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Danny Dunn and the Automatic House | Raymond Abrashkin | null | Professor Bullfinch develops the "House of the Future" in which all controls are automatic, and plans to debut it at an upcoming Science Fair. This includes temperature controls and other standard functions, but also items such as washing machines, food preparation and normal housework. Danny, Irene and Joe, as well as Irene's toddler cousin, go to explore the house and become trapped inside, as the locks were automated to have security settings to seal the house until the Professor's introduction. Danny and his friends learn that in addition to the automated locks, everything is only a fake sample and the windows cannot be broken. They are trapped inside with no food or telephone, and the Fair does not open for three days! |
Danny Dunn and the Smallifying Machine | Raymond Abrashkin | null | Professor Bullfinch has created a machine for the government which will shrink objects and be used for spying. When Danny sneaks into the lab, he and his friends discover the machine and try to use it for a problem they have been dealing with at school. |
Danny Dunn and the Swamp Monster | Raymond Abrashkin | null | Professor Bullfinch and Doctor Grimes take Danny and his friends to beginning of the Nile River in Africa to investigate local legends of a swamp monster. Despite unforeseen calamities, a new, rare species of electric catfish is discovered. |
Danny Dunn Scientific Detective | Raymond Abrashkin | null | Professor Bullfinch and Doctor Grimes are working on more scientific ways to fight crime. Danny is facing an issue at school and needs to borrow the equipment to solve the school mystery. |
Danny Dunn and the Universal Glue | null | null | Professor Bullfinch develops a glue which is stronger than any known glue. He christens it Irenium in honor of Irene, of whom he is fond. The Blaze Chemical Company, which built a factory after draining a swamp, has leaked a chemical into the water which may cause the local dam to break. Danny, Joe and Irene use a can of irenium to patch up the dam. In a subplot, Danny also uses the glue as a form of protest against Mr. Blaze by placing it on the backseat of his vehicle, causing Mr. Blaze to be stuck to the seat and having to cut his trousers apart, resulting in a humorous event where an angered Mr. Blaze appears at a town meeting to voice concerns over his chemical company wearing a blanket over his legs, giving the appearance of a kilt. Mrs. Dunn, who originally protested the draining of the swamp, gives Danny a stern rebuke that the prank was immature and counterproductive, and that Danny is now required to make restitution, meaning he is now in debt to Mr. Blaze to pay for a new pair of men's trousers. Danny humbly sends a letter to Mr. Blaze with all the cash he has on hand apologizing for what he did with the promise to work out a payment plan. During Danny's birthday party, a surprise guest is Mr. Blaze, who commends Danny for saving the town's dam and that his company will now have tougher oversight on chemical waste, and refunds Danny his money saying "I guess a pair of pants was worth the lesson." |
Lila Says | Chimo | null | Lila Says is a narrative of the protagonist's — Chimo, an Arab boy living in France — interactions with a catholic girl named Lila. Lila befriends Chimo and tells him very provocative and somewhat troubling incidents in her life and shares her experiences with him. |
Our Twisted Hero | Yi Munyol | 1,987 | This story is told by a man named Han Byeong-tae (or Pyongt'ae), recalling his memories when he was in 5th grade. Due to Byeong-tae's father fails in business, they move to a low town and go to Y Elementary School. There, he meets Eom Seokdae (or Om Sokdae), a president of the 5th grade and one who holds everything in his grade, more than his teacher. However, it is really Eom Seokdae forcing students by force to follow him. Byeong-tae fight Soekdae's reign however every student supports Soekdae. Therefore everything goes wrong for him; his parents misunderstand him, his grades go down and his power rankings also go down. Hence he loses, give up, and goes under Seokdae's power. After it, Seokdae gives him a great treatment. First of all, he restores Byeong-tae's power rankings to normal, but higher than before. Second, he makes everyone play with Byeong-tae and is not alone. Byeong-tae also gets his grade back. But the story says, "I was thankful to Seok-hyen. But when I think it back, those things were the things I had lost to Seokdae. He has just given it back." But when Byeong-tae goes to 6th grade, Seokdae's power breaks, due to the new teacher who have senses in the goings. Seokdae, leaves the school and is last seen by Byeong-tae, saying "Do it well." The story zooms to the present. Byeong-tae's riding the train to where Seokdae is living to get a face of him. On the train, someone is being dragged by polices and is surprisingly Eom Seokdae. However, he does not recognize Byeong-tae. |
The Little Red Schoolbook | null | null | The book encourages young people to question societal norms and instructs them in how to do this. Out of 200 pages, it includes 20 pages on sex and 30 on drugs, including alcohol and tobacco. Other topics included adults as "paper tigers", the duties of teachers, discipline, examinations, intelligence, and different schools. |
Danny Dunn and the Voice from Space | Raymond Abrashkin | null | Professor Bullfinch has created a radio telescope ("dish") for the government which will try to determine if extraterrestrials are trying to contact Earth. When Danny sneaks into the observatory, he hears non-random sounds coming from space. He then must figure out how to translate the sounds. The observatory described in the book is similar to the real life SETI project which Carl Sagan would also use later in his novel Contact. |
Flour Babies | Anne Fine | 1,992 | The story centres around Simon Martin, a pupil in class 4C at an unnamed school. 4C is the class reserved for the school's worst students. As it so happens, a new student has arrived at the school, and, by sheer coincidence, his name is Martin Simon. The two boys are the complete antithesis of each other – Martin Simon passed all his science exams with flying colours, reads voraciously and even speaks and reads French fluently. The class teacher, Mr. Cartwright, sends the boy to Dr. Feltham's class, and Simon, who had been sent there by accident, soon arrives. The class are choosing their options for their contribution to the school Science Fair. They wish they could work on one of the most exciting experiments – The Exploding Custard Tins, Soap Factory, or Maggot Farm, for example – but these have been reserved for those who passed their science exams. As a result, 4C have ended up having to choose between a series of boring experiments. First they have to choose a topic- their options are consumer studies, textiles, child development, nutrition, and domestic economy. Simon Martin is given the task of pulling a voting slip out of a tub; Martin Simon's slip comes out, and the topic he has chosen is "child development". The experiment which Dr. Feltham (an eccentric science teacher who organises the fair) has chosen for child development is 'Flour Babies'. Each boy is given a six-pound bag of flour, in rags to form the look of a baby, and he must care for it at all times, as if it were a real baby. They must also write a diary explaining how they cope with this responsibility. Needless to say, the boys are not happy with this experiment, and neither does their teacher. But Simon misunderstands a conversation he overhears between Dr. Feltham and Mr. Cartwright, and thinks that they will get to kick the flour babies to bits at the end. Mr. Cartwright decides to pick another topic, but Simon has already mistakenly informed the class about kicking the babies to bits, they like the idea, and press gang him into letting them do the experiment. Simon becomes fond of his flour baby, while the others complain. Simon reflects on his own childhood: his Dad left home when Simon was just six weeks old, and never came back. His relationship with his mother has always been precarious, and Simon now begins to learn about the pressures of parenthood. |
The Adventures of Three Englishmen and Three Russians in South Africa | Jules Verne | 1,872 | Three Russian and three English scientists depart to South Africa to measure the meridian. As their mission is proceeding, the Crimean war breaks out, and the members of the expedition find themselves citizens of enemy countries. This novel can be found under alternate titles such as "Adventures in the Land of the Behemoth," "Measuring a Meridian" and "Meridiana or Adventures in South Africa." |
Fireshadow | null | null | Taking place during World War II, Fireshadow follows two seventeen-year-old boys. Erich Pieters joins the German Wehrmacht to fight for Chancellor Adolf Hitler in 1941, and winds up in an Australian Prisoner of War camp after fighting in North Africa. Half a century later, Vinnie Santiani flees into the remote Australian Bush in an effort to cope with the death of his sister. Despite the fact that they live in different times, the boys' lives intertwine in the novel with haunting results. A reviewer for Magpies commented that the award-winning book's "language is exceptional throughout ... while the author's insights into the emotional lives of the young people are sensitively conveyed." The main character is Erich Pieters who is only 17 years of age. The novel doesn’t provide much of a physical description of him but is does provide a good description of his personality. Erich grew up in a small family of a mother, father and younger sister. His father wasn’t around much when he was younger as he was an army officer who worked for Hitler. When the war started (Erich was only 17 at the time) Erich signed up for the army to the disapproval of his mother and sister but not his father. His father was a very proud man and Erich took after him. Soon after Erich went to war, he was captured and sent to Australia to a prisoner of war camp. As he developed into a man, he became less proud and his personality developed as he tried to overcome his adversity of adapting to such different surroundings and treatment. As Erich aged he became wiser and more caring for those around him. As shown at the end of the novel, Erich is a gentle caring man who as he says “I may be sick, but my eyesight, hearing and memories are as strong as ever!” |
The Sky People | S. M. Stirling | null | In this alternate universe, life exists on Venus and Mars. Because of this discovery, the United States and the Soviet Union have poured all their resources into space exploration, sending their best and brightest to colonize Venus and Mars. Although there have been a few outbreaks of hostilities on Earth, an uneasy détente exists in space between the Americans and Russians who are struggling for supremacy, supported by their respective allies. The European Union is also anxious not to be excluded from this neo-colonial race but is far behind the other powers. In 1962 the USSR drops planetary probes on Venus and discovers people, both Homo Sapiens and Homo Neanderthalensis, on the planet. Crewed flights by the Soviets and later by the Americans establish bases on the planet (the American one named Jamestown; the Soviet one Cosmograd) and find other familiar species, including dinosaurs. Both fauna and flora are strangely similar to those from Earth's past. In 1988, Lieutenant Marc Vitrac, a Ranger in the US Aerospace Force, has been on the planet for a year. Born in a Cajun family amidst the Louisiana bayous, his primary function is exploration of the vast wild lands but in the beginning of the novel he is tapped to welcome newcomers to the colony. The new arrivals are somewhat taken back by the ceratopsia used as a shuttle bus. The dinosaur has been “iced” by the insertion of an Internal Control Device into its brain, which allows the creature to be controlled with messages sent directly to the brain. These new arrivals include Cynthia Whitlock, a young African-American specialist, and Wing Commander Christopher Blair, a supposedly British linguist. As with all the Terrans on the planet, Cynthia and Blair also have other skills. Blair spends most of his time in the nearby town of Kartahown extending their knowledge of one of the native languages. As the story progresses many of the characters comment about how similar evolution has progressed on Venus and on Earth. Naturally, the scientists at the Jamestown base are puzzled by the seeming parallel evolutions. Although the base doesn't have any means to check the DNA (as in this alternate timeline, the majority of research funding has been spent on space travel), other tests indicate that the natives are closely related to Terrans. The fossil record is very spotty, with occasional infusions of new species, but no one has an explanation as to why there are humans and other Earth animals and plants on Venus. On another part of Venus, an unknown, external force interferes with the computer on a Soviet shuttle, causing it to crash land in the unexplored wild lands. The Soviets ask for American assistance to recover the crew. The airship Vepaja, with Captain Tyler commanding, is selected for the rescue attempt and Marc, Cynthia, and Chris are chosen as the crew. Jadviga Binkis, wife of the Soviet shuttle commander, is also included in the crew. Marc also takes his greatwolf pup, Tahyo, with them. The weather, animals, mechanical failure and sabotage from an unknown enemy eventually forces the group to abandon the airship. Once they arrive at their destination they find themselves in the midst of a civil war between the very human Cloud Mountain People and the Neanderthals. Additionally, an alien AI is annoyed at the Terrans for interfering with the Venusians. The AI is sapient, but not sentient and is able to control both Homo Sapiens and Homo Neanderthalensis within a short range. Unsure as to what to do, the AI calls for its creator race to return. Additionally, Blair discovers that the Cloud People speak a Proto-Indo-European language, indicating that the creator race has taken Homo Sapiens from earth and seeded them on Venus within the last several thousand years. The group sides with the Cloud Mountain People, Marc having fallen in love with their princess, and help them defeat the Neanderthals. The Cloud Mountain People’s lands were destroyed, however, by a biological weapon on board the downed Russian shuttle. Marc thus leads the Cloud Mountain People on a five thousand mile overland journey back to Jamestown to settle around the base and brings with him an alien artifact that may be evidence of the alien race that brought life to Venus and Mars. |
The Bush Soldiers | null | 1,984 | The point of divergence within the story is the loss of the Battle of the Coral Sea by the Allies. Unlike real history, the Imperial Japanese Navy manage to inflict heavy casualties upon the American naval forces. After a three-day engagement, with the loss of four capital ships and dozens of smaller craft, the Allies are forced to retreat. The invasion of Australia begins on 12 June 1942, with the Japanese landing at Darwin, Cooktown and Cairns. A major assault is conducted on the New South Wales town of Newcastle, leading to the Battle of Newcastle, where two of the story's characters (Sawtell and Counihan) had previously seen action. The Japanese also make landings at Tweed Heads, Coffs Harbour and the Hawkesbury River. Sydney is subjected to naval bombardment and is dive-bombed by aircraft from the carrier Zuikaku. Sydney is evacuated in a rather chaotic and disorganised manner. In early July 1942, General Douglas MacArthur and the remnants of the US 41st Division sail from Melbourne and retreat to New Zealand. The Australian Federal government (presumably John Curtin and his cabinet) withdraw from Canberra and set up in Perth. It is noted that by the end of that year, members of the Volunteer Defence Corps are doing their best to implement the scorched earth policy to refuse the enemy access to any resources. |
Little Man Little Man: A Story of Childhood | James Baldwin | 1,976 | TJ plays ball with his friends outside; he grazes his knee, then hurts his buttocks. A police car drives by, looking for a man; they run away. TJ's father then invites WT over for cocoa. Later, TJ goes shopping for Miss Lee, under the aegis of WT. TJ is then summoned by Miss Beanpole; she wants him to go shopping for her; he goes with his three friends. They go to a store whose owner is Puerto Rican. On the way back, while playing ball again, WT hurts his foot and starts bleeding - a bottle fell down from a window and the shards hurt him. They go to Mr Man's and Miss Lee covers up his gash, starts crying, then gives him a Pepsi Cola. In the end, Blinky dances to Mr Man's record, to the delights of Miss Lee and Mr Man. |
Deadkidsongs | Toby Litt | 2,001 | The plot centers on Gang, a gang of four boys who play War, led by "the Best Father". All boys envy Andrew for having such a nice dad, while Paul's father is considered "the worst father", a reputation he was never able to shake off, after having told off Andrew's father for neglecting an accident that involved Matthew falling out of a tree. However, their revenge on Paul's father has to make way quickly for a much more serious operation. When Matthew dies of meningitis, and Andrew's father mentions the fact that Matthew's grandparents did not take him to the doctor's in time, the three boys decide to take revenge on them, blaming them for the death of their gang member. Matthew's grandparents, who became substitute parents for him and his sister Miranda, when their parents died in a car crash, are touched by the boys' helpful attitude towards them, and welcome them in their home, not knowing that they're the worst enemy they'll ever know. By then, Andrew, Paul and Peter have started calling them "the Dinosaurs", and their only goal is to "have them extinct by Christmas". A horrific battle ensues, and while Andrew and Paul start fighting for the leadership of Gang, things get out of control. |
Finding Myself | Toby Litt | 2,003 | The plot centers on Victoria About, a prolific female English writer, who has invited some of her friends and relatives to come and stay at a seaside house she has rented in Southwold. The only condition is the fact that they all have to allow her to watch them and to turn all she sees and hears into her next novel, "From The Lighthouse". Clearly inspired by Virginia Woolf, Victoria drafts a synopsis with things (such as rows & relationships) that will happen during the month. But as summer holiday starts, Victoria is not pleased with the general boredom and carefree conversations that happen in the house. Little does she know that when the guests discover she has hidden spycams all over the house, and when she gets trapped in the attic by all her friends and relatives, her life ànd her book start to take a twist. |
Le Blé en herbe | Colette | null | Phil and Vinca meet every year during the summer holidays. They have always been interested in each other, but Phil meets a woman who introduces him to carnal love. Vinca feels the betrayal of her friend. The most recent English translation of the novel (2004) is Green Wheat, translated by Zack Rogow, nominated for the PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Award. An earlier translation (1955) by Roger Senhouse was entitled Ripening Seed. |
Around the Day in Eighty Worlds | Julio Cortázar | 1,967 | ;Volume I *Chapter 01: This is How it Starts (with a pre-introductory dedication to Pablo Neruda and Aragon) ::*A touching memoir dedicated to Jules Verne and Lester Young without offending Phileas Fogg, about Charlie Parker, Stéphane Mallarmé, Passepartout, Aouda, Man Ray, Robert Lebel, Marcel Duchamp and Antonin Artaud. ::*How to dance a shirtless girl (short story / mini poem) ::*(Encore) *Chapter 03: Julios in Action ::*Jules Laforgue, Marcel Duchamp's drawing for the poem Encore a cet astre, Le Monde (thursday edition), Moulin a cafe, Dada exhibition in Paris (11.12.66), the first painting he saw by order of the Philadelphia Museum of Art (Nu descendant un escalier) and a photograph of Julio playing the trumpet. *Chapter 05: Theme for San Jorge *Chapter 09: I fall... then emerge. *Chapter 10: The smiler with the knife under the cloak *Chapter 17: Clifford ;Volume II *Chapter 01: What Happens, Minerva? ::*Happenings, Benjamin Patterson's Lawful Dance, Paik's Omnibus Music No. 1, Le Monde, Dick Higgins, Thomas Shmidt, Jean-Jacques Lebel, Tetsumi Kudo. *Chapter 03: Around the Piano of Thelonious Monk *Chapter 05: On to Lezama Lima's Arrival *Chapter 09: Mallarmé's Tombeau *Chapter 13: The Nobel Art *Chapter 14: The Most Profound Caress es:La vuelta al día en ochenta mundos |
62: A Model Kit | Julio Cortázar | 1,968 | The book revolves around an introspective group of friends who call themselves the Tartars. The intellectual boredom of the group has lead them to invent various social experimentals and mental diversions, the most important of which is referred to as "the City." The city is a kind of imaginary metropolis the Tartars have built over time as a possible alternative to the normal world in which they feel so stifled. There is also a being referred to as "my paredros," the spirit or collective will of the group that acts through one member or another when they are at their most playful. The reader learns first about Juan, a translator by profession. Juan is one of the Tartars. It's Christmas Eve, and he is sitting alone in a restaurant meditating at length about a woman named Helene. Before concluding this inner monlogue, Juan's expresses a desire to reshuffle the events of the immediate past. The narrative then flashes back to describe Marrast, a sculptor living in London, and along with his girlfriend, Nicole, another member of the Tartars. The relationship between Marrast and Nicole is presented as an unhappy one, with Marrast indulging in painful speculations about Nicole's unrequited love for Juan. He has been contracted by a small town to start a new statue, but has yet to begin. Instead, he finds himself drawn to a painting in a museum that depicts an apparently useless branch in the hands of a medical doctor. Finding an ad one day inviting "sensitive, intelligent, anxious, or a little lonely" individuals to join something called "Neurotics Anonymous," Marrast decides to write to them about the piece to suggest that an investigation of it might be a more constructive use of their time. There are conflicting accounts about why he does this, or what he hopes to get out of it, but its immediate effects are soon related: the painting begins to receive more attention than those around it, which arouses the suspicions of the art museum's security and managerial staff, and Marrast meets a man who is familially connected to the institute's director, and to whom he passes a vague tale about certain undesirable persons attracted to the picture. Helene, meanwhile, is presented at a later date struggling to come to terms with the death of a young man at the hospital where she works and who reminded her of Juan. For some time previously, she has been rejecting Juan's advances, but not because she does not recicprocate his feelings—again, as in Marrast's case, her motives are complex and perhaps ultimately undefinable. But on the way home, she stops at the Cluny, a cafe in Paris where the Tartars usually meet, and encounters the youngest member of the group, a student named Celia. Celia has run away from home, and having nowhere to stay for the night, is invited by Helene to come to her apartment. The narrative twists in time again to present Juan before Christmas, and his lover, a woman named Tell who travels around the world with him. The pair are in Vienna where Tell has observed an old woman insinuate herself into a young female tourist's confidence. Believing something sinister is afoot, or perhaps just playing at believing, Juan and Tell check into the same hotel as the two women and begin to follow them. While Juan is at work, Tell watches the hallway outside the old woman's room in an effort to catch her visiting the girl, while at night, the couple takes turns. Finally, one evening while Juan is on guard, he does indeed see the old woman sneaking out of her room. Once she has proceeded to the second floor, he follows her. Back in London, Marrast invites Austin, one of the "Anonymous Neurotics," to join the Tartars. He also agrees to teach the young man French. But this development backfires when Nicole seduces Austin, then leaves Marrast for Paris. Marrast's museum scheme ends with the controversial painting's being suddenly removed by the director of the institute, much to the delight of the Tartars. Meanwhile, at Helene's apartment, Celia plays with a mysterious doll that was sent to Helene by Tell, who was given it by Juan, who received it in turn from the original manufacturer, a man referred to as Monsieur Ochs. Ochs has been imprisoned for hiding objects in his dolls, most notably a masturbatory device, so there is no telling what is in this one. Celia shares Helene's bed, and in the middle of the night is groped by Helene and taken sexual advantage of. In the morning, as a humiliated Celia rushes to repack her things, she angrily throws the doll to the floor, where it breaks. The contents, which are never revealed to the reader, spill out, and Celia screams and runs away. She, like Nicole, heads to Paris. Back at the hotel in Vienna, Juan and Tell follow the old woman, Frau Marta, to the young tourist's room, where they observe the girl sitting up in bed with two small marks on her neck, apparently waiting for a vampiric attack. But the old woman removes the girl's top instead. She stands up and leaves the room with Frau Marta through a door that may or may not be part of the city. When Juan and Tell follow, they find themselves back in the heart of the city, where a confused Juan momentarily sees Helene on a streetcar, but can't reach her, and he loses sight of both Frau Marta and the young tourist girl. Tell receives a letter from Marrast at this point detailing his and Nicole's rupture, and she leaves immediately to aid Nicole, whom Marrast may have poisoned with sleeping pills. While she is away, Juan intercepts another letter written to her, but from Helene. Helene implies that Juan, through Tell, sent the doll himself as a childish reaction to Helene's continued rejection of his romantic advances. Mortified by the accusation, Juan rushes off to Paris to proclaim his innocence. In Paris again, the narrative describes the efforts of another Tartar, Polanco, to use the engine from a lawn mower to power a small canoe, as he fancies himself as a kind of inventor. The Tartars agree to assist, but in the middle of their planning, someone from Scotland Yard arrives at the door. It seems Marrast's museum scheme has disturbed the government itself, and the group is informed that it might be in their best interests to leave the country, at least temporarily. But first there is the matter of the canoe. The Tartars successfully attach the mower to the canoe, but it's much too powerful for the small craft and knocks them overboard when they make a trial run with it in the small pond near where Polanco works. They seek refuge on an island in the middle of the pond, but the water is mysteriously rising. A chaotic scene unfolds with Polanco's girlfriend and others on the shore trying to "rescue" them, as they steadfastly refuse to simply wade back across. Finally Marrast arrives, blinking in disbelief. He takes a makeshift boat out alone to retrieve the pranksters. Soon it's time for the great unveiling of Marrast's sculpture, and all the Tartars attend the ceremony, even Nicole. Celia and Austin have fallen in love by this time, and Juan and Helene have spent a passionate night together. But the sculpture turns out to be a typical Tartar production, much to the outrage of the townspeople who paid Marrast a small fortune to make it. But the group is delighted with the results; both by the piece itself and by the crowd's reaction to it. The book concludes with most of the Tartars returning to Paris by train. A distracted Nicole wanders off at the wrong stop and finds herself in the city, by a canal. Celia and Austin also get off, ostensibly to look at cows. In the gloomy traincar, Juan sits across from Helene and tries to talk to her, but realizes that nothing has changed. The other Tartars have gotten off to look for Nicole, whom they presume is walking alone along the tracks towards Paris. Helene, unaccountably back in the mysterious city, opens a door in a hotel and walks into a dark room where Austin jumps out and stabs her to death. Juan, following, leans over the body a moment before exiting the room through a door that opens directly onto the canal—where he sees Nicole on a barge with the sinister Frau Marta. The last sentences of the book describe the remaining Tartars in a jocular group again, resuming their play at the train station in Paris. |
A Visitation of Spirits | Randall Kenan | 1,989 | Horace Cross is a gay black teenager from Tims Creek, North Carolina. He is fascinated with science and comic books, and his family is convinced that he is going to make them proud. Horace grows up in a fundamentalist Baptist church family which condemns homosexuality, forcing Horace to stay in the closet for sometime, and constantly wrestle with his self identity. The story starts with an internal dialogue about Horace's desire and quest to turn himself into a bird. When his ritual for this transformation fails, he is apparently possessed by a demon. Armed with his grandfather's gun and mostly naked, he wanders around his hometown, experiencing flashbacks and revelations which tell the story of his life, his struggles with homosexuality, and the failures of his closest friends and family to save him from his fate. Mixed into the telling of Horace's journey is "present" and past events explaining more about how Horace's elder cousin, Jimmy Greene, becomes a minister and the principal of the local high school. Jimmy can't give any real advice of his own, and has to turn to the Bible when confronted with a problem (he references the Old Testament when Horace comes out to him and, in fact, advises Horace to, paradoxically, "Search your heart. Take it to the Lord. But don't dwell on it too much. You'll be fine. Believe me."). In the present to the story thread of this book, Jimmy drives his great-aunt Ruth and his uncle Ezekiel to see one of their relatives, Asa Cross, in the hospital. At a diner, Ruth has an argument with Ezekiel; Jimmy attempts to quell it but he remains unsuccessful, in spite of his being a church minister. In the end, Ezekiel tries to teach Jimmy that he can't turn to the Bible to solve all of his problems. |
Cecilia | Fanny Burney | 1,782 | Cecilia is a novel following the history of Cecilia Beverley, an orphaned heiress who will inherit three thousand pounds a year once she reaches the age of twenty-one, in addition to a personal fortune of ten thousand pounds. This inheritance is solely dependent on whether or not her future husband adopts the name of Beverley. The events of the novel take place in the eight months before Cecilia comes of age and is able to take up a house of her own. Cecilia begins with death of the heiress's uncle, the Dean, with whom she has been living, four weeks before the narrative starts. The Dean has appointed three guardians who will look after Cecilia's affairs during her minority: the spendthrift Mr Harrel, the parsimonious Mr Briggs, and the haughty Mr Delvile. All of the guardians are unknown to her, so she chooses to live in London with Mr Harrel, as he is the husband of her close friend, Priscilla. Priscilla is an impressionable unthinking woman who assists her husband in pressuring Cecilia to borrow money against her inheritance in order to pay his gambling debts and to fund their extravagant lifestyle. Harrel increasingly comes up with ingenious ways to make Cecilia feel obliged to pay him, including the threat of suicide. Priscilla's brother, Mr Arnott, is also imposed upon by the Harrels for money. Cecilia is also advised by Mr Monckton, whose wife, Lady Margaret, dislikes Cecilia because she is young and beautiful. Lady Margaret, who married Mr Monckton when she was 67 and is infirm and asthmatic, also suspects that Mr Monckton, a young man, is hoping to marry Cecilia after she dies. He gives Cecilia good advice, but his advice is always colored by this aim. Cecilia and her acquaintance attend an opera rehearsal at which Mr Albany, an eccentric religious man, warns her that she is in danger of being surrounded by people who will exploit her. At the end of Book I, Cecilia realizes how unfeeling Mr Harrel is when she encounters Mrs Hill, the wife of Mr Harrel's carpenter, outside their house. Initially Cecilia tries to give Mrs Hill a gift of money as charity, but Mrs Hill explains that she just wants her bill to be paid as her husband is unwell, having fallen off his ladder, and they have lost their son Billy to consumption. Mrs Hill has been sent away empty-handed many times, and asks Cecilia to intercede. Mr Harrel asks his brother-in-law, Mr Arnott to lend him the money to pay the bill. At the beginning of Book II, Cecilia decides that she must leave the Harrels' house, and she visits Mr Delvile. Delvile is so rude that she realizes she could not live with his family. In spite of their financial troubles, the Harrels hold a grand masquerade at their home. Mr Briggs turns up as a chimney sweep, and people are offended that he has used real soot. Cecilia is accosted by a masked character dressed as the Devil (Monckton in disguise) who won't let any men near Cecilia. A mysterious white domino takes care of Cecilia, protecting her from the worst advances of the masked Devil. The evening ends in chaos when a harlequin (Mr Morrice) attempts to jump across the dessert table and brings the awning down, plunging the room into darkness. After an opera performance, an argument between Mr. Belfield and Sir Robert Floyer over who has the honor of assisting Cecilia into her carriage leads to a duel. Shocked at their violent behavior, Cecilia cries out and stops Floyer from attacking Belfield at the opera; this show of compassion leads the public to believe that Cecilia is secretly in love with Sir Robert. The duel takes place, and Belfield is wounded. Cecelia visits Mr. Delvile again and is introduced to his son, who has admired her from afar, and to Mrs. Delvile. Young Delvile admires Cecilia and they become friends, though Cecilia is conscious of the Delvile family's preoccupation with rank in society. The book ends with Cecilia's concern for Mr Belfield's health. In Book III, Cecilia returns home to the Harrels' house to find them dealing with an attorney who is demanding money, Cecilia pays it because she is concerned that Mr Arnott is being imposed upon too much. She also tries to persuade Mrs Harrel that she needs to do more to control her husband's spending. Cecilia proposes to ask Mr Briggs, who is in control of her inheritance, to advance six hundred pounds. On her way to Briggs's house, she steps into a doorway to avoid a mob who are following a group of prisoners who are heading to Tyburn to be hanged, and encounters Delvile leaving Belfield's house. Delvile misconstrues that Cecilia is about to visit Belfield, thinking that there must have been a reason for him to fight a duel over her. Briggs refuses to give Cecilia any money and she decides to ask Mr Delvile to intercede with him on her behalf. She encounters Mortimer first, who embarrasses her by implying that she has visited Belfield. Careful not to reveal the financial affairs of the Harrels, Cecilia asks for six hundred pounds to pay a book bill. Delvile is shocked, denounces the reading habits of educated women, and suggests that Briggs is too vulgar for him to deal with. Returning home empty-handed Mr Harrel presents Cecilia with a plan to borrow the money from a Jewish money-lender, Mr Zackery, even though she is not old enough to legally contract a debt of this kind. She takes 200 pounds for herself and gives the rest to Harrel. She plans to give Mrs Hill 100 in order to set up her children in employment, but briefly lends the 200 to Harrel, who makes excuses and does not pay it back. Cecilia is only able to give the Hills 50. Mr Albany accosts her in the street and takes her to Belfield's houses, asking her to turn her back on her frivolous life and help them. She cannot help them, but she becomes friendly with Miss Befield and learns the history of the family. |
Freehold | Michael Z. Williamson | 2,004 | Earth in the future has become a rough society where pervasive bureaucratic regulation by a global (and extra-solar) UN means everything happens slowly, permits and licenses are required for most activities, all law-abiding citizens are tracked by computer implants constantly, and workers at all levels are unmotivated. Crime is basically unchecked: rape and burglary are considered commonplace and unavoidable, though still punishable. Petty theft and lesser crimes are all but ignored, and blame is attributed more to the victims than the perpetrators if they occur. Kendra Pacelli is a logistics noncommissioned officer in the UN Protection Force (UNPF) until she is implicated in a scheme that involved stealing millions of dollars worth of materiel from the Protection Force. The UN Investigators are notorious for brutal interrogations of prisoners and the slow pace of the bureaucracy means exoneration is unlikely even though she is innocent. Warned by a friend, she decides to seek asylum with the Freehold colony, which is independent of UN control. She moves to the colony, though due to the expense of her transit she must enter the colony’s indenturing program: an individual or a company assumes her debt and she pays it off gradually by working and having a portion taken out of her paycheck. Initially she is advised by Citizen Hernandez and finds work in city park services based on her experience with machinery in the UNPF. Kendra finds an apartment close to her work, where she meets Robert McKay. He is a highly decorated Freehold Military Forces veteran and a pilot of renowned skill who is involved in various real estate and other business ventures, and she relies on him to help with her introduction into Freehold society. She is eventually introduced to Marta Hernandez, another veteran, who is a high-priced escort. Through her two friends, she slowly becomes acclimated to the totally free market society of Freehold. Differences she must deal with include total lack of regulation of anything, pervasive personal firearms ownership (including high caliber military surplus), relaxed mores regarding sex and dress (many people in Freehold go partially or completely naked without comment, and she eventually becomes involved in a ménage à trois with Rob and Marta), voluntary taxation, almost nonexistent crime, and minimal government infrastructure where voting only takes place to elect Citizens who serve as a governmental body and judges when absolutely necessary, which is rare. The total lack of regulation on commerce causes the UN to impose sanctions on Freehold due to safety concerns, and Kendra is laid off from her job. At Rob’s suggestion, she enlists in Freehold’s military. She is required to go through basic training (which is more-or-less exactly like modern infantry basic training) and then through logistics training before she is assigned a billet as a corporal. Her superior, Alan Naumann, sends her to noncommissioned officer training after a short time, believing that war with Earth is imminent and unavoidable. Earth soon sends a large group of prisoners and political extremists to Freehold, claiming Freehold volunteered to accept them. Against Naumann’s advice, the Freehold government accepts them. The malcontented people are quickly confused and affronted by Freehold’s society: the criminals who try to operate are often shot by the armed citizenry or challenged to legal duels and die, and the political people assume the lack of voting or regulation means they have no say in how things are run and stage protests and riots which have to be put down. Earth’s media uses these incidents as propaganda to suggest Freehold is oppressive and savage and must be civilized by force. A covert operation from Earth attempts to infiltrate Freehold, but the UNPF forces are grossly incompetent; they are mostly eliminated by automated defenses or captured by citizens or regular FMF military. In retaliation, a Freehold covert unit subverts and destroys the main UNPF military HQ on Earth. Earth uses that as an excuse to launch an invasion. Naumann becomes the de facto commander of the entire FMF military, which doesn’t attempt to put up a direct defense against the numerically superior UNPF forces. Naumann instead uses his military people to immediately organize the armed citizenry and conduct guerilla warfare. Kendra is stranded out in the rural sections of the planet, and becomes a commander of a local guerilla force. She starts becoming hostile and participates in some brutality and violence beyond the rules of war. At one point, her prior criminal record on Earth is brought up and a reward offered, which requires her to shoot some of her colleagues who want to turn her in. The UN forces are hampered by the realities of Freehold: 90% of freehold is armed, a large number are military service veterans, the planet has gravity 1.18 times that of Earths', they do not know the terrain, and there is no government infrastructure for them to assimilate. Eventually Naumann calls in the guerillas and organizes a massive counter-offensive in which Kendra is charged with holding an infantry line against a numerically superior force with little support. She is seriously wounded in the effort, but holds her line and the UN forces are defeated. Kendra helps with the systematic urban warfare to clean out the cities, and in the process is raped. Naumann uses captured space materiel to launch orbital strikes on Earth, causing massive death and destruction. Earth negotiates a truce, and the aftermath is covered: Marta was assigned by Naumann to seduce and kill the UN general at Freehold, and in the process got captured, tortured, and gang-raped for an extended period, so must undergo counseling. Kendra tries to help, but must also undergo counseling about her violent actions as a guerilla. Rob had crashed and got infected with a nano-virus which renders him unable to fly. Kendra briefly considers returning to Earth (she is cleared of her crimes and offered compensation), but is convinced by Naumann and her friends to remain on Freehold. |
The Quincunx | null | 1,989 | The novel begins in London with a secret meeting between two legal men. A bribe reveals the confidential details of a correspondent who is the link to a vital hidden document. Meanwhile young John Mellamphy is growing up in the remote countryside with his mother Mary, ignorant of the name of Huffam. Gradually it becomes clear that they are threatened by the search for the document. |
Jack, Knave and Fool | Bruce Cook | 1,998 | Sir John treats his household to a performance of Händel's music, but murder introduces a discordant note. Meanwhile, a runaway reprobate and a bodiless head present other problems to the magistrate. |
La Mine d'or de Dick Digger | null | 1,949 | In Dirk Digger's Gold Mine, Lucky Luke and Jolly Jumper meet an old friend, the prospector Dirk Digger in extasty over a recent gold ore discovery, en route to register his gold mine claim in Nugget City. Celebrating loudly at a saloon, Digger is identified as a target of robbery by two hardened criminals, and after assaulting him alone in his room, they get away with his gold and a map leading to the gold find. The following day, Lucky Luke and Jolly Jumper take up pursuit following their trail. In The Look-Alike of Lucky Luke, Luke discovers he causes fear in the inhabitants of a town, because he is remarkably similar to a notorious fellain named Mad Jim, currently in prison and scheduled for hanging. Spotted by two thugs who are Mad Jim's associates, Luke is ambushed and knocked out in a scheme to replace him with the doppelgänger in a drunken sherrif's jail cell, in order to get a share of Mad Jim's loot. Taken without doubt for the dangerous villain, Lucky Luke barely escapes the mob lynching before he is able to pursue the criminals and bring them to justice. |
The 4-Hour Workweek | Timothy Ferriss | 2,007 | In the book Ferriss uses the acronym DEAL for the four main chapters. It stands for: Definition, Elimination, Automation, and Liberation. Definition means to figure out what a person wants, get over fears, see past society's "expectations," and figure out what it will really cost to get where a person wants to go. Elimination is about time management, or rather about not managing time. This is achieved by applying the 'Pareto principle' or '80-20 Rule' (80% of your benefits come from 20% of your efforts) to focus only on those tasks that contribute the majority of benefit, and using Parkinson's law (work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion) to limit the amount of actual time spent working. There's a difference, Ferriss says, between efficiency and effectiveness. The book's emphasis is on effectiveness. Automation is about building a sustainable, automatic source of income. This includes techniques such as drop-shipping, automation, Google AdWords and AdSense, and outsourcing. Liberation is dedicated to the successful automation of one's lifestyle and the liberation from a geographical location and job. Incidentally, Ferriss notes that if somebody has a regular job, the order of steps will be DELA, not DEAL. The book asserts that technology such as email, instant messaging, and Internet-enabled PDAs complicate life rather than simplify it. "Most fundamentally, Mr. Ferriss turned ruthless against e-mail. " It advocates hiring virtual assistants from developing countries such as India and Philippines to free up personal time. |
The Resistance | K. A. Applegate | 2,000 | A free Hork-Bajir is captured by the Yeerks and involuntarily reveals the location of the Hork-Bajir valley. Jake and the other animorphs head to the colony to warn the Hork-Bajir. Jake thinks it would be best to abandon the valley and flee, but the Hork-Bajir, led by Toby Hamee, insist that they want to stay and fight. As a part of the battle strategy, the Animorphs (most of them) morph beavers to make a dam to flush the Yeerks out of the valley. Jake and Tobias spot a group of campers who would be likely be innocent victims of the fighting and approach them to try and convince them to leave. They don't buy Jake's lame story and Jake decides that he must show them the truth and he and Tobias both morph in front of them. It turns out that the campers are Star Trek fans and (believing the Animorphs to be actual aliens) insist on helping the Animorphs. They assist Marco's parents (who now live in the valley) and the free Hork-Bajir in an assembly line of creating spears and other weapons. Meanwhile, every other chapter consists of somewhat-related diary entries from Lt. Isaiah Fitzhenry, a great-uncle to Jake's grandfather, who fought in the American Civil War, specifically against General Forrest. The battle for the valley begins, and it is very bloody with many dead. Visser One morphs a horrible eight headed alien creature, and the formidable Yeerk force can only be driven back when the water from the dam is released down the valley. One of the campers was killed in the battle. Jake reminds Toby that the victory is only temporary and that the Yeerks will be back. Toby realizes that they must leave the valley, and Jake says that maybe one day they can return. Jake returns home and reads the conclusion of Fitzhenry's diary. He received a fatal wound in the battle, but expresses in his last written thought that he hopes he did his best. Jake is uncertain of how his story will end, but as he closes the book he whispers "Yeah, me, too." |
The Adventures of Danny Meadow Mouse | Thornton Burgess | 1,915 | Danny begins his tale regretting the length of his tail until he is corrected by Mr. Toad. Then he has a series of stalkings by Reddy and Granny Fox. He is captured by Hooty the Owl and escapes mid-flight to Peter Rabbit's briar patch. Peter goes to Farmer Brown's peach orchard and gets caught in a snare and barely escapes himself. Finally Danny gets trapped in a tin can and must use his wits to escape Reddy Fox again. |
Two Old Women | Velma Wallis | null | Long before the Europeans came, nomads roamed the polar region of Alaska in constant search for game. The people of the Gwich'in, who belong to the Athabaska tribes, wander the areas around the Yukon River, the Porcupine River, the Tanana River and their tributaries. Because of a lack of food and an upcoming strict winter, one of these Gwich'in nomad groups decides to leave behind two old women in the snow-covered wilderness. Left back and dumbfounded in fright, 75-year-old Sa' and 80-year-old Ch'idzigyaak remain seated in the snow after the leader announced the decision to the tribe. Before moving on, Ch'idzigyaak's daughter gives them an untanned moose's skin, or babiche. As another familial gesture, Ch'idzigyaak's grandson hides his osseous hatchet, which is the symbol of his manhood, for the two women. The tribe leaves. Left back to themselves, the two women at first sit silently. In their desperation, however, they decide it's better to die trying to survive. Sa' succeeds in killing a squirrel using the hatchet as a weapon. The two women boil the meat and drink the broth. They then go on to set rabbit traps and in the middle of the night wake to animal noises: they find two rabbits in their traps. The women now decide to move on to hunt better game. In order to cross the snow, they make themselves snowshoes. Eventually, they reach a river where their tribe had fished successfully in the warmer season. On each night of their journey of several days, the women dig a snow shelter protected by animal hides. They save the embers of their campfires to start a new fire the next evening. In this way, the fire never goes out. In the mornings, the two old women complain about their pains in the joints. Finally they reach their familiar river and set up a winter camp there. However, they hide inland from The People, another tribe, for fear of cannibalism. Fortunately, the two old women succeed in building up a generous supply of food made up of smoked musquashes and beavers. In the summer, they catch large amounts of fish and manage to dry and store them away. In the next winter, the tribe returns to the area. The leader concludes that the two women must have survived because there are no remains of them. He believes that if they can find the women, the tribe might be able to muster a new sense of survival, for his people are starving after having had little hunting luck all through winter. The leader sends off Daagoo, a tracker, and a few young warriors to locate the women. The weak group staggers away. But Daagoo picks up the scent of smoke, and before long they track down the women's camp. The two women at first do not trust the small group but Daagoo gives both of them his word: the men want peace with the two women. Sa' and Ch'idzigyaak hesitate for a long time. In the end they sense that Daagoo is honest. They submit to his request for they had been in fact very lonely, missing their home tribe a lot. However, they do not admit this right away. In spite of their deep mistrust (from having been left alone to die before) their hearts grow soft again. So in the end the two old women deliver rations of food to their own people. Ch'idzigyaak's grandson makes an effort and visits them in the camp, but the daughter is still ashamed and does not visit for a while. In the end, however, the daughter finally visits the mother. From then on the Gwich'in never ever leave their elderly behind. They will never think of doing that again. |
Little Foxes | null | null | Billy Bunch is an orphan who has had many foster families, but none of them have worked out. He is currently living with a foster mother in the suburbs of a city. They don't get on well, and at school Billy is not good at subjects, especially English (he cannot read out loud because he has a stutter). One night, Billy tries to run away, and runs into the nearby abandoned land where there are the ruins of a monastery. There is plentiful wildlife living in this place that everyone calls "The Waste Ground". Billy fathers four orphaned foxes and develops a relationship with a swan, too. However Billy's secret place is found out and the fox family is gassed by the local council. But one survives Billy decides that his life is becoming a little better - he has found some animal friends and has lost his stutter. He returns to his foster home, but this doesn't last, and eventually he runs away with one of the young foxes (the other three were gassed by the local council), and goes on many adventures. At the end he lets the swan fly away freely. On these adventures, he meets a man who has a boat and cares for all the birds around the river. The man says that Billy can stay with him on his boat as they are going in the same direction. Eventually, Billy shoots above the foxes head and the fox runs away, never to return. Billy and the man then return to his home, where is adopted by the man and his wife. |
Our Story | null | null | Our Story is an autobiography by the Kray twins. They were the notorious East End underworld gang leaders during the "swinging" sixties. This book tells their story from their humble beginnings in Bethnal Green to their life imprisonment in 1969 in their own words. The hardback version contains 16 pages of black and white photographs of the twins. |
Djinn | Alain Robbe-Grillet | 1,981 | The Prologue opens with what we assume to be a police report. Simon Lecoeur has been reported missing for several days, so the authorities break into his apartment where they find a manuscript lying on the table. The contents of the manuscript are revealed in the following chapters. The narrator, responding to a newspaper ad, goes to a deserted industrial park to meet his potential boss, Jean. The narrator assumes that Jean is a man and sees him at the end of a building dressed in a coat, hat, and dark glasses. "Monsieur Jean" turns out to be an American woman. Djinn/Jean asks the narrator to join her social cause, and as proof of his fidelity, she asks him to meet someone at the Parisian train station, the Gare du Nord. The narrator stops at a café on his way to the train station. There, a young student tells him that he is going to be late and suggests a short-cut. The narrator assumes that this woman is one of Djinn/Jean's agents, as she seems to know who he is and where he is going. He leaves and takes the short cut, which leads him through the Rue Vercingetorix III, a street name that cannot possibly exist. There, he sees a boy run into the street and fall down as if dead. The narrator decides to help, and he carries the boy into the nearest building. The narrator meets the boy's sister, Marie, who tells him that her brother Jean "dies" frequently. The narrator takes this to mean that the boy is subject to some kind of seizure. The narrator asks about the boy and the girl's parents, and the girl shows the narrator a photograph of a Russian sailor who died at sea and whom she claims is their father. Marie gives the narrator a letter written by Djinn/Jean. In it, he reads that the train station destination was in reality meant to be nothing more than a wild goose chase. The boy wakes up, and the two children lead the narrator to a café. At the café, Marie asks the narrator to tell a story. When the narrator is unable to come up with a story that meets her specifications, she proceeds to tell her own tale. The time comes for the narrator to leave with Jean. He is made to wear dark glasses and carry a cane as if he were blind. Jean is his guide, and they get into a taxi. In the taxi, Jean gives the narrator a drug that makes him sleep. When he awakes, he is led into a large room with other people. He hears Djinn/Jean's voice explain their mission, which is to fight against machinery of all kinds. She warns that robots and computers will control the earth. The narrator manages to move the glasses while scratching his nose, and he sees that there are many other young men just like him, with dark glasses, canes, and little boys as guides. He also realizes that Djinn/Jean is not present. They are listening to a tape recording of her voice. The man next to him attempts to communicate something, but the narrator is knocked unconscious. The narrator (who is finally revealed as Simon Lecoeur) wakes up and has no memory of what has happened, other than he knows he met with Djinn/Jean and needs to go to the Gare du Nord. Again, he stops at the same café, which sparks some memory of which he is unsure. The server has changed to a lady named Marie. He notices a picture of a Russian sailor, and Marie remarks that this is her father, who died at sea. Simon notices a cane at the table next to him and decides to pretend like he is blind. He walks out of the café, where a young boy offers to help him on his way to the Gare du Nord. Realizing that they will miss the train from Amsterdam, the two start running, and Simon trips and falls on the boy, who looks as though he were dead. Simon decides to take the boy into the nearest house. Inside the home, he places the boy on the bed and sees a young woman who looks like Djinn/Jean. She explains that the boy can see visions of the future, and that she and the narrator are not real. They exist only in the boy's dream. She is long-dead, having died in an accident involving machinery and computers. The narrator is alive, but his true self is currently in a meeting across town involving an anti-machinery terrorist organization. She reveals that the narrator will become the boy's father and that he will die at sea. The narrator is now a woman. She answers a newspaper ad looking for a babysitter. Another applicant comes, and each mistakes the other for the potential employer. She and the other man Simon begin a friendly game where she pretends that she is the employer; and she makes up a story about an anti-industrial terrorist organization as a joke. They go to a café, where they tell stories. She takes a cab to the train station to meet her friend Caroline who is arriving from Amsterdam. Caroline comes with her niece Marie, whose father is a Russian sailor. In the background, the narrator notices the sinister cab driver as well as a blind man being led by a young boy. She feels that the cab driver is surveying her too closely, and she faints. When she awakes, she cannot remember anything other than the fact that she has a meeting with a potential employer in a deserted industrial park. She goes there and sees a man standing at the end of the corridor wearing a coat, a hat, and dark glasses... In the epilogue, the police have discovered a body matching the description of Djinn/Jean. However, the agent that we assume to be the police in the prologue is revealed to belong to some other counter-organization working against the police investigation. Of all the characters in the manuscript, the only one whose existence can be verified is that of young Marie. |
The Disunited States of America | Harry Turtledove | 2,006 | The story takes place in the 2090s and concerns two outsiders caught up in a war between Ohio and Virginia: a young girl from California visiting relatives with her grandmother, and a boy from our world's Crosstime Traffic trading firm. |
Pied Piper of Lovers | Lawrence Durrell | 1,935 | Walsh Clifton is an Anglo-Indian born of an inter-racial couple. His mother dies during childbirth in the opening scenes of the novel. He is raised in India by his father, John Clifton, and his aunt Brenda. Walsh is torn between his strong ties to India and his position as a colonial. He appears most comfortable around Indian characters, though they are not thoroughly developed in the novel, and he is regularly discomforted by representatives of European culture and Christianity in particular. He develops a sense of superiority over several Indian characters, typically echoing other European characters, but these feelings are regularly thwarted, often in tandem with challenges to traditional European notions of masculinity. This is compounded by Walsh's increasing awareness of his mortality, symbolized by the human ankle bone he sees in a pyre and his Grandmamma's morbid fixation on death. Walsh is then sent 'home' to England for his education by his father, where he is again caught in a conflict between being English or Indian. The former is often associated with paternal and masculine identity while the latter is frequently tied to maternal and feminine identity. This portion of the novel is largely concerned with his schoolboy experiences, his developing sexuality, and the eventual death of his father, who has remained in India. The protagonist has homosexual experiences, significant dream sequences, and comments on his wide readings. The final portion of the novel consists of a bohemian stage in Walsh's life, set in Soho and outside of London. He earns his living on his inheritance and by writing jazz music. Walsh ultimately rejects this lifestyle and concludes the novel with his first love, Ruth, who is terminally ill. She is diagnosed by the same doctor who delivered him and witnessed his mother's death. |
Star Wars Republic Commando: Order 66 | Karen Traviss | null | Etain Tur-Mukan finally tells Darman that her son, Kad Skirata, who is under the guise of Kal Skirata's grandchild from one of his biological children, is also Darman's son. Though Darman is angered by this initially for Etain and Skirata keeping this from him, he finally starts to spend time with Etain and Kad during their "quiet" moments when he and Etain are not out in battle in the Clone Wars. Skirata becomes a wanted in the Old Republic because of him falsely stating that he killed Kaminoan geneticist Ko Sai, who played a major role in creating the Jango Fett clones, and then stole her data. And during that time, Skirata manages to bust Ovolot Qail Uthan, Separatist scientist imprisoned three years earlier by Omega Squad for trying to create a Fett clone virus, from prison because Skirata believes that despite her actions, he sees her as the ultimate key to giving the Fett clones a normal life span, since their life spans are lengthened by double the time (e.g., if they are chronologically two years old, then they're biologically four years old, etc.). Along with busting Uthan from prison is Arla Fett, Jango Fett's long lost insane sister, and Ruusaan Skirata, Kal's biological daughter. Meanwhile, Besany Wennen, Republic Treasury agent who is now married to one of Skirata's clones, Ordo, is almost caught by the authorities for sneaking into data files to find out the Republic's plan for the clones in the near future of the war. However, the Gurlanins, who have reclaimed their home planet of Qiilura from the colonist humans under the machinations of Etain, decide to repay the debt by framing Besany's friend, Jilka Zan Zentis, for the crime. However, under Skirata's hand, Jilka is set free from the authorities, a wanted fugitive now, and under Skirata's band. But just when Skirata's plans for bringing a positive future for his clone adopted sons seem to come into fruition, Chancellor Palpatine enacts Order 66, which means that all clones must kill off their Jedi commanders. Etain managed to have renounced her Jedi ways prior to Order 66's enactment and married Darman in a traditional Mandalorian way over a comm message. But Etain is trapped on a bridge on Coruscant with many other citizens of the Republic by clone troopers who are scanning for any Jedi to be killed in the crowd. Skirata, Darman and Skirata's other clones arrive to extract Etain, but Jedi are found among the crowd. And during the ensuing battle, Etain protects a clone from being killed by a Jedi wielding a lightsaber, and she is killed from the wound. Darman's fellow clone brother, Niner, is wounded from the battle when his spine is broken, and clones extract Niner to heal him up, with Darman following along to stay with his wounded brother, now that he is grieving for his lost wife. Skirata and all the others leave Coruscant and head for the Mandalorian home planet of Mandalore just as the Clone Wars come to an end, along with the Jedi Order thanks to Order 66 and of the Republic, being replaced by Palpatine's self-promotion to Emperor of the new Galactic Empire. As for Darman and Niner, they are now Imperial Commandos. |
Among the Missing | Richard Laymon | null | The novel takes place in Sierra County, California, primarily around the Silver Lake area. The story begins with a man and woman visiting a section of the Silver River referred to as 'the Bend', apparently with the intention of engaging in a romantic tryst. The next day, the woman's decapitated body is discovered by a young couple, Bass and his girlfriend Faye. Sheriff Rusty Hodges and his daughter-in-law, Deputy Mary "Pac" Hodges, are called in to investigate. The pursuit of the killer leads to a complicated series of events involving Merton (a homosexual drug dealer who was seen running from the scene of the crime), the dead woman's husband, and a revenge scheme involving two of the main characters. |
Bully and the Beast | Orson Scott Card | null | Bully and the Beast will be based on Orson Scott Card's short story "The Bully and the Beast" which can be found in his short story collection Maps in a Mirror. |
A Small Place in Italy | Eric Newby | null | The Newbys want to purchase a house in Italy before house prices start rising and, through the help of contacts, finally purchase I Castagni for two and a half million lire (£1,500) after a long and laborious sales process with the owner, a Signor Botti. Once they move in, they have to completely renovate everything, and are beset with various problems such as mice, a plague of cockroaches and an intractable neighbour who insists on using what he sees as a right of way for agricultural machinery that passes right outside the house - he even moves their outside dining table when he finds it blocking his path. The Newbys initiate a law suit against him which goes on for years owing to the dilapidated Italian legal system, but which they finally manage to win as a result of the man lying before the judge. The strength of the book is in its descriptions of some of the neighbouring families and the individual family members. Their closest neighbour is a sprightly Italian widow, Signora Angiolina, who helps them navigate their way through the intricacies of social life in their neighbourhood, as well as the Dada family who own several acres of vineyards and cook stupendous meals whenever the Newbys visit them at the Casa Dada. There is a very colourful description of the vendemmia, the annual grape harvest, during which Eric is roped into lifting bigonci, large barrel-shaped vessels full of crushed grapes, that nearly break his shoulder. Although the work is hard, there are merenda, consisting of huge outside picnics at which copious quantities of food are eaten, last year's wine drunk and bawdy gossip exchanged between the contadini. Another interesting description is when the Newbys join their neighbours in the annual funghi harvest in a very bountiful year, managing to gather ten full baskets between the four of them (less successful is a harvesting of wild asparagus when Eric forgets his bifocals and cannot see anything). |
English, August: An Indian Story | Upamanyu Chatterjee | 1,988 | The posting starts off as a tremendous culture shock for Agastya, a city boy. However, it eventually becomes one long philosophical journey and a process of self discovery. Written by a civil servant, the novel manages to capture the essence of an entire generation of Indians, whose urban realities jar in sharp contrast to that of rural India. Agastya Sen's sense of dislocation is only compounded by his extreme lack of interest in the bizarre ways of government and administration. While his mind is dominated by marijuana, masturbation and the meditations of Marcus Aurelius, images from his previous urban life. His work in Madna would ideally require him to be a devoted servant of the people. |
Not About Nightingales | Tennessee Williams | null | The play begins outside the warden’s office with Eva Crane and Mrs. Bristol. Eva is there for a job interview as the new secretary for the Warden, while Mrs. Bristol is here to give her son Sailor Jack some baked goods she made just for him. Moments after the scene begins, Jim walks through towards the Warden’s office and informs the women that the Warden is out inspecting the grounds, and may not be back for awhile. Mrs. Bristol can’t stay and leaves the food on the Warden’s desk. Warden Whalen enters in an unannounced, brash way. He is a short, fat, yet powerful man with a presence. Eva begins to beg him for a job; however the Warden doesn’t want to hear it, saying “A business executive is not interested in your personal misfortunes.” In the end, after careful consideration, he gives Eva the job. Meanwhile, Jim is being escorted back to his cell. Jim is a convict who helps out the Warden during the day. He enjoys the job because it gets him out of his cell all day. At nights when he returns, his cellmates are constantly calling him names such as Allison and Canary Bird. Some of the notable supporting characters introduced are; Butch, the unofficial leader among the inmates; Queen, a gay convict who’s not all that smart; and Ollie, a smart black convict who’s well respected by all the inmates. The next morning Mrs. Bristol returns to see the Warden and this time she had brought more food for her son. She explains how she hasn’t heard from her son in awhile and is getting worried. The Warden explains, in a coarse manner, that her son had gone insane and had to be killed. The next day, Eva talks to Jim and asks him about the eating conditions at the prison. Jim says the food is terrible; however the Warden enters, and says that the food is fine. In an effort to put Jim back in line he tells the story to Eva about when Jim first got to the prison and how he had to whip him for 14 straight days to try to break through his rough exterior. This story is too much for Eva as she ends up fainting at the end of the scene. Down in the prison, the prisoners begin to get pains in their stomachs and have a hard time getting to sleep. Butch says that it’s the poor food they are served everyday that is causing their pain, and suggests that they all go on a hunger strike. The men, all in pain, agree to the idea. Jim re-enters the prison and tells the men to hold off on the hunger-strike as he feels with his upcoming parole he can “tear down the walls of this prison”. The men agree and say they will hold off for a little longer, and instead go to dinner and cause a small prison riot. By doing so, they have all earned time in “the hole.” Back upstairs, Eva is working with the Warden alone in his office. The Warden begins asking personal questions toward Eva and also starts being suggestive, even asking her to “come into the closet with him.” Before anything can happen, Jim walks in with a report about the prisoners in “the hole,” even bringing them up to see him. After talking to them all, the Warden decides they all need more time and he sends them back. Ollie, however, loses himself and doesn’t want to go back; instead he rams his head into a wall and kills himself. Word reaches the prisoners and at this moment they can’t take it anymore. They are fed up with everything that is going on at the prison and begin their hunger strike. The Warden begins the act, talking with the Prisons Chaplain, who is concerned about how the Warden is treating his prisoners. The Warden portrays his, “my way or the highway” attitude toward the Chaplain. The Chaplain, not in agreement with the Warden’s methods, decides to quit. Out in the waiting room, life in the prison is getting a bit restless, due in part of the hunger strike. Eva is answering phone calls left and right, while showing signs of stress during the process. Jim enters and notices Eva’s bloody arm. She tells him that she walked to close to one of the cages and one of the inmate’s grabbed hold of her. Jim tells her she should leave this place, as it’s not safe, but she refuses. Her true feelings for Jim begin to show as she wants to wait till his parole comes up and leave with him. They begin to move in for a kiss when the Warden enters and breaks it up. The new prison reverend enters the office and is instantly hired by the Warden, saying “I pride myself on being adjustable.” He goes on to say that he won’t interfere with what the Warden does because he’s not in charge, he’s just the reverend. Afterwards, the Warden comes out and lets Jim and Eva know that if the hunger-strike continues, the men in Hall C will be moved to Klondike, a boiler room used as a torture room for out of line inmates, where the temperatures in the room can reach up to 150 degrees. Moments later, Jim and Eva are alone again in the Warden’s office. Jim opens up to Eva about how he can’t stand the prison, the inmates, the Warden, and the guards. Eva continues to remind him that once he gets parole in a month, the two will be able to run away together, but Jim is no longer optimistic about his parole. Eva reassures him that he will get out because she plans to go to the newspapers and tell them about all the terrible things that go on in the prison. At this moment, the Warden enters and tells Jim to take a file downstairs, thus leaving him alone with Eva once again. The Warden tells her that she can’t leave since the building has been put on lockdown. This frightens Eva, getting her worked up, and she eventually passes out. When she wakens, Jim is there by her side, telling her that the Warden was gone, and she will be fine. Eva tells Jim that she wants to leave the prison, no matter what it takes. Jim begins to devise a plan, to meet in the southwest corner of the prison yard when it’s dark out, to attempt their escape together. The act starts out in Klondike where the prisoners from Hall C are beginning to feel the heat from the steam boiler room. Butch is doing whatever he can to keep the moral up among his men by singing and dancing, but it’s having no effect. Meanwhile, Jim and Eva have met in the southwest corner of the yard, however, the guards and the Warden have caught them and have began to haul off Jim and put him in Klondike with the other prisoners. Eva, on the other hand, begs the Warden to let her go, and to mail the letter of recommendation for Jim’s release. The Warden sympathizes with her and agrees to both terms, for now. Back down in Klondike, Jim has joined the rest of the inmates, however, before Schultz, the head guard, can notice anything about Jim or the rest of the inmates, Butch has grabbed hold of the guard and Jim has stolen his revolver and keys. They inmates open the door and lock Schultz into the steaming cell, leaving him to die. Both Butch and Jim storm into the Warden’s office; Butch looking for the Warden, and Jim looking for Eva. When they have a minute to talk, Eva and Jim discuss their future outside of the prison, and how they’re in love and the many places they plan to travel to. Suddenly extra police forces arrive at the prison to deal with the prison riots. Jim comes up with a plan to jump out into the river and swim to shore away from all the riots and noise. He gives Eva his shoes and tells her to look for him in the personal columns. Jim jumps into the water, but because of the height of the jump and the fact that it is late in the night, Eva is unsure if he made it safely in the water. The police arrive up in the tower and grab Eva to take her to safety, bringing the play to an end. As the reader we are unsure if Jim ever did make it out safely. |
On My Honor | Marion Bauer | 1,986 | It is about two boys, Joel and Tony, who are friends despite their very different characters. Tony, who is adventurous, challenges Joel, who is more responsible and cautious, to climb a large and dangerous cliff called Starved Rock. Joel knows this is unsafe and does not want anyone to get hurt, yet does not want to seem like a coward in front of Tony. Tony suggests a swimming race in a forbidden river, despite the fact that he's not a good swimmer. Joel tries to dissuade Tony from doing so as the river has very strong currents, but eventually agrees to the race. Joel ends up winning the race, but when he turns to look back at Tony, he finds that he has disappeared. Joel tries to find Tony in the river, but gets sucked into a current himself. However, he grabs a log, and manages to pull himself to safety. Joel lives with the horrible secret until Tony's and Joel's families finds out. |
Floodgate | Alistair MacLean | 1,983 | An Irish terrorist organization, known as the "FFF" has detonated a bomb, which bursts dykes in the Netherlands, causing massive flooding of Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport. Unless their demands are met (i.e. immediate withdrawal of all British military forces from Northern Ireland), they threaten to detonate more bombs, flooding Holland beneath a wall of water from the North Sea. Detective Lieutenant Peter van Effen, a man with a sardonic sense of humor and many hidden talents, and his fuzzy-minded boss, Chief of Police De Graaf, are called in. Lieutenant Van Effen is also an undercover operative with connections to a Dutch criminal gang, and sets about to sabotage the FFF terrorists, one way or another. Remarkably, in the Dutch translation of the book (Hoogwater) [1], the plot has been changed and Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport had not been flooded. In the Dutch version only a Fokker Friendship is destroyed on the runway [2]. |
The Documents in the Case | Dorothy L. Sayers | 1,930 | This is an epistolary novel, told primarily in the form of letters between some of the characters. This collection of documents—hence the novel's title—is explained as a dossier of evidence collected by the victim's son as part of his campaign to obtain justice for his father. The main narrator, Munting, takes rooms with Lathom, an artist acquaintance. The landlord and downstairs neighbour, Harrison, is a staid, middle-aged widower who has married again; his new wife is young, attractive, passionate and rather foolish. Lathom and Mrs Harrison begin an affair, the husband suspecting nothing, and Lathom paints a remarkable portrait of her. Creeping downstairs to meet his mistress one night, Lathom encounters the Harrisons' live-in spinster companion, who mistakes him for Munting in the dark and makes accusations of assault. Glad of an excuse to leave a situation he finds distasteful, Munting moves away and marries his fiancée, leaving Lathom still in occupation. Lathom's portrait of Mrs Harrison is exhibited publicly, making his reputation on the London art scene. Some time later Munting meets Lathom by chance in London and learns that he is holidaying with Harrison at the latter's isolated cottage in Devon. Harrison's hobby is foraging for wild food, and he is an expert on edible mushrooms. Lathom persuades Munting to accompany him back to Devon, where they find Harrison dead, apparently having cooked and eaten poisonous fungi by mistake. However Harrison's son Paul suspects that Lathom and his stepmother have conspired to murder Harrison, and Munting is drawn unwillingly into the investigation. He discovers accidentally that muscarine - the poison that killed Harrison - can exist in a natural or a synthetic form. The molecules of both forms are asymmetrical; however the natural form is optically active - consisting of only one molecular form; the synthetic form is racemic - with equal quantities of both types of molecule; and the two forms can be distinguished only by using polarised light. The muscarine consumed by Harrison proves to be synthetic, indicating that the mushrooms he ate were poisoned deliberately. Letters between Mrs Harrison and Lathom indicate that she manipulated him into the killing by claiming that she was expecting his child. Lathom is hanged for murder. |
Take a Good Look | null | null | Mary is a nine-year-old partially sighted girl. She is tired of her lack of freedom due to her impaired eyesight, and one day when her grandmother is asleep Mary sneaks out to get some chocolate, crisps and coke. She is then caught up in a robbery and is kidnapped by two men. She manages to escape and helps the police trap the robbers. |
Nightwing | Martin Cruz Smith | null | A disgruntled, disenfranchised Hopi shaman sets out to "end the world" by way of a ritual invocation of the Hopi god of death. Shortly after his mutilated corpse is discovered by a skeptical Tewa deputy the body count begins to rise as more strangely slashed and bloodied victims are found. The book has many elements: part love triangle; part Native American case study; part supernatural thriller. It was the author's own tribal ancestry which inspired the writing of this fictionalized anthropological mini-survey. |
Raven Rise | D.J. MacHale | 2,008 | The book begins with separate narratives focusing on Patrick Mac and Alder, the Travelers of Third Earth and Denduron respectively. It follows the changes in their home territories and their realization that they are without Bobby Pendragon. On Denduron, the Bedoowan and Milago tribe are using the explosive tak that Bobby unearthed with a dygo from Zadaa to start a war with a neighboring tribe, the Lowsee tribe. On Third Earth, the once Utopian planet has morphed into a waste world. Bobby Pendragon, meanwhile, has been living comfortably on Ibara, the island community located on Veelox. Pendragon's own description states that he has been a contributor and leader of the rebuilding of Ibara, which was destroyed in the previous book by Saint Dane's Dimond Alpha Digital Organization D.A.D.O.army. Days after an unsettling conversation with Saint Dane, Pendragon encounters a drifting skimmer bearing a dying passenger on board (this passenger being Loque, one of the Jakills from The Pilgrims of Rayne who amazingly survived having a large amount of broken glass fall on him and slaving underneath Saint Dane while trying to dig up the flume in Rubic City along with the other Flighters). After hearing Loque's story, Bobby assumes that Saint Dane is after the flume and decides to prevent the flume from being reopened. He fails, and later discovers that Nevva Winter, Saint Dane's ally, has been living on Ibara disguised as Tribune Genj's daughter, Telleo, whom she killed months before. Hearing from her that Denduron is in danger, Bobby reluctantly sets out to rescue it. Emerging onto Denduron, Pendragon is nearly killed by a quig, later to be healed by Alder, whom he rescues from prison. Later, after failing to reseal the newly opened tak mine, the two of them realize that the territory is lost; therefore they travel to Second Earth to battle Saint Dane. On First Earth (1937) Mark and Courtney find that they have failed to prevent Mark's inventions from altering Earth's history. Mark is then black-mailed into giving up his Traveler ring to Nevva. They then head to the flume only to be intercepted by Patrick who came to First Earth in search of Bobby after realizing he couldn't save Third Earth alone. Mark and Courtney then return to Second Earth with Patrick in tow. Upon arriving they find that many people are worshiping a new cult, Ravinia, and both flumes have been revealed by Alexander Naymeer who is the leader of Ravinia and the "new" traveler of Second Earth as Bobby has quit. He is using the ring Nevva took from Mark. The goal of Ravinia is to reward the people who contribute to society, while punishing those who do not. Mark, Courtney, and Patrick head to the other flume to get off of Second Earth only to be intercepted by Naymeer. A chase ensues and Patrick narrowly gets away but not before being shot. Mark and Courtney are captured and brought to Naymeer's home which happens to be on top of one of the flumes, in the Sherwood house. A mortally wounded Patrick arrives on Denduron just as Alder and Bobby are about to leave. They heal him and send him back to Third Earth to find out what a possible Second Earth turning point could be. They then head to Second Earth to find Mark and Courtney. Bobby comes out in the flume below Naymeer's house. Just before Bobby arrives, Naymeer tells Mark and Courtney that the flumes and Traveler rings are made of dark matter. Bobby, Alder, Mark, and Courtney all talk with Naymeer who tells them he can't be stopped. They disagree and escape to Courtney's family's boat where they all decide that a vote to nominate Ravinia as "spiritual advisor" to the entire world is the turning point of Second Earth. Courtney's parents then show up with the cops. Another chase ensues and Mark and Courtney are captured but Bobby and Alder escape and take refuge with the main protester of Ravinia, Haig Gastigian. Patrick, on Third Earth, learns that the destruction there has begun with a mostly forgotten event known as the Bronx Massacre. He is killed while trying to convey word of this, but succeeds in telling Bobby about the event by sending him a message through his ring. Bobby and Alder witness what they think is the Bronx Massacre when Naymeer sends 12 people, including Mark and Courtney, into the flume to an unknown destination. Bobby and Alder later hear from Haig Gastigian, that he is holding a rally of 70,000 people in Yankee Stadium. At the rally the UN's vote is revealed to favor Ravinia, whereupon the 70,000 protesters gathered in Yankee Stadium are pulled into a giant flume which Naymeer creates, causing the true Bronx Massacre. Alder tries to stop him, but is killed in the process. Bobby is brought to a helicopter and flown above the stadium to witness everyone's deaths. It is revealed that Haig Gastigian was really Nevva who lured all the people to the stadium. Realizing this, Bobby throws Naymeer into the flume. At this, Saint Dane claims victory because Bobby had stooped to his level and failed his last test. Naymeer, falling into the flume, causes a beam of light to strike the helicopter. It spins out of control and falls into the flume. Saint Dane and Nevva escape and later tell the Conclave of Ravinia, the head of Ravinia, that Naymeer is dead but that Nevva is trained to take his place. Bobby then finds himself in space, looking down at the flumes, and watches them explode. He wakes up in the middle of an oblivious landscape, where he is confronted by his Uncle Press and the other nine travelers of his generation, both dead and alive. Uncle Press says that now is the right time to kill Saint Dane, since he believes that he has won. He also says that it is time for the current Travelers to learn the truth about themselves. The Travelers decide to finish the fight with Saint Dane, once and for all. |
Historias de cronopios y de famas | Julio Cortázar | 1,962 | This handbook recounts the birth of the Cronopios and the Famas. Cronopios and Famas are two kinds of living creatures conceived by Julio Cortázar's imagination. Also, there are different short stories, full of imagination and humor. es:Historias de cronopios y de famas fr:Historias de cronopios y de famas pt:Histórias de Cronópios e de Famas |
Inheritance | Christopher Paolini | 2,011 | Inheritance opens with the Varden's siege on Belatona, a city of the Empire. In the battle, Saphira is nearly killed by a Dauthdaert (death spear) called Niernen—a spear from the Dragon Wars intended to destroy wards and kill dragons. Belatona soon falls, and an alliance is formed between the Varden and werecats. Roran is sent on a mission to capture Aroughs, which proves to be a rather challenging task. He comes up with a risky, yet potentially rewarding, plan and Aroughs is taken, although Roran's force sustains many injuries. Roran rejoins the Varden at Dras-Leona when they are in the process of making plans to attack the city. Murtagh and his dragon Thorn are occupying the city, thus eliminating the chance of pulling off a direct siege successfully. Jeod finds references to the start of a sewer system that was never completed under the city. Assuming the existence of a secret tunnel into the city, Eragon leads a small group (himself, Arya, Angela, the werecat Solembum, and an elf named Wyrden) into the city to open the gates for the Varden. It turns out that the tunnels are used by the priests of Helgrind, and Eragon and Arya are captured after being separated from Angela and Solembum and witnessing the death of Wyrden. Because the priests are angry at Eragon for killing their gods, they intend to feed Eragon and Arya to Ra'zac hatchlings. Eragon and Arya struggle and injure themselves while being held captive until Angela and Solembum save them. Eragon is able to open the city gates and defeat Murtagh and Thorn, allowing the Varden to take control of the city. In the middle of the night, Murtagh and Thorn attack the Varden camp and capture Nasuada. In her absence, Eragon is appointed as the leader of the Varden as they march on to Urû'baen with hopes of overtaking the city. Eragon remembers Solembum's advice (in Eragon) concerning the Vault of Souls and the Rock of Kuthian. He summons Solembum to his tent and questions Solembum's knowledge of the Rock of Kuthian, of which the werecat has none. During the conversation, Solembum loses his consciousness as a new voice talks to Eragon before abruptly ending, bringing Solembum back from a trance he cannot remember. Eragon eventually discovers that the Vault is on Vroengard Island. Eragon then consults with Glaedr about the Vault of Souls but Glaedr cannot remember the conversation. Eragon realizes that powerful magic is causing everybody—except for Saphira and himself—to forget about the Vault of Souls after they hear of it. After Eragon finds a roundabout way to let Glaedr understand him, Glaedr believes that Eragon is telling the truth and advises him and Saphira to immediately find the source of and reason for the powerful magic, as it could help them in the fight against Galbatorix. Eragon and Saphira take Glaedr's Eldunarí as a guide. After a while on the island, Eragon and Saphira learn that they must speak their true names in order for the Rock of Kuthian to allow them to enter. After days, they find their true names and the rock opens. Inside, the three of them find a hoard of Eldunarí and dragon eggs that were hidden away before Galbatorix destroyed the Riders. Umaroth, the dragon of the last leader of the Riders, Vrael, speaks for all of the Eldunarí and says that the time has come for them to reveal themselves and to aid Eragon and the Varden in overthrowing Galbatorix. Eragon and the others depart from Vroengard with all the Eldunarí save five, who opted to stay and guard the eggs, and as they pass through the rock back onto the surface the knowledge of the existence of the stored dragon eggs is hidden from their minds. They make their way to Urû'baen, where the combined forces of the Varden, the elves (led by Queen Islanzadí), and the dwarves (led by Orik) are preparing to attack Urû'baen. Eragon and Saphira reach Urû'baen as the siege begins. The Eldunarí are revealed to the leaders of the Varden and all of them form a plan to attack the city. The forces of the Varden attack Urû'baen while Eragon, Saphira, Arya, Elva, and eleven elven spell-casters led by Blödhgarm break into Galbatorix's citadel. They proceed to the throne room after progressing through a series of traps, during which the elven spell-casters are taken captive. In the throne room, Galbatorix subdues Eragon, Saphira, Arya, and Elva and informs them that he has learned the true name of the ancient language (referred to as the Word). With the Word he is able to control the usage of magic. Galbatorix orders Murtagh and Eragon to fight using only their swords; Eragon eventually defeats Murtagh. Murtagh, whose oath to Galbatorix was broken due to a recent change in his true name, uses the Word to strip Galbatorix of his wards. Enraged, Galbatorix renders Murtagh unconscious and attacks Eragon with his mind, while Saphira and Thorn attack Shruikan. Using energy from the Eldunarí, Eragon casts a spell to make Galbatorix understand his crimes, and the pain and suffering that they have caused. Meanwhile, Arya kills Shruikan using the Dauthdaert. In retaliation to the pain and agony caused by Eragon's spell, Galbatorix utters the incantation for unmaking himself, which results in a huge explosion that destroys most of Urû'baen. Eragon, using energy from the Eldunarí, is able to protect those in the citadel. Murtagh and Thorn, being broken from their oaths of loyalty to Galbatorix, retreat to somewhere in the north to have some time to themselves to do some thinking. Before leaving, Murtagh teaches the Word to Eragon and then bids him farewell. Nasuada, after a heated debate with the leaders of the Varden, becomes the High Queen of Alagaësia and King Orrin of Surda pledges his allegiance to her. Arya returns to Du Weldenvarden to help choose a new monarch for the elves after the death of Queen Islanzadi in battle, and is chosen. She takes with her the rescued green dragon egg, which soon hatches for her. Thus, Arya becomes a Rider with her dragon named Fírnen. Eragon reworks the magic of the original pact between Riders and dragons to include both dwarves and Urgals, allowing the dragon eggs to hatch for members of their races. Eragon, coming to the conclusion that there is no safe place to raise the dragons and train new Riders in Alagaësia, begins planning transport of the Eldunarí and the eggs to a region east of Alagaësia. Save for two eggs which are kept in Alagaësia: one is to be sent to the dwarves, and the other to the Urgals. Those future Riders will travel to Eragon's new home for training, while new eggs will be sent back to Alagaësia to hatch for new Riders. Eragon says that he will never return to Alagaësia. |
The Great Elephant Chase | Gillian Cross | null | Tad Hawkins is 15 years old and lives in the fictional Pennsylvania mining town of Markle. After his mother died in childbirth, he was taken in by his overbearing aunt, who treats him as an unpaid servant, existing only to be bossed around and humiliated by Mr Jackson, the lodger, and Esther, the hired help. Tad's life is changed when he gets caught up in a crowd on their way to see a travelling elephant show which has just arrived in town. After witnessing the "miracle cure" of a young crippled girl by the elephant keeper, he spots Esther and Mr Jackson in the crowd and hides in the elephant's trailer. Before he can escape, Khush, the elephant, is loaded into the trailer and Tad is on his way to another town. When Tad is discovered by Michael Keenan, the elephant keeper, he discovers that the cripple who was cured in Markle is in fact Keenan's younger daughter, Cissie. Keenan offers Tad a job looking after Khush to keep him from exposing the scam. Tad takes to life with Khush and the Keenans. However, Tad is not the only person to have discovered the scam. Mr Jackson and Esther are on the Keenans' tail. A train crash kills Keenan and his eldest daughter, Olivia, on the way to Pittsburgh. Mr Jackson arrives, brandishing papers to prove that Keenan sold Khush to him for $500. Cissie, the only surviving Keenan, insists that the papers were faked and that Khush belongs to her. She, Tad and Khush set off on a journey West, towards the Nebraskan home of a friend from the travelling show, Ketty, with Mr Jackson and Esther in hot pursuit. A kind old widower helps them on their way by disguising Cissie as a boy and giving them a boat in which to sail down the Ohio River with Khush. Khush does not take kindly to his confined quarters on the small flatboat and, a few days into their journey, pitches himself and Tad into the river. On being reunited with them, Cissie begins to reveal her heartache over the deaths of her father and sister. The three travellers find rest in a small religious community who have heard of Mr Jackson's claim of ownership. The group's elders agree to take Tad, Cissie and the elephant to the large port of Cairo if Khush shows that he wants to go with the two youths. Khush follows them into the hold of the coal barge and so they carry on along the river. However, Khush again becomes impatient of his dark, cramped surroundings rocks the barge, forcing the Captain to make them disembark 200 miles from Cairo. After walking most of the way to the port, Tad leaves Cissie and the elephant to rest and continues ahead by himself. In Cairo, he is caught by Mr Jackson and Esther, who ply him for information and trick him into leading them to where Cissie and Khush should have been. Luckily, Cissie and the elephant have already left, spurred on by the thought of seeing Ketty in Nebraska. Tad stalls Mr Jackson and Esther and hurries to try and catch up with his friends. Cissie secures passage for herself and Khush on a large boat and Tad, hiding on their pursuers' boat, is helped along his way by a friendly woman travelling in the same direction. When Tad sees a sign on the riverbank that Cissie and Khush have disembarked secretly, he goes ashore to meet them, leaving Esther and Mr Jackson sailing past their prey. The friends are pleased to be reunited and Cissie assures Tad that they are now in Nebraska and near Ketty's house. However, the plains are desolate, with little water for Khush to drink and nowhere to hide from their pursuers. Khush becomes impatient and irritable as the three travellers near Ketty's home. They arrive just as Esther and Mr Jackson catch up with them and Mr Jackson asserts his claim to Khush. However, while agreeing that the papers that Mr Jackson has are not fakes, Ketty reveals that Keenan could not have sold Khush as she owns him herself. Mr Jackson petitions Ketty and her husband to sell him the elephant but, when she refuses, he and Esther eventually leave in a rage. Cissie is upset that Khush belongs to Ketty as she had intended to sell him and give the money to Ketty so that she could remain in Nebraska with her. Tad persuades Cissie that Ketty will take her in no matter what. Ketty, seeing how much the boy and the elephant love each other, appoints Tad as Khush's keeper in exchange for a portion of the elephant's earnings. |
River of Death | Alistair MacLean | 1,981 | Hamilton, allegedly an expert on the jungle, shows up in Brazil having apparently found a lost Indian civilization in the wilderness of the Amazon jungle. This attracts the attention of Smith, a wealthy German who appeared out of nowhere in the late 1940s with a fortune and group of ruthless cronies. Smith hires Hamilton to take him to see the lost city. Hamilton with his two trusty companions, together with Smith and his entourage set off, facing giant anacondas, giant spiders, cannibalistic natives, and so on, discovering a settlement of Nazi war criminals and their descendents, living as if the Third Reich had never ended. |
Inventing Elliot | Graham Gardner | 2,003 | Inventing Elliot is the story of what happens when a young teenager decides to become a different person. For fourteen-year-old Elliot Sutton, the move to a new school in a new town where nobody knows him represents a chance to leave behind years of being bullied and start a new life, which is not actually true. Sick and tired of being a victim, he decides to change himself, subtly altering his physical appearance, and pretending to be far more confident and 'cool' than he actually is. His aim is to 'stand out just enough to fit in'. The plan works, but too well. While he is no longer the victim, he finds himself fast being pulled into the dark world of the Guardians, a secret society of older boys who are orchestrating a reign of terror at his new school. When the Guardians summon him, he thinks that his disguise must have failed. The truth, however, is that the Guardians are so impressed by the new persona Elliot has created that they want him to become one of them. The book follows Elliot's struggle to find a way out of his dilemma. Whilst he has escaped his traumatic past, his future seems to be that he will join the Guardians, and become one of the bullies that he once despised. |
Adrift in Soho | Colin Wilson | 1,961 | The story opens in the late summer of 1955. Nineteen year old Harry Preston, having been granted an early discharge from national service with the RAF, moves to London from a small English provincial town. Fancying himself as a writer, he drifts towards the central district of Soho, where he meets an out of work actor, James Street. Street introduces Harry to the bohemian way of life and the novel recounts their misadventures. |
Seawitch | Alistair MacLean | 1,977 | Lord Worth, ruthless and fabulously wealthy, has made a lot of enemies in the oil business. His new offshore oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, named Seawitch, is one of the biggest in the world, and will put his competitors out of business. To destroy it and therefore be able to inflate the price of oil at will, the competitors get together and send one man to deal with Lord Worth. The villain has a personal score to settle with Worth and kidnaps him and his daughters. Fortunately for Lord Worth, his two daughters are betrothed to the protagonists, Mitchell and Roomer, two former police detectives/now private investigators. They set trying to save Worth and his daughters from certain death, as the villain intends to leave them on Seawitch when he destroys it with a stolen nuclear weapon. |
Villa Amalia | null | null | The middle-aged composer Ann Hidden has traced her partner of many years, Thomas, to the house where he is conducting an affair with a younger woman. At the scene she meets, for the first time since their adolescence, an old school friend from her childhood in Brittany, Georges Roehl. She takes the decision to end her former life, and in the space of a few months she leaves her part-time job as a music editor, ends her relationship with Thomas, visits her mother (from whom she is estranged) in Brittany but is not reconciled to her, sells the house in Paris that she has shared with Thomas, and asks Georges to create a place where she can live and compose in the grounds of his house near Sens in Burgundy, and leads him to believe that she will live there. Georges is eager to re-establish a relationship with her, since he is mourning the death of his gay partner. However, once the sale of her Paris house has been finalised, she leaves without giving any indication of her destination, and after some travelling establishes herself on the Italian island of Ischia near Naples, eventually renting and renovating an old house on a headland. The house is called Villa Amalia and gives the book its name. While on Ischia she begins an affair with a doctor called Leonhardt Radnitzky, who has recently divorced and has part-time custody of his four-year old daughter Magdalena (Lena). She spends much of her time swimming in the sea, and on one occasion becomes exhausted and is rescued by a couple in a yacht, Charles and his much younger partner Juliette (also known as Giulia). They are on the point of splitting up, and eventually Ann and Giulia form a profound relationship and live together in the Villa Amalia, and Lena lives with them when Leonhardt's work means that he cannot look after her. While Ann is out one day, and Giulia is asleep, Lena suffocates on a peanut. Giulia leaves and Ann's life disintegrates. Shortly afterwards, her mother dies; she returns to Brittany for the funeral, which is also attended by Thomas, by her father (a musician of Romanian Jewish origin, who left the family when she was a child) and by her school friend Véri, who has maintained contact between Ann and her mother. Ann refuses to be reconciled with Thomas, is rejected by her father, and quarrels with Véri. She returns to Burgundy and lives with Georges though they have no sexual relationship; at the end of the book he dies, with the implication that he has been suffering from AIDS though this is not stated. |
The Bloody Red Baron | Kim Newman | 1,995 | The book takes place during World War I, and centers around the Diogenes Club's efforts to investigate Germany's attempt to make powerful, undead fliers. Heading up the German operations are the likes of Rotwang, Doctor Caligari and Doctor Mabuse. One of their more successful efforts is an undead flier known as the Red Baron. The story also features Edgar Allan Poe as a vampire writer assigned to ghost write the Red Baron's autobiography. |
The Wednesday Wars | Gary D. Schmidt | 2,007 | In 1967, Holling Hoodhood is a 7th grader on Long Island. In his town, families live in different areas based on religion. On Wednesdays, his Catholic classmates learn the Catechism, and his Jewish classmates attend Hebrew school. Holling, being Presbyterian, stays behind in class with his teacher Mrs. Baker, whom Holling believes "hates his guts" but later befriends. She at first instructs him to clean the room and do other chores; then she begins reading Shakespeare with him. While she makes Holling take exams and write essays on the plays to find out if he really understands them, Sycorax and Caliban, the class rats, who escaped from their cage when Holling was cleaning it as one of Mrs. Baker's chores, scuttle in the ceiling and some of the teachers try to catch them. Later on in the year, Holling begins to enjoy Shakespeare, particularly his colorful insults and curses. On one of the days he is with Mrs. Baker, she says he may have one of several dozen creams puffs if he cleans all the erasers. Even though he ruined all the puffs, when his friends find out that he got one, they say that he owes them cream puffs. He saves all of his allowance, but ends up short. The baker selling them, Mr. Goldman is, coincidentally, in need of a boy who knows Shakespeare. Holling gets the cream puffs in exchange for promising to play Ariel in a community production of The Tempest. The. Holling is quietly disappointed with his father, whose business ambitions dominate his life and conversation. He not only fails to attend the performance, but also fails to pick Holling up and take him to an autograph signing with his baseball hero, Mickey Mantle. Fortunately Holling makes it to the autographing by using public transit, but Mickey Mantle tells Holling that he doesn't do autographs for kids in yellow tights. Danny Hupfer, who has already gotten his baseball signed, drops his ball in front of Mickey, saying "I guess I don't need this after all,". He and Holling leave. Mrs. Baker, whose brother owns the sporting goods store, finds a way to make it up to Holling through her connections. She proceeds to have Horace Clarke and Joe Pepitone visit Holling and Danny for standing up to Mantel. Holling's older sister, Heather, referred to only as "my sister" for most of the novel, is in the midst of a rebellion against her father. She cares about civil rights, works for Bobby Kennedy, opposes the Vietnam War, and disagrees with her father about almost everything. She and Holling bicker, as siblings do, but they genuinely care for one another. Holling's relationship with Meryl Lee Kowalski begins to blossom, although her father is an architect in competition with Holling's father. A misunderstanding involving their fathers threatens to break them up, but they make up and become better friends afterwards. Meanwhile, their friend Danny Hupfer is anxious about his upcoming bar-mitzvah,However, Mrs. Baker, whose husband is missing in action in a dangerous part of Vietnam, treats her kindly, and her friends stand up for her. One of the many people to treat her bad is the cook, Mrs. Bigio, whose husband is away at war. He later goes missing and is found dead on a hill. After Mr. Hoodhood forces his daughter to work for him after school and on Saturdays, preventing her from volunteering for the Robert Kennedy campaign, the family tension increases. When her father dictates that she will not be allowed to attend college, his wish to keep her "safe" is transparent--he wants to keep her working for him for low wages and thus control her activities. She abruptly runs away with a boyfriend named Chit, and tension in the household increases. Mr. Hoodhood says that his daughter need not seek help from him in the future, and Mrs. Hoodhood quietly rebels in the only ways open to her, by no longer cooking her husband's favorite foods and by declining to join him for an evening drive in his new car. Holling joins a cross-country running squad and gets unexpected help from Mrs. Baker, who was once an Olympic medalist in When his father also defaults on taking Holling to Opening Day at Yankee Stadium, Mrs. Baker again comes to the rescue, for she recognizes that Holling is a good kid in a less than ideal situation. In a series of interesting and ironic twists, this event leads to a prize contract for Mr. Kowlaski, whom Holling's father had almost driven out of business. . During this episode, his sister's name is finally revealed in a touching coincidence. When his father refuses to drive him to the terminal to meet his sister, and his mother is apparently unwilling or unable to defy his father, he is given a ride by Mr. Kowalski. However, he still needs a way home for himself and his sister. His mother unhesitatingly gives him the money without telling her husband. He brings his sister home, and when Mr. Hoodhood mockingly asks his daughter whether she found herself, Holling replies for her, saying, "She found me." As the school year draws to a close, Mrs. Baker, who has learned that her missing husband is safe and will be coming home, takes the children on a camping trip. It involves many misfortunes, including losing the can-opener, being soaked by a downpour, and being attacked by clouds of mosquitoes, especially when the widowed Holling briefly describes the closing weeks of school and the reunion of Mrs. Baker and her husband, but the maturity he has gained from his experiences shows in his commentary about the Shakespeare plays he has read and the way he connects the Shakespearean life lessons to those around him. It is clear that with the help of his sister, his friends, and his caring teacher, Holling is on the road to choosing his life path for himself rather than being cowed by his father. |
Anno Dracula | Kim Newman | 1,992 | In this world, Count Dracula has killed Van Helsing- an injury sustained to Doctor John Seward's hand during a fight with Renfield resulted in the group lacking the men to drive Dracula away from Mina Harker, resulting in Dracula killing Quincey Morris and Jonathan Harker before escaping with Mina-, and has married Queen Victoria, ushering in a period of increasing British vampire domination. Dracula is well-advanced in imposing a police state on Great Britain, where dissenters may be jailed or impaled without trial. Dieudonné has come down in the world, attending sick vampires in a clinic run by a doctor with a shady past. When a prostitute is murdered, Scotland Yard turns to them for an opinion. In the meantime Beauregard's social marriage preparations are interrupted by a summons to the mysterious Diogenes Club, which represents the crown in matters that cannot be made public. There, he is charged with finding Jack the Ripper. At the inquest for the recently destroyed vampire prostitute, Dieudonné and Beauregard appear, with Lestrade from Scotland Yard, and Dr. Jekyll. Each sets out independently, with differing agendas. Beauregard is abducted by an old enemy, a Tong leader who calls a truce on the understanding that Beauregard will collaborate in finding the killer. This precludes the Ripper being a member of organized crime, and periodically gives Beauregard inside information. Dieudonné stops at a pub, where she encounters the elite of Carpathian riff-raff which Dracula brought to London to control the locals. She confronts one bully, and, being the elder vampire, soundly bests him. Jack Seward, the physician at Dieudonné's clinic, recalls the early days of Dracula in London, before the signs of vampirism were recognized. As the demands of the Diogenes Club have first priority, a rift opens between Beauregard and his fiancee. Her fascination with social climbing is revealed: "Only vampires get anywhere, Charles." The intimates of Dracula discuss their continued takeover of the government, and set their own man to find Jack the Ripper: The destruction of the vampire prostitutes is drawing unwanted support for an anti-vampire Christian group. Seward becomes lustfully entangled with a "new born" vampire. Jack the Ripper strikes twice, failing to destroy one, who is brought to the clinic. The prostitute is a vampire of Dracula's line — a contaminated bloodline, from Dieudonné's perspective. It imperfectly changes shape, leaping at Seward as it dies. Trusting their associates, the implication is lost on Dieudonné and Beauregard. Seward notes the growing public hysteria, and reflects "I meant to destroy a monster, not become one." Beauregard and Dieudonné, having similar ideas, become closer, while his fiancée is increasingly annoyed at his lack of attention. Reporting to the Diogenes, Beauregard is puzzled that his meager progress is satisfactory. Leaving, he becomes entangled in an anti-vampire riot, however he is saved by one of the few vampires at the club, Sergeant Dravot. Beauregard's impatient fiancée becomes a vampire by one of Dracula's men. In her arrogance, the conversion does not go well, and she is barely able to reach the safety of her house. Beauregard and Dieudonné take her in care, Dieudonné observing, without being complimentary, that she may eventually become a strong vampire. Riots escalate, symbols of rebellion are being painted throughout London. An anti-vampire leader is shot, and one of Dracula's henchmen is destroyed, both perhaps by the same mysterious vampire. The ruling vampires react decisively. A large number of prominent people are to be imprisoned and treated ruthlessly, including George Bernard Shaw, Lewis Carroll, and W. S. Gilbert. Seward becomes increasingly infatuated with his vampire lover, having trouble distinguishing her now from the murdered Lucy. In Dravot, Dracula's henchmen Godalming believes he has found Jack the Ripper; he is pursuing him when he is destroyed by an old friend who he betrayed by becoming a vampire: Seward. Beauregard and Dieudonné finally realize that Seward is Jack the Ripper. They race to him, finding he has destroyed his vampire lover. As they leave with him in custody, they encounter Dravot, and the destroyed body of Godalming. Seward is murdered, but then Dravot produces a fabricated story about what happened: that there were two Rippers. Bemused, Beauregard realizes that he has been used as a tool of the Diogenes Club. However he and Dieudonné, by now having become lovers, are to be recognized by the queen for their work. The story concludes with a confrontation between Beauregard, Dieudonné, the queen, and Dracula, where Beauregard tosses a silver knife to Queen Victoria; knowing that he cannot kill Dracula in direct combat, Beauregard provides Victoria with a means of killing herself, thus depriving Dracula of the right to legally rule Britain and forcing him to flee the country. |
Judgement of Tears | null | 1,998 | In 1959, several of the world's notable vampires gather in Rome for the wedding of Count Dracula. Nefarious schemes are afoot and being investigated by British Intelligence, the Diogenes Club, and several others, including a British spy on the trail of a sinister madman with a white cat. |
A Wild Ride Through the Night | Walter Moers | null | The story begins with 12-year-old Gustave, captain of the Aventure as he attempts to escape the deadly Siamese Twins Tornado. When the storm finally catches up with his crew, everyone is killed except Gustave, who meets Death, and his crazy sister Dementia. After the wicked siblings play dice for Gustave's soul, Death gives him six seemingly impossible tasks in order to stay alive. In one night, he must face six giants, rescue a damsel in distress from the clutches of a dragon, make himself conspicuous amidst a forest of evil spirits,encounter the Most Monstrous of all Monsters, and even meet himself. Can Gustave's wit and creativity win him his own soul? Or will he become a servant of Death, just like the rest of us? de:Wilde Reise durch die Nacht it:Folle viaggio nella notte |
The Golden Gate | Alistair MacLean | 1,976 | A team of criminals led by mastermind Peter Branson kidnaps the President of the United States and his two guests from the Middle East, a prince and a king, on San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge, in a masterfully conceived and clockwork-timed operation. Branson and his men block off both ends of the bridge, wire it with explosives, and demand half a billion dollars and (adding insult to injury) a full pardon for themselves. Any rescue attempts will result in the detonation of the explosives, which will kill the President (and his guests) and destroy the Golden Gate Bridge. However, Branson is an egomaniac, and he cannot resist attention from the media. So he invites the press to stay on the bridge and cover the story. Aware that the FBI will have placed agents among them, he takes the precaution of searching them and removing the armed ones. However, Hagenbach (the FBI's dour but extremely adept head agent) has an ace in the hole: a hand-picked special agent, Paul Revson, who was equipped with only a camera. Allowed to remain on the bridge, Revson sets out to foil Branson's plans and rescue the President. With the help of a doctor and a female journalist, Revson gets a message to his superiors, suggesting various courses of action: supplying drugged food to the terrorists, placing a submarine under the bridge, and trying to neutralize the terrorists' equipment with a laser beam. He also arranges for several carefully disguised weapons and gadgets to be smuggled to him. Working on both ends, Revson, Hagenbach, and those working with them unleash their own carefully conceived plans. |
The Memory Game | Nicci Gerrard | null | The novel concerns the account of one Jane Martello, a middle aged woman undergoing divorce proceedings with her husband, and subsequently separating herself from a large and strong family she has known since her childhood. The intricate traditions of her family and the one she had married into begin to break down when the body of her sister-in-law, Natalie, is found buried in the garden, after over two decades. This startlingly close distance to the house leads to the revelation of the murderer being very close to the family after all. The revelation acts to bring down the family structure that for so long was unbalanced, but stable - such as Jane's father-in-law, Alan, an openly crude and sexist novelist having once frequently had relations outside his marriage (to the knowledge of the whole family) and other underlying tensions between family members. Jane undergoes psychiatric counselling, as she revels in the mysterious circumstances of one of her best childhood friend's death, and already present forerunnings to what appear to be a mid-life crisis. She undergoes a memory exercise (that the book is named for) to unlock memories lost from the trauma of her friend's death. What she unlocks proves seemingly to be the key to the death of Natalie, but the validity of the memories become questionable with the serious allegations they lead to. |
Forbidden City | William E. Bell | 1,990 | This book begins with a 17-year old boy named Alex Jackson who enjoys subjects related to military history, and travels to Beijing, China with his journalist father, Ted, to record some Chinese affairs for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and cover the student protests. March 29th - You are introduced to Alex Jackson and his dad, Ted Jackson. They live in Toronto, Canada and before the book takes place, Ted has divorced his wife, Brenda Jackson. In this chapter both of their jobs/hobbies are revealed. Alex loves history, and has recently gotten into Chinese Military history. Ted almost sees his life through the lens of a camera, always lining up for the best shot possible. As mentioned before, Ted works for Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and in this chapter is sent into Beijing, China to replace someone who works for Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, who got sick and didn't want to be treated in the Chinese hospitals. This person came back to Canada. Ted's job is to catch everything that they can of the Russian Premier Mikhail Gorbachev, (Usually referred to as "Gorbachev") who was making an official visit to Beijing, China. Alex and Ted were both ecstatic about this and were rearing to go. March 30th - Alex and his dad leave for Beijing. Alex's dad gets drunk and takes a Gravol, which puts him into a sleepy mode while they are on the airplane. Alex basically has to steer him through the airport(s). They flew from Toronto to Vancouver, then from Vancouver to Beijing. April 1st - They land in Beijing at night and meet a man named Lao Xu, a co-worker of a man named Eddie. Eddie is does the video editing and helps stream the footage back to Toronto. Lao Xu drives them to the hotel that they will be staying in where they meet Eddie. |
Vampire Hunter D Volume 1 | Hideyuki Kikuchi | 1,983 | It is the year 12,090 A.D. The world has ended, ravaged in a firestorm of man's wars and madness. But from the wreckage a few humans manage to survive. A few humans... and something else. Doris Lang knew what her fate was when the vampire lord Count Magnus Lee bit her. An agonizing transformation into one of the undead, to be stalked by her fellow villagers or cursed to become the bride of the unholy creature and face an eternity of torment, driven by the thirst for human blood. There was only one chance, and as she watched him ride in from the distance she knew there was hope. Salvation... from a vampire hunter named D. Magnus has his own problems; his beautiful daughter Larmica refuses to let a human into her family, and is all too willing to kill the bride before the wedding can take place. Enlisting the help of Garo, a werewolf retainer, she attempts to kill Doris, only to find D in her way. Greco Rohman, son of the chief, also wants Doris for himself. The same goes for the skilled figher Rei-Ginsei and his Fiend Corps. Both men are eager to eliminate D, as his skills and Doris' favor makes them see him as a threat. Doris knows she isn't the only one in trouble, her younger brother is perceived as her weakness, and there are more than one person out there willing to use him as leverage against her. |
The Every Boy | Dana Adam Shapiro | null | In this debut novel a fifteen-year-old boy dies mysteriously, leaving behind a ledger filled with his darkly comic confessions. |
Vampire Hunter D: Mysterious Journey to the North Sea | Hideyuki Kikuchi | 1,988 | The 17-year-old Wu-Lin is traveling from the fishing village of Florence to Cronenberg to have a strange jewel appraised. No less than three people try to steal it from her: the young commoner Toto, an old artist named Professor Krolock, and the grotesque Gilligan, an obscenely overweight gangland boss in a custom exo-skeleton. He has Wu-Lin killed, but her dying request of D is that he bring the gem back to her older sister Su-In in their village on the north sea. Gilligan is determined to have the gem. He dispatches five mysterious individuals with the promise that the one who brings it to him will get all he possesses. This group consists of such colorful characters as Shin the Puppetman, King Egbert, Undiscernible Twin, and Reminiscence Samon. Also tailing D from Cronenberg is handsome Glen, a warrior and "seeker of knowledge" who wants to kill the Vampire Hunter because he's the only thing he has ever feared. Everyone arrives in Florence just as its short, week-long summer is about to begin. Millennia ago, the area had been a resort for the Nobility until the day, about 1000 years ago, when a traveler in black arrived and punished the cruel vampire residents. Only Baron Meinster refused to leave, and the traveler threw him into the sea. Now, for the past few years, the village's summer has been marred by vampire attacks -- "Meinster's Revenge." Su-In hired D because something particularly distressing is going on here. Though the whole world knows that the Nobility have difficulty with rain or flowing water, the vampire in Florence seems to be coming from the sea. As the plot thickens, the five mercenaries hired by Gilligan resort to betraying each other and using dirty tactics to subdue D. Glen is able to dominate Simon into a love-hate-love relationship which leads to him becoming a noble, a desperate act following a near death at the hands of a jealous King Egbert. Throughout the second half of the story, the bead is lost and claimed by numerous characters, finally falling into the hands of Dr. Krolock himself. The Doctor is able to crack the secret of the jewel and obtains Nobility like status, but is easily felled by D's blade. Everything comes to a head when Glen is finally defeated by D and Meinster's abilities are revealed. Four summers ago, Su-in met a man who she fell in love with, but when he tried to make her commit a terrible deed, she killed him. His body was dumped into the sea, where it became the vessel for the defeated Noble, this resulted in "Meinster" having no recollection of his 'true' self. In the end, D prevails and Su-in returns to her happy life as a teacher for the village's children, with help from her friend Dwight and a reformed Toto. The latter of which who claims to have seen the Hunter smile before departing. In the close of the story, Samon confronts D. Wounded and near death, she is promptly defeated by the Vampire Hunter known as D. |
The Road to Omaha | Robert Ludlum | 1,992 | Several years after the events of The Road to Gandolfo, the Hawk has discovered a long-forgotten treaty between the US government and a tribe of Native Americans. This treaty granted the tribe a vast area of land that has since become Omaha, Nebraska, and includes the home of the Strategic Air Command at Offutt Air Base. Posing as a member of the tribe, the Hawk plans to bring suit against the United States and force it to give the land to the tribe. To further this goal, he ropes Devereaux (now retired from the military) into representing the tribe in court. |
Girl in Landscape | Jonathan Lethem | null | Pella Marsh is the only daughter and eldest child in a family that is leaving behind New York, in a near-future where the Earth has sustained severe damage from climate change. Before they can leave, Caitlin, Pella's mother, dies of a brain tumour, leaving Clement, her ineffectual father, to try to care for Pella and her brothers, Raymond and David. After twenty months of cryogenic suspended animation, the Marshs reach the Planet of the Archbuilders. This oceanless planet is inhabited by an advanced alien species known only as the Archbuilders, who are hermaphrodites. They built the complex and beautiful arch-like structures that dominate the terrain, terraformed their planet to provide a controlled climate, and used bioengineering to create several varieties of readily grown "potatoes" for a constant food supply. The Archbuilders themselves are furry and scaled creatures, with frond-like tentacles. There are also small, nearly invisible animals called "household deer," which inhabit most every corner of the region without much obvious impact. Despite their apparent lack of high technology, the Archbuilders are skilled communicators, and have twenty thousand indigenous languages on their world. They also rarely give birth, implying considerable longevity. Like the other colonists, Pella is instructed to take acclimatisation pills, ostensibly to ward off indigenous Archbuilder viruses, but, because of her father's new plans for the humans in living with the world, she does not take them -- much to the chagrin of the enigmatic resident Efram Nugent. After some time, rather like Ethan Edwards and Debbie in The Searchers (1956), Efram and Pella develop a love/hate relationship as she resists his misanthropic and speciesist attitudes toward both his fellow colonists and the Archbuilders. After she has decided to stop acclimatisation, she discovers that she has a rapport with the Archbuilders, and becomes increasingly influenced by their culture, civilisation and ecology, "going native". Her brother David and fellow child Morris Grant are similarly affected, as is the infant Melissa Richmond-Concorse. The four of them discover that one side-effect of adaptation to their new environment allows them to inhabit the bodies of the household deer temporarily. Ultimately, other colonists either leave the planet (like the Kincaids, after a mistaken child sexual abuse incident); die, like Efram Nugent (shot); or become similarly absorbed by Archbuilder culture. The latter are transformed into semi-nomads who dwell in the ruins of their former houses, as apparent entropy consumes their abortive colony - like Pella, David, Morris, Raymond and Doug. As for the Archbuilders, Truth Renowned dies in the fire that destroys Hugh Merrow's abandoned house and art studio, and Hiding Kneel is injured after Efram imprisons it in a shed. However, their community survives as a cohesive group, belying human perceptions of their alleged weakness and 'decay' of their civilisation and culture. |
My Story | null | 1,993 | This book is the follow-up to the jointly written Our Story by both Ronnie and Reggie Kray. In this book, Ronnie describes in his own words the murders of Jack "the Hat" McVitie and George Cornell; his bisexuality, and his feelings about spending 30 years in Broadmoor Hospital for the criminally insane. Also included is a chapter written by Ronnie's wife, Kate Kray, and 21 photographs depicting the young Krays, their family, friends and victims. Quote from book: "They were the best years of our lives. They called them the swinging Sixties. The Beatles and the Rolling Stones were the rulers of pop music, Carnaby Street ruled the fashion world... and me and my brother ruled London. We were fucking untouchable..." - Ronnie Kray. |
The Golden Kite, The Silver Wind | Ray Bradbury | null | The story, set in China, begins in a small pastoral town or village, apparently in a time or place where trade and agriculture are still the norm. There is little in the way of modern technology; no electricity, automobile or advanced irrigation. Superstition is also rampant. The town is described as being in a desert area, and within the vicinity of another, called Kwan-Si. The inhabitants of the town the story is set in are prone to describe their town to be in the shape of an orange, defined by the city walls. One day, a messenger comes to the Mandarin, or king, to inform him that the neighboring town has changed the shape of their walls to a pig – such that it would be interpreted by travelers as being about to eat the orange-shaped town. The messenger and the king discuss frantically how this will bring them ill luck – travelers would stay in and trade with the other town, and nature will favor the pig over the orange. Advised by his daughter, who stands behind a silken screen to hide herself, the king decides to have the town walls rebuilt to resemble a club, with which to beat the pig away. All is well in the town for a time, but soon the messenger brings news that Kwan-Si's walls have been reshaped as a bonfire to burn their club. The Mandarin of the first town has the walls changed to a shining lake; Kwan-Si's are changed to Mouth to drink the lake; the Mandarin's changed to a needle to sew the mouth; Kwan-Si's to a sword to break the needle. This goes on for quite some time, driving the cities' inhabitants away from their work at farms or in shops to fruitlessly rebuild the walls and wait for the other's response. Disease and famine are rampant. At last, the voice behind the silk screen, advising the Mandarin, says weakly "In the Name of the gods, send for Kwan-Si!" The two Mandarins, both starved and ailing, agree to stop their feud of superstition. The first Mandarin's daughter shows the men several kites, lying abandoned on the ground. 'What are kites,' she asks, 'without the wind to sustain them and make them beautiful?' Nothing, they agree. 'And what is the sky, without kites upon its face to make it beautiful?' Again, it is Nothing. Thus, she directs that Kwan-Si shall make itself to resemble the Silver Wind, and her town shall be made to resemble a Golden Kite, such that the two should sustain each other and they could live in peace. The kite is representing the wind. |
Conspiracy in Death | Nora Roberts | null | Lt. Eve Dallas and her assistant Delia Peabody, are called to a crime scene by Officer Ellen Bowers, and Officer Troy Trueheart. A homeless man is killed, his heart removed. The man's heart is removed though, with the skill of a surgeon. Dallas and Peabody both know a serial killer is preying on the city sidewalk sleepers, and all of the cities resources, and Eve's billionaire husband Roarke, give her no solid leads, except a free clinic run by a saintly doctor, Dr. Louise Dimatto. Soon though, three are dead, and Eve is running out of time. Unfortunately for Eve, trouble is also coming from within the police force. Officer Ellen Bowers is deranged, and obsessed with Eve. She obsessively writes a journal about all the terrible things that, she believes, Eve has done. One night, going home to her apartment, still obsessing, Bowers is attacked, and killed. The blame is quickly placed on Eve, who is stripped of her badge, and goes into a deep depression. Only her husband Roarke can bring her back, and help her figure out why four people are dead, and the terrible jealousy that motivated these murders. |
Deep Fathom | James Rollins | 2,001 | The book starts off with three different perspectives of people across the world on a day of a solar eclipse, the first one of the new millennium. One of these characters happen around the President of the United States who is watching the eclipse from the island of Guam on a diplomatic mission with the Chinese. While the eclipse starts off fine, there are earthquakes on the island and the President is forced to evacuate on Air Force One. At the same time, Jack Kirkland is on an underwater salvage mission in the Pacific, trying to salvage gold bricks from a sunken ship when an underwater earthquake occurs causing an underwater volcanic eruption and the magma consequently consumes the ship taking all but one brick of the gold with it. Kirkland returns to his ship, a salvage boat - Deep Fathom, with the brick and shares the disappointment with his team when they are radioed by the U.S. Navy to go to a site close to where they are. Though reluctant, the Deep Fathom proceeds towards the co-ordinates given. On the other side, Canadian Professor Karen Grace and Professor Miyuki Nakano, Karen's Japanese friend from the Okinawa university, are in Okinawa trying to get to the jetty during a curfew. Undettered by earthquakes, they escape from patrols and get to the boat which Karen had hired to take them to the twin dragons, submerged pyramids which had come above the sea level along with a whole city. When they get there they go to a large pyramid to explore but are interrupted with three men come from nowhere and ask them to leave. The women refuse and after chased deep into the pyramid where they find a star-shaped crystal. Using the crystal, the women escape and return to Okinawa. Kirkland and his ship are requested to salvage at a crash site, which turns out to be the site where Air Force One crashed after taking off from Guam. Meanwhile, David Spangler, a covert operations commander and an old acquaintance of Kirkland is ordered by his boss in CIA and the vice-president to secure the black boxes of the crashed plane. Spangler, turns out to be the brother of Kirkland's fiancee, who was killed during a botched space mission, and now vengeful blaming Jack for his sister's death. Spangler decides to kill Kirkland as a side operation. Kirkland uses the Deep Fathom's submersible to find the crash site and along with it, a huge crystal pillar sticking out the ground with the plane's debris all around it. He also finds that all the metal from the plane seems to be magnetized as they work to get the pieces above. Another peculiarity is that his submersible seems to lose contact to the ship every time he went near the pillar and he takes more pictures for his team to study of the pillar. Kirkland and his team do not inform navy about the pillar but start investigating it on their own after they find ancient script on the pillar. Though slow work, they eventually find the plane's black boxes which are taken away by Spangler who subsequently orders Deep Fathom off the site. The writing is the same as that on the crystal found by Karen Grace which is found in Japan. She responds to the emails and decides to meet with Kirkland at Okinawa. Before Kirkland leaves, Spangler sets up two bombs to kill everyone but the one with Kirkland goes out of range before Spangler could detonate it. Kirkland and Grace then go to the risen pyramids and are attacked by fighter jets, when they get away they are found by the people who tried to kill Karen the last time she was there. Only, this time they don't try to kill them. The men, one named Mwahu take them back to Okinawa. When they meet with Miyuki they discover what the inscriptions were through the use of Miyuki's computer system which is an Artificial Intelligence system and how the same writing is found in many other places around the world theorizing that there was one major civilization which actually travelled and populated the other parts of the world. Soon Kirkland gets a call from his ship the Deep Fathom telling him they have a bomb aboard and when the phone terminates he believes that the bomb had exploded. Spangler, who had tapped into the call, is happy as Kirkland's ship and friends were now gone. Karen, Kirkland and Miyuki then go to the pyramid city with Mwahu to following the first civilization clues but when they arrive they are attacked by Spangler's men. Karen is caught, but the others escape and Kirkland is found by the Deep Fathom's crew who are still alive because they defused the bomb and sent out a false message to trick Spangler. Kirkland decides to rescue Karen and when he arrives on Spangler's ship he is fought off by Spangler and his men. Kirkland's team finds out that soon the world is going to be destroyed when a new solar flares hits the pillar by the crash site of Air Force One. Karen is taken to an underwater research base by the pillar where she is kept as prisoner. When she can send them a message they decide another strategy of rescuing Karen. When Kirkland leaves this time in his submersible towards the underwater station he is attacked by Spangler in another submersible. After a brief fight Spangler gets killed by a giant squid which tried to attack Kirkland earlier. Kirkland manages to get on board the deserted underwater base and is told by his team aboard his ship that they are going to destroy the pillar to prevent Armageddon by shooting it with a laser from a satellite that Kirkland had placed in space during his space mission. When the pillar is destroyed the world goes on like it would have on the day of the eclipse without the devastating earthquakes. |
Federation | null | null | The first half of the novel involves three parallel arcs. In one arc, Zefram Cochrane has just completed the first warp speed voyage, a solo journey to Alpha Centauri and back. His is the first successful manned flight beyond the Sol system. His benefactor and backer, Micah Brack, exploits the warp drive to help humanity burst into the stars and safeguard the future of the race, which he foresees disaster for because of the "Optimum Movement", perfectionists who are trying to perfect Khan Noonien Singh's failed attempt to unify and improve humanity. A second arc covers James Kirk and his crew, just after the successful conference on admitting Coridan into the Federation. Kirk is hauled onto the carpet by a Starfleet admiral demanding that he explain a subspace message showing "dead" Commissioner Nancy Hedford. Kirk discovers that Cochrane was kidnapped from his and Nancy's home at Gamma Canaris. A third arc covers Jean-Luc Picard and his crew, just after dropping off Sarek of Vulcan to another ship for his voyage home from the Legaran home world. A Ferengi ship leads them to a Romulan ship, whose commander is giving Picard what appears to be a section of a Borg ship, but with a Preserver artifact incorporated into it. The Cochrane arc jumps ahead 17 years, from 2061 to 2078, just before a devastating war on Earth and long after Micah Brack's mysterious disappearance. Cochrane risked visiting his home planet, and narrowly escaped the forces of the Optimum Movement whose leader, Adrik Thorsen, wants Cochrane's knowledge about warp fields to create a bomb. The Cochrane arc then jumps further to 2111, when he must flee Alpha Centauri, and begins his voyage into the future when the Companion finds him and takes him to a sanctuary, her home. Kirk and the Enterprise find the hijacked passenger ship that has Cochrane aboard, and cleverly rescue all aboard. However, they are in a battle with Klingon warships under the command of the robotic remnants of Thorsen, and the Enterprise is damaged. Cochrane and the Companion board a shuttlecraft that will take "shelter" inside the event horizon of a black hole, on a course calculated to bring them out again using a short burst of warp drive. However, one Klingon ship follows the shuttlecraft, and Kirk takes the Enterprise in, dispatching the Klingon ship with one torpedo. They cannot, however, now escape and the shuttlecraft is also doomed. Picard's crew study the Preserver artifact, and when Data tries to interface with it, Thorsen's essence emerges from the artifact and takes over Data. Data takes the Enterprise into the black hole where Thorsen saw Cochrane enter it a century before. The two Enterprises, once Data's body is shut off, coordinate to take advantage of gravity waves to save both ships and tractor the shuttlecraft out. By necessity, to emerge in their own times, Kirk's Enterprise must yield the shuttlecraft's mass to Picard's, and so when Picard and the Enterprise-D emerge, they find the shuttlecraft holds Zefram Cochrane and Nancy Hedford/Companion. Both of them die, even as the ship arrives at Gamma Canaris to find the planetoid has long ago disintegrated. Before the ships got too far apart, Picard sent a short signal identifying his ship by name. Kirk writes a letter on paper to the captain of that future Enterprise, to be released after certain events have occurred. Picard is given the letter not long after the Enterprise-D is lost on Veridian III. One of the common ties is Christopher's Landing, the location on the moon Titan where Sean Jeffrey Christopher made humanity's first landing on the moon of Saturn. Cochrane returned there after his successful warp flight; Kirk writes his letter there and Picard is given that letter. Over the course of 300 years... 2061 to 2265 to 2366... the environment of Titan is progressively terraformed to one where Picard is able to stroll outdoors. The events of the story were of course non-canonical, and conflict with what was established about Zefram Cochrane, his first warp flight, and first contact with the Vulcans, in the 1996 film Star Trek: First Contact. |
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love | Raymond Carver | 1,981 | The story is about four friends—Mel, Teresa (Terri), Laura, and Nick. The setting is Mel's house, around a table with a bucket of ice in the middle. A bottle of gin is inside it. They soon start to talk about love (as the title suggests). Terri has had an abusive relationship, the abuse, she says, deriving from love. Ed, Terri's former abusive boyfriend, "loved her so much he tried to kill her." Ed would beat Terri, he dragged her around the living room by her ankles knocking her into things along the way. Terri believed that Ed loved her and his abuse was his way of showing it. No matter what Terri said, Mel refused to believe that was "love." Ed would stalk Mel and Terri. He would call Mel at work with threatening messages. At one point Mel was so scared he bought a gun, and made out a will. Mel even wrote to his brother in California saying that "if something happened to him" to look for Ed. Her abusive boyfriend eventually committed suicide after two attempts (as Terri sees it, another act of love). Ed's first attempt at suicide was when Terri had left him. Ed had drank rat poison, but was rushed to the hospital where he was saved. Ed's second attempt and success was shooting himself in the mouth. A person heard the shot from Ed's room and called the manager. Terri and Mel argued about whether she could be in the room with him when he died. Terri won and was with Ed as he died, as Terri put it, "he never came up out of it." Soon afterward Mel begins a story about an older couple and a drunk driver. The drunken driver was a teenager and pronounced dead at the scene. The elderly couple survived the car accident because they were wearing seat belts. Mel was called into the hospital one night just as he sat down to dinner. Once he got there he saw how badly the elderly couple had been injured. He said that they had "multiple fractures, internal injuries, hemorrhaging, contusions, and lacerations." The couple were in casts and bandages from head to toe. Mel's point in telling the story was that when the elderly couple were moved into ICU, intensive care unit, the husband was very upset. Mel would visit the couple every day and when he put his ear to the husband's mouth hole he told him that he was upset, because he could not see his wife through his eye-holes. Mel would stray from the topic with more talk about Ed, his own personal thoughts on love, hatred toward his ex wife, and life as a knight. Mel felt that even though you love a person, if something was to happen to them, the person still living will grieve but love again. After finishing the second bottle of gin, they talk about going to dinner, but no one makes any moves to proceed with their plans. |
The Final Circle of Paradise | Boris Strugatsky | 1,965 | Ivan Zhilin, posing as a writer working on a novel, visits a seaside resort city to investigate a series of mysterious deaths. Zhilin's role as an undercover agent becomes apparent to the reader only gradually, and is not brought into the open until the final chapters of the novel. While being given a tour of the city, a tourism official tells Zhilin that he will get no work done, as he will be distracted by the "twelve circles of paradise" found in the city. These include the Fishers, which provide thrill seekers with situations of extreme and potentially fatal terror, the Shivers, which electronically induce pleasurable dreams to large crowds of people, and the Society of Patrons of Arts, who procure priceless works of art and ritualistically destroy them. The culture of this city has become utterly decadent, the product of an age of universal affluence. Zhilin refers to the present state of the world as "the age of the boob" where the highest priority is placed on orgiastic pleasure and staving off boredom, to the neglect of culture, education and scientific progress. The authors express the Marxist perspective in the scene of an argument between Zhilin and a third-world revolutionary: "The great revolutionaries would not have accepted your shibboleth: now you are free- enjoy yourselves. They spoke otherwise: now you are free- work. After all, they never fought for abundance for the belly, they were interested in abundance for the soul and the mind." (pg. 158) The ultimate expression of the decadence of Earth culture is the mysterious "Slug" which is apparently responsible for the deaths that Zhilin is investigating. At first Zhilin believes it to be some sort of narcotic, distributed by gangsters with secret laboratories and trafficking networks. Zhilin progressively finds clues that lead him to Peck Xenai, a former classmate of his and the last surviving member of his international unit that fought the Fascists some years before. Peck, however, is physically ravaged by alcoholism and the use of "Slug," and does not even recognize Zhilin when he finds him. Zhilin succeeds in getting a "slug" from Peck, in the form of a small silver electronic component. What Zhilin finds when he plugs the "Slug" into his radio receiver and lies in the bathtub causes him to rethink the entire situation. "Slug" turns out to be a way of generating an artificial reality significantly more intense than normal reality, to the point where there is virtually no comparison between our reality and that of the "slug." People become addicted to it and spend increasing amounts of time unconscious in their bathtubs until it kills them by nervous exhaustion or brain hemorrhages. This is "the final circle of paradise." It also turns out that the "Slug" is not the work of gangsters or a secret laboratory, but is a common electronic component being used in a novel way. If "Slug" were to become widely known, Zhilin concludes, nothing would stop it from being used by millions the world over. Zhilin, himself struggling not to use it a second time, concludes that "Slug" represents "the end of progress." He foresees humanity as a whole entering this illusory reality, which will eventually destroy mankind. At the end of Space Apprentice, Zhilin began to devote his life to making the solar system a better place for young people struggling to find purpose in the world. At the end of this story, he leaves his work with the World Council to fight "the last war - the most bloodless and most difficult for its soldiers" (Pg. 170) - that of making life worth living for the millions caught unprepared in an age of affluence, so that they will never need anything like "Slug." However, even as Zhilin is saying this, at the end of the novel it is left ambiguous whether he thinks he will be able to resist using the "slug" again. |
The Door in the Dragon's Throat | null | null | The Coopers, a family of Christian archaeologists, are recruited by President Al-Dallam, a greedy oil sheik, to journey to the bottom of the dragon's throat, where many other expeditions have met with gruesome deaths, never having unravelled the mystery of what lurks at the bottom. However, the Cooper family have an edge: their unwavering faith in God, which holds up to scrutiny and testing throughout the book. Upon arrival, they are greeted by Gozan, Al-Dallam's aide, another fearful and greedy man, who shows them to the Dragon's throat. After a stakeout and a few scares, they realise that this 'Dragon's Throat' is more dangerous than they initially expected, but they journey down anyway. They are met by an earthquake, paranormal activity, and the Door, massive and ornate. While the Coopers continue trying to open the door, their activities are watched and thwarted from time to time by a Chaldean sorcerer. As well as the Shaman's efforts, Jay's beliefs are challenged by Gozan, who wants the 'treasure behind the door' for himself. Jay stands firm and makes himself an absolute model of Christianity for Peretti's young readers. As the Coopers realise the Door may not be breached by brute force, they hear a rumour of a key, the only thing that can open the colossal doors. As they search the winding eastern city for the 'Street of the Scorpion,' the key's location, Jay and Lila are separated and kidnapped by the desert shaman. The sorcerer is converted to Christianity, breaking all the curses upon him, and he becomes an ally. As Keeper of the door, he shows Jay and Lila the key, but tells them that it is not treasure behind the door, but a powerful demonic force awaiting its release upon the world. During this conversation, Gozan steals the key and rushes it to his president. A desperate chase begins to get to the Door before the president. He beats them to it but a last minute action by Jay saves the Earth. |
Forrest Gump | Winston Groom | 1,986 | Forrest Gump, named after General Nathan Bedford Forrest, narrates the story of his life. The author uses misspellings and grammatical errors to indicate his Southern accent, education, and cognitive disabilities. While living in Mobile, Alabama, Forrest meets Jenny Curran in first grade and walks her home. By the time Forrest is sixteen years old, he is 6’ 6” (1.98 m), 242 pounds (110 kg), and plays high school football. Miss Henderson, whom Forrest is infatuated with, gives him reading lessons. He reads Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and two other books that he doesn't remember. While he enjoys the books, he doesn't do well on tests. He gains popularity as a football player, joining the All State team. When Forrest is called to the principal's office, he meets Bear Bryant, who asks if he'd considered playing college football. After high school, Forrest takes a test at a local army recruitment center, and is told he is "Temporarily Deferred." Forrest and Jenny meet again in college. They go to see Bonnie and Clyde, and play together in a folk music band at the Student Union, covering songs by Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, and Peter, Paul and Mary. When he and Jenny get together, "we done all sorts of things that... I never even dreamt of in my wildest imagination... We rolled all over the livin room an into the kitchen... When we is finally finished, Jenny jus lie there a while, an then she look at me an say, 'Goddam Forrest, where is you been all my life?'" Forrest flunks out of The University of Alabama after one semester. He and his friend Bubba join the army. Bubba dies in the Vietnam War. He meets Lieutenant Dan, who has lost his legs, in the infirmary. He also plays in a Ping-Pong championship in China, and goes on a mission for NASA with a female astronaut and an ape named Sue. After their re-entry, they are captured and held by cannibals for four years. Forrest also has brief careers as a chess champion, a stunt man with a naked Raquel Welch in Hollywood, and as a professional wrestler called "The Dunce". At the end of the book, Forrest honors Bubba's memory by starting a shrimp business, and he tries to make a life with Jenny and their child. |
A New England Nun | Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman | null | "A New England Nun" is the story of Louisa Ellis, a woman who has lived alone for many years. Louisa is somewhat of an eccentric, as she likes to keep her house meticulously clean, wear multiple aprons, and eat from her nicest china every day. She has an old dog named Caesar who she feels must be kept chained up because he bit a neighbor 8 years ago as a puppy. Louisa promised Joe Dagget 14 years ago that she would marry him when he returned from his fortune-hunting adventures in Australia, and now that he has returned it is time for her to fulfill her promise. When Joe arrives, however, it becomes obvious that Louisa sees him as a disruption of the life that she has made for herself. When Joe arrives, Louisa attempts to have a conversation with him, but is distracted when he tracks dirt on the floor, re-arranges her books, and accidentally knocks things over. The two have a cool and slightly awkward conversation when Louisa inquires after Joe's mother's health and Joe blushes and tells Louisa that Lily Dyer has been taking care of her. Clearly, she is only planning on marrying Joe because she promised that she would, since it would mean that Louisa would have to give up the life that she has made for herself. Later that night, as Louisa is enjoying a moonlit stroll, she happens to overhear a conversation between Joe and Lily. Through this conversation, Louisa learns that Joe and Lily have been seeing each other in the short time that Joe has been back, and that Joe is in love with Lily but refuses to break his promise to Louisa. Lily supports Joe's decision, and though Joe encourages her to find someone else, Lily says, "I'll never marry any other man as long as I live." The next day, when Joe comes to visit, Louisa releases Joe from his promise without letting him know that she is aware of his relationship with Lily. Joe and Louisa then part tenderly, and Louisa is left alone to maintain her present lifestyle. The last line of the story is: "Louisa sat, prayerfully numbering her days, like an uncloistered nun." |
Los Premios | Julio Cortázar | 1,960 | The winners of a state lottery, a cross section of the citizens of Buenos Aires, have received tickets for a mysterious luxury cruise. Summoned to meet in a popular café and escorted under the cover of darkness to the secret location of their ship, they embark without knowing where they are headed. Within hours the ship stops; the passengers are informed that a disease has broken out among the crew and that they will be confined to a small section of the ship. In suspense, the passengers mull over their pasts and the future, form attachments and suspicions, tell secrets, explore desires. But as some of them merely accept their confinement, others are increasingly driven to confront the crew, leading to an outbreak of violence that seems both inevitable and pointless. bn:লস প্রেমিওস es:Los premios |
The Way to Dusty Death | Alistair MacLean | 1,973 | The protagonist, Johnny Harlow, a world champion Formula 1 racing driver, who appears to have become an alcoholic after a devastating wreck kills his best friend and fellow driver, along with maiming his girlfriend. He realizes after being involved in yet another crash on the circuit that there have been too many accidents lately, and decides to investigate, but soon finds out that a few people will do anything to prevent him from discovering the truth. |
My Gun Is Quick | Mickey Spillane | null | The story starts with Mike Hammer meeting a red-headed prostitute in a diner. She is hassled by a man she appears to know and fear but Mike deals with him swiftly. Despite little conversation, he gives her some money to get a real job and leaves. The next day she is found dead, the victim of an apparent hit-and-run accident. Mike does not believe this and proceeds to hunt down her murderers. In the process he uncovers a massive and powerful prostitution ring in New York. |
Vengeance Is Mine! | Mickey Spillane | null | Mike Hammer wakes up being questioned by the police in the same hotel room as the body of an old friend from World War II. His friend, Chester Wheeler, has apparently committed suicide with Hammer's own gun after they had been drinking all night. As it is not considered murder, Hammer is not under suspicion but the District Attorney takes the opportunity to revoke his Private Investigator and Gun licences. Considering the evidence, Wheeler had no motive to commit suicide and two bullets are missing from his gun with only one in his friend's body, Hammer does not believe that it was really a suicide and proceeds to investigate. During the investigation he finds a formerly small time criminal and a modelling agency are involved in a large blackmailing scheme that seems to include many rich and powerful people across New York. Parts of the investigation are carried out by Hammer's secretary, Velda, who has her own Private Investigator licence. This novel features the first time she shoots and kills someone. |
One Lonely Night | Mickey Spillane | null | After having been berated by a Judge, Mike Hammer goes for a walk and comes across a terrified woman and her pursuer. He kills the man but the woman, terrified, jumps to her death from a bridge. Each possessed an oddly shaped green card, a clue that Hammer pursues. His friend in the police, Pat Chambers, identifies them as membership cards for the local Communist Party. Mike attends a meeting and is mistaken for a spy from Moscow. At the same time, the FBI are searching for some lost secret papers and the career of a popular politician is threatened. |
The Big Kill | Mickey Spillane | 1,951 | Drinking at a seedy bar on a rainy night, Hammer notices a man come in with an infant. The man, named Decker, cries as he kisses the infant goodbye, then walks out in the rain to be shot to death. Hammer shoots the assailant as he searches Decker's body. The driver of the getaway car runs over the man Hammer shot to ensure that he won't talk. Hammer takes care of the infant and vows revenge on the person behind such a deed. Hammer's trail of vengeance leads him to hostile encounters with his police friend Pat Chambers, the District Attorney and his stooges as well as beatings, assassination attempts, and torture from gangsters that Hammer reciprocates in an eye for an eye fashion. Hammer also has loving encounters with two women he meets on his quest. Marsha is a former Hollywood Actress who was beaten by Decker when he robbed her flat. Ellen is the rich daughter of a horse breeder who works for the D.A.. |
The Body Lovers | Mickey Spillane | null | Mike Hammer finds himself investigating a sex-orgy cult with money and murder on the agenda. |
The Girl Hunters | null | null | The reader discovers that Hammer has been a drunk living in gutters around the Big Apple for the past seven years. Hammer's secretary and fiancee, Velda, is believed to be dead after a botched protection job involving a Chicago socialite and her new husband. Then, Hammer is apprehended and taken to an undisclosed location, where he is interrogated by former friend, Captain Pat Chambers. Chambers, who blames Hammer for Velda's death, pummels him repeatedly, but slacks off. Richie Cole, a dock worker, is dying of severe gunshot wounds at City General Hospital and has insisted on talking to Hammer exclusively to reveal the identity of his killer. Hammer, upon interviewing the victim, discovers that Velda is still alive and facing execution by a top level Soviet assassin dubbed "The Dragon," her only chance being Hammer finding her first. The man tells Hammer that he has left clues to her location, but dies immediately afterwards. The alarming news causes Hammer to sober up and prepare to go out on his own, despite being out of commission. He soon discovers the pressure is on from Pat to discover the killer's identity. Despite many threats, Hammer successfully brushes off Chambers, but then finds himself being muscled by a Federal Agent named Art Rickerby. Rickerby reveals to Hammer that Richie Cole was a field agent and his former protégé. In order to gain information and gun carrying privileges, Hammer makes deals with Rickerby, the condition being that Hammer brings him the Dragon alive. Hammer's investigations lead him to Laura Knapp, the widow of a Senator also murdered by the Dragon. Whilst gaining more clues from Laura and death attempts by the Dragon, Hammer hurries to find Velda, as the clock is ticking, and time isn't on his side. |
Double Indemnity | James M. Cain | 1,943 | Insurance agent Walter Huff falls for the married Phyllis Nirdlinger, who consults him about accident insurance for her husband. In spite of his basic, instinctual decency, Walter allows himself to be seduced into helping the femme fatale kill her husband for the insurance money. |
Chocolate Fever | Robert Kimmel Smith | null | Henry Green likes to eat lots of chocolate. In some cases, he adds chocolate or chocolate flavoring to other foods such as mashed potatoes. One day, Henry comes down with a most unusual medical condition. The diagnosis is "chocolate fever." Later on, Henry learns about moderating his consumption of chocolate. |
Caravan to Vaccarès | Alistair MacLean | 1,969 | From all over Europe, even from behind the Iron Curtain, Gypsies make an annual pilgrimage to the holy shrine of their patron saint in the Provence region of southern France. But something is different about this year's gathering, with many suspicious deaths. Cecile Dubois and Neil Bowman decide to investigate. Eavesdropping, Bowman discovers that a man named Gaiuse Strome is financing the gypsies, and his suspicions on the real identity of Strome center on a highly wealthy aristocrat, distinguished folklorist and gastronome, Le Grand Duc Charles de Croytor, whose girlfriend Lila Delafont is a friend of Cecile. As they follow the caravan, Bowman and Cecile find that their lives in danger many times in an effort to uncover the secret the gypsies are so determined to hide, and before long are running for their lives. |
Bird Girl and the Man Who Followed the Sun | Velma Wallis | null | Long before Columbus: Jutthunvaa' is called the Bird Girl. She and Daagoo (Snow grouse) are members of two different clans of the people of the Gwich'in, belonging to the Athabaskan tribes. The two young people want to be free. So both stripes, each for itself, through the country. Their parents disapprove of such useless, inappropriate trips. Once Bird Girl and Daagoo meet in the back country. From this point their paths diverge. With reluctance, Daagoo goes with the hunters of his clan on a caribou hunt. After the hunt, the wandering Daagoo finds all hunters to whom also his father counts murdered. The murderers are, to Daagoo's view, invaders from the north - Inupiat, called by the Gwich'in Ch'eekwais (Inuit). Daagoo reflects and hurries to the rest of his clan, who are still alive. He leads the women, old men and children out of danger. Daagoo practices hunting with the boys in the new camp. When the clan's survival is finally secured, Daagoo has realized his dream. He leaves the icy regions of his home and moves southward to the Land of the Sun. Meanwhile the parents of Bird Girl want to marry her off. Defiantly, she escapes because she wants to prevent the dreaded pregnancy. Bird Girl would like to fight through on her own initiative. The clan finds a faraway cave and puts away winter provisions—only there is no caribou meat. Bird Girl goes on the caribou hunt. Besides, it is overpowered by a Ch'eekwai and is kidnapped northwards. As a slave, Bird Girl must bend to the will of her torturer and becomes pregnant. The newborn child, a boy, is taken away from her and is educated by a young Ch'eekwai woman. The three brothers of Bird Girl never give up the search for their sister in the following polar summers. During one of their expeditions in the north they are murdered by Ch'eekwais. When the murderers play football with the heads of the beaten brothers for all the world to see, it is the last straw. Bird Girl takes revenge. At night she plugs the smoke holes of the Ch'eekwai dwellings, and all the sleeping Ch'eekwai suffocate, even her own son. This had turned away from the mother. Bird Girl moves home. Meanwhile, Daagoo has found a woman in the southern Land of the Sun and they have children together. However, Daagoo must experience the murder of all his children. In the end, Daagoo leaves the Land of the Sun and returns to his clan. When Daagoo's and Bird Girl's clan want to get together, both central figures of the novel also find each other again. |
The Big Blowdown | George Pelecanos | 1,996 | The book opens with a gravely injured Peter Karras in a D.C. hospital in 1946. The plot flashes back to Karras and his friends as children in 1933. Karras gets into a fight with a group of African-American boys and his opponent, Junior Oliver, earns his grudging respect. Next the story jumps to 1944 and the Philippines theatre of World War II. Karras kills his first man and one of his childhood friends, Billy Nicodemus, is killed. Next the book returns to 1946 and we learn that Karras has gotten married, to Eleni, and how he came to be injured. Karras flippant attitude upsets his superior Mr. Burke and when Karras fails to collect a debt from another Greek Burke decides to have him punished. He instructs Recevo to betray his friend Karras. Burke dispatches his enforcer Reed to assault Karras after Recevo sets him up. Reed beats Karras with a baseball bat. When promiscuous Lola disappears in 1948 after moving to Washington her brother Mike Florek decides to search for her. Eventually Florek takes a job at Nick Stefanos' diner in 1949. Karras is now working there as a chef. Jimmy Boyle, now a beat cop, has become peripherally involved in the investigation of the murder of several prostitutes by a serial killer. Karras correctly suspects that Lola has become a prostitute and aids Florek in his search. Lola's madam Lydia is murdered by the killer and Lola witnesses the crime. Boyle locates Lola for Karras and Karras and Florek extract her from Morgan's brothel. Karras lets Florek and Lola leave town. Burke targets Stefanos' diner for his protection racket. When Stefanos resists Burke hires Bender's outfit to pressure Stefanos and fool him into believing he needs the protection. Karras sees through the scheme and they lure Bender's men into a trap and kill them. After rescuing Lola Karras suspects Gearhart as the murderer from her description. He enlists the help of Joe Recevo who informs Burke of Gearhart's murderous tendencies. Burke confronts Gearhart and begins to organize a cover-up. Recevo informs Jimmy Boyle of Gearhart's involvement and tells him to go to his apartment to retrieve the murder weapon. Burke dispatches Reed on the same mission. When Boyle reaches the apartment he is grievously wounded by Gearhart, who had disobeyed Burke's instructions and returned home. Boyle manages to shoot Gearhart in the struggle. Burke realizes that Karras is the common-link between Boyle and Gearhart and confronts Recevo. He instructs Recevo to bring Karras to him. Recevo brings Karras in but the two make a last stand together and kill Burke, Reed and many of their men before being shot. The book ends with a coda set in 1959 as Stefanos and Costa visiting Karras' grave. |
The Dark Crusader | Alistair MacLean | 1,961 | Bentall, a British physicist deployed for counterespionage duties, is suddenly recalled to London from a mission in Turkey involving the theft of information about British missiles. Eight top scientists have disappeared, after responding to advertisements that have been placed in newspapers, for top level scientists in different fields of research, all offering very attractive rates of pay, but with the precondition that all applicants to be married with no children. All eight scientists disappear either in Australia, or en route there. Bentall is paired with Marie Hopeman, another agent posing as his wife. No James Bond, Bentall is much the stumbling self-deprecating fool who gets things wrong from the start, and ends up in the position that the villains want him. Bentall and Hopeman are kidnapped at an unscheduled stop in Fiji, but escape to Island Vardu a remote coral atoll in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Island Vardu is currently home to Professor Witherspoon, an archaeologist of some note, but with no radio transmitter or boat scheduled to arrive for three weeks. But there is something about Dr Witherspoon that Bentall finds suspicious. Later Bentall discovers that Witherspoon is actually LeClerc, the mastermind behind a plot to steal a British missile—the Dark Crusader, for an unnamed foreign power. The plot becomes even more complicated when Bentall and Hopeman find themselves falling in love even as they try to unravel a plot to steal highly classified missile technology. However, typically for MacLean, neither the female agent, nor the situation is quite as it seems. The novel really has two endings, one in which Bentall must chose between saving Hopeman and preventing the theft of the missile, and a second in which Bentall finally unravels the last details of the plot with his boss. Although not a standard literary device, the double ending packs considerable emotional punch. |
The Whaleboat House | Mark Mills | 2,005 | Little has changed in Amagansett since the first settlers arrived there some 300 years earlier, but the discovery of the body of Lillian Wallace, a New York socialite, by a local fisherman named Conrad Labarde, shatters the apparent stability and threatens to tear the close-knit community apart. Labarde (a second generation French Basque recently returned from the war in Europe), and Tom Hollis (a recently divorced former New York police detective posted to the area after his attempt to expose corruption resulted in the death of a colleague), are drawn to investigate Lillian's death, even though it appears to have been a tragic accident. They both have their own separate reasons to suspect that there is more to the death than meets the eye, and that it may have been the result of foul play. |
M. Ibrahim and the Flowers of the Koran | null | null | The book begins with a young Moïse, commonly referred to as Momo, preparing to search for a prostitute. It is written as a reflection of his childhood, and he notes that he was only eleven years old at the time, but his height and his weight made him look older. He breaks his piggy bank open, takes his money, and heads outside to the Rue du Paradis (Paradise Street, or Heaven Street), to find a prostitute. The book is set in a real district of 1960s Paris, which is described in detail. Momo always stops by the shop of the Arab grocer, Mr. Ibrahim, and often shoplifts. After his stop in this small shop, he sets out to find a prostitute, but is turned down several times for lack of identification. Finally, he finds one who will offer her services, and they head off together. Momo forgets to bring a gift for the girl, and runs home to get his teddy bear, a final link to his childhood. As the book progresses, Momo speaks to Mr. Ibrahim more and more. Mr. Ibrahim shows Momo how to save the precious little money his father gives him, by buying day old bread and reheating it, filling bottles of Bordeaux with a cheaper variety, buying cheaper ingredients, etc. and also teaches him the art of smiling, which subsequently gets him out of trouble quite often. Momo's father hardly notices a difference in these new ingredients. Momo becomes closer to Mr. Ibrahim, who eventually takes him to see the "real" Paris, where the famous landmarks are. Shockingly, one day, his father, a struggling lawyer, decides to run off, leaving about one month's worth of money for Momo. He also left a note with a list of people whom Momo should contact. It is later revealed that he has committed suicide. After this incident, Momo becomes even closer to M. Ibrahim, who takes him on a vacation in Normandy, which Momo believes is too beautiful, bringing him to tears. Mr. Ibrahim is slowly teaching Momo the ways of Sufi Muslims, in an attempt to help the boy. Finally, Mr. Ibrahim purchases a car, and the two travel to his native Turkey, where they get in an accident, killing Mr. Ibrahim. The book ends with the small store being handed over to Momo, who is now much older. |
Breath | Tim Winton | 2,008 | In the first part of the book, the narrator, Bruce Pike, recounts his boyhood friendship with Ivan "Loonie" Loon. As young boys, Pikelet and Loonie dare each other to perform dangerous stunts in the local river. When they become teenagers, they take up surfing and meet a former professional surfer named Sando, who leads them to new levels of recklessness. The novel explores the boys' youthful urge to seek out the farthest limits of courage, endurance and sanity in an attempt to escape the ordinariness of their lives. The second half of Breath is concerned with the disintegration of Pikelet's friendship with Sando and Loonie and his developing relationship with Sando's American wife Eva. |
The Last Frontier | Alistair MacLean | 1,959 | Michael Reynolds, MacLean's protagonist, is a British secret agent on a wintertime mission inside Hungary at the height of the Cold War. Reynolds must rescue Professor Jennings, an elderly British scientist who is held by the communist government against his will. Reynolds is no James Bond and does not have any fancy gadgets but he is highly resourceful. His biggest advantages against the cruel and efficient Hungarian Secret Service are an ability to make commonsense on-the-spot decisions and the heroic help of friends in the Hungarian underground. Reynolds hooks up with the mysterious Jansci and his friend “the Count” and they strive to transport the professor over the border and back to England. The plot has the twists, turns, and betrayals in which MacLean specialized, and Reynolds realizes that he has only one chance to escape with Jennings before he is captured and killed by the Hungarian secret police. |
Partisans | Alistair MacLean | 1,982 | During World War II, Pete Petersen, a Yugoslavian agent with an unlikely name, and his team of compatriots cross war-torn Yugoslavia to deliver a secret message and unmask a double agent. It is not clear who Petersen is actually working for, as the plot meanders through the confusion of Yugoslavia's three-way civil war, with Communist Partisans, the Serb royalist Chetniks and the Croatian fascist Ustashe fighting as much against each other as against their Italian and German occupiers. Everyone's loyalties are uncertain. Obviously, the sardonic Petersen is not working for the Nazis, but what about those with him? nl:Partizanen (boek) |
The Golden Road | Lucy Maud Montgomery | 1,913 | The plot is based around the character Beverley who remembers his childhood days with his brother Felix and friends and cousins Felicity, Cecily, Dan, Sara Stanley (the "Story Girl"), hired-boy Peter and neighbor Sara Ray. The children often played in their family's orchard and had many adventures, even creating their own newspaper, called Our Magazine. More character development takes place in this novel than in its predecessor, and the reader is able to watch the children grow up; in particular, they are able to watch Sara Stanley leave the Golden Road of childhood forever. They also are able to see the beginnings of a relationship between Peter and Felicity, as chemistry between them starts to build; it also seems that Beverly and Sara Stanley are drawn to each other, but this is left undeveloped. Throughout the story it is hinted that Beverly's cousin, Cecily, is consumptive; in a passage where the Story Girl tells their futures, the adult Beverly confirms that Cecily never left the Golden Road. As well, she strongly hints that Peter and Felicity will be married. The novel ends after Sara's father collects her to give her a proper education, and their small group is never complete again. |
Crime in the Kennel | Franklin W. Dixon | null | Iola's dog Spike is kidnapped, and the Hardy Boys set out to find him. |
Hilldiggers | Neal Asher | 2,007 | The novel describes the initial diplomatic contact between the Polity (an AI governed interstellar empire) and the isolated planets of Sudoria and Brumal who had been at war for nearly a century. The inhabitants of these two hostile worlds had to make many changes to their bodies and societies in order to survive, rendering their appearances and attitudes quite different from that of a 'standard' human of the time. Contact is being made officially by Consul Assessor David McCrooger, a hooper come diplomat from the planet Spatterjay, while the system is secretly observed by a Polity surveillance drone named Tigger. The Sudorians have also discovered an alien artifact they have nicknamed the "Worm". Research on this artifact enabled the Sudorians to make many technological advances that eventually gave them the upper hand in the conflict, allowing them to win the war with Brumal. Following the war, the Brumellians were nearly completely wiped out. Over time, the causes of the war began to be questioned in Sudoria as many of the justifications that had been taken for granted started to be doubted. Much of the story revolves around a conflict between two Sudorian factions; Fleet, who were once the dominant faction during the war, responsible for Sudoria's defence and navy, including the Hilldiggers, and the Orbital Combine, a large alliance of spacestations and other facilities orbiting around Sudoria, who both study and contain the Worm. The "hilldiggers" are the most powerful weapons in the Sudorian/Brumallian system. Part of the Sudorian Fleet, each of these 2 mile long ships are armed with "gravtech" weapons so powerful they can create new mountain ranges when used against a planetary surface, hence their name. The hilldiggers devastated the surface of Brumal, destroying the majority of Brumellian cities in a near genocidal final assault. After the war, the Hilldiggers remain the most powerful vessels in the Sudorian/Brumallian system. |
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