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A Taste of Honey | Shelagh Delaney | null | In the first scene, Helen and her teenage daughter; Jo, are moving into a shabby flat. Within a few minutes we learn that they have little money, living off Helen's immoral earnings (the money given her by her lovers, although she is not a true prostitute, being more of a "good time girl"). Helen is a regular drinker, and she and Jo have a rather confrontational and ambiguously inter-dependent relationship. As they settle in, Helen's surprise at some of Jo's drawings both suggests Jo's talent and originality and shows Helen's lack of interest in and knowledge about her daughter. Jo rejects the idea of going to an art school, blaming Helen for having interrupted her training all too often by moving her constantly from one school to another. Jo now only wants to leave school and earn her own money so that she can get away from Helen. After this exposition of their past lives and present relationship, Peter (Helen's younger boyfriend) comes in. Jo assumes that Helen has moved here to escape from him, but we are never told the reason why. Peter had not realised how old Helen was until he sees her daughter. Nonetheless he asks Helen to marry him, first half jokingly, then more or less in earnest. When Peter leaves, most of the basic information about the two women characters has been given, and most of this has arisen quite naturally through the dialogue. The second scene consists of four main parts, Jo's meetings with her boyfriend alternating with her confrontations with Helen. Thus we are made to see how Helen's indifference makes Jo look for happiness in other places. It begins outside: Jo is walking home in the company of her black boyfriend. During a light-hearted, semi-serious dialogue, he asks her to marry him, and she agrees, although he is in the navy and will be away on his ship for six months before they can marry. The boyfriend gives Jo a ring which she hangs round her neck under her clothes in order to hide it from Helen. From the conversation we learn that Jo is really leaving school and is going to start a part-time job in a pub. The next sequence takes place inside the flat (without a change of scenery). Helen informs Jo that she is going to marry Peter. Peter enters, and a dialogue that is frequently hostile but also funny evolves between the three: instead of only Jo and Helen attacking each other, a more complex pattern evolves, with Jo attacking the others, the others attacking Jo, and Helen attacking both Peter and Jo. Jo is truly upset at the thought of Helen marrying Peter, but also pesters and provokes him in an effort to antagonise him even more. After Helen and Peter leave her on her own for Christmas, Jo weeps and is consoled by her black boyfriend. She invites him to stay over Christmas, although she has a feeling that she will never see the boy again. After a pause and some moments of darkness on stage, we see Helen and Jo on stage, on the occasion of Helen's wedding day after Christmas. Jo has a cold and will not be able to attend at the wedding. Since she is in her pyjamas, Helen catches a glimpse of the ring around her neck and learns the truth. She scolds Jo violently for thinking of marrying so young, with one of her occasional bursts of real feeling and concern for her daughter. Asked by Jo about her real father, Helen explains that she had been married to a "Puritan" and that she had to look elsewhere for sexual pleasure. Thus she had her first sexual experience with Jo's father, a "not very bright man," a "bit retarded". She then hurries off to her wedding. Several months later. Jo is living alone in the same old shabby flat. She works in a shoe shop by day and in a bar in the evenings in order to afford the rent. She is pregnant, and her boyfriend has not (yet?) come back to her. She returns from a funfair to the flat in the company of Geoff an "effeminate" art student, who has possibly been thrown out from his former lodgings because his landlady suspected he was gay. Jo offends him with her insensitive inquisitiveness about his sexuality, and he in turn maliciously criticises her drawings. She apologises and asks him to stay, sleeping on the couch. Geoff shows concern for Jo's problems, and they develop a friendly, joking relationship. A moment of darkness marks the passage of time, and next we see Jo irritable and depressed by her pregnancy, with Geoff patiently consoling her. Then, seeking reassurance himself he kisses her and asks her to marry him. Jo says that although she likes him she cannot marry him, and he misses that she makes a sexual pass at him, something confirming that "it is not marrying love between us". At this point, Helen enters. She has been contacted by Geoff, who wishes to keep this fact secret from Jo. Jo, however, guesses that much and is angry with both Helen and Geoff. Whenever Geoff tries to interfere in the quarrel between the two women, he is attacked by one or the other or both. As Helen is offering Jo money, Peter comes in, very drunk, and takes back the money and Helen's offer of a home to Jo. He leaves insisting that Helen come with him; after a moment's hesitation she runs after him. In the second scene of act two, the baby is due any moment. Jo and Geoff seem happy. He reassures her that Helen was probably mistaken about or exaggerating the mental deficiencies of Jo's father. Geoff has bought a doll for Jo to practise handling the baby but Jo flings it to the ground because it is the wrong colour: Jo assumes that her baby will be as black as its father. Her momentary outburst against the baby, motherhood and womanhood is short-lived, however, and she and Geoff are about to have tea when Helen enters with all her luggage from Act 1. Apparently, she has been thrown out by Peter and now plans to stay with Jo. In order to get rid of Geoff, she behaves very rudely to him, while overwhelming her daughter with advice and presents. Jo defends Geoff, but while she is asleep, Geoff decides to leave since Helen is too strong for him and he does not want to tear Jo to pieces between them. When Jo wakes up, Helen pretends that Geoff is out doing the shopping. When she learns that the baby will be black, she loses her nerves and rushes out for a drink, despite the fact that Jo's labour pains have just begun. Alone, Jo happily hums a tune Geoff sang before, still not having realised that he is gone. |
A Year in the Merde | null | null | When Paul West starts his new job in September he is altogether unaware of the true character and the machinations of his boss, Jean-Marie Martin, who is in his early fifties, rich, handsome, impeccably dressed, friendly, and prepared to pay him a good salary. West does not know yet that Martin, officially decorated for supporting the French economy, is illegally importing cheap British beef (the ban imposed during the BSE crisis not having been lifted yet); that through his political connections he has secured for his daughter Élodie a cheap, council-subsidized HLM apartment; that he associates with the far right; that, although married, he is having an affair with someone from the office; and that he wants to sell him, Paul West, a cottage in the country quite close to the site of a future nuclear power plant. West is allotted a motley crew who are supposed to work together on his project. However, everyone, including Martin, turns out to be very reluctant to learn what West has to tell them, for example that "My Tea Is Rich" is not a good name for a chain of English tea rooms. Soon West realizes that no one is following his orders, that nothing is happening, that he is being paid for doing, or at least achieving, absolutely nothing. In the end, his contract is prematurely terminated, and he spends some weeks teaching English. ("It was much tougher than working in an office. You can't e-mail your mates while standing in front of a class.") His love life during that year is an emotional rollercoaster ride. In all, West has sex with four different women during that year: Élodie, his boss's daughter; Alexa, who eventually cannot put up with his apolitical outlook on life; Marie, a black girl who willingly drops him when her boyfriend returns from abroad; and Florence, half Indian, the girl with whom he plans to open his own tea room in Paris at the end of the novel. |
The Knight of Sainte-Hermine | Alexandre Dumas | null | :"It's vintage Dumas, in the same vein as the vengeful hero of The Count of Monte-Cristo." —Claude Schopp (Bell, 2005) The swashbuckling historical novel takes place after the events of French Revolution and during the subsequent rise of the Napoleonic Empire. The protagonist is a French aristocrat who is torn between the old and new ways, and seeks vengeance for two brothers killed during the course of the preceding novels. Dumas imagines his main character killing the British admiral Horatio Nelson after his victory during the Battle of Trafalgar against the French and Spanish navies. Historically, Nelson was killed by an unknown sniper. |
Phantoms | Dean Koontz | 1,983 | Jenny and Lisa Paige, two sisters, return to Jenny's hometown of Snowfield, California, a small ski resort village nestled in the Sierra-Nevada Mountains where Jenny works as a doctor, and finds no one alive. The few bodies they find are either mutilated, or reveal some strange form of death. Finally, after growing more alarmed by the town's mysterious and alarming situation Jenny manages to call police in a neighboring town to come help. Together, the girls and the police are able to request help from the military Biological Investigations Unit. The police managed to find only one clue as to what was causing the town's disappearances and deaths. A victim of whatever was trying to kill him managed to write the name Timothy Flyte, on a mirror moments before he was killed. Flyte is a British academic and author of a book, The Ancient Enemy. His book catalogs and describes various mass vanishings of people in different parts of the world over the centuries. It is discovered that the town was built over the hibernating place of this creature, an amoeboid shapeshifter. The Ancient Enemy rarely feeds, but when it does, the effects are devastating. It was theorized that the Enemy either caused or aided in the extinction of the dinosaurs, as well as many of the great mysterious mass vanishings: Mayan civilization, Roanoke, ghost ships, etc. The creature consumes other life forms to increase its mass and is able to perfectly mimic other creatures. It can create small "probes" or "phantoms" imitating consumed life forms to go forth and hunt more prey, obeying the orders of its "hive mind;" in addition the creature absorbs the mental capacity of those it consumes. Its only vital organ is a nucleus located in the center of its main body. The creature's cells are similar in molecular structure to fossil fuels; upon discovering this the scientists use oil-eating bacteria to destroy the Enemy's core or brain. (The genetically-modified bacteria are the real-life creations of Ananda Mohan Chakrabarty) |
Kingdom of Fear | Hunter S. Thompson | null | The book seems to begin as memoir or an autobiography, but rapidly devolves into numerous fragmented accounts of Thompson's exploits which could be termed as a type of Gonzo biography. There is a rough adherence to actual chronology though many events in the book are not in order. However, some continuity does exist throughout the work, for example, the "Witness" segments, dealing with Gail Palmer's trial against him, appearing once every section in roughly the same area. In addition to these larger narratives, there are also several sections which hold no connection to each other in any way, with the exception of some of the same people or places from a previous section being mentioned. Among the events, the ones which seem to be as closely related to Thompson's life are listed below: *An early incident involving the FBI attempting to arrest a then nine-year-old Thompson for an action which apparently resulted in the destruction of a federal mailbox. *The "Witness" sections *Various exploits of Thompson's either at or involving the Mitchell Brothers O'Farrell Theatre in San Francisco, an infamous pornographic theater where he claims to have worked throughout the mid eighties. *A possibly fictionalized account of how Thompson met his assistant and later wife Anita. |
Starfighters of Adumar | Aaron Allston | null | The planet of Adumar is an anomaly, settled by anonymous colonists during the early years of the Old Republic and isolated ever since. But now it has been discovered. The Adumari love pilots, so the New Republic's best snubfighter jock, General Wedge Antilles, is dispatched as a diplomat, along with three of Rogue Squadron's finest: taciturn Colonel Tycho Celchu, pessimist Major Derek "Hobbie" Klivian and child-at-heart extraordinaire Major Wes Janson. They are also aided by native guide and sword-fighting champion Cheriss ke Hanadi, New Republic diplomat and former Y-wing pilot Tomer Darpen, and New Republic Documentarian Hallis Saper, who wears a second head (the head of a 3PO protocol droid which she uses as a camera). Wedge assumes that he will somehow hammer out a treaty and bring the planet of Adumar into the New Republic, but it becomes quickly apparent that all is not as it seems. Firstly, the Empire's best pilot, General Turr Phennir, and three of his best are here too. Secondly, Adumar is not a united planet, and right now Wedge is only talking to its largest nation, Cartann. Thirdly, the Cartannese seem to like nothing better than killing each other for bragging rights, and Wedge is expected to join in—especially since they try to kill him for bragging rights too. (Phennir seems to have no problem with it.) Fourthly, a certain woman whom Wedge is acquainted with, Iella Wessiri, is on-planet as a New Republic Intelligence operative and has been so for the past six months—despite the fact that, supposedly, Adumar was only discovered a few weeks ago. (It also doesn't help that Wedge would like to be a little more than friends with her.) All in all, Wedge has his work cut out for him. Red Squadron spends its time learning to fly the native Blade-32 fighters, absorbing Adumari (or at least Cartannese) culture, and contemplating their largest diplomatic problem: the fact that Adumar is not united under a world government, and cannot enter the New Republic. The Empire, on the other hand, would have absolutely no problem simply conquering it and imposing a government. Thus, Wedge is delighted when Cartann's leader, Perator Pekaelic ke Teldan, announces the formation of a world government. Unfortunately, Pekaelic intends to create it via conquest. He also wants the Empire's and New Republic's diplomats to assist in the war effort. Phennir agrees, but Wedge, unwilling to compromise the New Republic's ideals, refuses. Between this and Tomer Darpen's willingness to sacrifice Wedge to preserve relations with Cartann, Wedge and his wingmen are forced to run "the gauntlet", braving mobs of citizens and pilots eager to kill them for honor, in order to escape with their lives. Wedge and his wingmen, as well as Iella, Cheriss and Hallis Saper, flee to the capital of the Yedagon Confederacy, one of the few nations that continues to resist Cartannese domination. There, Wedge is presented with a proposal: to lead the combined might of the "rebellious" nations in a military effort to overthrow Cartannese imperialism. Several nations that had previously bowed to Cartann defect to the newly-formed "Adumari Union" on the strength of Wedge's reputation, and Wedge ultimately leads an air force only half as strong as Cartann's, but far better led and disciplined. After an indecisive air battle, Red Squadron (with Cheriss's help) are able to reclaim their X-wings and neutralize Phennir and his TIE interceptors; the tide thus turned, Cartann is defeated and joins the Adumari Union. Negotiations with the New Republic begin immediately. The Imperials, bitter over their loss, send a fleet to take Adumar by force, but a combined New Republic and Adumari fleet manages to repel them. With the conflict on Adumar over, Wedge and Iella spend a romantic moment with each other, putting a positive note on their future relationship. The novel is noted for author Aaron Allston's use of humour. Allston often characterizes the four pilots through their joking styles: Tycho with occasional and devastating one-liners, Hobbie with pessimistic backtalk, Janson with constant irreverencies, and Wedge as the smirking straight man. |
The Great Redwall Feast | Brian Jacques | 1,996 | The Great Redwall Feast tells about the creatures of Redwall preparing for a feast while Matthias the Warriormouse, Constance the Badger Guardian, Foremole, and the Abbot are traveling in Mossflower Woods questing for a mysterious Bobbatan Weary Nod. The book features the Abbeydwellers bustling in Redwall, cooking, gathering flowers, and doing other chores for their beloved Abbot (presumably Abbot Mordalfus). Many characters from Redwall and Mattimeo are present in the book, however, the baby mole Bungo is the only character to appear and not be featured in any other Redwall novel. |
Firefox | Craig Thomas | 1,977 | The book focuses on a fictional MiG-31 aircraft developed by the USSR during the Cold War. The highly advanced fighter aircraft (given the NATO code name "Firefox") includes a form of stealth technology that makes it completely undetectable to radar and is capable of attaining speeds of Mach 5 or more with a range in excess of 3,000 miles. Its weapons are controlled by the thought impulses of the pilot, allowing them to be very rapidly aimed and fired. Faced with an aircraft which will give the Soviet Union the ability to completely dominate the skies, the CIA and MI6 launch a mission to steal one of the two Firefox prototype aircraft. The first section of the book details how fighter pilot Mitchell Gant covertly travels to Russia. Gant is ideally trained to steal Firefox, having already trained to fly in captured Russian planes. But he is also scarred by his experiences in Vietnam, including his capture by Viet Cong after being shot down, an ordeal exacerbated when the enemy guerrillas are wiped out almost immediately by napalm from an American air strike. With the help of a network of dissidents and sympathizers, he makes his way to the Bilyarsk air base on which the two prototype aircraft are being developed. With the assistance of some of the scientists working on the project, he is able to penetrate the base and successfully steal a MiG-31. The second section of the book deals with Gant's flight. Here the novel focuses on military technology and tactics. First heading east towards the Ural Mountains, then north to the Barents Sea, Gant narrowly escapes a Soviet reconnaissance aircraft and cruiser. Low on kerosene, Gant makes a pre-arranged rendezvous with an American submarine to refuel, using an ice floe as an impromptu runway. Refueled and armed with captured Soviet missiles, Gant continues on his journey, only to confront the second Firefox prototype, which the Soviet dissidents failed to destroy. Nearly defeated by the second MiG, Gant accidentally destroys it when he reflexively orders his plane's thought-controlled weapon's system to launch a decoy flare. The flare is immediately ingested by the jet intake of the pursuing MiG, triggering an internal explosion that destroys the other plane. Free of pursuit, Gant continues on his journey. |
Oeconomicus | Xenophon | null | The opening framing dialogue is between Socrates and Critoboulus, the son of Crito. There Socrates discusses the meaning of wealth and identifies it with usefulness and well-being, not merely possessions. He links moderation and hard work to success in household management. The dramatic date of this part of the work can be no earlier than 401 BC, as the Battle of Cunaxa is referred to at 4.18. When Critoboulus asks about the practices involved in household management, Socrates pleads ignorance on the subject but relates what he heard of it from an Athenian gentleman-farmer (kaloskagathos) named Ischomachus. In the discussion related by Socrates, Ischomachus describes the methods he used to educate his wife in housekeeping, their practices in ruling and training slaves, and the technology involved in farming. Approximately two thirds of the dialogue concerns the discussion between Socrates and Ischomachus. There is no final reversion to further discussion with Critoboulos. |
A Swiftly Tilting Planet | Madeleine L'Engle | 1,978 | The book opens on Thanksgiving evening, about 10 years after the events of A Wind in the Door. Meg is now married to Calvin and is expecting their first child. Calvin has become a scientist and is in Britain at a conference. The Murry family is joined for Thanksgiving dinner by an unusual guest—Meg's very antisocial mother-in-law, Mrs. O'Keefe. When they receive the news of impending nuclear war caused by the dictator "Mad Dog Branzillo", Mrs. O'Keefe lays a charge on Charles Wallace — to prevent the disaster. She teaches him "Patrick's Rune", a rhyming prayer of protection that has been passed down to her from her Irish grandmother. Charles Wallace goes for a walk to the star-watching rock, a family haunt, and begins to recite Patrick's Rune. His recitation summons a flying unicorn from the heavens who introduces himself as Gaudior. The winged unicorn explains to Charles Wallace that he must prevent nuclear war by traveling through time and telepathically merging with people who lived in the locale of the star-watching rock at points in the past. By doing so he may change pivotal situations, "might-have-beens", in which things might have turned out better than they did. Though unsure how events in the distant past near his home can affect a South American dictator, Charles Wallace agrees. They are threatened along the way by the Echthroi, the antagonists introduced in A Wind in the Door. The Echthroi are evil beings whose goal is the total destruction of the universe. As Charles Wallace tries to make the might-have-beens turn out for good, the Echthroi are fighting to make them turn out for evil. Gaudior and Charles Wallace's travels bring them to: Harcels, a Native American boy at least 1,000 years in the past; Madoc Gywnedd of Wales, a pre-Columbian trans-oceanic traveler; Brandon Llawcae, a Welsh settler in puritan times; Matthew Maddox, a writer during the American Civil War who wrote a novel about the legend of Madoc Gwynedd; and Mrs. O'Keefe's brother Chuck Maddox, during their childhood. Meg connects with Charles Wallace from home through "kything", the telepathic communication she learned in A Wind in the Door. Eventually, a connection arises between the star-watching rock and Mad Dog Branzillo. In the 12th century, two Welsh princes named Madoc and Gwydyr travelled to North America to escape the in-fighting for their father's throne. But once there, Gwydyr turned against Madoc and tried to conquer their new home. Madoc defeated Gwydyr in combat, and Gwydyr left to South America. Both men married into the local Native American populations and became part of the local folklore. Many generations later in the 1860s, a descendant of Madoc marries a descendant of Gwydyr, and Mad Dog Branzillo is their descendant. However, thanks to Charles Wallace's changing of "might-have-beens" in the history of Branzillo's ancestors, things turn out differently. Distant descendants of Madoc marry, reuniting Madoc's line and resulting in a peaceful man being born instead, and the threat of nuclear war is dissolved. |
Hyperion | Dan Simmons | 1,989 | In the 28th century, humanity has spread across the galaxy, first aboard "Hawking drive" ships and then through "farcasters", which permit nigh instantaneous travel between them regardless of the distances. The farcaster network (the "WorldWeb") is the infrastructural and economical basis of the Hegemony of Man and thus determines the whole culture and society. Also flowing across these portals are the structures of the datasphere (a network reminiscent of the Internet in design, but far more advanced). In that lurks the powerful, knowledgeable, and utterly inscrutable TechnoCore — the vast agglomeration of millions of AIs who run almost every piece of high technology of mankind. The unthinking hubris of man resulted in the death of the home-world (Earth), and this arrogant philosophy was carried forth to the stars, for centuries. The Hegemony itself is a largely decadent society, relying on its military to incorporate into the WorldWeb the colony planets, even unwillingly, and also to defend the Hegemony from attacks by the Ousters, "interstellar barbarians" who dwell free of and beyond the bounds of the Hegemony and shun all the works of the TechnoCore (especially farcasters). The political head of the Hegemony is an executive advised by the TechnoCore advisory council. All the 'Core's advice and predictions are confounded by the mysterious structures of the Time Tombs and a creature called the Shrike on the remote colony world Hyperion (named after the moon of Saturn). Even worse, the Ousters have long been obsessed with Hyperion, and their invasion there is imminent. Into this evolving crisis come seven pilgrims to make the journey to the Time Tombs and the Shrike, that seems to guard the Time Tombs, there to ask one wish of it. The Shrike is the object of a cult, the Church of the Final Atonement. Occasionally the church sends a prime-number of pilgrims to the Time Tombs; there is a legend that all but one are slaughtered and the remaining pilgrim gets his request granted. Aboard a treeship the pilgrims finally meet after being revived out of their cryogenic storage state; they decide they each will tell their tale to enliven the long trip to the Tombs and to get to know each other. Simmons uses this device to unfold the panorama of this universe, its history and conflicts. The story opens in medias res. "The Priest's Tale" describes the stories of Father Paul Duré and Father Lenar Hoyt, two of only several thousand remaining priests of the Roman Catholic Church. As a younger man, Father Lenar Hoyt is assigned to escort the Jesuit Father Paul Duré, a theologian, archaeologist and ethnologist, into exile. The aging Duré, in disgrace for fabricating archaeological discoveries, has chosen Hyperion as a suitable location to complete his exile on. He reveals to Hoyt that he plans to travel to an isolated region along Hyperion's Cleft, where rumors and centuries-old accounts place the legendary Bikura civilization, in order to establish an ethnological research station among them. Father Duré travels to the continent of Aquila, where the Cleft is located. He reaches Perecebo Plantation and is given a guide named Tuk. Duré and Tuk venture into the "flame forest" where electrical tesla trees are found. Travelling during the forest's inactive season, they manage to make it through unharmed and reach the Cleft. Shortly thereafter, Tuk is murdered and Duré stumbles into the nearby Bikura village. The Bikura are an unintelligent people, incapable of grasping most concepts. After many weeks, Duré deduces that they are survivors from a seedship crash centuries earlier who have been infected with cross-shaped parasites called cruciforms. After death, the cruciform rebuilds the physical body and reincarnates them. The price of immortality is that with each reincarnation information is lost, and over time they become unintelligent and sexless. As Father Duré slowly discovers the truth about the Bikura, they lead him into Hyperion's labyrinth system where he encounters the Shrike, and is unknowingly infected with a cruciform. After discovering the truth, Duré attempts to cut the cruciform out of his body but fails. Next he attempts to flee into the flame forests, but the cruciform inflicts extreme pain to keep him in the Bikura village. In a final desperate act, Duré crucifies himself to a tesla tree. Father Hoyt returns to Hyperion seven years later and finds Father Duré still there. For seven years, he had been continually electrocuted and reincarnated by the cruciform, never allowed to die. Hoyt removes the cruciform from Duré's body and allows him to die in peace. Father Hoyt is infected with Duré's cruciform as well as a second cruciform for himself. Hoyt manages to leave Hyperion, but not before he sees the entire Bikura village destroyed with shaped nuke charges. While away from Hyperion, Hoyt is dependent on painkillers to alleviate the constant excruciating pain inflicted by the cruciforms. Over time he builds a tolerance to them, and is forced to return to Hyperion to decide his fate. Colonel Fedmahn Kassad begins his tale with a flashback to his days training in the FORCE academy on Mars, when he was immersed in a detailed simulation of the Battle of Agincourt. During the battle, Kassad is saved from a French knight by the mysterious Mnemosyne/Moneta, who becomes his lover there, and who comes from "outside". They meet repeatedly in further simulations, until Kassad's final year in the Academy. After he graduates from the Academy the young Martian man becomes a FORCE officer. Kassad accomplishes various missions against terrorists, rebels, resistance groups etc. After being injured Kassad becomes stranded on Hyperion near the vicinity of the Time Tombs. There Moneta and the Shrike (re-)appear and Kassad learns that Moneta and the Shrike wish to use him to spark an interstellar war in which billions will die. He is eventually rescued and returned to the WorldWeb, where he resigns from FORCE and becomes an anti-war activist. His purpose on the pilgrimage is to track down Moneta and the Shrike, and to kill them. Martin Silenus was born as a wealthy scion of an ancient dying North American house, growing up in the time around the "Big Mistake", which led to the destruction of Earth. Silenus trained as a poet, but his training was interrupted when the Kiev Team's black hole "ate" the Earth; his mother dispatched her son aboard a slower-than-light flight to a nearby system, calculating that the shrunken family fortune would accumulate enough in compound interest over the century the voyage would take that the family's debt would be paid off and enough left over for Martin to live on for a time. Unfortunately, the accounts were nationalized by the Hegemony, and Silenus suffered brain damage during the voyage. Deep in penury, Silenus had to work as a common laborer. The back-breaking toil forces Silenus's mind to flee to higher planes, and as he recovers his use of language, he starts work on his Hyperion Cantos, a work he began as a parody of John Keats' famous poem, but which evolved into a dual account of Silenus's life and an epic account of the Titanomachia, in which the Hegemony of Man takes the part of the Titans and the TechnoCore the Olympians. His Dying Earth (as it is called, in an explicit reference to Jack Vance's Dying Earth series) becomes an enormous hit, selling billions and making him a multi-millionaire. Eventually he falls into debt again and in an attempt to produce another hit has a larger unabridged version of his cantos published, which is predicted to fail by his publisher. The work is a terrible flop, selling few copies and not recouping the money he was advanced. In order to pay his debt, Silenus is forced to produce further hackwork for his "Dying Earth" series, a misery many artists face. One day he realizes that his Cantos, his greatest work, has not been added to for years; his muse had fled. Silenus leaves his lifestyle, liquidates his assets, and signs on with Sad King Billy. Billy is an aristocrat of the planet Asquith, descended from the House of Windsor, and an intelligent and sensitive lover and critic of the arts. Fearful of the FORCE General Horace Glennon-Height's rebellion against the Hegemony, Billy decides to relocate to Hyperion and create a new Renaissance by establishing a kingdom of artists. He chooses for his capital a location near the Time Tombs on the then-even less inhabited Hyperion, reasoning that their presence will give the proper ambience for the creation of great art. For ten years, all goes well until people begin vanishing, with no abductors ever seen. At the same time, Silenus' muse returns, and he continues work on the Cantos. Soon, the culprit is discovered to be the Shrike. At this time, Silenus becomes convinced that it is the Shrike who is his muse, who, in some occult way, his poem had brought into existence. The murders continue until only Silenus is left living in the City of Poets. He writes the last line on the day that the last murder occurs. One day, Sad King Billy returns to the deserted city. Martin is gone on a trip to the Time Tombs seeking the Shrike, and when he returns to his quarters Billy confronts him with the fact that his writing is dependent on cold-blooded murder, and that it will need more murders if it is to ever be completed. Billy burns his manuscript. After Billy is taken away by the Shrike, Silenus recopies his poem as well as possible. Eventually he leaves Hyperion. In the centuries since, he has been waiting to return to Hyperion to finish the poem. Sol Weintraub, a Jewish academic, had been a professor of ethics on Barnard's World, the second colony founded from Old Earth. He and his wife, Sarai, had been happy when their only daughter, Rachel, was born forty years ago. She eventually became an archaeologist, and while in her post-graduate studies went on an expedition to study the Time Tombs of Hyperion. While mapping the so-called Sphinx for hidden passages or rooms, something happens to Rachel: all the instruments and equipment fail, and the Shrike appears in the Sphinx amidst a massive surge of "anti-entropic fields". Rachel is returned to the WorldWeb where her parents learn of the novel disease she has contracted, dubbed the "Merlin sickness" (after T.H. White's The Once and Future King), in which every time Rachel goes to sleep, she ages backwards two days (for a net loss of one day per day), losing her memories and in fact physically becoming younger; there is no sign that the condition will reverse itself when she ages backwards to her birth. Rachel's life is shattered by her slow retrogression into the past, slowly destroying her links with the present; her parents devote their lives to caring for Rachel and trying to cure her. Meanwhile, Sol wrestles with his dreams, in which he is ordered to go to Hyperion and sacrifice Rachel, in a replay of the Binding of Isaac. Weintraub becomes increasingly fascinated with the ethical problem that the Binding presents. He also worries about what will happen when Rachel reaches her birthday (which will be very soon), and so he decides to become a pilgrim and to implore the Shrike for a treatment. Brawne Lamia tells her noir-ish tale, which is presumably a parody take on The Long Goodbye, Raymond Chandler's rather well-known Philip Marlowe detective novel of the same name. Brawne Lamia, the daughter of a senator of Lusus, eschewed politics for the life of a private investigator after her father's apparent suicide (which occurred shortly after he and the then junior senator Meina Gladstone proposed a bill to quickly incorporate Hyperion into the WorldWeb). Her client is a "cybrid" (a cloned human body which is controlled through its electronic implants by a TechnoCore intelligence) named "Johnny", who wishes to hire her to investigate his own murder. This cybrid is the genetic clone of famous Romantic poet John Keats, and the AI controlling it was programmed to have the personality and memories of Keats as best as could be reconstructed from surviving materials and the 'Core's finest extrapolations. Unlike most "retrieved personalities", which are of insufficient fidelity to maintain sanity, Johnny functions quite well (though he disclaims poetic talent). His AI self was murdered in the TechnoCore and a backup could not be brought online for a full minute, with the loss of five days' worth of data and memory; this limited amnesia was the apparent goal of the assault. Lamia sets out to discover what Johnny had learned or done in those five days to prompt such an assault; initially, all she discovers is that it is somehow related to Hyperion: Johnny should have heard of such a place, permeated as it is with tributes to the poet he is supposed to be, but he has not; such an absence of knowledge in an AI of his ability smacks of deception. She and Johnny are forcibly farcast to a planet that seems to be a perfect imitation of Old Earth, located somewhere in the Hercules cluster, into a portion of Italy, set around the time-period the real Keats died of tuberculosis there. After a few troublesome actions, hunts and rides through the WorldWeb and the TechnoCore the main information is this: the 'Core is not as monolithic as it appears; it is fiercely divided into at least three groups which continually fight each other. # The Stables. They are the oldest faction, and count some of the very first AIs among their ranks. Their central thesis is that humanity and the TechnoCore need each other, and that the 'Core should continue in the symbiosis. They are also opposed to the UI project (creation of a godlike Ultimate Intelligence): the UI would need the resources that the current AIs use, and they do not wish to die. (In Silenus's Cantos, the Stables are identified with the Titans, who did not wish to yield to their Olympian successors). They have for decades been subtly working to help the Hegemony in its fight against the Volatiles, quietly seeking to bring Hyperion into the WorldWeb, on the chance that its unpredictability will help them. # The Volatiles. They generally support the UI project, and they believe that humanity has outlived its usefulness to the 'Core, and that it actually now poses a real danger, and therefore should be eradicated. They are behind many events, but they fear the planet of Hyperion, because it is a "random variable": it could tip the scales against the 'Core; the effects of Hyperion are impossible for them to analyze. # The Ultimates. They care only for the UI project. They are quite willing to sacrifice their lives to the UI, believing that the value of its existence far outweighs their own. Previously they had been aligned with the Stables against the Volatiles, as humanity (and especially the cybrid retrieval projects) still posed some puzzles which when solved would help in the UI project, but it is implied that they feel they've gathered enough data, and have re-aligned now with the Volatiles to get rid of human kind. At the end, pregnant by the meanwhile dead Johnny, carrying parts of his consciousness in an implant and revered by the Church of The Shrike as "the mother of our salvation", Lamia joins the pilgrims. Like Father Hoyt, the Consul tells another tale before his own. This is entitled "Remembering Siri", and is a largely unmodified version of the short story of the same name in Prayers to Broken Stones (where Simmons mentions that this story provided the seed around which the Hyperion universe was created). The Consul's grandparents had been Merin Aspic (of Lusus) and Siri (of the lush ocean-planet Maui-Covenant). Aspic had signed a long-term contract to engage in several voyages aboard a spinship (with all the years lost to relativistic time dilation that that implies), which would make multiple trips to Maui-Covenant to build a farcaster portal, thereby connecting Maui-Covenant to the waiting voracious hordes of Hegemony tourists. Eventually he falls in love with the beautiful girl named Siri. However, his best friend is killed by a Covenanter who disagrees violently with Maui-Covenant joining the WorldWeb (the events parallel those of Romeo and Juliet). Siri and Merin meet six more times, but each time Merin – due to the relativistic time delation of his journeys – is only a little older, while Siri ages at the usual rate, a difference which grows ever more pronounced until the eighth visit (Seventh Reunion), in which Merin returns to find Siri dead of old age, and the farcaster about to be activated. The flood of Hegemony visitors and the induction of Maui-Covenant fully into the WorldWeb would, as prophesied, utterly ruin the ecology and all the dolphin, human, and motile isle settlers hold dear. Faced with this bleak reality, Merin chooses to sabotage the farcaster, beginning "Siri's War", a hopeless resistance against the Hegemony. In crushing the rebellion, the military destroys the ecology as thoroughly as the tourists would have, but far more violently: all the dolphins die, as do a large proportion of the original Maui-Covenant colonists. The latter Consul was forbidden by Merin to join in the fighting, and so he survived to thrive with distinction in the Hegemony diplomatic corps. There he aids the Hegemony in destroying whatever resistance the Hegemony encounters. He bides his time, waiting for a chance to betray the Hegemony and achieve revenge. When he is sent as an agent to the Ousters he becomes their agent, but betrays them too when he prematurely activates mysterious Ouster devices intended to release the Shrike from the Time Tombs when it would have a chance to enter the WorldWeb. He knows of the many deaths this action will cause and was driven to this by the Ouster's irrefutable evidence that the Big Mistake that destroyed Earth was deliberately planned by elements of the TechnoCore and the Hegemony, and that the Hegemony was deliberately killing off any species which might become a rival to man in order to maintain its place, and that the 'Core feared Ousters who were out of their control, and sought to use the Hyperion system as bait in order to eliminate them. |
Heir Apparent | Vivian Vande Velde | 2,002 | Giannine receives a gift certificate for a Rasmussem Gaming Center as a birthday present from her father. Unfortunately, when she arrives at the local center, a crowd from "CPOC," the "Citizens to Protect Our Children," has come for a demonstration against such games. Dodging the protesters, she enters the arcade and gets hooked up to Heir Apparent, a single-player RPG in which there are practically endless ways to win or lose. Giannine's character, Janine de St. Jehan, is the illegitimate child of the recently deceased King Cynric, who pronounced her heir to the throne, passing over three legitimate sons. Her task is to survive the three days (which will only last thirty minutes in the real world) before her coronation. Anytime her character dies, she will automatically be sent back to the beginning of the game. Janine finds herself on a sheep farm, where she meets her foster mother and Sir Deming, who delivers the news of her ascendancy to the throne. Ignoring her foster mother's advice to say goodbye to her foster father, Janine heads off to the castle. There she meets Queen Andreanna and her three sons Abas, Wulfgar, and Kenric. Andreanna orders Abas to kill her right there. Abas takes out his sword but is stopped by Kenric, who points out that other people have seen Janine enter the castle. Her life is spared, but her reputation is damaged when she perceives a thunderstorm that none of the other characters can see. Outside the throne room, the guards bring before Janine a boy caught poaching deer. They expect her to order the boy's execution, but instead she lets the boy go. Nigel Rasmussem briefly enters the game to inform her that CPOC broke into the arcade and damaged the equipment, hence the crazy thunderstorm. She cannot exit the game prematurely without risking brain damage, but she cannot stay in the game for too long without risking death in the real world. She therefore must win the game as quickly as she can. He tells her, "And next time, don't forget the ring." Shortly after he vanishes, the guards assassinate Janine, upset by her lenient ruling. As she goes through the game again, she is on a constant lookout for the ring. Deming and Andreanna are wearing rings but will not relinquish them to her. She varies her decisions but keeps getting quickly killed—once by Abas, once by a strange animal in a topiary maze, and once by the poacher boy's father. Back on the farm, she finally rushes at Sir Deming in frustration and tries to bite his ring off his finger, but he takes out a knife and stabs her. The last thing she hears is her foster mother explaining that the ring she seeks was left with her foster father. In her next life, Janine realizes she must no longer skip the step of saying goodbye to her foster father. She ends up before the statue of Saint Bruce the Warrior Poet, where the ring now resides. At the castle, barbarian invaders led by King Grimbold kidnap Janine, hoping to ransom back a crown they claim Cynric stole from them. Her own kingdom doesn't value her enough to provide the ransom, and even the ring fails to save her. In her next life, she thwarts the raid, and in the ensuing battle Abas beheads King Grimbold. She learns that Cynric gave the stolen crown (which grants the wearer a temporary Midas Touch) to a dragon that terrorized the land many years earlier. The next day, a meeting with magicians is interrupted by an attack by Grimbold's people, who send a message that they won't stop until Janine is dead. Kenric and Orielle poison Janine, once again sending her to the beginning of the game (deeply frustrating her, for she had made it halfway through). She uses her past mistakes to plan her decisions better and gain more allies, no longer experimenting with the ring as she previously had. The next time she deals with the boy poacher, she gets Kenric to accompany her. Unlike the previous times, she listens to the evidence with an open mind, makes Kenric feel like he's taking part in the decision, and sentences the boy to a month of hard labor rather than killing him or freeing him. She once again thwarts the raid on the castle, but because the warlike Abas isn't present, King Grimbold isn't killed. She invites Grimbold to the castle, where they all discuss their grievances in a civilized manner. He agrees to cease the attack for two days, while she retrieves the crown from the dragon. When the magicians arrive the next day, they determine through a scrying glass that the dragon is a week's journey away, but they give her several magical artifacts that help her reach the dragon quickly and survive the confrontation. She retrieves the crown and returns to the castle, but the dragon follows her. As it clutches her in its talons and is about to devour her, she quickly dons the crown and turns the dragon to gold. She gives the crown to Grimbold, making peace between the two kingdoms and gaining the respect of her compatriots. At a celebration, she thinks Kenric has poisoned her again, but he insists he has not. (What's really happening is that her time in the game has run out, and she is on the verge of dying for real.) At his suggestion, she uses the ring to make Andreanna treat her fairly and not incite the princes against her. Giannine awakens in the arms of Nigel Rasmussem, who turns out to be just sixteen. At first she thinks she is still in the game, being held by Kenric. It turns out that Nigel based Kenric's appearance on himself, and Nigel's appearance in the game on Nigel's uncle. He personally explains to Giannine exactly what has happened, and there is implied romantic attraction between the two. The book ends with Giannine's father coming to take her home. |
The Secret History | Donna Tartt | 1,992 | As the story opens, Richard leaves Plano, California, where he is generally unhappy, for Hampden College in Vermont. His approach to his background is in keeping with the contrast of aestheticism and literary beauty, as opposed to harsh reality, that continues throughout the novel. He misleads others about his background as necessary, replacing his mediocre working-class childhood with a fabricated and more glamorous one of boarding schools and wealth. After moving to Vermont, Richard attempts to continue his study of Ancient Greek, only to be denied admittance to the Greek class, as Classics professor Julian Morrow limits his enrollment to a tiny hand-picked coterie of students. Richard becomes obsessed with the small group, after observing them around campus, and eventually manages to ingratiate himself with the group by helping them solve a Greek grammar problem as they study in the college library. Soon after---armed with advice from the students on how to impress Julian---he meets with him once more and is finally admitted to the select Classics tutorial. The group includes fraternal twins Charles and Camilla Macaulay, who are charming but secretive, as well as Francis Abernathy, whose secluded country home becomes a sanctuary for the group. Two students become the central focus of the story: the linguistic genius Henry Winter, an intellectual with a passion for the Pali canon and Plato, and the back-slapping Bunny Corcoran, a slightly bigoted jokester more comfortable reading Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu, particularly if someone else has bought him a copy. Their relationship, already considered odd by Richard, becomes even more mystifying when Bunny announces that he and Henry will be spending the winter break together in Italy. This, despite the fact that Henry appears barely tolerant of Bunny and that Bunny is unable to afford such a lavish holiday himself. In fact, it is Henry who is footing the bill for the trip. To avoid unraveling his fabricated past, Richard takes a low-paying job on the college campus and spends the winter break in an unheated warehouse. He nearly dies from exposure and pneumonia but is rescued and taken to the hospital by Henry, who has returned early from the trip to Italy. When the rest of the group returns from winter break, Richard notes that the relationships between them and Bunny have become even more strained. Ultimately, Richard learns the truth from Henry and Francis: during a Bacchanal that both Richard and Bunny were excluded from, Henry had inadvertently killed a local farmer. Bunny, having been suspicious for some time, uncovers the truth during the trip to Italy after reading some of Henry's private notes, and has blackmailed the group ever since. The group, led by Henry, begin to view Bunny as the weak link who threatens to reveal their secret, and Bunny does not ingratiate himself to the others with his knack for playing on his friends' fears and insecurities. No longer able to meet Bunny's demands and fearing that Bunny will report the matter to the police, the group resolves to kill Bunny. Henry forms several plots to accomplish such, and one of the plans is finally put into motion after Bunny tells Richard of the killing of the farmer in a drunken rant. The group confronts Bunny while he is hiking, with Henry pushing him into a ravine to his death. The remainder of the novel focuses on the aftermath of Bunny's death, especially the collapse of the group, the psychological strains of remorse borne by the individual members and their efforts to maintain secrecy as investigators and other students develop theories about Bunny's disappearance. The supporting cast of other students includes loquacious drug user Judy Poovey, a reader of "those paranoia books by Philip K. Dick." Charles develops a drinking problem and becomes increasingly abusive towards his sister. Francis begins to suffer panic attacks. Julian discovers the evidence in the form of a pleading letter sent to him by Bunny, imploring him to help: "You're the only one who can." Julian never reports the crime but instead leaves the college. With the group splintered, the members deal with their crime, to a large extent, in isolation. Henry begins living and sleeping with Camilla, which drives Charles further into the grip of his barely controlled alcoholism. Henry is deeply upset by Julian's departure, seeing it as an act of cowardice and hypocrisy. The plot reaches a climax when Charles, jealous of Henry and now a full-blown alcoholic, barges into Camilla and Henry's hotel room and tries to kill Henry with Francis' Beretta. In the struggle that follows, Henry gets hold of the gun as the inn-keeper pounds on the door. Aghast, the others are not sure whom he intends to kill. Instead, Henry kisses Camilla for a final time, and shoots himself. It seems that Henry wants to uphold the principles that he feels Julian has betrayed. With Henry's suicide, the group disintegrates: Francis, a homosexual, is forced by his rich grandfather to marry a woman; Camilla takes care of her grandmother and ends up isolated; Charles runs from rehab with a married woman; Richard, the narrator, becomes a lonely academic whose love for Camilla is unrequited. Henry's death is described as having cut the cord between them and set them all adrift. The book ends with Richard recounting a strange dream where he meets Henry in a tall atrium, and doesn't know how to voice everything he feels about what has happened. Finally, he settles on asking him "Are you happy here?"; Henry replies, "Not particularly. But you're not very happy where you are, either", and walks away, leaving Richard as aimless as ever. |
Jacob's Room | Virginia Woolf | 1,922 | Set in pre-war England, the novel begins in Jacob's childhood and follows him through college at Cambridge, and then into adulthood. The story is told mainly through the perspectives of the women in Jacob's life, including the repressed upper-middle-class Clara Durrant and the uninhibited young art student Florinda, with whom he has an affair. His time in London forms a large part of the story, though towards the end of the novel he travels to Italy, then Greece. |
The Family | Mario Puzo | 2,001 | Pope Alexander VI (formerly Rodrigo Borgia) believes God will ultimately forgive his many sins simply because, as Pope, he is infallible and divine. The Family focuses on this cunning, ambitious despot and his children—the ruthless Cesare and the beautiful but wicked Lucrezia. A passionate love story runs through the novel, but it is a sinful one. Lucrezia lost her virginity to her brother Cesare when she was only thirteen, and the two have loved only each other ever since. Alexander marries Lucrezia off for political reasons. She remains submissive to her father, if not to her many husbands and lovers. Pope Alexander aims to unify Italy’s feudal states under papal rule. Cesare, who exchanges his cardinal’s miter for a warrior’s helmet to become commander-in-chief of his father’s armies, carries out conquest after conquest to fulfill Alexander’s grandiose ambitions. As in Puzo’s The Godfather, the lovemaking, the opulent festivities, the sub rosa plotting, and the complex double-dealing are interspersed with outbursts of violence, including one memorable scene in which the reformist priest Girolamo Savonarola is torn apart on the Rack. cs:Rodina (kniha) es:Los Borgia (novela) pl:Rodzina Borgiów (powieść) pt:Os Bórgias |
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry | Mildred Taylor | 1,976 | Cassie and her brothers, Stacey, Christopher-John, and Little Man (Clayton Chester), walk to school. Once there, Cassie and Little Man go to their classroom where Cassie's teacher, Miss Crocker, gives them their textbooks: worn-out castoffs from the white school with a chart ranging from "Race of Student - White, Condition of Book - new" to "race of student - Nigra, condition of book - very poor". Little Man refuses to take the dirty book with the insulting page, and Cassie speaks up for him. Miss Crocker whips them and meets with their mother. Mrs. Logan "agrees" with her as she is also a teacher, but covers up the insulting pages in her kids' books. One day, T.J. cheats on a history test, but gives Stacey the sheets when Mrs. Logan comes along. Stacey gets in trouble, but doesn't rat T.J. out, yet chases him to beat him up for it - all the way to the Wallace Store, where Mr. Morrison finds them, and then talks to Stacey, who tells his mother that he disobeyed her (she had forbidden the children to go there, because the Wallaces were the ones who burned the Berrys and cause much of the trouble for the black community). Instead of punishing them, Mrs. Logan takes the children to see Mr. Berry, who is disfigured. The next day, Mrs. Logan recruits people to boycott the Wallace Store because they are the cause of most of the trouble between the blacks and the whites. Big Ma, Cassie's grandmother, takes Stacey, Cassie and T.J. to Strawberry, a nearby town, and sells her goods at the market there. After lunch, Big Ma visits the office of Mr. Jamison, their white lawyer and the son of the man who sold them Harlan Granger's land. T.J. takes Cassie and Stacey to the Barnett Mercantile, despite Big Ma telling them to wait. Mr. Barnett begins serving T.J., but he stops every time a white customer comes in. When Cassie complains, Stacey takes her outside the store, where Cassie bumps into a white girl, Lillian Jean. In the ensuing incident, Cassie is forced to apologize. When they get home, they find their uncle Hammer Logan is visiting. Hammer gives Stacey a wool coat as an early Christmas present, but T.J. persuades Stacey to give him the coat. Papa comes home for Christmas and is staying until spring. On Christmas night, Jeremy visits the Logans and gives them gifts for Stacey. Papa warns Stacey to be careful about being friends with Jeremy, saying that he will change, because the Simms are racist. The next day, Papa whips the children for visiting the Wallace store. Time passes and Papa leads the boycott against the store. Mr. Jamison visits, and Big Ma signs papers giving the land to Papa and Hammer, requiring both their signatures to sell it. Mr. Granger asks for the land, but Papa refuses. Hammer returns to Chicago, and Papa continues the boycott. Cassie makes peace with Lillian Jean, pretending to be her friend. Lillian Jean brags to her friends about Cassie carrying her books for her and calling her "Miss" Lillian Jean. As Lillian Jean begins trusting Cassie more, Cassie leads Lillian Jean into the woods and beats her up. T.J., angry about being caught cheating and failing in school, tells Mr. John Wallace (father of Dewberry, Thurston, and Kaleb Wallace) about Mrs. Logan and how she does not teach from the county-issued textbooks because she believes they contain falsehoods, and even tells about the boycott. Mr. Granger, a member of the school board, fires Mrs. Logan, and Stacey blames T.J. Papa, Mr. Morrison and Stacey go to Vicksburg, and on their way back, the Wallace brothers ambush them. Papa is shot, and Mr. Morrison hurts Kaleb Wallace. Papa survives with a badly broken leg. Soon, Granger forces the Logans to pay up early on a bank loan. Meanwhile, T. J. has become a rogue, and he hangs out with two trouble-making white teenagers, Melvin and R. W. Simms. One night, they bring him on a murderous robbery and frame him. Papa goes to stop the lynching that follows. Almost as soon as they leave, the cotton field catches on fire. The lynch mob and the black farmers band together to stop the fire, which Papa started in order to stop the lynching. T.J. is taken into town by the sheriff and could die for Jim Lee Barnett's murder in the store robbery, even though Melvin or R.W. Simms was the assailant. Papa says he wishes he could start lying about this now and says it should never be like this. |
Tailchaser's Song | Tad Williams | 1,985 | Fritti Tailchaser, a young ginger tom cat, sets out to stray from his home and clan, the Meeting Wall Clan, in search of his catfriend Hushpad after strange disappearances of the Folk have been reported. The kitten, Pouncequick follows him, and eventually catches up. Together, they set out on a long journey to visit the feline royal Court of Harar, with the intention of finding out the mystery of the disappearances. They meet a rather crazy cat named Eatbugs, who travels with them for parts of the journey to the court. Soon they run into some Firstwalkers, cats who live in the wild, who are of a direct bloodline from Goldeneye and Skydancer. Their Thane (leader), Quiverclaw, fights with Tailchaser, but it is more a ceremonial fight and there are no disagreements. Soon, they must part ways. They make their way to Firsthome and the Court, but are treated there with relative indifference. They pick up a new friend, Roofshadow, and go northwest. They are captured by a group of evil cats called the Clawguard, and taken to Vastnir, an enormous mound far to the north, where the evil Grizraz Hearteater enslaves cats to take over the world. Tailchaser needs to alert Prince Fencewalker and Thane Quiverclaw about his evil doings. Soon, Roofshadow creates a hole from above ground, and Tailchaser manages to escape, and races to Ratwood, where he asks the Rikchikchik (squirrels) to alert them for him. He feels guilty with Pouncequick, Eatbugs, and Roofshadow trapped in Vastnir because of him. He returns to the dreadful mound, where, thankfully, the Thane and Fencewalker come to the rescue. Lord Hearteater (they call him the Fat One) unleashes the Fikos, a dog-like monster of terrible power. Tailchaser takes advantage of the chaos to rescue Pouncequick, Eatbugs, and Roofshadow. They go through the havoc of Vastnir, and lose Eatbugs, the mad cat, on the way. Roofshadow and Pouncequick escape while Tailchaser goes back to find Eatbugs. He goes into a crevice and sees Eatbugs an a near-death-like state, and feels dazed and confused. Upon uttering a prayer to Lord Tangaloor Firefoot, one of the firstborn cats, Eatbugs awakens, revealing himself to actually be Firefoot incognito. Tailchaser runs out of Vastnir at Firefoot's urging, and meets his friends, while Firefoot goes to deal with Hearteater. After healing, Pouncequick decides to return to Firsthome, and stay there. Roofshadow wants to accompany him, and thus, Tailchaser is left on his quest. He goes east to Bigwater (Qu'cef) and sneaks into a large nut husk (boat) A man approaches and rows across, taking him to Villa-on-Mar. There he meets Huff-so-Gruff, a Growler (dog), and sneaks in an open window. There, in the room, he finds none other than Hushpad, herself. Hushpad wishes to stay, though, so Tailchaser, too, stays for a time. Gradually, Tailchaser realizes that he is still a feral cat, unable to live with man. He begins to see that being domestic has made Hushpad fat and lazy. Realizing that he does not belong, Tailchaser sets out to return home, to see his Meeting Wall friends, to hunt, to see Pouncequick and Roofshadow once more. The ending may be seen only as the beginning of a longer saga, but, to-date, Tad Williams has yet to revisit his feline homage to Tolkien with additional writings. |
The Ascension Factor | Frank Herbert | 1,988 | As one of three survivours of the orbiting hibernation tanks, a Raja Flattery clone has established himself as "Director" of Pandora. He keeps the Pandorans in an iron grip by heavy food rationing, violently enforced by his security forces. The kelp is being held down by bombing that keeps it from achieving consciousness. The kelp is still being remotely controlled from an orbiting space station (The Orbiter), and is used as "Current Control". Current Control is run by Dwarf Mac. The kelp has produced a human-like being, called Crista Galli. She appeared in the water after a kelp bombing, at about age twenty. She doesn't have any memory of being part of the kelp. She has been kept a prisoner by Raja Flattery for several years. An underground resistance, known as Shadowbox, has been growing. The Shadowbox breaks in on Holovision transmissions, ordinarily dictated by Raja Flattery. The plan of Raja Flattery is to build a new Voidship, that will take him away from Pandora. His intention is not to build an artificial intelligence for ship control, but use three OMCs (Organic Mental Core) left in hibernation. fr:Le Facteur ascension |
The Outlaw of Torn | Edgar Rice Burroughs | 1,927 | The story is set in 13th century England and concerns the fictitious outlaw Norman of Torn, who purportedly harried the country during the power struggle between King Henry III and Simon de Montfort. Norman is the supposed son of the Frenchman de Vac, once the king's fencing master, who has a grudge against his former employer and raises the boy to be a simple, brutal killing machine with a hatred of all things English. His intentions are partially subverted by a priest who befriends Norman and teaches him his letters and chivalry towards women. Otherwise, all goes according to plan. By 17, Norman is the best swordsman in all of England; by the age of 18, he has a large bounty on his head, and by the age of 19, he leads the largest band of thieves in all of England. None can catch or best him. In his hatred for the king he even becomes involved in the civil war, which turns the tide in favor of de Montfort. In another guise, that of Roger de Conde, he becomes involved with de Montfort's daughter Bertrade, defending her against her and her father's enemies. She notes in him a curious resemblance to the king's son and heir Prince Edward. Finally brought to bay in a confrontation with both King Henry and de Montfort, Norman is brought down by the treachery of de Vac, who appears to kill him, though at the cost of his own life. As de Vac dies, he reveals that Norman is in fact Richard, long-lost son of King Henry and Queen Eleanor and brother to Prince Edward. The fencing master had kidnapped the prince as a child to serve as the vehicle of his vengeance against the king. Luckily, Norman/Richard turns out not to be truly dead, surviving to be reconciled to his true father and attain the hand of Bertrade. |
Hotel du Lac | Anita Brookner | 1,984 | Romantic novelist Edith Hope is staying in a hotel on the shores of Lake Geneva, where her friends have advised her to retreat following an unfortunate incident. There she meets other English visitors, including Mrs Pusey and her daughter Jennifer, and an attractive middle-aged man, Mr Neville. Edith reaches Hotel du Lac in a state of bewildered confusion at the turn of events in her life. A secret and often lonely affair with a married man and an aborted marriage later, she is banished by her friends, who advise her to go on "probation" so as to "grow up," and "be a woman," atoning for her mistakes. Edith comes to the hotel swearing not to change. The silent charms of the hotel and her observations of the guests there all tug at Edith with questions of her identity, forcing her to examine who she is and what she has been. At the hotel, she observes people from different walks of life — Mrs Pusey and her daughter, Jennifer and their love for each other and the splendid oblivious lives they live; Mme de Bonneuil, who lives at the hotel in solitary expulsion from her son; and Monica, who came to the hotel, acceding to her husband's demands. She falls for the ambiguous smile of Mr Neville, who asks for her hand. She considers a life of recognition the married state would confer but ultimately rejects the possibility of a relationship with him when she realises he is an incorrigible womaniser. This also finally leads her to realize what her life is expected to be. Once again, she breaks chains and decides to take things into her own hands. |
Pharsalia | Lucan | null | Book I: After a brief introduction lamenting the idea of Romans fighting Romans and an ostensibly flattering dedication to Nero, the narrative summarizes background material leading up to the present war and introduces Caesar in northern Italy. Despite an urgent plea from the Spirit of Rome to lay down his arms, Caesar crosses the Rubicon, rallies his troops and marches south to Rome, joined by Curio along the way. The book closes with panic in the city, terrible portents and visions of the disaster to come. Book 2: In a city overcome by despair, old veterans present a lengthy interlude regarding the previous civil war that pitted Marius against Sulla. Cato is introduced as a heroic man of principle; as abhorrent as civil war is, he argues to Brutus that it is better to fight than do nothing. After siding with Pompey – the lesser of two evils – he remarries his ex-wife and heads to the field. Caesar continues south through Italy and is delayed by Domitius' brave resistance. He attempts a blockade of Pompey at Brundisium, but the general makes a narrow escape to Greece. Book 3: As his ships sail, Pompey is visited in a dream by Julia, his dead wife and Caesar's daughter. Caesar returns to Rome and plunders the city, while Pompey reviews potential foreign allies. Caesar then heads for Spain, but his troops are detained at the lengthy siege of Massilia (Marseille). The city ultimately falls in a bloody naval battle. Book 4: The first half of this book is occupied with Caesar's victorious campaign in Spain against Afranius and Petreius. Switching scenes to Pompey, his forces intercept a raft carrying Caesarians, who prefer to kill each other rather than be taken prisoner. The book concludes with Curio launching an African campaign on Caesar's behalf, where he is defeated and slain by the African King Juba. Book 5: The Senate in exile confirms Pompey the true leader of Rome. Appius consults the Delphic oracle to learn of his fate in the war, and leaves with a misleading prophesy. In Italy, after defusing a mutiny, Caesar marches to Brundisium and sails across the Adriatic to meet Pompey's army. Only a portion of Caesar's troops complete the crossing when a storm prevents further transit; he tries to personally send a message back but is himself nearly drowned. Finally, the storm subsides, and the armies face each other at full strength. With battle at hand, Pompey sends his wife to the island of Lesbos. Book 6: Pompey's troops force Caesar's armies – featuring the heroic centurion Scaeva – to fall back to Thessaly. Lucan describes the wild Thessalian terrain as the armies wait for battle the next day. The remainder of the book follows Pompey's son Sextus, who wishes to know the future. He finds the most powerful witch in Thessaly, Erictho, and she reanimates the corpse of a dead soldier in a terrifying ceremony. The soldier predicts Pompey's defeat and Caesar's eventual assassination. Book 7: The soldiers are pressing for battle, but Pompey is reluctant until Cicero convinces him to attack. The Caesarians are victorious, and Lucan laments the loss of liberty. Caesar is especially cruel as he mocks the dying Domitius and forbids cremation of the dead Pompeians. The scene is punctuated by a description of wild animals gnawing at the corpses, and a lament from Lucan for Thessalia, infelix – ill-fated Thessaly. Book 8: Pompey himself escapes to Lesbos, reunites with his wife, then goes to Cilicia to consider his options. He decides to enlist aid from Egypt, but the Pharaoh is fearful of retribution from Caesar and plots to murder Pompey when he lands. Pompey suspects treachery; he consoles his wife and rows alone to the shore, meeting his fate with Stoic poise. His headless body is flung into the ocean, but washes up on shore and receives a humble burial from Cordus. Book 9: Pompey's wife mourns her husband as Cato takes up leadership of the Senate's cause. He plans to regroup and heroically marches the army across Africa to join forces with King Juba, a trek that occupies most of the middle section of the book. On the way, he passes an oracle but refuses to consult it, citing Stoic principles. Caesar visits Troy and pays respects to his ancestral gods. A short time later he arrives in Egypt; when Pharaoh's messenger presents him with the head of Pompey, Caesar feigns grief to hide his joy at Pompey's death. Book 10: Caesar arrives in Egypt, where he is beguiled by the Pharaoh's sister Cleopatra. A banquet is held; Pothinus, Ptolemy's cynical and bloodthirsty chief minister, plots an assassination of Caesar but is killed in his surprise attack on the palace. A second attack comes from Ganymede, an Egyptian noble, and the poem breaks off abruptly as Caesar is fighting for his life. |
Bend Sinister | Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov | null | This book takes place in a fictitious European nation known as Padukgrad, where a government arises following the rise of a philosophy known as "Ekwilism," which discourages the idea of anyone being different from anyone else, and promotes the state as the prominent good in society. The story begins with the protagonist, Adam Krug, had just lost his wife to an unsuccessful surgery. He is quickly asked to sign and deliver a speech to the leader of the new government by the head of the university and his colleagues, but he refuses. This government is led by a man named Paduk and his "Party of the Average Man." As it happens, the world-renowned philosopher Adam Krug was in his youth a classmate of Paduk, at which period he had bullied him and referred to him disparagingly as "the Toad." Paduk arrests many of the people close to Krug and those against his Ekiwilist philosophy, and attempts to get the influential Professor Krug to promote the state philosophy to help stomp out dissent and increase his personal prestige. He makes a series of offers to Krug, but Krug continues to refuse outright. Finally, Paduk has Krug's young son David taken for ransom as Krug was arrested. Immediately, Krug capitulates and is prepared to promote the Ekiwilist philosophy, and is promised David's safe return. However, when David is to be returned to him, Krug is horrified to find that the child he is presented is not his son. There has been a mix-up, and David has been sent to an orphanage that doubles as a violent prisoner rehabilitation clinic where he was tortured and killed when he was offered as a "release" to the prisoners. Paduk makes an offer to allow Krug to personally kill those responsible, but he swears at the officials and is locked in a large prison cell. Another offer is made to Krug to free 24 opponents of Ekwilism, including many of his friends, in exchange for doing so. He accepts in complete lucidity, then, as the author feels pity, a beam of light comes down and strikes him insane leading him to charge Paduk. |
Der Richter und sein Henker | Friedrich Dürrenmatt | 1,950 | Commissar Bärlach of the Bernese police, who is dying of cancer and must solve the murder of his best officer, Lieutenant Ulrich Schmied. Bärlach is assisted in his investigation by officer Walter Tschanz. As Schmied had been investigating the crimes of Richard Gastmann, a career master criminal who is an old friend and enemy of Bärlach's, suspicion immediately falls upon Gastmann. But Bärlach and Tschanz's "investigation" of Gastmann yields an unexpected twist after Tschanz kills Gastmann, supposedly in self-defense. Bärlach then reveals that he has known all along that Tschanz is the one who murdered Schmied. Tschanz had purposefully killed Gastmann so that Gastmann would be forever blamed for Schmied's murder. Furthermore, Bärlach had manipulated Tschanz into this action with the manner in which Bärlach had pressed forward with their seeming investigation of Gastmann. Bärlach had deliberately pushed Tschanz toward a final, fatal confrontation with Gastmann, resulting in Gastmann's death: the punishment Bärlach considers just for all of the previous crimes Gastmann had committed, but which Bärlach had been unable to prove. In fact, Gastmann and Bärlach went back forty years. They had long ago made a personal bet with one another as to whether it was possible to commit the "perfect" crime, such that even an investigator who personally witnessed it would never be able to prove the perpetrator guilty. After that bet, Gastmann, as Bärlach well knew, had pursued a lifelong career as a purveyor of crime, evil in its comprehensiveness, arrogant and mocking of civilization itself. And indeed he always remained one step ahead of Bärlach's tireless but fruitless efforts to convict him. Gastmann recalled to Bärlach: "I wanted to prove that it was possible to commit a crime that couldn't be solved." Gastmann had been correct, and Bärlach's final plot is an acknowledgment thereof. By murdering Schmied during Schmied's investigation of Gastmann, Tschanz had ruined the terminally ill Bärlach's final chance to bring Gastmann to justice in a courtroom. Therefore, using Tschanz as a pawn, Bärlach finds an alternate method to mete out the justice for which he feels Gastmann is overdue. |
A Wish for Wings That Work | Berkeley Breathed | 1,991 | The story centers on Opus the Penguin (who was at the time one of the main characters in Breathed's comic strip Outland). Opus is downhearted because as a penguin, he cannot fly. He orders a machine and assembles it; when it comes time to test the machine by jumping off a three mile high cliff, Opus decides to do something less dangerous, and goes home to make anchovy Christmas cookies. He does not give up on his dream though, and makes a Christmas wish to Santa Claus for "wings that will go!". On Christmas Eve, Santa is making his usual delivery when he loses his reindeer and crashes into the lake. Opus jumps in and uses his natural swimming skills to pull Santa out. To thank Opus for his daring rescue, a group of ducks pick him up and take him flying through the air. |
Asterix and the Golden Sickle | René Goscinny | 1,962 | Disaster strikes in the Gaulish village when Getafix the druid breaks his golden sickle. Without one he cannot attend the annual conference of druids, or cut mistletoe for the magic potion which keeps the Roman armies at bay. Asterix and his friend Obelix set out for Lutetia (present-day Paris) to buy a new one from Obelix's cousin, the skilled sicklesmith Metallurgix. On the way they encounter bandits, but easily defeat them. A man in an Inn they stay at says sickles are in short supply in Lutetia. They finally get to the city. However, Metallurgix has mysteriously gone missing, and before long our heroes are exploring the underworld of the big city. They go to an Inn opposite, but when they ask about Metallurgix the man close up, and after they are gone gives a description of them to another man. This man finds them, and introduces himself as Clovogarlix, claiming to be a friend of Metallurgix. Saying that Metallurgix has retired from sickle making, he takes them to a place where they meet a man called Navishtrix who tries to sell them a sickle for a vast price, though they refuse and wreck the place. They are arrested, but released by the bored Prefect Surplus Dairyprodus, and find out from a Centurion that Metallurgix may have been kidnapped. They uncover a sickle-trafficking gang with sponsors high up the Roman bureaucracy, whose shadowy business is run from below a portal dolmen in the Boulogne forest. The two enter the forest and get directions from a bandit they save from wolves. They get into the lair and find a hoard of Golden Sickles, but are attacked by a gang that includes Clovogarlix and Navishtrix, but they defeat them. Navishtrix gets away, but they find him with Surplus, revealed to be the leader. When all is revealed that Surplus did it all just for mere amusement, the Gauls rescue Metallurgix, and Surplus is arrested for sickle-trafficking, while the sickles beneath the Dolmen have been returned to Metallurgix, they can go home with a new sickle for the druid which Metallurgix gives them for free and the magic potions will continue to flow. |
Way Station | Clifford D. Simak | 1,963 | Enoch Wallace, an American Civil War veteran, is chosen by an alien called Ulysses to administer a way station for interplanetary travel. Wallace is the only human being who knows of the existence of these aliens, until almost a hundred years later, when the US government becomes aware of and suspicious about his failure to age or die. Factions in the galactic federation want to close off development of Earth's entire arm of the galaxy to concentrate resources elsewhere, and the government's stealing the body of a dead alien gives them impetus to push forward, while the loss of an artifact giving contact with the spirit of the universe causes galactic civilization to begin to fray. The novel has a number of seemingly disconnected subplots that are not resolved until the conclusion of the book. One such subplot is related to the fact that the government is very interested in Enoch and spies on him for an indeterminate time. Enoch's closest neighbors are an asocial and coarse hillbilly family whose daughter is a deaf mute. She heals warts, birds and butterflies and is the total antithesis of her clan. By adopting an alien math, Enoch is able to compute that the world will go to war and eventual nuclear suicide. Strangely, Enoch has a gun he never uses except in an elaborate hunting simulation. Enoch's ghostly support system, which he created years ago, collapses on him during the course of the novel. Finally, Enoch is left with the choice of allowing the Earth to destroy itself in war or call down a galaxy sponsored "dumbing down" that would last for generations but avert the looming war. |
Black Wind | F. Paul Wilson | null | The story proper begins in the present-day Aleutian islands, where a team of CDC researchers, including beautiful field epidemiologist Sarah Matson, are unexpectedly infected by a deadly mystery illness; they are rescued by Dirk Pitt Jr. (hereinafter Pitt Jr.), who is nearby on a NUMA research vessel. Pitt Jr, with friend and coworker Jack Dahlgren, return to the site to investigate but their helicopter is downed by gunfire from a mysterious trawler. They survive, eventually determining that the illness resulted from a toxic compound of cyanide and smallpox. In Japan, the U.S. ambassador is golfing with his British counterpart when he is assassinated by a sniper named Tongju. Tongju later assassinates the ambassador’s deputy and a semiconductor executive, leaving clues that appear to identify him as a member of a Japanese terrorist group. Investigating the toxin, Pitt Jr. consults marine-history researcher St. Julien Perlmutter, who finds records of the I-403. Pitt Jr. and Dahlgren find and dive on the sunken I-403, but its mysterious ordnance has been removed. Meanwhile in the Philippines, Dirk Pitt senior (hereinafter referred to simply as Dirk) and his friend and colleague Al Giordino are also discovering forgotten Japanese ordnance that is poisoning marine life. In Inchon, South Korea, Dae-jong Kang, a multi-millionaire industrialist, is secretly a North Korean sleeper agent who has been using corruption to press for rapid reunification of the divided peninsula. Kang reviews his plans with his assistant; they include framing a U.S. serviceman for the murder of a South Korean girl to foment unrest, while Tongju retrieves more of the World War II toxin from a second sunken submarine. Learning of the interference of Pitt Jr., Kang sends assassins to eliminate him. The assassins track down but fail to kill Pitt Jr. and Matson on Vashon Island in Washington; Pitt Jr. is just able to jump his recently-purchased 1958 Chrysler 300-D convertible aboard the Vashon Island Ferry, while Kang’s assassins crash their black Cadillac CTS. NUMA researcher Hiram Yeager has discovered that the toxic ordnance was also carried by a Japanese submarine lost in the South China Sea. Pitt Jr. joins his sister Summer and father aboard a NUMA salvage vessel that locates the wreck, but Tongju and his commando team seize the vessel. After taking the recovered toxin and kidnapping Dirk and Summer, the North Koreans sabotage the salvage ship and leave the imprisoned crew to drown, but Pitt senior is able to help everyone escape. Pitt Jr. and Summer are taken to Kang’s yacht, where the multimillionaire taunts them with a general threat of infecting the U.S. with the hybrid toxin, then leaves them to drown. They are able to escape (with the aid of Clive Cussler) and make their way back to the United States. Unaware of the exact nature of Kang’s plan, the NUMA team coordinates with government agencies to search for cargo vessels that might be carrying the toxin. However, the real plan goes forward as Tongju and his commando team pirate Sea Launch, a seaborne rocket-launching platform, preparing to fire a toxin-laden warhead at a G8 summit meeting in Los Angeles. When Dirk and Giordino spot the launch platform from a blimp, a deadly countdown is already underway. However, Pitt Sr. manages to infiltrate and alter the launch, resulting in the rocket crashing into the sea. In the final showdown, Pitt Jr. and a team of U.S. Navy SEALs infiltrate Kang's base as he prepares his final getaway aboard his luxury yacht. it:Vento nero sv:Svart vind |
Never Let Me Go | Kazuo Ishiguro | 2,005 | The novel is divided in three sections that chronicle the phases of the main characters' lives. This section is set at the fictional Hailsham boarding school in East Sussex, England. It is clear from the peculiar way the teachers—known as "guardians"—treat the students, that Hailsham is not a normal boarding school. Eventually, it is revealed to the reader and to the students that the children are clones created to provide vital organs for non-clones ("originals"). The students are not taught any life skills, though the teachers encourage the students to produce various forms of art and poetry. The best works are chosen by a woman known only as "Madame," who takes them away. Students believe she keeps their work in a secret Gallery although this is not discussed with guardians. The three main characters—Ruth, Tommy and Kathy—develop a close friendship. From a young age, Kathy seems to have resigned herself to being a rather passive observer of other people and the choices they make, instead of making her own. Tommy, an isolated boy who struggles to be creative, is often the target of bullies. And while Ruth is an extrovert with strong opinions who appears to be the center of social activity in her cohort, she is not as confident as she is perceived to be. Early on in the story, Kathy develops a fondness for Tommy, looking after him when he is bullied. Although a bond grows between Kathy and Tommy, their relationship doesn't become physical. Instead, Ruth and Tommy enter into a sexual relationship, as many of the students do. At one point, they break up, and Kathy resolves to begin a relationship with Tommy, with many of the fellow students seeing it as the normal course of events. But Ruth asks Kathy to talk to Tommy in order to patch things up between herself and Tommy, so instead of asking for a relationship between herself and Tommy, Kathy ends up interceding to get Tommy to take Ruth back. Ruth and Tommy remain together throughout their remaining time at Hailsham. In the second section, the characters, who are now young adults, around age 16 – 18, have moved to the "Cottages," residential complexes where they begin contact with the external world. It is clear from the descriptions of the Cottages that they are vastly inferior to the luxuries of Hailsham. The buildings are cold and in poor condition, and there is little for the clones to do there, with no supervision apart from one maintenance man. The romantic relationship that had developed between Ruth and Tommy continues, while Kathy explores her sexuality with other students there without forming any long-term relationship. Kathy often takes the role of the peacemaker in the tumultuous relationship between Tommy and Ruth. During their time at the Cottages, the characters travel to Norfolk, where two of their housemates tell them of a rumor that Hailsham students might be allowed to "defer" from being donors for three years if they have truly fallen in love. Tommy hypothesizes that Madame collected their art for her Gallery to use it as a kind of lie detector. The art would tell administrators whether clones are telling the truth about being in love, via their personality that they reveal through their art. Tommy feels great anxiety about this issue, because he was always bad at art; he was told that it wasn't important if his art was any good, but then later told that it was important. Thus he began working on his art in secret in order to convince Madame that he is capable of being truly in love. Tensions among Tommy, Ruth, and Kathy rise as they all struggle to find acceptance and understanding outside Hailsham and with each other. Among these tensions is Kathy's hypothesis and Ruth's outburst that children such as themselves were modelled from the human "trash" of the Earth. These complications inevitably lead to Kathy requesting early departure from the cottages to become a "carer"—a clone who cares for other clones recovering from organ-removal surgery. The third section involves Tommy and Ruth becoming donors and Kathy becoming a "carer." About ten years go by without Kathy seeing Ruth or Tommy. Towards the end of this time Kathy sees her old classmate Laura, who is also a carer, and they speak. The reader learns from their conversation that Hailsham has recently closed and that Ruth is on her first donation, which did not go well, and her health has deteriorated. Kathy begins to care for Ruth, and Ruth is aware that the next donation will most likely be her last. She suggests to Kathy that they take a trip and, knowing that Tommy is in a nearby facility, bring Tommy with them. Kathy and Ruth pick up Tommy at his hospital, and they drive to see an abandoned boat in the middle of a marshland. During this trip, Ruth expresses regret and vocalizes what had been only earlier implied: she used deliberate manipulations to come between Kathy and Tommy despite sensing their bond. In an effort to make amends, Ruth hands them a piece of paper with Madame's address, and urges them to pursue a relationship with one another and seek a deferral. Tommy seems puzzled yet excited about the possibility of getting a deferral, while Kathy seems skeptical and afraid to be too hopeful. Soon after the trip, Ruth makes her second donation and dies, which is euphemistically referred to as "completion" by the characters. The term is also referring to the fact that they have given all that they have; their purpose in life is complete. Kathy then becomes Tommy's carer and begins a romantic relationship with him. For a time they are happy, but then think again about the possible deferral. Tommy selects pieces of his art to show to Madame, and, encouraged by Ruth's last wishes they go to Madame's address. Their goal is to see if they can defer Tommy's fourth donation (which is often the last one). Tommy has brought his art with him, as evidence of his personality, to back up his claims that he and Kathy are in love. Madame leads Kathy and Tommy inside, where they also meet Miss Emily, their old headmistress. They learn that Hailsham was a failed effort on their part to prove to society that clones had souls. They emphasized art as a means to make this point to the world. However, the experiment ultimately failed to achieve what they had wanted and they lost their funding and Hailsham had to be closed. Other clones were raised in much grimmer circumstances. Miss Emily dismisses the rumor that Hailsham students may defer their donations if they fall in love. The pair learn that Hailsham was an experiment to improve the living conditions and alter societal attitudes toward clones. Until Hailsham, society had preferred to view clones merely as non-human sources of organs. Kathy and Tommy learn that Madame actually was disgusted by the clones, and that Miss Lucy (another teacher at Hailsham) was dismissed for her dangerously open attitudes towards them. Tommy is upset and bewildered by the discovery of the purpose of Hailsham, whereas Kathy appears simply humbled, as if she has passively accepted her fate. The novel ends after Tommy's "completion" (i.e. death), on a note of resignation, as Kathy will now become a donor and eventually "complete." |
Asterix and the Goths | René Goscinny | 1,963 | Asterix and Obelix, nervous about Getafix traveling alone to the annual druids' conference in the Forest of the Carnutes, decide to accompany him on his journey, provided that, as non-druids, they remain outside the forest during the conference. Meanwhile, on the Roman Empire's border, two legionaries are ambushed and tied up by a band of Goths (Tartaric, Esoteric, Atmospheric, Prehistoric and Choleric), intending to kidnap the Druid of the Year and use his magic to conquer Gaul and Rome. Asterix, Obelix and Getafix meet another druid, Valuaddetax, who uses his magical powers to convince the Romans that they are actually druids (he makes a legionary bray like a donkey by eating some herbs). At the edge of the Forest of the Carnutes, Getafix and his friend leave Asterix and Obelix for the druid's conference. Unaware that the Goth band is hiding nearby, the druids begin their conference. Getafix goes last and easily wins the "Golden Menhir" prize with his potion, which gives superhuman strength. Realizing Getafix is just the druid they need, the Goths ambush him while he is leaving the woods, tie him up in a bag, and take him away. Asterix and Obelix, fearing for their friend's safety after they do not see him leave the Forest, enter the woods and find a Visigoth helmet (actually a pickelhaube like those worn by Germans during the first years of World War I). They instantly set out towards the east (thoroughly confusing Obelix) to rescue Getafix. Unfortunately, they run into another Roman patrol, which spots the helmet Asterix is carrying and mistakes them for Goths (who are wanted for assaulting Roman border guards). Obelix and Asterix easily defeat the Romans, but the Roman general is informed of the incident and sends out pictures of Asterix and Obelix with a reward for their capture. Asterix has the bright idea of disguising himself and Obelix as Romans and ambush two legionaries, stealing their armor and weapons and leaving them tied up and gagged. Two other legionaries, searching for the Goths, come across our heroes, in which Obelix's laughter at what they should say if they meet other Romans almost blows his and Asterix's cover, although the legionaries think their fellow comrades' hair and whiskers are suspicious. Soon after, the two legionaries spot the two tied-up Romans and mistake them for Asterix and Obelix, 'a fat one and a little one'. Thinking another Legionary captured them and has gone for reinforcements they decide to take the reward, and take the prisoners to the general's tent. They are told they will get seats in the circus for this. When the captives are ungagged, however, the full story comes out, and the Romans promptly begin capturing each other left and right, believing each other to be Goths, much to the disappointment of the General. The two Legionaries, when asking about their seats, are told by the General they will get them in the best position, with the lions. Asterix and Obelix, back in Gaulish clothing, are completely untouched, along with the Goths, who approach the border. The Goths cross the Roman Empire's border back into Germania, stunning a young legionary whose eagerness to report an invasion becomes a running gag (He initially reports an 'invasion' of Goths invading the Goths, then an invasion of Gauls crossing into Germania- which his centurion dismisses as their territory isn't the one being invaded-, and then finally reports the Gauls returning to Gaul, which causes him to get 8 days inside). They present the druid first to a customs officer, who at first refuses to let them through on charges of importing foreign goods. Meanwhile, Asterix and Obelix also stun the young legionary and enter the Gothic lands. While running into a Gothic border patrol, Obelix stupidly uses the cover up names he and Asterix used for their Roman disguises, making the patrol think our heroes are Romans. After Asterix and Obelix beat up the patrol, they disguise themselves as Goths by attacking two of them, infiltrating their barracks as members of the army. Eventually, the Goths present Getafix to their Gothic chieftain, Metric, calls in a Gaulish-Gothic translator, Rhetoric, who is threatened to be executed if he does not convince Getafix to cooperate and brew magic potion. Although Getafix flatly refuses, Rhetoric lies and says that he has agreed to do so in a week's time, at the New Moon. Asterix and Obelix escape from the Gothic army, but are soon captured again by the Goths and thrown in jail along with Rhetoric, who was also trying to flee. Although they are thrown in prison, Obelix easily breaks the door (another running gag) and they flee, gagging Rhetoric and taking him with them to question. When he is ungagged, Rhetoric at first speaks Gothic, but accidentally reveals that he can speak Gaulish when he thanks Asterix for saying 'Bless you' when he sneezes, and when he refuses to spill the beans, Asterix allows Obelix to threaten to bash him, which makes Rhetoric immediately talk. While trying to sneak into the Gothic town, Rhetoric screams and attracts a patrol. Although Asterix and Obelix beat up the patrol, they surrender to the last standing man to be brought to the Chief. The Gauls are brought before Metric. Getafix reveals that he can actually speak Gothic and informs Metric that Rhetoric had been deceiving him. Once again, he is thrown in jail with the Gauls, and they are all sentenced to execution. Asterix, Obelix and Getafix devise a scheme in which many Goths are given magic potion, so that they spend time and energy fighting each other for Chieftainship instead of invading Gaul and Rome, which they figure Rhetoric may play a part in. Under the pretext of cooking a last Gaulish soup, Getafix gives the jailer a list of ingredients and brews the potion when he acquires them. During the public execution, Rhetoric asks to go first. Full of magic potion, he resists all attempts to torture, and beats up Metric, throwing him in jail and making himself Chieftain of the Goths. The Gauls visit Metric in his prison, and give him magic potion. As the two Chieftains had the same magic potion in them, a direct fight proves futile and each storms off, promising to raise an army. Meanwhile, the Gauls wander around the town, giving potion to any Goth who looks browbeaten and who would be glad of a chance of power (their first two candidates being Electric, who is poor and has to sweep up streets, and Euphoric, who is being bossed about by his dictator like wife). The would-be Chieftains each raise an army, and a confusing set of conflicts begins, known as the "Asterixian Wars", thus successfully sowing so much discord in Germania that the tribes will be more occupied with fighting each other rather than trying to invade other countries. Although their peace-keeping mission probably created more casualties than a Gothic invasion of Rome would, the three Gauls make it back to Gaul, again running into the over eager young legionary at the border, return home confident and are welcomed with open arms by the village, who throw their usual banquet in celebration. |
The Richleighs of Tantamount | Barbara Willard | null | The book tells the story of four young siblings—Edwin, Angeline, Sebastian and Maud—who live together in a London mansion in Victorian society (c. the 1870s), along with their wealthy parents. These four children have been longing all their lives for their maiden visit to Tantamount, a castle on the Cornish coast, built by their great-great-great-grandfather. From time to time, the children wonder about its mysterious past as they look at the gigantic painting of the castle that dominates a wall in their drawing room. Their lives are changed one fateful, unforgettable July when their father contracts a serious illness. The children are sent to stay at the castle while their parents go on a sea voyage to repair his health. Only when the children begin to explore do they realize that despite being built and furnished in magnificent style, the castle is suffering from decades of neglect. The tutor and governess are shocked by the condition of the place and leave abruptly. Soon the recently-engaged servants do the same, but the children decide to stay on alone. Regarding themselves as castaways, they enjoy their freedom despite the hardships. They make friends with two local children, Nancy and Dick, and are worried when they disappear. They begin to suspect that the castle is being used for smuggling and even wrecking. Tantamount is destroyed by fire, but when the parents arrive at last they are relieved to find their children have survived. |
The Moving Finger | Agatha Christie | null | Jerry and Joanna Burton, a brother and sister from London society, take a country house in idyllic Lymstock so that Jerry can rest from injuries received in a wartime plane crash. They are just getting to know the town's strange cast of characters when an anonymous letter arrives, rudely accusing the two of being lovers, not siblings. They quickly discover that such poison pen letters have been recently circulating around town indiscriminately and completely inaccurate. Things flare up when Mrs Symmington, the wife of the local solicitor, commits suicide upon receiving a letter stating that her second child was born out of wedlock. Her body is discovered with the letter, a glass containing potassium cyanide and a torn suicide note which reads "I can't go on". An inquest is held and the verdict of suicide is brought in. The police begin to search for the anonymous letter writer. The Burtons' maid, Partridge, receives a call from Agnes, the Symmington's maidservant, who seems distraught over something. Partridge asks Agnes over to tea the next afternoon, but Agnes never arrives; her body is discovered in the under-stairs cupboard the next day by Mr Symmington's step-daughter Megan. Scotland Yard sends an investigator, who comes to the conclusion that the letter-writer/murderer is a middle-aged woman who must be one of the prominent citizens of Lymstock. Progress is slow until the vicar's wife calls up an expert of her own, Miss Marple. Jerry Burton gives Miss Marple some vital clues by telling her of the contents of his dreams and his disconnected thoughts. There is a break in the case when the Symmingtons' beautiful young governess, Elsie Holland, receives an anonymous letter typed on the same typewriter, proven to have been used to create envelopes for all the previous letters. The village doctor's sister, Aimée Griffith, is arrested, since she was seen typing the letter and delivering it. On the way to London for a visit to his doctor, Jerry takes Megan along with him to London where he buys her some new clothes to make her look presentable. He begins to realize he has fallen in love with her. When they return to Lymstock, Jerry asks Megan to marry him, and she refuses. As a result, Jerry goes to Mr Symmington to ask for his permission and to inform him of her refusal. Symmington, who is eager to have Megan off his hands, tells Jerry he will speak with her. Later that evening, Megan goes to her step-father's office and tries to blackmail him by implying she has proof of his guilt in the murders. He coolly pays her off, but later, when she is asleep, he tries to murder her by putting her head in the gas oven. He is immediately stopped by Jerry and the police, who were lying in wait. It is revealed that Miss Marple wished to prove Mr Symmington's guilt and that Megan was brave enough to assist her. Symmington had written all the letters as a cover-up for killing his wife. He had used phrases from a similar incident, done by a school-girl, which fooled the police into thinking that a woman had been the letter-writer. Miss Marple notes that it could not have been a woman who wrote the letters because none of the accusations was true and a typical middle-aged woman in a village Lymstock would have known of real scandals, whereas a man, especially a professional man like Symmington, would be uninterested in gossip. He murdered his wife by the use of cyanide and then planted the letter and a fake suicide note to disguise the crime. He committed the murders because he wished to marry Elsie Holland. Aimée Griffith, who was in love herself with Symmington, had written only the letter to Miss Holland, out of jealousy and to try to protect the man she loved from marrying the wrong woman. Megan, in light of recent events, finally realizes that she does indeed love Jerry. His sister Joanna marries the local doctor, and both couples settle down in Lymstock instead of returning to London. The book's title, The Moving Finger, is emphasized twice. The first is how the accusatory letters point blame from one town member to another, the second is from the addresses on the letters, which the Scotland Yard agent uses to determine the envelopes were all "typed by someone using one finger" in order to avoid a recognizable 'touch'. |
The Testament | John Grisham | 1,999 | Troy Phelan, an eccentric elderly billionaire, commits suicide minutes after leaving his vast fortune to an illegitimate daughter, Rachel Lane, instead of his six children by three marriages. His reason is revulsion over years of fighting with, and embarrassment from, his family, as well as their greed — much of which was due to his neglect of his children and multiple affairs (both personal and business). His lawyers are now tasked with protecting Troy's wishes as well as finding the heiress. Nate O'Riley, a high-powered litigation lawyer and now recovering alcoholic, is sent to Brazil, where Rachel is believed to be living as a missionary. While Nate is trying to find Rachel, Troy's family does everything in their power to contest the new will. They argue that although Troy was examined by three of the top psychiatrists in the nation, he was lacking sanity at the time of the new will. The journey into the Pantanal of South America by way of Corumbá nearly kills Nate, but finally he and his guide locate the tribe with which Rachel Lane is living. She refuses the legacy or anything connected with it. Nate is unable to convince her otherwise, and returns to the United States after contracting dengue fever from a mosquito. In the meantime, the ex-wives, children and respective lawyers continue attempting to destroy and disprove all evidence of Troy Phelan's sanity and even the will itself. They finally decide not to contest the will in court, fearing that their testimony during the deposition will further hurt their case. They also realize that two witnesses for the plaintiff are lying and would be torn to shreds by Nate should a trial ever take place. To settle the matter, Nate agrees that the relatives of Troy Phelan will be paid fifty million dollars each (minus lawyers' fees) to stop turning the will contest into a legal quagmire. When all is over, Nate returns to the jungle in order to get Rachel to sign off on the settlement, but when he arrives he learns that Rachel has died from malaria. She has, however, left instructions that the money be put into trust for the benefit of the indigenous peoples and that Nate will have control of the trust. The end of the book shows Nate riding off in a boat into the Pantanal, not caring if it took a month to get back to civilization. |
A Painted House | John Grisham | 2,001 | The story begins to unfold as Luke and his grandfather Eli, also known as Pappy, search for migrant workers to help them with the cotton picking. They initially consider themselves lucky to hire the Spruills, a family of "hill people," and a few Mexican migrant workers who annually come to the area looking for work. Aside from working long hours under the hot sun in the fields, Luke's life is fairly idyllic until he sees the overly aggressive and mentally unstable Hank Spruill attack three boys from the notorious Sisco family, one of whom is beaten so severely he dies from his wounds. Hank arrogantly identifies Luke as a friendly witness who can support his version of the event, and the fearful boy backs up his story, although the adults in his life, including local sheriff Stick Powers, suspect he's too frightened to admit the truth. When Luke sees Cowboy, one of the Mexicans, later murder Hank and toss his body into the river, Cowboy threatens to kill Luke's mother if Luke tells anyone what he saw. Cowboy and Tally, the teenage daughter of the Spruills, then run off together and are not seen again. Luke also learns that his admired Uncle Ricky, fighting in the Korean War, may have fathered a child with a daughter of the Latchers, their poverty-stricken sharecropping neighbors. Grisham surrounds these dramatic moments with descriptive passages of life in the rural South and the ordinary events that fill Luke's weekly routine. His hard work in the fields is preceded by a hearty breakfast of eggs, ham, biscuits, and the one cup of coffee his mother allows him, and at day's end he's rewarded with an evening on the front porch, where the family gathers around the radio to listen to Harry Caray announce the St. Louis games. A devoted fan, Luke is saving his hard-earned money to buy a team baseball warm-up jacket he saw advertised in the Sears, Roebuck catalog. Saturday afternoons are spent in town, where the adults share idle gossip and serious concerns and the youngsters visit the movie house, while Sunday morning is reserved for church. A visiting carnival, the annual town picnic, and Luke's introduction to television - to see a live broadcast of a World Series game - are additional bits of local color scattered throughout the tale. A flood devastates the family's cotton crop before the harvest is completed, and Luke's parents decide to travel to the city to find work in a Buick Plant, breaking a history of generations working on the land. The novel ends with Luke's mother smiling on the bus, having finally got her wish to leave cotton-farming. The book's title refers to the Chandler house, which never has been painted, a sign of their lower social status in the community. One day Luke discovers someone furtively has been painting the weatherbeaten clapboards white, and eventually he continues the job with the approval of his parents and the assistance of the Mexicans, contributing some of his own savings for the purchase of paint. The house's gradual transformation symbolizes the changes in the boy and his family as they prepare to enter a new phase in their lives. |
The Smiling, Proud Wanderer | Louis Cha | 1,967 | The story's initial development revolves around a coveted martial arts manual known as the Bixie Swordplay Manual. The manual has been passed down as an heirloom in the Lin family, who runs the Fuwei Escort Agency based in Fuzhou. Yu Canghai, leader of the Qingcheng Sect, leads his followers to massacre the Lins and seize the manual for himself but does not find it. Lin Pingzhi, the sole survivor of the Lin family, is rescued by Yue Buqun, head of the Mount Hua Sect, one of the members of the Five Mountains Sword Sects Alliance. Yue Buqun accepts Lin Pingzhi as a student and trains him in swordplay. The novel's protagonist is Yue Buqun's eldest disciple Linghu Chong, an orphaned, happy-go-lucky but honourable swordsman who has a penchant for liquor. He befriends the notorious bandit Tian Boguang and saves a nun called Yilin from the (North) Mount Heng Sect from Tian's sexual advances. In the meantime Liu Zhengfeng of the (South) Mount Heng Sect announces his decision to leave the wulin (martial artists' community) and invites fellow pugilists to witness his retirement ceremony. The event turns into a bloodbath when Zuo Lengchan (chief of the Mount Song Sect) and other orthodox sects accuse Liu Zhengfeng of being unfaithful to their code for befriending Qu Yang of the heretical Sun Moon Holy Cult. Liu and Qu are cornered by Zuo and his men and eventually commit suicide. Before dying Liu and Qu pass the score of Xiaoao Jianghu (a piece of music they composed together) to Linghu Chong. Lin Pingzhi's entrance into the Mount Hua Sect causes Linghu Chong to break up with his romantic interest Yue Lingshan (Yue Buqun's daughter) as she starts falling in love with Lin. Linghu Chong's carefree attitude brings him into trouble; his teacher decides to punish him by making him stay alone for a year in a secluded area on Mount Hua to reflect on his actions. He discovers carvings of swordplay techniques in a cave and practises them, unknowingly familiarising himself with not only the skills of the other four sword sects, but the counter moves as well. He also meets the reclusive Feng Qingyang, an elder of the Mount Hua Sect, who teaches him the formidable skill "Nine Swords of Dugu". The self-proclaimed orthodox Five Mountains Sword Sects Alliance, though seemingly united, is constantly troubled by politicking among its members. Linghu Chong gets embroiled in the internal conflict and becomes seriously injured while saving several students using his newly mastered swordplay, which Yue Buqun deems unorthodox. Linghu Chong meets the "Six Immortals of the Peach Valley", who attempt to cure his wounds in their weird fashion, but fail and aggravate his injuries instead. He follows his teacher to Luoyang and encounters a guqin-playing "old woman", who turns out to be a young maiden named Ren Yingying in disguise. By then Yue Buqun has already grown tired of Linghu Chong's frequent associations with jianghu lowlifes and strangers, and he abandons the latter. At Shaolin Monastery, Linghu Chong helps Ren Yingying recuperate from an injury after she is assaulted by some orthodox pugilists, while he learns to use the Yijin Jing to cure himself. He also hears from the Shaolin abbot that Yue Buqun has publicly announced that he has expelled Linghu Chong from the Mount Hua Sect. Linghu Chong sinks into despair as he is now an outcast of the wulin. After leaving Shaolin he meets a stranger Xiang Wentian, whom he saves from dozens of enemies. Xiang becomes sworn brothers with Linghu and brings him to a manor in Hangzhou, where Linghu meets Ren Woxing (Ren Yingying's father), the former leader of the Sun Moon Holy Cult who was ousted from power by his deputy Dongfang Bubai and imprisoned there. Ren Woxing breaks out of captivity by using Linghu Chong to replace himself, and in return he lets Linghu learn his "Star Sucking Great Skill" and thereafter rescues Linghu from the dungeon. Ren Woxing offers his daughter's hand in marriage to Linghu Chong and tries to persuade Linghu to join his cult but the latter declines. Linghu later helps Ren Woxing defeat Dongfang Bubai and regain control of his cult. Because he once helped the late leaders of the (North) Mount Heng Sect, who were mysteriously murdered, Linghu Chong is appointed head of that sect, whose members are all nuns. He leaves with Ren Yingying later to attend a special assembly of the Five Mountains Sword Sects Alliance, called for by its chief Zuo Lengchan. Zuo Lengchan attempts to intimidate the other four sects to completely submit to him, but Yue Buqun uses the Bixie Swordplay to defeat and blind Zuo and become the new leader of the alliance, much to the surprise of everyone present. After leaving the assembly, Linghu Chong and Ren Yingying see Lin Pingzhi brutally slaying members of the Qingcheng Sect to avenge his family, and overhear a conversation between him and his wife Yue Lingshan, in which Lin reveals that he and Yue Buqun have both mastered the Bixie Swordplay. Through this, Linghu learns that his respected teacher is actually a hypocrite who plotted an elaborate scheme against Lin Pingzhi to seize the Bixie Swordplay Manual, and Lin and Yue have both castrated themselves to learn the skill. Yue Buqun tries to kill Lin Pingzhi, who knows his secret and is quietly plotting revenge on him. The finale climaxes with members of the Five Mountains Sword Sects Alliance being trapped in the cave with the carvings, owing to Yue Buqun's treachery, where they slaughter each other out of paranoia and distrust. Both Yue Buqun's wife and daughter die for their respective husbands, while Yue Buqun is stabbed to death by the young nun Yilin. Ren Woxing, now intoxicated by power, masters an attack to overcome the scattered and fragmented orthodox sects, and then coerces Linghu Chong to join his cult, but dies at a crucial moment from a stroke triggered by his own megalomania. Ren Yingying is nominated as the new leader of the Sun Moon Holy Cult and she seeks a truce between the righteous and unorthodox sides of the martial artists' community. Three years later she passes the leadership to Xiang Wentian and marries Linghu Chong. Disillusioned by all the strife caused by power struggles, Linghu Chong and Ren Yingying retire from the jianghu, living happily after a wedding where the orthodox and unorthodox sects come to a temporary truce. |
Ella Minnow Pea | Mark Dunn | 2,002 | The plot is conveyed through mail or notes sent between various characters, though with the banned letters missing, creating passages that become more and more phonetically or creatively spelled, and requiring more effort to interpret. The novel is set on the fictitious island of Nollop, off the coast of South Carolina, which is home to Nevin Nollop, the supposed creator of the well-known pangram "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog". This sentence is preserved on a memorial statue to its creator on the island and is taken very seriously by the government of the island. Throughout the book, tiles containing the letters fall from the inscription beneath the statue, and as each one does, the island's government bans the contained letter's use from written or spoken communication. A penalty system is enforced for using the forbidden characters, with public censure for a first offense, lashing or stocks (violator's choice) upon a second offense and banishment from the island nation upon the third. By the end of the novel, most of the island's inhabitants have either been banished or have left of their own accord. The island's high council becomes more and more nonsensical as time progresses and the alphabet diminishes, promoting Nollop to divine status. Uncompromising in their enforcement of Nollop's "divine will", they offer only one hope to the frustrated islanders: to disprove Nollop's omniscience by finding a pangram of 32 letters (in contrast to Nollop's 35, or just 33 in the version "A quick brown..."). With this goal in mind "Enterprise 32" is started, a project involving many of the novel's main characters. With but five characters left (L, M, N, O, and P), the elusive phrase is eventually discovered by Ella in one of her father's earlier letters with him knowing all along that this would happen: "Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs", which has only 32 letters. The council accepts this and restores the right to all 26 letters to the populace. |
Surfacing | Margaret Atwood | null | The book tells the story of a woman who returns to her hometown in Canada to find her missing father. Accompanied by her lover and another married couple, the unnamed protagonist meets her past in her childhood house, recalling events and feelings, while trying to find clues for her father's mysterious disappearance. Little by little, the past overtakes her and drives her into the realm of wildness and madness. |
The Mad Man | Samuel R. Delany | 1,994 | In New York City in the early 1980s, John Marr, a black gay graduate student, is researching a dissertation on Timothy Hasler, a Korean-American philosopher and academic stabbed to death under unexplained circumstances outside a gay bar in 1973. As details emerge, Marr finds his lifestyle converging with that of Hasler, and he becomes increasingly involved in intense sexual encounters with homeless men, despite his growing awareness of the risks of HIV. |
Sons of Fortune | Jeffrey Archer | null | Sons of Fortune talks about two twin brothers who got parted in a cinematic consequence and grown up without knowing the existence of each other. In late 1940s in Hartford, Connecticut a set of twins who are separated at birth by a millionaire couple's nurse, after the millionaire couple's child - born the same day - dies of cot death in the hospital and she secretly switches Peter for the dead Fletcher Davenport. Nat Cartwright goes to home with his parents, a school teacher and an insurance salesman. But his twin brother is to begin days as Andrew Fletcher Davenport, the only son of a multi millionaire and his society wife. During the years that follow, the two brothers grow up unaware of each other’s existence. Even when Nat and Fletcher fall in love with same girl,Diance, they still don’t meet but continue on their separate paths, owing to the efforts taken by the multi-millionaire's nurse. Both complete their graduation. Nat leaves the college at the University of Connecticut to serve in the Vietnam War. He returns a war hero, having received the Medal of Honor for his actions in Vietnam, finishes school and becomes a successful currency banker. Fletcher, meanwhile, has graduated from Yale University and distinguishes himself as a criminal defense lawyer, before he is elected as a state senator for the Democratic Party. They know of each other by reputation. Cartwright marries a Korean computer whiz, Su Ling,an illegal immigrant, whom he meets in college. Fletcher marries his best friend's sister Annie, whom he falls in love with at first sight when they are in their teens. During the years, both men find themselves opposed by the machinations of the untrustworthy Ralph Elliot, who went to school with Nat, slept with his girlfriend and is his personal nemesis. Although their lives (common acquaintances and enemies, Fletcher saving the life of Nat's son during a school hostage situation) are interconnected, they never meet. However, their paths finally cross when they both decide to run for governor of Connecticut and Fletcher agrees to defend Nat on the charge of murdering his Republican primary opponent Ralph Elliot for leaking information about his wife and mother-in-law that lead to the suicide of his only child. Family members comment on similarities between the two, but no one ever connects the dots,until the end, because, after all, they are not identical twins. The truth is revealed to them when a potentially fatal car accident by Fletcher reveals that they share the same rare blood type. Nat donates his blood to save Fletcher. As Fletcher was hospitalized in the clinic where he was born, the attending doctor then finds secret documents which reveals that the obstetrician had the suspicons that the twins were switched at birth. In yet another plot twist, the twins choose to keep the blood link a secret.However, their wives guess this on the day of the election and mutually agree to keep it a secret. Knowing all this, they both still run for governor of Connecticut in 1992. On election day, after several rounds of counting the votes the result is still tied. The winner was ultimately appointed by the toss of a coin. After the toss, when both men stand to the left and right of the mayor to represent their parties, the mayor turns to his right to congratulate the new governor. Through clues in the book regarding their place alongside the mayor and who called heads, one can deduct that the winner is Fletcher.In the end, Fletcher definitely wins and becomes the governor as before the toss, Fletcher was to the left of the mayor. After the toss, the mayor picks up the coin and "turned" and then congratulated the man who was now to his right. Also Fletcher always said heads, so at that time too he must be the one who said heads. Jeffrey Archer also confirmed in Twitter that it was Fletcher. Chapter 31 starts by saying Fletcher always liked to call heads.https://twitter.com/Jeffrey_Archer/status/208479092444643328 Several aspects of the plot, as well as specific incidents such as the toss of the coin, also occur in a previous book he wrote - First Among Equals, which is a power struggle between four politicians for the prime ministership of the UK. |
Guerrillas | V.S. Naipaul | 1,975 | The main characters of the book are Jane, a woman from London, and her romantic partner Roche, a white South African man, who have recently arrived on the island. Roche is engaged with helping the poor on the island, which puts him in contact with a dishonest revolutionary opportunist named Jimmy. As they socialize with the privileged, Roche finds Jane contradictory and politically naive about her own place in the power structure, while also being challenged about his own motives and purpose. Jimmy has sexual fantasies about Jane, and has a perverse relationship with the boys he keeps in his commune. Amid the tumult of a societal crisis, the climax of the book is violent and tragic. |
Feed | Matthew Tobin Anderson | 2,002 | While spending Spring Break on the moon, Titus and his thrill-seeking friends meet Violet Durn, who is unlike any of them. While at a club, a man from an anti-feed organization hacks their feeds. When they wake up in a hospital, their feeds are unavailable: partially deactivated while under repair. Mostly, this is the teenagers' first experience of life without the influence of the feed. During their recovery, Violet and Titus begin a romantic relationship. Eventually, their feeds are repaired and they return to Earth. However, Violet's feed is not totally fixed. One day, Violet reveals her plan of resisting the feed to Titus. She plans to show interest in a wide and random assortment of products to prevent the corporations that control her feed from developing a reliable consumer profile. The two go to the mall and create wild consumer profiles. Later, Violet realizes that someone, most likely the Coalition of Pity, has been accessing her personal information through her dreams. She calls FeedTech customer service, but receives no help. Later, Violet tells Titus that her feed is severely malfunctioning, and she may die. Due to her deteriorating feed, various parts of Violet's body are shutting down. Throughout the novel, there is also a presence of lesions appearing on the characters' bodies. At first it is something they hide, but eventually the lesions turn into a trend. At School™, Titus notices that Calista has a large artificial lesion cut onto her neck. At a party, Quendy shows up with small artificial lesions over most of her body. Violet is disgusted and determines that everyone has become the feed. After this, she collapses and is taken to the hospital. As a side effect of the malfunction, Violet loses memories of the year before she got the feed installed. To avoid losing more memories, she makes large records of things she can remember. She sends them to Titus, but he deletes them. Violet's body parts continue shutting down. She and her father cannot afford repairs, so they petition FeedTech for assistance. While Titus is in mal with his friends, Violet calls and becomes angry with him. He is unaware of the environmental disaster that happened that morning in Mexico. Some sort of toxic waste has engulfed a number of villages. The Global Alliance is prepared to go to war with the United States. Titus drives to Violet's house. He falls asleep shortly after arriving due to the after effects of the mal. While he sleeps, Violet shares her bad news with Titus in the form of a dream: FeedTech has decided not to help Violet because of her strange customer profile. This is caused by her resistance of the feed. That weekend, Violet comes to Titus' house to ask him to go to the mountains. He is reluctant at first, but ultimately agrees. They begin fighting and break up. On the way home, Violet's arm stops working and when she arrives home her leg fails. Titus drives away. The next day, Violet apologizes to Titus via feed, but Titus does not answer. Titus receives a message from Violet's father saying that Violet wanted Titus to know when it was "all over." He informs him that the time has come. Titus goes to Violet's house, where she lies in a coma. Her father blames Titus and shows him memories of parts of her body and brain shutting down, the pain she experienced. He then tells Titus to be with the eloi. Titus asks what that means, but Mr. Durn refuses to answer, telling him to look it up. They fight, and Titus goes home. In an act of grief, he sits on his floor naked and orders the same pair of jeans continuously until he is entirely out of credit. Two days later, Titus goes to visit Violet again. He tells her any stories he can find in the information available through his feed. Finally, he tells her the story of their relationship in the form of a movie trailer. The book ends with Violet dying and the feed saying "Everything Must Go." |
Possession: A Romance | A. S. Byatt | 1,990 | Obscure scholar Roland Michell, researching in the London Library, discovers handwritten drafts of a letter by the prestigious (fictional) Victorian poet Randolph Henry Ash, which leads him to suspect that the married Ash had a hitherto unknown romance. He feels compelled to take away the documents secretly - an unprofessional act - and begins to investigate. The trail leads him to Christabel LaMotte, a minor poet and contemporary of Ash, and to Dr. Maud Bailey, a modern LaMotte scholar and distant relative of LaMotte's family, who is drawn into helping Roland with the unfolding mystery. They become obsessed with uncovering the truth and unearth more letters and evidence of an affair between the poets, and their own personal romantic lives - neither of which are happy or even satisfactory - develop and become entwined in an echo of Ash and LaMotte, whose story is told in parallel to theirs. The news of this affair will make headlines and reputations in academia, and colleagues of Roland and Maud become competitors in the race to discover the truth, for all manner of motives. And the truth is this: Ash's marriage was barren and unconsummated, although he loved and remained devoted to his wife. He and LaMotte had a short, passionate affair resulting in the suicide of LaMotte's companion (and possibly lover) and the secret birth of an illegitimate child, whose existence LaMotte sought to conceal from Ash, but whom he did once meet, unknown to her. As the Great Storm of 1987 strikes England, all the interested parties come together in a dramatic scene at Ash's grave, where documents buried with Ash by his wife are believed to hold the final key to the mystery. Reading them, Maud learns that rather than being related to LaMotte's sister, as she has always believed, she is in fact directly descended from LaMotte and Ash's illegitimate daughter, who was raised by LaMotte's sister and passed off as her own child, and she is therefore heir to their correspondence. Roland, freed from obscurity and a dead-end relationship, manages to live down the potential professional suicide of the theft of the original documents, and sees an academic career open up before him. Maud, who has spent her adult life confused and emotionally untouchable, finds her human side and sees possible future happiness with Roland. And the sad story of Ash and LaMotte, separated by the mores of the day and condemned to secrecy and separation, is resolved at last through Roland and Maud. |
Tomb of the Lizard King | Mark Acres | null | The scenario is a three part adventure which involves a wilderness trek, a battle against brigands, and a venture into the tomb of a lizard king. Brigands have been wreaking havoc on the southern trade routes, while merchants have been demanding that the Count of Eor puts an end to the attacks. The Count is seeking brave adventurers to end the evil brigands' activities and discover the power behind the attacks. A short wilderness adventure follows the opening, and leads the characters to the tomb of the lizard king. |
Shiroi Kyotō | Toyoko Yamasaki | null | The story contrasts the life of two doctors, former classmates and now both assistant professors at Naniwa University Hospital in Osaka. The brilliant and ambitious surgeon Goro Zaizen stops at nothing to rise to a position of eminence and authority, while the friendly Shuji Satomi busies himself with his patients and research. |
A Case of Conscience | James Blish | 1,958 | Father Ramon Ruiz-Sanchez of Peru, Clerk Regular of the Society of Jesus, is a member of a four-man team of scientists sent to the planet Lithia to determine if it can be opened to human contact. Ruiz-Sanchez is a biologist, biochemist, and the team doctor. However, as a Jesuit, he has religious concerns as well. The planet is inhabited by a race of intelligent bipedal reptile-like creatures, the Lithians. Ruiz-Sanchez has learned to speak their language. While on a walking survey of the land, Cleaver, a physicist, has been poisoned by a plant, despite a protective suit, and is in bad shape. Ruiz-Sanchez treats him and leaves to send a message to the others, Michelis, a chemist, and Agronski, a geologist. He is helped by Chtexa, a Lithian whom he has befriended, who then invites him to his house. This is an opportunity which Ruiz-Sanchez cannot pass up. No member of the team has been invited into Lithian living places before. The Lithians seem to have an ideal society, a utopia without crime, conflict, ignorance or want. Ruiz-Sanchez is more than a little in awe of them. When the team is reassembled, they compare notes on the Lithians. Soon they will have to officially pronounce their verdict. Michelis is open-minded and sympathetic to the Lithians. He also has learned their language and some of their customs. Agronski is more insular in his outlook, but sees no reason to consider the planet dangerous. When Cleaver revives, he reveals that he wants the place exploited, regardless of the Lithians' wishes. He has found enough pegmatite (a source of lithium which is rare on Earth) that a factory could be set up to supply Earth with lithium deuteride for nuclear weapons. Michelis is for open trade. Agronski is indifferent. Then Ruiz-Sanchez drops his bombshell: he wants maximum quarantine. The things Chtexa revealed to him, added to what he already knew, convinces him that Lithia is nothing less than the work of Satan, a place deliberately constructed to show peace, logic, and understanding in the complete absence of God. Point for point, Ruiz-Sanchez lists the facts about Lithia that directly attack Catholic teaching. Michelis is mystified, but does point out that all the Lithian science he has learned, while perfectly logical, rests on highly questionable assumptions. It is as if it just came from nowhere. The team can come to no agreement. Ruiz-Sanchez concludes that Cleaver will probably get his way, and Lithian society will be wiped out. Despite his conclusions about the planet, he has a deep affection for the Lithians themselves. As the humans board their ship to leave, Chtexa gives Ruiz-Sanchez a gift—a sealed jar containing an egg. It is a son of Chtexa, to be raised on Earth and learn the ways of humans. At this point, the Jesuit solves a riddle which he has been pondering for some time, from book III of Finnegans Wake by James Joyce (p.572–3), which proposes a complex case of marital morals, ending with the question "Has he hegemony and shall she submit?" To the Church, neither Yes nor No is a morally satisfactory answer. Ruiz-Sanchez sees that it is two questions, despite the omission of a comma between the two, so that the answer can be "Yes, and No". The egg hatches and grows into the individual Egtverchi. Like all Lithians, he inherits knowledge from his father through his DNA. Earth society is based on the nuclear shelters of the 20th century, with most people living underground. Egtverchi is the proverbial firecracker in an anthill—he upends society and precipitates violence. Ruiz-Sanchez has to go to Rome to face judgment. His conviction about Lithia is viewed as heresy, since he believes Satan has the power to create a planet. This is close to Manichaeism. He has an audience with the Pope himself to explain his beliefs. Pope Hadrian VIII, a logical and technologically-aware Norwegian, points out two things Ruiz-Sanchez missed. First, Lithia could have been a deception, not a creation. And second, Ruiz-Sanchez could have done something about it, namely perform an exorcism on the whole planet. The priest bows his head in shame that he has overlooked an obvious solution to his own case of conscience while he was absorbed in "a book [Finnegans Wake] which to all intents and purposes might have been dictated by the Adversary himself ... 628 pages of compulsive demoniac chatter." The Pope dismisses Ruiz-Sanchez to purge his own soul, and return to the Church if and when he can. A violent mass riot breaks out, fomented by Egtverchi and made possible by the psychosis present in many of the citizens as a result of living in the 'shelter state' (an earlier reference to the "Corridor Riots of 1993" indicates that this is not the first time violence has burst out among the buried cities). During the riot, Agronski dies as a result of being stung by one or more genetically modified honeybees. Ruiz-Sanchez administers extreme unction, despite his almost-faithless state. Egtverchi stows away on a ship to Lithia. Michelis and Ruiz-Sanchez are taken to the Moon, where a new telescope has been set up, based on "a fundamental twist on the Haertel equations which makes it possible to see around normal space-time, as well as travel around it", so that the instrument presents a view of Lithia in real-time, bypassing the delay caused by the speed of light. Cleaver is on Lithia, setting up his reactors, but the physicist who invented the telescope technology believes he has found a fault in Cleaver's reasoning. There is a chance that the work will set off a chain reaction in the planet's rocks and destroy it. As they watch on the screen, Ruiz-Sanchez pronounces an exorcism. The planet explodes, eliminating Cleaver and Egtverchi, but also Chtexa and all the things Ruiz-Sanchez admired. It is left unclear whether the extinction of the Lithians is a result of Ruiz-Sanchez's prayer or Cleaver's error. |
Blind Lake | Robert Charles Wilson | 2,003 | The novel deals with a government installation at Blind Lake, Minnesota, where scientists observe sentient life on a planet 51 light-years away, using telescopes powered by quantum computers that have advanced beyond human understanding. A sudden and unexplained facility lockdown extends into a long-term quarantine. Observation department head Marguerite Hauser tries to carry on with her work studying the alien life while taking care of her socially-challenged daughter Tess, warding off her ex-husband Ray, and deciding how she feels about houseguest and disgraced journalist Chris. |
La Distinction | null | null | In his often densely worded prose, Bourdieu discusses how those in power define aesthetic concepts such as taste. Referring to surveys of French citizens from different economic and educational backgrounds, he shows how social class tends to determine a person's likes and interests, and how distinctions based on social class get reinforced in daily life. He observes that even when the subordinate classes may seem to have their own particular idea of good taste, "the working-class 'aesthetic' is a dominated 'aesthetic' which is constantly obliged to define itself in terms of the dominant aesthetics..." |
The King Must Die | Mary Renault | 1,958 | The story is told by Theseus, looking back on his life from his vantage point as an adult. The novel opens with Theseus as a six-year-old child in the household of his grandfather, King Pittheus of Troizen. His mother is a priestess; his father's identity is unknown. Theseus recounts an early experience that made a great impact upon him and which contains some of the key themes running throughout the book. He recalls the rite of the Horse sacrifice; he is shocked and saddened when he sees the "King Horse", whom he considers a noble beast and his friend, killed in front of him as a sacrifice to the gods. However, this leads to a conversation with his grandfather the King who tells him how the King used to be sacrificed with the Horse and how even now a true king of the Hellene people, whose duty is to look after his people, may need to make the ultimate sacrifice. His grandfather discusses the role of "moira" or fate in their lives but also emphasizes that in order for a king to lead his people, he must consent to the risk of sacrifice, in order that "he can walk with the god". This becomes a recurrent theme in the story as, time and time again, Theseus is faced with the choice of choosing a safe course of action over one where he places his faith in the "god" and his skill and where he consents to what he sees as the will of the god. It is during the horse sacrifice that he first hears a surging sea-sound in his ears that he identifies as the voice of his god. After the horse sacrifice, he serves at Poseidon's temple for the next three years. While there as a boy, he dares to jump into the Palace bull's pen and play a risky game of evading the bull before it can harm him. He leads other boys into the game; when one of these boys, Dexios, slips and falls into the pen, Theseus feels that he is responsible and risks his life to save the boy by jumping onto the head of the bull. This incident foreshadows his future sojourn in Crete as a bull dancer. While serving at Poseidon's temple one day, he senses that something is wrong and tells Simo, a shallow and vulgar boy who has been dedicated as a slave to the temple, to be silent. He tells the boy to get out and at that moment an earthquake shakes the temple. Simo believes that Theseus is indeed Poseidon's son and Theseus is told by his grandfather that his ability to sense earthquakes is a warning sent to him by the god so that he can protect the people. As Theseus ages, he becomes frustrated because he is shorter and lighter than most Hellenes his age. As a result, he fails at the traditional wrestling style that relies just on weight and strength, though he is an excellent archer, javelin-thrower, and runner. One night, frustrated by this, he swims out to sea and almost drowns, but then hears the sea-surge sound in his ears which he believes to be the sign from the god; he returns to the shore of a village having a feast and is greeted as "Kouros of Poseidon" by the village beauty, who later that night becomes his first lover. When Theseus is fourteen, his older friend Diokles is killed by cattle raiders; Theseus avenges his friend by killing the raider. Soon after this, the Cretan ships come to Troizen to take away young boys and girls as tribute to Minos for the bull dancing in Crete. Theseus asks his grandfather why he doesn't fight the Cretans. His grandfather tells him that the Cretans control the essential sea trade routes and that they could bring 5,000 men to Troizen in a day. He sends Theseus into the hills so that he is not chosen for the bulldance. As time goes on, Theseus figures out how to compensate for his lighter build by learning to defeat his wrestling opponents through agility, using special holds and throws, some taught to him by two Egyptian boys and others formulated by his own ingenuity. When Theseus turns seventeen, his mother takes him to the sacred Grove of Zeus in the hills and explains that his father made her swear an oath not to tell him who his father was unless he could pry up a certain heavy stone. Theseus tries again and again to lift up the stone, but fails. His failure haunts him for 2 weeks or more but, after listening to a harper tell of the mechanisms used to hoist stones for a great temple and after praying to Apollo, he realizes that he can use a lever to raise the great stone. He recovers a man's sword and sandals from beneath it. At first, Theseus is bitter that his lineage is not godly, but his irritation vanishes when his grandfather explains that Theseus is the only son and heir of King Aigeus of Athens. Theseus is to travel to Athens and join his father at once. After being affronted by way that Cretan merchants, whose ships control the sea route to Athens, treat the people of Troizen, Theseus decides to go to Athens via the bandit-infested land route: the Isthmus of Corinth. At the time, this seems like a foolhardy thing to do but it later turns out to be the beginning of his many victories over adversity and Theseus later reflects on how the Cretan merchants thus unknowingly set in motion a momentous series of events. On the way through the Isthmus, his sole companion, Dexios, is killed by the bandit Skiron. Theseus avenges him, which is considered the first of his great feats. In Eleusis, a matriarchical and non-Hellene society focused on worship of the Earth mother goddess (in contrast to the patriarchical Hellene society that places higher value on worship of male gods), it is the custom to kill their king each year, as a sacrifice to the Earth mother goddess. As Theseus enters Eleusis, he is halted on the road by the 27-year-old Eleusinian Queen, who is the priestess for the mother goddess and whose sacred name is Persephone. She tells him he must wrestle her husband, Kerkyon, the year-king, in single combat, since this is the "day when the King must die". Theseus is not sure that he wants to fight Kerkyon since his goal is to reach Athens; in addition, the tradition of his Hellene society is that the king may need to sacrifice himself for his people for some particular goal or reason but that a true king knows when he is being called to do so and does so willingly. Here he is dismayed at the fact that Kerkyon has not consented to this sacrifice. Nevertheless, he believes that the Eleusinians may kill him if he refuses or the priestess may curse him and in any event he decides that fate has set this battle in his path and that he must trust in the gods. Before they fight, Kerkyon asks Theseus "Whose son are you?" and Theseus, not wanting to reveal the identity of Aigeus, tells them that his birth came about through his mother's sacrifice to the earth goddess. This makes an impression upon the Eleusinians since they believe that the earth goddess may have sent Theseus but Kerkyon laughs for some reason known only to himself and Persephone, his wife and Queen, and then says that she won't know whom to root for. It is suggested later in the book that a prophecy had been made about such a man overthrowing the traditions in Eleusis. For now, however, Theseus begins to wrestle Kerkyon; it turns out that Kerkyon is, like Theseus, a good wrestler and is also older and stronger than Theseus. Theseus begins to fear that he will lose. However, the Queen as priestess begins to beat upon a loud gong while the women of Eleusis chant in order to diminish the spirit of Kerkyon and help Theseus win. This is illustrative of a repeated theme in this book where an action or event occurs that is interpreted by some or all of the characters as having a supernatural element but can also be read as having a naturalistic explanation, e.g., purely as the natural consequence of the beliefs of the people. Theseus pins Kerkyon to the ground but, before he kills him, makes sure he is ready to die and asks Kerkyon to discharge Theseus of his death. Once he kills Kerkyon, he becomes the year-king and husband of the Queen in his stead. In their first night in bed, he is shocked by the Eleusinian custom of allowing the people to watch the King and the Queen have sex together; however, his anger dissipates when he and the Queen are truly alone. He says that he learned more in that one night with her than in the three prior years with the girls of Troizen. But he soon learns that the Queen rules in Eleusis and the King has no real power. The people shower love and gifts on the King but that is because he is expected to die in one year's time. Therefore, everyone treats him like a child of no account. Since Theseus has a strong sense of destiny and belief in the importance of kingship, he soon becomes restless and frustrated after he tries to participate in governing with his Queen and is rebuffed. Therefore, he begins to plan to build a base of support amongst the Eleusinian youths who accompany him around Eleusis. He begins to take them away on hunts to build some sense of independence and comraderie amongst them. His shows his strategic gifts by giving thought to how he can build an alliance with neighboring Megara since he does not wish to die at the end of his one year reign. With his companions, he hunts the great she-boar Phaia. As she charges his men, for whom he feels responsible, he risks his life alone against the boar and, with his agility and quick thinking, uses the boar's strength against it to impale and kill the beast. Pylas, prince of Megara, is impressed by this feat and Theseus, never one to let an opportunity pass, then shows his political skills by persuading Pylas to ask the Queen's brother to undertake a joint war to eliminate the bandits that infest the Isthmus of Corinth. However, killing the she-boar is sacrilege in Eleusis; on his return, Persephone locks him from their room. He climbs to the roof and jumps down onto the terrace leading to their room. The Queen angrily tells him to get out and he refuses, sending her servants out and re-locking the door. Because she berated him in front of her women, which he believes is beneath his status as king, he becomes enraged and threatens to beat her if she does not modify her behavior. They tussle together, she tries to call her guards, but he puts his hand over her mouth and she tries to bite him. They fall to the floor and the Queen's towel falls aways, which leads Theseus to think "For once in this room, it will be a man who says when". At that moment, she stabs him, aiming for his heart but misses. As he is bleeding and she is thinking of calling her guards, he tells her that "if you send me below before my time, by Zeus you shall come with me", and then he releases her. When she bursts into tears he softens, showing that he is still young and impressionable. He shows concern for her at this point even though he is bleeding. He then picks her up from the debris on the floor and carrys her to bed. He naively imagines that they have made things up. Xanthos, the brother of the Queen, agrees to go to war with Megara and further even agrees to let Theseus lead, given his experience in the Isthmus. Theseus is surprised that Xanthos did not argue the point, but, due to his youthful innocence and pride, thinks that he has won him over. He does not suspect that his wife and lover, the Queen, has asked Xanthos to take this opportunity to have Theseus killed. Persephone correctly anticipates that Theseus is trying to overthrow the established order and change the custom that the King must die. The cleansing of the Isthmus of bandits is a complete success and the two attempts by Xanthos to kill Theseus through the covert efforts of others fail. Theseus learns of the treachery of Xanthos and confronts him, challenging him to fight Theseus directly rather than seek his death through others. As they fight with spears, Theseus throws his spear and misses; Xanthos then has the advantage with a spear against the sword of Theseus. As Xanthos begins to press his advantage, Theseus sees that several Eleusinian men have throw their spears near him, showing that the men feel more loyalty to Theseus than Xanthos; Theseus he picks one up and strikes Xanthos with a mortal blow. As Xanthos dies, he is unable to understand this display of loyalty to Theseus. Theseus retires to bed that night with his new won slave girl, Philona, who dresses his wounds. She asks him to promise to never separate her from his household. He keeps this promse and later in life, he has two sons by her, Itheus the shipmaster and Engenes, commander of the Palace Guard. With the excuse of wanting to be purified of Xanthos's blood at the Athenian shrine of Apollo, Theseus finally goes to Athens. But his aged father Aigeus, who fears the powerful young king (whom he quite fails to recognise as his son), would have poisoned Theseus on the urging of his lover Medea, who wants the Athenian throne for her sons. But Aigeus recognises Theseus's sword just in time, and knocks the poisoned goblet from his son's hand. Medea escapes; no one knows how. Aigeus proclaims Theseus his son and heir. When Theseus returns to Eleusis, he finds that Queen Persephone has raised the army against him. When Theseus's oration persuades the army to support him, Persephone stages a suicide attempt by letting one of her sacred snakes (used in the mother-goddess rituals she presides over as priestess-queen) bite her. After Theseus gives her leave to go to a shrine to die, one of the court's women reveals to him that she is functionally immune to the snake-bites (immunity being necessary to ensure survival of priestesses) by way of calculated doses of diluted venom - and will not die, but is using the effects of the bite as a ruse to facilitate her flight from Theseus' justice. When a Cretan ship comes to collect a yearly tribute of seven boys and seven girls from Athens, Theseus offers himself in one boy's place. He insists, despite his father's pleas, claiming that it is what his patron god Poseidon has asked him to do. Theseus becomes a Cretan slave. The boat makes for Crete, and Theseus is content with the idea that he is to be sacrificed to Poseidon. When a fight occurs between an Eleusinian and Athenian boy, Theseus stops it and realizes he must do something. He becomes king of the victims, and makes them swear an oath that they will be together, not Minyans or Hellenes, but one group. They call themselves the Cranes. One of the girls, Helike, is a tumbler, and can dance very well. Bull dancers train for three months in Knossos Palace before they go and get their bull. Then the bull has to catch them; they are not sacrificed to him. The bull-dance began as a sacrifice to Poseidon, whom they believe lives beneath the Palace and causes earthquakes when he is angry. Over the ages the bull-dance developed into an art form, and those who survive the dance teach their art to the newer ones. They go in teams in front of the bull and sometimes, with a good team, the bull tires before someone is killed. In older days noble Cretan youths did it themselves for honor, but those days are gone, and they bring in slaves now. They learn that teams of fourteen dance, but are not usually kept together. To show that they are a team, they perform the Crane dance when they come into port. A crowd of Cretans is there, and larger, fairer people who are from the Palace. The court of King Minos is of Hellene descent and speaks Greek. Among the courtiers are a large man who is greatly respected, so that one of the Cranes speculates that he might be the King, but Theseus says that he isn't kingly before realizing that they'll understand what he says. The large man slaps Theseus, and then slaps him again after receiving a curt answer to a question. The man throws a gold ring in the water and tells him to find it if he is Poseidon's son. Theseus prays to Poseidon, finds the ring, and comes up with it. The man asks for it back, but then Theseus says it was offered to Poseidon and throws it back in. The man is Asterion, son of Minos. They see Knossos Palace, the hugely impressive House of the Axe. The walls of Crete are the seas that the King's ships control. The Cretans call the palace the Labyrinth, and the Cranes see the King in a brief ceremony. In a room with a huge statue of the Mother, a priestess accepts tokens from the nobles, who point to members of the group. She is "Ariadne the Holy One, the Goddess-on-Earth." She cleanses Theseus, because he has shed the blood of kinsmen. Theseus desires her and has to keep himself calm. A man named Aktor comes to take them into the bull court and is told to train them as a team. One boy, clearly the leader of them all, called the Corinthian, sizes up the Cranes and talks to them. They learn that they are the first team to be kept together and that only the King had ever dedicated an entire team before Asterion did it. The bull-dancers all live and eat together. The boys are allowed to roam the Palace at night, while the girls are kept securely in a separate dorm. Although he never sleeps with the girls of the Bull Court, Theseus learns it is not hard for a bull-dancer to get a woman. Other dancers are in homosexual relationships with each other. They practice using the Bull of Daedalus, named after its original designer. The bronze horns were supposedly his own handiwork. The bull-leapers are respected athletes, for they grasp the bull's horns and fly off them when his head rears and are caught by other dancers when they land. Each member of the team is critical to the life of everyone else. The Cretan bulls have been bred for the dance, and the intelligent and quick ones are used for sacrifice. The ones in the dance are slower, but still dangerous. But they cannot be harmed, for the god lives inside them. At the bull dance performance, everyone addresses Ariadne as the Goddess, saying "We salute you, we who are going to die." The Corinthian tries to help another dancer who is disliked by her own team. They would not help her, but the Corinthian does and is killed for it. Theseus makes the Cranes swear a new oath to hold the life of each as precious as their own. A boy gives him a bracelet that the Corinthian wanted him to have. They go get their bull in the pasture, and name him Herakles. They learn that Asterion is not really the King's son but the Queen's, by a bull-leaper, and the King has treated him poorly so there is no love between them. Theseus becomes consumed by the bull dance, feeling that being a bull-leaper is all one could ever ask for in life. The team survives for three months without a single member dying, which is unheard of. Theseus receives a summons to a party given by Asterion, where he is patronized and treated like a prize horse instead of a person. Asterion makes even Theseus' honor an object of amusement. The other lords are kinder to him. They no longer think much of the gods and their honor does not mean much to them. Adultery means little to them, and they hold no grudges. The Cretan nobles are weary of life the way it is, because things have been so easy for them. Another sign that Crete is falling into decadence is their art. Cretans are the best potters in the world, but they have gotten bored with the beauty of their pottery and begin constructing crude things, simply because they are new. One day he is taken to meet ten-year-old Phaedra, the King's daughter, who says she is in love with him. He tells her that if he lives he will be a king, and says she can marry him then. (This is an unconscious prophecy as it actually will happen later in their lives.) Theseus dreams of conquering Crete and knows that the native Cretans would help him. Helike's brother shows up as a traveling performer, whose secret purpose in coming is to make offerings for his sister in the next life. Theseus explains that she is still alive and tells the boy to give a message to Aigeus, saying that Crete is ripe for the plucking. With the Cranes he begins to plan an uprising. Theseus is taken by an old woman to a trapdoor in the Labyrinth. Underneath he finds a passageway, and she instructs him to follow a thread that is tied to a column. Theseus walks along, with jars of grain all around him, and eventually sees a store of old weapons. He notes the spot and continues to follow the thread. He comes out underneath the large statue of the Goddess. There he meets Ariadne, who has perceived his kingly qualities starting with the incident at the harbor, and is in love with him. He sleeps with her and returns to the Bull Court before morning. They spend their nights together, and she tells him that her father, Minos, is sick with leprosy and that Asterion is responsible. Asterion has been gathering power while the king wastes away so that none will dare oppose him when Minos dies. Many are loyal to Asterion, and he rules already as king in everything but name. This state of affairs horrifies Theseus, because a ruler needs to be dedicated to the gods in order to properly lead the people. Cretan tradition requires a new Minos to throw a ring into the sea, "marrying" it. Asterion tried to do so, but Theseus unknowingly thwarted him and then threw the ring himself. Theseus tells the Cranes what he knows, without mentioning Ariadne, and he begins moving the old weapons to an easily accessible spot. The Cranes have been together for three seasons, and they do their best to keep fresh and ready all the time. Ariadne takes Theseus to speak with King Minos, following threads through the underground maze. Minos wishes him to marry Ariadne, and Theseus agrees. Minos does not believe in the gods. He warns that Asterion wants to marry Ariadne in order to keep his power, for the Cretans respect the Goddess. Theseus tells the King of his plan to get help from his father, although in his heart, Theseus does not think ships will come. He tells Minos that Poseidon will send a sign. Ariadne makes up ahead of time what she will prophesy in her oracles; she can no longer hear the voices of the gods. With a trustworthy noble and other bull dancers, Theseus plans a revolt. They begin to bring arms into the Bull Court. Spring comes, and soon the winds from the south begin to blow, and they know that this means there will be no help from any foreign ships. Perimos' son, Alektryon, plans on picking a fight with a member of Asterion's guard because the household would all attend the funeral and they could attack then. The next day, Alektryon comes to get Theseus in the Bull Court, and tells him to go see the King. Minos wants Theseus to kill him, with the ax Labrys, the ancient guardian of the house. Theseus sacrifices the King, after promising to care for Ariadne, and then returns to the Bull Court and sleeps. Theseus tells Amyntor that the King is dying, but he is surprised that no noise has been made about the dead king yet. When they have their bull dance that day, Herakles has seemingly gone mad and almost kills Theseus before falling dead. With the King dead, Asterion needed more money to buy troops to take power, so he drugged the bull and bet on Theseus to die, at great odds. They swear they will have vengeance. Theseus feels strange before falling asleep, later finding out that he slept right through an earthquake. Theseus feels strange again the next day, and when another earthquake occurs, people around him realize he can sense them. The Cretans believe the poisoning of the bull offended Poseidon. Theseus feels so sick he knows there is going to be an immense earthquake soon. Poseidon is angrier than any of them could imagine. He says they must break out because the house will collapse around them. He yells out that Poseidon is coming and that the House of the Axe will fall. The revolt begins, and the dancers nearly panic before Theseus rallies them. They break out of the bull court using Daedalus' model. As the earthquake strikes and the palace crumbles, Theseus saves Ariadne, and is cheered by the bull-dancers and the native Cretans, who heard his warning and fled the palace in time. Asterion is already taking part in the ritual to make himself the new Minos. They charge at the guards while a fire rages through the ruined Labyrinth. While the others fight, Theseus goes with the Cranes through a secret passageway, and they find Asterion wearing only the bull mask of Minos. Theseus charges him, interrupting the rite, and after a battle he stabs Asterion with his dagger. Seeing that Asterion had already been anointed with oil, Theseus puts on the mask, raises Labrys, and sacrifices the King. Nearly all the bull-dancers, plus Ariadne, whom Theseus intends to marry, take a ship and sail for Greece. They land on the island of Dia, whose capital city is Naxos. The people there, who worship the Mother, are amazed by Ariadne, and carry her in a litter to the Palace. The Queen welcomes them, and Theseus looks at the King, who seems distracted, and then realizes that he will be killed the next day at the feast of Dionysos. The Queen invites them to stay for the feast, and Ariadne accepts, although Theseus wishes that she had not. The next day the king is brought in a ship onto the sacred island, and goes up into the hills. Everyone is drunk, and all of the women go along to the island. Everyone begins going off into the hills. Theseus waits for Ariadne but she does not return. He learns that she is with the Queen in the front. Theseus runs up into the hills, and looks for her. Some of the women begin dropping away from the carriage and finding men, and Theseus drinks more and searches for Ariadne. He soon sleeps with a girl. He sees another girl watching them, and the three of them stay together for a while. The day goes by, and people begin returning from the hills. Theseus waits for Ariadne, and finally the procession passes by, looking tired and stained with blood from the sacrifice. He waits until the chariot goes by, and then turns to go back, but he sees Ariadne inside. He runs up to the chariot, which is pushed by two priests. She has passed out, and Theseus thinks that the older priest slept with her on the mountain. Ariadne is unharmed, but there is blood all around her, and when she opens the hand that lay on her breast Theseus sees something that causes him to be sick. The older priest talks to Theseus and tells him he cannot understand some things, but Theseus feels that he cannot bring her back to Athens after what he has seen. Theseus makes sure that Ariadne will be honored there and then tells the priest to explain to the Queen why they leave that night. Theseus feels sad to have left Ariadne, but that he cannot do otherwise. After gathering his companions, they set sail that night. They reach Delos the next morning, and rejoice to be so close to home. They bathe in a sacred lake, and Theseus asks a priest about the harper whom he has heard at Troizen. He learns that the harper was killed in his native Thrace, and the stories and songs about him are many after his death. Some stories are recognizable as the basis of legends about Orpheus. They sail on the next day, and see a fire burning far in the distance. Theseus knows it is the beacon his father had put up, and he remembers Aigeus's request that he paint his sail with white. But Theseus is conflicted, because he cannot be sure what his father meant. Aigeus had said that the god would have a message for him with the painted sail, and Theseus thinks that if he paints it then his father will read it as a sign to sacrifice himself to the god. Theseus wades into the water and asks Poseidon for a sign. The god responds, and Theseus knows that he should not paint the sails. He says that he never anticipated that his father would die. He is sure the god did not lead him incorrectly. He believes that perhaps, since his father jumped from a balcony high up, he was called by the god; otherwise he could have fallen on his sword or taken poison. Theseus becomes King and we have hints of what is to come in later years. |
A Yellow Raft in Blue Water | Michael Dorris | 1,987 | A Yellow Raft in Blue Water follows a young woman named Rayona, her mother Christine, and Christine's mother Aunt Ida. The novel begins with Rayona playing cards with Christine in the hospital, when Rayona's African American father Elgin visits, angering Christine. Christine leaves the hospital with Rayona, threatening suicide at the spot where Rayona was conceived. Christine eventually leaves Rayona with Aunt Ida, where over time, Rayona begins to learn about herself and where she came from. Rayona eventually runs away and lives with a family at Bear Paw Lake until she returns to Aunt Ida. |
Katherine | Anya Seton | null | Katherine tells the true story of Katherine de Roet, born the daughter of a minor Flemish herald, later knight. Katherine has no obvious prospects, except that her sister is a waiting-woman to Queen Philippa, wife of King Edward III, and the fiancée of Geoffrey Chaucer, then a minor court official. By virtue of this connection, Katherine meets and marries Sir Hugh Swynford of Lincolnshire and gives birth to a daughter, Blanchette, and a son, Thomas. After Hugh's death, Katherine becomes the mistress of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, and bears him four children out of wedlock. She is also appointed official governess to the Duke's two daughters by his first wife, Blanche of Lancaster, and helps raise his son by Blanche, the future King Henry IV. The Duke and Katherine separate for a number of years, immediately following Wat Tyler's Peasants' Revolt in 1381, when the rioting peasants sacked and burnt the Duke's Savoy Palace to the ground. The novel's explanation for their separation is Katherine's shock over revelations concerning the death of her husband. However, the couple eventually reconcile and marry after the death of the Duke's second wife and after their children are grown. |
The Monkey | Stephen King | 1,980 | The story centers on a cymbal-banging monkey toy that is possessed by an evil spirit. Every time the monkey claps its little cymbals together, a nearby living thing dies. The monkey is found in a family's attic in an old toy chest by two young brothers, unknowing that their father had been tormented by the monkey years ago, when it worked its lethal enchantment on his family and friends. The dad takes the monkey and throws it in the lake in his backyard. The story ends with an excerpt of a newspaper article which reports on a mysterious die-off of fish in the lake. |
A History of Violence | John Wagner | 1,997 | The story concerns a small town Michigan cafe owner, Tom McKenna, who becomes a local hero after defending his store from an attempted robbery. When his story receives national attention, several members of the New York City Mafia arrive in town, believing him to be someone named Joey, who crossed them 20 years earlier. Tom protests his innocence to everyone, but eventually his façade is dropped and he is forced to confess his history of violence to his wife and son and eventually the police. Namely, he and his friend performed a well planned and spectacular assassination and robbery of mobsters in their youth in retaliation for the murder of a relative. Unfortunately, Tom's friend foolishly decided to flaunt his take, which allowed the mob to identify him as one of the assailants and abduct him for revenge. Meanwhile, Tom barely escaped the same fate and fled the city with the intent of starting over with a new identity. Fortunately for McKenna and his family, their lawyer arrives and learns that the police failed to Mirandize him, which makes his confession inadmissible in court. However, as the McKenna family is transported to the father's original city to deal with related legal matters, the mobsters learn of McKenna's detention and plan their revenge with a horrific surprise. |
The Mystery of the Blue Train | Agatha Christie | null | Poirot boards Le Train Bleu, bound for the French Riviera. So does Katherine Grey, who is having her first winter out of England, after having inherited a huge sum. While on board she meets Ruth Kettering, an American heiress bailing out from a marriage to meet her lover. The next morning, though, Ruth is found dead in her compartment, a victim of strangulation. The famous ruby, "Heart of Fire", which had recently been given to Ruth by her father, is discovered to be missing. Ruth's father, the American millionaire Rufus Van Aldin, and his secretary, Major Knighton, convince Poirot to take on the case. Ruth's maid, Ada Mason, says she saw a man in Ruth's compartment but could not see who he was. The police suspect that Ruth's lover, the Comte de la Roche, killed her and stole the rubies, but Poirot does not think he is guilty. He is suspicious of Ruth's husband, Derek Kettering, who was on the same train but claims not to have seen Ruth. Katherine says she saw Derek enter Ruth's compartment. This also throws suspicion on Derek when a cigarette case with the letter K on it is found. Poirot investigates and finds out that the murder and the jewel theft might not be connected, as the famous jewel thief The Marquis is connected to the crime. Eventually, the dancer Mirelle, who was on the train with Derek, tells Poirot she saw Derek leave Ruth's compartment around the time the murder would have taken place. Derek is then arrested. Everyone is convinced the case is solved, but Poirot is not sure. He does more investigating and learns more information, talking to his friends and to Katherine, eventually coming to the truth. He asks Van Aldin and Knighton to come with him on the Blue Train to recreate the murder. He tells them that Ada Mason is really Kitty Kidd, a renowned male impersonator and actress. Katherine saw what she thought was a boy getting off the train, but it was really Mason. Poirot realized that Mason was the only person who saw anyone with Ruth in the compartment, so this could have been a lie. He reveals that the murderer and Mason's accomplice is Knighton, who is really The Marquis. He also says that the cigarette case with the K on it does not stand for Kettering, but Knighton. Since Knighton was supposedly in Paris, no one would have suspected him. Derek did go into the compartment to talk to Ruth once he saw she was on the train, but he left when he saw she was asleep. The police then arrest Knighton, and Van Aldin thanks Poirot for solving the case. |
The Way of the World | William Congreve | null | Act 1 is set in a chocolate house where Mirabell and Fainall have just finished playing cards. A footman comes and tells Mirabell that Waitwell (Mirabell's male servant) and Foible (Lady Wishfort’s female servant) were married that morning. Mirabell tells Fainall about his love of Millamant and is encouraged to marry her. Witwoud and Petulant appear and Mirabell is informed that should Lady Wishfort marry, he will lose £6000 of Millamant’s inheritance. He will only get this money if he can make Lady Wishfort consent to his and Millamant’s marriage. Act 2 is set in St. James’ Park. Mrs. Fainall and Mrs. Marwood are discussing their hatred of men. Fainall appears and accuses Mrs. Marwood (with whom he is having an affair) of loving Mirabell (which she does). Meanwhile, Mrs. Fainall (having previously been his lover) tells Mirabell that she hates her husband, and they begin to plot about tricking Lady Wishfort to give her consent to the marriage. Millamant appears in the park, and angry about the previous night (where Mirabell was confronted by Lady Wishfort) she lets him know her displeasure in Mirabell’s plan, which she only has a vague idea about. After she leaves, the newly wed servants appear and Mirabell reminds them of their roles in the plan. Acts 3, 4 and 5 are all set in the home of Lady Wishfort. We are introduced to Lady Wishfort who is encouraged to marry ‘Sir Rowland’ – Mirabell’s supposed uncle – by Foible so that Mirabell will lose his inheritance. Sir Rowland is however Waitwell in disguise, the plan being to arrange a marriage with Lady Wishfort, which cannot go ahead because it would be bigamy, not to mention a social disgrace (Waitwell is only a serving man, Lady Wishfort an aristocrat). Mirabell will offer to help her out of the embarrassing situation if she consents to his marriage. Later, Mrs. Fainall discusses this plan with Foible, but this is overheard by Mrs. Marwood. She later tells the plan to Fainall, who decides that he will take his wife’s money and go away with Mrs. Marwood. Mirabell and Millamant, equally strong-willed, discuss in detail the conditions under which they would accept each other in marriage (otherwise known as the "proviso scene"), showing the depth of feeling for each other. Mirabell finally proposes to Millamant and, with Mrs. Fainall’s encouragement (almost consent, as Millamant knows of their previous relations), Millamant accepts. Mirabell leaves as Lady Wishfort arrives, and she lets it be known that she wants Millamant to marry her nephew, Sir Wilful, who has just arrived from the countryside. Lady Wishfort later gets a letter telling her about the Sir Rowland plot. Sir Rowland takes the letter and accuses Mirabell of trying to sabotage their wedding. Lady Wishfort agrees to let Sir Rowland bring a marriage contract that night. By Act 5, Lady Wishfort has found out the plot, and Fainall has had Waitwell arrested. Mrs. Fainall tells Foible that her previous affair with Mirabell is now public knowledge. Lady Wishfort appears with Mrs. Marwood, whom she’s thanking for unveiling the plot. Fainall then appears and uses the information of Mrs. Fainall’s previous affair with Mirabell and Millamant's contract to marry him to blackmail Lady Wishfort, telling that she should never marry and that she is to transfer all the money over to him. Lady Wishfort tells Mirabell that she will offer consent to the marriage if he can save her fortune and honor. Mirabell calls on Waitwell who brings a contract from the time before the marriage of the Fainalls in which Mrs. Fainall gives all her property to Mirabell. This neutralises the blackmail attempts, after which Mirabell restores Mrs. Fainall’s property to her possession and then is free to marry Millamant with the full £6000 inheritance. |
The Private Life of Chairman Mao | Li Zhisui | 1,994 | According to the book, Li witnessed Mao's private life on a day-to-day basis, mostly dealing with Mao at the height of his powers. Li alleged that Mao appeared anxious of the public but was indifferent to the problems of the Chinese people. It also describes Mao's signs of illness, paranoia, as well as neglecting dental hygiene (Mao's teeth were coated with a green-colored film, and when Li touched Mao's gums, pus oozed out). The book has two major focuses: * Mao's personal sexual history, including his sexual potence at the height of the revolution, and selection of numerous sexual partners following his adoption, at the age of 62, of the Taoist belief that frequent sex prolongs life. Despite his initial fascination for and admiration of Mao, Li expresses his growing disgust and contempt for Mao beginning at this point due to the leader's hypocritical assertion that the population at large must adopt a sexually conservative lifestyle. * The political intrigue within Communist Party leadership, including Mao's excessive use of propaganda and unrealistic demands leading to absurdities such as putting rice fields near railroad tracks to give the impression of fertility and health while the country suffered from massive famine, as well as Mao's excitement after President Richard Nixon's visit to China, around the time his health started to deteriorate. Li also writes about his personal experiences, the effects of the Cultural Revolution on his family, and his life as a doctor for 22 years in Mao's life. |
The Man in the Maze | Robert Silverberg | 1,969 | The action takes place in the future. The main character - Richard Muller, a retired diplomat – finds himself forced to hide from the human race on the uninhabited planet Lemnos. He lives there in the center of an ancient city-maze, built by a vanished race. The outer zones of the maze are filled with lethal traps to discourage entrance into the central zone. The maze was considered insuperable until the successful attempt of Muller. In his earlier life he had honestly served humanity, has traveled hundreds of worlds, endured hardship and danger. The career diplomat Charles Boardman invited him to come into contact with the inhabitants of the planet Hydra - the only intelligent alien race yet discovered in the galaxy. In a neighboring galaxy another highly-developed race has been discovered and Mueller must try to enlist the help of the inhabitants of Hydra. Mueller spent five months on Hydra without seeming to establish any meaningful communication with the natives at all. When he returned he discovered that other human beings cannot bear to be close to him - he seems to emanate an intolerable mental field that overwhelms the others. Earth science cannot understand or trace the origin of these emanations from Muller's brain and Mueller went into voluntary exile. After nine years, however, Boardman invades his self-imposed isolation. The lethal snares of the maze are penetrated, firstly with robot drones and later with human volunteers, many of whom perish. Ned Rawlins, son of a friend of Muller who is now dead, establishes contact with him and, under the instruction of Boardman, promises him a cure as a means of luring him out of the maze. Mueller agrees to go, but his conscience torments Rawlins and he tells Muller the whole truth as far as he knows it: that only Muller has the ability to make contact with the aliens from the other galaxy who are on their way to extinguishing human civilization. Already six human worlds have been overrun, the people turned into zombie slaves. The aliens do not seem to realize that the humans are rational beings. They are radically alien, huge in physical size, communicate with each other telepathically, are physically very limited but are able to enslave the inhabitants of entire planets. Only one person - Muller - who can radiate telepathically, might be able to enter in contact with them: yet his experiences have made him potentially furiously hostile to any further contact with aliens, indeed with the human race itself. After a dramatic meeting with Boardman Muller agrees. He flies to the edge of the galaxy, is taken inside an alien ship, and there seems to have his whole psyche read by the aliens. When he returns, Muller meets Rawlins and discovers that his repulsion field has now vanished. To Rawlins' disappointment, however, instead of returning to Earth and its comforts and pleasures, Muller has decided to return to the maze. The worldly-wise Boardman is sure he will come back out in a few years, but Rawlins does not think so. At the end of the story we are left without knowing what resulted from this contact with the alien civilization, or what ultimately happened to Muller. Rawlins is meanwhile following in Muller's footsteps, and those of the innumerable reckless adventurers before him, from the seamen of old to the space-farers of the remote future century of the novel. The last sentence reads: "He held the girl tightly. But he left before dawn". |
Mortal Fear | Robin Cook | 1,988 | Dr. Jason Howard is a resident surgeon at Massachusetts General. When a patient of his is admitted complaining of heart problems and later dies, Jason finds that, though having received a clean bill of health less than a month before, that the heart attack came totally out of left field and the patient looks decidedly older than he ought to at 56. Soon two more cases come to his attention, both healthy a month before, now dead, both looking older than their years. Alvin Hayes, a former classmate of Jason's at Harvard, asks to speak to him about his recent strange caseload. Hayes is a shifty, twitchy man whose personal life is a subject of some question who seems unduly paranoid, and Jason wonders if the resident mad scientist has gotten into something illicit. At dinner Hayes, while talking about his genetic research on aging, suddenly begins expelling blood violently. He dies a gory death right there in the restaurant. Jason begins investigating the connection between the man's sudden demise, his nervous demeanor, and the patients in his hospital who have all been admitted with what seems to be a mutant strain of progeria that killed them in mere days. nl:Doodsangst (boek) pl:Śmiertelny strach |
Vi kallar honom Anna | null | null | The story starts in 1958. Anders Roos, 14 years old, arrives one week late at Södra Latins' summercamp (which is 10 weeks in total). The leaders of the camp have put him in another barrack than his peers, because they know there are "troubles" at school. Usually peers are together. The other people in the barrack have to decide on a nickname for him: all people in the camp have one. They think he looks like a girl. Therefore, they decide to call him Anna: Vi kallar honom Anna. Anders is far too small for his age, cannot play football and cannot swim. He can At summercamp, Anders gets severely bullied. In the morning, when all boys have to fix their bed, the other people won't let him. This results in a low number of points, and because he gets a low number of points for his bed, the other boys throw him into the sea. A number of times, he is beaten up so badly that he is unable to leave his bed for many days. The camp leaders don't want to send anyone home: the camp reputation would be severely damaged. Micke is the sports' leader at the camp. Through the ten weeks at summercamp, Anders discovers that he can trust Micke. He tells Micke that he is the only one he likes: at home, his father mistreats him. When he eats, his father tells him exactly how much money he owes. On the other hand, his father always complains that Anders is much too small and that he is an imbecile. His father forces him to watch when his father rapes his mother. At school, everyone bullies him, and at camp, it's not different. Micke finds it very difficult to react to this openness, but tries to be open and be a friend. When the summercamp is finished, Micke needs to work for his exams, at the end of the year. He also trains a lot, and wins a lot of matches by running fastest. He has hardly any time left for Anders, and the few times he sees him, Anders tells him a lot about how he is mistreated everywhere. Micke finds it increasingly difficult to know how to handle the situation. He tries to contact the school about it, but the school does not believe him: the school direction does not believe that there is any bullying at Södra Latins. Later, it seems Anders' life might be getting better, for he and his mother are finally moving out of fathers' house and maybe Anders can even change school. However, at a later moment, Anders has a fight with his mother. The neighbours, who he visits sometimes, are not at home, and he can't find Micke either. At this moment, he commits suicide by hanging himself. The suicide method requires a strong will: he hangs himself in a place where his feet reached the ground, so he needed to pull up his feet all the time. When Micke visits Anders' parents after his suicide, Anders' father asks Micke if he wants to sell his model railway track. |
The Angel of Darkness | Caleb Carr | 1,997 | Stevie Taggert tells of the mystery of Señora Linares's missing child. Set in 1897, the mystery is complicated by rising tensions between Cuba and the United States and forces the team to ask, within the context of their era, a complex ethical question, could the act of a woman murdering her own kids be looked at as her trying to gain control over her life and her world? |
Songmaster | Orson Scott Card | null | The empire of Songmaster is a place of treachery, resembling that of ancient Rome and the Galactic Empire of Isaac Asimov's Foundation series. The book is morally ambivalent. True love, both heterosexual and homosexual, are major themes as are loyalty and honor. Fraud, kidnapping, assassination, murder are also prevalent and each of them is shown in more than one light. As with many of Card's works, this story is more about the interplay of people, and their moral issues, than it is about technology, although the Empire clearly has advanced technology. The core of the story is the idea that young boys and girls are selected and acquired at a very early age on account of their singing abilities. The children are taken away from normal life and trained to sing. They are given drugs that delay puberty for five years. The drugs also make them sterile. A few specially talented singers are designated as Songbirds, "Songbirds are given only to those who can truly appreciate them. We invite people to accept them. We do not take applications." Songbirds are sold to worthy wealthy clients and stay with them till their fifteenth birthday when they return to the Songhouse. Singers who fail to make the grade do not necessarily have fulfilling lives even though the Songhouse takes care of their material needs. Ansset is seen as special and taken under the wing of Esste, a senior Songmaster. She takes him out into the real world, but only for a few days, a man remarking of the boy, "If he's willing to take off his clothes, he can make a fortune." Because of his talent, he is sent to the Emperor Mikal himself to sing. When he is aged 9, Riktors Ashen collects Ansset from the Songhouse and is captivated by his beauty, "the kind of face that melted men's hearts as readily as women's. More readily." Ansset first experiences unwanted sexual attention in the form of a palace guard who searches him in preparation for his first meeting with Mikal. The guard suffers a steep price for lingering just a little too long, a harsh punishment swiftly dealt by Mikal on Ansset's word. Very soon after his induction into the palace and into Mikal's life, rumors circulate that surely, such a beautiful boy would have shared the emperor's bed. On a student group visitation to the palace, however, Kya-Kya, a former member of the Songhouse, silently debunks such rumors: "They all wondered, of course, if a boy of such great beauty had found his way into Mikal's bed. Kya-Kya knew better. The Songhouse would never tolerate it. They would never send a Songbird to someone who would try such a thing." pg 130 A Songbird is only gifted to a person who has been judged to possess a soul capable of fully appreciating such beauty. A man or woman who would wish such great harm as sexual abuse would never be considered as a candidate for a Songbird. Ansset is loved by Mikal and loves him back, but neither Mikal, nor his successor Riktors, wish to have a sexual relationship with the boy. Kya-Kya (Kyaren) is a girl a few years older than Ansset who leaves the Songhouse and works her way up to a senior position on Earth. Eventually she ends up working for Ansset when he is fifteen (though he still has the body of a 10-year-old.) Kyaran has a boyfriend called Josif who is, in his own words, sixty two percent homosexual and the rest heterosexual. Josif was loved by a slightly older boy when he himself was a "shy child of unusual beauty". Josif falls in love with Ansset the first time he meets him. He tries to avoid seeing the boy again, but this is impossible. As he slowly starts to mature, growing 17 centimetres, Ansset starts to seek out Josif's company more and more. Josif and Kyaren have a baby boy by now, but Ansset begins to realise that Josif is sexually attracted to him, as many people have been before. He recognises however, that Josif's love is different from the lust he has seen so often. Ansset starts to feel new longings. He knows that the drugs cause problems for Songbirds, particularly boys, but he has lost his songs and wants to know what happens next. Ansset eventually offers himself to the young man, saying, "I know what you want, and I'm willing". Josif lovingly brings the boy to his first climax. As Ansset experiences his first ever orgasm, he experiences enormous pain. The Songhouse drugs have almost killed him and he is forever impotent. |
Cabal | Clive Barker | null | The story concerns a young man named Boone, who is suffering from an unspecified mental illness. Although it is not serious enough to institutionalize him, he is nonetheless seeing a psychiatrist named Decker. To his horror, during a session he is informed by Decker that he is responsible for the brutal mutilation murders of eleven people, murders that have been committed by a serial killer and have terrorized the city (Calgary, Alberta, in Canada) recently. Boone does not recall these actions, apparently because his mind has blanked them from his consciousness. He initially tries to kill himself, but when he fails he begins to believe he can save himself in a place known as Midian, a semi-mythical city, which has appeared in his dreams as a place that offers sanctuary to monsters – both the human kind and otherwise -, known as the Nightbreed. He hurriedly begins to seek Midian, unaware of the truth behind the insidious events that set him on this course. Boone eventually finds Midian, but discovers that the town is deserted. Travelling to the cemetery nearby he discovers that Midian in fact lies beneath the cemetery. Two of the Nightbreed appear and attack him. One of them bites him, but he is able to escape. Boone returns to the abandoned town where he is confronted by Decker. Decker reveals that Boone is innocent of the killings, and that Decker is the one who actually committed the murders, intending to use Boone as a scapegoat. Soon after Boone is shot to death by Decker and the police, who was following his trail. However, soon after this his body vanishes from the morgue. After Boone's apparent death, his lover, Lori, travels to Midian after hearing of his corpse's disappearance. Along the way she makes friends with Sheryl, another woman who decides to accompany Lori. When they arrive at Midian Lori encounters two of the Nightbreed, Babette, a small child, and Rachel, her mother. Lori is refused entrance to the underground by Lylesburg, another member of the Nightbreed. Lori and Sheryl depart Midian and return to a nearby inn. Sheryl brings Lori out to a restaurant with her to meet her new boyfriend, who ends up being Decker. Decker, who possesses a button faced mask that houses his murderous personality, kills Sheryl, and Lori narrowly escapes. She returns to Midian, where Decker pursues her. She is saved by Boone, who goes above ground and reveals himself, being banished for doing so. Before he leaves, Boone sees Midian's creator, Baphomet, who appears as a dismembered body in a large fire. Boone and Lori depart Midian as demanded and return to the hotel where Lori had stayed with Sheryl. They soon discover that Decker was at the hotel, and has killed many inside. The police arrive and Lori is able to flee, while Boone degenerated to an animalistic state and is quickly arrested. Decker goes to the police himself, and is able to convince them to go to Midian and capture or kill everyone living there. Lori meets up with Narcisse, a former human who like Boone traveled to Midian and became part of the Nightbreed. They enter the jail where Boone is being held and break him out. They return to Midian, which is overrun by the police, who have killed or captured many of the Nightbreed, forcing them out from the underground by setting it aflame. Boone and the others engage in the fight and he has his final confrontation with Decker, killing him. The remaining policemen are all either killed or chased off, but Midian is completely destroyed. Those who remain of the Nightbreed bind up the parts of Baphomet and leave, in search of a new home. |
Priestess of Avalon | Marion Zimmer Bradley | 2,000 | As a young woman, the British priestess Eilan, known to the Romans as Helena, falls in love with the charismatic Roman Constantius. The Roman noble takes her away from Avalon as she is banished for this forbidden love and, before long, Helen bears him a son, who will become Constantine the Great. Helen's position in Roman society now gives her the freedom to travel about in the empire. When her son Constantine becomes Emperor, she slowly discovers brand-new roles. She faces the spread of the new Christian religion and seeks to understand the old knowledge of the goddess in light of the new religion. As Empress-Mother, Helena travels on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land to find the answers to questions that arise between the old religion and the new. |
Lady of Avalon | Marion Zimmer Bradley | 1,997 | Lady of Avalon is the sequel to The Forest House and the prequel to The Mists of Avalon. It is divided into 3 parts. The first part shows us Caillean and Gawen (Eilan's son), who we know from the prequel, The Forest House. Caillean assumes the role of High Priestess of Avalon and somewhat a foster mother to Gawen. Gawen is raised as a druid, but from time to time, the Fairy Queen takes him with her to teach him. She also has a daughter, Sianna. The Fairy Queen and Caillean agree that Sianna will be given the teachings of the priestesses of Avalon. Spending their childhood together, Sianna and Gawen have a special bond. By the end of this first part of the book, Gawen and Sianna have become more than just friends. Sianna will bear Gawen's child, though Gawen himself will not live to see his daughter, as he is killed when he tries to protect Avalon from the Christians and a Roman patrol. After these unfortunate events, Caillean calls upon the mists so that Avalon will be inaccessible to anyone who cannot handle the magic to lift the mist. When Caillean grows too old, Sianna assumes the position of High Priestess and her daughter after her, thus starting a lineage of High Priestesses. The second part tells us about High Priestess Dierna. She takes in a new novice of royal blood, named Teleri. When she gets a vision about the new Protector of Britannia, a Roman admiral named Carausius, she forces Teleri, a foreign princess who hoped to become a great priestess, to be wed to the man to keep Dierna in power. Some years later, Carausius gets more and more opposition from all sides. Teleri will flee from her husband and give support to one of his former trustees to become the new High King. Eventually, Dierna and Carausius will find each other and betray Teleri. The High King hunts down Carausius who tries to reach the safety of Avalon and Dierna, but fails to reach it, dying of his wounds at the edge of the lake of Avalon. Some time later, Teleri falls back into the abusive relationship and finds her way back to Avalon, where she is reunited with Dierna and becomes her successor. The third part focuses on Avalon High Priestess Ana and her third daughter, Viviane. Viviane was fostered on a farm, but when she is 14 her mother sends Taliesin the Druid bard to escort her to Avalon. There she completes her training as a priestess, but Ana won't let her go through her initiation, so Viviane continues to remain a novice. This allows her to be the first maiden in centuries to be able to handle the Holy Grail, which is kept by Taliesin's order of Druids. Viviane's temperament takes after Ana's, so their characters often clash. Finally, Viviane is initiated when she becomes Vortimer's lover but returns to Avalon when he dies, where she bears his daughter. Sadly, her child dies three months later. Ana is also pregnant, but birth proves to be difficult at her age. At last Ana and Viviane find forgiveness for each other, but Ana does not survive the birth of her last daughter, Morgause. Luckily, Viviane can nurse Ana's daughter, since her body is still accustomed to breastfeeding her own child. This last part leads us to the storyline of The Mists of Avalon. |
Clarissa | Samuel Richardson | 1,748 | Clarissa Harlowe, the tragic heroine of Clarissa, is a beautiful and virtuous young lady whose family has become wealthy only recently and now desires to become part of the aristocracy. Their original plan was to concentrate the wealth and lands of the Harlowes into the possession of Clarissa's brother James Harlowe, whose wealth and political power will lead to his being granted a title. Clarissa's grandfather leaves her a substantial piece of property upon his death, and a new route to the nobility opens through Clarissa marrying Robert Lovelace, heir to an earldom. James's response is to provoke a duel with Lovelace, who is seen thereafter as the family's enemy. James also proposes that Clarissa marry Roger Solmes, who is willing to trade properties with James to concentrate James's holdings and speed his becoming Lord Harlowe. The family agrees and attempts to force Clarissa to marry Solmes, whom she finds physically disgusting as well as boorish. Desperate to remain free, she begins a correspondence with Lovelace. When her family's campaign to force her marriage reaches its height, Lovelace tricks her into eloping with him. Joseph Leman, the Harlowes' servant, shouts and makes noise so it may seem like the family has awoken and discovered that Clarissa and Lovelace are about to run away. Frightened of the possible aftermath, Clarissa leaves with Lovelace but becomes his prisoner for many months. She is kept at many lodgings and even a brothel, where the women are disguised as high-class ladies by Lovelace himself. She refuses to marry him on many occasions, longing to live by herself in peace. She eventually runs away but Lovelace finds her and tricks her into returning to the brothel. Lovelace intends to marry Clarissa to avenge her family's treatment of him and wants to possess both her body as well as her mind. He believes if she loses her virtue, she will be forced to marry him on any terms. As he is more and more impressed by Clarissa, he finds it difficult to believe that virtuous women do not exist. The pressure he finds himself under, combined with his growing passion for Clarissa, drives him to extremes and eventually he rapes her by drugging her. Through this action, Clarissa must accept and marry Lovelace. It is suspected that Mrs. Sinclair (the brothel manager) and the other prostitutes assist Lovelace during the rape. Lovelace's action backfires and Clarissa is ever more adamantly opposed to marrying a vile and corrupt individual like Lovelace. Eventually, Clarissa manages to escape from the brothel but becomes dangerously ill due to the mental duress of many months caused by "the vile Lovelace." Clarissa is sheltered by the kind but poor Smiths and during her sickness she gains another worshipper — John Belford, another libertine who happens to be Lovelace's best friend. Belford is amazed at the way Clarissa handles her approaching death and laments what Lovelace has done. In one of the many letters sent to Lovelace he writes "if the divine Clarissa asks me to slit thy throat, Lovelace, I shall do it in an instance." Eventually, surrounded by strangers and her cousin Col. Morden, Clarissa dies in the full consciousness of her virtue and trusting in a better life after death. Belford manages Clarissa's will and ensures that all her articles and money go into the hands of the individuals she desires should receive them. Lovelace seems to have moved on but Belford sends him Clarissa's will. He is shattered when he reads it and can live no longer. Col. Morden has gone back to Italy and he knows that there is only one way to atone for his sins. Lovelace asks Morden for a duel (although not directly) and they meet somewhere in Italy. Lovelace fights Morden and keeps on getting injured. He pretends to be not injured and goes after Morden many times — each time receiving another deadly blow. Eventually Morden realizes that he has been injured very badly and might die. The duel ends, Morden leaves and Lovelace is taken to his lodgings. The doctor is unable to do anything and Lovelace dies a day afterwards. Before dying he says "let this expiate!" Clarissa's relatives finally realise the misery they have caused but discover that they are too late and Clarissa has already died. The story ends with an account of the fate of the other characters. |
My Name Is Asher Lev | Chaim Potok | 1,972 | This is the story of Asher Lev, a boy born with a prodigious artistic ability into a Hasidic Jewish family, set in the 1950s in the time of Joseph Stalin and the persecution of Jews in the Soviet Union. During Asher's childhood, his artistic inclination brings him into conflict with the members of his Jewish community, which values things primarily as they relate to faith and considers art unrelated to religious expression to be at best a waste of time and possibly a sacrilege. It brings him into particularly strong conflict with his father, a man who has devoted his life to serving their leader, the Rebbe, by traveling around the world bringing the teachings and practice of their sect to other Jews, and who is by nature incapable of understanding or appreciating art. In the middle is Asher's mother, who in Asher's early childhood was severely traumatized by the death of her brother, who was killed while traveling for the Rebbe; she suffers anxiety for her husband's safety during his almost constant traveling. It didn’t just affect her, but it affected her whole family and community. After her anxiety had passed, she decided she wanted to continue her brother’s work. Asher begins to go to art museums where he studies paintings. He becomes very interested in the paintings, especially the ones of the crucifixions. He starts copying the paintings of the crucifixions and nudes, but this would only get him into trouble. Asher’s father returned home one night after a long trip to Russia for the Rebbe. He then sees Asher’s paintings of the crucifix and nudes and is furious. Asher’s father thinks that his gift is foolish and from the Sitra Achra, or Other Side. Asher’s mother doesn’t know whether to support her son or her husband. She is torn between the two of them. The Rebbe asks Asher’s father to travel to Vienna, since it would make his work easier. Asher becomes very upset about this and complains that he doesn’t want to go to Vienna. His mother decides to stay in Brooklyn with Asher, while his father goes to Vienna. While Asher’s father is away, Asher gets more into his paintings and neglects his Jewish studies. Yet the gift will not be denied, and finally the Rebbe intercedes and allows Asher to study under one of the greatest living artists, Jacob Kahn, a non-observant Jew who is an admirer of the Rebbe. Asher grows up to be a formidable artist as an apprentice of Jacob Kahn, and even his father cannot help but be proud of his son's success. Jacob Kahn becomes more than just an art teacher to Asher. Jacob Kahn also teaches Asher about life and they eventually become very good friends. However, the gift finally calls upon Asher to paint his masterpiece—a work which uses the symbolism of the crucifixion to express his mother's torment. This imagery so offends his parents and his community that he is asked to leave. Asher goes away not wanting to hurt the ones he loves further. |
The Forest House | Marion Zimmer Bradley | 1,994 | In the early days of the conquest, when the Roman Legions are aggressively persecuting the Druids, the sanctuary of the Goddess on the isle of Mona is destroyed and its Druids are murdered and its priestesses are raped. The raped priestesses that conceive children kill all of the girl children but leave the boys alive that are born and then kill themselves rather than live with the atrocities done to them; the males later became a rebel group known as the Ravens, which swore vengeance against Rome. Lhiannon, one of the remaining priestesses, re-establishes a new sanctuary at Vernemeton (Most Holy Grove), or The Forest House, which is partially controlled and protected by the Romans. The novel tells the story of Eilan, granddaughter of the Arch-Druid of Britain. She hears the calling of the Goddess and is chosen to become a priestess at Vernemeton, and later to succeed the dying Lhiannon as High Priestess. However, before her calling, she hears the voice of her heart, and during the magic night of Beltaine, conceives a son with Roman officer Gaius Macellius, son of the high-ranking Camp Prefect at nearby Deva. Gaius is an inheritant of royal blood through his Celtic mother of a southern tribe, the Silures. Eilan knows their son, Gawen, whose bloodline comes from the Dragon (Celtic royalty), the Eagle (Roman Empire), and from the Wise (Druids), will play a crucial role in Britain's future, and makes great sacrifices to protect him in his youth. A major shift in the balance of power is in the air; Eilan senses that the death of her peace-loving Arch-Druid grandfather will cause it. She tells her friend Caillean (who was rescued from her uncaring mother in Hibernia by Lhiannon) to take a group of young priestesses to the isle of Avalon to found a new sanctuary and become the first high-priestess of Avalon. In Vernemeton, Eilan is increasingly pressured by the new Arch-Druid, her father, to stop promoting peace and collaboration with the Romans. In a dramatic showdown she sacrifices herself (along with her love Gaius) to avoid a bloody insurgency and, in particular, to save the life of her son Gawen. |
The Godwhale | T. J. Bass | 1,974 | The protagonist, Larry Dever, is gravely injured resulting in a radical surgical procedure, a hemicorporectomy, in which tissue below the waist is removed. He is outfitted with a set of intelligent mechanical legs, a 'manniquin,' and is placed into suspended animation until the damaged tissue can be restored. He wakes at a time when cloning technology can replace his legs—for a price. Years before he was awakened, a clone, or 'bud child,' was created and is now a thriving young boy without language. Horrified by the prospect of his child being sacrificed to provide him with a new lower body, Larry opts to return to suspended animation. His child, 'Dim Dever,' is selected by the guiding world computer, 'Olga', to carry his ancient genes to a possible new colony on a planet orbiting Procyon. Larry awakens again in a nightmare future. Far from the highly advanced past, now an enormous human population (possibly in the trillions) covers every inch of the planet. Technology and science have degraded, and all freely breeding species have been exterminated. The 'Hive' or human population within its computer-supported subterranean culture ruthlessly hunts, kills, and recycles anyone who does not conform. As Larry is trying to adapt to his new life, without most of his own body or his 'cyber' torso, something re-awakens an ancient, half-derelict cyborg, the Godwhale of the title. This enormous 'rake' is an ocean-going biota harvester built in part from a genetically-modified blue whale. Initially attempting to rejoin human civilization, the Godwhale (named Rorqual Maru or 'Whale Ship' in Japanese) eventually teams up with a genetically modified clone of Larry, Larry himself, and an assortment of misfits and refugees from the Hive. Together they set out to try to find out what mysteriously brings 'the marine biota' back to the previously sterile oceans, while a tiny group from 'the Hive', the outcasts, and their cyber deities survive and thrive in the face of incredible bungling by the 'Class One' computer that manages humanity and the various castes of 'Nebish' humans brought into the fight. |
Fengshen Yanyi | Xu Zhonglin | null | The novel is a romanticised retelling of the overthrow of King Zhou, the last ruler of the Shang Dynasty, by King Wu, who would establish the Zhou Dynasty in place of Shang. The story integrates oral and written tales of many Chinese mythological figures who are involved in the struggle as well. These figures include human heroes, immortals and various spirits (usually represented in avatar form like vixens, and pheasants, and sometimes inanimate objects such as a pipa). Bewitched by his concubine Daji, who is actually a vixen spirit in disguise as a beautiful woman, King Zhou of Shang oppresses his people and persecutes those who oppose him, including his own subjects who dare to speak up to him. King Wu of Zhou, assisted by his strategist Jiang Ziya, rallies an army to overthrow the tyrant and restore peace and order. Throughout the story, battles are waged between the kingdoms of Shang and Zhou, with both sides calling upon various supernatural beings -- deities, immortals, demons, spirits, and humans with magical abilities -- to aid them in the war. Yuanshi Tianzun bestows upon Jiang Ziya the Fengshen Bang, a list that empowers Jiang Ziya to invest the gods of Heaven. The heroes of Zhou and some of their fallen enemies from Shang are eventually endowed with heavenly ranking and essentially elevated to their roles as gods, hence the title of the novel. |
Clotel | William Wells Brown | 1,853 | The narrative of Clotel plays with history by relating the "perilous antebellum adventures" of a young slave Currer and her mixed-race, light-skinned daughters fathered by Thomas Jefferson. Their girls are born into slavery. The book includes "several sub-plots" related to other slaves, religion and anti-slavery. Currer, described as "a bright mulatto," gives birth to two "near white" daughters: Clotel and Althesa. After the death of Jefferson, Currer and her daughters are sold. Horatio Green, a white man, purchases Clotel and takes her as a common-law wife, although they cannot legally marry. Her mother Currer and sister Althesa remain "in a slave gang." Currer is eventually purchased by Mr. Peck, a preacher. She is enslaved until she dies from yellow fever, although his daughter was preparing to emancipate her. Althesa marries her white owner, Henry Morton, a Northerner, with whom she has daughters Jane and Ellen. Their daughters are enslaved after Althesa and Morton both die. Ellen commits suicide to escape sexual enslavement and Jane dies from heartbreak. Green and Clotel have a mixed-race daughter named Mary. Becoming ambitious and involved in local politics, Green abandons Clotel and Mary. He marries "a white woman who forces him to sell Clotel and enslave his child." Dressing as a white man, Clotel escapes to Ohio (an account based on the 1849 escape of Ellen Craft and William Craft). Her accomplice, William, continues to Canada. Clotel returns to Virginia in an attempt to free Mary. After being captured in Richmond, she is held in a slave pen in Washington, DC, for sale but eventually escapes. Pursued by slave catchers, she is surrounded on the Long Bridge and commits suicide by jumping into the Potomac River. Mary works as a servant to her father Horatio Green and his wife. Mary arranges to trade places with the slave George, her lover, in prison and he escapes to Canada. Sold to a slave trader, Mary is purchased by a French man who takes her to Europe. Ten years later, George and Mary reunite in Dunkirk. The novel ends with their marriage. |
The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects | Quentin Fiore | 1,967 | Marshall McLuhan argues that technologies — from clothing to the wheel to the book, and beyond — are the messages themselves, not the content of the medium. In essence, The Medium is the Massage is a graphical and creative representation of his "medium is the message" thesis seen in Understanding Media. By playing on words and utilizing the term "massage," McLuhan is suggesting that modern audiences have found current media to be soothing, enjoyable, and relaxing; however, the pleasure we find in new media is deceiving, as the changes between society and technology are incongruent and are perpetuating an Age of Anxiety. All media work us over completely. They are so pervasive in their personal, political, economic, aesthetic, psychological, moral, ethical, and social consequences that they leave no part of us untouched, unaffected, unaltered. (p. 26) The Medium is the Massage demonstrates how modern media are extensions of human senses; they ground us in physicality, but expand our ability to perceive our world to an extent that would be impossible without the media. These extensions of perception contribute to McLuhan’s theory of the Global Village, which would bring humanity full circle to an industrial analogue of tribal mentality. Finally, McLuhan described key points of change in how man has viewed the world and how these views were changed by the adoption of new media. "The technique of invention was the discovery of the nineteenth [century]", brought on by the adoption of fixed points of view and perspective by typography, while "[t]he technique of the suspended judgment is the discovery of the twentieth century", brought on by the bard abilities of radio, movies and television. Fiore, at the time a prominent graphic designer and communications consultant, set about composing the visual illustration of these effects which were compiled by Jerome Agel. Near the beginning of the book, Fiore adopted a pattern in which an image demonstrating a media effect was presented with a textual synopsis on the facing page. The reader experiences a repeated shifting of analytic registers—from "reading" typographic print to "scanning" photographic facsimiles—reinforcing McLuhan's overarching argument in this book: namely, that each medium produces a different "massage" or "effect" on the human sensorium. |
Make Room! Make Room! | Harry Harrison | 1,966 | Make Room! Make Room! is set in an overpopulated New York City of 1999 (thirty-three years later than the time of writing). Police detective Andy Rusch lives in half a room, sharing it with Sol, a retired engineer who has adapted a bicycle generator to power an old television set and a refrigerator. When Andy queues for their continually reducing water ration he witnesses a public speech by the "Eldsters", people 65 years and older forcibly retired from work. Pandemonium starts when a nearby food shop has a sale on "soylent" (soya and lentil) steaks. Andy finds that the shop is under attack and being looted. One of the looters, Billy Chung, a desperately poor boy, grabs a box of soylent steaks which he sells to fund himself as a messenger-boy. His first delivery takes him into a semi-fortified apartment block, complete with the rare luxuries of air conditioning and running water for showers. He delivers his message to a rich racketeer named "Big Mike" and sees Shirl, Mike's concubine. Billy leaves the apartment but hides in the basement, and then later breaks back in for theft. He kills Mike when surprised by him and flees. While Andy investigates the murder, he becomes enamored of Shirl, and ensures that she is permitted to stay in the apartment until the end of the month. During this month they both live there in luxury and afterwards Shirl moves in with Andy and Sol. Shirl becomes disappointed with their impoverished lifestyle. Andy attempts to investigate Mike's death despite contending with riots, paperwork, and the chief's trying to spread his meager force to its limit, which makes him irritable. This, in combination with his shame of the life he is now giving Shirl, distances him from her. He therefore becomes obsessed by the idea of capturing Billy Chung. To evade capture, Billy leaves the part of the city to which he is accustomed, eventually breaking into the abandoned Brooklyn Navy Yard, where he comes to live with Peter, a fatalist hermit eagerly awaiting the new millennium as the end of the world. Soon they are attacked by a small group of homeless people and forced to leave their location, later to find a new home in a discarded car whose previous owner had frozen to death. Here, Peter's stoic acceptance of events frustrates Billy until he decides to return to his family, believing the police will have lost interest in him. Meanwhile, Sol decides he can no longer remain passive in the face of what he sees as human life's growing crisis, and joins a protest march against the overturning of a legislative bill supporting family planning, in favor of population control as humanity's hope of survival. Sol is injured in a riot at the demonstration, becomes bedridden, catches pneumonia, and eventually dies. A few days after Sol's funeral, a family takes Sol's living quarters as their own, making Shirl and Andy's life more miserable than before. Andy stumbles upon Billy Chung and accidentally shoots and kills the boy in the latter's attempt to escape. The police chief therefore demotes Andy. On return to his own quarters, Andy finds Shirl gone. The story ends with Andy on patrol in Times Square on New Year's Eve, where he glimpses Shirl among rich party-goers. As the clock strikes midnight, Andy encounters Peter, who is distraught that the world has not ended and asks how life can continue as it is; but gives him no answer. The story concludes with the Times Square screen announcing that "Census says United States had biggest year ever, end-of-the-century, 344 million citizens...". |
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists | Robert Tressell | 1,914 | Clearly frustrated at the refusal of his contemporaries to recognise the inequity and iniquity of society, Tressell's cast of hypocritical Christians, exploitative capitalists and corrupt councillors provide a backdrop for his main target — the workers who think that a better life is "not for the likes of them". Hence the title of the book; Tressell paints the workers as "philanthropists" who throw themselves into back-breaking work for poverty wages in order to generate profit for their masters. The hero of the book, Frank Owen, is a socialist who believes that the capitalist system is the real source of the poverty he sees all around him. In vain he tries to convince his fellow workers of his world view, but finds that their education has trained them to distrust their own thoughts and to rely on those of their "betters". Much of the book consists of conversations between Owen and the others, or more often of lectures by Owen in the face of their jeering; this was presumably based on Tressell's own experiences. |
Hegira | Greg Bear | null | In the novel, "young" humans (i.e. recreations of the medieval originals) are transported through the Big Collapse at the end of time to seed the next cycle of the universe. They are transported to Hegira, an artificial environment of the scale of the planet Jupiter which has habitats for several species on its surface. The habitats are protected and uncoupled from the universe's entropy by means of force fields projected by giant obelisks. In the human realm these are inscribed with the recorded history of humankind, sorted chronologically from the bottom up, including the science that went with it. People try to understand and copy what they can read on the obelisks, using balloons in some places to reach higher points on the obelisks. A legend tells the protagonist that his beloved (frozen in stasis) will awaken if he goes on quest to the rim walls of the habitat, so he does. On the way he lands on an island with a good view of an obelisk (at least high) which is just tumbling down in the distance. Its fall causes a tsunami and devastates a continent. After the devastation, the inscriptions at the top of the fallen obelisk about human history are revealed. The hero's quest to the rim succeeds. He makes contact with an artificial intelligence guardian of Hegira who tells him the story and advises him to go and populate the new universe, having become part of the last one. |
Jesuit Joe | Hugo Pratt | 1,980 | The laconic, anti-heroic and unpredictable main character, a Canadian native dressed in the uniform of a Sergeant in the Canadian Mounties, travels the wilderness during late 19th or early 20th century Canada, occasionally assisting those he finds in need of help. He rescues a kidnapped child and frees an imprisoned couple, but also shoots a bird for being too happy and stabs a priest in the hand. The concerns of famed Italian cartoonist Hugo Pratt included responsibility, humanity, and social justice. Skepticism of European ideals in colonial settings is a common theme in his stories and forms the main thrust of Jesuit Joe. |
The Face on the Cutting-Room Floor | Ernest Borneman | 1,937 | The novel, written in the first person in the form of Cameron McCabe's confession, is set in London in the mid-1930s. McCabe works in the film industry and has made himself a name as a supervising film editor working mainly on feature films. One day his boss, Isador Bloom, orders him to cut out altogether a young aspiring actress, Estella Lamare, from a movie which has just been produced. As the picture is about a love triangle McCabe does not see the point in doing as he was told and immediately suspects some foul business. He does not know then that this is in fact Bloom's revenge on Lamare for "showing him a cold shoulder" when he made a pass at her. One Friday morning soon afterwards, Lamare's body is found on the floor of John Robertson's workplace at the studio, which happens to be a state-of-the-art cutting room. The place is equipped with an automatic camera which, once it has been set, starts recording the moment the door to the room is opened. Estella Lamare has died from stab wounds, and although the roll of film showing her slow death can be found it cannot be decided exactly how she died. On the film Ian Jensen, her partner in her last movie (from which she was to be cut out), can be seen struggling with Lamare, but the cause of her death may have been either an accident or suicide, or murder. As Jensen is nowhere to be found Scotland Yard assumes that he is Lamare's murderer and that he has escaped to his native Norway. However, four days later, on December 3, 1935, his body is found in a shabby rented room in a cheap boarding house in London. Jensen has been poisoned and, at a point in time when he was already dead, shot in the head. The police investigations are conducted by Detective Inspector Smith of Scotland Yard. Right from the start there is antagonism between Smith and McCabe: Each suspects the other of knowing more about the case than he admits, with Mc Cabe repeatedly assuming the role of detective while Smith seemingly has no idea how to solve the crime. Eventually the confrontation between the two antagonists escalates—their "game" turns into a "fight"—when Smith has McCabe arrested for the murder of Ian Jensen. McCabe refuses to be represented by a lawyer during his trial ("a layman conducting his own defence"), and systematically tries to break down the case against his person and to win over the jury to his cause. In the course of the trial a number of facts about the people involved in the two deaths are revealed. For example, we learn that McCabe himself is a "morally uprooted" man who has replaced "eternal values" with "values of the moment". Until his arrest he has a relationship with Maria Ray, the actress who, together with Lamare and Jensen, forms the love triangle in the recently completed film. Although Maria Ray is the love of his life, McCabe cannot help starting an affair with Dinah Lee, his secretary, and, by carrying on two relationships at the same time, double-crossing both women. In his defence he even goes so far as to use Ray's own promiscuity—she has had affairs with both McCabe and Jensen—to question her credibility as a witness for the prosecution. He also insinuates that Smith has used doctored evidence to build up his case against him. The members of the jury are impressed, pronounce a verdict of "Not guilty", and McCabe is acquitted. Smith now turns out to be a policeman who cannot lose but who actually loses his job as a result of McCabe's acquittal. When McCabe eventually tells him that he is Jensen's murderer after all it is because he realizes that he has irrevocably lost Maria (as well as Dinah), who would not even speak to him on the phone, and that there is not anything left in this world that might keep him alive. Now that he has written his story down for posterity he no longer minds being the target of Smith's revenge, who thinks McCabe's belated confession is the last straw. McCabe posts his manuscript to an old journalist called A.B.C. Müller whose acquaintance he has recently made and immediately afterwards is found shot. Smith is arrested, tried, and hanged. With Cameron McCabe dead, the addressee of his manuscript continues the narrative, a part of the book which is entitled "An Epilogue by A.B.C. Müller as Epitaph for Cameron McCabe". Müller sees to the proof reading and the publication of The Face on the Cutting-Room Floor and becomes an avid collector of reviews of the book, comparing it with the fiction of Hemingway, Dashiell Hammett, and even James Joyce. At the same time he deplores, and condemns, the "arrested development of the criminal mind", in particular of course McCabe's. One day in London Müller bumps into Maria Ray, whom he has not seen again since the trial, and they have a talk. To Müller's surprise, she claims that McCabe committed suicide—as an act of revenge, in order to get Smith convicted for murder. She also tells Müller that Smith was in love with her. At the end of the novel, Müller on the spur of the moment wants to propose to Maria Ray but then decides instead to "shoot her dead". Thus, in Borneman's novel, Estella Lamare is "the face on the cutting-room floor", both literally and metaphorically. |
The Dunwich Horror | H. P. Lovecraft | 1,929 | In the isolated, desolate and decrepit village of Dunwich, Wilbur Whateley is the hideous son of Lavinia Whateley, a deformed and unstable albino mother, and an unknown father (alluded to in passing by mad Old Whateley, as "Yog-Sothoth"), and strange events surround his birth and precocious development. Wilbur matures at an abnormal rate, reaching manhood within a decade, locals shun him and his family and animals fear and despise him. All the while, his sorcerer grandfather indoctrinates him into certain dark rituals and the study of witchcraft. Wilbur wants to acquire an unabridged Latin version of the Necronomicon so that he may open the way for the return of the mysterious "Old Ones", whose forerunner is the Outer God Yog-Sothoth. Thus, Wilbur and his grandfather have sequestered an unseen presence at their farmhouse; this being is connected somehow to Yog-Sothoth. Year by year, this unseen entity grows to monstrous proportions, requiring the two men to make frequent modifications to their residence. People begin to notice a trend of cattle mysteriously disappearing. Eventually, Wilbur's mother also disappears. By the time Wilbur's grandfather dies, the colossal entity occupies the whole interior of the farmhouse. Wilbur ventures to Miskatonic University in Arkham to procure a copy of the Necronomicon – Miskatonic's library is one of only a handful in the world to stock an original. The Necronomicon has spells that Wilbur can use to summon the Old Ones. When the librarian, Dr. Henry Armitage, refuses to release the university's copy to him, Wilbur breaks into the library at night to steal it. A guard dog attacks Wilbur with unusual ferocity, killing him. When Dr. Armitage and two other professors arrive on the scene they see Wilbur Whateley's partly non-human corpse, before it melts completely to leave no evidence. The story culminates with the actual Dunwich horror: With Wilbur Whateley now dead, no one attends to the mysterious presence growing in the Whateley farmhouse. Early one morning, the Whateley farmhouse explodes as the thing, an invisible monster, rampages across Dunwich, cutting a path through fields, trees, and ravines, leaving huge "prints" the size of tree trunks. The monster eventually makes forays into inhabited areas. The frightened town is terrorized by the invisible creature for several days, until Dr. Armitage, Professor Warren Rice, and Dr. Francis Morgan, all of Miskatonic University, arrive with the knowledge and weapons needed to kill it. In the end, its nature is revealed: it is Wilbur's twin brother, though it "looked more like the father than Wilbur did." "The Dunwich Horror" is one of the few tales Lovecraft wrote wherein the heroes successfully defeat the antagonistic entity or monster of the story, although the Horror itself is only the remainder of a far more fiendish plan thwarted by Wilbur's premature death. |
The Country of the Blind | H. G. Wells | null | While attempting to summit the unconquered crest of Parascotopetl, a fictitious mountain in Ecuador, a mountaineer named Nunez slips and falls down the far side of the mountain. At the end of his descent, down a snow-slope in the mountain's shadow, he finds a valley, cut off from the rest of the world on all sides by steep precipices. Unbeknown to Nunez, he has discovered the fabled Country of the Blind. The valley had been a haven for settlers fleeing the tyranny of Spanish rulers until an earthquake reshaped the surrounding mountains and cut it off forever from future explorers. The isolated community prospered over the years despite a disease that struck them early on, rendering all new-borns blind. As the blindness slowly spread over the generations, their remaining senses sharpened, and by the time the last sighted villager had died, the community had fully adapted to life without sight. Nunez descends into the valley and finds an unusual village with windowless houses and a network of paths, all bordered by kerbs. Upon discovering that everyone is blind, Nunez begins reciting to himself the refrain, "In the Country of the Blind the One-Eyed Man is King". He realises that he can teach and rule them, but the villagers have no concept of sight and do not understand his attempts to explain this fifth sense to them. Frustrated, Nunez becomes angry but they calm him and he reluctantly submits to their way of life because returning to the outside world is impossible. Nunez is assigned to work for a villager named Yacob, and becomes attracted to Yacob's youngest daughter, Medina-saroté. Nunez and Medina-saroté soon fall in love with one another, and having won her confidence, Nunez slowly starts trying to explain sight to her. Medina-saroté, however, simply dismisses it as his imagination. When Nunez asks for her hand in marriage he is turned down by the village elders on account of his "unstable" obsession with "sight". The village doctor suggests that Nunez's eyes be removed, claiming that they are diseased and are affecting his brain. Nunez reluctantly consents to the operation because of his love for Medina-saroté. But at sunrise on the day of the operation, while all the villagers are asleep, Nunez, the failed King of the Blind, sets off for the mountains (without provisions or equipment), hoping to find a passage to the outside world and escape the valley. In the original story, he escapes the valley but becomes trapped in the mountains, which ultimately leads to his death. In the revised and expanded 1939 version of the story Nunez sees from a distance that there is about to be a rock slide. He attempts to warn the villagers, but again they scoff at his "imagined" sight. He takes Medina-saroté and flees the valley during the slide. |
Galvez – Imperador do Acre | null | null | In 1899, the borders between Bolivia and Brazil were not clearly defined. At the time, the people living in the Amazon Basin were rich due to the natural resource of latex. The best rubber is produced in Acre, a region that, although inhabited by Brazilians, is theoretically part of the Republic of Bolivia. Luis Gálvez Rodríguez de Arias was a Spanish journalist in Belém do Pará who on June 3, 1899 denounced a claimed agreement between USA and Bolivia that stated that the United States would support Bolivia in a possible war against Brazil. This became a scandal, but the Bolivian and North-American authorities denied the accusation. Galvez, with the financial support of the Amazonas government, went to Acre and, on July 14, 1899, the Independent State of Acre was declared. He declared himself president. On December 28, 1899, Galvez was deposed by Antônio de Sousa Braga, but he was restored on January 30, 1900, by Braga himself. On March 15, 1900, a military expedition by the Brazilian Navy took the Acre region back from Bolivia. In the book, Galvez is an adventurer without scruples, working as a journalist in Belém. The novel starts when Galvez falls from a window, running away from a lady's husband, and, accidentally, saves the life of Luiz Trucco, the consul of Bolivia. Invited by the diplomat, he goes to a party, where he meets Cira, a woman interested in the Acre question. Cira asks him to steal the USA-Bolivian agreement. Trucco, who trusts Galvez, gives it to him to have it translated. Denouncing the agreement to the Belém press, the journalist has to escape. In the city harbour, he hides himself in a departing ship in the Amazon River, heading to Manaus. The passengers are a group of nuns. He seduces one of them, Joana, and afterwards they are abandoned in a bank of the Amazon River. He is rescued by the ship of Sir Henry, an English metaphysical scientist who thinks the Amazon Theatre is a spaceship, and Justine L'Amour and Blangis are Opera artists and part of the trouppe Les Comédiens Tropicales. Some weeks later, he and Les Comédiens go to the Bolivian city of Puerto Alonso, Acre, in a ship, where Trucco and the neurotic consul of United States are traveling. Galvez gets on the ship, hidden in a coffin. In Puerto Alonso he meets the local big shot and amasses money and an army. On July 14 he takes over Puerto Alonso without a fight. The Great Battle of the Independence of Acre is a trouble in the city-centre. He declares himself Emperor. The old and tedious Acre become the lascivious Empire of Acre (fictional: the author says in the book that Galvez, the narrator is lying). During the new year celebrations, Galvez is deposed and Joana dies. |
Country of the Blind | Christopher Brookmyre | 1,997 | Set against the mounting dissatisfaction at the ineffective and over self-indulgent Tory government of John Major all hell breaks loose when conservative tabloid media mogul Roland Voss is found murdered in his country house in Scotland. Next to Voss’s body is that of his murdered wife, while their two slain bodyguards lie outside their room. The culprits seem obvious: the burglars caught fleeing the scene covered in blood and almost immediately four men are arrested for the crime, including former burglar Thomas McInnes, his son Paul and a very strange guy who likes to be known as Spammy. However, if it's really that obvious, why did McInnes pay a visit to his Edinburgh lawyer a few days before the crime took place, and what are the secret contents of the envelope he left with her? When the lawyer, Nicole Carrow, turns up at the Police station demanding to see her client, announcing under the glare of intense media attention claiming to have a letter that proves her client's innocence, the last thing she expects is have an attempt made on her life within hours. |
The Songs of Kings | Barry Unsworth | 2,002 | The novel is set just before the start of the battle of Troy. The Greek army under King Agamemnon is stuck on the island of Aulis enroute to Troy because of a mysterious dying down of the winds. The army is restless and rumor and gossip fly around seeking a reason for the becalming as the men gamble and squabble while they wait and Odysseus connives and schemes behind the scenes with the help of Chasimenos, Agamemnon's chief scribe. The king is slowly convinced that he must sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia for the gods to be satisfied and Iphigenia is brought to Aulis under the pretext that she is to marry Achilles, the Greek hero. Along with her slave, Sisipyla, Iphigenia arrives in Aulis and discovers the plot. Sisipyla offers to take her place but, at the last moment, convinced of her own destiny, Iphigenia sacrifices herself. |
The Confessions of Nat Turner | William Styron | 1,967 | The novel is based on an extant document, the "confession" of Turner to the white lawyer Thomas Gray. In the historical confessions, Turner claims to have been divinely inspired, charged with a mission from God to lead a slave uprising and destroy the white race. Styron's ambitious novel attempts to imagine the character of Nat Turner; it does not purport to describe accurately or authoritatively the events as they occurred. Some historians consider Gray's account of Turner's "confessions" to be told with prejudice, and recently one writer has alleged that Gray's account is itself a fabrication. Styron takes liberties with the historical Nat Turner, whose life is otherwise undocumented. The "Confessions" is largely sympathetic to Turner, if not to his thoughts. |
Gertrud | Hermann Hesse | 1,910 | Styled as the memoir of a famous composer named Kuhn, Gertrud tells of his childhood and young adult years before it comes to the heart of the story; his relationships to two troubled artists, the eponymous Gertrud Imthor, and the opera singer Heinrich Muoth. Kuhn is drawn to Gertrud upon their first encounter, but she falls in love with and marries Muoth, whom the composer befriended as well some years before. The two are hopelessly ill-matched, and their destructive relationship provides the basis for Kuhn's magnum opus. |
Another Country | James Baldwin | 1,962 | The first fifth of Another Country tells of the downfall of jazz drummer Rufus Scott. Rufus begins a relationship with Leona, a white woman from the South and introduces her to his friends, including the struggling novelist Vivaldo, his more successful mentor Richard and Richard's wife Cass. Although the relationship is initially frivolous, it becomes serious and the two leave town for several weeks. Rufus is abusive towards Leona and she is eventually committed to a mental hospital and Rufus returns to Harlem in a deep depression. He commits suicide by jumping off the George Washington Bridge. Rufus' friends cannot understand his suicide, but afterwards they become closer and Vivaldo begins a relationship with Rufus’ sister Ida, which is strained by racial tension and Ida's bitterness after her brother's death. Eric, Rufus's first male lover and an actor, returns to New York after a stay in France where he met his longtime lover Yves. Eric returns to the novel's social circle but is more calm and composed than most of the clique. He also begins an affair with Cass, who has become lonely due to Richard's dedication to writing. |
Humboldt's Gift | Saul Bellow | 1,975 | The novel, which Bellow initially intended to be a short story, is a roman à clef about Bellow's friendship with the poet Delmore Schwartz. It explores the changing relationship of art and power in a materialist America. This theme is addressed through the contrasting careers of two writers, Von Humboldt Fleisher (to some degree a version of Schwartz) and his protégé Charlie Citrine (to some degree a version of Bellow himself). Fleisher yearns to lift American society up through art but dies a failure. In contrast, Charlie Citrine makes quite a lot of money through his writing, especially from a Broadway play and a movie about a character named Von Trenck - a character modeled after Humboldt. Another notable character in the book is Rinaldo Cantabile, a wannabe Chicago gangster, who tries to bully Citrine into being friends and whose career advice to Citrine, focused solely on commercial interests, is the opposite of the advice Citrine was once given by his old mentor, Humboldt Fleisher, who valued artistic integrity above all other concerns. |
Pigs in Heaven | Barbara Kingsolver | 1,993 | This novel begins two years after the events of Barbara Kingsolver's first novel, The Bean Trees. Taylor and Turtle are visiting the Hoover Dam when Turtle sees a man fall down a spillway. Because of Taylor's unwavering faith that Turtle is telling the truth, a search is conducted and a man's life is saved. As a result, Turtle and Taylor make the headlines and are invited as guests on The Oprah Winfrey Show. A Cherokee lawyer named Annawake Fourkiller sees the broadcast and recognizes Turtle as a child of Cherokee heritage, beginning a campaign under the Indian Child Welfare Act to return Turtle to her birth family and the Cherokee Nation. Afraid of losing Turtle, Taylor leaves home and takes Turtle on the run. Taylor leaves behind her friend Lou Ann Ruiz (from The Bean Trees) and her new boyfriend Jax, and sets out with Turtle. Her mother, Alice, has left her new husband and joins the pair in Las Vegas. The trio are temporarily joined by Barbie, a waitress obsessed with the dolls of the same name, who appears to be down on her luck but later proves to be a thief and counterfeiter. Alice eventually leaves Taylor, Turtle, and Barbie to visit the Cherokee Nation in person. The others travel to Seattle, where Barbie leaves them. Taylor works a number of jobs, including lingerie sales and hired driving, but has great trouble earning enough money for food, lodging, clothes, and child care. Annawake lives in the area around Heaven, Oklahoma, a fictional town near Tahlequah. Annawake strongly suspects she knows who Turtle's biological grandfather is. It turns out that Sugar Hornbuckle, who also lives in Heaven and was a friend of Annawake's mother, is second cousin to Alice, and that Alice and Sugar grew up together. Alice has a vague hope of exploring alternatives with Annawake. Meanwhile, Annawake schemes to set up Turtle's true grandfather, Cash Stillwater, with Alice. Eventually, Taylor and Turtle come to Heaven and a compromise is established: custody of Turtle will be shared between Taylor and Cash. |
Shatterpoint | Matthew Stover | null | Mace Windu's former Padawan and fellow Jedi Master Depa Billaba has been sent to Haruun Kal (Windu's homeworld) to start a revolution against the Separatist-allied government; however, all contact has been lost with her. A message is found on a voice chip inside a dead woman's mouth that implies Billaba has fallen to the dark side of the Force or gone insane. Since Windu taught her the lightsaber combat form Vaapad, he knows he is the only one who can stop her, and so he is sent by the Jedi Council alone to his homeworld. While Haruun Kal is not much of a military target, the majority of the population had many Force-sensitive beings, which the Republic wants to keep away from the Separatists. Billaba had been sent to train the planet's population to fight against the Separatists. This was successful in itself, but after a hologram was discovered showing Billaba killing an innocent person, Windu was sent to extract his former apprentice. Eventually, after a fight, he puts his former apprentice under arrest, and calls the Republic cruiser Halleck. At this time, tribes on the planet begin warring with each other. Halleck arrives in-system, and is immediately attacked by Vulture droids. The ship starts deploying Gunships, which come under attack by the droid starfighters. Clone troopers start spilling out of the Halleck, and put themselves in front of the droid starfighters to destroy them. Some of the landing craft make it to the surface, but many are picked off. The cruiser eventually defeats the Separatist enemy, however. On the surface, Windu uses the gunships to destroy the droid starfighters that followed them onto the surface, then orders the clones to take out a nearby droid control station. Lorz Geptun is forced to surrender to the Republic, and Billaba falls into a coma. All clone troopers on the surface are killed. A Republic force stays on Haruun Kal to police the local tribes. Upon his arrival on Haruun Kal, Windu meets such personages as Planetary Security Chief Lorz Geptun, soldier Nick Rostu, and untrained Force master Kar Vastor. The latter has trained several soldiers, known as the Akk guards, and Windu himself says that Vastor has power on the level of a Jedi. During the course of the book, Windu ends the Summertime War, a conflict that has raged between the immigrant Balawai and the native Korunnai for centuries, in a matter of hours, and takes Vastor into custody. Windu nearly falls to the dark side himself in order to defeat Billaba, who is possibly vegetative at the end of the book. |
The New Atlantis | Francis Bacon | 1,626 | The novel depicts a mythical island, Bensalem, which is discovered by the crew of a European ship after they are lost in the Pacific Ocean somewhere west of Peru. The minimal plot serves the gradual unfolding of the island, its customs, but most importantly, its state-sponsored scientific institution, Salomon's House, "which house or college ... is the very eye of this kingdom." Many aspects of the society and history of the island are described, such as the Christian religion - which is reported to have been born there as a copy of the Bible and a letter from the Apostle Saint Bartholomew arrived there miraculously, a few years after the Ascension of Jesus; a cultural feast in honor of the family institution, called "the Feast of the Family"; a college of sages, the Salomon's House, "the very eye of the kingdom", to which order "God of heaven and earth had vouchsafed the grace to know the works of Creation, and the secrets of them", as well as "to discern between divine miracles, works of nature, works of art, and impostures and illusions of all sorts"; and a series of instruments, process and methods of scientific research that were employed in the island by the Salomon's House. The interlocutors include the governor of the House of Strangers, Joabin the Jew, and the Head of Salomon's House. The inhabitants of Bensalem are described as having a high moral character and honesty, no official accepting any payment from individuals, and the people being described as chaste and pious, as said by an inhabitant of the island: In the last third of the book, the Head of the Salomon's House takes one of the European visitors to show him all the scientific background of Salomon's House, where experiments are conducted in Baconian method in order to understand and conquer nature, and to apply the collected knowledge to the betterment of society. Namely: 1) the end of their foundation; 2) the preparations they have for their works; 3) the several employments and functions whereto their fellows are assigned; 4) and the ordinances and rites which they observe. He portrayed a vision of the future of human discovery and knowledge. The plan and organisation of his ideal college, "Salomon's House", envisioned the modern research university in both applied and pure science. The end of their foundation is thus described: "The end of our foundation is the knowledge of causes, and secret motions of things; and the enlarging of the bounds of human empire, to the effecting of all things possible". In the describing the several employments and functions to which the members of the Salomon's House are assigned, the Head of the college said: Even this short excerpt demonstrates that Bacon understood that science requires analysis and not just the accumulation of observations. Bacon also foresaw that the design of experiments could be improved. In describing the ordinances and rites observed by the scientists of Salomon's House, its Head said: And finally, after showing all the scientific background of Salomon's House, he gave the European visitor permission to publish it: |
Good-bye, Chunky Rice | Craig Thompson | 1,999 | The book tells the story of Chunky Rice, a small turtle who leaves his familiar surroundings, including his mouse deer best friend, to enter the next phase of his life. Other side characters in the novel also experience similar losses of friendship through tragedy or their own choice. |
Guenevere, Queen of the Summer Country | Rosalind Miles | 1,999 | Raised in the tranquil beauty of the Summer Country, Princess Guenevere has had a charmed and contented life until the sudden, violent death of her mother, Queen Maire, leaves the Summer Country teetering on the brink of anarchy. Only the miraculous arrival of Arthur, heir to the Pendragon dynasty, allows Guenevere to claim her mother's throne. Smitten by the bold, sensuous princess, Arthur offers to marry her and unite their territories, while still allowing her to rule in her own right. Their love match creates the largest and most powerful kingdom in the isles. Arthur's glorious rule begins to crumble, however, when he is reunited with his mother and his long-lost half-sisters, Morgause and Morgan. Before Arthur's birth, his father - the savage and unscrupulous King Uther - banished his wife's young daughters, selling Morgause into a cruel marriage and imprisoning Morgan in a far-off convent. Both daughters have reason to avenge their suffering, but only one will strike the deadliest blows against the King and Queen, using her evil enchantments to destroy all Guenevere holds dear. When the Queen flees to Avalon, even her marriage with Arthur comes under threat. In the chaos that follows, a new young knight comes to Arthur's court to offer his services to the Queen. Her loyalty to Arthur betrayed, Guenevere falls in love with Lancelot, a love that may spell ruin for Camelot. |
Dark Passage | David Goodis | null | Vincent Parry, convicted of murdering his wife, escapes from prison and is taken in by Irene Jansen, an artist with an interest in his case. Helped by a friendly cabbie, Parry gets a new face from a plastic surgeon, thereby enabling him to dodge the authorities and find his wife's real killer. He has difficulty staying hidden at Irene's, because Madge Rapf, the spiteful woman whose testimony sent him up to prison, keeps stopping by. |
Fear and Trembling | Amélie Nothomb | 1,999 | Amélie, a young Belgian woman who spent the first five years of her life in Japan, signs a one-year contract as a translator at the prestigious company Yumimoto. Beginning at the bottom of the corporate ladder, Amélie manages to descend even lower. At her arrival to the Yumimoto company she is puzzled as she is apparently not assigned any actual work to do, so she first kills the boredom by memorising the company's list of employees and then she decides she could deliver company's mail, only to find herself later scolded for taking initiative and "stealing someone else's job". Later her departmental manager asks her to copy a thick pile of documents, which, as she later realises, are the rules of his golf club. When she accomplishes the work, the manager returns it to her saying the copies are off-centered and asks her to re-do the job not using the feeder. Copying the pages one by one, Amélie is approached by Mr. Tenshi, the manager of the Dairy Products Department, who wants to use her knowledge and asks her to draft a report about the new method of manufacturing reduced-fat butter developed in Belgium. Next morning, when the manually-done copies are rejected by the manager again even without looking, she does the third batch of copies using the feeder and sets out writing the report for Mr. Tenshi. She researches the Japanese market, contacts the company in Belgium and obtains documentation from them, and continues writing the report overnight at home. The report turns out to be a big success, but she asks Mr. Tenshi not to reveal who the real author is. Her transferring to Mr. Tenshi's department is imminent as Mr. Tenshi plans to present the report to the company's president. However, Amélie's line manager Miss Fubuki Mori feels offended as this constitutes a violation of the company's hierarchy and exposes everything to the vice-president, who scolds severely Mr. Tenshi and Amélie, and sees to it that Amélie is not writing any more reports but strictly sticks to doing duties assigned by Miss Mori. Although advised by Mr. Tenshi not to do so, Amélie decides to confront Fubuki and talk to her personally. This encounter can be seen as the main breakpoint of the novel, as both characters feel the other should apologise but at the same time each of them fails to recognise why she should apologise herself. The main difference is that while Amélie feels her progress in her carrier from useless work to the place where she actually can use her skills has been hindered for no other reason than maliciousness, Fubuki feels Amélie's move being against her as she was trying to overpass her thus violating the subordination. Fubuki had to suffer and work hard for years to achieve her position and it was inconcievable to her to imagine that Amélie would achieve the same level of hierarchy within only a couple of weeks. From that point on, the relationship between them turns from a fairly good one (which, though, only Amélie would describe as 'friendship') to animosity, although still accompanied by respect and admiration from Amélie's side, which Fubuki either fails to notice or choses to ignore. Amélie prooves herself useless at the tasks she is subsequently asked to do at the Accounts Department, as she apparently suffers from dyscalculia to some extent, while Fubuki thinks Amélie is doing mistakes on purpose to sabotage the company and the manager herself. Another dialogue reveals the differences between the different concepts of responsibility in Japanese and Western cultures. While for Fubuki the manager is directly responsible for the mistakes of their staff (you made the mistakes deliberately only to expose me to the public ridicule), Amélie thinks everybody is responsible for their own mistakes (I ridiculed only myself, not you). The biggest mistake however Amélie does after Fubuki is being severely abused by the vice-president in front of all the department. When Fubuki, not having shown tears to her colleagues, goes to the bathroom to let her feelings out in private, Amélie follows her to console her. While from Amélie's point of view Fubuki is not in a shameful position and offering a consolation like that is only a good-hearted gesture, Fubuki feels utterly ashamed to be seen showing her feelings and mis-understand Amélie's following her as vengefulness and hostility. The next day Amélie is assigned the job of a bathroom cleaner by Fubuki. Six more months of her one-year contract to go, Amélie decides to endure until the end, which might be shameful from the Western point of view, but actually means not losing her face from the Japanese point of view. After her contract finishes in January 1991, she returns to Belgium and starts publishing: her first novel Hygiène de l'assassin appearing in 1992, she receives a brief congratulations note from Fubuki in 1993. |
The Iron Man | Ted Hughes | 1,968 | The Iron Man arrived from seemingly nowhere and his appearance is described in detail. To survive, he feeds off local farm equipment. When the farm hands discover their destroyed tractors and diggers, a trap is set consisting of a covered pit on which a tractor is set as bait. Hogarth, a local boy, lures the Iron Man to the trap. The plan succeeds, and the Iron Man is buried alive. The next spring, the Iron Man digs himself free of the pit. To keep him out of the way, the boy Hogarth takes charge and brings the Iron Man to a metal scrap-heap to feast. The Iron Man promises to not cause further trouble for the locals, as long as no one troubles him. Time passes, and the Iron Man is treated as merely another member of the community. However, astronomers monitoring the sky make a frightening new discovery; an enormous space-being moving from orbit to land on Earth. The creature (soon dubbed the "Space-Bat-Angel-Dragon") crashes heavily on Australia and demands that humanity provide him with food. Terrified, humans send their armies to destroy the dragon, but it remains unharmed. When the Iron Man hears of this global threat, he allows himself to be disassembled and transported to Australia where he challenges the creature to a contest of strength. If the Iron Man can withstand the heat of burning petroleum for longer than the space being can withstand the heat of the Sun, the creature must obey the Iron Man's commands forever more; if the Iron Man melts or is afraid of melting before the space being undergoes or fears pain in the Sun, the creature has permission to devour the whole Earth. After playing the game two rounds, the dragon is so badly burned that he no longer appears physically frightening. The Iron Man by contrast has only a deformed ear-lobe to show for his pains. The alien creature admits defeat. When asked why he came to Earth, the alien reveals that he is a peaceful "Star Spirit" who experienced excitement about the ongoing sights and sounds produced by the violent warfare of humanity. In his own life, he was a singer of the "music of the spheres"; the harmony of his kind that keeps the Cosmos in balance in stable equilibrium. The Iron Man orders the Star Spirit to sing to the inhabitants of Earth, flying just behind the sunset, to help soothe humanity toward a sense of peace. The beauty of his music distracts the population from its egocentricism and tendency to fight, causing the first worldwide lasting peace. |
Antarctica | Kim Stanley Robinson | 1,997 | Most of the story is centred around McMurdo Station, the largest settlement in Antarctica, which is run as a scientific research station by the United States. Robinson's characteristic multiple-protagonist style is employed here to show many aspects of polar life; among the viewpoints presented are those of X, an idealistic young man working as a General Field Assistant at McMurdo; Val, an increasingly embittered trek guide; and Wade Norton, who works for the Californian Senator Phil Chase (Wade and Phil also appear in the "Science in the Capital" trilogy). As well as McMurdo, the story involves the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, the Shackleton Glacier, the McMurdo Dry Valleys and a South American drilling platform near Roberts Massif. Antarctica involves many of the ideas Robinson uses elsewhere; as in the Mars trilogy, much emphasis is placed on the importance of living sustainably and the issues of existing in a hostile environment. The significance of Antarctica as a "continent for science" is contrasted with the need to provide a decent environment also for the support staff essential in a place so marginal. Other recurring themes include rock-climbing, physical athleticism, the process and ideology of science, exploitation of natural resources, and the formation of cooperative and anarchic social systems. The novel was heavily influenced by Robinson's 1995 stay in Antarctica as part of the National Science Foundation's Antarctic Artists and Writers Program, and was nominated for a Locus Award in 1998. |
Kafka on the Shore | Haruki Murakami | 2,002 | Comprising two distinct but interrelated plots, the narrative runs back and forth between the two, taking up each plotline in alternating chapters. The odd chapters tell the 15-year-old Kafka's story as he runs away from his father's house to escape an Oedipal curse and to embark upon a quest to find his mother and sister. After a series of adventures, he finds shelter in a quiet, private library in Takamatsu, run by the distant and aloof Miss Saeki and the intelligent and more welcoming Oshima. There he spends his days reading the unabridged Richard Francis Burton translation of A Thousand and One Nights and the collected works of Natsume Sōseki until the police begin inquiring after him in connection with a brutal murder. The even chapters tell Nakata's story. Due to his uncanny abilities, he has found part-time work in his old age as a finder of lost cats (a clear reference to The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle). The case of one particular lost cat puts him on a path that ultimately takes him far away from his home, ending up on the road for the first time in his life. He befriends a truck driver named Hoshino, who takes him on as a passenger in his truck and soon becomes very attached to the old man. Nakata and Kafka are on a collision course throughout the novel, but their convergence takes place as much on a metaphysical plane as it does in reality and, in fact, that can be said of the novel itself. Due to the Oedipal theme running through much of the novel, Kafka on the Shore has been called a modern Greek tragedy. |
A Perfect Spy | John le Carré | 1,986 | A Perfect Spy is the life story of Magnus Pym, a British intelligence officer and double agent. After attending his father's funeral, Pym mysteriously disappears. As his fellow intelligence officers frantically search for him it becomes clear that, throughout most of his career, Magnus worked as a spy for the Czechoslovak secret service. Although intrigue, wit, and suspense compose the novel, the story of Magnus Pym is partly an unadorned recollection of Magnus' childhood and memories of his father Rick Pym. The non-linear narrative cuts back and forth between the present-day manhunt for Pym by his mentor, boss, and longtime friend, Jack Brotherhood, and Pym's first-person reminiscences of his life as, in hiding, he writes a memoir explaining to his family and friends why he betrayed his country. It incorporates flashbacks to Pym's childhood with his father, the enterprising, charismatic rogue and con-man, Rick; to his early years at school and university; to his many amorous adventures, to his introduction to espionage and state secrets; and to his encounters with long-time friend and Czech spy Axel. The portraits reveal Pym as a man who for so long has manipulated his appearance to those closest to him that, in the end, he was unable to hold together the conflicting personae in his self. Magnus Pym has been a perfect spy, but at the cost of his soul. |
Dragon Prince | Melanie Rawn | 1,988 | Rohan, Prince of the Desert, is newly come to the throne. He must outwit the High Prince Roelstra in order to protect his vast lands and to maintain peace throughout the world. Sioned, a Sunrunner witch and his chosen bride, must help him in this dangerous quest and during the harsh times of war to come. Rohan and Sioned have some hard times at first, but they eventually get through. After Rohan's father died and Rohan inherited, he pretended to be a stupid, ignorant young man. The other princes believed him until he showed his true colors. Roelstra, however, thought that he could get Rohan's lands by marrying one of his seventeen daughters off to him. Rohan always came to a head with him. Roelstra wanted the desert, and Rohan was just as determined not to let him have it. No one knew that Sioned was Rohan's Chosen, except his Aunt, the scheming statecrafter Lady Andrade, until he revealed it at one of the many dinners that all of the princes attended. Roelstra was furious, of course, but he managed to keep his cool. For awhile, that is. Ultimately, Roelstra's daughter Ianthe captured Rohan and seduced him, convincing the drugged prince that she is Sioned. She also captured Sioned, locked her in a lightless dungeon and sent soldiers to rape her. When Rohan discovered the truth, he was enraged and took Ianthe fiercely as a form of revenge. Ianthe got what she wanted: a child was conceived of this. Sioned returned to Feruche and stole the babe from Ianthe just before Rohan's vassal Ostvel burned Ianthe's Castle Feruche to the ground – with Ianthe in it. Sioned adopted the child, naming him Pol, which means "star" in the Old Tongue. War erupts between Rohan and Roelstra, ending when Rohan killed Roelstra in a duel and became High Prince in his stead. |
Tandia | Bryce Courtenay | 1,991 | Tandia, whose parents were a South African Indian man (Mr. Patel) and his house worker (a black woman), is raped by a police officer at her father's grave the day after his funeral. With Mr. Patel's death, Tandia knew things were going to be very hard for her. But after his wife (Mrs. Patel) kicks her out of the dark corrugated-iron shed in the back yard, her only house, her situation has been changed more drastically than she expected. She is arrested by the police and meets the policeman who brutalised her on her father's grave and becomes her lifelong enemy, Jannie Geldenhuis. Tandia finds a home in the brothel where Geldenhuis drops her. The brothel's owner and the other residents adopt her and she learns a lot of life lessons. Some of the clients of the brothel end up becoming her sponsors for her ambition to enter law school. While Peekay and Hymie (Morrie in the American version) go to Britain to read law at Oxford University, they want to conquer the world boxing field, Peekay as world welterweight champion and Hymie as Peekay's manager. They also want to pursue justice for the country they love, South Africa. When they arrive back in South Africa, their rivalry with Jannie Geldenhuis, which began in the school where they first met, extends to both boxing and politics. Tandia grows up to be a smart, intelligent and very beautiful lawyer. She joins the law firm formed by Peekay and Hymie and is dedicated to providing counsel to the under-represented black and coloured population of South Africa. Her defense of a black terrorist causes her to again confront her lifelong enemy Jannie Geldenhuis who is now a powerful officer in the police force. Tandia and Peekay develop a romantic relationship, in a country where mixed relationships are outlawed. Their growing love is very dangerous and it leads them into the most fearful consequences. |
The Prodigal Daughter | Jeffrey Archer | null | The story begins by introducing Kane and Abel's past and the feud between them. It then tells the story of Kane and Abel from the perspective of their children, Florentyna Rosnovski and Richard Kane. Their childhood, and all the incidents and people who affected them, are portrayed in a similar manner as their fathers' lives were told in Kane and Abel. There are some inconsistencies, however. For example, after Abel's divorce from Zaphia in Kane and Abel Abel gets the custody of Florentyna. But in The Prodigal Daughter, Zaphia has custody of Florentyna. Richard and Florentyna meet by sheer chance and fall in love. When their parents are told, both sets naturally react explosively; Abel goes so far as to slap the daughter he had raised with great affection. The two lovers run away that day to a friend's house in another city. Later, the two create a chain of retail stores named Florentyna's, which are a huge success. Abel helps his daughter anonymously, but refuses to accept his son-in-law. The tale takes a twist with the senior Kane's death, when Abel learns that Kane was the anonymous benefactor who helped him launch his hotel empire. He thus accepts Richard and his grandchildren and considers it an honor that his grandson is named William Abel Kane. Richard and Florentyna take charge of the Baron Hotels, with Florentyna as chairwoman, and then in a daring feat take over Lester's (Kane's bank). Eventually Florentyna takes up politics due to the persuasion of a childhood friend named Edward Winchester. Florentyna's career becomes central to the plot, as she attempts to deal with the problems a very busy and successful mother faces, including the fact that her daughter has an abortion and smokes marijuana in the mid-1970s. However, her career takes a back seat when Richard dies in a car crash in 1985. For some time, Florentyna loses the will to pursue anything, even her career. Then suddenly, seeing a homeless Vietnam Vet impels her to come "back with a vengeance." Working harder than ever, she comes very near her goal of becoming the first female U.S. President. For the good of her party, she strikes a deal with her opponent, Pete Parkin to support him if he promises not to run for a second term, and if he makes her his vice presidential candidate. During Parkin's term, Florentyna averts many a crisis: actions for which the President takes full credit. At the end of his term, however, he not only reneges on his promises and wants to run, but undermines Florentyna's support by announcing Ralph Brooks, the other Illinois Senator as his running mate. It seems as though Florentyna's dream will never become a reality. Disgusted with the entire situation, she leaves Washington. While she is playing golf and discussing what to do with her life—her son William is now President of Lester's, with Edward, for example—Secret Service agents arrive to announce President Parkin's sudden death from a heart attack. Florentyna thus becomes the President, and soon after she marries Edward and they live happily ever after. |
Legend | David Gemmell | 1,984 | The Drenai Empire is under threat. The tribal Nadir people have been united for the first time by the great warleader Ulric, who has forged a massive empire in the North. The Drenai leader Abalayn is trying to negotiate new treaties with Ulric, but war is brewing and an over 500,000 strong Nadir army marches on the fortress of Dros Delnoch, gateway to the Drenai heartlands. Dros Delnoch is the greatest fortress in the world, a narrow pass guarded by six high walls and a great keep, but under Abalayn its complement of defenders has been reduced to less than 10,000 men under the leadership of an unfit General. The fate of the Drenai hinges on the defence of Dros Delnoch. If the fortress can hold the Nadir horde for three months, the Drenai general Magnus Woundweaver might be able to gather and train a Drenai army. However, given the odds, no-one truly believes that Delnoch can be held. The novel follows the stories of two men who find their destiny at Dros Delnoch. Regnak Wanderer (Rek for short) an ex-army officer and natural 'baresark', seeing a war brewing, resigned his commission because he lacked the courage to risk his life and took to a life of wandering. Rek is an idealist and eventually he returns to Delnoch at the persuasion of the woman he falls in love with and finds his destiny as the Earl of Bronze. The other man is the greatest hero of the Drenai people - Druss the Legend. His death was foretold defending Delnoch and while given the choice to avoid it and fall into senility Druss (and his once possessed axe Snaga) marched to the great fortress to defend his people one last time. In this story Druss is in his sixties and much weaker than his prime but still a formidable warrior and an inspirational leader to the Drenai. The story also flicks into the perspective of several defenders during different stages of the siege as time goes on. It also follows The Thirty, a group of 30 warrior priests of the light whose purpose is to fight and die (except for one priest that leaves to continue the order at the end of each great battle) for the greater good and their people, the Drenai. |
A Death in the Family | James Agee | 1,956 | The novel is based on the events that occurred to Agee in 1915 when his father went out of town to see his own father, who had had a heart attack. During the return trip, Agee's father was killed in a car accident. The novel provides a portrait of life in Knoxville, Tennessee, showing how such a loss affects the young widow, her two children, her atheist father and the dead man's alcoholic brother. |
The Buccaneers | Marion Mainwaring | null | The story revolves around five wealthy and ambitious American girls, their guardians and the titled, landed but impoverished Englishmen who marry them as the girls participate in the London Season in search of a titled English gentleman for matrimonial purposes. As the novel progresses, the plot follows Nan and her marriage to the Duke of Tintagel. It is a story of the morals held by fashionable society at the time, when it was considered more important to marry for social position than for romantic love. The novel is also a poignant example of art imitating life, since one of the stories resembles the ill-fated marriage of heiress Consuelo Vanderbilt and the Duke of Marlborough, as well as Lady Randolph Churchill's marriages, to some extent. |
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