory in the Silver Valley or his friends. Giving up the conch, he chose to remain with an injured Nisha and a mongoose Abhaydatta. The Brotherhood declares that he has passed the final test, the trial within his mind, and welcomes Anand, Nisha and Abhaydatta into the Silver Valley. With the Conch restored in the Valley, Abhaydatta was restored to his human form and, with some help from Anand and Nisha, his mind was also turned back from that of a mongoose into his old self. Nisha was inducted as a novice, the first female member of the Brotherhood, which made Anand wonder why the Brotherhood did not invite him to join them. Abhaydatta talks to Anand and reveals that, unlike Anand, Nisha has no family. Thus, it was Anand who had to choose between the Brotherhood or his family which had just found Anand's father and he was imprisoned for a crime he did not comit. Anand chose to stay with the Brotherhood so the Healers made his family forget he had ever been a part of their lives. Anand, however, was not allowed to forget them for, as a Healer, he should remember the pain and what he had given up for the Brotherhood. Anand was then inducted not just as a novice but also as the titular Conch Bearer. |
The Family of Pascual Duarte | Camilo José Cela | 1,942 | The first-person narrator-protagonist Pascual Duarte, while awaiting execution in the condemned cell, tells the story of his family life and his homicidal past, culminating in matricide. He claims, amongst other things, that Fate is controlling his life and whatever he does it will never change. The book could be said to explore a Spanish version of Existentialism (known as tremendismo). Like Albert Camus' L'étranger Pascual is seen by society as an outsider, unable or unwilling to follow its norms. His autobiographical tale shows some of the tremendously harsh peasant reality of rural Spain up to the beginning of the Franco regime. |
Omertà | Mario Puzo | 2,000 | The book begins with the death of Don Zeno in Sicily. Don Zeno left his infant son, Astorre, with Don Raymonde Aprile. Don Aprile lives in New York, where he is known as a fair but merciless Mafia head. Aprile is a widower who does not want his children to follow him in illicit business. To save them, he sends them to private boarding schools and only sees them on holidays. Astorre is the favorite of his children, Aprile considering him his nephew, and Astorre is picked as the one who must protect the family after Aprile dies. Aprile decides to take Astorre, a young and bright child, to Sicily one summer. One day while the Don and Astorre are walking the streets of Sicily, a small cosca kidnaps them. The captors treat the Don and Astorre well, but they want a ransom. Aprile warns the kidnappers to let him go. "The rest of your lives will be miserable if you do not." The cosca does not realize how powerful Aprile is. In the middle of the night, Bianco, a friend of the Don, rescues Aprile and Astorre. Aprile wants to kill the kidnappers, but Astorre asks him not to. Aprile gives in, but makes the men his loyal servants. When Astorre turns 16, he has a romantic affair with Nicole, the Don's youngest child and only daughter. Aprile orders the boy to move to London, to attend college and stop the affair. Nicole is upset by this, but Astorre obeys his uncle without argument. Astorre stays in London for a year with Mr. Pryor, a banker friend of the Don, and then returns to Sicily, staying for ten years and serving under Don Bianco, an old friend and protector of Aprile. During his time in London, he meets a young woman named Rosie, with whom he begins a romantic relationship, which he continues during his time in Sicily, until he finds out that she has not been faithful to him. When Astorre comes back, having completed his training, Aprile decides it is time to retire from his dangerous business. He settles all his accounts and pays off all of his associates keeping only his ten international banks, which are completely legitimate. Aprile instructs Astorre that when he dies the banks should not be sold. Aprile writes in his will that Astorre owns 51% of all voting stock in the bank, with the Don's children owning the rest. The interests from the bank will go to Astorre and the children evenly. In the meanwhile, Aprile starts a macaroni importing business for Astorre. Valerius, Aprile's oldest son, invites his family to his son's communion. After the communion commences two men execute Aprile in a drive-by shooting. Without any public authorities securing the area, the killers are able to escape and, in spite of Aprile's power, there is no subsequent investigation into his death. Timmona Portella, controlling the only significant criminal organization remaining in New York, along with his international partners, tries to negotiate with the Don's children and Astorre to purchase the banks from them in order to launder drug money. However, Astorre, holding the majority share, consistently declines their offers, following the Don's instructions and claiming that he has found a love for the banking industry. At first, Aprile's children want to be as removed as possible and want to sell the banks thinking Astorre naive and innocent due to his good-natured and friendly demeanor, and while baffled that their father left him the majority share, want to protect him. As time passes, though, they come to see that their father had meant for his banks to secure their futures in their respective careers, and that they had done so thus far, with Valerius a high-ranking military officer, Marcantonio a prolific TV producer, and Nicole a successful lawyer in a prominent law firm. They also start to see that there is more to their "cousin" than they thought, and begin to suspect the reason why Aprile left him in charge. Drawing upon his years of training, Astorre methodically seeks each of the people responsible for the death of his uncle and had been trying to get control of his banks, consulting old friends of Aprile for advice. At times during these consultations, the friends suggest selling the banks to avoid all the trouble that Astorre is going through even to stay alive, but are impressed when he politely rejects the idea, seeing in him determination and strength that they themselves lacked. Astorre finds each of the people involved in Aprile's murder, from the hitmen to those who ordered the attack, and is able to eliminate them without detection by the authorities. Two years later, Nicole has taken over as general manager of the banks, and her brothers are working on a film for TV recounting the life of their father, with Astorre as a consultant to help them with some of the details. Astorre eventually decides to move to Sicily permanently, and there marries Rosie, They have their first child, whom they name Raymonde Zeno, after Astorre's two fathers, and they consider the day that they will bring their son back to America. |
The Good Companions | John Boynton Priestley | 1,929 | The novel is written in picaresque style, and opens with the middle aged, discontented Jess Oakroyd in the fictional Yorkshire town of Bruddersford. He opts to leave his family and seek adventure "on t'road" (throughout the novel Priestley uses dialect for all non-RP speakers of English). He heads south down the Great North Road. Intertwined with the story of Oakroyd's travels are those of Elizabeth Trant and Inigo Jollifant, two similarly malcontented individuals. Miss Trant is an upper-middle class spinster and Jollifant is a teacher at a down-at-heel private school. All three ultimately encounter each other when a failing concert troupe ('The Dinky Doos') are disbanding as a result of their manager running off with the takings. The independently wealthy Miss Trant, against the advice of her relatives, decides to refloat the troupe, now known as 'The Good Companions'. Inigo plays piano, Oakroyd is the odd-job man, and other assorted characters including members of the original troupe: including Jimmy Nunn, Jerry Jerningham and Susie Dean, along with Mr Morton Mitcham (a travelling banjo player whom Inigo met earlier on his own odyssey) have various adventures round the shires of middle England. After a sabotaged performance, the troupe disband: Jerry marries Lady Partlit, a fan; Susie and Inigo become successful and famous in London; Miss Trant gets married to a long lost sweetheart; Jess Oakroyd emigrates to Canada and the other performers carry on with their life on the road. |
The Disinherited | null | null | Monkey Nest Camp The Disinherited is heard through the voice of Larry Donovan, a young boy, growing up in the Monkey Nest coal mine camp. It is a difficult life, and after Larry’s brother Dan starts working in the mines, Larry’s father prods Larry to do well in school so he too won’t have to go into the mines. Larry makes many observations about the differences between miner families and other families, especially farmer Ben Haskins and his daughter Bonny Fern. Larry throws a dirt clod at Bonny Fern’s head one day and the next tries to give her a flower. She calls him “camp trash” and Ben chases Larry away. Larry also distinguishes differences between the miners themselves. His father and his father’s friend, “Frenchy” are both educated. So is Lionel Stafford, but Larry’s father doesn’t get along with Mr. Stafford. Lionel flaunts his education whereas Larry’s father does not. One day the mine owner, Edward Stacpoole, comes to the mine with his wife and son. The son pushes Larry’s sister, Madge, into a mud puddle and taunts her. Dan is hurt in a mining accident and dies three days later. Frenchy also dies in a separate mining accident. The camp miner’s go on strike, and Larry’s father meets unsuccessfully with Mr. Stacpoole to negotiate. One night during a storm a scab knocks on the Donovan’s door seeking shelter. Tom punches the scab in the mouth and sends him away. Tom tells his children never to become scabs. Eventually, the miners go back to work. Aunt Jessie comes to take Larry to the house of a dead man; she asks Larry if Rollie Weems ever talks about her. Larry says that he does but plays innocent. At the dead man’s house, Aunt Jessie forces Larry to touch the man’s face. Afterwards, Larry suffers nightmares about the dead man. Larry’s father takes a more dangerous job within the mine in order to make more money to pay for Larry’s schooling. However, there is an accident while Mike Riordan and Tom are in the mine. Larry’s father dies, and without an income Mother begins to take in others’ laundry. One of Mother’s customers is the butcher’s wife, Mrs. Koch, who is very particular about her laundry. Larry stains a load of her clothing and Mother takes the blame. Rollie Weems leaves town after rumors start that he got Mattie Perkins pregnant. Mike Riordan, who had disappeared following Tom’s funeral, reappears and periodically leaves groceries on the Donovan’s porch. When the mine goes on strike again, the superintendent approaches Mother about cooking for the strikebreakers; Mother refuses on principle. Rollie Weems returns to say he has gotten work at a railroad; since Larry is of working age now, Rollie recommends that Larry get a job at the railroad also. Bull Market Larry starts going to night school and also gets a job at the railroad, where he becomes friends with Ed Warren. Ed introduces Larry to Wilma and Larry has his first experience with sex, which he reacts to with disgust. American involvement with World War I begins. Rollie Weems enlists and marries Aunt Jessie before going on tour. A baby is born to the newlyweds while he is France. A man speaks in the town square denouncing war and capitalism. Lionel Stafford joins in and the crowd attacks the two men, beating them very badly. Afterwards the Stafford’s leave town defeated. During this time Madge dies. Ed enlists after making several attempts to join the army. Larry stays away from the war he calls “cruel.” Ed sends Bonny Fern letters, and she approaches Larry to ask about Ed. When the soldiers return from war, the railroad goes on strike. Ed returns and moves to Detroit with the Haskins. Rollie emerges as a leader in the strike. During a conversation between him and Larry, he propounds the advantages of staying single. Larry listens and seems to remember Rollie’s advice throughout the narrative. One evening, Rollie starts a fight with a strikebreaker and is shot. He tells Larry to pretend the fight hadn’t happened. Rollie crashes his car into a streetlight and dies. After Rollie’s death, Larry gets a job at a steel mill which begins a series, throughout the novel, of Larry getting and losing jobs. At the steel mill, Larry meets several people, including an old man the workers call “Bun” Grady. Grady is homeless and unable to get many jobs because of his age. Larry rooms at the home of Nat Moore. Nat’s wife Lena is sickly and often places Larry in uncomfortable situations. Larry finds a job at the rubber plant and meets Hans, a German worker, and Jasper, a prankster of sorts. Larry dates Helen, the lunch girl. Larry receives many letters from Ed in Detroit encouraging him to move to Detroit. Ed finally accepts the offer, along with Jasper and Nat, after Lena dies. Nat has also been remarried to Emma, his former cleaning lady, though he plans to send for her after he gets a job. Larry rooms with the Haskins and gets a job at the auto factory. Bonny Fern now takes college classes and Larry takes note of how the classes and the city have affected her. She influences him in the proletarian movement. Getting word that Helen is in Detroit, Larry follows her to a whorehouse that is disguised as a lunch counter. He requests Helen who has become a prostitute. She shares her feelings about him, and mildly drunk, Larry reacts oddly. There is a scene and Larry is thrown out. Nat has sent for his family and has bought a plot of land to build a house on. However he doesn’t yet have enough money to build. In the meantime, he begins making homebrew which upsets Emma. Bonny Fern also expresses disgust when Larry drinks. The Hard Winter The Stock Market crashes and men from the auto factory are laid off. Ed and Larry bounce from job to job. The Haskins decide to go back to the farm, though the decision distresses Bonny Fern. After being gone for some time, Bonny Fern sends Larry a letter detailing his mother’s poor living conditions. Larry and Ed buy a car and head to Monkey Nest Camp. The car is a clunker, and the boys must get jobs to pay for repairs. When they reach the camp, they find Mother, Aunt Jessie, and the kids nearly starved and living in Liam Ryan’s old barroom. Larry is shocked at the physical degeneration of his once pretty Aunt Jessie and his mother. After fixing a leaky roof and buying the family groceries, Ed and Larry look for work. While lying pipeline they meet a half-wit who they deduce to be Willy Stafford. It seems his once uppity older brother, Paul Stafford, has been buried alive working in the pipeline ditch. Bonny Fern is friendly with Larry but he recalls again the advice of Rollie and keeps his distance. In conversation, Mother tells Larry to be a fighter like his father was. Nat and his family show up, as does Hans. Ben Haskin’s farm is repossessed and is set to be sold piece by piece in an auction. Well-meaning farmers come to the auction and refuse to bid. Hans and a sheriff get involved. Eventually one farmer sells the farm and goods back to Ben Haskins for 99 cents. Larry decides to go West with Hans. Mother and Bonny Fern wave good-bye as the Moore family, Hans, Ed, and Larry drive off. |
The Tragedy of the Korosko | Arthur Conan Doyle | null | A group of European tourists are enjoying their trip to Egypt in the year 1895. They are sailing up the River Nile in a "a turtle-bottomed, round-bowed stern-wheeler", the Korosko. They intend to travel to Abousir at the southern frontier of Egypt, after which the Dervish country starts. They are attacked and abducted by a marauding band of Dervish warriors. The novel contains a strong defence of British Imperialism and in particular the Imperial project in North Africa. It also reveals the very great suspicion of Islam felt by many Europeans at the time. |
Vampirates: Blood Captain | Justin Somper | 2,008 | With a cast of unforgettable characters and a pace that never lets up the third Vampirates adventure is Grace and Connor’s most spectacular voyage so far. For Connor these are testing times aboard the Diablo and he finds himself crossing a line from which there is no return. Grace also faces danger as she travels with Lorcan to Sanctuary, a place of healing presided over by Vampirate guru, Mosh Zu. |
Vikings of the Gloves | Robert E. Howard | 1,932 | Having docked in Yokohama and looking for a boxing match to raise money, Costigan and the crew of the Sea Girl find that the only fight club in town is booked up with Swedes vs. Danes matches because the whaling fleet is in port as well. Luck seems to come, however, when the Swedish sailor Dirck "The Gotland Giant" Jacobsen breaks his wrist and a replacement is needed quickly for the match against the Danish sailor Hakon Torkilsen that night. The crew try to pass of Costigan as a Swede called Lars Ivarson. The club owner does not believe the ruse but has no other option. The fight goes ahead, although the crowd is unconvinced as well. Further complications soon arise. The first complication is that the match referee turns out to be a man Costigan knocked out earlier in the day for attempting to kick his dog Mike. He knows who Costigan is and tells him he'll reveal everything at the end of the match, at which point the crowd will turn on Costigan for intruding on a Scandinavian matter. The second complication emerges soon after the match starts. A rival captain got the Sea Girl's captain drunk and tricked him into betting the Sea Girl on Hakon Torkilsen to win and signing a contract as proof. Despite the captain's pleas, Costigan refuses to throw the fight, both for himself, for his ship mates who have bet everything on him, and for the Swedes that he is now representing. The fight continues regardless and Hakon turns out to be an equal for Costigan. The complications distract Costigan and render his performance uneven. He is knocked down several times. The problem of the bet is resolved when the rival captain, Gid Jessup, gets too near the ring while Costigan has almost been knocked out of it. Costigan grabs the contract, the only proof of the bet, and begins to eat it. Jessup tries to retrieve it, but Swedes in the audience, thinking he is trying to interfere with their boxer, attack him. Free of that problem, Costigan decides to fight to the finish regardless of the referee's threat. This too is solved quite soon after when, in the confusion of the fight, the referee accidentally starts to count Costigan out in Spanish (having only used Swedish, Danish and Norwegian so far). Costigan realises that he isn't Scandinavian, either, and the referee admits that he is an American vaudeville linguist called John Jones who took the job because he needed the money. Costigan and Hakon fight savagely but Hakon eventually collapses in a corner and cannot get up again. The Swedish captain celebrates with Costigan and, after the match they have seen, does not mind that he clearly is not one of his countrymen. |
Red Orc's Rage | Philip José Farmer | 1,991 | Jim Grimson is a troubled youth undergoing therapy in a psychiatric hospital who is encouraged to role-play Red Orc, a character in a science fiction novel. Jim finds himself actually transported to the fictional World of Tiers, entering the mind and body of the character he role-played in the hospital. In the World of Tiers Red Orc/Jim struggles with an abusive father, a situation mirroring his real-world problems The character has Oedipal issues with his father, an unemployed crane operator in the fictional "Belmont City", somewhere near Youngstown, Ohio. The steel mills are closing permanently and the family is facing a bleak economic future. Jim struggles with class-issues at his high-school. In academics, athletics, and student society he is a non-achiever, recapitulating his father's position in the adult world. His only outlets are science fiction, the fantasies invented by his grandfather and some bizarre hallucination which occasionally intrude into his world. After a prank with an outhouse goes awry, Jim is arrested. He appears in court and is ordered to undergo a course of psychiatric evaluation and treatment in Wellington Hospital. While there he comes under the care of Dr. R. Lars Porsena. (This name is a play on "A. James Giannini". In most of Farmer's novels the protagonist's name or initials are a play on his or his collaborator's name). Dr. Porsena is also a science-fiction fan. After a conversation with Jim, he invites him to join a projective therapy group. This group is focusing on the "World of Tiers" series. After joining this group and participating in some sessions, Jim gains an insight. He realizes that hallucinations glimpsed prior to his admission are of the World of Tiers. Shortly afterwords he projects himself into the mind of the fictional lord, Red Orc. Throughout the remainder of the novel, Jim has multiple adventures in this lord's mind. He wanders through a universe filled with Freudian symbols and Jungian archetypes. He learns that Red Orc's father, the appropriately named (qv. William Blake) "Los", fears his son and attempts to prevent him from becoming lord of Los's universe. He imprisons him and attempts to suffocate him with jewels. He exiles him to a world where escape can only be had through narrow tunnels guarded by hairy spiders. During these adventures Red Orc is separately seduced by his mother and aunt. He also has sex with twenty of his sisters. During many of these adventures he is assisted by "Ijim". Ijim, his alter-ego, may or may not exist. During his adventures he is able to ride the totemic "white steed". While he is involved primarily in Red Orc's struggles, he must also deal with his own conflicts on earth. As a result of a frame-up Jim is almost expelled from the hospital and Dr. Porsena's position jeopardized. The conflict is resolved, in part, through insights Jim has gained while occupying the mind of Red Orc. During this time Ijim dies but Red Orc defeats Los and eats his testicles. The novel ends with Jim being discharged from Wellesley Hospital. His family situation has improved. He realizes that Dr. Porsena knows more about the worlds of Red Orc than that which could be obtained through his own sessions or from the books. He also realizes that some things are ultimately unknowable. An Afterword follows the text. This section is written by Dr. Giannini. It traces the origins of projective therapy and explains the technique. The utility of the World of Tiers for this purpose is discussed. This novel follows many Western traditions. Like Dante Alighieri in the Divine Comedy Jim travels with a companion who is unable to complete the journey. He enters a place of terror and wonder where punishment awaits those who violate a specific code. The novel is also a Bildungsroman, a coming-of-age novel in the German literary tradition. The protagonist must complete a journey of self and undergo loss to achieve adulthood, The Oedipal implications are quite obvious. Finally, this science-fiction novel takes its inspiration from the works of the English poet William Blake. Most of the characters in the alternative universe are found in the poetry and prose of Blake. Indeed Blake does make an appearance as a character in a later "Tiers" novel. |
The Monster Bed | Jeanne Willis | 1,986 | The introduction starts the book in the setting of a small picnic of a human and his dog. The human is apparently telling the reader to not venture into the Withering Wood, a forest of trees rumored to have legendary creatures such as "hairy trolls, nasty gnomes, and scary pixies and fairies." The book then changes setting into inside the forest, where we see a small monster named Dennis and his mother, showing that Dennis was very polite for a young monster. It describes Dennis's fear of humans, which leads to the next part of the book. Dennis screams and shouts he will not go to bed. The mother, surprised at this sudden fear of bed, asks why. Dennis explains that he is afraid of humans. He says humans will "creep under my monster bed while I'm asleep." Dennis's mother is not convinced of her son's story and tries to persuade Dennis to fall asleep. She gives Dennis his teddy bear and also says she will not turn off the light. She begins to kiss Dennis, but Dennis reacts and bites her on the nose. Dennis's mother then promises her son that the humans won't get him. She then readies him for bed. However, Dennis concludes he will sleep under his bed so the humans will not be able to find him. As Dennis falls asleep, a young boy skips school and ventures into the Withering Wood to hide (presumably from his parents). He walks deep into the woods so that he comes upon Dennis's and his mother's cave. Not knowing where he is, he walks into the cave for rest. He then decides to sleep. He finds Dennis's bedroom and decides to sleep on the bed. He changes into his night clothes and begins to fall asleep. However, the boy was afraid of monsters. With the absence of his mother, he checks under the bed himself, and to his surprise, he finds Dennis. Both Dennis and the young boy run away. The book then explains not to misbehave and how it would feel if Dennis's mother would tell the reader if humans were not real. |
Thirty-Three Teeth | Colin Cotterill | null | When the Malay Black bear vanishes from its cage in the zoo garden of Vientiane’s Lan Xang Hotel very few people are surprised to see mauled bodies turning up in the morgue. Very few that is, apart from Dr. Siri Phaiboun the only coroner in the Lao People’s Republic. Seventy-two year old Siri and his team are convinced something just doesn’t add up. In Luang Prabang, meanwhile, plans are afoot to finally rid the country of its royal heritage. The new socialist government is about to send the royal family to a re-education camp and exorcise the spirits of the old kings. Siri is sent to the historic capital to solve two mysteries: what killed a man found on a crumpled bicycle, and what caused the deaths of two bodies charred beyond recognition and missing their feet? What is so important that a military helicopter should be provided to whisk him north at a moment’s notice? Once there, Siri calls on his spiritual connections to help solve these cases. But he reawakens the souls of the phibob, the malevolent ghosts still seeking revenge on the doctor for past misdeeds. He enlists the help of the royal shaman and finally learns the true intentions of the phibob and of his own distinguished dynasty. Before he can return to his work he has to survive the phibob attempt on his life, unmask the betrayer of the king and argue his own defense against charges of treachery. With Siri out of town, it is left to Dtui his nursing assistant to investigate the killings in Vientiane. She has her first unpleasant encounter with a Russian circus trainer, gets access to secret Party files, and soon becomes the only person in Laos arguing against the death warrant on the old Malay bear. But whilst searching for who or whatever it is murdering women and draining them of their blood, Dtui disappears. With the moon full, and three victims already on the morgue slab, Dr. Siri has four hours to find his assistant before she becomes the fourth. |
The Coroner's Lunch | Colin Cotterill | 2,004 | Despite a total lack of training, an utter dearth of experience and a complete absence of inclination, Dr. Siri Paiboun has just been appointed state coroner for the Lao People's Democratic Republic. It's 1976, the royal family has been deposed, the professional classes have fled and the communists have taken over. And 72-year-old Siri - a communist for convenience and a wry old reprobate by nature - has got the coroner's job because he's the only doctor left in Laos. But when the wife of a Party leader is wheeled into the morgue and the bodies of tortured Vietnamese soldiers start bobbing to the surface of a Laotian lake, all eyes turn to the new coroner. Faced with official cover-ups and an emerging international crisis, Siri will be forced to enlist old friends, tribal shamans, forensic deduction, spiritual acumen and some good old-fashioned sleuthing before he can discover quite what's going on... |
Pool and its Role in Asian Communism | null | null | 1970: Waldo Monk is black, 65, a widower and two months from retirement from Roundly's Pool and Billiard factory in Indiana. Saifon is a Lao-American girl who arrived in the USA under mysterious circumstances when she was a child. She pretty much hates everyone, and for good reason. It's Waldo's unenviable task to train her up to take over his job. He can't stand her and she shows little aptitude for the ball business. But over his final months, they come to an understanding, maybe even a fondness for each other. Two disasters in Waldo's life turn all his plans upside down. Somehow, he and his dead wife, Aretha end up adopting Saifon. Against Saifon's wishes, her new dad follows her to Southeast Asia as a minder. While trying to solve the mystery of Saifon's past, they become entangled in the confusion of the region: the Air America bombing, the Lao Socialist movement, the CIA, the Thai Communists, and a network of smuggling war profiteers. With the help of a CIA agent, they set about breaking down the network of traffickers still smuggling war orphans out of Laos. During this exciting period, Saifon takes a job as a cabaret singer in a whorehouse, and Waldo manages to get himself shot, and kidnapped. By drawing on his factory experience, he's able to steer the kidnappers in a more profitable direction. Saifon traces the traffickers through to Bangkok. Even though it seems they've cornered them, everything comes down to a high profile court case, and Saifon lying her head off to give the bad guys what's coming to them. At the airport before the journey back to the States, both Saifon and Waldo realize they have nothing to go back for. So they return to Laos, and stay there. Saifon makes an effort to regain some semblance of Lao-ness, and Waldo works part time at the Air America Commissary in Udon. Their lives are finally content and they seem to have discovered some purpose. But then, in 1975, the American troops pull out of Vietnam and Socialist forces take over in Laos. Waldo suddenly becomes the enemy. All they've worked for is about to crumble. But they're shocked to discover that contacts they'd made earlier weren't all they seemed. One of them, a quiet guy Waldo used to play pool with, turns out to be Souphanouvong, the Red Prince, and Laos' first communist president. So with the blessing of the party, Waldo and Saifon settle in the south of Laos and run a home for kids. And there they stay until Waldo, now in his nineties, decides it's time to go home and be with Aretha. The story is written from the perspective of an undisclosed person who got to know the pair later in their lives. With a basic grasp of English, this narrator describes their story in colloquial spoken American. |
The Four-Gated City | Doris Lessing | null | The series Children of Violence develops the central character, Martha Quest, from her birth in Southern Africa at the end of the First World War, through an adolescence, youth and marriage shaped by the Second World War. The Four-Gated City is set in Post-War Britain. Martha is in London as the 1950s begin. She is integrally part of the social history of the time - the Cold War, the Aldermaston Marches, Swinging London, the deepening of poverty and social anarchy. The volume ends with the century in the grip of World War Three. In the year 1997, Martha dies on a contaminated island off the northwest coast of Scotland. Most of the people of Britain have died before her, in 1978, of multiple afflictions: bubonic plague, nerve gases, nuclear explosions. |
Hero | Perry Moore | 2,007 | Thom Creed is a high school basketball star, who has a tendency for getting into trouble. His mother abandoned the family several years ago, and his father Hal, a publicly disgraced ex-superhero, now works as a lowly factory worker. During a basketball game, Thom recognizes one of the players from the opposing team as Goran, a guy who Thom once accidentally made a racist remark to. Goran ends up breaking his own leg, and Thom is able to heal his injuries by touching them with his hands. He explains that he has done this before, but doesn't know why. When he resumes playing, another guy calls him a faggot in front of everyone. After the game, Thom has a seizure, something that is most likely related to absorbing Goran's injuries, and ends up getting his license taken away. During the summer, Thom's coach tells him that it would be better if he no longer plays for the team. He initially says it's because of his health, but Thom knows better. When he get's home, he takes his father's laptop and decides to look at porn. Thom explains that he has always been attracted to guys, but is afraid to come out due to living in a homophobic town. While masturbating to a picture of local superhero Uberman, Hal comes home to get ready for his real estate class. Thom quickly straightens things up, but doesn't have enough time to erase his history on the computer. When his father does leave, Thom decides to run away from home. When he falls asleep on the bus, he becomes mixed up in a battle between some villains and The League. He also encounters a mysterious man known as Dark Hero, who works alone. Thom ends up using his powers yet again, and gets an invitation to try out for one the minor leagues. When he get's home, he discovers that Hal's former colleague Captain Victory has died. He immediately decides never to tell his father about the tryouts. Thom is accepted as a trainee, and assigned to work with a group of other probationary heroes. The group consists of Ruth, an aging psychic, Scarlett, who can control heat, and Larry, who has the ability to morph into any disease. The stress of keeping so many secrets from his father exacts a painful toll. Soon, however, the world's superheroes begin dying under mysterious circumstances. In order to solve the mystery, Thom must reunite with his fellow outcast trainees and deal as well with society's prejudices when his secrets are revealed. |
The Tide Knot | Helen Dunmore | 2,006 | Sapphire, Conor, and their mum have moved to St Pirans with Roger, leaving behind their cottage by the sea, where their dad disappeared two years ago. Conor has adapted to this new life, but Sapphire cannot. She is withdrawn and restless, and her only relief is Ingo. She goes there more frequently, even without Conor, who has given up going, and prefers his life in the air. A new couple are living in their old house. The woman is on crutches has the look of Ingo on her face but does not know of the world beneath the sea. Sapphire rescues her when she finds the lady down by the sea, not sure why she is there. One evening Sapphire takes her beloved dog Sadie for a walk along the sea, but the call of Ingo is too strong, so she leaves Sadie up on the pavement and dives in. Faro is there. She only stays a minute but when she goes back to Sadie her dog seems shaken and ill. Sapphire's mum says not to worry: the dog will be fine. Sapphire skips school and takes her dog to see granny Carne, a magical old lady. She phones home from granny Carne's and tells her mum she's staying over and won't be back till morning. That night, Sapphire goes back to the cove, where she sees her father. He tells her that the tide knot is loose, but he can't stay long and leaves shortly after. The next day her dog is healed but Sapphire is in trouble with her mum. Soon after, Conor and Sapphire go back to Ingo to find out more about her father. They swim in a rogue current. Whilst Faro rescues Conor, Sapphire is carried into the deep. She wakes up in blackness, but a whale helps her back to Ingo. There Sapphire and Conor see in a mirror-like thing a mer woman with a mer baby. The woman smiles at someone in the corner of the mirror – their father smiling lovingly at the woman and the baby. Feeling replaced and sad, they are about to leave when they learn of the tide knot, a stone that controls the tides that is becoming loose. Shortly, after they return, the tide knot loosens and nearly the entire town floods. As the houses are swallowed up by the flood water, Sapphire's mum is ill. Sapphire, her mum and her friend Rainbow go up to the attic. Sapphire jumps out of the window into the sea where she meets Conor and Faro. Sapphire is slammed against a wall and her leg begins to bleed. Conor calls Elvira, a healer. Elvira heals Sapphire and together the four help Saldowr, the wisest of the mer and the keeper of the tide knot, to put the broken pieces back together to restore the tide knot. Saldowr is weak but they manage to do it with Conor's power of reading the stone. The flood slowly recedes. Conor and Sapphire return to the rescue centre where they are re-united with their mother. At the end of the book, Sapphire is delighted that they are going back to their old cottage by the sea. |
Click Click Snap | Sean McGowan | 2,007 | Click Click Snap is written in first person prose. In the book, Sean McGowan travels through Athens, Ephesus, Bent Jbail, Beirut, Damascus, The West Bank, Petra, and Cairo; completing the eight chapters of the book, respectively. Its diverse (and, arguably, scattered) topics mainly include the neuroscience of art, war, belief, racism. Unusually, each chapter is written as a self-sustaining joke, where more serious topics seemingly arise incidentally. Specific incidences include urinating on the Temple of Artemis to illustrate the benefits of biological satisfaction and stealing a federal election ballot at gunpoint during the 2007 elections in Syria to show "...even though there is such a thing as a ballot with only one name on it, there is no such thing as a clear choice." |
The Deep | Helen Dunmore | 2,007 | A devastating flood has torn through the worlds of Air and Ingo, and now, deep in the ocean, a monster is stirring. Mer legend says that only those with dual blood—half Mer, half human—can overcome the Kraken that stirs in The Deep. Sapphire must return to the Deep, with the help of her friend the whale, and face this terrifying creature - and her brother Conor and Mer friend Faro will not let her go without them. Those with pure Mer blood cannot go to the Deep. Sapphire has moved back into the cottage by the cove, and is visiting Ingo all the time. When she is summoned to an assembly of the Mer she learns that the Kraken, a creature with the power to destroy their world, has awakened. Sapphire makes a deal with the Mer: if she and Conor help put the Kraken back to sleep their father will have the choice to leave Ingo. Ervys, a spokesperson(self-proclaimed leader, which the Mer do not have, as it causes problems) for the Mer, is outraged by this deal but gives his approval so the Mer will be safe. Sapphire, Conor and Faro (Faro should not be able to go to The Deep, but in Saldowr's mirror, he sees that he is not pure Mer, but part Human) go into the Deep with the help of the whale(that saves Sapphire from the Deep in The Tide Knot) to find the Kraken, and put him to sleep. It is not revealed what the Kraken really is, but it is clearly a shapeshifter. After a battle of minds, Sapphire manages to get the Kraken to sleep, and with Conor and Faro she goes back to the Mer to tell them the good news. Ervys is still furious especially when Faro asks Sapphire to make the crossing of Ingo with him. She agrees, but only on the condition that Conor may go too. Faro counters by insisting that his sister will also go. Although Sapphire does not want Elvira and Conor together, she agrees. The final chapter ends with Faro and Sapphire making Deublek, or friendship bracelets out of their hair. |
Polymorph | Scott Westerfeld | 1,997 | "Milica Raznakovic" is the principal alias employed by the protagonist, a shape-changer or "polymorph." Living in a recession-hit future New York, she spends her time partying anonymously, each night in a different body, enjoying casual sex and absolutely no personal attachments. She believes herself to be unique. However, one night she meets another polymorph: older, malicious and much more powerful than herself. The brief and ultimately hostile encounter leads her to place herself in danger by attempting to determine the newcomer's objective, which somehow involves a wealthy industrialist. In the process of her investigation, she finds it necessary to seek an ally, reaching out to her last one-night stand, a young man she would normally not have sought out again. |
The Gladiator | Harry Turtledove | 2,007 | The Gladiator follows the same concept as the other Crosstime Traffic novels. A parallel world similar in most respects to our own has discovered the technology to visit and trade with other parallels, spreading the notions of liberty and capitalism at the same time. The plot of The Gladiator follows the same formula of the other books in the series with an imperiled company operative and local protagonists being used as guides to the parallel. In The Gladiator it is indeed the capitalist West that has been consigned to the "dustbin of history" and the world has been remade in the image of the Soviet Union. The point of divergence from ours was the decision of the United States to allow the Soviet missiles to remain in Cuba during the Cuban Missile crisis and the complete withdrawal from Vietnam in 1968. Thus, communism spread throughout Latin America and Southeast Asia giving the Soviet Union an upper hand in economic and military strength over the United States. Due to the embargo of the many countries that were captured in the Soviet Sphere, the United States went bankrupt and lost its position as a super power, and most of Europe went communist afterward in the 1980s and 1990s. A hundred years later, communism has taken over much of the world and capitalism is very much dead. The protagonists of the novel, Gianfranco and Annarita, are teenagers in an Italian People's Republic, satellite to the interests of the USSR. Amidst the grey Soviet Brutalist tenements they discover a strategy game shop that is disseminating capitalist ideas with the games they sell. The shop is a front for the Crosstime Traffic trading monopoly, as the protagonists discover when the shop is closed by the authorities and one of the clerks, Eduardo, turns to the protagonists for help. |
The Gryphon's Skull | Harry Turtledove | 2,002 | The book centers around the discovery of an apparent gryphon skull (in reality a skull from a dinosaur), and the efforts of Sostratos to get the skull back to scholars for study. |
Seize the Night | Dean Koontz | 1,998 | Seize the Night begins a few months after Fear Nothing. It starts with Chris and his dog Orson happening upon Chris's ex-girlfriend, Lilly Wing, whose son Jimmy has just disappeared. Chris swears to Lilly he'll find Jimmy, and departs with Orson to begin the search. The trail leads them to Fort Wyvern, the abandoned military base Chris likes to explore. They search the base, but soon become separated, and Orson goes missing. Fearing for his dog's well-being, along with that of Jimmy, Chris calls his best friend Bobby Halloway to join him in the search and then sends his girlfriend Sasha Goodall to Lilly's house to console her. Soon after calling them, Chris sees about thirty or so of the rhesus monkeys encountered towards the end of Fear Nothing and takes refuge from them in a nearby bungalow. The monkeys follow him in, and he is saved from being found by Bobby's arrival. Bobby and Chris search the base, but find nothing except a few strange devices and rooms. After leaving, they stop by Lilly's house. Sasha and Chris head to their place, while Bobby heads off to Lilly's mother-in-law Jenna, to bring her back to Lilly's. The next day, Chris calls Manuel Ramirez, the acting chief of police, to give him information about Jimmy Wing's kidnapper's vehicle. Getting no answer, he leaves a message for Manuel to call him after noon. Bobby stops by a bit later to say that Jimmy is not the only child missing. Later, Manuel tells Chris in no uncertain terms to back off, while confiscating his and Bobby's guns and trashing his house. After he leaves, Roosevelt Frost arrives with his cat, Mungojerrie. They all leave and head out to an old road a few miles away where Sasha's coworker at the radio station, Doogie, meets up with them. They then head back to Fort Wyvern to continue the search for the children and Orson. Chris and company head into the base, where Bobby is critically wounded in an ambush. He sends everyone else on to find the kids and Orson, and when they return with them in tow, Bobby dies. Chris, refusing to leave Bobby's body behind, demands it be taken with them on the way out. On the elevator ride back up, they actually encounter themselves at the top of the shaft, and Chris is able to stop Bobby's past self from being shot. With the past now altered, Bobby's body disappears from the elevator, and Chris takes the live Bobby with him out of the base to return Jimmy and the other kids to their parents. |
Never Bet the Devil Your Head | Edgar Allan Poe | null | The narrator, presented as the author himself, is dismayed by literary critics saying that he has never written a moral tale. The narrator then begins telling the story of his friend Toby Dammit. Dammit is described as a man of many vices, presumably at least in part due to his left-handed mother flogging him with her left hand, considered improper. Dammit often made rhetorical bets, becoming fond of the expression "I'll bet the devil my head." Though the narrator tries to break Dammit of bad habits, he fails. Nevertheless, the two remain friends. While traveling one day, they come across a covered bridge. It is gloomy and dark, lacking windows. Dammit, however, is unaffected by its gloom and is in an unusually good mood. As they cross the bridge, they are stopped by a turnstile partway across. Dammit bets the devil his head that he can leap over it. Before the narrator can reply, a cough alerts them to the presence of a little old man. The old man is interested in seeing if Dammit is capable of making such a leap and offers him a good running start. The narrator thinks to himself that it is improper for an old man to push Dammit into making the attempt—"I don't care who the devil he is," he adds. The narrator watches as Dammit makes a perfect jump, though directly above the turnstile he falls backwards. The old man quickly grabs something and limps away. The narrator, upon checking on his friend, sees that Dammit's head is gone ("what might be termed a serious injury"). He realizes that just above the turnstile, lying horizontally, was a sharp iron bar that happened to be lying at just the spot where his friend's neck hit when he jumped. The narrator sends for the "homeopathists", who "did not give him little enough physic, and what little they did give him he hesitated to take. So in the end he grew worse, and at length died". After the bill for his funeral expenses is left unpaid, the narrator has Dammit's body dug up and sold for dog meat. |
The Bully: A Discussion and Activity Story | null | 2,003 | Jason is bullied at school by a child who demands his lunch every day. His mother is informed by the school that he is often hungry and realizes he is being bullied. She advises Jason they will have to take the problem to the school for help. Jason resists. His mother reminds Jason that if the bully isn't stopped he will continue to bully. |
Solip:System | Walter Jon Williams | 1,989 | Solip:System begins shortly before the ending of Hardwired and continues beyond that point. In Solip:System, the main character is the computer personality Reno (a minor character in Hardwired). The author intended that this book would provide a link between Hardwired and Voice of the Whirlwind.http://www.zone-sf.com/walterjonw.html |
Single & Single | John le Carré | 1,999 | Like many of Le Carre's novels, the narrative begins in the in media res style, midway through the events which have precipitated the opening scene. In Istanbul, Alfred Winser, a corporate lawyer with the London finance house Single & Single, is executed in cold blood by Alix Hoban, his firm's leading client, for reasons he cannot comprehend. In Devon, England, Oliver Hawthorne is a down-at-heel children's magician lodging in a small hotel owned by a woman named Elsie and her son Sammy. After finishing his latest performance, he receives an urgent call from his banker, who informs him that an anonymous benefactor has deposited the staggering sum of £5,000,030 pounds into the trust Oliver created for his infant daughter, Carmen. Oliver claims ignorance, but tells Elsie he has to go to London for a few days. The narrative shifts to the early 1990s, when Oliver - in reality Oliver Single - joins his father "Tiger" Single's firm just after graduating from law school. After the warming of relations with the Soviet Union, several Western businesses are eager to explore business opportunities in the "new" Russia, and Tiger has secured a meeting with two Russian brothers, the Orlovs, renowned as Moscow's "premier power brokers." Yevgeny Orlov and his right-hand man, Alix Hoban, discuss ventures with Tiger to restructure and exploit Soviet resources in scrap iron, oil, and - most lucrative of all - surplus disaster relief blood. Though he has some misgivings, Oliver is enough in awe of his father to throw himself into facilitating the various deals, including traveling to Moscow, where he meets Yevgeny's daughter Zoya, whom Hoban is married to. Hoban has no regard for his wife, and she and Oliver soon become lovers. All of Single & Single's plans collapse with the Soviet coup attempt of 1991: overnight, the Soviet Union collapses and the Orlovs' power and vaunted connections are reduced to nothing. Tiger is undeterred, and sends Oliver out on various business errands that increase his misgivings. Before long, Single & Single and the Orlovs appear to be prosperous again. After receiving cryptic hints from Zoya, Oliver raids his father's safe during the office Christmas party, and a look through his records is enough to confirm Oliver's worst fears: the Orlovs have rebuilt their power structure as an organized crime syndicate, and his father's finance house is a money laundering service. In turmoil, Oliver informs on his father to Nathaniel Brock, a senior officer of British Customs and Excise, and then disappears. Now, years later, the deposit into his daughter's trust makes Oliver realize that his father is on to him. Tiger once made a promise to deposit £5,000,000 pounds into a trust as soon as Oliver gave him a grandchild; the extra £30 signifies the Thirty pieces of silver given to Judas Iscariot. Oliver meets with Brock, who informs him that the Orlovs had Winser killed after a series of "business" setbacks, the last occurring a few weeks ago when the Russian Coast Guard interdicted and boarded the freighter Free Talinn in the Baltic Sea. Tiger has disappeared, and Brock needs Oliver's help to track him down. As a Customs official, Brock's obsession is corrupt British officials who aid international crime, and his "personal anti-Christ" is Superintendent Bernard Porlock, a "brazenly corrupt" Scotland Yard official who controls a vast network of such corrupt officials all over the United Kingdom, and a long-time cohort of Tiger's. Brock tells Oliver that he is prepared to offer Tiger full immunity, in exchange for enough information to bring down Porlock and his network. Oliver, who still suffers feelings of guilt for betraying his father, agrees to help save him. |
Homebody | Orson Scott Card | null | Homebody is the story of Don Lark who moves into an old house and is forced to deal with the supernatural forces that live in it. |
Stone Tables | Orson Scott Card | null | Stone Tables is a novelization of the life of Moses. |
Saints | Orson Scott Card | null | The book opens up in 1829 with the desertion of the eight-year old Dinah and her family by Dinah's father, John Kirkham. After enduring many of the horrors of Industrial Revolution England, Dinah's family begins to prosper. Dinah, her mother Anna, and her brother Charles, are converted to Mormonism. But Dinah's elder brother, Robert, as well as her husband, Matthew, do not convert, leading to a permanent schism in the family. The Mormon Kirkhams emigrate to Nauvoo, where the Mormons are building a city. In Nauvoo, Dinah—who had to endure an unthinkable sacrifice to come to America—becomes the inspiration for the other women of Nauvoo. She is regarded by many as a Prophetess, and, despite not having the priesthood, bestows blessings on others. She also finds herself drawn to the prophet of the Latter Day Saint Church, Joseph Smith. He teaches her that her husband in England had proven himself unworthy of her by his rejection of the Gospel and by forcing her to choose between God and husband. Joseph introduces Dinah to the still-covert practice of plural marriage, and they are sealed for eternity as husband and wife. Forced to keep secret her eternal union to Joseph causes strains on her relationships with the other women of the town, particularly, Emma Smith, Joseph's first wife. After Joseph's death during his incarceration at Carthage, Dinah uses her influence to help Brigham Young emerge as the new Prophet of the Church, largely because he alone of the potential prophet candidates is determined to uphold the Principle (as plural marriage has come to be known among its adherents). During the Mormon Exodus to Utah, she agrees to become one of Young's wives, with the understanding that their marriage will never be consummated. Dinah lives to the age of 100, not only outliving all her husbands, but also outlasting the practice of plural marriage, which the Church abandoned in 1890. |
Invasive Procedures | Orson Scott Card | 2,007 | George Galen, a brilliant geneticist and Nobel laureate and part of the Human Genome Project, comes to believe that he can guide humanity to a brighter future through genetic enhancement disappears from public view. Galen takes his research underground, eventually devising a virus that can carry specific genes into human cells. This virus, which the government dubs V16, must be tailored to each patient. It can cure that patient of a genetic disorder - but it is quickly lethal to anyone else, inducing a serious rejection reaction as their body responds to its attempt to rewrite its DNA. Galen sends agents called Healers to collect DNA from possible patients. If their disorder is caused by a suitable (repairable) defect, he engineers a version of V16 which the healer administers, explaining to the patient and the patient's family how to avoid the hazards of infection. Galen has larger plans, as well. These involve kidnapping five individuals, four of them homeless and one whom he mistakes for such. These are Byron (a lawyer, not actually homeless), Dolores, Hal (a violent alcoholic), and teenagers Jonathan and Nick. They also involve a talented cardiothoracic surgeon named Monica Ownes and her son Wyatt. Galen's Healers kidnap this pair so that he can use threats against Wyatt to force Monica to do what he wants. Some weeks earlier, Frank Hartman a virologist and soldier, had received samples of a dangerous virus. Using the facilities at Fort Detrick, he devised a cure. This cure is also a virus, that can infiltrate a patient's cells and destroy V16. Upon discovering this cure, Hartman learns that his original samples came to the Defense Department from the BioHazard Agency (BHA) a branch of the government that handles biowarfare attacks. The BHA has been investigating the cult-like Healers and their work for some time. The BHA "borrows" Hartman and transports him to their Los Angeles facility to work on V16. Galen intends to achieve a sort of immortality by creating five copies of himself from the homeless people he kidnapped. To create these people, Monica Owens will transplant organs from Galen into their bodies. These organs have been dosed with V16, engineered to rewrite the genetic codes of the patients into Galen's code. The organs also confer a kind of healing ability that Galen engineered into himself with earlier versions of his virus; this prevents the virus from killing them as it rewrites their genetic codes. The surgeries also involve implanted electronic chips that hold Galen's memories. When the V16 has finished rewriting the genetic code, it will activate the chip which will download Galen's personality over that of the original individual. If successful, this council of five will carry Galen's work worldwide. |
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao | Junot Díaz | 2,007 | This novel opens with an introductory section which explains the fukú -- "generally a curse or a doom of some kind; specifically the Curse and the Doom of the New World," and the zafa—a counterspell to the fukú. The narrator of the book, unknown to the reader at this point, explains that the story he is about to tell is his own form of a zafa. Part I of the book contains an introductory section, as well as the first four chapters of the story, and runs for over half the novel's length. This chapter introduces the reader to the titular character Oscar de León. Oscar comes from a Dominican family, and is therefore expected to be successful with girls. However, Oscar is more successful with science fiction, cartoons, reading, and role-playing games. This chapter explains Oscar's history as a child through high school, focusing on his inability to find love. When he was seven, Oscar had a week-long relationship with two girls at the same time, Maritza Chacón and Olga Polanco. When Maritza gives Oscar an ultimatum, he breaks up with Olga, only to be quickly dumped by Maritza. The narrator mentions that this event will cause all three of them to be unlucky in love. In high school, Oscar is an outcast. He is very overweight and his fascination with "the Genres" causes him to be teased. When his two friends Al and Miggs both find girlfriends and do not involve Oscar (or try to help Oscar find a girlfriend), Oscar quickly stops spending time with them. During his senior year of high school, Oscar takes an SAT review course. There, he meets and shortly begins to spend a lot of time with a girl named Ana Obregón. Oscar shortly falls in love with Ana. When her ex-boyfriend Manny returns from the Army, Ana stops spending time with Oscar. It is around this time that Oscar begins to start writing heavily, science fiction or fantasy stories, mostly centered around the end of the world. When Oscar discovers that Manny has been physically abusing Ana, Oscar takes his uncle's gun and stands outside of Manny's apartment, but Manny never returns that night. The chapter ends with Oscar revealing his love to Ana, Ana rejecting him, and Oscar going away to college at Rutgers. The narrative changes to the first person, from the perspective of Lola, Oscar's sister. It explores the distant and often verbally abusive relationship that Lola has with her Old World Dominican mother, and Lola's resulting rebellion. It opens with Lola telling, in the second person (after a few pages changing to first person), the story of how she found out her mother had breast cancer. It then proceeds to explore the negative relationship that Lola had with her mother. This poor relationship causes Lola to run away from home to live with her boyfriend and his father on the Jersey Shore. After a bit of time, Lola finds herself again unhappy and calls home. She talks with Oscar and convinces him to bring money and meet Lola at a coffee shop. When they meet up, Lola discovers that Oscar told their mother about the meeting. In an effort to run away from the coffee shop and from her mother, Lola accidentally knocks her cancer-ridden mother over. When Lola turns around to make sure her mother is okay, her mother grabs Lola by the hand, revealing that she was faking crying in an effort to get Lola to come back. As a result of her running away, Lola is sent to live with her grandmother, La Inca, in the Dominican Republic. This chapter introduces the reader to the history of Oscar and Lola's mother, whose full name is revealed to be Hypatía Belicia Cabral, though she is usually referred to simply as Beli. It is revealed that Beli's family died when she was one, with rumors that Trujillo was responsible. She was raised by a series of abusive foster families until her father's cousin, La Inca, rescues her from such a life. La Inca continually tells Beli that her father was a doctor, and that her mother was a nurse as a way to remind Beli of her heritage. La Inca brings Beli back to her hometown of Baní, where La Inca runs a bakery. At the age of 13, Beli lands a scholarship at El Redentor, one of the best schools in Baní. There, she falls in love with a light-skinned boy named Jack Pujols, and spends a lot of her time trying to earn his affection, to no avail. Because she is poor and dark-skinned, Beli is often made fun of, and is a social outcast. However, during the summer of sophomore year, Beli quickly develops into a full grown and well endowed woman, and the book describes how Beli becomes very popular with men of all ages. With her new body, Beli is finally able to catch the attention of Jack Pujols and loses her virginity to him. However, when they are discovered in a closet together, Beli is kicked out of school. Instead of transferring to a different school, however, she earns a job at a restaurant run by two Chinese immigrants brothers, Juan and José, where she works as a waitress. After a time, Beli goes to a club with another waitress named Constantina. There, she meets a gangster, and the two of them form a relationship. After a while, Beli is fired from her job. Although the Gangster's authority quickly gets her her job back, she feels it is not the same and resigns. Eventually, Beli becomes pregnant with the Gangster's child. It is then revealed that the gangster is in fact married to one of Trujillo's sisters, "known affectionately as La Fea" (The Ugly). When La Fea discovers that Beli is pregnant with her husband's child, she has two large cops resembling Elvis, with pompadour hairstyles, kidnap Beli, with plans to take her to have a forced abortion. As she is being led to the car, she sees a third cop who does not have a face. Before the cops can drive away, Beli spots her former employers, Juan and José, as well as her former coworkers and calls for help. They come to her rescue and Beli manages to get back to her old home. However, she is tricked into thinking the Gangster is outside in his car, and runs out to meet him, only to run into the same cops from before. The two cops physically beat Beli and leave her close to death, and continue to do so in the cane field. Her fetus dies due to the injuries. When she discovers that Beli has been taken, La Inca begins to pray very intensely, and in short order, a small but intense prayer group forms around La Inca. Back in the cane field, after she has been left for dead, a mongoose with golden eyes appears and leads Beli out of the cane, telling her that she will have two children. As Beli returns to the road, she is picked up by a group of traveling musicians. Thanks to La Inca's connections in the medical community, Beli is nursed back to health. After Beli returns to La Inca's care, it quickly becomes apparent that Beli will not be safe in the Dominican Republic under Trujillo, and so she is sent to live in New York. This chapter explores Oscar's time at Rutgers, and introduces the narrator, Yunior, who was Oscar's roommate and Lola's boyfriend. Part II of the book contains an introductory section, as well as chapters Five and Six of the story. This chapter is the story of Abelard, Belicia's father (Oscar and Lola's grandfather), and the "Bad Thing he said about Trujillo," which causes his family to be torn apart leaving most family members dead. The dictator, Trujillo, known for his sexual desire for young girls, whose families cannot protect them, learns that Abelard's oldest daughter, Jaquelyn, has become a beautiful young teenager. As a father Abelard does not want to give his daughter to Trujillo, as so many other fathers had been forced to do, and does not bring her to the event it had been demanded she come to. Some four weeks later Abelard is arrested for supposedly making a joke that there were no bodies in the trunk of his car. As Trujillo's henchmen disposed of opponents this way he was accused of slandering the dictator. After his arrest and torture his wife learns she is pregnant with what turns out to be her third daughter, Belicia. Two months after the baby's birth she is killed by an army truck in a probable suicide. Her two older daughters die under suspicious circumstance and the baby is taken to be a criada, a child slave. Mistreated and bearing the scars of the hot oil thrown on her back she is rescued at the age of nine by her father's cousin, La Inca, whom she comes to regard as her mother. This chapter is about the post-college life of Oscar, and the time he spends in the Dominican Republic. He falls in love with an older prostitute named Ybón Pimentel. This results in Oscar being severely beaten, reflecting the same situation of his mother. The golden mongoose, which saved his mother's life, returns to save Oscar's life. Oscar returns to the United States. Part III of the book contains chapters Seven and Eight, an unnamed section, and the novel's epilogue, "The Final Letter." Part III contains an introductory section where Oscar visits and lies to Yunior about his plans for the future. They also discuss Yunior's relationship with Lola. Oscar returns to the Dominican Republic to write and to attempt to be with Ybón. His attempts take place over twenty-seven days in which he writes numerous letters to Ybón and shakes off any attempts from family or friends, including Lola, Yunior, La Inca, and Clives, to forget Ybón. Ybón herself resists Oscar for fear of the Capitan, but Oscar is persistent and waves off his family's fears as misunderstanding of their love. Oscar is captured by the Capitan's friends, whom Yunior calls Gorilla Grod and Solomon Grundy, and they drive Oscar (and Clives) again to the cane field. Oscar reiterates the power of love and indicates that death would turn him into a "hero, an avenger. Because anything you can dream... you can be. " They then shoot Oscar, but his speech suggests that he is fulfilling his lifelong dream of becoming something worth writing about. The chapter ends with the word "Oscar" interrupted by a dash. It is unclear if this is interrupted narration for Yunior or a direct address to Oscar. The narrator reveals the eventual fates of the characters. Beli's cancer returns one year after Oscar's death, killing her ten months later. Yunior speculates that she had given up. La Inca moves back to Bani. Lola breaks up with Yunior, asserting herself after having had enough of his cheating. She soon after meets someone in Miami, marries him, and has a baby girl, named Isis. Yunior has dreams of Oscar for ten years while his life deteriorates, until he hits rock bottom, and follows Oscar's request presumably to write this novel. At the time of the novel, Yunior is married in New Jersey (almost faithfully) and teaches composition at Community College. He and Lola still run into each other occasionally. Although he still thinks about her and how he might have saved their relationship, they only ever talk about Oscar. This serves as an epilogue to the novel wherein Yunior describes letters he and Lola received from Oscar before he died. Lola was told to expect Oscar’s novel in the mail, which never arrives. Yunior, on the other hand, finds out that Oscar and Ybón did consummate their relationship. |
Spider-Man: The Darkest Hours | Jim Butcher | 2,006 | The book opens with Peter Parker being forced to be a substitute basketball coach at the high school where he teaches science. He is challenged by Samuel Larkin, a star basketball player, who refuses to work with the other players. Peter soon finds out that Samuel never got the regular and required vaccines, and will be suspended and therefore unable to play for the rest of the season, making it nigh-impossible to get into a good university. After coaching, Peter returns home to find that Mary Jane Watson got a part as Lady Macbeth, but since the show is playing in Atlantic City, she bought a car, despite not knowing how to drive. As they are discussing Peter teaching her, The Rhino attacks Times Square, and Spider-Man is needed. As he swings to the battle, Felicia Hardy, otherwise known as "The Black Cat", tells him that he is in danger and the Rhino's attack is a trap. Spider-Man swings on, and easily defeats the Rhino. After he knocks him unconscious, the three vengeful siblings of Morlun (Thanis, Malos, and Mortia), appear and say that Spider-Man caused the death of their brother. Spider-Man evades them until a SWAT team appears. In the end, it is Mary-Jane who defeats the siblings. Already angry that she can't help Peter like Felicia can, Mary-Jane is enraged by what the siblings are putting her husband through. she defeats them by driving into them with her car. Another Marvel Comics character, Doctor Strange is included in the novel as a figure from whom the wall-crawler seeks assistance. |
The Nightrunner Series and The Tamír Triad | null | null | The series revolves around Seregil, a spy, and Alec, his apprentice and soon-to-be partner. The series takes place in a fictional country, Skala, described similarly to medieval Europe. Seregil stumbles into the rescue of Alec, a poor, orphaned hunter. After hiring Alec to guide him through the Northern Lands, Seregil notes Alec’s quick learning ability and fast hands, and offers him a job as his apprentice. Alec, though wary of Seregil at first due to a distressing amount of secrecy and suspicion that he’s becoming a thief or spy, accepts the offer. They fall into a mystery that involves the fast deterioration of Seregil’s mind and sanity, and Alec must find a way to save his new teacher and friend. Alec manages to deliver Seregil into the hands of Nysander, a wizard of Skala, but the mystery seems to only deepen. At the same time, a traitorous plot against the Queen seems to be unfolding, and Seregil must solve it quickly; before he is found guilty of treason himself. The seemingly harmless wooden disc that nearly caused Seregil’s death and loss of sanity in Luck in the Shadows is revealed to be part of a broken, evil, helm belonging to the ‘Eater of Death’, a forsaken god named Seriamaius. A plan to retrieve all the pieces of the helm is attempted by a Plenimarine, Mardus, who wishes to use it to conquer Skala and Mycena and rule over the three lands. A prophecy long foretold takes place, and Seregil has to kill his mentor, Nysander, in order to destroy the helm. In the last paragraphs of the book, Seregil and Alec admit their feelings for one another. Seregil and Alec are sent to Aurënen, Seregil’s homeland, with Princess Klia, in a Skalan delegation to ask for open ports, warriors and supplies in the deepening war between Skala and Plenimar, but the attempted murder of the Princess means trouble. Seregil and Alec must unravel the mystery before all chance of a treaty is ruined. At the same time, Seregil must readjust himself to the country he was exiled from more than thirty years previously. A collection of short stories including the story of how Seregil, Nysander, and Micum all meet. Seregil and Alec are kidnapped by Zengati slavetraders, and bought by a Plenimarine alchemist. Using Alec’s unique blood as a half-northerner, half-hâzadriëlfaie, the alchemist intends to create a creature called a rhekaro, who appears to be a young child, and yet is most definitely not human at all. Seregil eventually helps Alec and Sebrahn escape, coming to terms with his own past as he reunites with an old lover and enemy. Having escaped death and slavery in Plenimar, Seregil and Alec want nothing more than to go back to their nightrunning life in Rhíminee. Instead they find themselves saddled with Sebrahn, a strange, alchemically created creature - the prophesied "child of no woman." It's moon-white skin and frightening powers make it a danger to all whom Seregil and Alec come into contact with, leaving them no choice but to learn more about Sebrahn's true nature. But what then? With the help of old friends and Seregil's clan, the pair sets out to discover the truth about this living homunculus - a journey that can lead only to danger... or death. For Seregil's old nemesis Ulan í Sathil of Virèsse and Alec's own long-lost kin (Hâzadrielfaie) are after them, intent on possessing both Sebrahn and Alec. On the run and hunted, Alec and his friends must fight against time to accomplish their most personal mission ever. More than the dissolute noblemen they appear to be, Alec and Seregil are skillful spies, dedicated to serving queen and country. But when they stumble across evidence of a plot pitting Queen Phoria against Princess Klia, the two Nightrunners will find their loyalties torn as never before. Even at the best of times, the royal court at Rhíminee is a serpents' nest of intrigue, but with the war against Plenimar going badly, treason simmers just below the surface. And that's not all that poses a threat: A mysterious plague is spreading through the crowded streets of the city, striking young and old alike. Now, as panic mounts and the body count rises, hidden secrets emerge. And as Seregil and Alec are about to learn, conspiracies and plagues have one thing in common: The cure can be as deadly as the disease. |
Shadows Return | Lynn Flewelling | 2,008 | After their victory in Aurënen, Alec and Seregil have returned home to Rhíminee. But with most of their allies dead or away, it is difficult for them to settle in. Hoping for diversion, they accept an assignment from queen Phoria to go to Seregil's homeland and call Klia to Skala. En route, however, they are ambushed and separated, and both are sold into slavery to the Plenimarans. There they are bought by the alchemist Yhakobin who hopes to use Alec's Hâzadrielfaie blood to create a rhekaro, a sexless creture that can heal everything and prolong life. The first doesn't meet his expectations and he has it butchered. By the time he makes a second one, Seregil and Alec escape, the first with the help of a servant woman and the second by picking his lock. Knowing that the rhekaro will die without his blood and reminding himself of the Dragon Oracle's prophecy, Alec takes him along, while Seregil brings his betrayer, Ilar í Sontir, to show them a secret tunnel. The atmosphere is initially tense when Alec finds Ilar's identity and Seregil, too, has doubts about the uncommon-looking child, but they fare well for several days, with Alec's hunting skills and the food they had stolen. Later, the rhekaro, whom Alec names Sebrahn, shows extraordinary healing powers, which they use to get rid of their slave brands so that they are not found out by other slavers. Near the port they are found by their former master. Ilar flees in panic, but Alec and Seregil stand firm. The archers target Seregil but Alec jumps in front of him and is killed. Anguished, Seregil kills Yhakobin before Sebrahn starts singing and kills the soldiers. His tears then fall on Alec's wound and create the white blossoms that the alchemist had been trying to create and brings him back to life. During this time Alec's shade quickly finds Thero and directs him and Micum to Seregil. Thero helps them they continue their journey, but they are soon found by a necromancer, presumably sent to retrieve the rekharo. When Thero can't stop him, Sebrahn sings again and kills him. To gether they get aboard and head for Aurënen. On their landing, Magyana lays eyes upon the child and says she sees the a dragon in his aura. |
A War of Gifts: An Ender Story | Orson Scott Card | null | A War of Gifts begins in North Carolina where Zechariah 'Zeck' Morgan, a boy with nearly perfect memory, lives with his family. Though Zeck’s father is the minister of his own church and has raised Zeck to be a pacifist, he beats the boy regularly. When the International Fleet shows up to take Zeck to Battle School, Zeck’s mother sees this as the perfect opportunity to get the boy away from his abusive father. At Battle School, the other students barely tolerate Zeck because of his strong religious beliefs and his refusal to fight in the Battle Room. On December fifth Zeck sees a Dutch boy put a Sinterklaas Day gift in another Dutch boy’s shoe. Because religious activities including prayer and holidays are forbidden at Battle School and Zeck has been taught by his father that Santa Claus is evil, he decides to report the two boys to Colonel Graff. After the Colonel calls the boys in and reprimands them, they decide to rebel by getting everyone to celebrate not Christmas, but Santa Claus, as he is not a religious symbol in the book, but a secular one. When Zeck complains to the authorities, they refuse to do anything. Zeck goes to the Muslim students and points out that the Christians are being allowed to celebrate their holidays. Some of the Muslim students begin daily prayers. When the administration forcibly stops the Muslims from praying, the other students stop giving each other Christmas presents. They also refuse to speak to Zeck. When he begins to have a nervous breakdown because of the isolation, Ender Wiggin decides to have a talk with him. In doing so, Ender discovers that Zeck was desperately trying to get sent back home so that he could protect his mother from his father. After he convinces Zeck that his mother doesn't need to be protected, Ender gives him a small "Santa Claus" present. When the other students learn that Zeck accepted the gift, they stop ignoring him and go back to tolerating him. |
Rebekah | Orson Scott Card | null | Rebekah follows the story of Isaac through the eyes and perspective of Rebekah. Card expands the story into a novel of over 400 pages so many of the details and characters are fictional. The story-line does not deviate from the story told in Genesis. |
Rachel and Leah | Orson Scott Card | null | Rachel and Leah follows the story of Jacob through the eyes of Rachel and Leah. Card expands the story into a novel of over 300 pages, so many of the details and characters are fictional. However, the storyline does not deviate from the story told in Genesis. |
Rasputin | Kathryn H. Kidd | null | This book has not yet been released. |
Black Foxes | null | null | Section 1-21 year old Lord Tyrone Sully inherits his parent's wealth when his father dies in a bull-related accident, and his mother, wishing to join him, suicides. Deppressed, he decides to leave with Oscar to buy a horse in Black Chest. Everything starts to go wrong when his uninvited cousin, Silke turns up and Oscar invites her to join them. On the long road to the horse auction, Oscar and Silke fall for each other, to Tyrone's annoyance. He says nothing and helps both of them for the sake of his friend. He meets Lord Silverdale, a hated childhood friend who he recovers to be a cheat. Oscar's stable boy, Grundy buys him a horse and they travel back to Tyrone's house, Wylde Hide. On the way back, he finds Silverdale waiting for him in a bar. Silverdale shoots Tyrone below the heart. Oscar, with quick thinking, draws out his gun and shoots Silverdale straight in the heart. Silverdale dies, while Tyrone lives, fighting for his life. He eventually heals and returns home. Section 2-Oscar is married to Silke, with whom Tyrone eventually becomes friends. Tyrone had taken all the blame for shooting Lord Silverdale, and now not welcome anymore. Holly, a servant girl goes looking for work, and Tyrone recruits her. Silke, who is sick of England, decides to run away back to Paris to her original home, leaving Oscar with her baby, Ashley. Meanwhile, Tyrone falls in love with Holly. Oscar and his sister Celia decide that Holly is not good enough for Tyrone. They trick her into believing he betrayed her, and she runs away as well. Oscar quickly regrets what he has done and sends Grundy to look for her secretly. After a long time, he finds her dead, having died in childbirth. Section 3-Oscar is dead for 14 years and Tyrone has never got over it. He is the legal guardian of Ashley, who is now 21. Silke pays another unexpected visit to Wylde Hide with her daughter, Meg. Cal, who, unknown to Tyrone, is son of Holly, travels with his best friend to see Tyrone. Grundy, tries to keep both of them a secret, but Tyrone soon finds out. Tyrone is pleased to find his long lost son and their adventure comes to an end. |
Redeeming Love | Francine Rivers | 1,991 | The story starts off in New England, 1835. Sarah, a beautiful young girl, meets her father, Alex Stafford, for the first time. Seven-year-old Sarah learns that she is the product of Stafford's adulterous affair with her mother, Mae. Mae was urged to abort the child, but refused to do so. This decision alienated her from Alex, whom she continues to love in hopes that he will leave his family and marry her. Alex refuses. Later on that year Mae's maid Cleo begrudgingly takes Sarah with her on a trip to the shore, so that Mae can have a private visit with Alex. Cleo takes Sarah with her into a popular bar where Cleo is well-known and has a male companion. After getting drunk she agrees to sleep with him while a frightened Sarah waits in the hall. After the man leaves Cleo heartbroken again, Cleo in a half-drunk stupor tells Sarah "the way it is" and insists that no man ever cares for a woman and all they want is sex. Mae and Sarah then move to a shack on the docks, where Mae takes up prostitution to make ends meet. Her reputation is known all over town, and little Sarah is forced to suffer the rejection of the townspeople because of it. Through this experience, Sarah learns to mask her emotions and replace them instead with a hard exterior. About five years later, Mae succumbs to a terrible illness, leaving Sarah alone at the age of eight with a drunken man named Rab. Unsure of what to do with the small child, Rab seeks a home for the child. He finds a man that is looking for a little girl for his wealthy master. Thinking that this is Sarah's lucky break, Rab takes Sarah to the wealthy neighborhood. They are greeted at the door by a woman who urges Rab to take Sarah away and not come back. Not dissuaded, Rab insists that Sarah is perfect for this rich man. The woman admits the pair and sends them to a bedroom upstairs where they are instructed to wait until her master can see them. Duke, the master of the household, welcomes Sarah and Rab; minutes later, Rab is strangled before Sarah's eyes, his body dumped in a nearby alley. Duke, who is a pedophile, had been scouring the town not for a new daughter, but a new mistress. Duke informs Sarah, or Angel, as he renames her, that there are many things he wants to teach her. He gives her first "lesson" that very night. After about 10 years with Duke, Angel finally escapes and boards a ship bound for California. Robbed by the other passengers, she disembarks in San Francisco with nothing more than the clothes she is wearing. Angel is taken in by 'The Duchess', the owner of The Palace, a brothel in Pair-a-Dice and becomes an exclusive, high-priced prostitute. Employed by the Duchess, Angel is guarded constantly, her meager earnings kept from her. Her only solace is Lucky, a fellow prostitute that is often drunk, who befriends her. Michael Hosea first sees Angel on a trip to Pair-A-Dice to sell produce. God tells Michael "she's the one", the woman he is meant to marry; Michael later discovers to his shock that Angel is a prostitute. Still determined to heed God's command and marry Angel, Michael pays the high fee for her time in hopes of convincing her to leave with him. She stubbornly rejects his offer. Discouraged, Michael questions God, but still obeys. He pays Angel's fee for three successive nights, talking and reasoning with her until his time is up. Angel keeps her cold, sarcastic front to dissuade him, wanting to escape the pain his words cause her. Meanwhile, she cannot seem to escape thoughts of Michael and her rising hope of life outside the Palace. After the last night with Angel, Michael grows frustrated and leaves Pair-A-Dice. A few days later, he returns to Pair-A-Dice, unable to ignore God's command any longer. He finds Angel almost dead from a brutal beating given her by Magowan, Duchess' bodyguard. Willing to use any means to preserve Angel's life, Michael asks her to marry him so he can take her to his cabin. Barely conscious, Angel agrees, mumbling "Why not?" Michael nurses Angel back to health at his cabin. Angel remains barely tolerant of the arrangement while it serves her needs. Michael endures Angel's harshness, remaining faithful to his wife and God's plan. Michael's widower brother-in-law, Paul, returns home from fruitless gold panning in the Sierras. Paul recognizes Angel immediately as the high-priced prostitute from the Palace. Believing Angel has deceived Michael, Paul treats her badly. Paul tries to tell Michael about Angel's profession, but only angers him. Paul thinks Michael married Angel out of blind lust, not knowing she was a prostitute, and from then on, Paul thinks there is a rift between him and Michael because of Angel, not knowing that Michael loves Angel in spite of her past and that he is the one causing the rift between them. When she finally heals from her wounds, Angel tries to run away from Michael in hopes of returning to the brothel to get back what is owed to her from The Duchess. When Paul leaves to sell the produce of his land back in Pair-A-Dice, Angel sees this as a way for her to escape. While Michael is out working in the field, she runs after Paul's wagon. He agrees to take her with him if she pays him back with her only means of currency: herself. He's disgusted by her actions even more after they have sex together and hopes that is the last of her he will be seeing ever again. Upon her return to Pair-A-Dice, she sees that the Palace has burned down, along with Magowan, her dearest companion Lucky, and another prostitute by the name of Mai Ling. With nowhere else to go, she begins working in a saloon—once again as a prostitute. Even though she loathes being seen as nothing but a whore, she has no other skills with which to make a living. A livid Michael finds her in a room with a client and fights their way out of the bar filled with drunken men waiting for their turn with Angel. They return to the cabin, where Michael relies on God to work through his anger at her unfaithfulness. Angel begins to develop feelings towards Michael, which she cannot comprehend because she has never allowed herself to love any man, for fear they will take advantage of or desert her, just like her father did her mother. Despite her continued coldness, Michael loves her unconditionally. Upon showing her the sunrise, he says, "That is what I want to give to you." Angel feels herself becoming soft-hearted day by day, but in her uncertainty and fear refuses to share it with Michael. She feels a deep sense of shame at her "uncleanness". She is softened by Michael's love but cannot see herself as worthy of it. Though they have slept together regularly, Angel is very disconnected from the experience of sex, but when one night she experiences the same joy and pleasure that Michael does ("And she flew, Michael with her, into the heavens..."), it frightens her. Upon their arrival back in the valley, they meet the Altman family, who have a broken wheel and are stranded on the side of the road. Michael helps fix their wagon and invites them to stay at their cabin. Angel reveals to Mrs. Altman and the oldest daughter, Miriam, that she met Michael in a brothel, and is amazed to find that they have only compassion for her instead of contempt. They become close, and Angel takes a liking to the oldest daughter, Miriam, who begins to fancy Paul, who is living at the other end of the valley. When Angel sees Miriam talking with Michael, she assumes that they have feelings for one another and jumps to the conclusion that they would make a much better couple than she and Michael. Paul wants to see Michael end up with Miriam as well, but has also begun to develop feelings for the 16-year-old Miriam. He denies his feelings only because he wishes to see Michael with Miriam instead of Angel. She runs away once again, this time to Sacramento; on the way she is offered a ride by an old man that sells pots. Upon reaching Sacramento while looking for work she again meets Joseph Hochschild, who has built his new store, and she stays with him, knowing that he is a good friend of Michael's. She works for him in his store along with his mother and sister. When an order comes in for Michael, she tries to leave but Joseph keeps her busy, making her wait longer. When she finishes her duties and goes to close up the store, Michael is standing at the doorway, having again come back for her. She admits that she is frightened by the idea of being in love with him, but he reassures her and brings her home. Meanwhile, it is revealed in a flashback that during her time as Duke's mistress, Angel got pregnant twice and both times an infuriated Duke had a doctor abort it, taking measures the second time to ensure that she can never get pregnant again. Angel later reveals this to a devastated Michael. She also reveals that she once had sex with her own father, who came to her brothel, in a bid for revenge because he left her mother. She is swamped with guilt at the callous way she treated him. Knowing that has shocked her husband, and feeling guilty for not being able to give Michael any children of his own, as she knows he longs for, Angel runs away once more, leaving her wedding ring behind, in hopes that Michael will marry Miriam and have children with her. Michael is crushed, but says he will not go after Angel again if she does not want to be with him. This time Angel goes to San Francisco. When she arrives, she gets a job with a gentle man called Virgil. He takes her in as a cook at his cafe, and takes care of her. But after months of their hard work, the cafe burns down, and in it all of Angel's savings and possessions. Observing the fire in the street, a bereft Angel hears a familiar voice—it is Duke, greeting her. Fearing that he would hurt Virgil, who seems suspicious of Duke, Angel agrees to go back with him. Once more under Duke's power, Angel is expected to resume her life as a prostitute. However, Duke sexual preference is for young girls, and he asks Angel to manage his prospective "companions," but only after a week's worth of prostitution. Angel is to be presented to a crowd of men. She begins to wrestle in her mind and cries out to God internally. She is prepared to go on stage to entertain the men. When she is finally before them, the voice of God tells her to sing and she starts singing "Rock of Ages" to the awed and confused crowd. A gray-haired man sings along with her and moves up to the front of the stage. She forgets the words of the song, and he finishes it. After the presentation, Duke reprimands Angel. However, he is met by the singing stranger from the crowd. He threatens to have Duke hanged if he lays a single finger on Angel. With that the man escorts Angel out, and on their way out Angel rescues two other young girls Duke was using as lovers. When the men at the brothel see the two young girls with Angel, they become furious and destroy the place. The man takes them to his house, where his wife and daughter take care of them. Jonathan Axle, the man who saved her, is a wealthy and respected banker with a solid Christian family. Angel starts to attend church with the Axle family and grows fond of them. Meanwhile, Miriam reveals that she is in love with Paul, and the two of them marry while Angel is away. Michael still awaits the return of Angel and prays continually for her to come back. Seeing his grief, Miriam insists that Paul should go and find Angel, but Paul, still full of contempt for the woman he believes Angel to be, refuses. Angel eventually recognizes God's love for her and receives Christ in her heart. She begins to work with prostitutes by helping them leave their old ways and learning new abilities that might help them make a living. Susanna Axle, the daughter of Jonathan Axle, helps her run the boarding house. Paul finally gives in to Miriam and goes to San Francisco to look for Angel. He sees her with an old man—Jonathan Axle—and thinks that he is a client, and she still a prostitute. He is furious that he came all this way, and starts making up excuses to give Miriam so that he does not have to hurt her by telling her Angel is a prostitute. However, next day he decides to go up to the house and confronts Angel. At first he acts cold, contemptuous, and sarcastic, but is startled by her humility and the genuine love she harbors for Michael. He is shocked to learn that she left Michael in the hope that he would marry Miriam so that he could have children. When she discovers that Paul is married to Miriam, and that Michael is still waiting for her after three years of absence, her whole world falls apart and she no longer feels justified in staying in San Francisco. She finally makes the decision to leave Susanna in charge of the house, and goes back to Michael. She surprises him in the field where he is working, kneeling at his feet and crying. She is grieved to see how losing her has had a profound effect on Michael. She reveals that her real name is "Sarah". Michael, in tears himself, receives her with kind, pure and forgiving love, and declares that he believes the revelation of her name is a promise from God that they will one day be able to have children (the Sarah in the Bible was a barren woman who, by the grace of God, was eventually able to have a son). At last they start a new life together, the life they have dreamed of. In the epilogue, it is said that Michael and Sarah later had four children. |
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