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The Looking-Glass War | John le Carré | 1,965 | An undefined military intelligence organisation, based in Blackfriars Road, London and referred to throughout the book as "The Department," has been resting on its laurels since its successes running agents against the Nazis during the Second World War. Its tasks are gradually being taken over by the more experienced Circus, led by "Control" and his right hand man George Smiley. The Department expends most of its energies on administrative tasks and on a bureaucratic turf war with the more professional Circus. The Department comes across uncertain and weak evidence that Soviet missiles are being placed at Rostock, near the West German border. The Department's chief, LeClerc, seizes the opportunity to re-live glory days and regain prestige for his organization. He decides to send an agent into enemy territory to discover the truth without involving the Circus, thereby enhancing The Department's status. The Department reactivates one of its World War II agents, a naturalised Pole named Fred Leiser, and sends him into East Germany to investigate the missiles. The inexperienced Department's operation is clumsy, and Leiser makes errors -- including his killing a young East German border guard and making overly-long transmissions. Consequently, the East Germans determine almost immediately that security has been breached, and they set out to find Leiser's location. Smiley informs LeClerc and his colleagues about the debacle. He tactfully convinces LeClerc to abandon the operation, with Leiser still trapped in East Germany. The story comes to its inevitable end when Leiser, not knowing the fate of the operation, and receiving no response to his transmissions, continues with his mission. He follows the "War Rules" and plays out the losing game to the end. Leiser's prolonged and slow transmissions give away his location and he is captured. Leiser's fate is unknown at the conclusion of the story. |
Confessions of an English Opium-Eater | Thomas de Quincey | null | As originally published, De Quincey's account was organized into two parts: * Part I begins with a notice "To the Reader," to establish the narrative frame: "I here present you, courteous reader, with the record of a remarkable period in my life...." It is followed by the substance of Part I, ** Preliminary Confessions, devoted to the author's childhood and youth, and concentrated upon the emotional and psychological factors that underlay the later opium experiences — especially the period in his late teens that de Quincey spent as a homeless runaway in Oxford Street in London in 1802 and 1803. * Part II is split into several sections: ** A relatively brief introduction and connecting passage, followed by ** The Pleasures of Opium, which discusses the early and largely positive phase of the author's experience with the drug, from 1804 until 1812; ** Introduction to the Pains of Opium, which delivers a second installment of autobiography, taking De Quincey from youth to maturity; and ** The Pains of Opium, which recounts the extreme of the author's opium experience (up to that time), with insomnia, nightmares, frightening visions, and difficult physical symptoms. * Another "Notice to the Reader" attempts to clarify the chronology of the whole. Though De Quincey was later criticized for giving too much attention to the pleasure of opium and not enough to the harsh negatives of addiction, The Pains of Opium is in fact significantly longer than The Pleasures. However, even when trying to convey darker truths, De Quincey's language can seem seduced by the compelling nature of the opium experience: ::"The sense of space, and in the end, the sense of time, were both powerfully affected. Buildings, landscapes, &c. were exhibited in proportions so vast as the bodily eye is not fitted to conceive. Space swelled, and was amplified to an extent of unutterable infinity. This, however, did not disturb me so much as the vast expansion of time; I sometimes seemed to have lived for 70 or 100 years in one night; nay, sometimes had feelings representative of a millennium passed in that time, or, however, of a duration far beyond the limits of any human experience." |
Efuru | Flora Nwapa | 1,966 | The story was set in a rural community. Its protagonist, Efuru, is a strong and beautiful woman. She loses her child and has two unhappy marriages. At the end she goes to the lake goddess, Uhamiri, who is like a mirror of herself. Uhamiri gives her worshipers wealth and beauty but few children.". |
The Canterville Ghost | Oscar Wilde | null | “The Canterville Ghost” is a study in contrasts. Wilde takes an American family, places them in a British setting, then , through a series of mishaps, pits one culture against the other. He creates stereotypical characters that represent both England and the United States, and he presents each of these characters as comical figures, satirizing both the unrefined tastes of Americans and the determination of the British to guard their traditions. Sir Simon is not a symbol of England, as perhaps Mrs. Umney is, but rather a paragon of British culture. In this sense, he stands in perfect contrast to the Otises. Sir Simon misunderstands the Otises just as they misunderstand him, and, by pitting them against each other, Wilde clearly wishes to emphasize the culture clash between England and the United States. The story illustrates Wilde’s tendency to reverse situations into their opposites as the Otises gain the upper hand and succeed in terrorizing the ghost rather than be terrorized by him. Wilde pairs this reversal of situations with a reversal of perspective. This ghost story is told not from the perspective of the castle occupants, as in traditional tales, but from the perspective of the ghost, Sir Simon. In this sense, Sir Simon could logically be labeled the “protagonist” in this story, as it is he who faces the challenge of overcoming adversity and bettering his “life.” Though Wilde tells a humorous tale, it appears that he also has a message, and he uses fifteen-year-old Virginia to convey it. Virginia says that the ghost helped her see the significance of life and death, and why love is stronger than both. This is certainly not the first time an author has used the traditional ghost story and the theme of life and death to examine the issue of forgiveness; ghosts, after all, presumably remain in this realm because, for some reason, they are unable to move on. Wilde’s ghost, Sir Simon, “had been very wicked,” Virginia tells her father after she returns to the castle. “But he was really sorry for all that he had done.” God has forgiven him, Virginia tells her father, and because of that forgiveness, in the end, Sir Simon de Canterville can rest in peace. |
Moonlight Shadow | null | null | The novella tells the story of a young woman, Satsuki, coming to terms with the death of her boyfriend, Hitoshi, in a car accident and her friendship with her boyfriend's brother, Hiiragi, whose girlfriend, Yumiko, also died in the same accident. With Japanese cultural and surrealistic themes, it is an example of Yoshimoto's clean writing style that portrays the emotions of grief, loss, and hope. |
Outcast of Redwall | Brian Jacques | 1,995 | In the howling, snowy north, a young badger is captured and bound by the cruel ferret Swartt Sixclaw and his group of vermin, who torment him mercilessly. When the vermin also capture a kestrel, Skarlath, the two young beasts help each other escape from the vermin camp. In the scuffle that ensues, the badger uses a massive hornbeam limb to severely injure Swartt's sixclawed left paw. The ferret and the badger both vow to extort revenge, each declaring the other to be his mortal enemy. As the young badger could not remember his name, Skarlath dubs him Sunflash after the distinctive golden stripe running down his snout. The two young beasts quickly become inseparable friends and travel throughout Mossflower Woods together, defending the weak and helpless and quickly growing older. Sunflash's reputation quickly spreads throughout the land. He eventually molds his hornbeam limb into a fearsome, stone-spiked warclub, calling it his mace. Meanwhile, Swartt also grows older, stronger, and wiser. He travels the northern lands with his vixen seer Nightshade and his horde and eventually ends up at the camp of Bowfleg, a fat ferret with a large horde who has settled down in a plentiful land. As an earlier leader of Swartt's, his captains are suspicious, and rightly so: with the help of Nightshade, Swartt executes a cunning trick that kills Bowfleg. Swartt takes over his large horde and marries Bowfleg's daughter, Bluefen. At this point, Sunflash and Skarlath have spent several seasons in the Lingl-Dubbo cave, the home of the families of Tirry Lingl the hedgehog and Bruff Dubbo the mole. Sunflash is eventually called to the mountain Salamandastron in his dreams, and so he travels there to become Badger Lord. He and Skarlath part ways, and Sunflash becomes Lord of the Mountain; this section quotes Sunflash's arrival at Salamandastron from the epilogue of Mossflower. By this time, Swartt Sixclaw and his large horde have passed through the Redwall region of Mossflower, which is efficiently defended by the resident squirrels and otters. However, the nursemaid of Swartt's infant son was trampled, and the infant ferret is dropped in a ditch. He is retrieved by the good-hearted woodlanders and taken to Redwall Abbey. At the abbey, the young ferret's fate is determined. Abbess Meriam and Bella of Brocktree decide to entrust the baby to the care of Bryony, a young mousemaid, and Togget, her sensible mole friend. The ferret is named Veil, and as the seasons turn he grows into a young adult in the abbey. As a youngster he is naughty and mischievous, but as a young adult his true vermin nature begins to show through, as the ferret would steal, lie, and be generally unpleasant to all, especially his adopted mother, Bryony. He is eventually banished, by Bella, from the Abbey when he attempts (and fails) to poison Friar Bunfold's wife. Bryony, feeling his banishment was unjust, leaves the abbey to track the ferret down. Her molefriend Togget accompanies her, and together they follow Veil as he wanders through Mossflower. The young ferret, remaining unapologetic and as mean as ever, makes life difficult for the mousemaid and her friend. Leagues away, Swartt comes upon Salamandastron and launches an attack. Together with a smooth-talking ferret corsair named Zigu, an attack is mounted and war begins. Zigu is eventually killed by a skilled hare of the Long Patrol named Sabretache, and Swartt's horde grows once more. With the help of neighboring woodlanders, the vermin attack is deflected. Sunflash and Skarlath go hunting after them, and Nightshade lays an ambush with poison arrows. In the ensuing attack, Nightshade kills Skarlath with a poison arrow, only to be slain by Sunflash seconds later. Swartt and his depleted horde flee to the mountains east of Salamandastron. Veil, Bryony and Togget reach the same mountains from the east, and Veil meets his father for the first time. Neither is impressed by the other. Sunflash is stunned and captured by Swartt, and Bryony encounters the evil Swartt Sixclaw. The ferret warlord tries to kill her by throwing a javelin; Veil, in a moment that portrays his true emotions toward the mousemaid, saves her life by taking the javelin, dying in the process. Sunflash then kills Swartt by throwing him from the mountain. Sunflash, Bryony and Togget return to Redwall. Bryony is later made Abbess and Togget is made Foremole. Sunflash meets Bella, his mother, for the first time since he was a youngster. He stays with her until her death many seasons later, and he then returns to the western coast to rule at Salamandastron. |
Love! Valour! Compassion! | Terrence McNally | null | The setting is at a lakeside summer vacation house in Dutchess County, two hours north of New York City where eight gay friends spend the three major holiday weekends of one summer together for Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, and Labor Day. The house belongs to Gregory, a successful Broadway choreographer now approaching middle age, who fears he is losing his creativity; and his twenty-something lover, Bobby, a legal assistant who's blind. Each of the guests at their house is connected to Gregory’s work in one way or another - Arthur and longtime partner Perry are business consultants; John Jeckyll, a sour Englishman, is a dance accompanist; die-hard musical theater fanatic Buzz Hauser is a costume designer and the most stereotypically gay man in the group. Only John's summer lover, Ramon, and John's twin brother James are outside the circle of friends. But Ramon is outgoing and eventually makes a place for himself in the group, and James is such a gentle soul that he is quickly welcomed. Infidelity, flirtations, soul-searching, AIDS, truth-telling and skinny-dipping mix monumental questions about life and death with a wacky dress rehearsal for Swan Lake performed in drag. |
Isle of the Dead | Roger Zelazny | 1,969 | Sandow is jolted from his wealthy, indolent lifestyle by a series of messages, each accompanied by a picture of one of a number of people once important to him, and all dead for many years. Sandow realizes the pictures could be fake, and he has other obligations, one of which is responding to a call for help from a friend, Ruth Laris. In the course of investigating her disappearance, he receives another message that he will find all his friends "on the Isle of the Dead". The message is in Pei'an, addressed to Shimbo (the name of the Pei'an god connected with Sandow) and signed by Belion (Shimbo's traditional enemy in Pei'an mythology). Sandow soon learns that somebody has been stealing the memory records and tissue samples of people who died on Earth. These things are required of everyone who lives on Earth, so they can be recalled to life should the need arise. The six missing sets are of the people whose photos Sandow received. Visiting his Pei'an mentor Marling, who is dying, Sandow learns that his tormentor is Gringrin, another Pei'an who was denied communion with a deity despite passing almost all the tests. Gringrin vowed revenge on the other worldscapers, starting with Sandow. Somehow Gringrin has been able to unite himself with Belion. Sandow helps his mentor end his life with the glitten root ceremony, in which two telepaths take the hallucinogenic root and have a shared dream, from which only one returns alive. This is also used for duelling between telepaths, which is what Sandow must do when he finds Gringrin. After the funeral, Sandow sets out for Illyria, the world he made which has the Isle of the Dead. Landing by stealth, and armed to the teeth, he sets out to walk the remaining distance to the Isle of the Dead. He now believes that Gringrin intended him to be lured there, and slowly humiliated before all the people who ever mattered to him. He is sure Gringrin has made a major mistake by staging this on a world Sandow made. All the forces on the planet will be allied with Sandow; he is the world's God. He comes upon Gringrin himself, alive but injured. Things have gone badly wrong. One of the recalled persons is Mike Shandon, a con man who is also a telepath, and a deadly enemy of Sandow's. He has persuaded the god Belion to abandon Gringrin and go to him. Apparently the Pei'an gods are real and Gringrin, attempting to ordain himself independently, asked for a creative spirit to come to him, but instead was chosen by Belion. Now, Belion's abandoned him and gone to Shandon. Gringrin wants to flee, but Sandow is determined to rescue as many of his friends as possible. As the two cross the river to the island they meet more of Sandow's revived enemies and friends. From one of them, a feisty dwarf named Nick, Sandow learns that his recalled wife Kathy is having an affair with Shandon. Sandow decides to buy Shandon off, which he is well-equipped to do. As the two negotiate and link minds to confirm the deal, the gods assert themselves and a battle begins in which Shimbo's air and water battle Belion's earth and fire. A storm rages as the ground shakes and splits. Both Sandow and Shandon are consumed by their godgame, until Sandow sees Nick try to help Kathy, only to fall with her into a fissure. Both die, and at the same moment Shimbo deserts him. Shandon/Belion continues attacking, and Sandow goes down under a pile of rocks, breaking his leg. Sandow has one last trick - a laser weapon surgically implanted in his middle finger. In a supremely ironic gesture, he "gives Shandon the finger", killing him and ending the battle. Sandow crawls away to find a "power-pull" energy nexus, so he can use its energies to summon his orbiting ship. On the way he meets Gringrin, mortally wounded. Gringrin begs him to perform the glitten rite with him. In a psychedelic trance, Sandow faces Death in the shape of the Valley of Shadows. But he sees all the worlds he has made, and realizes that as long as he can create life, casting worlds like "jewels in the darkness", he has a purpose. Gringrin in turn loses his dread of death, and walks happily into the Valley. Waking, Sandow crawls on and encounters his last revived friend, Lady Karle, alive but entombed in a cave. Sandow bitterly dismisses her cries and goes on, but once reunited with his ship he goes back for her. They hobble to the ship together. |
Men Among the Ruins | null | null | In this work Evola argues for a radical restructuring of society based on his view of Tradition. Evola takes as his jumping off point Italian Fascism and to a lesser degree German National Socialism and describes the ways that the two failed to achieve his ideal. As in Fascism and Nazism, Evola champions a powerful state unified under a rigid code and caste system. Despite similarities, Evola's ideas differ dramatically from those of the fascists and, while preserving an appreciation of militarism, focus less on modernity than tradition, less on the technological than the spiritual, less on the masses than the person (which Evola distinguishes from the individual). In this work, Evola develops his radical reactionary philosophy. Reactionary is an important word for him, one that he seeks to own. In fact "reactionary" could be seen as an understatement in his case as he seeks to restore the order, not of 100 or 200 years ago, but of literally thousands of years ago. This work constitutes Evola's only attempt at a book-length explicitly political work and, as such, he regarded it as a failure. Ultimately, Evola would become disenchanted about the prospects of achieving a radical reactionary restructuring of society and would advocate that an enlightened or "differentiated" man should Ride the Tiger – the title of his last work – of modern civilization. |
The Truth | Terry Pratchett | 2,000 | William de Worde is the black sheep of an influential Ankh-Morpork family, scraping out a humble lifestyle as a common scribe and making extra pocket money by producing a gossipy newsletter for foreign notables. When William falls in with a group of dwarves who have come to Ankh-Morpork to set up shop with their printing press, he inadvertently founds AM’s first newspaper. Realizing that with their press the dwarves can help him put out a newsletter every day, William begins scrambling to find enough interesting events to fill up the space. Arguing that it isn’t worth the effort just to make a few copies for William’s wealthy foreign subscribers, the dwarves print hundreds of copies of the “Ankh-Morpork Times” and hire a group of oddball beggars to pitch them on the street. William is shocked when the newsheets sell like hot cakes, bringing in more money than he wants or knows what to do with. Before he knows it William has assembled a newsroom staff, including Sacharissa Cripslock, a prim young woman who attracts news items from talkative, flirtatious city guards, Otto, a vampire photographer from Uberwald who has sworn off drinking blood and often disintegrates in his own camera flash, and Rocky, a quasi-literate troll who deals with the more irate members of the public. Meanwhile, a conspiracy is afoot in the city to depose the Patrician, Lord Vetinari. The wealthy and powerful (but anonymous) Committee to Unelect the Patrician hire Mr. Pin and Mr. Tulip, a pair of villainous mercenaries known as the New Firm, to frame Vetinari for attempted murder and embezzlement. The plan goes off without a hitch, except that Pin and Tulip allow a witness to escape from the scene; Lord Vetinari’s prized terrier, Wuffles. William and the Times staff investigate the strange charges against the Patrician and set out to find the missing Wuffles, all while trying to cope with threats from the local Guilds, the sudden appearance of a competing paper (the scandalous and largely fiction-filled “Ankh-Morpork Inquirer”), pressure from the City Watch, and the chance that Otto may fall off the wagon at any moment. William makes the mistake of advertising a reward for information leading to Wuffles' recovery. Hundreds of Ankh-Morpork citizens mob the offices with dogs of every shape and variety (including many that are actually cats, birds, or cows) hoping to cash in. The New Firm arrive too, capturing every terrier in the crowd hoping that one of them will be Wuffles, and trying to intimidate the Times staff. Otto drives them off using his magical “Dark Light” photography method, which has the inadvertent effect of showing Mr. Pin the angry ghosts of his victims who follow him around and triggering a moral crisis for the normally remorseless thug. An anonymous tipster named "Deep Bone" (actually Gaspode, the talking dog who operates as the brains of the beggar crew who sell the Times) helps William track down Wuffles, and when Sacharissa discovers the New Firm’s hideout in William’s own family manor he has enough evidence gathered to break the story wide open. Just as he is preparing to go to press, the New Firm return to take revenge. In the ensuing struggle a lamp explodes and the Times offices catch fire. William and the others take refuge outside while Pin and Tulip hide in the cellar. Hot melted lead from the destroyed printing press leaks down on them through the roof, and Pin resorts to murdering his partner so that he can save himself by standing on the much larger man’s corpse. Pin, now only partially sane, emerges from the cellars and attacks William once the fire is out, only to be killed when he is impaled on the memo spike from William’s desk. With the press and office destroyed, it looks like the Times is out of business, but with the application of a crossbow, dwarven axes, and Otto’s sense of dramatic atmosphere, the crew manage to “borrow” one of the Inquirer’s presses for the evening. The big story breaks the next day and Lord Vetinari’s name is cleared just before a new, Guild-controlled Patrician would have seized power. The New Firm, meanwhile, discuss the finer points of reincarnation, and who does and does not merit it, with Death. William goes to confront the man behind the Committee to Unelect: his own estranged father, Lord de Worde. After a tense argument, William blackmails his father with the information about his criminal doings, forcing him to flee the city or be exposed. In the end William is ambivalent about the new and unexpected role of the free press in his life and in the world, but resolves that someone must tell the public the truth about what goes on in the city, even if the public doesn't want to hear it. The Times comes to be recognized, if not exactly welcomed, by the powers that be in the city, and William and Sacharissa make plans to expand even further, hiring new staff, establishing offices in other cities, and hopefully one day squeezing in time for a lunch date in between deadlines. |
The Secret Life of Plants | Peter Tompkins | 1,973 | The book includes summaries of the life and work of amongst many others, 18th century scientists Jagdish Chandra Bose and George Washington Carver as well as Corentin Louis Kervran. The book also discusses alternative philosophy and practice on soil and soil health, as well as on alternative farming methods. Such topics as auras, psychophysics, orgone energy, radionics, kirlian photography, magnetotropism, bio-electrics and dowsing are also discussed. One of the book's claims is that plants may be sentient despite their lack of a nervous system and a brain. The book includes unscientific experiments on plant stimuli, as through a polygraph, a method which was pioneered by Cleve Backster. The book is regarded as pseudoscientific by skeptics and many scientists. |
The Sands of Mars | Arthur C. Clarke | 1,951 | Martin Gibson, a famous science fiction author, is travelling to Mars, as a guest of the crew of the spaceship Ares. After arriving at Space Station One, in the orbit of Earth, from which all interplanetary journeys start, he makes the trip to Mars. The youngest crew member, Jimmy Spencer, who is still in training to be an astronaut, is assigned the task of answering his questions about the technology of space flight, and they become friends. Gibson tells him about his early life, revealing that he had to leave Cambridge University because of a nervous breakdown and never completed his studies. After psychiatric treatment, he had become an author. He also reveals that he had an affair at university but that he and his girlfriend broke up and that she married another man, had a child and later died. On Mars, Gibson and the crew go their separate ways. Gibson meets the Chief Executive of Mars, Warren Hadfield, and Mayor Whittaker, who run the colony from the base at Port Lowell. He discusses the future of the colony with Hadfield, who is keen to make Mars as self-sufficient as possible, given the vast distance that materials have to come from Earth. On a trip by passenger jet to an outlying research station, Gibson and the crew are forced down by a dust storm. They explore the nearby area and discover a small group of kangaroo-like creatures, the unsuspected natives of Mars. They appear to have limited intelligence by human standards and are vegetarians, living on native plants. It is later revealed that the plants are being cultivated by researchers to enrich the oxygen content of the Martian atmosphere. This project, and related others, are being kept secret from Earth. Gibson discovers that Spencer is his son. In the meantime, Spencer has formed an attachment to Irene, Hadfield’s daughter. Hadfield reveals that scientists have been working on "Project Dawn", which involves the ignition of the moon Phobos and its use as a second “sun” for Mars. It will burn for at least one thousand years and the extra heat, together with mass production of the oxygen-generating plants, will eventually – it is hoped – make the Martian atmosphere breathable for humans. Gibson finds himself so persuaded of the importance of Mars as a self-sufficient world that he applies to stay on the planet, and is invited to take charge of public relations – in effect, to “sell” Mars to potential colonists. |
In the Miso Soup | Ryu Murakami | 1,997 | Twenty year-old Kenji is a Japanese "nightlife" guide for foreigners — he navigates gaijin men around the sex clubs and hostess bars of Tokyo. On December 29 he receives a phone call from an American named Frank, who seeks three nights of his services. While Kenji has promised to spend more time with his girlfriend, sixteen year-old Jun, the money is too good to pass up. He finds himself closing out the end of the year accompanying Frank around Shinjuku, wondering if his strange, plastic-skinned patron could be responsible for the gruesome events recently reported in the news. |
69 | Ryu Murakami | 1,987 | Thirty-two-year-old narrator Kensuke Yazaki takes a nostalgic look at the year 1969 when he, as an ambitious and aspiring seventeen-year-old, living in Sasebo, in western Kyushu where he gets into antics with his equally ambitious and enthusiastic best friends, Iwase and Adama. Their priorities are girls, cinema, music, literature, pop culture, organising a school festival "The Morning Erection Festival", bettering teachers and enemies, and finding a way to change the world somehow. |
Riz noir | Anna Moï | 2,004 | The novel takes place during the Vietnam War and tells of two sisters aged 15 and 14, who have been arrested, tortured and finally put into Poulo Condor prison. Throughout their sad adventure, the young girls recall important events in which they were involved, such as the Tet offensive. However, their recollections center more on the countryside, the colors and the scents and smells of their childhood. fr:Riz noir (roman) |
The Lady in the Lake | Raymond Chandler | 1,943 | Derace Kingsley, a wealthy businessman, hires Marlowe to find his estranged wife Crystal. Although separated from his wife, Kingsley fears that Crystal - rich, pretty, spoiled and reckless - may have gotten herself into a scandal that could jeopardize his own position with the shareholders of the company he runs. The last definite place Crystal was known to have been was at a resort called Little Fawn Lake. And Kingsley had received a telegram from Crystal about two weeks before, (dateline El Paso, Texas), stating that she was divorcing him and marrying her gigolo boyfriend, Chris Lavery. But when Kingsley ran into Lavery in L.A., and asked him "where's Crystal", Lavery tells him that he hasn't seen her, wasn't with her in El Paso, doesn't know where she is, and never agreed, or wanted, to marry her. Marlowe begins his investigations at Little Fawn Lake. Kingsley has given him a note to the caretaker of his vacation home, one Bill Chess. Chess is in an alcoholic haze, depressed over having been abandoned by his wife Muriel, at about the same time as Crystal disappeared. As Marlowe and Chess walk over the property, they discover the drowned body of Chess' wife, bloated from decomposition and almost unrecognizable except by her clothes and jewelry. Chess is immediately arrested for his wife's murder, and Marlowe, although doubtful of his guilt, returns to Los Angeles. In L.A. he travels to the corrupt neighboring town of Bay City (modeled on Santa Monica) to interview Chris Lavery, who appears to have some kind of guilty knowledge about Crystal but will not come clean. When departing from this interview a tough cop named Al Degarmo drives up and accuses Marlowe of harassing Lavery's neighbor, Dr. Almore. Eventually Marlowe discovers that Dr. Almore's wife had died under suspicious circumstances, that her death was hushed up by the police, and that Dr. Almore's mistress at the time was Mildred Haviland, the former spouse of Degarmo. When Marlowe goes back to talk to Lavery again, he finds him murdered in his bathroom. A gun had been fired six times, two of the shots had hit him, and one was fatal. Mrs. Fallbrook, the owner of the rented house that Lavery lives in, confronts Marlowe on his way out, but Marlowe manages to scare her off without letting her discover the murder. Then he goes back to Kingsley, who offers him a fat bonus to prove Crystal didn't do it. But on the way out of Bay City he is confronted by the cops again, who force him to drink liquor and then beat him up and arrest him for drunk driving. Marlowe manages to convince the Bay City Chief of Police that he was framed, and is turned loose. Now Kingsley tells him that he has received a phone call from Crystal, begging for $500. Marlowe is to deliver it. When he gets to the rendezvous, Marlowe insists that Crystal answer his questions before receiving the money. Marlowe recognizes her as being "Mrs. Fallbrook", the woman he met in Lavery's house, and accuses her of being the murderer of Lavery. She pulls a gun on him and someone hits Marlowe from behind with a blackjack. When Marlowe wakes up he is stinking with gin and Crystal is lying naked, bloody and strangled to death on the bed. Marlowe attempts to get away but is arrested by Degarmo, who wants Marlowe to help him convict Kingsley of the sex murder of Crystal (Kingsley's wife). Marlowe lets him think he can provide the evidence against Kingsley, but they must go to Little Fawn Lake to find it. In the final confrontation at Little Fawn Lake, Marlowe reveals that the murder suspect supposed to be Crystal (in Los Angeles) was actually Mildred Haviland, AKA Muriel Chess AKA Mrs. Fallbrook; she was killed by Al Degarmo (her former husband) in a jealous rage; and that the murder victim supposed to be Muriel Chess (at Little Fawn Lake) was actually Crystal Kingsley, who was killed by Mildred Haviland for revenge and profit, assuming the identity of her victim. Mildred also murdered Lavery. Degarmo - who strangled Mildred - attempts to flee, but is killed while trying to escape. |
Playback | Raymond Chandler | 1,958 | This novel puts Marlowe in the position of turning against his client. We are at the beginning of 1952 (some 18 months after the parting of Marlowe and Linda Loring in The Long Goodbye). An unknown client hires Marlowe (via intermediaries) to follow a woman traveling under the name Eleanor King (whose real name is Betty Mayfield). Marlowe traces Mayfield to the small coastal resort town of Esmeralda in California, where he is given the runaround by practically everyone. During her train ride west, Mayfield was recognized by a man who then seeks to blackmail her, for reasons disclosed at the end of the novel. While Marlowe is poking around Esmeralda, the blackmailer is found dead on Mayfield's hotel room balcony. She panics and calls Marlowe for help. Marlowe encounters a variety of characters with dubious motivations, including a taciturn lawyer and his smart secretary (with whom Marlowe had a sexual encounter), a 'retired' gangster, overconfident would-be tough guys of varying morals, a hired killer (whose wrists Marlowe smashes), decent police officers, an affectingly desperate example of the American immigrant underclass of the 1950s. Marlowe also had a striking encounter in a hotel lobby with a reflective elderly gentleman, Henry Clarendon IV, which gives rise to an extended philosophical conversation. Marlowe learns that Betty Mayfield had been married to the son of Henry Cumberland, a big shot in a small North Carolina town. The son, Lee Cumberland, had suffered a broken neck during the Second World War and, though mobile and not paralyzed, for safety he regularly wore a neck brace. One day there was a quarrel between them, and later, the husband was found dead, with Mayfield re-fixing the neck brace on his body. The case drew widespread newspaper publicity (which is why the blackmailer recognized Mayfield on the train), and due to Cumberland's influence on the jury, the jury found Mayfield guilty of murder. But the jury's verdict was set aside by the judge, who saw more than a reasonable doubt and rejected the jury verdict as tainted. Cumberland vowed to hound Mayfield wherever she went, which is why she fled to Esmeralda; Cumberland was presumably behind Marlowe being hired in the first place. Cumberland arrives in Esmeralda to hound Mayfield in person, but with the help of the local police captain, Marlowe scares off Cumberland. (In the British edition of the novel, and the screenplay version by Chandler, see below, Cumberland's name is Kinsolving). Mayfield decides to marry a local criminal-turned-respectable, who has taken a romantic interest in her. Marlowe lets her go ahead but has a frank talk with the ex-criminal, who obviously hasn't quite mended his ways, as he was behind the killing of the blackmailer. At the book's conclusion, Marlowe is rewarded by providence when an old flame (Linda Loring from the previous novel, The Long Goodbye), gets back in touch. |
White Light | William Barton | null | The book is the story of Felix Rayman, a down-and-out mathematics teacher at SUCAS (a state college in New York) with a troubled family life and dead-in-the-water career. He begins experimenting with lucid dreaming—aided by "fuzz weed" (marijuana)—hoping to gain insight into Cantor's continuum hypothesis. During an out-of-body experience, Felix loses his physical body and nearly falls victim to the Devil, who hunts the Earth for souls like his to take to Hell; Felix calls upon Jesus, who saves him. Jesus asks Felix to do him a favor: to take a restless ghost named Kathy to a place called "Cimön", and bring her to God/Absolute Infinite, which can be found there. Cimön is permeated with the notion of infinity in its various guises: just getting there involves grappling with infinity, as Cimön is an infinite distance away from Earth. Felix and Kathy get there in their astral bodies by doubling their speed in half the time so that they asymptotically approach infinite speed at four hours. Eventually, at the speed of light, they turn into the eponymous "white light" and merge with Cimön. In this new world, Felix encounters famous scientists and mathematicians such as Albert Einstein and Georg Cantor, who all reside in a hotel that is based on Hilbert's paradox of the Grand Hotel. Felix stays there after Kathy leaves him; the hotel is full, but Felix has the desk clerk move everybody one room up, leaving an empty room for him. He falls in with a loquacious beetle named "Franx", reminiscent of Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis, which is mentioned in Rucker's Afterword. The two decide to climb "Mount On", which itself is infinite (not aleph-null infinite, but perhaps instead cardinality of the continuum or greater). After many adventures, Franx and Felix find Kathy. They leave off climbing Mount On, and instead try the other side of Cimön, the Deserts, littered with portholes to Hell. Felix merges with the Absolute Infinite, but Kathy is scared and refuses. Eventually, Felix wakes back up on Earth in his body; everybody attributes his dreams to a spectacular binge-drinking and marijuana-smoking episode, until Felix remembers an insight he had regarding the continuum hypothesis: if there were three basic kinds of existence, that of solid matter, aether, and things he calls bloogs which are not aleph-null or c infinitely divisible, but a higher infinity, then the hypothesis will have been disproven. With the aid of a physicist friend, he uses his astral travelling abilities to create a ball of this bloog-matter. The ball has unusual properties such as ignoring gravity or being indivisible, or to be more precise, being a physical instantiation of the Banach–Tarski paradox, which means it can be broken apart into multiple pieces, each of which is exactly like the original. It is implied the US government suppresses their research. |
The House of the Scorpion | Nancy Farmer | 2,002 | The story is set in the country of Opium, a strip of land between Mexico (now called Aztlán), and the United States. Opium, which is essentially an opium-producing estate, is ruled by Matteo Alacrán, also known as El Patrón. El Patrón's work-force consists of illegal immigrants whom the Farm Patrol (ex-criminals who are tempted with the offer of protection from the police) enslave when they catch them crossing the border in either direction. These illegal immigrants become "eejits", humans with computer chips implanted in their brains, making them more or less zombies who can perform only simple tasks. These "eejits" act, or cease to act, only when ordered to do so. If an eejit is not told to stop doing its simple task, it will continue until it dies. The main character, Matt, is a clone of El Patrón, an incredibly powerful, 148-year-old drug lord who intends to take Matt's organs when his own organs fail. Matt was grown from a set of cells taken from El Patrón decades ago, then frozen. He was cultured in a test tube, then transferred into a surrogate mother when it became clear that he was going to survive. For the first six years of his life, he lives with Celia, a cook who works in El Patrón's mansion. One day, he is discovered by two children (Emilia and Steven). The next day they return, and bring Emilia's sister, María, who immediately captivates Matt. They observe him through the window for a while, but soon get bored and turn to leave. Matt is so lonely that he smashes the window and jumps out to follow them. Never having experienced pain before, he was unaware of the danger in jumping barefoot onto smashed glass. The children carry him to El Patrón's mansion to be treated. The people there treat Matt kindly until Mr. Alacran, El Patron's great-grandson, recognizes him as a clone. For the next few months, he is treated as an animal by most of the Alacráns, and is locked into a room filled with sawdust for his "litter". The inhabitants of the Big House, meanwhile, are so disgusted by him that they all move to different wings of the mansion, as if they are afraid of contamination. However, María discovers where he is being kept and informs Celia, who tells El Patrón about Matt's filthy conditions and abusive treatment. El Patrón immediately punishes the maid who was in charge of Matt, gives Matt clothes and his own room, and commands everyone to treat him with respect. Matt is also given a bodyguard, named Tam Lin, who becomes a father figure to him. Still, everyone but Celia, María, and Tam Lin look upon Matt with ill-disguised revulsion, only hiding it when El Patrón is around. Matt lives in the Big House for the next seven years. He and María quickly become friends, and friendship gradually blossoms into romance. However, Matt is deliberately kept in the dark by everyone about his identity and purpose until a cruel joke reveals to him that he is a clone. Matt also discovers that all clones are supposed to be injected when "harvested" with a compound that cripples their brains and turns them into little more than thrashing, drooling animals. From then on, he studies and practices the piano with a vengeance, in a state of denial. In his heart, Matt already knows the reason for his existence, yet he convinces himself that El Patrón would not hire tutors for him and go to all the trouble of keeping him entertained if he were intending to kill Matt in the end, and that El Patrón must want Matt to run the country when El Patron dies. At Steven and Emilia's wedding, El Patrón has a near-fatal heart attack. Matt and María, who have by this time realized they love each other, attempt to flee in the ensuing chaos but are betrayed by Steven and Emilia. María is taken away, and Matt is taken to the Big House's hospital, where El Patrón at last confirms that Matt lived only to keep himself, El Patrón, alive in the end. At that moment, Celia reveals that she has been giving Matt carefully measured doses of arsenic, which, though not large enough to kill Matt, would certainly be fatal to one as frail as El Patrón; El Patrón becomes so enraged that he has another heart attack and dies. Mr. Alacrán orders Tam Lin to dispose of Matt; Tam Lin pretends to comply, and ties him to a horse and rides away to dispose of him. But instead, he gives Matt supplies and sets him on a path to Aztlán. Arriving in Aztlán, Matt comes across a kind of penal colony for orphans. These orphans are called the "Lost Boys", and Matt is sent to live with them by a group of men known as the "Keepers," who are fervent followers of Marxism. The Keepers operate plankton farms, forcing the orphans to do manual labor and subsist on plankton. The Keepers enjoy luxurious quarters and delectable food, claiming that this is fair because they "earned" the right to do so by working hard during their childhood. Matt is at first an outcast because the other boys think he is a spoiled aristocrat. However, Matt becomes a hero when he defies the Keepers and leads the boys in a rebellion against them. Matt then flees with his friends among the Lost Boys. They struggle to the nearest city, San Luis, then go to the convent to find María and her mother, the politically powerful Esperanza. Esperanza thanks the boys for giving her an excuse to charge the Keepers with drug trafficking: for years, everybody has known about it, but no one has had sufficient evidence for a search warrant. Matt also learns that Opium is in lockdown. He manages to re-enter the country, but only to learn that no one in the Alacrán estate is alive, except for Celia, Daft Donald, and Mr. Ortega. Tam Lin and everyone else in the estate drank poisoned wine that El Patrón wanted to be served at his funeral. El Patron wanted to either run the business forever, or have it and everybody else die with him. Matt, being El Patrón's genetic heir, is the new ruler of Opium but decides to dismantle the regime. |
The Lake House | James Patterson | 2,003 | The Lake House starts some time after When the Wind Blows. The bird children - Max, Matthew, Ozymandias, Wendy, Peter, and Icarus - are all depressed and unhappy in their new "normal" lives and wish to return to live with Frannie and Kit. Frannie and Kit miss the children as well and engage in a courtroom battle to regain custody of the children. The judge decides that the children will remain living with their biological parents until an appeal hearing is made. Meanwhile, a doctor named Ethan Kane begins trying to capture the bird children and bring them to the place he works, a nightmarish place called the Hospital. In the Hospital, faceless people are murdered and dissected and their organs are taken and used for the "Resurrection" of rich and famous people such as former presidents and prime ministers. Going back to their lives, the children are forced to put up with harassment from various reporters and paparazzi. After a visit from one of the reporters, it is revealed that Max knows about the Hospital from working at the School, but was trained not to talk about it on the threat of death. Upset, she goes to Oz for comfort. He tells her that she is "drop dead gorgeous". Shortly after, the two begin a sexual relationship. After Kane attempts to kidnap Max and Matthew on their way home, the siblings escape and meet up with the rest of the flock. The children then fly to Frannie's house for protection. That night, Hospital workers try to break into Frannie's house. She calls the police and sets her house on fire. She and the children then escape through the basement and meet up with Kit. Kit takes them to Washington D.C. for help. While left alone, hit men hired by Kane capture the children. Oz is killed while trying to protect Max. Frannie and Kit try to rescue the children but are drugged and hooked up to holographic monitors, which give the patients pleasant visions while their organs are being taken. Max and the flock manage to escape and Frannie and Kit are released later. Although they try to expose the Hospital, all evidence of their experiments are hidden and the V.I.Ps seen there have alibis. At the appeal hearing, the judge decides to return the children to the custody of Frannie and Kit. The family rejoices and moves back to the Lake House. There, Frannie notices that Max has been in her room all morning. She goes to investigate and learns that Max has laid two eggs - her babies with Oz. Max spends the next few weeks caring for the eggs. One night, Kane breaks into Max's room to steal the eggs. Max fights him off and knocks him out of the window, fulfilling her promise to Oz that she'd break his neck. Four weeks later, the eggs hatch. Max's winged babies are a boy and a girl, who she names Ozymandias and Frances Jane. The book ends with Max thinking that she can't wait to teach them how to fly. |
New Grub Street | George Gissing | 1,891 | The story deals with the literary world that Gissing himself had experienced. Its title refers to the London street, Grub Street, which in the 18th century became synonymous with hack literature; by Gissing's time, Grub Street itself no longer existed, though hack-writing certainly did. Its two central characters are a sharply contrasted pair of writers: Edwin Reardon, a novelist of some talent but limited commercial prospects, and a shy, cerebral man; and Jasper Milvain, a young journalist, hard-working and capable of generosity, but cynical and only semi-scrupulous about writing and its purpose in the modern (i.e. late Victorian) world. New Grub Street opens with Milvain, an “alarmingly modern young man” driven by pure financial ambition in navigating his literary career. He accepts that he will “always despise the people [he] write[s] for,” networks within the appropriate social circle to create opportunity, and authors articles for popular periodicals. Reardon, on the other hand, prefers to write novels of a more literary bent and refuses to pander to contemporary tastes until, as a last-gasp measure against financial ruin, he attempts a popular novel. At this venture, he is of course too good to succeed, and he's driven to separate from his wife, Amy Reardon, née Yule, who cannot accept her husband’s inflexibly high standards—and consequent poverty. The Yule family includes Amy’s two uncles—John, a wealthy invalid, and Alfred, a species of critic—and Alfred’s daughter, and research assistant, Marian. The friendship that develops between Marian and Milvain’s sisters, who move to London following their mother’s death, provides opportunity for the former to meet and fall in love with Milvain. However much Milvain respects Marian’s intellectual capabilities and strength of personality, the crucial element (according to him) for marriage is missing: money. Marrying a rich woman, after all, is the most convenient way to speed his career. Indeed, Milvain slights romantic love as a key to marriage: ‘As a rule, marriage is the result of a mild preference, encouraged by circumstances, and deliberately heightened into strong sexual feeling. You, of all men, know well enough that the same kind of feeling could be produced for almost any woman who wasn’t repulsive.’ Eventually, reason enough for an engagement is provided by a legacy of £5000 left to Marian by John Yule. Life (and death) eventually end the possibility of this union. Milvain’s initial career advancement is a position on The Current, a paper edited by Clement Fadge. Twenty years earlier, Alfred Yule (Marian’s father) was slighted by Fadge in a newspaper article, and the resulting acerbic resentment extends even to Milvain. Alfred refuses to countenance Marian’s marriage; but his objection proves to be an obstacle to Milvain only after Yule’s eyesight fails and Marian’s legacy is reduced to a mere £1500. As a result, Marian must work to provide for her parent, and her inheritance is no longer available to Milvain. By this time, Milvain already has detected a more desirable target for marriage: Amy Reardon. Reardon’s poverty and natural disposition toward ill-health culminate in his death following a brief reconciliation with his wife. She, besides the receipt of £10,000 upon John Yule’s death, has the natural beauty and grace to benefit a man in the social events beneficial to his career. Eventually Amy and Milvain marry; however, as the narrator reveals, this marriage motivated by circumstances is not lacking in more profound areas. Milvain, it is said, has married the woman he loves, although it should be noted that the narrator never states this as a fact, merely reporting it as something others have said about Milvain. In fact, in a conversation that ends the book, the reader is left to question whether Milvain is in fact haunted by his love for Marian, and his ungentlemanly actions in that regard. |
Bovo-Bukh | null | null | :Based on Sol Liptzin, A History of Yiddish Literature, pp. 6–7. Bovo's young mother conspires to have her husband, an aged king, killed during a hunt, then marries the murderer. They try and fail to poison the child Bovo, whom they are afraid will avenge his father. The handsome youth runs away from Antona, is kidnapped and taken to Flanders to be stable boy to a king, whose daughter Druzane falls in love with him. The heathen sultan of Babylonia arrives, backed by ten thousand warriors, to demand Druzane in marriage for his ugly son, Lucifer. He is refused; in the ensuing war the king of Flanders is captured. Bovo, riding a magic horse Rundele, defeats the sultan's army, slays Lucifer, frees the king, and is promised the hand of Druzane, but is enticed to Babylonia, where he is horribly imprisoned for a year before escaping. Meanwhile, Druzane has presumed him dead and consented to marry the knight Macabron. On the wedding day of Druzane and Macabron, Bovo arrives disguised as a beggar; he and Druzane flee, first to a palace but later to the forest, pursued by Macabron. Deep in the forest, Druzane gives birth to twins. Bovo sets off to try to find a route back to Flanders. Druzane comes to the conclusion that Bovo has fallen prey to a lion, sets off on her own with the twins, and successfully reaches Flanders. Bovo returns to their forest abode; failing to find her or the twins, he now also presumes her to have fallen prey. Despairing, he joins an army ranged against his native Antona. He kills his stepfather, dispatches his mother to a nunnery, and takes his rightful crown. He is eventually reunited with Druzane, who becomes his queen. |
The Crystal City | Orson Scott Card | 2,003 | Alvin and Arthur stay at a boarding house where mixed-blood children are cared for by Papa Moose and Momma Squirrel. While there, Alvin uses his knack to cleanse the mosquitoes and disease from a well. A young woman, whom the people call Dead Mary, sees what he has done and asks him to come with her and heal her mother, who has yellow fever. Because Alvin heals her, the Yellow Fever spreads throughout Nueva Barcelona, averting an impending war with the United States over slavery. As the fever spreads, people begin to suspect Papa Moose and Momma Squirrel because Alvin has been healing everyone he can, radiating outward through the city. Alvin is then approached by La Tia, an African woman, who wants him to help all the slaves and the displaced French to escape Nueva Barcelona. He reluctantly agrees. Alvin's brother, Calvin, at the behest of Alvin's wife, Margaret, comes to help. Calvin raises a thick fog while Alvin uses his blood (magic he learned from the Red Prophet Tenskwa-Tawa) to construct a crystal bridge across lake Ponchartrain to the north. Arthur helps Alvin with the bridge. While the escapees flee north, they take food and provision from plantations along the way and free any slaves they find. Alvin goes to Tenskwa-Tawa on the other side of the Mizzippy to ask for safe passage through the Red Man's lands, so they can escape the pursuing army. Alvin and Tenskwa-Tawa put on a show by holding back the Mizzippy river to allow the exodus of people from Nueva Barcelona to cross, while the pursuing army can do nothing but watch. Calvin leaves with Jim Bowie and Steve Austin to conquer the Mexica. Verily Cooper is sent by Margaret to seek out Abe Lincoln and get his help for figuring out what to do with all the runaways when they reach the Noisy River Territory. Alvin discovers that Tenskwa-Tawa has been collaborating with La Tia to create a volcanic eruption under the Mexica, who are becoming increasingly threatening. Alvin sends Arthur to initiate the eruption and warn his brother Calvin, who ignores the warning but still manages to escape. Bowie and several others leave with Arthur. The people travel through the Indian lands using the greensong, which allows them to move more quickly. When they reach the Noisy River territory, Abe Lincoln and Verily Cooper have decided to create a new county so they can appoint their own judges that will resist the law to return slaves to their masters. There Alvin starts to build the crystal city he saw in a vision. He realizes that not everyone has to have maker skills, but can contribute in their own way—felling trees, digging the foundation, etc. But all is not well. Calvin and Bowie arrive and decide to stay. |
Speed-the-Plow | David Mamet | null | The play begins in the office of Bobby Gould, who has recently been promoted to head of production at a major Hollywood studio. His job is to find suitable scripts to bring to studio head Richard Ross to be made into big Hollywood movies. His longtime associate, Charlie Fox, has arrived with important news: movie star Doug Brown came to his house that morning interested in making a movie Fox had sent his way some time ago. Gould instantly knows to arrange a meeting with the studio head, wanting to deliver the news personally that such a big star who usually works with a different studio is keen to make a movie with them, which is sure to be a financial success. Gould thanks Fox for bringing the project to him when he could have gone "Across the Street" to another studio. Fox says he is to loyal to Gould on account of the many years he has worked for him. Word comes back that the studio head is flying to New York for the day, so they will have to meet with him tomorrow, which could present a problem because Doug Brown wants an answer by 10 o'clock the next morning. Gould assures Fox that it will work out. Fox is beside himself about the big break he has gotten, which could finally make him a player in Hollywood after years of toiling in obscurity. It could also make him rich. He requests coffee and Gould asks his secretary to get some. As they wait, Gould tells Fox about a book he has been asked to give a "courtesy read" to, meaning that it is not seriously being considered to be made into a film because the author is "An Eastern Sissy Writer." Gould's secretary, Karen, arrives with the coffee and the two men ebulliently chat with her about the movie business and their history together in it. Karen is only temporarily filling for Gould's regular secretary and is new to the ways of Hollywood. Gould asks her to make lunch reservations for them and she leaves. After she's gone, Fox comments on Gould's attractive temporary secretary, teasing him about trying to seduce her. Fox thinks that Karen is neither a "floozy" nor an ambitious girl trying to sleep her way up the Hollywood ladder, so it would be hard for Gould to bed her. Gould thinks he can and the two make a five hundred dollar wager to that effect. Fox leaves, soon to be seeing Gould at their lunch appointment. Karen returns to discuss the lunch reservation. Gould asks her to sit and begins to tell her about the movie business. He tells her about the book he has been giving a "courtesy read." Un-corrupted and naïve, she asks why he is so sure there is no hope for the book. Gould offers Karen a chance to take part in the process by reading the book and delivering to him her opinion of it him that night at his home. As she leaves, Gould asks her to tell Fox that "he owes me five hundred bucks." That night at Gould's apartment, Karen delivers a glowing report on the book, a story about the effects of radiation. As he is seducing her, Gould speaks warmly toward her, offering to bring her under his wing at the studio. Karen says she wants to work on the film that this book is made into. Gould says that even if the book is good, it won't make a successful Hollywood movie. Karen admonishes him for simply perpetuating the standard Hollywood formula instead of taking a creative risk. When Gould protests, Karen says that she knows Gould invited her to his place in order to sleep with her and aggressively starts to seduce him into taking her to bed, and into pitching the Radiation book instead of the Doug Brown film. The next morning Fox is back in Gould's office, excited about their upcoming meeting with the studio head. Gould surprises Fox with news that instead he is going to be pitching the Radiation book, without him. The passive Fox initially takes the news with good humor, but gradually becomes more and more aggressive. He chides Gould for preparing to throw both of their careers away by pushing a movie the studio will never agree to make. Gould says that he has been awake all night and feels the call to "do something which is right." Fox suspects that Gould spent the night with Karen and that is the reason for his delirium. Gould denies this, but an increasingly enraged Fox physically attacks him and continues his verbal assault until Gould tells him to go. Fox agrees to leave, but only after he gets the chance to ask Karen a question. Karen enters and eventually admits to being intimate with Gould the night before. Gould and Karen continue to stand together as a team until Fox gets her to admit that she would not have slept with Gould had he not agreed to green light a movie based on the Radiation book. With this, her ambitious motives are revealed and Gould is in shock. She tries to hold on to the plans they had made, but Fox will not allow it, telling her to leave the studio lot and never come back. As she leaves, Fox throws the Radiation book out the door after her. The play ends with Gould straightened out and ready to pitch the Doug Brown film with Fox. |
The Aleph | Jorge Luis Borges | 1,945 | In Borges' story, the Aleph is a point in space that contains all other points. Anyone who gazes into it can see everything in the universe from every angle simultaneously, without distortion, overlapping or confusion. The story continues the theme of infinity found in several of Borges' other works, such as The Book of Sand. As in many of Borges' short stories, the protagonist is a fictionalized version of the author. At the beginning of the story, he is mourning the recent death of a woman whom he loved, named Beatriz Viterbo, and resolves to stop by the house of her family to pay his respects. Over time, he comes to know her first cousin, Carlos Argentino Daneri, a mediocre poet with a vastly exaggerated view of his own talent who has made it his lifelong quest to write an epic poem that describes every single location on the planet in excruciatingly fine detail. Later in the story, a business on the same street attempts to tear down Daneri's house in the course of its expansion. Daneri becomes enraged, explaining to the narrator that he must keep the house in order to finish his poem, because the cellar contains an Aleph which he is using to write it. Though by now he believes Daneri to be quite insane, the narrator proposes without waiting for an answer to come to the house and see the Aleph for himself. Left alone in the darkness of the cellar, the narrator begins to fear that Daneri is conspiring to kill him, and then he sees the Aleph for himself. Though staggered by the experience of seeing the Aleph, the narrator pretends to have seen nothing in order to get revenge on Daneri, whom he hates, by giving him reason to doubt his own sanity. In a postscript to the story, Borges explains that Daneri's house was ultimately demolished, but that Daneri himself won second place in the Argentine National Prize for Literature. He also states his belief that the Aleph in Daneri's house was not the only one that exists, based on a report he has discovered, written by Captain Burton when he was British consul in Brazil, describing the Amr mosque in Cairo, within which there is said to be a stone pillar that contains the entire universe; although this Aleph cannot be seen, it is said that those who put their ear to the pillar can hear it. |
The Children's Story | James Clavell | null | The story takes place in an unnamed school classroom, in the aftermath of a war with an unnamed country. It is implied that a country similar to America has been defeated and occupied. The story opens with the previous teacher leaving the classroom, having been removed from her position and replaced with an agent of the foreign power. The new teacher has been trained in propaganda techniques, and is responsible for re-educating the children to be supportive of their occupiers. During the course of the story, the children are persuaded to abandon their religion and national loyalty. Framing the story is the fact that, while the children have ritually recited a 'Pledge of Allegiance' every morning, none know what it actually means. The teacher is relentlessly positive about the change, offering the children candy, songs and praise. When asked if the war was won or lost, she responds only that "we won", implying that everyone would benefit from the conquest. Only one student is initially hostile to the new teacher, a child named Johnny, whose father had been arrested and placed in a re-education camp. At first, he defends his father, but when he is rewarded by the teacher with a position of authority in the class, he quickly accepts the new regime and commits himself to not accepting "wrong thoughts". The story takes place over a twenty-five minute span. |
The Wish List | Eoin Colfer | 2,003 | Meg Finn is in trouble. Her mother is dead and her only family is an abusive stepfather who does nothing but watch TV all day. Her stepfather is forced to resign from his job when Meg embarrassed him by showing his work colleagues a video of herself smashing his brand new television that he bought with Meg's mother's engagement ring and all of Meg's life saving . When she is forced to help Belch Brennan, a dim-witted criminal, rob the elderly Lowrie McCall, the attempted burglary ends in disaster. In an attempt to scare Meg, Belch shoots by a gas tank which explodes, killing them both. While Belch is sent straight to hell (his soul merged with that of his vicious dog Raptor by the explosion, making him a half-boy half-dog creature,) Meg's perfect balance between good and evil earns her a chance to redeem herself and get blue in her Aura. She is sent back to earth in order to help Lowrie complete the items on his "wish list": a list of things that he feels will correct the many mistakes he made in his life. Meanwhile, Satan has decided that he wants Meg's soul in Hell and Beelzebub is forced to send Belch to recapture Meg and "make her bad", making Belch and Elph, the hologram with which he has been equipped, the chief antagonists in the story. The Wish List: 1) Kissy Sissy - Kiss Cicely Ward, (aka Sissy) a popular talk-show granny and one-date girlfriend of Lowrie. 2) Kick a ball over the bar in Croke Park. 3) Burst Ball - Punch a man who bullied Lowrie at school, Punch Brendan Ball. 4) Spit over the Cliffs of Moher. Ultimately, following a confrontation on the edge of the Cliffs of Moher, Belch is destroyed and Meg's final act of holiness - giving her stepfather a new life - gains her entry to Heaven, where she meets her mother again. |
The Supernaturalist | Eoin Colfer | 2,004 | The Supernaturalist takes place in Satellite City, a large city in an unspecified location in the Northern Hemisphere, in the third millennium. Much of Satellite City is controlled by the Satellite, owned by Myishi Corporation. By the time of the novel, however, the Satellite is losing links to the surface, causing disasters that range from mild to catastrophic. The book opens with an introduction to Cosmo Hill, an orphan at the Clarissa Frayne Institute for Parentally Challenged Boys. At the Institute, orphans (or "no-sponsors") are used as human guinea pigs for various products. However, on a trip back from a record company (where a group of orphans listened to computer-generated pop bands), the truck they're in loses its link to the Satellite and crashes. Cosmo and a friend of his named "Ziplock" Murphy manage to escape the wreckage, but are pursued by a warden from the Institute. The chase takes them to the rooftops, where Cosmo and Ziplock fall into a wrecked generator. Ziplock is electrocuted but Cosmo survives, albeit with multiple critical injuries, including several broken bones and a heart which begins to shut down. He begins seeing small blue creatures around him. When one lands on his chest and begins sucking his life out, it gets shot by a teenager, who has two other people with him. Although they want to leave him, Cosmo begs them not to leave him to the creatures. The group calls him a "Spotter" and agree to take him with them before he passes out. Cosmo wakes up in a warehouse to find his injuries being mended, including a cast on his leg and a steel plate in his head to heal his fractured skull. One of the group, a teenage Latina girl and ex-mechanic named Mona Vasquez, introduces herself, and tells Cosmo about the other two: Stefan Bashkir, another teen, used to be a cop before an accident killed his mother and almost killed him, and Lucien Bonn, called Ditto due to his habit of repeating what people say, had gene-splicing experiments performed on him as a baby to produce a "super-human"; however, these experiments did nothing except stunt his growth, making Ditto appear six in spite of him being twenty-eight. Mona reveals that the creatures, called Parasites, can only be seen after near-death experiences; Stefan can see them from his accident as a policeman, Mona can see them from a car crash in which Stefan saved her after her gang left her for dead, and Ditto can see that as a result of the gene-splicing experiments. Their group, the eponymous Supernaturalists, is attempting to kill as many Parasites in Satellite City as possible, to save people from having their life sucked out by the Parasites. At first, Cosmo is left alone to recuperate. However, the Supernaturalists come home one night with Mona having seizures after getting hit by a poisoned dart, and Cosmo saves her; he had tested those poisoned darts at the orphanage, and knows the correct cure. After this, Cosmo is accepted into the gang and starts going Parasite-blasting with them. One night, the Supernaturalists stalk out a drag race, as the potential for fatal crashes, and Parasites, is large. However, one of the cars is a prototype stolen from Myishi Corporation, who track it down and send a squad of paralegals ("hit lawyers") to take it back. In the following firefight, Cosmo and Stefan are captured by Myishi. They are taken to Ellen Faustino, the president of Myishi, who reveals herself to be a Spotter. She says that energy discharged by the Parasites is forcing the Satellite into an incorrect orbit and causing it to fall out of the sky. She also reveals that the method the Supernaturalists are using to kill the Parasites is only causing them to reproduce faster, increasing the problem with the Satellite. After some discussion, she reveals that she has a plan to kill the Parasites: detonate an electrical bomb in the Parasite hive that contaminates them and eventually kills them. However, she does not know where the hive is, and sets the Supernaturalists to find the hive. After several dead ends, Cosmo hits upon the idea to use the Satellite to scan for the Parasite hive. Due to an extremely long wait time to get a space on the Satellite, they take an illegal spaceship up to do the scan themselves and find that the hive is under Clarissa Frayne. Cosmo and Stefan take the electric bomb under the orphanage and detonate it. Although the bomb doesn't kill any humans, it shorts out Clarissa Frayne, allowing the orphans to leave. Stefan directs them to a friend of his. While Cosmo and Stefan are out, Mona discovers Ditto communicating with a Parasite. When Cosmo, Stefan, and Mona confront him, Ditto claims that Parasites don't take life force, only pain. Not knowing what to believe any more, Stefan orders Ditto to be out by the next day, but Myishi paralegals capture them all that night. While imprisoned, Faustino reveals to the Supernaturalists that the bomb didn't kill the Parasites,that they do indeed take away pain, not life, and that she captured them to use for her own ends; she's going to kill the Supernaturalists to not leave any loose ends. She also tells Stefan that she caused the accident that killed his mother; it was part of an experiment to create a Spotter. After she leaves, Cosmo head-butts them free, using the steel plate in his head. The group finds Faustino in a lab with Parasites contained beneath the floor, but Stefan gets shot right next to his heart by a sniper hidden in the rafters. Faustino tells them that Parasites can be used to "scrub" energy, and she is using the Parasites to make a clean nuclear reactor to keep the Satellite up; the Satellite wasn't falling because of Parasites, but because it had too many attachments on it. Stefan gets Faustino in a dead mans grip, and when the sniper attempts to shoot him, he lets his knees buckle, causing the bullet to miss him and break the Parasites' containment cell. The Parasites take Stefan's pain from him as he dies, and Cosmo, Mona, and Ditto escape. The book ends with the rest of the Supernaturalists getting ready to fight unspecified "other supernatural creatures", and the mayor of Satellite City sends Faustino to Antarctica to continue working on a nuclear plant. Also it is hinted that Mona and Cosmo are beginning to become more open with their feelings for each other. |
Intimacy | Hanif Kureishi | null | Set in contemporary London, the story tells why the protagonist wants to leave his family. The timespan of the novel is roughly 24 hours. The novel was loosely adapted to a movie Intimacy in 2001. He has lived with his partner for 6 years and has known her for 10, he is unhappy in his relationship and has had several affairs. The trigger for him deciding to leave his wife is more or less that his young lover one day says to him. "If you want me, I'm here". After that he gradually admits to himself that he's not happy with his wife. There is no actual development of the main character, and in the end he leaves the family. |
Frenchman's Creek | Daphne du Maurier | 1,942 | Dona, Lady St. Columb, makes a sudden visit with her children to Navron, her husband's remote estate in Cornwall, in a fit of disgust with her shallow life in London court society. There she finds that the property, unoccupied for several years, is being used as a base by a notorious French pirate who has been terrorizing the Cornish coast. Dona finds that the pirate, Jean-Benoit Aubéry, is not a desperate character at all, but rather a more educated and cultured man than her own doltish husband, and they fall in love. Dona dresses as a boy and joins the pirate crew on an expedition to cut out and capture a richly laden merchant ship belonging to one of her neighbors. The attack is a success, but the news of it brings Dona's husband Harry and his friend Rockingham to Cornwall, disrupting her idyllic romance. Harry, Rockingham, and the other locals meet at Navron to plot how to capture the pirate, but Aubéry and his crew cleverly manage to capture and rob their would-be captors instead. Rockingham, who has had designs on Dona himself, perceives the relationship between her and Aubéry, and Dona is forced to kill him in self-defense when he attacks her in a jealous rage. Meanwhile, Aubéry was captured while trying to return to his ship, and Dona hatches a plot for his release. In the end, however, she realizes that she must remain with her husband and children instead of escaping to France with Aubéry. |
Labyrinth of Evil | James Luceno | null | On the planet Cato Neimoidia, Jedi generals Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker lead clone troopers to capture Nute Gunray, Trade Federation viceroy and one of the leaders of the Separatists. Gunray narrowly escapes to rendezvous with General Grievous and the rest of the Separatist Council, but he leaves behind his walking chair equipped with a specially-constructed holotransceiver. Republic analysts find the afterimage of Darth Sidious, the Sith Lord who masterminded the Clone Wars. However, this puts the Jedi no closer to finding Sidious himself. While Kenobi and Skywalker pursue the constructor of the chair, General Grievous is commanded by Sidious through his apprentice Count Dooku to relocate the Separatist Council to Belderone, where a Republic fleet lies in wait for them. Furious, Grievous learns that Gunray lost the holotransceiver. Republic Intelligence find the signature of the artist that designed the mechno-chair that Sidious provided Gunray. Kenobi and Skywalker seek out the artist, a Xi Charrian, who tells them to find the designer, contracted by Sidious, to build the holotransceiver built into the mechno-chair. The Jedi find the designer in a prison, where he tells them that he built two holotransceivers, one for the mechno-chair, another for a ship of unknown design. The designer knows the identity of the pilot that delivered the ship to its owners (Darth Maul and Sidious). The pilot, a Lethan Twi'lek, is discovered on a moon by the Jedi, and she describes to the Jedi the location of the delivered ship: a columnar building in The Works, a desolate industrial park on Coruscant. On Coruscant, Supreme Chancellor Palpatine resists the Jedi Council's suggestion to recall Jedi from the Outer Rim worlds due to the Separatist threat. Palpatine's increased calls for public surveillance and restriction on freedom of movement and action prompt Senators Padmé Amidala, Bail Organa, and Mon Mothma to persuade him to pull back from the brink. Palpatine somehow knows Sidious' name and orders the Jedi and Republic intelligence to hunt him down. In the bowels of the planet, trace elements lead Jedi Mace Windu, Shaak Ti and Republic intelligence to track down the same Darth Sidious that Count Dooku had been meeting with, the tower described by the Twi'lek pilot. The Jedi/Intelligence team are led through endless tunnels, but find a trail of evidence that leads to the Senate district. Here, the trail grows cold at the base of 500 Republica, the personal quarters of many of Coruscant's finest. At 500 Republica, a Republic Intelligence agent named Captain Dyne was separated from the Jedi, and was the first of the Republic to realize who Darth Sidious is; he was astonished to learn that the Sith really do rule the galaxy. He died with the satisfaction of escaping the war. Before the search for the Sith Lord can proceed further, General Grievous leads an invasion of Coruscant that results in the capture of the Supreme Chancellor himself. As Coruscant is invaded by Separatist forces, Kenobi and Skywalker, fresh from an encounter with Dooku on the former industrial world of Tythe, use orbital hyperspace rings to depart for Coruscant. The novel ends "To Be Concluded". The Supreme Chancellor effectively orders the Jedi on a wild-goose chase. But since certain Jedi trace the trail of his real identity back to Coruscant (see Yoda's ability to sense him on Coruscant, as well as Windu's investigations) he orchestrates his own kidnapping to end the chase and to further Anakin's eventual turn to the dark side. After Kenobi, Anakin, and Palpatine crash land on Coruscant, Anakin and Kenobi have a brief conversation about who owes whom what. Obi-Wan mentions that "that time on Cato Nemoidia doesn't count." The novel reveals how all records of Kamino are erased from the Jedi Library in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones. |
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants | Ann Brashares | 2,001 | In the first novel in the series, we are introduced to four high school students, Lena Kaligaris, Tibby Rollins, Bridget Vreeland, and Carmen Lowell, who have been best friends "since birth" (their mothers attended prenatal exercise classes together). The summer before their junior year of high school, Carmen finds a pair of old jeans that fits each of them perfectly despite their different sizes, convincing the girls that the pants are magical. They share the "traveling pants" among themselves over the summer while they are separated. Lena spends the summer with her grandparents in Santorini, Greece. While there, she meets Kostos, the grandson of some of Lena's grandparents friends, and he becomes interested in Lena. Though she does reciprocate his feelings, she is shy and is unable to express them. Lena goes skinny-dipping and is accidentally seen by Kostos, and her grandparents assume she has been assaulted by him when she is unable to explain what happened. Later in the summer, Lena explains what happened in order to repair the rift between her and Kostos' grandparents, and confesses to Kostos that she loves him. Tibby spends the summer working at a department store, planning to make a documentary of her experiences there. She meets a 12-year-old girl named Bailey, whom she is initially annoyed with, but becomes close with by the end of summer as they work on Tibby's documentary. Bailey is hospitalized and dies at the end of the novel from leukemia, which results in Tibby refocusing her documentary to be about the summer they spent together. Carmen goes to South Carolina to spend the summer with her father, whom she has grown apart from since he and Carmen's mother divorced several years before. Carmen is surprised to learn that her father is engaged and lives with a woman with two grown children of her own. After being frustrated at feeling left out of her father's new family, she breaks a window in their house and returns home to her mother. She eventually reconciles with her father and attends his wedding at the urging of her friends. Bridget attends a soccer camp in Baja California, Mexico. While there, she meets Eric, one of the coaches, and immediately falls for him. Despite coach-camper relationships being completely off-limits, Bridget actively pursues him anyway by running with him and going to his room in her underwear. She eventually manages to seduce him and loses her virginity to him, which turns out to be too much for her to handle and after walking off the field during the championship, she takes to her bed for days. Eric later visits her and asks her to take a walk with him, where he tells her that if they had met under different circumstances, he would worship her the way she deserved to be worshiped. Lena comes to comfort her and takes her home. |
Saturday | Ian McEwan | 2,005 | The book follows Henry Perowne, a middle-aged, successful surgeon. Five chapters chart his day and thoughts on Saturday the 15 February 2003, the day of the demonstration against the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the largest in British history. Perowne's day begins in the early morning, when he sees a burning aeroplane streak across the sky. This casts a shadow over the rest of his day as reports on the television change and shift: is it an accident, or terrorism? En route to his weekly squash game, a traffic diversion reminds Perowne of the anti-war protests occurring that day. After being allowed through the diversion, he collides with another car, damaging its wing mirror. At first the driver, Baxter, tries to extort money from him. When Perowne refuses, Baxter and his two companions become aggressive. Noticing symptoms in Baxter's behaviour, Perowne quickly recognises the onset of Huntington's disease. Though he receives a punch in the sternum, Perowne manages to escape unharmed by distracting Baxter with discussions of his disease. Perowne then goes on to his squash match, still thinking about the incident. He loses the long and contested game by a technicality in the final round. After lunch he buys some fish from a local fishmonger for dinner and visits his mother, suffering from vascular dementia, in a nursing home. After a visit to his son's rehearsal, Perowne returns home to cook dinner, the evening news again reminds him of the grander arc of events that surround his life. Daisy, his daughter, arrives home from Paris, and the two passionately debate the coming war in Iraq. His father-in-law arrives next. Daisy reconciles an earlier literary disagreement that led to a froideur with her maternal grandfather; remembering that it was he who had inspired her love of literature. Theo, his son, returns next. Rosalind, Perowne's wife, is the last to arrive home. As she enters Baxter and an accomplice force their way in armed with knives. Baxter punches the Grandfather, intimidates the family and orders Daisy to strip naked. When she does, Perowne notices that she is pregnant. Finding out she is a poet, Baxter asks her to recite a poem. Rather than one of her own, she recites Dover Beach, which affects Baxter emotionally, effectively disarming him. Instead he becomes enthusiastic about Perowne's renewed talk about new treatment for Huntington's disease. His companion abandons him, and Baxter is overpowered by Perowne and Theo, and knocked unconscious after falling down the stairs. That night Perowne is summoned to the hospital for a successful emergency operation on Baxter. Saturday ends at around 5:15 a.m., after he has returned from the hospital and made love to his wife again. |
The Lost Years of Merlin | T. A. Barron | 1,996 | In the beginning, a young boy has just regained consciousness and finds he, along with a woman with long blond hair and a tattered blue tunic, are washed up on a beach. The boy encounters a boar as he is walking toward the woman, which tries to attack him and the woman. It stamps its foot on the ground, signaling that it is going to attack. With tusks like razor blades, it charges at the boy. He tries to drag the woman into a hollowed out tree trunk. He puts the woman in first, then tries to fit himself in but is too big. A beautiful stag leaps from the forest and stands between him and the boar. The stag and the boar fight. Angrily, the boar retreats. The stag looks at the boy with the deepest eyes the boy would ever see. The stag and the boar fade away, and soon the woman regains consciousness. The woman declares herself the boy's mother, and that her name is Branwen and his is Emrys. Years later, Emrys finds that he has magical powers and eventually uses them to defend Branwen against a terrorizing bully who is trying to burn her at the stake. Tragically, he accidentally sets a tree on fire which collapses on a boy whom Emrys tries to save and fails. Emrys, in his attempt to help the boy, goes blind from the fire, but learns to see through a visual "second sight", after swearing never to use his powers again. After learning to sense well enough to be mobile, Emrys leaves Branwen at the monastery where he had been treated for his burns, and sets out to find his true home. Emrys builds a raft and floats all the way to the magical and mythical island of Fincayra, which is somewhere between heaven and earth, also called the "in between," place, with only the bag of herbs his mother gives him and the Galator, a beautiful gem that he hangs around his neck. There he meets Rhiannon, a girl of the Druma, who seeks his assistance in stopping the terrible blight which is now beginning to kill the forest she lives in. Emrys initially refuses, intent on discovering who he is and regaining the lost memories of his childhood, but when the two are attacked by goblins and Ria tricks them into kidnapping her instead of him because he won't use his powers to save them both, he vows to save her. Along with a dwarf-sized giant, Shim, Emrys sets out to the Shrouded Castle to rescue her. He learns, from a wise Bard named Cairpre, that Branwen really was his mother, but her real name is Elen. He also learns his father serves the king and was turned evil by the troublesome Rhita Gawr, a spirit who wants to control Fincayra before moving on to Earth. Cairpre suggests that he visit the dangerous wagerer Domnu, who may be able to help them reach the castle. Emrys plays her game and wagers the only thing of value he has, the Galator, which he has since learned is the one treasure King Stangmar, under the control of Rhita Gawr, doesn't have, and it is more powerful than all the treasures he does. Domnu shrinks him and Shim to allow them to fly on the back of Trouble, Emrys' named merlin, to the castle, where he realizes that his own father is the king who has made a deal to kill him for the safety of his mother in a deal made with Rhita Gawr. With the help of his friends, Emrys completes a prophecy from ancient times and destroys the castle and the hold that Rhita Gawr has on Fincayra. Both Trouble and Shim sacrifice themselves, the former by attacking Gawr and pushing him back into the otherworld, and the second by throwing himself into the Caldron of Death. But because he went in willingly, Shim destroys the Caldron and grows to his true size as a giant. In the aftermath, Rhia suggests that if Emrys doesn't feel as if he has his true name, maybe he should go by the name Merlin. Emrys agrees to try the name out for a while. |
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting | Milan Kundera | null | The first section occurs in 1971 and pertains to the story of Mirek, a former supporter now found to be treasonous, as he explores the depths of his memories pertaining to one woman named Zdena. In his attempt to better his life, knowing that he loved the ugly woman left a blemish, and it was his hope to rectify this through destroying love letters that he had sent her. While he travels to her home and back, he is followed by two men, one of whom is described as "a man in a gray jacket, white shirt and tie, and brown slacks." The men make their intentions obvious, even so far as sharing a laugh with Mirek when he manages to lose their tracking thanks to a sports car. Mirek is arrested at his home after several items are confiscated and then sentenced to jail for six years, his son to two years, and ten or so of his friends to terms of from one to six years. Kundera also describes a photograph from 21 February 1948, where Vladimír Clementis stands next to Klement Gottwald. When Vladimír Clementis was charged in 1950, he was erased from the photograph (along with the photographer Karel Hájek) by the state propaganda. This short example from Czechoslovak history underlines the motif of forgetting in his book. Marketa invites her mother-in-law to visit her and Karel's home after her mother did nothing but complain. Inviting her to stay for a week - although contending that she must leave Saturday because they had somewhere to be on Sunday - the mother forces her way to stay until Monday. On Sunday morning, Eva - a friend of Karel and Marketa - arrives and is introduced to the mother as Marketa's cousin. Through narration the reader is told that Eva had met and made love to Karel, who then arranged for Eva and Marketa to meet. Through Marketa's suggestion, the three have conducted a sexual relationship over the years. Mother almost catches the three in the act, but instead realizes that Eva reminds her of a friend of hers from Karel's infancy. This makes Karel even more attracted to Eva, and after the mother leaves, they continue with a new force. This section is mostly narration concerning events after the Russians occupied Czechoslovakia, especially Kundera's attempts to write a horoscope under an associate's name. A big deal was made when the boss - who had studied Marxism-Leninism for half of his life - requested a private horoscope, which Kundera extended to ten pages long, providing a template for the man to change his life. Eventually, Kundera's associate - code named R. - is brought in for questioning concerning Kundera's clandestine writing, causing them to stop their laughter and start worrying. Kundera also describes 'circle dancing' wherein the joy and laughter build up to the point that the people's steps take them soaring into the sky with the laughing angels. Tamina, a woman who works in a cafe, wants to retrieve her love letters and diaries in Prague through her customer who will be going to Prague, Bibi. Also, another customer, Hugo, who lusts for Tamina, offers to help her if Bibi cannot go to Prague. One day, Hugo invites Tamina to dinner and they visited the zoo together. A group of ostriches move their mute mouths vigorously to Hugo and Tamina as if to warn them of something, which gives Tamina a bad feeling about the letters and diaries in Prague. As these items, which Tamina describes as packed in a parcel, are in her mother-in-law's, she phoned her father to take it from her mother-in-law, so it will be easier for Bibi to get them. After a lot of pleas, her father agreed to send Tamina's brother to take them. It turns out that the items are not packed in a parcel, and Tamina fears that her private letters and diaries are read by others. The situation turns worse as Bibi gets fed up with her husband and refuses to go anywhere with him, which means the trip to Prague is cancelled. Hugo offers to help and once again invites Tamina to his house. Hugo tries desperately to win her heart. Tamina later has sex with Hugo, but cannot keep her mind off her deceased husband. Hugo senses her uneasiness but he still finishes the act. Again, Hugo chats with Tamina and tries saying things that please her. However, Tamina is not interested in his talk but only in Hugo's trip to Prague. Hugo gradually knows that and his speech gets weaker and he starts to get angry. Tamina is increasingly disgusted by his talk and eventually vomited in the toilet. Hugo knows that she has absolutely no interest in him and refuses to help her. At the end, the letters and diaries remain in Prague. It starts with introducing Kristyna, who develops a love relationship with a student studying philosophy and poetry. Then, it explains the Czech word Litost, which the writer states that he hasn't found any substitute for the word in any other languages yet. Litost is "a state of torment upon by the realization of one's inadequacy or misery". Litost seems to be always present in the student whom Kristyna loves, and this feeling is also one of the reasons that he broke up with his former girlfriend. His professor, nicknamed Voltaire, invites the student to an evening gathering of the great poets of the country. However, the student has a date with Kristyna that night and refuses to go to the gathering. He then meets Kristyna on the day the gathering is held. He is surprised to find her tacky, gaudy and simplistic in the city setting and decides to go to the meeting. He tells her about it and she is fascinated by it and wants the student to go there so as not to miss the chance. The student agrees and goes to the meeting. He meets the great poets and listens to their arguments and insults to each other. Through this he learns a lot of things. He asks one of the poets, named Goethe by the author, to inscribe on one of his books and give the book to Kristyna as a gift. He returns to his home and finds Kristyna waiting for him. She is moved by the inscription. They do not have sex but feels each other's immense love. The student tries several times to get Kristyna to separate her two legs, but Kristyna fears that this will make her pregnant, which threatens her life. So she keeps saying that by doing this she will die. The student misinterprets that she will die from the immense love from him if they are separated from each other for a long time. He is deeply moved. He soon falls asleep and wakes up next morning, finding a note in his coat from Kristyna. After thinking over their night, he realizes that he misinterpreted her statement last night. He feels Litost but cannot take revenge for Kristyna has already left. One of the poets approaches him and fills him with glory, making the student no longer feeling despair. Returning to Tamina, the author parallels her struggles with the death of his father. Describing an orgy scene, the author targets the progressivism of the Clevis family. |
The Joke | Milan Kundera | 1,967 | The novel is composed of many jokes, which have strong effects on the characters. The story is told from the four viewpoints of Ludvik Jahn, Helena Zemánková, Kostka, and Jaroslav. Jaroslav's joke is the transition away from his coveted Moravian folk lifestyle and appreciation. Kostka, who has separated himself from the Communist Party due to his Christianity, serves as a counterpoint to Ludvik. Helena serves as Ludvik's victim and is satirical of the seriousness of party supporters. Ludvik demonstrates the shortcomings of the party and propels the plot in his search for revenge and redemption. Written in 1965 Prague and first published in Czechoslovakia in 1967, the novel opens with Ludvik Jahn looking back on the joke that changed his life in the early 1950s. Ludvik was a dashing, witty, and popular student who supported the Party. Like most of his friends, he was an enthusiastic supporter of the still-fresh Communist regime in post-World War II Czechoslovakia. In a playful mood, he writes a postcard to a girl in his class during their summer break. Since Ludvik believes she is too serious, he writes on the postcard, "Optimism is the opium of the people! A healthy atmosphere stinks of stupidity! Long live Trotsky!" His colleagues and fellow young-party leaders did not see the humor in the sentiment expressed in the postcard. Ludvik finds himself expelled from the party and college and drafted to a part of the Czech military where alleged subversives form work brigades and spend the next few years working in mines. Despite the interruption in his career, Ludvik has become a successful scientist. However, his treatment at the hands of his former friends has left him bitter and angry. An opportunity arises when he meets Helena, who is married to Pavel Zemanek, the friend who led the efforts to purge Ludvik from the party. Ludvik decides to seduce Helena as a means of exacting his revenge. In essence this is the second `joke' of the novel. Although the seduction is successful, things do not quite play out the way Ludvik expects (this is the novel's third joke), and he is left once more to sit and think bitter thoughts. Ultimately he decides that these sorts of jokes and their repercussions are not the fault of the humans who set them in motion, but are really just a matter of historic inevitability. Ultimately, then, one cannot blame forces that cannot be changed or altered. |
The Oath | null | null | The novel opens with an excerpt from a diary entry from 1882 during the founding of Hyde River. Twenty-seven people died that I know of, and I can only guess that the others fled with whatever they could carry away. I could hear the screams and the shooting all night long, and I dared not venture out. The Reverend DuBois was left hanging in Hyde Hall until this afternoon. I informed Ben that I would not attend the signing of the Charter until the body was removed, so Ben ordered him cut down, taken out, and buried with the others. By late afternoon, the men who remained in Hyde River were back in the mines as if nothing had happened, and I also attended my business. After nightfall, we gathered in Hyde Hall under the cover of darkness and signed the Charter. With the signing of our names, we took the oath of silence, so I cannot speak of these things, but only write them secretly. The trouble is over, but I am no happier. I am afraid of what we have done. I am afraid of tomorrow. There are several other archived letters, diary entries, and writings from the townsfolk scattered throughout the book, each of them relating to accounts of numerous mysterious deaths and disappearances in Hyde River and of residents being beaten by a group of hooded figures for breaking the "Oath". Many of the stones of these clues are overturned by the protagonists later on in the novel. The book's plot begins after a nature photographer, Cliff Benson, is confirmed to have been killed in the woods, with his head and torso missing. His wife, Evelyn, is found covered with blood and half-crazed on a logging road and taken to a hospital, where she only has vague recollections of the events that transpired. Sheriff Les Collins is quick to close to case and pin the blame on a rogue bear. However, Cliff's brother, Steve, quickly finds holes in the theory and refuses to drop the matter. Joining him in his investigation is Sheriff's Deputy Tracy Ellis, who has seen enough cases swept under the rug by authority to know that something is amiss. Meanwhile, Harold Bly, owner of the mining company that keeps the struggling town afloat and looked on as the head authority of the town, kicks his wife, Maggie, onto the streets. As a black, oozing rash grows on the skin above her heart, she takes refuge in the home of Levi Cobb, a Christian mechanic who is looked down upon by the rest of the townspeople. As Steve questions her, he learns that she and Cliff had an affair. After a couple days, Maggie becomes strangely unaware of her rash and makes her way through the town to Old Town, an abandoned town near Hyde River. There she disappears, leaving only a blood-stained purse as evidence of what happened to her. Steve learns from Tracy that it is believed by the townspeople that a giant dragon is responsible for the deaths, and that Harold Bly has the ability to control it. As another victim of the rash, Vic Moore, stumbles into old town, Steve follows. He, too, disappears without a trace. Steve learns that the old town was the original location of Hyde River, and that Hyde Hall is a cursed building where the dragon supposedly snatches up its victims. His and Tracy's initial disbelief fades after they spend a night in Old Town, chasing the dragon in an attempt to hunt it. In a plot device reminiscent of the final episode of M.A.N.T.I.S. (aired the year before the book's publication date), the dragon's impermeable scales are able to mimic the background scenery, rendering it virtually invisible. Charlie Mack, owner of the local bar/restaurant urges Steve to kill the dragon after he sees with horror the rash on his own chest. A couple days later, his car is found on the side of the highway, bashed up with the entire roof peeled off. Harold Bly is perplexed by Charlie's death at the hands of the dragon, as he apparently never commanded it, but seizes the opportunity to take control of the tavern and mercantile, consolidating his ownership of the town. Steve, meanwhile, confronts the dragon in its supposed lair. His shotgun and rifle prove to be ineffective at killing the dragon, and he barely makes it out with his life when the dragon abandons its attempts to kill him, apparently with the desire to finish him off at its own timing. Shaken from his experience, Steve decides to listen to Levi Cobb, who gives him copies of old letters and diaries from the town's forefathers. He learns that the town was purged of Christianity in the late 19th century, and any Christians taking residence in the town were either martyred or driven out of town. Those remaining in the town moved from Old Town and reestablished Hyde River after signing a charter. The sordid bargain of the town charter, "If this be Sin, let Sin be served," gave the dragon reign of the town. It began at an unthreateningly small size but grew over a century to a length of forty-five feet. The town's founder, Benjamin Hyde, was believed to have control over the dragon, and was the ancestor of Harold Bly. Steve tells Tracy everything that he has learned, and, despite the fact that she is married, the two make love that night. Both of them awake with the foreboding black rash on their chests the next morning. Meanwhile, Harold Bly is upset with the fact that the dragon has been killing people he wanted to remain alive, while ignoring his instructions to kill others. After noticing the rash on his own chest, he decides that the dragon wants Tracy and Steve removed from the town. He arranges for Sheriff Collins to murder Tracy, but she kills him in self-defense. Steve arranges to meet Harold that night at the bar to make peace. There, he learns that Harold Bly and all of his henchmen have the mark and that Harold never did control the dragon at all, but that the dragon is actually just embodied sin. Steve is told that his beer has been drugged, then passes out and awakens tied to a ritualistic stone table in Hyde Hall to await being sacrificed to the dragon. He is freed by a bleeding Levi Cobb, who has been shot by Harold Bly. As Harold and his followers purge the town of Christianity as their ancestors did years ago, Levi tells Steve that he must have Jesus on his side to have a hope of defeating the dragon before taking his turn in death. Tracy convinces Steve to flee the town, but, on their way out during the night, and despite Steve's efforts, Tracy embraces the unrepentant apathy that all of the previous victims did before their death and is eaten by the dragon. Filled with grief, Steve vows to destroy the dragon and returns to town after injuring it with mining explosives (destroying its wings in the process). Steve attempts to distance himself from growing accustomed to the rash and entering the final phase of the horrible deaths. On his way into town, he stops at the church and prays for forgiveness. He then puts one of Levi's plans into action and confronts the dragon using a makeshift spear that Levi had constructed in his garage. As Harold Bly and his followers watch in awe, the dragon attacks Steve with its fiery breath, but Steve does not suffer any burns. Frightened by the power of God, the dragon backs into the spear until it slides between its scales and into its heart. As the dragon's dying act, it bites Harold Bly in half. Instead of dying, the dragon just dematerializes in a bright flash. The other townsfolk, upset with Steve, swear that they will get revenge on him for killing their dragon. Steve corrects them, pointing to their hearts, and tells them that they still have their dragon inside of them. |
The Cement Garden | Ian McEwan | null | In The Cement Garden, the father of four children dies. His death is followed by the death of the children's mother. In order to avoid being taken into foster care, the children hide their mother's death from the outside world by encasing her corpse in cement in their basement. Two of the siblings, a teenage boy and girl, enter into an incestuous relationship, while the younger son starts to experiment with transvestism. The narrator is Jack (15), who has two sisters, Julie (17) and Sue (13), and one brother, Tom (6). When they were younger, Jack describes how he and Julie would play doctor with their younger sister, although he is aware that their version of the game occasionally broke boundaries. Jack then mentions how he longs to do the same to his older sister but it was not allowed. When Julie begins to date a man called Derek and invites him round to their house, Jack feels jealous and shows hostility towards him. Derek becomes more and more interested in what is hidden in their cellar but the children attempt to hide it from him. When a smell begins to emanate from down there, he helps to reclose the trunk their mother is hidden in. Tom eventually tells Jack that Derek has told him that their mother is down in the cellar. The story comes to a climax when Jack enters, apparently absent-mindedly, naked into Julie's bedroom. Only Tom is there and he begins to talk to him about their parents. They fall asleep together, in Tom's crib, naked because of the heat. Afterword, Julie enters and perhaps surprisingly, does not say much or show surprise on his nakedness, only to joke that 'It is big'. They sit on the bed and whilst talking, they become more and more intimate with each other. Julie encourages him to go on. Right at this point, Derek enters, remarks that he has seen it all and calls them 'sick'. When he is gone, they begin to have sex. A thudding noise can be heard and their sister, Sue, informs them that Derek is smashing up the concrete coffin. They begin to talk, remembering their mother, and after a while, they sleep, while police lights illuminate the room through the window. |
Hitlers Bombe | null | null | Under supervision of the SS, from 1944–45, German scientists in Thuringia tested some form of "nuclear weapon", possibly a dirty bomb (for the differences between this and a standard fission weapon, see nuclear weapon design). Several hundred prisoners of war are alleged to have died as a result. Karlsch's primary evidence are alleged vouchers for the atomic weapon attempts, a preliminary plutonium bomb patent from the year 1941 (which had been known about, but not yet found), and conducted industrial archaeology on the remains of the first experimental German nuclear reactor. |
The Young Man From Atlanta | Horton Foote | null | In this play Foote revived characters which had been in his The Orphan's Home cycle of nine plays. Will Kidder — 64 years old in this play — was in his early twenties in Lily Dale, and approaching middle age in Cousins. Sixty-year-old Lily Dale Kidder was introduced in Roots in a Parched Ground as a ten-year-old, and was portrayed in subsequent life stages in Lily Dale and Cousins. Her stepfather, 72-year-old Pete Davenport, first appears at age thirty in Roots in a Parched Ground. According to the playwright, he thought he was done with these characters after Cousins, but in the early 1990s found himself thinking about them again and started work on this play. |
Bitten | Kelley Armstrong | 2,001 | The main character of "Bitten" is Elena Michaels, an ordinary woman - who also happens to be a werewolf. She lives in Toronto, Canada and writes for a popular newspaper. Elena is also the only known female werewolf in the world. This gives her a very special place in the werewolf world, and especially with the werewolf pack. She struggles to deal with her other-ness and to assimilate to the human world. She also contends with her terrible childhood, and with the man who bit her and turned her into a werewolf. Elena has managed to settle into a somewhat normal existence, living with her ad-exec boyfriend and ignoring her wolf side as much as possible. However, she learns that her Pack (the governing body of werewolves) is in trouble, and comes to their aid, flying to Stonehaven, the country estate of the pack Alpha. It is in Bear Valley, a fictional city in up-state New York. When Elena arrives, she is greeted by her ex-lover, Clayton Danvers, who is also the man who bit her and made her a werewolf (without her consent). Clayton is also the bodyguard and foster-son to Jeremy Danvers, the pack Alpha (leader). Elena learns that a local woman was found murdered on Stonehaven's land, and that she had been savaged by what authorities thought to be a dog. However, the Pack has determined that she was murdered by a Mutt, a rogue werewolf. They track the mutt and find out he is a recently escaped killer, who has even more recently been turned by a bite into a werewolf. Clay and Elena chase him into a rave and after several of the partyers are killed, the police shoot him in wolf form. Soon, the rest of the Pack arrives on the scene to help with the problem: Antonio Sorrentino, his son Nicholas Sorrentino, Logan Jonsen, and Peter Myers. The werewolf Pack are the self-appointed governing body of the werewolf world, and they kill to keep the existence of werewolves a secret. This means if they feel any non Pack wolves(whom they term "Mutts") become noticeable to humans, they kill them. They kill humans too, but not as often. First, Logan and Peter are killed. This greatly saddens Elena, and she starts sleeping(cheating) with Clay again, without telling her boyfriend, Phillip. As Logan and Peter are not the best fighters, the Pack wonders why that would happen. They also wonder why any Mutt would dare to go near the Pack. Most are terrified of being noticed by them. Then Jeremy, the Alpha is attacked. Finally, the pack figures out that the "mutts", tired of being brutalized by the Pack, are trying to free themselves from their rule. To do this one mutt in particular, Daniel, who has reason to hate Clay from childhood, has started turning human killers and other escaped convicts into werewolves to fight the pack. |
Chicken Trek | null | null | In Chicken Trek, Oscar Noodleman goes to Secaucus, New Jersey to visit his cousin Dr. Prechtwinkle, an inventor. Before this, however, he had dropped Dr. Prechtwinkle's valuable camera, and now has to work for him to repay the debt. Dr. Prechtwinkle tells Oscar about a contest where the goal is to eat a "Bagful o' Chicken" at all 211 Chicken in a Bag restaurants nationwide. The prize from this contest would pay Oscar's debt, so they attempt to win it. Chicken Trek has drawings by Ron Barrett, illustrator of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. *1st edition: New York : Dutton, c1987, ISBN 0-525-44312-6 |
In Search of the Unknown | Mike Carr | null | Many years ago two wealthy adventurers, Roghan the Fearless and Zelligar the Unknown, built a hidden complex known as the Caverns of Quasqueton. From this base, they conducted their affairs away from the prying eyes of civilization. While of questionable ethical standing, the two drove back a barbarian invasion and gained the support of locals. Eventually, they gathered their own army and went on an expedition against said enemies, where they met their demise. The player characters (PCs) enter the story at this point, hearing a variety of rumors provided in the module. Each PC knows one or more of the stories although the veracity of them is somewhat questionable. The rumors mostly involve a great treasure hidden somewhere in the Caverns of Quasqueton, which the PCs can enter from a cave-like opening. A variety of monsters wander through the finished upper level of the dungeon including orcs, troglodytes, and giant rats. The DM checks periodically to see if the group encounters these menaces in addition to the dangers in each individual room. Most of the rooms come with blank spots where the DM fills in whatever monster or treasure is most suitable for their campaign. The finished upper level served as a home for Roghan and Zelligar and contains much of their personal possessions. As is typical in these early adventures, a number of traps await an unwary group. Some of these rooms include an area filled with pools (some hazardous and others not) and a wizard's laboratory. The randomly generated monsters in the lower, unfinished level differ from those above and include zombies and goblins. Some of the pre-filled rooms on this level include a museum, an arena, and grand cavern, but many of the caves on this level include no description at all and the DM must devise his own contents for these areas. The end of the module includes a list of foes and treasure for the group to fight and find. It also includes a list of characters of various classes the group might encounter while exploring the dungeon. Also included are a number of pre-generated characters the group might use to play through the adventure. |
Kendermore | Mary Kirchoff | 1,989 | The novel begins with the character of Tasslehoff Burrfoot at the Inn of the Last Home with his friends. However, soon a bounty hunter arrives and charges him for desertion for violating the laws of prearranged marriage. A journey east turns into a voyage with gully dwarves. Meanwhile in Kendermore, Tas's Uncle Trapspringer and a human "doctor" have found a map leading to a treasure. Tas is having his own adventures after a shipwreck strands him, Gisella (the bounty hunter), and Woodrow (Gisella's assistant) near a dwarven settlement. Tas is captured by gnomes, who seek to turn him into an exhibit. Woodrow saves him with help from Winnie, a wooly mammoth. Gisella is killed by Denzil, an assassin. Tas and Woodrow arrive in Kendermore. In the ruins east of the city, "Dr." Phineas Curick, Uncle Trapspringer, and Damaris (the one intended to marry Tasslehoff) find themselves being entertained by Vincent, a rare ogre who is good! The kender and human wander into a magical portal which takes them to Gelfigburg, a Candyland like place. They also discover that the treasure (a magical amulet) has been used up. Denzil, not knowing this, forces Tas to take him to the ruins. Tas tries to go into the portal, but Denzil pulls him out before he is all the way through, leaving Tas stuck in the portal. The kender in Gelfigburg attempt to pull Tas through, leading to a tug of war. Vincent pulls Tas, Damaris, Trapspringer, Phineas, and all the Kender out of Gelfigburg. Denzil is trapped inside. The Dark Queen attempts to enter, but Damaris closes the portal. The kender return to Kendermore, saving the city from a storm. Tas is reunified with Woodrow, and Damaris marries Trapspringer. |
Boy Meets Boy | David Levithan | 2,003 | Openly gay sophomore Paul lives in a gay-friendly small town in New Jersey, where homosexuality, bisexuality, and transvestism are accepted and embraced. His best friends at this stage are Joni, who he has been best friends with since early childhood and who he came out to in second grade, and Tony, who is also gay and who lives in the (much less accepting) next town over with his strict religious parents. On a night out with Joni and Tony, listening to a friend play music in a bookstore, Paul meets Noah and is instantly enraptured. They discover that they attend the same school, and after some miscommunication and false starts, they track each other down, and start to date. At the same time, Joni (who has recently broken up with her long-term boyfriend Ted for the twelfth time) starts to date Chuck, a football player who was extremely cruel to Paul's friend Infinite Darlene, when his crush on her turned out to be unrequited. This relationship causes a great deal of tension within Joni and Paul's friendship, and also upsets Ted and Infinite Darlene. The previous year, Paul had dated Kyle, who then dumped him and spread the rumor that Paul had 'tricked' him into being gay. As Paul's relationship with Noah starts to flourish, Kyle also attempts to come back into Paul's life. He apologizes to Paul and starts coming to him for comfort and support, as he is uncertain about his sexuality and his aunt has recently died. While Paul is at first cautious, he comes to understand Kyle more and see him as a friend. Paul confesses everything to Joni, who then tells Chuck. Chuck spreads this all around the school, and before long people are placing bets on what they think the outcome will be. Noah's feelings towards Paul seem to cool at this stage. Tony is having a great deal of trouble coping with his homophobic parents, and decides to go for a hike with Paul to nearby woods. After their hike, Paul hugs Tony tightly, only to be interrupted by Tony's mother's best friend, who spreads this to everyone she knows. Rumors start to fly that Paul and Tony are a couple, and Tony is forbidden from seeing him. The next day, Kyle is feeling a great deal of stress and fear, and Paul kisses him. Noah hears the rumor about Paul and Tony, and in the process of denying that anything happened between the two of them, he inadvertently confesses the fact that he kissed Kyle that day. On hearing this, Noah breaks up with him, and not long afterwards, Paul and Joni's friendship seems to break. Paul is arranging the Dowager's Dance, a dance held yearly by his high school. The theme of the dance is to be 'death', and in order to study this theme, the planning committee (including Kyle) go to a cemetery one evening. When Kyle and Paul find themselves alone together, Kyle kisses Paul and tells him that he loves him. Paul says that he doesn't feel the same way, and Kyle is upset and leaves. Paul goes to see Tony and explain everything to him, and Tony confesses that he's feeling troubled by everything that's been happening but that he's working on showing his parents that he is more than just his sexuality, and that being gay won't stop him from living a full and happy life. Tony's mother comes home and catches Paul and Tony talking, but instead of getting mad, Tony quietly challenges her and she finally allows Tony to see Paul again. Tony also decides that he wants to go to the upcoming dance, and he and Paul decides that his parents are most likely to let him attend if a large group of people comes to pick him up. Paul realizes that he is still in love with Noah, and that what he has to do is show him how he feels. Over seven days he sets himself to seven tasks for Noah to prove his love and make his apology: * Day 1: spends the entire night making origami flowers and decorates the hallway and Noah's locker with them * Day 2: writes a list of 100 words he likes and their definitions, and leaves the list in Noah's locker * Day 3: leaves a note in his mailbox wishing him a good day; doesn't want to overwhelm him * Day 4: has his musical friend Zeke write a song for Noah, and goes with him to sing it * Day 5: buys twenty rolls of film (Noah's hobby is photography) and enlists his friends to give them to him in a series of creative ways * Day 6: writes Noah letters explaining everything he's been doing, thinking, and feeling * Day 7: closes the distance, and speaks to Noah in person Noah is overwhelmed by this, and asks Paul to be his partner for the upcoming dance. Their relationship starts afresh. Paul goes to see Joni and ask her to be a part of the group picking Tony up for the dance, but Joni refuses, saying that she and Chuck had already made plans. Paul challenges her, implying that she's letting Chuck control her, and leaves. The night of the dance arrives, and Paul gathers the group to go to Tony's house and ask his parents if he can come with them. At the last minute, Joni arrives with Chuck to join the group. Tony's mother gives her permission for Tony to go to the dance, despite clear signs of uncertainty. Instead of going straight to the dance, the group go to a clearing in the woods where Tony and Paul hike. They start holding their own celebration there, dancing and talking and laughing. Tony and Kyle talk and dance together, and Paul and Noah dance together for song after song. Paul looks around him, wanting to fix this image in his mind forever, and the book finishes with him thinking to himself: what a wonderful world. |
The Rule of Four | Ian Caldwell | 2,004 | The book is set on the Princeton campus during the Easter weekend, 1999. The story involves four Princeton seniors, friends and roommates, getting ready for graduation: Tom, Paul, Charlie and Gil. Two of the students, Tom and Paul, are trying to solve the mystery contained within an extremely rare, beautifully decorated and very mysterious book— the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. This very real book was published as an incunabulum in 1499 in Venice; it is a complex allegorical work written in a bizarrely modified Italian frequently interspersed with material from other languages as well as its anonymous author's own made-up words. Tom, the narrator, is the son of a professor who had dedicated his life to the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. Throughout the novel, he struggles between being fascinated by the book and trying to pull away from the obsession that drew a rift between his father and his mother and is now causing discord between him and his girlfriend, Katie Marchand. His roommate, Paul Harris, is a brilliant young scholar who is writing his undergraduate thesis on the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. He has spent all four of his undergraduate years studying the book and is close to a breakthrough. Charlie Freeman, the roommate who acts as the parent of the four friends and Gil, heir to a wealthy East Coast banking family are supporting characters to Tom and Paul's project. The novel charts the relationship between the four roommates and how obsession can be both a boon and a burden. It is a story about growing up as much as solving the mystery of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. The disciplines of Renaissance science, history, architecture, and art are drawn upon to solve the mystery. Tom, or Thomas Corelli Sullivan, often found himself distracted by his father's death. His father was a close friend of Richard Curry and Vincent Taft, both of them being advisors for Paul in his thesis. The flashback goes on as Taft distanced himself from both Curry and Tom's father at some point to carry out his own research. Taft also developed a rivalry with both men in the quest to decode the Hypnerotomachias 500-year-old secret. By luck, Tom's father found a letter, dating back to Renaissance times, referring to the book's supposed author, Francesco Colonna. Tom's father even wrote a book, The Belladona Document, which revolves around the mysterious letter. But, a negative critique from his academic rival Vincent Taft spelled the demise of the book's popularity as well as Tom's father's career. Taft allegedly also stole a diary written by a contemporary of Colonna's that Curry had found. That diary, as Paul and Tom discovered it later, would prove to help the duo to decode the elusive Hypnerotomachia. In the end, Paul discovers that the Hypnerotomachia contains a number of hidden and encyphered texts, with the solution to each one revealing a clue towards the next one. However, after solving a chain of several of these, he finds a text that says that there will be no more clues and he must solve the rest of the book on his own. He realizes that the entire book contains a message encoded by following a "rule of four", in which the message starts with one letter, then moves to a letter four rows down, then ten columns right, then two rows up, then two columns left, and repeating. The placement of this hidden text throughout the entire book explains the Hypnerotomachias strange syntax, use of multiple languages, and neologisms. Through days of tough work, Paul and Tom managed to unravel a series of riddles, which they solved soon later. The application of the "rule of four" method enabled the duo to slowly piece together portions of a dark Renaissance secret that has avoided human knowledge for centuries. The author of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, Francesco Colonna, was a humanist in Renaissance Florence. He was an ardent fan of knowledge, books, arts and anything that has a Renaissance identity on it. His passion for Greek and Roman literature was immense. But, one Girolamo Savonarola saw the exact opposite ; Florence is gradually turning into an free-thinking city, with its people starting to forget God and worshipping knowledge. As soon as he grasps power in Florence, Savonarola started the infamous Bonfire of the Vanities, a practice of burning books and art that seemed to contain elements of blasphemy. Colonna could not stand this practice and confronted Girolamo Savonarola himself as a sign of protest, only to be disappointed. Colonna started the building of a large underground vault to seal away a number of ancient books and pieces of art to preserve them from the followers of the priest. On one occasion, to prove his stand, Francesco and two of his men walked onto the raging inferno of the bonfire. As a result, Francesco met a fiery end. As he expected, the death of Francesco sparked cry against the reign of Savonarola, who was later hanged and burnt to ashes. Before dying, Colonna wrote the Hypnerotomachia, a book of codes on his efforts to uplift humanism despite religious dogmas. He disguises its contents in a seemingly innocent piece of Renaissance romantic literature, concerning the love between Poliphilo and Polia. Hypnerotomachia Poliphili itself meant "Poliphilo's Struggle of Love in a Dream". It also turns out that Paul's friend Bill Stein and his thesis advisor Vincent Taft were conspiring together to steal Paul's thesis and claim credit for it, and the sealed vault of treasures. They were murdered by Paul's wealthy but unstable benefactor Richard Curry to prevent this from happening. In a final struggle between a team of Tom, Gil and Paul against Richard Curry, a fire breaks out at Ivy Club, a Princeton eating club of which Gil is the president. After much persuasion by both Tom and Paul to save each other from the fire, Tom jumps out of a window to be rescued by the firemen. Paul does not manage to do so, leading both Tom and Gil to assume that he must have died in the fire together with Curry. Five years pass. Charlie is already married with two children; Tom is still traumatised by the event that occurred that day. He has subsequently become a software analyst and gotten engaged to another woman, only for it to fail later. One day, he receives a tube in the mail containing an authentic ancient (and unknown) Botticelli canvas. The tube has a mysterious return address in Florence, Italy. Tom realises the address is a code by his long lost friend Paul Harris, urging him to head towards Italy soon. The story ends with Tom packing his clothes and reconnecting with Katie by phone, telling her that he is leaving for Italy and that he wants to see her when he returns. |
Journey by Moonlight | Antal Szerb | null | The novel features the romantic figure of Mihály, aloof and poetic, but struggling to break with an adolescent rebelliousness which he tries to quell under respectable bourgeois conformism, but also with the disturbing attraction of an erotic death-wish. While there is no doubt an element of (the then especially influential and risqué) Freudianism in this, as well as perhaps the sexual and emotional claustrophobia of a society with strong Catholic and martial traditions, it also has a distinct originality. The novel follows Mihály, a Budapest native from a bourgeois family on his honeymoon in Italy, as he encounters and attempts to make sense of his past. |
The Fan Club | Irving Wallace | 1,974 | Adam Malone is a supermarket manager in Los Angeles who is obsessed with blonde movie star Sharon Fields. While watching her on a television in a bar one night he meets four other men who are also enamored of her. They get to talking, and soon are planning her abduction. Believing the sex stories put out by her manager, they think that if they kidnap her she will understand their lust and have sex with them. They get a van and disguise it as an exterminator's, scout out her neighborhood and track her daily routine, find an isolated location to take her to, and plan vacations from their individual work. A sudden crisis takes place when they discover that she will be leaving for Europe, forcing them to move their plans ahead of schedule. They confront her while she is taking a daily walk, and ask for direction. When she stops to help, she is grabbed and chloroformed. After being driven unconscious to their hideout, Sharon awakes and finds out what they want. She explains that the publicity is untrue, but one of the men won't take no for an answer and rapes her. Two of the others follow, with Adam not taking part. Deciding that they should not let the situation go to waste, they demand a ransom from the movie studio. Sharon writes a letter as proof they have her, but cleverly uses the first letters in each word to give the police a clue to her whereabouts. The ransom drop ends up with the three rapists killed, and Sharon saved. Because Adam did not take advantage of her, she omits his part in her abduction. Adam is soon back as his job, obsessed with a new younger actress, and planning on forming a new fan club. |
Family Values | null | null | Dwight McCarthy is on a mission from Gail to dig up information about a recent mob hit at a small diner. After being hit on by a female cop, (who he manages to get rid of by pretending to be a bisexual masochist), he goes into a bar near where the hit happened and tries to charm one of the local drinkers there named Peggy. Dwight also spots Fat Man and Little Boy, which makes his job easier later on. As Dwight keeps charming Peggy, she realizes he's not interested in any company that night and only looking for information behind the recent hit. It's revealed that Bruno, the target, was killed by Vito; one of Don Magliozzi's nephews and also one of his hitmen. This was done in retaliation on Don Magliozzi's part as Bruno killed his beloved niece years ago. Going against his family's treaty with mob boss Wallenquist, he orders Vito to kill Bruno, who is on Wallenquist's payroll, immediately. Afterwards, everyone's nervous about what Wallenquist will do and if there will be a mob war in retaliation. With that information, Dwight leaves the bar and is confronted by Vito and some other hitmen who came when Fat Man and Little Boy alerted them someone was digging around for information. Dwight is kidnapped by them, but is more interested in Vito's car and constantly refers to it as his just as soon as he kills all of them. No one believes him as they drive toward the Projects. Unknown to them except for Dwight is that Miho was following Dwight for protection. On the way, Vito tells his side of the story as to how he killed every living thing he saw, including a stray dog. Dwight is satisfied with this and orders Miho to make her appearance. She kills Spinelli, one of the goons, and they park in a hilltop rest area, overlooking the Projects. There, Miho toys with one of the hitmen as Dwight tells Vito to kill the other hitman; Vito's own brother Luca. After Miho and Dwight are through, they head straight to Sacred Oaks to confront Don Magliozzi, driven by Vito. Miho cuts through the guards and Dwight makes his appearance. He tells the Don he is going to die along with Vito, and reveals why: the accidental death of Carmen, one of the Old Town girls. Dwight tells them Vito shouldn't have shot at the stray dog, since the angles were in a straight line to a nearby phone booth where Carmen was calling for a ride. Carmen was killed by the gunfire. Carmen's lover, Daisy, arrives as Dwight walks away from the Don and his associates. Daisy guns them down as Dwight remarks there's going to be a mob war because of this, but that neither he nor the girls of Old Town will have cause to worry about it. Finally, he takes possession of Vito's car and drives off into the night. |
Archangel | Robert Harris | 1,998 | While attending a conference in Moscow, an historian named Christopher "Fluke" Kelso is met by an old man named Papu Rapava, who claims to have been present at the death of Joseph Stalin. Immediately after Stalin's death, Lavrenty Beria supposedly took measures to secure a black notebook, believed to be Stalin's secret diary. Rapava spent years in Kolyma after the authorities tried to extract the book's location from him, but he never revealed it—and still has not, though he knows that shadowy agents are still watching him in case he should go near the mysterious thing. Kelso eventually locates the notebook, which Rapava had left to his daughter just before being recaptured and tortured to death. It proves to be the memoirs of a young girl chosen by Stalin to be the mother of his secret heir. Following the trail to the remote northern city of Arkhangelsk, Kelso comes face to face with Stalin's son. Raised in a log cabin filled with Stalin's personal effects, writings and recorded speeches, the son is a physical and ideological copy of his father—we learn that he had murdered the husband-and-wife KGB agents who had raised him from infancy when he decided they were untrustworthy. Young Stalin has been told that he would be sent for when it was time for him to assume control of his country, and he believes that Kelso is the promised messenger. Stalin overcomes a special-forces unit sent to eliminate him (alarming Kelso by his ruthless and dispassionate use of violence) and boards a train headed for Moscow. At each station, ever-larger crowds gather to witness the apparent resurrection of the famous dictator, and it appears that he might be able to simply stride through the doors of the Kremlin and assume command. As he steps off the train in Moscow, Rapava's daughter, who has made her way into the crowd at the train station, takes out her father's pistol. The novel ends there. |
El Túnel | Ernesto Sabato | 1,948 | The story begins with the main character introducing himself as "the painter who killed María Iribarne" before delving into the circumstances that led to their first encounter. Castel's obsession begins in the autumn of 1946 when at an exhibition of his work he notices a woman focusing on one particularly subtle detail of his painting "Maternidad" ("Maternity"). He considers this observation deeply significant since it is a detail that he values as the most important aspect of the painting but to which nobody besides him and the woman pay any attention. Missing out on an opportunity to approach her before she leaves the exhibition, he then spends the next few months obsessing over her, thinking of ways to find her in the immensity of Buenos Aires, and fantasizing about what to say to her. Ultimately, after seeing her entering a building which he presumes to be her place of employment, he considers how to go about asking her about the detail in the painting. He approaches her and learns that her name is María Iribarne. Following their discussion about the painting, Castel and María agree to see each other again. It later becomes clear that she is married to a blind man named Allende and lives on Posadas Street in the northern part of the city. As Castel continues to see María, however, their relationship comes to be dominated by his obsessive interrogations of her life with her husband, why she does not take her husband's last name, and of her inner thoughts, questions she is unable to answer to his satisfaction. Out of this disconnect, Castel's obsessive thoughts lead him to all sorts of irrational doubts about the love he has come to believe that they have for one another. This anxiety intensifies after he and Maria make a trip to an estancia, a country ranch in Mar del Plata owned by Allende's cousin Hunter. The atmosphere, the presence and the attitudes of the other visiting relatives, and an overheard but not understood argument between María and Hunter feed into Castel's paranoia, forcing him to flee the ranch with little more than a word to one of the service staff. While waiting at a station to leave the region, Castel expects María to figure out he has left and to come stop him. She never arrives, confirming his negative feelings. Upon returning home to Buenos Aires, Castel passionately composes a hurtful letter, accusing her of sleeping with Hunter, which he immediately regrets upon mailing to her. He angrily but unsuccessfully attempts to convince a postal worker to retract the certified letter and later concludes that fate has decided it should reach its destination. Later, Castel reaches María by phone: she reluctantly agrees to meet with him again, although she tells him that it will likely do them little good and, in fact, probably cause him more harm. When she does not arrive to Buenos Aires, he decides that María is, in fact, a prostitute who cheats on her husband not only with him, but also with Hunter and other men. In a fit of rage, he drives out to the estancia. There he waits hidden outside for guests to leave the large house. Meanwhile his anxiety grows to the point where he envisions he and María passing each other through life in parallel passageways or tunnels, whereas his is "a single tunnel, dark and solitary: mine, the tunnel wherein passed all my infancy, my youth, my entire life." Eventually, Castel enters the house, approaches María in her room, where he accuses her of leaving him alone in the world, and stabs her to death. Following the attack, Castel shows up to Allende's office to tell him that he has murdered María for sleeping with Hunter, only to discover that Allende is well-aware of his cuckold status. Crying out again and again that Castel is a fool, Allende sadly, and ineffectually, tries to fight Castel, who leaves and later turns himself in to the police. |
The Ships of Earth | Orson Scott Card | null | The focus is on the struggles between the pioneers to establish a new social order now that they have left Basilica. The new society is opposite to that of the previous societies - male dominated instead of female dominated, monogamous and lifelong marriages instead of the yearly contracts of Basilica. The struggles between the characters ultimately come down to the struggles between Nafai and Elemak, two sons of Volemak. Nafai leads the faction who have faith in the Oversoul, while Elemak leads the faction who want desperately to return to the civilization of doomed Basilica. Both are ostensibly under the leadership of Volemak (and not Rasa, as they had been in the city). The settlers, after years of traveling, finally arrive in a land lost in ancient times which holds the secret of the Oversoul. Also many children are born, all in their preparation for the ultimate journey to Earth. The book offers an interesting justification of the social structures of the Hebrew tribes in Genesis, all while the originally powerful female characters gradually succumb to the new hierarchy of "men" and "wives." Only one character - Shedemei, the brilliant geneticist, thinks about this problem. The focus in on the group dynamics of the new tribe as they journey where the Oversoul guides them. Prophetic dreams abound, mostly involving giant rats and bats ("diggers" and "angels"). The Oversoul discovers itself. |
Lost at Sea | Bryan Lee O'Malley | null | Raleigh is on board a road trip from California, where she was visiting her father and her boyfriend Stillman, back home to Vancouver with her fellow high school students Stephanie, Dave, and Ian, whom she meets by accident after missing her train. During the trip, she muses on her relationship with Stillman, whom she met over the Internet, as well as her belief that she has no friends due to her belief that when she was 14 her mother sold it to Satan in exchange for career success, who then placed it in the body of a cat. Augmenting her palpable existential confusion is the bizarre emergence of a series of cats, seeming to follow Raleigh through her journey. In her confusion and curiosity, Raleigh, with the help of her new friends, attempts to catch one of the cats, believing it to be in possession of her soul. The task acts as a bonding activity for the students, and a catalyst in revealing insight into each others character. |
The Marrow of Tradition | Charles W. Chesnutt | 1,901 | Set in the fictional town of Wellington, The Marrow of Tradition features several interweaving plots that encompass the poles of the racially segregated society of the American South at the turn of the century. One plot follows Major Carteret, the white owner of the major Wellington newspaper, as he colludes with several other powerful white men to take political control of the town. They are outraged about a provocative editorial published in a black paper that questioned white justifications for lynchings. As the town’s unrest intensifies, Carteret faces domestic pressures; his only child Dodie and wife Olivia are both unwell. Carteret’s niece Clara, recently introduced to society, is courted by the young Tom Delamere, a handsome and conniving aristocrat who spends most evenings nurturing his penchant for drink and cards. His habits are contrasted with those of Lee Ellis, a rival for Clara, and William Miller, a young black physician who with his wife has returned to his hometown of Wellington to practice medicine. He gained his medical education in Paris and Vienna. Though jarred by segregation and Jim Crow racism, Miller sets up his practice and starts his life. Josh Green as a boy witnessed the murder of his father at the hands of a white man—a character named Captain McBane—and is intent on exacting revenge. All these subplots are forced to a crisis through two events: the beginning of the riot and the murder of a white woman, Polly Ochiltree, for which a black servant, Sandy Campbell, is arrested. Tom Delamere is the real culprit. In this web of plotlines, Josh Green, whom Miller is unable to persuade to pursue racial equality along peaceable lines, ends up walking into the face of attackers to try to satisfy vengeance and kill McBane. Miller goes to the aid of Sandy Campbell to stave off a lynching. He is asked to give medical care to Carteret’s baby boy, although the publisher had helped foment the riot. A stray bullet has killed Miller's infant son. The novel ends with Miller, setting aside his own losses, agreeing to go to Carteret’s home to aid his dying son. |
The Grass Is Singing | Doris Lessing | 1,950 | The novel starts with a cutting from newspaper article about the death of Mary Turner. It says that Mary Turner, a white woman is killed by her black servant Moses for money. The author of the article is unknown. The news actually acts like an omen for other white people living in that African setting. After looking at the article, people behave as if the murder was very much expected. The plot of the novel shifts to flashback of Mary Turner's past life till her murder at the hand of Moses in the next chapter. Mary has a happy and satisfied life as a single white Rhodesian (we assume, though the novel refers to both Rhodesia and the Union of South Africa simply as South Africa, while making clear the farm is in Southern Rhodesia) woman. She has a nice job, numerous friends, and values her independence. Nevertheless, after overhearing an insulting remark at a party about her spinsterhood, she resolves to marry. The man she marries, after a brief courtship, Dick Turner, is a white farmer struggling to make his farm profitable. She moves with him to his farm and supports the house, while Dick manages the labor of the farm. Dick and Mary are somewhat cold and distant from each other, but are committed to their marriage. Dick and Mary live together an apolitical life mired in poverty. When Dick gets sick Mary takes over the management of the farm and rages at the incompetence of her husband's farm practice. To Mary, the farm exists only to make money, while Dick goes about farming in a more idealistic way. Mary and Dick live a solitary life together. Because of their poverty Dick refuses to give Mary a child. They do not attend social events, yet are a great topic of interest among their neighbors. Mary feels an intimate connection with the nature around her, though being in general rather unexplorative in nature. Mary, like most Rhodesian women, is overtly racist, believing that whites should be masters over the native blacks. Dick and Mary both often complain about the lack of work ethic among the natives that work on their farm. While Dick is rarely cruel to the workers that work for them, Mary is quite cruel. She treats herself as their master and superior. She shows contempt for the natives, and finds them disgusting and animal-like. Mary is cross, queenly, and overtly hostile to the many house servants she has over the years. When Mary oversees the farm labor she is much more repressive than Dick had ever been. She works them harder, reduces their break time, and arbitrarily takes money from their pay. Her hatred of natives results in her whipping the face of a worker because he speaks to her in English, telling her he stopped work for a drink of water. This worker, named Moses, comes to be a very important person in Mary's life, when he is taken to be a servant for the house. Mary does not feel fear of her servant Moses but rather a great deal of disgust, repugnance, and avoidance. Often Mary does all she can to avoid having any social proximity with him. After many years living on the farm together, Dick and Mary are seen to be in a condition of deterioration. Mary often goes through spells of depression, during which she is exhausted of energy and motivation. In her frailty, Mary ends up relying more and more on Moses. As Mary becomes weaker, she finds herself feeling endearment toward Moses. On a rare visit from their neighbor, Slatter, Mary is seen being carelessly, thoughtlessly kind to Moses. This enrages Slatter. Slatter demands that Mary not live with that worker as a house servant. Slatter sees himself as defending the values and integrity of the white community. Slatter uses his charisma and influence to convince Dick to give up ownership of his farm and go on a vacation with his wife. This vacation is to be a sort of convalescence for them. Dick spends his last month on his farm with Tony, who has been hired by Slatter to take over the running of the farm. Tony has good intentions and is very superficially cultured, but he finds himself having to adapt to the racism of the white community. One day Tony sees Moses dressing Mary and is surprised and somewhat amazed by Mary's breaking of the 'colour bar'. The book closes with Mary's death at the hand of Moses. Mary is expecting his arrival and is aware of her imminent death. Moses does not run from the scene as he originally intends, but waits a short distance away for the arrival of the police. |
The Sound of Waves | Yukio Mishima | 1,954 | Shinji Kubo lives with his mother, a pearl diver, and his younger brother, Hiroshi. He and his mother support the family because Shinji's father had died in World War II after the fishing boat he was on was strafed by an American bomber. However, the family lives a somewhat peaceful life and Shinji is content to be a fisherman along with his master, Jukichi Oyama, and another apprentice, Ryuji. Things change when Terukichi Miyata, after the death of his son, decides to bring back the daughter he adopted away to pearl divers from another island. Raised as a pearl diver, the beautiful Hatsue wins many admirers, including Shinji. The prospect of marrying Hatsue becomes even more attractive when the wealthy Miyata intends to adopt the man who marries Hatsue as his own son. Shinji and Hatsue soon fall in love. When Chiyoko, the daughter of the Lighthouse-Keeper and his wife, returns from studying at a university in Tokyo, she is disappointed to discover Shinji, whom she has affections for, has fallen in love with someone else. She takes advantage of the jealous Yasuo Kawamoto, an arrogant and selfish admirer of Hatsue, and uses him so Yasuo will spread vicious rumours of Shinji stealing away Hatsue's virginity. Yasuo is jealous of Shinji because he thinks Shinji will take Hatsue's virginity. He tries to rape Hatsue at night when it's Hatsue's turn to fill out the bucket of water. The attempt is unsuccessful, however; he is stung by hornets as he tries to strip her clothes off. Humiliated, he makes a deal with Hatsue: He will refill the bucket and carry it down the stone steps for her, and Hatsue must not tell anyone he was trying to rape her. When Terukichi finds out the rumor, he forbids Hatsue to see Shinji, but through Jukichi and Ryuji, the two manage to continue communicating with one another by means of secret letters. Terukichi steadfastly refuses to see Shinji for an explanation and when Shinji's mother, who knows her son will never deliberately lie, goes to see Terukichi, Terukichi's refusal to see her only increases the tension between Shinji and Hatsue. Chiyoko, before returning to Tokyo, becomes filled with remorse after Shinji off-handedly replies that she is pretty when she asks him if he thinks she is unattractive. She returns to Tokyo with guilt that she ruined Shinji's chance at happiness Terukichi mysteriously employs Yasuo and Shinji on one of his shipping vessels. When the vessel is caught in a storm, Shinji’s courage and willpower allow him to brave the storm and save the ship. Terukichi's intentions are revealed when Chiyoko's mother receives a letter from Chiyoko, who refuses to return home, explaining that she feels she cannot return and see Shinji unhappy because she was the one who started the rumors. The Lighthouse-Keeper's wife confronts Terukichi, who reveals that he intends to adopt Shinji as Hatsue's husband. Employing the boys on the ship had been a test to which one was most suitable for his daughter and Shinji's act to save the vessel had earned Terukichi’s respect and permission to wed his daughter. |
Lysis | null | null | Hippothales is accused by Ctesippus, that he still presents annoying praises of his beloved person before the others. He is then asked by Socrates to show his usual behavior in this situation. He admits his love for Lysis, but refuses, that he behaves by the manner depicted by the others. According to Ctesippus it is possible only by his absolute madness, because how would the others know about the love otherwise? The victory is a real gain of such love, about which Hippothales sings. He is aroused by denied access to such love and encourages only himself in a fear from possible difficulties. The beloved person, which would otherwise hasn't lost his self-criticism, can be conquered by his own pride. The lack of wit, surplus of emotions in behavior, doesn't create reverence and respect and makes impossible to conquer somebody, gaining his sympathy. The one, who should rule in the measure which makes him a part of the relationship, instead of it hurts himself. The following Socrates' dialogue with Lysis implies, that loved by his parents he on the other hand is limited in the most of that what he would wish. Lysis is forced to let the others decide about him (compare with a rental coachman when he is carrying his family). His abilities are not subject of a blind faith. The conclusion is, that friendship must be the opposite of hypocrisy, which sometimes emerges from the surplus of flattering... Another important conclusion from the dialogue with Lysis is, that his parents wish his complete happiness, but on the other hand doing of the things he hasn't enough knowledge for is forbidden by them to him. He is allowed to do something only when his parents are sure, that given activities are achievable for him. Although, he is able to please his parents, make them to be happy, when he is in some task better than the others. The dialogue continues with Lysis only as a listener. Socrates is trying to find out what is friendship. He claims, that friendship is always reciprocal. The friendship of the lover is sufficient to it. But he can obtain back even the hatred. And it is not true, that the one who is hated or who perhaps hates is a friend. That is in contradiction with the mentioned thesis, that friendship is reciprocal. The opposite must be true then. Friendship is non-reciprocal. Otherwise the lover can't be happy. For example of his child, which doesn't obey him and even hate him. The conclusion is that people are loved by their enemies (parents) and hated by their friends (children). Then it is not valid every time, that lover has in loved his friend. This is in contradiction with the premise saying, that friendship can be non-reciprocal. Bad men don't tend neither towards other bad men nor the good ones. The former can be harmful and the latter would probably refuse the disharmony. On the other hand the good men can have only no differences to be good and have therefore no profit from each other. They are perfect and can be in love only to the extent to which they feel insufficiency, therefore to no extent. The opposites attracts one another. For example the full needs the empty and empty needs the full. But this is not right in the case of human beings. For example good vs. evil, just vs. unjust... Searching continues in an attempt to determine the first principle of friendship. The friendship must consists only in itself. Perhaps it is the good itself. But it wouldn't be for itself the everything unless the evil is present. The friendship mustn't lead us to something else (like to the evil). Must be itself only thanks to its own opposite. The opposite is therefore not only bad, but also useful. But there are situations, in which can be viewed the opposite for example of the good - like hunger or thirst - with disgrace. It is possible that even in not presence of the opposite, the elements of friendship can somewhere exist, which is in contradiction with that, that they consist in their opposite. The possession of the good by definition of friendship is therefore retained along for a while. So far it was successful to grasp only a shadow of the real nature of friendship. We tend to the good to escape the evil, to the health to escape the illness, to the certain friend (doctor) to escape the enemy. We don't know the first thing, that is loved. The friendship can have another reason, than a way to the good (escaping the evil). It can be desire, longing for a something. By such way is responded to insufficiency, to our limitation in something. Insufficiency is that which makes us to be close each other. The friendship is therefore something inevitable for us. We are loved by something, we can't be without it, which we ask by our nature. It is therefore impossible to distinguish object of friendship from us. An attempt is possible to distinguish the insufficiency from the mere unlikeness. The evil is insufficiency for everything, the good the sufficiency. For themselves are good and evil alike sufficient - however - they can't be friends the ones who are akin to themselves. From the point of view of the first principle of friendship the distinguishing the insufficiency from the unlikeness wasn't successful. |
Death and the King's Horseman | Wole Soyinka | null | Death and The King's Horseman builds upon the true story to focus on the character of Elesin, the King's Horseman of the title. According to a Yoruba tradition, the death of a chief must be followed by the ritual suicide of the chief's horseman, because the horseman's spirit is essential to helping the chief's spirit ascend to the afterlife. Otherwise, the chief's spirit will wander the earth and bring harm to the Yoruba people. The first half of the play documents the process of this ritual, with the potent, life-loving figure Elesin living out his final day in celebration before the ritual process begins. At the last minute the local British colonial ruler, Simon Pilkings, intervenes, the suicide being viewed as barbaric and illegal by the British authorities. In the play, the result for the community is catastrophic, as the breaking of the ritual means the disruption of the cosmic order of the universe and thus the well-being and future of the collectivity is in doubt. As the action unfolds, the community blames Elesin as much as Pilkings, accusing him of being too attached to the earth to fulfill his spiritual obligations. Events lead to tragedy when Elesin's son, Olunde, who has returned to Nigeria from studying medicine in Europe, takes on the responsibility of his father and commits ritual suicide in his place so as to restore the honour of his family and the order of the universe. Consequently, Elesin kills himself, condemning his soul to a degraded existence in the next world. In addition, the dialogue of the native suggests that this may have been insufficient and that the world is now "adrift in the void". Another Nigerian playwright, Duro Ladipo, had already written a play in the Yoruba language based on this incident, called Oba waja (The King is Dead). |
At Bertram's Hotel | Agatha Christie | null | Jane Marple, the elderly amateur sleuth, takes a holiday at Bertram's hotel in London, to re-live her happy memories of staying there during her youth. The hotel is famous for fully preserving its Edwardian atmosphere even into the 1960s, from the proper staff to the elderly guests who frequent the tearoom. Miss Marple first sees Lady Selina Hazy, a childhood friend. Lady Hazy says she often thinks she recognizes people in the hotel but they turn out to be strangers. Miss Marple is intrigued by the other guests in the tearoom, especially a famous adventuress, Bess Sedgwick; a young woman, Elvira Blake, and her guardian Colonel Luscombe; and a forgetful clergyman, Canon Pennyfather. Elvira's late father left her a lot of money, but it's all held in trust until she, not yet 20, turns 21. Her mother, Bess Sedgwick, had abandoned her as a toddler to become a famous star and adventurer, and has not kept in touch. Elvira suddenly starts asking her guardians who would inherit her money if she dies, and hints that she may be planning marriage. She also says somebody had tried to poison her during her school days in Italy. She secretly flies to Ireland for 24 hours, telling her best friend only that she has to find out something that's of terrible importance. Canon Pennyfather is supposed to fly to Switzerland the same day, also for 24 hours, to attend a religious conference in Lucerne. But he's so forgetful he doesn't arrive at the airport until the following evening, by which time the conference is over. He returns to the hotel around midnight, and upon entering his room, sees something very surprising and is immediately knocked on the head. He wakes up four days later in a house several hours from London but near the location where the Irish Mail train was robbed three days earlier. A family had found him on the side of the road and taken him in. He remembers nothing since taking the taxi to the airport, yet some witnesses at the train robbery say they saw somebody who looked like him at the scene. Miss Marple also saw him leaving his hotel room at 3 am, three hours after he was knocked on the head, and a few hours before the robbery. It turns out that Lady Sedgwick had hidden herself from Elvira because she did not consider herself a suitable mother, given her lifestyle. Sedgwick and Elvira are lovers of the same man, the racing-car driver Ladislaus Malinowski. However, both women claim that Elvira doesn't know him. But Miss Marple knows that she does, because she has seen Elvira and Malinowski together at a restaurant. She thinks Malinowski is an unsuitable man for Elvira, and wishes she could save her from getting involved with him. Meanwhile, a car similar to Malinowski's has been seen at the train robbery and at several other train robberies; it is similar but not identical: the licence plates were off by one digit. Miss Marple overhears Bess Sedgwick talking with the hotel commissionaire, Micky Gorman. It turns out they had earlier been married in Ireland. At the time, Gorman had told her the wedding was just a game and not a legal marriage. But in fact it was a real marriage, and so her four subsequent marriages were unwittingly bigamous. Elvira also overhears this, and worries it might invalidate her inheritance because she is the daughter of one of Sedgwick's later husbands. She had travelled to Ireland to verify the marriage, but we don't know whether she flew back to England or took a train, perhaps the Irish Mail train, so she could have been a witness or perpetrator in the robbery. When Elvira comes to the hotel one foggy night, two shots are fired, and Elvira is found next to dead Commissionaire Gorman. Elvira claims he has been shot dead after he had run in front of her to shield her due to the first shot. The gun is Malinowski's. Police Chief Inspector "Father" Davy, along with Inspector Campbell, has been involved in the mystery since Pennyfather's disappearance. He interviews everybody in the hotel, and quickly realizes that Miss Marple notices things — things in human nature that provide important clues. After Pennyfather is found, the three of them try an experiment. Miss Marple and Pennyfather re-enact their actions from when she saw him in the hallway (although he doesn't remember it). She realizes it wasn't him she saw: the walk was different. Pennyfather then remembers what surprised him when he entered his room: he saw himself sitting on a chair, just before he was knocked on the head. His doppelgänger, with his confederates, left the hotel (when Miss Marple saw him), drove the unconscious Pennyfather to the mail train, made himself visible during the robbery so that people would mistake him for Pennyfather, and then left Pennyfather on the side of the road. Miss Marple tells Inspector Davy that she was disappointed to find out that much of the hotel's Edwardian atmosphere is false. Some of the guests are genuine, but others are actors pretending to be other people. So Lady Hazy wasn't wrong after all; the people she mistakenly recognized were actors pretending to be people she knew. Why a hotel would have so many actors is baffling, until the sleuths realize that the hotel is the center of a criminal ring. The actors pose as other people during robberies in order to make it look like their namesakes were at places they weren't. "Father" Davy and Miss Marple confront Bess Sedgwick as the orchestrator of these robberies, along with the hotel's owners and staff. Sedgwick confesses, and also admits to killing Gorman. She then drives away recklessly and commits suicide, although her racing may let it look like an accident. However, Miss Marple has already concluded that Elvira herself shot Gorman, and that her mother falsely confessed to the shooting in order to save her daughter. Elvira had fallen madly in love with Ladislaus Malinowski and knew that he was primarily interested in her money, but was concerned that if Michael Gorman revealed his marriage to Bess Sedgwick it would endanger her father's legacy. |
The Notting Hill Mystery | null | null | Source documents compiled by insurance investigator Ralph Henderson are used to build a case against Baron "R___", who is suspected of murdering his wife. The baron's wife died from drinking a bottle of acid, apparently while sleepwalking in her husband's private laboratory. Henderson's suspicions are raised when he learns that the baron recently had purchased five life insurance policies for his wife. As Henderson investigates the case, he discovers not one but three murders. Although the baron's guilt is clear to the reader even from the outset, how he did it remains a mystery. Eventually this is revealed, but how to catch him becomes the final challenge; he seems to have committed the perfect crime. |
The Camp of the Saints | Jean Raspail | 1,973 | The Camp of the Saints is a novel about population migration and its consequences. In Calcutta, India, the Belgian government announces a policy in which Indian babies will be adopted and raised in Belgium. The policy is soon reversed after the Belgian consulate is inundated with poverty-stricken parents eager to give up their infant children. An Indian "wise man" then rallies the masses to make a mass exodus to live in Europe. Most of the story centers on the French Riviera, where almost no one remains except for the military and a few civilians, including a retired professor who has been watching the huge fleet of run down freighters approaching the French coast. The story alternates between the French reaction to the mass immigration and the attitude of the immigrants. They have no desire to assimilate into French culture but want the plentiful goods that are in short supply in their native India. Although the novel focuses on France, the rest of the West shares its fate. Near the end of the story the mayor of New York City is made to share Gracie Mansion with three families from Harlem, the Queen of England must agree to have her son marry a Pakistani woman, and only one drunken Soviet soldier stands in the way of thousands of Chinese people as they swarm into Siberia. The one holdout until the end of the novel is Switzerland, but by then international pressure isolating it as a rogue state for not opening its borders forces it to capitulate. |
A Home at the End of the World | Michael Cunningham | 1,990 | Bobby had grown up in a home in suburban Cleveland, Ohio during the 1960s and 1970s where partying and drugs were a recurring theme. He has already witnessed the death of his mother and beloved older brother by the time he befriends Jonathan, who comes from a sheltered family. After Bobby finds his father is dead, Jonathan's family takes him in. Bobby and Jonathan become best friends, and also experiment sexually. The two eventually lose touch, but meet up again in their 20s in 1980s New York, where Bobby moves in with Jonathan and his eccentric roommate Clare. Clare had planned to have a baby with Jonathan (who is openly gay), but Bobby and Clare become lovers, while Jonathan still has feelings for Bobby. Clare and Bobby have a baby and move to a country home together with Jonathan. The trio form their own unusual family, questioning traditional definitions of family and love, while dealing with the complications of their love triangle. |
Kenilworth | Walter Scott | 1,821 | Giles Gosling, the innkeeper, had just welcomed his scape-grace nephew Michael Lambourne on his return from Flanders. He invited the Cornishman, Tressilian, and other guests to drink with them. Lambourne made a wager he would obtain an introduction to a certain young lady under the steward Foster's charge at Cumnor Place, seat of the Earl of Leicester, and the Cornish stranger begged permission to accompany him. On arriving there Tressilian found that this lady was his former lady-love, Amy. He would have carried back to her home, but she refused; and as he was leaving he quarrelled with Richard Varney, the earl's squire, and might have taken his life had not Lambourne intervened. Amy was soothed in her seclusion by costly presents from the earl, and during his next visit she pleaded that she might inform her father of their secret marriage, but he was afraid of Elizabeth's resentment. Warned by his host against the squire, and having confided to him how Amy had been entrapped, Tressilian left Cumnor by night, and, after several adventures by the way, reached the residence of Sir Hugh Robsart, Amy's father, to assist him in laying his daughter's case before the queen. Returning to London, Tressilian's servant, Wayland Smith, cured the Earl of Sussex of a dangerous illness. On hearing about this from Walter Raleigh, Elizabeth at once set out to visit Leicester's rival, and it was in this way that Tressilian's petition, in Amy's behalf, was handed to her. The queen was agitated to learn of this secret marriage. Varney was accordingly summoned to the royal presence, but he boldly declared that Amy was his wife, and Leicester was restored to the queen's favour. Tressilian's servant then gained access to the secret countess Amy as a pedlar, and, having hinted that Elizabeth would shortly marry the earl, sold her a cure for the heartache, warning her attendant Janet at the same time that there might be an attempt to poison her mistress. Meanwhile Leicester was preparing to entertain the queen at Kenilworth, where she had commanded that Amy should be introduced to her, and Varney was, accordingly, despatched with a letter begging the countess to appear at the revels pretending to be Varney's bride. Having indignantly refused to do so, and having recovered from the effects of a cordial which had been prepared for her by the astrologer Alasco, she escaped, with the help of her maid, from Cumnor, and started for Kenilworth, escorted by Wayland Smith. Travelling thither as brother and sister, they joined a party of mummers, and then, to avoid the crowd of people thronging the principal approaches, proceeded by circuitous by-paths to the castle. Having, with Dickie Sludge's help, passed into the courtyard, they were shown into a room, where Amy was waiting while her attendant carried a note to the earl, when she was startled by the entrance of Tressilian, whom she entreated not to interfere until after the expiration of twenty-four hours. On entering the park, Elizabeth was received by her favourite attended by a numerous cavalcade bearing waxen torches, and a variety of entertainments followed. During the evening she enquired for Varney's wife, and was told she was too ill to be present. Tressilian offered to lose his head if within twenty-four hours he did not prove the statement to be false. Nevertheless, the ostensible bridegroom was knighted by the queen. Receiving no reply to her note, which Wayland had lost, Amy found her way the next morning to a grotto in the gardens, where she was discovered by Elizabeth, who had just told her host that "she must be the wife and mother of England alone." Falling on her knees the countess besought protection against Varney, who she declared was not her husband, and added that the Earl of Leicester knew all. The earl was instantly summoned to the royal presence, and would have been committed to the Tower, had not Amy recalled her words, when she was consigned to Lord Hunsdon's care as bereft of her reason, Varney coming forward and pretending that she had just escaped from a special treatment for her madness. Leicester insisted on an interview with her, when she implored him to confess their marriage to Elizabeth, and then, with a broken heart, she would not long darken his brighter prospects. Varney, however, succeeded in persuading him that Amy had acted in connivance with Tressilian, and in obtaining medical sanction for her custody as mentally disordered, asking only for the earl's signet-ring as his authority. The next day a duel between Tressilian and the earl was interrupted by Dickie, who produced the countess's note, and, convinced of her innocence, Leicester confessed that she was his wife. With the queen's permission he at once deputed his rival and Sir Walter Raleigh to proceed to Cumnor, whither he had already despatched Lambourne, to stay his squire's further proceedings. Varney, however, had shot the messenger on receiving his instructions, and had caused Amy to be conducted by Foster to an apartment reached by a long flight of stairs and a narrow wooden bridge. The following evening the tread of a horse was heard in the courtyard, and a whistle like the earl's signal, upon which she rushed from the room, and the instant she stepped on the bridge, it parted in the middle, and she fell to her death. Her murderer poisoned himself, and the skeleton of his accomplice was found, many years afterwards, in a cell where he secreted his money. The news of the countess's fate put an end to the revels at Kenilworth, Leicester retired for a time from Court, and Sir Hugh Robsart, who died very soon after his daughter, settled his estate on Tressilian. |
The Death Dealers | Isaac Asimov | 1,958 | One Thursday afternoon, Prof. Brade goes to visit his graduate student's laboratory. He finds Ralph Neufeld dead, having inhaled hydrogen cyanide. (This is perhaps a grim echo of Ralph's connection with the Holocaust, as hydrogen cyanide was the lethal agent used by the Nazis in their gas chambers.) In his experiment, he had somehow used sodium cyanide instead of sodium acetate, both white powders. Later, Brade is questioned by Detective Doheny, who is in charge of Ralph's case. When he gets home, he reveals to his wife his suspicions that Ralph's death was murder. She cautions him not to tell this to anyone, as he would destroy any chance of getting associate professorship and tenure. The next day, he meets with the emeritus Cap Anson, who seems to blame him for Ralph's death. They visit the zoo together, and Anson encourages Brade to go into comparative biochemistry. Brade refuses, saying he wants to continue Ralph's work in chemical kinetics. That night, he attends a departmental get-together at Chairman Littelby's, and becomes so fed up with the other professors blaming him for the death that he puts his job on the line and accuses them back. He is also disrespectful to Littelby with a nearly outright demand for tenure. On Sunday, he reads through Ralph's research notebooks and realizes that Ralph's data had been faked, a cardinal sin in chemistry. When Doheny returns, he tells him about the faking, suggesting it as a possible motive for suicide. Doheny, however, twists it around and says that Brade might have been trying to protect his own reputation by hiding the fraud. The next day, after his lectures in the university, he again meets with Cap Anson, and immediately afterward in the lab, nearly triggers a chemical reaction which would have killed him. Now resolved to solve the mystery, he questions student Roberta Goodhue in the presence of Doheny. She admits that she and Neufeld had had an argument about the faked data. The only person who could have overheard was Cap Anson. Doheny then tricks Anson into revealing that he knows about the attempt on Brade's life and Anson confesses. |
A Treasure's Trove | null | null | The book is about twelve forest creatures whose mates disappear after being crystallized by a dark dust that falls every evening. The forest creatures combine forces with Zac (the handsome woodcarver), Ana (his beautiful half-elf, half-human wife), and their timid, chubby, winged "doth" Pook to save the creatures and restore the dying forest. |
Anansi Boys | Neil Gaiman | 2,005 | Anansi Boys is the story of Charles "Fat Charlie" Nancy, a timid Londoner devoid of ambition, whose unenthusiastic wedding preparations are disrupted when he learns of his father's death in Florida. The flamboyant Mr. Nancy, in whose shadow Fat Charlie has always lived, died in a typically embarrassing manner by suffering a fatal heart attack while singing to a young woman on stage in a karaoke bar. Fat Charlie is forced to take time off from the accounting agency where he works and travel to Florida for the funeral. After the funeral, while discussing the disposal of Mr. Nancy's estate, Mrs. Callyanne Higgler, a very old family friend, reveals to Fat Charlie that the late Mr. Nancy was actually an incarnation of the West African spider god, Anansi, hence his name. The reason Charlie had apparently not inherited any divine powers was because they had been passed down to his hitherto unknown brother, whom she mentions can be contacted by simply asking a spider to invite him. Charlie is skeptical, and on his return to England, largely forgets what Mrs. Higgler had told him, until one night when he drunkenly whispers to a spider that it would be nice if his brother stopped by for a visit. The next morning, the suave and well-dressed brother, going under the name of "Spider", visits Charlie, and is shocked to learn that their father had died. Immediately Spider steps through a picture to their childhood home. Charlie goes off to work, rather puzzled by Spider and his sudden disappearance. Spider returns that night, stricken with grief that Anansi had died and that he (Spider) had been thoughtless enough not to notice. The two, to drown their sorrows, become uproariously drunk (at Spider's recommendation) on the proverbial trio of wine, women, and song. Although Charlie is not involved in most of the womanizing or singing, he is drunk enough to sleep through much of the next day. Spider covers for Charlie's absence from his office at the Grahame Coats Agency by magically disguising himself as Charlie. In the process, Spider discovers Grahame Coats's long-standing practice of embezzling from his clients. Spider also steals the affection and virginity of Charlie's fiancée, Rosie Noah. Spider, in the guise of Charlie, reveals his knowledge of the financial improprieties to Grahame Coats during a meeting which Grahame calls in order to fire Charlie. As a result, Grahame delays firing Charlie. When Grahame seeks him next, Charlie receives a large cheque and a holiday from work. With Charlie out of the office, Grahame Coats proceeds to alter the financial records to frame Charlie for the embezzlement. Embittered by the loss of his fiancée, Charlie uses his vacation to return to Florida, and requests help from Callyanne Higgler and three of her equally old, eccentric friends to expel Spider. Being themselves powerless in this matter, they instead send him to "the beginning of the world", an abode of ancient gods similar to his father, of whom each represents a species of animal. There, he encounters the fearsome Tiger, the outrageous Hyena, and the ridiculous Monkey, among others. None are willing to trade anything with him until he meets Bird Woman, who agrees to trade Charlie her help, symbolized by one of her feathers, in exchange for "Anansi's bloodline for my own". In London, a swindled client, Maeve Livingstone, confronts Grahame Coats directly, having learned of the embezzlement of her late husband's royalties. Grahame Coats agrees to make full restitution and more, suggesting that taking him to court could fail to achieve her purpose. While she is distracted by his offer, he kills her with a hammer and conceals her body in a hidden closet. Charlie has returned to England, whereupon spontaneous events begin happening in quick succession. Charlie quarrels and scuffles with Spider; Charlie is taken in for questioning by the police for financial fraud at the Grahame Coats Agency; Spider reveals the truth to Rosie, who is angered by his treatment of her; birds repeatedly attack Spider; Grahame Coats leaves England for his estate and bank accounts in the fictional Caribbean island of Saint Andrews; and Maeve Livingstone's ghost begins haunting the Grahame Coats Agency building. Maeve Livingstone is contacted by her late husband, who advises her to move on to the afterlife. She refuses in favor of taking vengeance on Grahame Coats. Later, she meets the ghost of Anansi himself, who recounts a story to her. Once, Anansi reveals, the animal god Tiger owned all stories, and as a result, all stories were dark and violent; but Anansi tricked Tiger into surrendering the ownership of all stories to Anansi, so stories now involve cleverness and skill rather than strength alone. After he is attacked by flamingoes, Spider realizes that something Charlie did is causing these attacks, and that he is in mortal peril. He takes Charlie out of prison. They discuss matters in the course of fleeing from birds around the world, revealing that giving Anansi's bloodline implicates Charlie as well as Spider. Charlie is then returned to prison. He is eventually freed, and then mentions the hidden room in Coats's office, where the police will find Maeve Livingstone's body. Spider is swept away in a storm of birds, by which Bird Woman delivers Spider to Tiger, Anansi's longtime enemy, who imprisons him and takes his tongue in order to prevent most of his use of magic. In spite of his helplessness, Spider manages to form a little spider out of clay, instructing it to go find help in the spider kingdom that Anansi and his descendants command. Though not as effective a hunter as Tiger, Spider can still fend him off for a little while, whereas Tiger is pleased to draw out the hunt, as it allows him to savour his long hoped-for revenge on Anansi and his brood. Rosie and her mother have taken a cruise to the Caribbean, where they unexpectedly meet Grahame Coats. They have not heard of the events in England, and so unsuspectingly walk into his trap and are locked in his basement. Charlie goes searching for Callyanne Higgler, so that she might help him answer his problems. He tries to look for her in Florida, but the rest of Anansi's old friends tell him Mrs Higgler was off in the Caribbean island of Saint Andrews, and reveal him that it was another old lady, Mrs. Dunwiddy, who when fat Charlie was young, made a spell to separate his good side from his bad side, which became Spider, meaning that Fat Charlie and Spider had once been one person (which explains why Anansi refers to his son in the singular in American Gods). He finally finds her after a long search in Saint Andrews and is sent again to the beginning of the world. Charlie forces the Bird Woman to give back Anansi's bloodline in return for her feather. Meanwhile, Spider has managed to survive, Tiger having grown overconfident. When Tiger attempts a killing strike, the reinforcements summoned by Spider overwhelm him. At that point, Charlie rescues Spider and gives him back his tongue. Tiger possesses Grahame Coats and uses his blood-lust to manipulate him, intending to get revenge on Spider by killing Rosie and her mother. The possession by Tiger makes Grahame Coats vulnerable to attacks by other spirits; Maeve Livingstone, having found Grahame Coats with the aid of the ghost form of Anansi, eliminates Coats in the real world and, satisfied, moves on to her afterlife. At the beginning of the world, Charlie, having discovered his power to alter reality by singing a story, recounts the long tale of all that has gone before, humiliating Tiger to the point of retreat. Spider then closes the cave entrance, sealing Tiger and Grahame Coats into the cave; Charlie weaves this event into his song, reinforcing it with his powers, such that Tiger is now well and truly trapped. Coats, now renamed (and in the form of a) Stoat, remains with Tiger as company. In the end, Spider marries Rosie and becomes the owner of a restaurant. He is put constantly under pressure by Rosie's mother to have children, but (possibly to annoy her) never does. Charlie begins a successful career as a singer, marries police officer Daisy Day (whom he met on the night of drinking with Spider, mourning his father), and has a son. |
Fluke, or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings | Christopher Moore | 2,003 | The plot of Fluke is set on and off the Hawai'ian island of Maui as well as deep underneath the Pacific Ocean off the shore of Chile. Nathan Quinn, a marine biologist, goes out on a routine day-trip expedition to survey whales in the area. When he photographs one of the whale's flukes, he notices that the words "BITE ME" are spelled out in huge letters on the mammal's tail-fin. His curiosity and investigations uncover one mystery after another as he seeks the answers considering the source of this peculiarity. |
The Fallon Blood | Robert Jordan | 1,980 | In The Fallon Blood, escaping brutal English overlords, 1760s Irishman Michael Fallon becomes an indentured servant to Charleston, South Carolina merchant Thomas Carver, where his infatuation with Carver's sensual daughter Elizabeth causes life-changing complications. His father died in the Battle Of Culloden. The threat of Irish Pickets forced Michael and his mother in both hiding and poverty. His mother sacrificed her own health to keep Michael fed for three years, when she died of malnutrition. Grogan "adopted" Michael and abused him in child labor. Michael ran away at the age of fifteen, vowing that none of his children would suffer the tragedy of poverty. Sometime later Michael became a soldier, and was taught the sword by Timothy Cavanaugh. His time with the army was a full seven years, after which he managed to own land in Ireland. Michael's prospects seemed fruitful until the day he killed an Englishman colonel by accident. Since the punishment of killing an Englishman was death, Michael was left no choice but to flee Ireland to the American colonies, where he became an indentured servant to Thomas Carver. This was the "most fateful moment of his life." He fell instantly in love with Carver's daughter Elizabeth. Elizabeth did not return Michael's feelings until he dueled with Justin Fourrier, scion of Fourrier family. Although Justin was of high blood, his sword skills paled next to Michael's, who won easily. This was the beginning of Justin's hatred for Michael, and in turn, Elizabeth's desire of Michael. Elizabeth's desire was not love, however. She originally wanted a flirtation with the bound man to instill jealousy in Justin. It was her hope that the jealousy would make Justin a lover, instead of a distant man who cared only for her inheritance. Elizabeth's plans culminated in a night of seduction, which hopefully would force Michael into marriage. However, Michael wanted to "set her up as a queen, not as a destitute." Michael's actions towards building their future left Elizabeth alone with child. Horrified of the shame of wedding with child, she manipulated Justin into raping her so that he would give her his hand in marriage. Michael buried himself in working his plantation Tir Alanin to forget Elizabeth, and dabbled in aiding American resistance for the same purpose. He became good friends with Justin's brothers Louis and Henri, who then introduced him to their sister Gabrielle. Sometimes later Fourrier leaked news of Michael's slaying of the Englishman colonel and he was quite close of rotting away in prison. Saved by Gabrielle's plan, the two married. The American Revolution separated Michael and Gabrielle for years, though the two mended the damage between them in raising their family. Twenty years pass, finding Michael with son James and daughter Catherine. On constant guard from Justin's assassinations, Michael met his son Robert Fallon (from Elizabeth). His presence tore a rift in the Fallon family, who more or less hate Robert for his status as a bastard. Gabrielle made the first step towards bridging that chasm when Fourrier assassins set the Fallon house on fire and subsequently killed both Gabrielle and James. In The Fallon Pride, Michael Fallon's son Robert Fallon survives years at sea fighting Barbary pirates and enduring the siege at Tripoli. He then returns to America with an Irish wife, Moira McConnell, and goes into business in Charleston where he raises a somewhat troublesome family. In the eve of the Revolution, the Fourrier family is forced out of the colonies because their centuries-worth of power has no place in the new nation. It is then that Elizabeth accidentally reveals Robert's true heritage. With all of his hatred on the Fallon line, Justin spent years abusing Robert just to see the look on Elizabeth's face. "She fought for food, clothes, an education . . ." Years of spousal abuse had grinded Elizabeth's will until she died. Her last words to Robert was the name of his real father. Robert flees to the safety of the sea. During that time he has ventured to Charleston, though forcibly avoids his father, as he does not wish to be a burden to the Fallon family. His luck runs out when his name is casually offered to Michael, who then confronts him. The two try to make amends with Michael's family, though Gabrielle is livid and refuses to give Robert the benefit of the doubt. James takes this one step further, slugging Robert and warning him not to come back. A spoiled noble, James thinks him invincible due to his "noble" bloodline, and is thus astonished that he is beaten by a bastard. At the end of the Fallon Blood, Robert kills Henry Tyree to save his father, and leads Michael from his grief over Gabrielle's death with a question of sizing a boat Robert wants to purchase. This attempt works, coaxing Michael out of his misery and allows Michael to move on with his life. Sometime before the Fallon Pride, Robert develops incestous feelings towards his half-sister Catherine. Like his father Robert buries himself in the arms of another woman, a French girl by the name of Louise de Chardonnay. Despite the stalker-like intents of powerful sea mogul Murad Reis, Robert takes Louise as a mistress, who eventually bears his first son James. Before they can marry, however, Robert falls victim to Murad's revenge and is shipped to North Africa. For three years Robert fights Tripoli forces under the command of a Colonel Eaten, only to find upon his return that his father is dead, and Louise marries a Thomas Martin. Drunk on both grief and alcohol, Robert succumbs to his passion and sleeps with Catherine. The incest continues for years until finally a child named Edward is born. Edward's birth snaps Robert out of his passion for Catherine. He charges his niece Charollete to protect her new brother, and retreats back to the sea. Years pass. Robert falls in love with Irish girl Moira McDonnel, and returns to America with her as his wife. Like his father before him, war looms on the horizon, drawing Robert away from his family. After the war Robert is content with the hope of both rebuilding his family's wealth and raising his family. Robert has a minor role in the third volume, the Fallon Legacy. There are two pivotal moments that involve him. First he takes another French mistress named Lucille Gautier. This only exasperates the siutation with his wife Moira, who is waging war with Robert over allowing his bastards into his household and the defense of his incestous son Edward, who has grown up a spoiled noble much like his deceased half-uncle James. Robert breaks his defense for Edward when Edward arranges the kidnapping and rape of his half-sister Elizabeth by Lucien Fourrier's son Edouard. Robert Fallon is a source of ironic circumstance. His life of survival and the dangers he has endured makes him a close parallel of his father, who possesses the same will and determination. James, on the other hand, grows up a nobleman with the blind faith of wealth through breeding. He lacks Michael's endurance, thus aligning James more towards his uncle Justin Fourrier than Michael Fallon. In The Fallon Legacy, James Fallon, the last scion of the Fallon line, strikes south and west, adventuring in New Orleans, Missouri, and finally Texas (then still part of Mexico). He loves and loses women, ranches and breeds horses, and becomes entangled in the schemes of shady men and women. Enemies made by Michael and Robert during their lifetimes converge upon James, who must find out if he has strength enough to stand against them. |
The Twenty-One Balloons | William Pène du Bois | 1,947 | The introduction compares two types of journeys: one that aims to reach a place within the shortest time, and another that begins without regard to speed and without a destination in mind. Balloon travel is said to be ideal for the second kind. The main story begins in medias res with the rescue of Professor William Waterman Sherman, who was picked up by a steamship whilst floating among a strange wreck of twenty deflated gas balloons in the North Atlantic. Sherman, a recently retired schoolteacher, was last seen three weeks ago leaving San Francisco on a giant balloon, determined to spend a year drifting alone. The world waits breathlessly to find out how Sherman could have circumnavigated the globe in record time and landed in the ocean with twenty balloons rather than the one with which he began his journey. After several days' rest and a hero's welcome, the professor recounts his journey before a captivated audience. Sherman's flight over the Pacific Ocean was uneventful until an unfortunate accident involving a seagull puncturing his balloon forced him to crash land on the volcanic island of Krakatoa. He discovers that the island is populated by twenty families sharing the wealth of a secret diamond mine - by far the richest in the world - which they operate as a cartel. Each year, the families sail to the outside world with a small amount of diamonds, to purchase supplies for the hidden and sophisticated civilization they have built on the island. Each family has been assigned one of the first twenty letters of the alphabet, and lives in its own whimsical and elaborate house that also serves as a restaurant. The Krakatoa society follows a calendar with twenty-day months. On "A" Day of each month, everyone eats in Mr. and Mrs. A's American restaurant; on "B" Day, in Mr. and Mrs. B's British chop house; on "C" Day, in Mr. and Mrs. C's Chinese restaurant; on "D" Day, in Mr. and Mrs. D's Dutch restaurant, and so forth. Sherman's first friend on the island, Mr. F, runs a French restaurant containing a replica of the Hall of Mirrors. The houses are full of incredible items, such as Mr. M's Moroccan house, which has a living room with mobile furniture that operate like bumper cars. The children of the island invented their own form of amusement that combines elements from merry-go-round and balloon travel. When the volcano on Krakatoa erupts, the families and Sherman escape on a platform held aloft by twenty balloons (The book's title refers to these balloons along with Sherman's original balloon). As the platform drifts westward around the world, the families parachute off to India and Belgium to start their new lives. Sherman remains on the platform and finally descends onto the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, where he is rescued. The professor concludes his speech by telling the audience he intends to build an improved balloon for a year of life in the air. The novel describes Krakatoa as an island in the Pacific Ocean, but the Sunda Strait that contains the island is considered an arm of the Indian Ocean. |
Haunted | Chuck Palahniuk | 2,005 | "Guts" begins with the narrator telling the reader to hold their breath for the duration of the story. The narrator then describes several unnerving incidents involving adolescent boys masturbating. First, he describes a boy inserting a lubricated carrot into his rectum to stimulate his prostate while masturbating, and then hiding the carrot in a pile of laundry. His mother later takes the laundry away and presumably discovers the lubricated carrot, but never mentions it to him. Next, the narrator describes a young boy inserting a thin stick of candle wax into his urethra to stimulate it while masturbating. The wax slips back into the boy's bladder, which causes his urine flow to be stopped almost entirely and blood to seep from his penis. It requires expensive surgery to remove it, which the parents pay for using all the money from the boy's college savings. The narrator then refers, in passing, to numerous boys of about the same age accidentally asphyxiating themselves while masturbating, a fad to which a spike in teenage suicide rates is attributed. Finally, the narrator describes an incident in which he sat on the water intake at the bottom of a swimming pool while masturbating in a process he refers to as "Pearl diving". The suction causes his rectum and lower intestines to prolapse and become tangled in the filter, forcing the narrator to gnaw through his own innards to free himself and avoid drowning. The narrator's sister later becomes impregnated by semen deposited by the narrator in the pool, which results in her having an abortion. In the case of the three core incidents, although the parents of the boys involved knew about the incident, they never discussed it afterwards, causing all three to figuratively "hold their breath" while they waited for the reaction that never came. It is also called the boys' "invisible carrot" in a reference to the first story where the boys mother discovers the carrot he had placed in his anus to achieve a more pleasurable orgasm. Purportedly all three of these incidents are based on true stories. According to Palahniuk, the first two tales came from his friends' experiences and the third he heard while shadowing sexual addiction support groups as research for Choke. In one of these groups, he met an extremely thin man. When Palahniuk asked him how he stayed so thin, he told him "I had a massive bowel resectioning." When Palahniuk asked what he meant, he told him the story which was the basis for the third episode in "Guts". |
Hell House | Richard Matheson | 1,971 | The story concerns four people - Dr. Lionel Barrett, a physicist with an interest in parapsychology, his wife Edith, and two mediums (Florence Tanner, a Spiritualist and mental medium, and Benjamin Franklin Fischer, a physical medium) - who are hired by dying millionaire William Reinhardt Deutsch to investigate the possibility of life after death. To do so, they must enter the infamous Belasco House in Maine, regarded as the most haunted house in the world. The house is called "Hell House" due to the horrible acts of blasphemy and perversion that occurred there under the silent influence and supervision of Emeric Belasco. Fischer is the only survivor of a failed investigation attempt thirty years earlier. The novel combines supernatural horror with mystery as the researchers attempt to investigate the haunting of the house while their sanity is subtly undermined by its sinister supernatural influence. During the investigation, various influences begin to affect each character's personal weaknesses: Florence through her belief in Spiritualism and her over-eagerness to rid the house of its evil; Dr. Barrett through his almost-arrogant disbelief in/disregard for Spiritualism, his belief in science, and his debilitated physical condition (having suffered from polio when young); Edith through her personal fears, insecurities and pent-up desires; and Fischer through his deliberate inaction (which he calls "caution"). Hell House's potency comes from its apparent ability to corrupt those who enter its walls, before bringing about their destruction, both mental and physical. |
Daredevil: Born Again | Frank Miller | 1,986 | Karen Page, the former secretary of the Nelson & Murdock law offices and girlfriend of Matt Murdock, had left the series years earlier to pursue an acting career in Hollywood. Her plans did not work out, and she became a star of pornographic movies and a heroin addict. Her addiction finally drives her to sell Matt Murdock's secret identity for a shot of heroin. This information eventually reaches the Kingpin, who proceeds to test it. Over the next six months, he uses his vast influence to hound Murdock, causing his accounts to be frozen by the IRS, the bank to foreclose on his house and in general make Murdock's life increasingly unbearable. He even manipulates police lieutenant Nicholas Manolis into testifying that he saw Murdock pay a witness to perjure himself in a case. In the resulting trial, Murdock manages to avoid a jail term, but he is barred from practicing law. The Kingpin skillfully ruins Murdock's life piece by piece, but Murdock cannot see his handiwork—instead, he is convinced that he is simply unlucky and that there is no enemy for him to fight except for his increasingly desperate and violent attempts to investigate this situation. The Kingpin eventually exposes himself when he has Murdock's house firebombed—a signature mob act. Unfortunately, by now Murdock has become unhinged. He has trouble differentiating between his fantasies and the real world. He is homeless and destitute, and now believes he has no friends. He even thinks that his former girlfriend Glorianna O'Breen and his best friend and business partner Foggy Nelson are a part of a complex, all-encompassing conspiracy against him. Meanwhile, Murdock's confidant, Ben Urich, the Daily Bugle reporter, is investigating his friend's plight and finds evidence of the Kingpin's involvement. The Kingpin learns of this and has Urich's source killed and Urich's hand broken in order to intimidate him into silence. This cows Urich into keeping quiet and Murdock is left on his own. The now delusional Murdock decides to attack the Kingpin directly and force him to return his life. On the way, he brutally assaults three would-be robbers in a subway train and then beats up a police officer who attempts to arrest him and takes the officer's nightstick. In his weakened and confused state, he is allowed to enter the Kingpin's office, where he is quickly and brutally beaten by the crime lord. The badly hurt and unconscious Murdock is drenched in whiskey, strapped into a taxi cab whose owner is beaten to death with the billy club Murdock stole from the cop, and the taxi is pushed off a pier into the East River. The Kingpin anticipates that, when the car is eventually found, Murdock's reputation will suffer the final blow. The Kingpin revels in the knowledge that he has completely disgraced, destroyed and murdered the only good man he ever knew. When the taxi is finally found, there is no corpse. Instead of drowning, Murdock managed to smash the windshield and, in a supreme show of will, cut the safety belt with one of the fragments and swam to safety. Badly injured, Murdock stumbles through New York's Hell's Kitchen. An attempt to stop a robbery ends with Murdock stabbed by one of the assailants. He eventually ends up being rescued by his mother, who, having not been in Matt's life for decades, has become a nun at a local church. She nurses him back to health. At the same time, Karen Page – now hunted by Kingpin's men as part of Kingpin's orders to kill anyone who possessed knowledge of Murdock's secret identity—arrives in New York with an abusive drug dealer named Paulo Scorcese, intent on finding Murdock. She's unable to locate him, but meets up with Foggy Nelson, who takes her to his home in an effort to protect her from Paulo. Meanwhile, Urich manages to regain his courage and comes forward with his investigation, alerting his paper and the authorities of the situation. In the meantime, the Kingpin becomes increasingly obsessed with finding Murdock. He arranges for a violent mental patient to be released from an asylum, dress up as Daredevil and kill both Nelson and Page in an effort to provoke Murdock into resurfacing. In the meantime, the nurse who killed Urich's source attempts to kill Urich as well. Murdock intervenes in both plots, defeats the nurse and the patient, takes the latter's costume and proceeds to save Page from both Scorcese and another hitman sent by the Kingpin. The two are reunited and Matt comforts Karen with the fact that he has moved beyond regretting losing his material possessions. In a major misstep, the Kingpin uses his military connections to procure America's super soldier, Nuke, whom he sends to assault Hell's Kitchen. In a climactic battle, dozens of civilians die while Matt responds as Daredevil for the first time since the destruction of his home. Nuke uses heavy weaponry against Daredevil, who is plagued with not only the challenge of fighting an inhumanly formidable opponent, but the awareness through his enhanced senses of the casualties caused every time Nuke's weapons are fired. In the end, Daredevil defeats Nuke and, in an uncharacteristic move to stop the slaughter, uses Nuke's weapon to destroy an assault helicopter that supported Nuke and further threatened civilians, thereby killing the pilot. The Avengers arrive at the scene and take Nuke into custody. Captain America, however, is not pleased with the situation. Although the authorities claim that Nuke is a terrorist, the Captain is not convinced, especially after a discussion with Murdock, who tells him that the assailant's body was heavily enhanced. As America's original super soldier, the Captain is appalled that a violent, musclebound, insane man with little regard for the lives of civilians like Nuke may be the country's latest super soldier. Unsatisfied with the evasive answers given to him by Nuke's superiors, he breaks into the base's computer files to discover more about Nuke. He turns out to be the only surviving test subject of a severely flawed attempt to recreate Project Rebirth, the same project that originally enhanced the Captain's own body. Enraged by the treatment he is receiving in the media, Nuke breaks free from custody in the same base and runs amok in an attempt to attack the offices of the Daily Bugle. He is stopped by the Captain, but is subsequently shot and injured in an attack by the military. Daredevil comes to help and, while Captain America covers his exit, he attempts to get Nuke to a hospital, but Nuke dies in transit. Daredevil then takes Nuke to the offices of the Bugle, as irrefutable proof of the Kingpin's widespread influence in the military. In the end, the Kingpin's public image as an honest and respectable businessman and pillar of community is shattered, although he manages to avoid imprisonment while he plans for his revenge on Murdock. For his part, Matt Murdock accepts and enjoys a new, different but apparently fulfilling life in Hell's Kitchen with Karen Page and expresses no regret over the loss of his previous lifestyle as a successful lawyer. |
Radix | A. A. Attanasio | 1,981 | Radix is the story of a young man's odyssey of self-discovery, from dangerous adolescent to warrior, from outcast to near-god, in a far-future Earth dramatically changed from the one we know. |
Are You Afraid of the Dark? | Sidney Sheldon | 2,004 | In four cities across the world, four people die violently and mysteriously. The dead share a single crucial link: each was connected to an all-powerful environmental think tank. Two of the victims' widows—accomplished artist Diane Stevens and international supermodel Kelly Harris—may hold the key to their husbands' demise. Terrified for their lives, suspicious of each other, and armed only with their own wits and guile, they must join forces in a nightmare cycle of they loved...and about an awesome conspiracy whose ultimate target is as big as the earth and as close as the air we breathe. |
The Minister's Wooing | Harriet Beecher Stowe | null | The story is set in New England in a town called Newport. Dr. Hopkins is a 40-year-old minister. Mary is the daughter of his hostess in town, and Hopkins soon falls in love with Mary. Mary is unable to return his affections because she is still in love with James Marvyn, a sailor presumed lost at sea. Mary is a very religious and saintly girl, so after a period of mourning, she decides that she will marry Dr. Hopkins. Mary has other suitors, including Aaron Burr, but she sees that even though he is the grandson of Jonathan Edwards and has been raised in Calvinism, he is mired in evil. James eventually returns from sea and Dr. Hopkins knows that he cannot compete with Mary's love for James. Hopkins calls off the marriage, and Mary and James are free to marry and live happily. |
Anil's Ghost | Michael Ondaatje | 2,000 | The story opens up in early March as Anil arrives in Sri Lanka after a 15 year absence abroad. Her visit comes as a result of the increasing number of deaths in Sri Lanka from all the warring sides in the 1980s' civil war. While on an expedition with archeologist Sarath, Anil notices that the bones of a certain skeleton do not seem to be 6th century like the rest which leads her to conclude that the skeleton must be a recent death. Unsure where Sarath’s political allegiance lies, Anil is skeptical of his help, but agrees to it anyway. Along their journey to identify the skeleton, nicknamed Sailor, Anil becomes increasingly suspicious of Sarath. She begins to question his motives and sees his comments as a hint for her to censor herself since their discovery would implicate the Sri Lankan government in the death of Sailor. Later, Anil and Sarath visit his former teacher, Palipana, hoping to have him confirm their suspicions. Palipana then suggests having a reconstruction of the face done so that others might identify him. They agree to do so and head on to a small village named Galapitigama. There Anil meets Sarath's brother, Gamini, an emergency doctor. She discovers that he is intricately involved in the country's affairs and daily struggles to save the lives of numerous victims. Gamini helps them with a fellow Sri Lankan whose hands have been nailed to a road, and tells them about the various atrocities citizens face as a result of the civil war. Later Anil and Sarath meet with Ananda, on the advice of Palipana, hoping that he will be able to reconstruct the face of Sailor for them. Ananda does so after some days, despite Anil's impatience and skepticism, and then almost immediately attempts suicide, only to be rescued by an intuitive and quick-thinking Anil. Anil and Sarath eventually are able to identify Sailor in a small village. As Anil prepares a report to present to the authorities, claiming the skeleton as a recent death, and therefore evidence of state or state-sponsored terrorism, the skeleton of Sailor disappears. Frustrated, she goes on with her presentation, using another skeleton, but is upset when Sarath arrives after a lengthy and mysterious absence to ridicule her efforts and claim that she cannot back up her claims with the skeleton she has. Angry and betrayed, on her way out Anil is frequently stopped and inspected, and her belongings and research seized, such that by the time she leaves the building she is left with nothing. Outside, she meets Sarath, who surprises her with the body of Sailor that he has placed in a van. Sarath instructs Anil to prepare a fake report for the government and then leave the country the next morning on a plane that he arranged. Relieved, Anil does so in the hope that the evidence will be sufficient. Sarath's actions, however, have severe consequences, leading ultimately to his death. The novel ends with Ananda sculpting the eyes of a Buddha statue. |
Son of a Witch | Gregory Maguire | 2,005 | Oatsie Manglehand, a woman who leads the Grasstrail Train, discovers the body of a young man, badly bruised and near death, by the side of a road in the Vinkus. The Vinkus has lately become dangerous due to "scrapings", mysterious killings that involve the removal of the head's facial features, but this man's face has not been scraped. Oatsie brings the man to the Cloister of Saint Glinda in the Shale Shallows. The Superior Maunt recognizes the young man and identifies him as Liir, the young boy who left the Cloister with Elphaba a decade or so ago. The narrative is not chronological for the first part of the book: in the first two sections ("Under the Jackal Moon" and "The Service") the narrative shifts between the time when Liir left Kiamo Ko after the death of Elphaba to the time when Candle and Liir leave the Cloister. The second two sections ("The Emperor Apostle" and "No Place Like It") tell the story chronologically from Candle and Liir's arrival at Apple Press Farm to the end. An explanation for this narrative structure in the first part of the book is provided by references that Candle, in playing the domingon while Liir is in his coma-like state, is "guiding" him through his recollection of his past, and to the numerous and complex references in the novel to connections between past and present in the lives of individuals. After Elphaba's death in Wicked, Liir accompanies Dorothy Gale, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion and Toto back to the Emerald City. While traveling, they meet Princess Nastoya, the leader of the Scrow, a Vinkus tribe. Nastoya is an Elephant who, because of the Wizard's pogrom against Animals, availed herself of a witch's charm that enabled her to transform into a human. Nastoya is slowly dying, and she asks Liir to find a way to enable her return to Elephant form before she dies. In return, she promises that she will try to learn about the fate of Nor, Fiyero's daughter, who, with her family, was taken by the Wizard's forces. When they reach the Emerald City, the others go off to receive what they were promised by the Wizard, leaving Liir alone. Liir becomes convinced that Nor is in Southstairs, a subterranean city that operates as a maximum-security prison, and seeks the aid of Glinda, appointed acting ruler of Oz after the Wizard's departure. She enables Liir to access Southstairs by arranging a meeting with Shell, Elphaba's younger brother. Shell, who undertakes 'missions of mercy' in Southstairs, which involves 'comforting' female prisoners by injecting them with extract of poppy flower and taking sex as payment, brings him to the Under-Mayor, Chyde. When Chyde takes Liir to find Nor, they learn that Nor has recently escaped, by hiding in the carcasses of some slaughtered Horned Hogs. Liir leaves Southstairs by flying out (via the "original geological bucket" at the middle of Southstairs) on Elphaba's broom. After living on the streets of the Emerald City for a time, Liir manages to enlist in the Home Guard. After a number of years in the service, his and three other companies (known as the "Seventh Spear"), led by Commander Cherrystone, are deployed to Qhoyre in Quadling Country, ostensibly to find those responsible for the kidnapping of the Viceroy and his wife and to maintain order, but imperatively to show some strength against the Quadlings for their lack of interest in the disappearance of the Viceroy. Their quietism and general deferential nature, however, prevent the Seventh Spear from needing to display any force. Over time, the unit comes to absorb the laid-back nature of the inhabitants, and the authorities in Emerald City become critical about their laxness, ordering them to get back on mission immediately. To adopt an appearance of keeping the Quadlings in line, and in desperation, Commander Cherrystone provokes the village of Bengda into refusing to pay an exorbitant fine and orders Liir to lead a secret operation to burn the village. In the operation, many of the villagers including women and children are burned to death or drowned, and Liir, having witnessed this, deserts. Liir learns later that the Quadlings attacked and killed most of the Seventh Spear, and that dragons were then sent to punish the Quadlings. Liir returns to Kiamo Ko, where Chistery, Elphaba's Flying Snow Monkey, and her elderly Nanny are still living. While there, a badly injured Princess of the Swans lands, having been attacked by a predator she does not know the name of. Before she dies, she asks Chistery to take her place at a Conference of the Birds she has called. Although Chistery says he cannot go, Liir decides that since Elphaba would have attended the Conference, he will go in her stead. While flying on Elphaba's broom to reach the Conference, however, Liir is attacked by dragons and falls to earth, where he is found by Oatsie Manglehand. The Superior Maunt of the Cloister of Saint Glinda decides to appoint Candle, a young Quadling girl, to watch over Liir and soothe him by playing on her domingon, a Quadling guitar-like instrument. When Sister Doctor and Sister Apothecaire object, she informs them that she is sending them into the Vinkus to investigate the perpetrators of the scrapings of some novice maunts who were doing missionary work there. They encounter the Yunamata tribe and Princess Nastoya and the Scrow, who each accuse the other of perpetrating the scrapings. It becomes evident to the Sisters that neither tribe is responsible. When Candle believes that Liir is dying and is about to get help, an old maunt, Mother Yackle, stops her and locks her in the room with Liir. In a desperate attempt to save him, she performs mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on the boy, wraps him in her clothes and ultimately ends up raping him. Mother Yackle later unlocks the door, and, when the Superior Maunt and the newly returned Sisters Doctor and Apothecaire enter the sickroom, Candle and Liir are gone. The pair take up residence in a deserted farmhouse, which Candle names "Apple Press Farm." When he is fully recovered, Liir goes to the Conference of the Birds. As the Princess of the Swans had told Chistery, the Birds had until now been little concerned with the fate of other Animals under the Wizard's anti-Animal laws because, being flying creatures, they were relatively safe. However, the Birds were a potential threat to the Emerald City's efforts to divide those groups who might oppose them, like the tribes of the Vinkus and the Munchkinlanders, because they can see and report on what is going on throughout Oz. This is why the dragons are attacking Birds, and why the Conference is huddled up in Kumbricia's Pass, afraid to fly. The Conference wants Liir to destroy the dragons and recover the broom (taken by the dragons) in order to become their human ambassador, a request that Liir reluctantly agrees to fulfill. Returning to Apple Press Farm, Candle tells him she is pregnant. Liir insists he never had sex with her, so he cannot be the father, but Candle insists that he did and he is, and explains that she had sex with him while he was unconscious, although Liir remains unconvinced. Arriving back in the Emerald City, he meets Trism bon Cavalish, the soldier who had told him how to get into the Home Guard, who, he remembers, was a Minor Menacier involved in dragon husbandry. To Liir's disgust, Trism informs him that the Emperor Apostle, the current ruler of Oz, is none other than a born-again Shell. Trism is psychologically shattered because of his responsibility for training the dragons to perform their killing missions (including the scrapings), but, as chief dragon master, feels trapped, fearing for his and his family's life if he resists. Trism reveals the dragons are sent out to terrorize the population of Oz and ensure submission to the Emperor's authority. Liir convinces Trism to help him destroy the dragons, and after poisoning their food, they recover Elphaba's broom and cloak and flee the City. Liir leaves a note saying he has kidnapped Trism, signing himself "Liir, son of Elphaba." During their flight, Liir and Trism become lovers. They eventually end up at the Cloister of Saint Glinda, where Commander Cherrystone and the Home Guard besiege them. The mauntery is spared from attack because Glinda is staying there on retreat. With her help, they come up with a plan for the pair's escape: Liir will fly away on his broom, while Trism will leave with Glinda, disguised as her servant. Returning to the Conference of Birds, Liir flies about Oz, collecting and training a huge flock of Birds, which he leads to the Emerald City. Over the City, they fly in formation as a huge representation of the Witch, with Liir as "the keen black eye of the Witch." Returning to Apple Press Farm, Liir finds that Princess Nastoya and the Scrow have come. Candle informs him that Trism had earlier come to the farm and left, having unsuccessfully tried to persuade her to flee with him, telling her he was afraid Commander Cherrystone and the Home Guard would come looking for him. Liir comes up with the idea that Candle's music might release Nastoya from her human form, and he is correct: he has hung around Nastoya the preserved faces of scraping victims that he and Trism stole after poisoning the dragons (which were going to be displayed as an example of what would happen to those who defied the Emperor), and with Candle playing accompaniment, the faces sing about their lives. Somehow, this allows Nastoya to return to her Elephant form and she dies. The new ruler of the Scrow insists Liir accompany the Scrow and the Princess's body back into the Vinkus, in case they encounter the Yunamata. They do, but the Yunamata only pay their respects to the dead Nastoya and leave. When returning home, it suddenly dawns on Liir that the 'ELPHABA LIVES!" graffiti he has seen in the Emerald City is in Nor's handwriting. When he arrives at Apple Press Farm, Candle is gone, but he finds wrapped in Elphaba's cloak a newborn baby who he initially thinks is dead but revives under his care. Holding the baby up to the rain to wash away the birth blood, she "cleans up green." |
Pudd'nhead Wilson | Mark Twain | 1,894 | The setting is the fictional Missouri frontier town of Dawson's Landing on the banks of the Mississippi River in the first half of the 19th century. David Wilson, a young lawyer, moves to town and a clever remark of his is misunderstood, which causes locals to brand him a "pudd'nhead"a nitwit. His hobby of collecting fingerprints does not raise his standing in the townsfolk's eyes, who see him as an eccentric and do not frequent his law practice. Puddn'head Wilson moves into the background as the focus shifts to the slave Roxy, her son, and the family they serve. Roxy is only one-sixteenth black, and her son Valet de Chambre (referred to as "Chambers") is only 1/32 black. Roxy is principally charged with caring for her inattentive master's infant son Tom Driscoll, who is the same age as her own son. After fellow slaves are caught stealing and are nearly sold "down the river", to a master further south, Roxy fears for her life and the life of her son. First she decides to kill herself and Chambers to avoid being sold down the river, but then decides instead to switch Chambers and Tom in their cribs so that her son will live a life of privilege. The narrative moves forward two decades, and Tom Driscoll (formerly Valet de Chambre), believing himself to be wholly white and raised as a spoiled aristocrat, has grown to be a selfish and dissolute young man. Tom's father has died and granted Roxy her freedom. Roxy worked for a time on river boats, and saved money for her retirement. When she finally is able to retire, she discovers that her bank has failed and all of her savings are gone. She returns to Dawson's Landing to ask for money from Tom. Tom meets Roxy with derision and Roxy tells him that he is her son, and uses this fact to blackmail him into financially supporting her. Twin Italian noblemen visit the town to some fanfare, a murder is committed, and the story takes on the form of a crime novel. "The reader knows from the beginning who committed the murder, and the story foreshadows how the crime will be solved. The circumstances of the denouement, however, possessed in its time great novelty, for fingerprinting had not then come into official use in crime detection in the United States. Even a man who fooled around with it as a hobby was thought to be a simpleton, a 'pudd'nhead'." (From Langston Hughes' introduction to the novel) The story describes the racism of the antebellum south, even as to seemingly white people with minute traces of African ancestry, and the acceptance of that state of affairs by all involved, including the black population. |
Heart of a Dog | Mikhail Bulgakov | 1,925 | Moscow, 1925. While foraging for trash one winter day, a stray dog is found by a cook and scalded with boiling water. Lying forlorn in a doorway, the dog awaits his end awash in thoughts of self-pity. To his surprise, successful surgeon Filip Filippovich Preobrazhensky arrives and offers the dog a piece of sausage. Overjoyed, the dog follows Filip back to his flat, where he is given the stock dog name, Sharik. At the house, Sharik gets to know Dr. Preobrazhensky's household, which includes the medical student Bormental and two female servants. Despite the Professor's blatant anti-communism, his frequent medical treatment of the CPSU leadership makes him untouchable. As a result, he refuses to decrease his seven room flat and treats the Bolsheviks on the housing committee, led by Shvonder, with unveiled contempt. Impressed by his new master, Sharik slips easily into the role of "a gentleman's dog." After several days, one of the servants begins taking Sharik for walks through Moscow. Preening in his new collar, Sharik is unmoved by the taunts of a passing stray. After his health improves, the Professor at last reveals his real intentions in taking in Sharik. As the laboratory is prepped, he orders Sharik locked in the bathroom. As a seething Sharik plots to again destroy the Professor's stuffed owl, the door opens and he is dragged by the scruff of the neck into the lab. There, he is sedated and an operation begins. As Bormental assists, the Professor trepans Sharik's skull and gives him a human pituitary gland. Sharik's torso is also opened and he is given human testicles. Only repeated injections of adrenaline prevent the dog from dying on the operating table. During the weeks after the operation, the household is stunned as Sharik begins transforming into an incredibly unkempt human. After building an alliance with Shvonder, the former canine is granted papers under the absurd name "Poligraf Poligrafovich Sharikov." In the aftermath, the Professor and Bormental patiently attempt to teach Sharikov basic ettiquette. Instead, Sharikov mocks the idea of manners as relics of Tsarism. He insists that it is better to behave, as he puts it, "naturally." As a result, Sharikov curses in front of women, refuses to shave, and dresses like a complete slob. Meawhile, Sharikov progressively turns the Professor's life into a living hell. One day, he accidentally turns on the spigot while chasing a cat. With the bathroom door locked, the entire apartment is flooded. Later, he is caught attempting to rape one of the female servants. Enraged, Bormental beats Sharikov up and forces him to apologize. Infuriated, Sharikov leaves the apartment and remains gone for several days. Later, Bormental begs the Professor for permission to dose Sharikov with arsenic, calling him a man with "the heart of a dog." The Professor is horrified and orders Bormental not to "slander the dog." He explains that the human body parts, which came from a drunken Proletarian, are responsible for all of Sharikov's defects. Bormental then suggests that they redo the operation, using the body of a genius. Again the Professor refuses, explaining that the operation was meant to improve the Human race. Breaking with his former beliefs, the Professor admits that any peasant woman could give birth to a genius and that eugenics are therefore a waste of time. In conclusion, the Professor refuses to permit Sharikov's murder or to undo the operation, which could easily kill him as well. Soon after, Sharikov returns, explaining that he has been granted a job by the Soviet State. He now spends his work-day strangling vagrant cats, whose fur is used to imitate that of squirrels. Soon after Sharikov brings home a female co-worker, whom he introduces to the Professor as his new common law wife. Instead of giving them their own room as Sharikov demands, the Professor takes the woman aside and explains that Sharikov is the product of a lab experiment gone horribly wrong. The woman, who had believed that Sharikov was a Red Army veteran maimed during the Russian Civil War, leaves the apartment in tears. Seething with hatred, Sharikov threatens to fire her. Again Bormental beats Sharikov up and makes him promise not to do anything of the sort. The following day, a senior Party official arrives and informs the Professor that Sharikov has denounced him to the secret police, or CHEKA. Explaining that nothing is going to happen to him due to the State's distrust of Sharikov, the Party official departs. When Sharikov returns, the Professor and Bormental order him to leave the flat permanently. Instead, Sharikov refuses and draws a revolver. Enraged, the Professor and Bormental pounce upon him. That night, an ominous silence reigns in the flat and the lights are left on for many hours after bedtime. Over the days that follow, the Professor and Bormental look far more relaxed than at any time before Sharikov's arrival. Eventually, the police arrive escorted by Shvonder. Bearing a search warrant, they demand to see Sharikov on pain of arresting the Professor and Bormental. Unintimidated, the Professor orders Bormental to summon Sharikov, who is slowly being transformed back into a dog. The Professor explains the change as a natural phenomenon, although it is obvious to the reader that in fact he and Bormental have simply performed the reverse operation. Followed by the now apoplectic Shvonder, the police depart. In the aftermath, the fully canine Sharik blissfully resumes his status as a gentleman's dog. However, he is soon terrified to see the Professor bringing home a human brain and removing the pituitary gland... |
Scandal | A. N. Wilson | null | Set in the early 1980s, Scandal is about Derek Blore, an MP who, as a public figure, pays lip service to traditional values such as marriage, family and religion while at the same time paying for kinky sex with a young prostitute who is too stupid to realize who he really is. A few years earlier that girl, Bernadette Woolley, left her home town of Bognor Regis after an argument with her mother, went to London, advertised her services in a sleazy shop in Notting Hill, and had her first sexual intercourse, at 17, with her first customer. Now Bernadette has her own flat in Hackney where she can work undisturbed, and a pimp looking after her, Stan Costigano. Without Bernadette knowing let alone caring about it, her apartment has been equipped with video cameras and microphones which can be used to compromise, and eventually blackmail, her customers. Soon the people who pull the strings behind the scenes have Blore on tape—a long-term victim of his public school education, in shorts, on his knees, begging to be caned by his "teacher", Bernadette. As it happens—this is the time of the Cold War—Costigano's employers have a direct link to the Soviet embassy, where each of the politician's clandestine visits to Hackney is secretly registered. When he becomes a secretary of state in the new government Blore finally stops seeing Bernadette because it dawns upon him that now the risk of being found out is just too high. However, Derek Blore's downfall does not come about through Soviet intervention or through a political opponent seeing him enter or leave Bernadette's flat. Rather, it is his beautiful and absolutely loyal yet promiscuous wife Priscilla whose indiscretion towards her current lover, a journalist called Henry Feathers, triggers the "Blore Affair". ("Priscilla did not sleep with every man in London. When Feathers seduced her, it was a whole eighteen months since she had been unfaithful to Derek.") One day, after their lovemaking, she casually tells the journalist about the morning when her husband's "whore" came to see him at home. Reckoning that the story will be a scoop, Feathers composes a series of articles which finally appear in mid-summer, while the Blores are on a family holiday in France. Denying all allegations, Derek Blore is intent on sitting out his ordeal ("I've been in politics now for twenty-five years. And I hope I'm going to be in politics for a further twenty-five years.") and also announces that he is of course planning to sue Feathers and his newspaper. However, the Prime Minister is informed of the true state of affairs, knows that Blore is lying, and has him arrested while he is taking part in a rural pageant in his capacity as a church warden. |
The Holcroft Covenant | Robert Ludlum | 1,978 | The novel concerns Noel Holcroft, New York architect—and secretly the son of Heinrich Clausen, chief economic advisor to the Third Reich. At some point in the 1970s, Holcroft is contacted by the Grande Banque de Geneve, concerning his father's will and testament. The testament says that in the last half of the war, Clausen found out about the Holocaust. Horrified and desperate to make amends, he and his two friends stole vast amounts of money from thousands of individual sources throughout the Reich and funneled them into a secure account in Zurich, Switzerland. Now, if Holcroft will contact the children of the two friends, they can form a group to distribute the funds and alleviate some of the pain of the Holocaust. Ranged against him in this noble endeavor is the last trace of the Third Reich: the children of Projekt Sonnenkinder. In the dying days of the war, a vast search went out throughout Germany. The children of Germany's finest, screened for physical and psychological frailties, were sent to isolated hamlets and right-wing communities all over the world by airplane and U-boat. They were raised, provided for, and indoctrinated. Those who showed promise were inducted into the conspiracy by their elders; those that weren't were "removed." They have waited thirty years for the funds so as to finally take over the world. Their leader, the Tinamou, is the world's deadliest assassin. As Holcroft attempts to carry out what he believes to be the noble, secret mission of his biological father, he is continuously blindsided as good guys turn out to be bad guys, bad guys turn out to be good guys, and Holcroft, who has no training whatsoever in intelligence, is forced to learn on the job. |
The Power Broker | Robert Caro | 1,974 | Caro traces Moses's life from his childhood in Gay Nineties Connecticut to his early years as an idealistic advocate for Progressive reform of the city's corrupt civil service system. Moses's failures there, and later experience working for future governor of New York Al Smith in the New York State Assembly and future New York Mayor Jimmy Walker in the State Senate, taught him how power really worked, that he needed it to make his dreams of roads and bridges for the city reality, and that ideals and principles had to be set aside if necessary to make them happen, Caro says. By the 1930s, he had earned a reputation as a creator of beautiful parks in both the city and state, and later long-sought projects like the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, but at the price of his earlier integrity. Caro ultimately paints a portrait of Moses as an unelected bureaucrat who, through his reputation for getting large construction projects done, amassed so much power over the years that the many elected officials whom he was supposedly responsive to instead became dependent on him. He consistently favored automobile traffic over mass transit, human and community needs, and while making a big deal of the fact that he served in his many public jobs (save as New York City Parks Commissioner) without compensation, lived like a king and similarly enriched those individuals in public and private life who aided him. While Caro pays ample tribute to Moses's intelligence, political shrewdness, eloquence and hands-on, if somewhat aggressive, management style, and indeed gives full credit to Moses for his earlier achievements, it is clear from the book's introduction onward that Caro's view of Moses is ambivalent (some of the readers of The Power Broker would conclude that Caro possessed only contempt for his subject). At 1,336 pages (only two-thirds of the original manuscript), it provides documentation of its assertions in most instances, which Moses (and his supporters after his death) have consistently attempted to refute. Because Caro's narrative includes a great deal of history about New York City itself, the book is considered by many to be a monumental scholarly work in its own right, transcending the normal style of a biography that focuses on the life of a single person. |
A Tiger for Malgudi | R. K. Narayan | 1,983 | The tiger recounts his story of capture by a [circus] owner, and his eventual escape. He lived freely in the wild jungles of India in his youth. He mates and has a litter with a tigress, and raises a litter until one day he finds that hunters have captured and killed his entire family. He exacts revenge by attacking and eating the cattle and livestock of nearby villages, but is captured by poachers. He is sent to a zoo in Malgudi, where a harsh animal trainer known only as "the Captain" starves him and forces him to do tricks in the circus. He lives in captivity successfully for some time, but eventually his wild instincts overcome him and he mauls and kills the Captain. After an extended rampage though town, he is recaptured, but this time voluntarily by a monk/renunciant with whom he passes the rest of his life on the hills. hi:ए टाइगर फ़ॉर मालगुडी |
The End of Alice | null | null | The child killer – identified only as "Chappy" – who narrates most of the novel, has been in prison for 23 years. Now in his 50s and with a parole hearing approaching, he receives a letter from an unnamed 19-year-old girl who takes a morbid interest in his case. She then begins to relate how she plans on seducing a 12-year-old boy named Matthew who lives in her neighbourhood. The girl corresponds with him and the man’s past is contrasted with explicit details of how she seduces Matthew, a typical young boy with many of the unattractive habits a 12-year-old can have, plus a few uniquely disgusting ones of his own creation. Chappy encourages her, and the girl soon accomplishes her mission by first giving Matthew tennis lessons and then, when she babysits him, strips naked and gives him a quick hands-on lesson in feminine biology. The pair soon have sex and continue to do so on regular occasions. Chappy eagerly reads the girl's letters as she describes her successes, although he also berates her for her poor grammar and for her liberal use of exclamation points. There are several scenes of prison sex. During the novel, Chappy makes frequent references to "Alice," his victim, but it is only towards the end of the book that he finally elaborates. Alice was a 12-year-old girl with whom he had a sexual relationship. At the very end of the story, during his parole hearing, we find out the convict brutally murdered and decapitated Alice after she blamed him for her bleeding, which was actually her period (she didn't know what it was). He tried to explain to her what had happened, but she kept threatening to kill him. The novel also references Chappy's childhood, especially his unstable, emotionally and sexually abusive mother. |
Protector | Larry Niven | 1,973 | The novel comprises two phases in the same space that are separated by 220 years of time. Its central conceit is that humans evolved from the juvenile stage of the Pak, a species with a distinct adult form ("protectors") that have superhuman strength and intelligence and care only about younger Pak of their bloodline. A key plot point is that transition to the protector stage is mediated by consumption of the root of a particular plant called Tree-of-Life, which cannot be effectively cultivated on Earth. The species is described in greater detail below. The implication, never explicitly stated, is that the Tree of Life in Paradise, mentioned in the Bible's Book of Genesis, represents a vague memory of that plant. The first half of the book follows the path of a Pak named Phssthpok who has travelled from the Pak homeworld in search of a colony of Pak in the distant system of Sol (our solar system). Upon his arrival, he captures a Belter (a worker from the asteroid belt) named Jack Brennan, who is infected by Phssthpok's store of tree-of-life root and is transformed into a protector (or at least a human variant). They land on Mars where Brennan kills Phssthpok and is rescued by two humans, Nick Sohl and Lucas Garner, who had set out to meet the alien. The first half of the novel ends with Brennan telling his story to the humans before he heads for the outer reaches of the solar system. The second half of the book follows the path of a human named Roy Truesdale who has been abducted with no memory of the event. While searching for his abductor, he befriends a Belter named Alice Jordan who helps him figure out that the man he has sought is none other than Jack Brennan. Truesdale and Jordan find Brennan in the outer solar system on a fabricated world of Brennan's design called Kobold. Brennan discovers that a Pak invasion fleet is headed towards human space and takes Truesdale to a human outpost colony called Home in an effort to divert attention away from Earth. During their journey they battle with scout ships from the Pak fleet. Brennan and Truesdale arrive at Home only to have Truesdale realize that Brennan plans to convert the colony into a defensive Human Protector army. Truesdale kills Brennan and lands on Home, but is himself infected with a mutated strain of the Tree-of-Life virus that quickly spreads to a number of other colonists, thus carrying out Brennan's plan despite Truesdale's initial attempts to thwart it. Upon his conversion to protector form, Truesdale immediately understands the necessity of Brennan's plan and completes it by breaking out of hospital confinement and infecting the entire population of Home. The modified virus either kills or converts the remaining inhabitants, resulting in an army of childless protectors. The new protectors know that they absolutely must act quickly to save the rest of humanity, and start preparing for battle with the Pak invasion fleet. As an aside, it is mentioned that during his sojourn in the outer Solar System Brennan had engineered a genocide on Mars, sending a large ice asteroid to crash into the planet in order to raise the water content of its atmosphere. Water is lethal to the Martians' metabolism, thus this effectively wiped out the species. This incident serves to underscore the Pak Protectors' inherent xenophobia and utter ruthlessness in pursuing their ultimate goal of protecting their descendants. The events which impelled Brennan to this action are those narrated in How the Heroes Die and At the Bottom of a Hole, two short 1966 stories which Niven originally published in Galaxy Science Fiction and later collected in Inconstant Moon. |
Ignited Minds | Abdul Kalam | null | *The book begins with a sad note. On 30 September 2001, Kalam’s helicopter, while on its way from Ranchi, Jharkhand state, India to Bokaro crashed, but all aboard miraculously survived. He was administered that night a tranquilizer, and he recalls having seen a very vivid dream. He writes in the book that he saw himself in a desert “with miles of sand all around,’ and there stood five men, namely, Emperor Ashoka, Mahatma Gandhi, Albert Einstein, Abraham Lincoln and Caliph Omar. Kalam felt dwarfed by their presence, and recounts the words of these great personalities. *The next chapter emphasises the importance of mother, father and elementary school teachers as role models. *The third chapter tells that "Vision ignites the minds", and talks about the modern Indian visionaries like J. R. D. Tata, Vikram Sarabhai, Satish Dhawan and Dr. Verghese Kurien. *The next section of the book deals with the spiritual heritage of the Indian nation and talks about developing a model of development based on India's inherent strengths. *The fifth chapter of the book exhorts the Indians, constituting a nation of one billion people "with multitude faiths and ideologies" to develop a "national vision" and amalgamate into one "national forum." *The next chapter begins with a Thirukkural, which states: "Wisdom is a weapon to ward off destruction;It is an inner fortress which enemies cannot destroy". This chapter reminds the readers that Ancient India was a "knowledge society that contributed a great deal to civilization." *The caption line of the seventh chapter is followed by the following inspiring words of Abraham Lincoln: "Determine that things can and shall be done, and then we shall find the way." *The eighth chapter exhorts for a change in the mindset and to take pragmatic risks, which shall result into success. *The ninth and the last chapter, with the caption line of "To My Countrymen" begins with few words of the Nobel laureate, Rabindranath Tagore - "let my country awake." *The book ends with a "Song of Youth", with these opening words: "As a young citizen of India ,armed with technology and love for my nation,I realize, a small aim is a crime." |
2001: A Space Odyssey | Arthur C. Clarke | 1,968 | In the background to the story in the book, an ancient and unseen alien race uses a device with the appearance of a large crystalline monolith to investigate worlds all across the galaxy and, if possible, to encourage the development of intelligent life. The book shows one such monolith appearing in ancient Africa, 3 million years B.C. (in the movie, this was altered to 4 million years), where it inspires a starving group of the hominid ancestors of human beings to develop tools. The ape-men use their tools to kill animals and eat meat, ending their starvation. They then use the tools to kill a leopard that had been preying on them; the next day, the main ape character, Moon-Watcher, uses a club to kill the leader of a rival tribe. Moon-Watcher reflects that though he is now master of the world, he is unsure of what to do next—but he will think of something. The book suggests that the monolith was instrumental in awakening intelligence, and enabling the transition of the ape-men to a higher order, with the ability to fashion crude tools and thereby be able to hunt and forage for food in a much more efficient fashion. The book then leaps ahead a few million years to the year 1999, detailing Dr. Heywood Floyd's travel to Clavius Base on the Moon. Upon his arrival, Floyd attends a meeting. A lead scientist explains that they have found a magnetic disturbance in Tycho, one of the Moon's craters, designated Tycho Magnetic Anomaly One, or TMA-1. An excavation of the area has revealed a large black slab; it is precisely fashioned to a ratio of exactly 1:4:9, or 1²:2²:3²—that is to say that the thickness of the slab is exactly 1/4 of its width and 1/9 of its height. Such a construction rules out any naturally-occurring phenomena, and at three million years of age, it was not crafted by human hands. It is the first evidence for the existence of extraterrestrial intelligent life. Floyd and a team of scientists drive across the moon to actually view TMA-1. They arrive just as sunlight hits upon it for the first time in three million years. It then sends a piercing radio transmission to the far reaches of the solar system. The signal is tracked to one of the moons of Saturn, Japetus (Iapetus), where an expedition is then planned to investigate. The book leaps forward 18 months to 2001 to the Discovery One mission to Saturn. Dr. David Bowman and Dr. Francis Poole are the only conscious human beings aboard Discovery One spaceship. Their three other colleagues are in a state of suspended animation, to be awakened when they near Saturn. The HAL 9000, an artificially intelligent computer addressed as "HAL," maintains the ship and is a vital part of life aboard. While Poole is receiving a birthday message from his family back home, HAL tells Bowman that the AE-35 unit of the ship is going to malfunction. The AE-35 unit is responsible for keeping their communication dish aimed at Earth; without it, receiving support would be impossible. Poole takes one of the extra-vehicular pods and swaps the AE-35 unit. But when Bowman conducts tests on the AE-35 unit that has been replaced, he determines that there was never anything wrong with it. Poole and Bowman become suspicious at HAL's refusal to admit that there could be something wrong with his failure detection sensors. HAL then claims that the replacement AE-35 unit will fail. Poole and Bowman radio back to Earth; they are told that there is most definitely something wrong with HAL, and are directed to disconnect him for analysis. These instructions are interrupted as the signal is broken. HAL informs them that the AE-35 unit has malfunctioned. Poole takes a pod outside the ship to bring in the failed AE-35 unit. As he is removing the unit, the pod, which he had left parked close by, on the ship's hull, begins moving toward him. He is powerless to move out of the way in time and is killed when his spacesuit is torn, exposing him to the vacuum of space. Bowman is shocked by Poole's death and is deeply distressed. He is unsure whether HAL, a machine, really could have killed Poole. He decides that he will need to wake up the other three astronauts. He has an argument with HAL, with HAL refusing to obey his orders to switch the hibernation pods to manual operation, insisting that Bowman is incapacitated. Bowman threatens to disconnect him if his orders are not obeyed, and HAL relents, giving him manual control to wake the sleeping scientists. But as Bowman begins to awaken his colleagues, he hears HAL open both airlock doors into space, venting the ship’s internal atmosphere. The air on board is lost to the vacuum of space. Bowman makes his way into a sealed emergency shelter, which has an isolated oxygen supply and spare spacesuit. He then puts on the spacesuit and re-enters the ship, knowing HAL to be a murderer. Bowman then laboriously shuts down HAL's consciousness, leaving intact his purely autonomic functions needed for power and life support. With the ship back in order, he manually re-establishes contact with Earth. He then learns that the true purpose of the mission is to explore Iapetus, the third-largest moon of Saturn, in the hope of contacting the society that buried the monolith on the Moon. Bowman learns that HAL had begun to feel guilty and conflicted about keeping the purpose of the mission from him and Poole, which ran contrary to his stated mission of gathering information and reporting it fully. This conflict had started to manifest itself in little errors. Given time, HAL might have been able to resolve this crisis peacefully, but when he was threatened with disconnection, he panicked and defended himself out of a belief that his very existence was at stake, having no concept of the state of sleep. Bowman spends months on the ship, alone, slowly approaching Iapetus. A return to Earth is now out of the question, as HAL's sudden decompression of Discovery severely damaged the ship's air filtration system, leaving Bowman with far less breathable air than either returning to Earth or waiting for a rescue ship would require, and hibernation is impossible without HAL to monitor it. During his long approach, he gradually notices a small black spot on the surface of Japetus. When he gets closer, he realizes that this is an immense black monolith, identical in shape to TMA-1, only much larger. The scientists back on Earth name this monolith "TMA-2," which Bowman points out is a double misnomer because it is not in the Tycho moon crater and gives off no magnetic anomaly whatsoever. He decides to go out in one of the extra-vehicular pods to make a closer inspection of the monolith. Programmed for just such an occurrence, the monolith reveals its true purpose as a star gate when it opens and pulls in Bowman's pod. Before he vanishes, Mission control hears him proclaim: "The thing's hollow—it goes on forever—and—oh my God—it's full of stars!" Bowman is transported via the monolith to an unknown star system. During this journey, he goes through a large interstellar switching station, and sees other species' spaceships going on other routes; he dubs it the 'Grand Central Station' of the universe. Bowman is given a wide variety of sights; from the wreckage of ancient civilizations to what appear to be life-forms, living on the surfaces of a binary star system. He is brought to what appears to be a nice hotel suite, carefully constructed from monitored television transmissions, and designed to make him feel at ease. Bowman goes to sleep. As he sleeps, his mind and memories are drained from his body, and he is made into a new immortal entity, a Star Child, that can live and travel in space. The Star Child then returns to our Solar System and to Earth. Once there, he detonates an orbiting nuclear warhead. Like Moon-Watcher three million years before, the Star Child is now master of the world and uncertain what to do next—but like Moon-Watcher, the Star Child too will think of something. |
Wintersmith | Terry Pratchett | 2,006 | Tiffany Aching, now 13 years old, is training with the witch Miss Treason. But when she takes Tiffany to witness the secret dark morris, the morris dance (performed wearing black clothes and octiron bells) that welcomes in the winter, Tiffany finds herself drawn into the dance and joins in. She finds herself face to face with the Wintersmith—winter himself—who mistakes her for the Summer Lady. He is enchanted by her, mystified by her presence. Unknowingly, Tiffany drops her silver horse pendant (a gift from Roland, the Baron's son) during the Dance. The Wintersmith uses the pendant to find Tiffany and give her back the pendant during their second encounter. From then on, he uses the pendant to find her and deliver his gifts. The elder witches, including Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg, discover that the Wintersmith has been tracking her. Granny Weatherwax demands that she throw her silver horse pendant into Lancre Gorge. Things get trickier for Tiffany when she discovers she has some of the Summer Lady's powers—plants start to grow where she walks barefooted, and the Cornucopia appears, causing problems by spurting out food and animals. Before the problem with Tiffany and the Wintersmith is resolved, Miss Treason dies. The young witch Annagramma acquires Miss Treason's cottage, but she needs help from Tiffany and the other young witches before she can learn to cope on her own. Tiffany goes to live with Nanny Ogg. The Wintersmith decides that the reason Tiffany will not be his is that he is not human. Learning a simple rhyme from some children about what basic elements comprise a human body, he sets off to gather the correct ingredients. He makes himself a body out of these elements and pursues Tiffany, but without truly understanding what it is to be human. Granny Weatherwax instructs the Nac Mac Feegles, who watch Tiffany closely to protect their "big wee hag," to find a Hero, namely her childhood acquaintance and incipient love interest, Roland. Roland must descend into the underworld, guided by the Nac Mac Feegles, and awaken the real Lady Summer from her storybook slumber. But first the Feegles help Roland train to use a sword by providing him with a moving target (themselves inside a suit of armour). Roland and the Nac Mac Feegles go into the underworld where Roland fights creatures that feed on memories. He rescues the Summer Lady, who looks much like Tiffany and they flee back above ground. Meanwhile, the Wintersmith continues to cover the land with Tiffany-shaped snowflakes. The harsh, prolonged winter starts burying houses, blocking roads, and killing off the sheep of the Chalk. Hiding inside her father's house, Tiffany is surprised to find her silver pendant inside a fish that her brother, Wentworth, has caught. This allows the Wintersmith to discover where she is, and he takes her to his ice palace, where she ultimately manages to stop him, melting him with a kiss, and fulfilling the Dance of Seasons, in which Summer and Winter die and are reborn in turn. |
I Shall Wear Midnight | null | null | Tiffany is working as the Chalk's only witch in a climate of growing suspicion and prejudice: When the local Baron dies of poor health, she is accused of murder. Tiffany travels to Ankh-Morpork to inform the Baron's heir, Roland, who happens to be in the city with his fiancée Letitia. On the way Tiffany is attacked by the Cunning Man, a frightening figure who has holes where his eyes should be. In the city she meets Mrs Proust, the proprietor of Boffo's joke shop, where many witches buy their stereotypical-witch accoutrements. When they find Roland and Letitia the Nac Mac Feegles, who have as usual been following Tiffany, are accused of destroying a pub. Tiffany and Mrs Proust are arrested by Carrot and Angua, and (nominally) locked up - although it is mostly, in fact, for their protection as people start to resent witches. When they are released the next day, Tiffany meets Eskarina "Esk" Smith (not seen since the events of the third Discworld novel, Equal Rites), who explains to her that the Cunning Man was, a thousand years ago, an Omnian witch-finder, who had fallen in love with a witch. That witch, however, knew how evil the Cunning Man was. She was eventually burnt to death, but as she was being burned she trapped the Cunning Man in the fire as well. The Cunning Man became a demonic spirit of pure hatred, able to corrupt other minds with suspicion and hate. Esk announces that the Cunning Man is coming. Tiffany and the Feegles return to the Chalk, where they find the Baron's soldiers trying to dig up the Feegle mound. She stops them, and goes to see Roland, who throws her in a dungeon (which she locks on the inside, and is brought bacon, eggs, and coffee in the morning). It is later learned that the Cunning Man was responsible for these actions. She escapes, however, and goes to see Letitia, whom she discovers is also an untrained but talented witch. She sees the Cunning Man twice while at Letitia's home, and as guests begin to arrive at Roland and Letitia's wedding, the other witches start to arrive...so that if the Cunning Man takes over her body, they can kill her. The night before the wedding, Tiffany, Roland, Letitia and Preston (a castle guard whom Tiffany has befriended) meet at one of the fields that needs to be burned to clear it of stubble; Tiffany lures the Cunning Man into the flames and defeats him. After some discussions, the story then jumps forward a year where she is offered a beautiful black dress by Amber. We can see Preston, who is about as smart as Tiffany, showing his love for her and Tiffany reciprocating it. |
The Peshawar Lancers | S. M. Stirling | 2,002 | It is October 2025. It has been 148 years since a series of comet impacts rendered life in the northern hemisphere unbearable, forcing the great empires of Eurasia to move south to survive. Athelstane King is an officer in the Peshawar Lancers, a cavalry and heavy infantry unit guarding the North-West Frontier province of the Viceroyalty of India, in the center of the Angrezi Raj. King, along with his friend, the Sikh Daffadar Narayan Singh, is ordered to go on medical leave after being wounded in battle against border raiders from the Emirate of Afghanistan. King comes from a well-to-do family, with a long tradition of service to the British Empire. King and Singh go to the officer's club near the city of Oxford (formerly Srinagar). King is especially eager to be with his Kashmiri mistress Hasamurti. While at the officer's club, he meets Imperial Political Services agent Sir Manfred Warburton, and an agent from distant France-outre-Mer, Henri de Vascogne. Vascogne is in the Raj to lay the groundwork for an arranged marriage between King-Emperor John II's daughter Sita and the heir to the throne of France-outre-mer. Warburton arranges for King to meet him in Delhi in one week. Meanwhile, trouble is brewing. Russian Okhrana agent Vladimir Obromovich Ignatieff and Sister of the True Dreamers Yasmini are on their way into the Raj to kill both Athelstane and his sister, Cassandra. On their way there, Yasmini dreams of literally being the Raj's sacred Mahatma Disraeli. Since she can dream of the future (as well as different outcomes), she is able to dream ways around the Imperial patrols. At the same time, Cassandra Mary Effingham King, devoted Whig and brilliant scientist is on her way home to Oxford from Delhi. She is heavily involved on a project to find ways to deflect another meteor, asteroid, or comet from impacting the earth. Ignatieff, disguised as an impious Muslim, makes a contract with Bengali separatists to kill Cassandra (which they very nearly do; they do kill one of the Raj's best physicists in the process). A group of armed Thuggee try to kill Athelstane King in the Peshawar officer's club, after killing Hasamurti. King decides to leave for Oxford in disguise, but on the train, he is nearly killed again by the Pashtun assassin Ibrahim Khan. When King confronts Khan over who hired him, he makes the connection that a Russian has been sending the assassins. Khan, upon hearing this, swears vengeance at being misled and agrees to follow King. Athelstane returns to his home in the Vale of Kashmir: Rexin Manor. There, Narayan Singh's father, Ranjit, tells Athelstane the truth behind his father's death. When Athelstane was only four, his father, Eric, was on a mission to the foothills of Afghanistan to investigate a smuggling operation. Warburton and Ranjit Singh were also with him. However, they were led into an ambush, in which Eric was killed. The man who caused it, a self-proclaimed holy man from the Zagros mountains, had a seer. This confirms King's theory. He is sent by his mother to Delhi to find Elias bar-Binyamin, a Jewish financier whom the King family has a mutual debt (or tessera) with, to gain further information. Cassandra, shaken by the death of her friend the physicist, is hired by the palace to play tutor to Sita. This is arranged by Sir Manfred to keep her safe. She meets her brother, the heir to the Lion Throne, Charles and finds herself interested in him. In Delhi, on his way to the bar-Binyamin residence, Athelstane is met in the streets by Yasmini, who has deserted Ignatieff to help King. She warns him against going down an alleyway, which turns out to be full of assassins from Dai-Nippon. The fight with the assassins spills over into Warburton's residence, where they are defeated. However, when they get there, Warburton has been critically injured by Ignatieff himself. Ignatieff has been joined by another IPS agent, Richard Allenby. Ignatieff and Allenby escape, and then Allenby uses his powers to summon the police. In order to help his friends escape, Narayan Singh stays behind to face the police. Allenby orders Singh taken to his own house for interrogation. The group then makes their way to Elias residence. As Warburton recovers, Elias tells them the story of how Eric King went to Bokhara to save his son David from imprisonment. Yasmini reveals further details of the Sisterhood of True Dreamers, telling them of a terrible dream kept from the Czar himself. She tells them that if Athelstane and Cassandra King die, then somehow, the King-Emperor and his heir will die. There will be no union with France, and in time, the Empire will be torn asunder by a massive world war and separatist movements. Then, around a hundred years from the present, another asteroid impact will occur, leaving only the rats surviving. The group, joined by David bar-Elias, goes to Allenby's residence to expose him as a traitor and rescue Narayan Singh. Unknown to them, a second group, including Cassandra, Henri de Vascogne, Sita and her Gurkha bodyguard are attempting to do the same thing. Both groups catch Allenby, Ignatieff, and a cult of Kali worshippers in the middle of a cannibal sacrifice. Sita's Gurkha bodyguard is killed defending them, and David bar Elias destroys Allenby's home with a homemade explosive. Sita and her group are confronted by the King-Emperor himself. He is also making plans for a state visit to France-outre-mer on the Imperial air yacht, the Garuda. To save the King-Emperor's life, Athelstane's group makes a secretive journey to Bombay, killing Allenby when he tries to kill them with aid from local Rabari tribesmen. As the Garuda prepares to take off (with Cassandra on board), Athelstane's group sneaks on. Ignatieff is also on board the ship, with aid from the captain, a Kapenaar, (resident of the Cape Viceroyalty) who belongs to a radical Afrikaner terrorist group. He manages to take the King-Emperor hostage and reveals that he has planted evidence that Dai-Nippon and the Caliphate have ordered an assassination, to trigger a major war. He blows himself up, killing himself and King-Emperor John (who refuses to give in to the captain's demands) and damaging the Garuda critically. Meanwhile, Athelstane manages to kill Ignatieff in a brutal sword duel, with help from Ibrahim Khan. Unfortunately, the air yacht is now over a lawless portion of Afghanistan, infested with air pirates. They force the ship down. As the Gurkha guards hold off the raiders, Ibrahim Khan and Sir Manfred are sent to get help. Help does come, in the form of the Peshawar Lancers. The Lancers drive away the raiders, and allow Khan, who reveals himself to be a major prince, to return home with his promised reward pledged to him. The Lancers guide the survivors, including Cassandra, Athelstane, Henri (who has revealed himself as the Prince Imperial of France-outre-mer to Sita), and new King-Emperor Charles III to safety. Charles later marries Cassandra, and Yasmini later marries Athelstane, who had saved her from going mad from her dreams by ending her virginity. |
The Edge of the Cloud | K. M. Peyton | 1,969 | The Edge of the Cloud is set in London where, after Will and Christina elope, Christina briefly stays with their Aunt Grace. Will finds a job as a mechanic and later as an instructor at a flying school, and Christina finds employment at a nearby hotel to be close to Will. Uncle Russel and Mr Dermont both die during the course of the story. One death fills Will with pain; the other indifference. Will and Christina become close friends with Sandy, another flying instructor, and his girlfriend, Dorothy, the spoiled daughter of Christina's employer. Will gives exhibition flights to make extra money and designs and builds his own airplane. Mark joins the army. At the end, Will becomes famous as a stunt pilot and is thinking of joining the army, which—on the eve of their long-awaited wedding—worries Christina. |
Flambards Divided | null | null | Flambards Divided continues the story of Christina, who has married Dick, following the death of her first husband, her cousin Will, during World War I. No one approves of Christina's marriage to Dick, because of his poor background, and the family runs into hardship. When Will's older brother, Mark, returns from the war in France, he is badly injured, although still his arrogant old self, and deeply resentful of Dick. Christina finds herself torn between the two and ends by doing what she never believed she would do: falling in love with Mark. |
Flambards in Summer | K. M. Peyton | 1,969 | The final novel in the original Flambards trilogy opens in the middle of the First World War with Christina, now a widow, returning to Flambards. Flambards has greatly deteriorated since she left with Will, and is almost in ruins. As distraction from her grief over Will's death and the news that his brother Mark has been reported missing and presumed dead, Christina sets herself the tedious and difficult task of restoring the farm. She not only wishes to restore the house and grounds but also a semblance of her old life, the people, horses and hounds. Finding she is pregnant with Will's baby, Christina adopts Mark and Violet's six-year-old son 'Tizzy' Thomas, along with an original Flambards bitch called Marigold and a nervy five-year-old bay thoroughbred called Pheasant. Eventually she persuades Dick to come back to work on the farm and things slowly begin to go smoothly, until the reappearance of Mark. Christina's joy quickly turns to anxiety and apprehension as Mark tells her that if she wishes to remain at Flambards, she must marry him. But Christina fears Mark become like his father, and when she finds she has feelings for Dick, her confusion increases as she still loves Will. |
David Starr, Space Ranger | Isaac Asimov | 1,952 | David Starr, Space Ranger introduces the series' setting and the main characters. The novel is set around A.D. 7,000 (five thousand years after the first nuclear bomb, as stated at the beginning), when humanity has spread among the worlds of the Solar System as well as planets orbiting other stars. The most powerful organization in the Solar System is the Council of Science, which suppresses threats to the System's people. Protagonist David Starr is an orphaned biophysicist qualified for membership in the Council of Science, who learns from his guardians Augustus Henree and Hector Conway of some 200 deaths in the last four months, whose victims died while eating produce raised on Mars. Conway and Henree fear that the deaths are part of a conspiracy to frighten the people of Earth; wherefore Starr travels undercover to Mars to discover the deaths' connection to the Martian Farming Syndicates. On Mars, Starr meets John "Bigman" Jones, a bellicose 5'2" Martian farmboy blacklisted at the Farming Syndicates for seeing something forbidden him. When his former boss Hennes orders Jones out of the Farm Employment Building, Starr intervenes, and gains positions for both himself and Bigman. Later, Hennes has Starr and Bigman stunned. Starr wakes in the farm owned by Hennes' boss, Mr. Makian, to whom he gives the alias Williams, and states that he came to Mars explain a younger sister's death of food poisoning; wherefore Makian sends the farm's agronomist Benson to speak with him. According to Benson, the poisoned food came from several Martian farms, but was exported through Wingrad City, one of three domed human settlements on Mars; whereas Makian and several other farm owners have been offered ridiculously small sums of money for their farms, apparently without connection to the poisonings. Benson suggests also that intelligent native Martians living below the planet's surface are poisoning the food in order to drive humanity from Mars. Makian offers to let Starr join a survey of the farmlands. Bigman warns him that Hennes will attack him during the survey; but when Starr decides to take part anyway, Bigman joins him. As he enters Martian gravity, Starr loses control of his sand-car, nearly sending it over a crevasse; whereupon Bigman discovers that Starr's sand-car is missing its weights, and Starr realizes that Griswold deliberately failed to warn him. He then confronts Griswold, who in the struggle falls into the crevasse and dies. The next day, Benson makes Starr his assistant, to keep him from Hennes. When Bigman receives his references from Hennes and takes his leave, Starr asks him to obtain some book-tapes from the library at Wingrad City. Bigman agrees, then admits that he has recognized the pretended 'Williams' as David Starr of the Council of Science. When Starr meets Bigman that night outside the dome, he reveals that he believes in Benson's Martians, and that the crevasse into which Griswold fell is an entrance to their caverns. Starr descends into the crevasse and is captured by the Martians;–––disembodied intelligences curious about the Earthmen on the surface, and who know nothing of the poisoned food. They give Starr the name 'Space Ranger' because he travels through space, and give him an immaterial mask that will act as a personal force field and disguise him from other humans. Starr uses the mask to shield himself from a Martian dust storm as he returns to Makian's farm, where he is questioned how he survived the storm and answers (truthfully) that he was returned by a masked man called the Space Ranger. Benson tells him that while he was gone, all the farm owners received a letter from the poisoner, who claims that unless the farm owners surrender control to him within thirty-six hours, the poisoner will increase the amount of poisoned food a thousandfold. After Benson leaves, another of Hennes' minions tries to shoot Starr. Later, Hennes accuses Starr of poisoning the food; whereupon Bigman enters with Dr. Silvers of the Council of Science, who announces that the government has declared a System Emergency and that the Council will take control of all the farms on Mars. If the mystery is not solved by the time the deadline expires, all Martian food exports to Earth will stop, and food rationing will be instituted. Starr arranges with Silvers to be publicly removed from the Makian farm, then allowed to secretly return. Disguised by his mask, he confronts Hennes, who blinds himself firing a blaster at him; searches Hennes; and, once undisguised, persuades Silvers to meet with Makian, Hennes, and Benson the next day. At the meeting, Starr appears in disguise and reveals that Benson poisoned the food while pretending to take samples of it, while Hennes kept in contact with Benson's henchmen in the Asteroid Belt. Following Benson's confession, Bigman reveals that despite the disguise of the Martian mask, he recognized Starr by his uniquely colorless black-and-white boots. |
Agricola | null | null | After the assassination of Domitian in 96AD, and amid the predictable turmoil of the regime change, Tacitus used his new-found freedom to publish this, his first historical work. During the reign of Domitian, Agricola, a faithful imperial general, had been the most important general involved in the conquest of a great part of Britain. The proud tone of the Agricola recalls the style of the laudationes funebres (funeral speeches). A quick résumé of the career of Agricola prior to his mission in Britain is followed by a narration of the conquest of the island. There is a geographical and ethnological digression, taken not only from notes and memories of Agricola but also from the De Bello Gallico of Julius Caesar. The content is so varied as to go beyond the limits of a simple biography, but the narration, whatever its form, serves to exalt the subject of the biography. Tacitus exalts the character of his father-in-law, by showing how — as governor of Roman Britain and commander of the army — he attends to matters of state with fidelity, honesty, and competence, even under the government of the hated Emperor Domitian. Critiques of Domitian and of his regime of spying and repression come to the fore at the work's conclusion. Agricola remained uncorrupted; in disgrace under Domitian, he died without seeking the glory of an ostentatious martyrdom. Tacitus condemns the suicide of the Stoics as of no benefit to the state. Tacitus makes no clear statement as to whether the death of Agricola was from natural causes or ordered by Domitian, although he does say that rumors were voiced in Rome that Agricola was poisoned on the Emperor's orders. |
Lucky Starr and the Big Sun of Mercury | Isaac Asimov | 1,956 | It has been a year since the events in Lucky Starr and the Oceans of Venus, and in that time a government-funded research project, Project Light, is built at the astronomical observatory on Mercury's north pole to conduct research into the newly-discovered sub-etheric optics in hope of transmitting solar energy through hyperspace. The head of Project Light is the leading scientist in sub-etheric optics, Scott Mindes. A series of accidents has plagued Project Light, which David "Lucky" Starr and Bigman Jones have come to investigate. Shortly after meeting Starr and Bigman, Mindes takes them onto the surface of Mercury and explains his worries; but works himself into a frenzy and fires a blaster at Starr, whereupon Bigman tackles him and he is brought unconscious into the observatory. Starr and Bigman meet Mindes' friend Dr. Karl Gardoma, the observatory's physician; Jonathan Urteil, who works for a political opponent of the Council of Science named Senator Swenson; Dr. Lance Peverale, the head of the observatory; and Dr. Hanley Cook, Pevarale's chief assistant, who wants to succeed Peverale. The next day, at a banquet in Starr's honor, Peverale states his belief that the Sirians are behind the troubles plaguing Project Light; whereupon Starr replies that the Sirians' most likely locations are the abandoned mines located beneath the observatory, and proposes to search them. Speaking to Cook after dinner, Starr learns Cook's opinion Peverale has become obsessed thinking of the Sirian threat. While Bigman prepares for the trip into the mines, Starr obtains two micro-ergometers, whereby to detect atomic power sources at a distance. In the mines, Starr tells Bigman that his suggestion of Sirians in the mines was a ruse, and that he intends to investigate the sunside while Bigman remains in the mines and maintains the pretense of Starr's presence there. After Starr leaves, Bigman is attacked by Urteil, and both are attacked by a heat-seeking native organism. Bigman distracts the latter with Urteil's blaster, then calls the Dome for help. On the sunside, Starr finds the source of the sabotage in a Sirian robot, driven by solar radiation to forego the Three Laws of Robotics so that it attacks him before he can question it. In the Dome, Bigman challenges Urteil to a fight in Mercurian gravity. Dr. Cook reduces the artificial gravity in the Dome's power room to Mercurian levels to accommodate them; but during the fight, the gravity suddenly returns to Earth-normal, and Urteil dies in a fall. When Starr returns to the dome and learns of Urteil's death, he asks to be present when Peverale conducts an official inquiry, at which Bigman reveals that it was Cook who caused Urteil's death and reveals that only Cook knew where he and Starr would be in the mines, wherefore Urteil must have gotten the information from him. Cook then admits that Urteil had blackmailed him, and was killed to save Cook's career. Starr then reveals that the robot was brought from Sirius by Peverale in hope to use it to implicate the Sirians in the sabotage of Project Light. Starr has Peverale and Cook placed under arrest, and assumes control of the Dome in the name of the Council of Science. On the return journey to Earth, Starr admits to Bigman that the present quarrel between Senator Swenson and the Council of Science was a draw, in that Urteil was not able to manufacture any scandal against Project Light, but the two top men at the Mercury observatory were exposed as felons. Although Swenson is ruthless and dangerous, he is the sort of critic the Council needs to keep it honest. |
Lucky Starr and the Moons of Jupiter | Isaac Asimov | 1,957 | For six years, Jupiter IX has been the site of a secret project to develop an antigravity, or Agrav, space drive; but the Council of Science learns that information from the project is released to the enemy Sirians. A month after returning from Mercury, protagonists David "Lucky" Starr and John Bigman Jones are sent to Jupiter IX to investigate, bringing a V-frog to aid the investigation. Upon reaching IX, Starr and Bigman are warned away by the head of the project, Commander Donahue, who argues the men on the project are angry at investigation and may threaten Starr's safety. Starr and Bigman land nevertheless, and are met by a large group of workers led by a man named Red Summers, who insists that Starr take part in a duel in an Agrav corridor against a much larger man called Big Armand. During the duel, Bigman realizes Summers intends to de-activate Starr's Agrav harness and blackmails Summers not to do so, whereupon Starr wins the duel and gains Big Armand's friendship. At their quarters, Starr and Bigman are met by their neighbor, a blind man named Harry Norrich, who tells Starr that Summers is a convict on Earth, but has earned responsibility on the project, and is hostile to Starr for fear of having his past crimes revealed; whereas when Norrich's seeing-eye dog died, Summers obtained another, a German Shepherd named Mutt, and has done similar favors for other workers on the project. Starr assures Norrich that he has no intention of getting Summers in trouble for the duel. The next morning someone kills the V-frog while both men are distracted; whereafter Starr and Bigman tell Donahue and James Panner, the chief engineer on the project, that because the V-frog telepathically induced affection in all whom it met, only a robot, immune to emotion, could have killed it. It is then suggested that the Sirians are using android spies throughout the Solar System. Donahue, unconvinced, orders the launch of an Agrav ship, the Jovian Moon, to Io the following evening, and forbids Starr to conduct his investigation until after it returns. The Jovian Moon lifts off on schedule, its crew of seventeen including Donahue, Panner, Summers, Norrich, Mutt, Starr, and Bigman; the latter included because Starr believes the spy is on board. On Io, Bigman falls into an ammonial river, and is rescued by Mutt. After lift-off from Io, the Agrav drive fails, leaving the Jovian Moon falling towards Jupiter. Starr manages to land the ship on Amalthea, where they find that Red Summers is missing. An investigation reveals that Summers tricked Norrich into reporting him present on the ship while he was still on Io, whereupon Starr realizes that the Sirians had two agents planted in the Agrav project: the still-hidden robot spy, and the Earthman traitor Summers. Panner repairs the Agrav, and the Jovian Moon returns to Io, where Starr and Bigman locate Summers. Summers admits to working for the Sirians, but kills himself before revealing the identity of the robot spy. When Norrich helps bury Summers, Starr accuses him of being the robot, and Bigman threatens to shoot him; whereupon Mutt, coming to defend Norrich, is revealed as the robot himself. With the exposure of Mutt, Starr discerns that the Sirian spy ring on Earth must be the people who supplied Summers with Mutt, and who may be giving canid robot spies to others on Earth, and sets out to prevent them. |
Lucky Starr and the Oceans of Venus | Isaac Asimov | 1,954 | Shortly after returning from the Asteroid Belt, David "Lucky" Starr learns that his Science Academy roommate Lou Evans had been sent to investigate trouble on Venus, but the Council of Science office on Venus has requested that he be recalled and investigated for corruption. As Starr and John "Bigman" Jones are shuttled to Venus, their pilots suffer an episode of paralysis, and Starr is required to keep their craft from smashing itself against the surface of the Venusian ocean. Afterwards, the pilots have no memory of the event. Upon reaching the Venusian city of Aphrodite, Starr and Bigman meet Dr. Mel Morriss, head of the Council of Science on Venus, who explains that Venusian scientists are perfecting strains of yeast that can be processed into luxury foods for export; whereas for six months there has been a growing series of incidents of bizarre behavior among the human colonists, often followed by amnesia. Morriss believes they are being telepathically controlled by an unknown enemy. Evans was sent to Venus to investigate, but was found with stolen data concerning a secret strain of yeast, and is under arrest. When Starr confronts him, Evans admits to having stolen the data, but refuses to explain further. While Starr is questioning him, word reaches them that a man is threatening to open an outside airlock, which will allow the ocean to flood Aphrodite. Starr, Bigman, and Morriss go to the airlock to deal with the crisis, where they meet the city's chief engineer, Lyman Turner, the inventor and owner of a laptop computer carried with him. While Bigman goes through the ventilation ducts to cut power to the airlock door, Starr realizes that the airlock crisis is a feint and hastens to Council headquarters, to find that Evans has escaped custody and left Aphrodite in a submarine. Starr and Bigman pursue Evans in another submarine, eventually finding him and learning that the V-frogs are the source of the telepathic incidents; Evans having tested this hypothesis by stealing the secret data on the yeast strain, and interesting the V-frogs therein with the result of an accident involving that strain. Evans further reveals that the V-frogs have trapped himself and the other protagonists beneath an enormous deep-sea orange patch, which will attack them if they attempt escape. Starr, in response, leaves the submarine and uses an electric shock to destroy the orange patch's heart, killing it. He then returns to the submarine, and pilots this to the surface of the ocean, where he intends to communicate his findings to an orbiting space station to be relayed to the Council on Earth. On the surface, the V-frogs communicate telepathically with him, telling him they intend to take over the minds of the humans on Venus. Initially they keep him away from the radio; but he is able to distract them and transmit his message. Returning to Aphrodite, Starr explains to Morriss that the V-frogs' telepathy is used by a human individual to attempt control over the rest of humanity, and that the means of doing so is Lyman Turner's computer. Bigman destroys the computer and Starr captures Turner, hoping to re-create his computer in the interest of reforming Turner himself. |
Lucky Starr and the Rings of Saturn | Isaac Asimov | 1,958 | Six weeks after returning from the Jovian system, David "Lucky" Starr learns that Jack Dorrance, the chief of a Sirian spy ring uncovered by Starr in the Jovian system, has escaped from Earth. Starr and his sidekick Bigman Jones follow Dorrance to the Saturnian system, where Dorrance tries to lose them in Saturn's rings, but his ship is destroyed by a ring fragment. A Sirian ship then contacts Starr and informs him that the Sirians have built a colony on Titan and claimed it for Sirius, contrary to established precedent that all worlds in an inhabited stellar system belong to that system's inhabitants, whether they have permanent settlements on those worlds or not. Starr orders the pursuing Terrestrial fleet back to Earth; but returns with Bigman and Councilman Ben Wessilewsky to the Saturnian system. When several Sirian ships pursue the Shooting Starr, Starr conceals himself and his ship in the interior of Mimas; leaves Wessilewsky below the surface with enough supplies to maintain himself for several months; then takes the Shooting Starr back into space, where they are captured by the Sirians and taken to the colony on Titan. There, Sirian commander Sten Devoure threatens to have Bigman killed unless Starr agrees to testify at an upcoming interstellar conference on the asteroid Vesta that he entered the Saturnian system to attack the Sirians. When Bigman endangers himself by defeating Devoure in a duel, Starr makes a deal with Devoure: if he spares Bigman's life, Starr will testify that he entered the Saturnian system in an armed ship, and will lead the Sirians to Wessilewsky's base on Mimas. At the Vesta conference, Devoure admits that the Sirians have established a base on Titan, but insists that the fact that Saturn and its moons are part of Earth's stellar system is irrelevant: "An empty world is an empty world, regardless of the particular route it travels through space. We colonized it first and it is ours". Devoure then brings out Starr, who admits to having re-entered the Saturnian system after being warned off, and also that Wessilewsky established a base on Mimas. When asked his reasons, according to a secret plan of his own, Starr replies that Wessilewsky was placed to establish a colony on Mimas; whereupon Conway states that by removing Wessilewsky from Mimas, the Sirians violated the very principle they attempted to establish. The conference ends with three client worlds voting with the Sirians, and the rest voting with Earth, with the result that the Sirians are ordered to leave Titan within a month. |
Lucky Starr and the Pirates of the Asteroids | Isaac Asimov | 1,953 | A year has passed since the events in David Starr, Space Ranger. In that time the spaceship TSS Waltham Zachary has been taken and gutted by pirates based in the asteroid belt, and David "Lucky" Starr has devised a plan whereby the unmanned survey ship Atlas, as soon as the pirates capture it and bring it to their hidden base, will explode. Because Starr harbors a personal dislike of the pirates for their murder of his parents, he sneaks aboard the Atlas to take revenge. When captured, Starr tells the pirate leader, Captain Anton, that his name is Williams (his alias from David Starr, Space Ranger), and offers to join the pirates; whereupon Anton has Starr fight a duel in open space to prove himself worthy. Starr wins the duel, but remains a prisoner aboard Atlas while it is brought to an anonymous asteroid. The asteroid is home to a hermit named Joseph Patrick Hansen, and the pirates leave Starr in Hansen's care. Hansen tells Starr that he purchased the asteroid as a vacation site, and gradually made it more comfortable over the years, but now depends on the pirates for supplies, and later recognizes the pretended 'Williams' as Lawrence Starr's son. Starr admits his true identity, and Hansen convinces him to pilot them to Ceres. On Ceres, Starr plans to send his friend Bigman to infiltrate the pirates, but realizes that Hansen's asteroid is not where it should be. Starr and Bigman take their own spaceship Shooting Starr to search for it and eventually land on its surface, where Starr is captured by Dingo, the pirate he beat in the duel. Dingo takes him inside the asteroid, revealing a hyperatomic engine used to move it. A fight with Dingo ends when Starr is shot with a neuronic whip and loses consciousness. Starr wakes to find himself in a spacesuit on the surface of the asteroid; whereupon Dingo straps him to a catapult and flings him into space. He uses his oxygen reserve to reverse his course and return to the asteroid, where he and Bigman defeat some of the pirates. As they leave the pirates' asteroid, they learn that a pirate fleet is attacking Ceres. Returning to Ceres, Starr realizes that the pirates' real object was to capture Hansen, which they have accomplished, and learns that Captain Anton's ship is taking Hansen to a secret Sirian base on Ganymede, whence the Sirians plan to attack Earth while Earth's fleet is occupied fighting the pirates in the Asteroid Belt. Although Anton has a 12-hour head start, Starr passes him to Ganymede by skimming the Shooting Starr past the Sun, wearing the Martian 'Space Ranger' mask to ward off the heat and radiation. When Anton makes for Ganymede, Starr threatens to ram his ship, and accelerates toward it, all the while talking to Anton. The ships are ten miles apart when Hansen kills Anton and orders Anton's crew to surrender to Starr. When the Terran fleet arrives to take custody of the pirate ship, Starr convinces the commanding admiral to concentrate on the asteroid pirates and leave the Sirian base on Ganymede alone, revealing that Hansen is the leader of the asteroid pirates. It is then revealed that while Starr was intercepting Anton's ship, the Council of Science, on Starr's orders, captured the base and achieved the wherewithal to terminate the asteroid piracy. Hansen, now revealed to be the murderer of Starr's parents, is coerced to have the Sirians leave Ganymede, and is sent to incarceration on Mercury. |
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