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Q-in-Law | Peter David | null | The Enterprise (NCC-1701-D) is assigned to diplomatic duty to host the wedding between two houses of the Tizarin, a race that lives only in space and engages in commerce. One of the guests is Lwaxana Troi, to represent Betazed. The time setting places it after the events of "Deja Q" (third season) and before "Q-Pid" (fourth season). Kerin, heir to the house of Nistral, will marry Sehra, the daughter of the house of Graziunas. Q puts in an appearance. Although he toys with Picard while asking to be allowed to attend the wedding festivities, he promises to behave himself. Q attracts Lwaxana's notice, and she is fascinated by Q. To Picard's horror, Q fans the flames of love. Later, Q also begins to fan the animosity between the two Tizarin houses, mainly by feeding on the occasional blowups between the bride and groom, who are themselves irritated: Sehra by her future father-in-law Nistral's comments and Kerin by his future mother-in-law Mrs. Graziunas' comments. The two families come to battle, and a despairing Lwaxana wishes she could do something. Q gives her power, and Lwaxana stops the battle, and Kerin and Serah determine they will marry, no matter what. Meanwhile, Q has revealed his true colors: another way of annoying lower life forms. He scorns Lwaxana, who gives Q a serious thrashing, thanks to Q2 helping her hold onto the power. Meanwhile, a gift of gratitude by Sehra to Wesley Crusher turns out to be anything but a joy, as Sehra gives Wesley a clumsy slave girl. After much pain and a broken rib, Wesley returns the slave girl to Sehra, who had been trying to get rid of her but is now happy to have her back. |
Foley is Good: And The Real World is Faker Than Wrestling | Mick Foley | 2,001 | The book covers the last years of Mick Foley's in-ring wrestling career up until the birth of his second son, Michael Francis Foley, Jr., which he mentions in the book's epilogue. It has a more celebratory tone than his first book, as he is writing about the time of his career where he has already achieved success. The book alternated between in-ring wrestling activities and Foley's life away from the ring. In the book, he also describes his obsessions, such as theme parks and Christmas. He also writes about his experience writing his first book without the aid of a ghostwriter. He defends himself against being misquoted by news program 20/20, and explains the events surrounding his "I Quit" match with The Rock at the Royal Rumble in January 1999, which can also be seen in the documentary Beyond the Mat. The book also heavily defends the World Wrestling Federation against accusations of being violent. Foley made an effort to pointedly refute claims made by detractors, citing statistical data and other evidence he compiled himself. He criticizes the actions of the Parents Television Council. |
April Morning | Howard Fast | 1,961 | The novel begins in the afternoon with Adam getting water for dinner from the Coopers' well. He is interrupted by his eleven year-old brother Levi. As he returns to his home, his father Moses reprimands him for superstitious ignorance. Similarly, his mother Sarah upbraids him for not spending his free time reading and memorizing the Bible's Book of Lamentations. At dinner, Moses sternly reprimands Adam for the ignorance represented by the spell and points to the Cooper family tradition, in 125 years in the American colonies, of literacy, rationalism and intellectualism. He pointedly tells him that he is not yet a man in his father's eyes. As dinner ends, the Coopers are visited by their cousin Joseph Simmons, who is a member of the local Committee of correspondence, which organizes resistance to the British. He and Moses work on a declaration of their rights before they go to the Committee meeting. Moses refuses to let Adam join him. That evening, Adam learns that the attendees discussed matters of revolt and whether or not to keep minutes. Moses convinces the men to be proud of their speech and not fear punishment for treason. Meanwhile, Adam visits Ruth, whom he admires. She once told everyone that she was going to marry him when they grew up. He finally vents his frustration with his father's constant belittling. They part with a kiss. That night Adam and Levi overhear a midnight rider say that the British are coming. Adam joins the militia in order to resist the British, which, surprisingly, Moses agrees to, telling Sarah that Adam is no longer a boy in his eyes. Father and son prepare for combat and talk about the relationship between Adam and Ruth. After breakfast, they join the militia to face the British on the green. About 70 men and boys gather in Lexington and when the British arrive shortly after dawn they encounter two lines of militia. The colonists stand their ground though the British commander, Major Pitcairn, orders them to disperse. A shot is fired by a British soldier, starting the battle, in which Moses is killed. After the British kill more of the colonists, the outnumbered militia flees the battlefield. Adam hides in a nearby smokehouse, worrying about his father's death. Later that afternoon, Adam hears two British soldiers outside the smokehouse debate whether to burn it, but they do not. He escapes through the woods but runs into two British soldiers and is nearly shot. Escaping across a meadow he encounters Solomon Chandler, who tells him stories in order to assuage his fear after having lost his father. He assures him that despite having run away when the shooting started on the green, he is not a coward. The two join a group of militiamen, and he tells them all what happened in Lexington. Soon, more militias gather and they learn that the British took heavy casualties at the Old North Bridge. They gather along the road back to Boston and plan an ambush of the retreating British. The British troops arrive and the militia open fire. After several volleys, the militia runs away and the British do not pursue. The militia regathers and the British approach again. The militia lays another ambush, in which they retreat down the road under cover of sharpshooters killing the British from great distances. They continue to lay ambushes for the British, and retreat through the woods. They meet up with others at a nearby barn and decide to set yet another trap for the British along a nearby road. Along the way they encounter, and defeat, a British cavalry patrol. The group of militia men continues to grow, with men from neighboring towns joining in, and they set another trap. Meanwhile, they see smoke rising from the vicinity of Lexington and think that the village has been burnt by the British. The attack on them goes as planned, but Adam falls asleep during it. Soon he gets leave to return to Lexington and console his family. He finds his house unburned, and his family is relieved he isn't dead. Moses' body is brought home. They bear him to the church with the other dead. As Adam looks over the damage left from the battle, he realizes that, unlike Levi, he has left childhood behind. That evening, Adam returns to his home. Many neighbors have come to visit and prepare food there, including Ruth, and she and Adam talk. She asks about the battle in the morning on the green, and he tells her about some of the things he saw. She worries that the British will come again and the same thing will happen, but he reassures her. She then asks him if he loves her, and after thinking about it, he says yes. She tells him that she loves him and then they part. After returning home to a nearly empty house, he goes to bed thinking about the changes that happened to him during those two days. |
The Nightingale | Hans Christian Andersen | 1,843 | The Emperor of China learns that one of the most beautiful things in his empire is the song of the nightingale. When he orders the nightingale brought to him, a kitchen maid (the only one at court who knows of its whereabouts) leads the court to a nearby forest where the bird is found. The nightingale agrees to appear at court. The Emperor is so delighted with the bird's song that he keeps the nightingale in captivity. When the Emperor is given a bejeweled mechanical bird he loses interest in the real nightingale, who returns to the forest. The mechanical bird eventually breaks down due to overuse. The Emperor is taken deathly ill a few years later. The real nightingale learns of the Emperor's condition and returns to the palace. God is so moved by the nightingale's song that he departs and the emperor recovers. The nightingale agrees to sing to the emperor of all the happenings in the empire, that he will be known as the wisest emperor ever to live. |
Flyte | Angie Sage | null | Septimus has become the apprentice to Marcia Overstrand, the ExtraOrdinary Wizard. and a year has gone by. Septimus' older brother, Simon, had run away after an argument between him and Sarah/Silas Heap about Septimus, who Simon disliked. He comes back and kidnaps Jenna on his horse, Thunder. Septimus goes to search for her and he is assisted in his search by his brother Nicko, who helps build boats at Jannit Maarten's boatyard. But Jenna runs away from Simon's observatory in The Badlands and makes her way towards The Port. Eventually Septimus is able to rescue Jenna with his elder brother Nicko's help from the Port but they are tracked by Sleuth, Simon's tracking ball. They make their way to the Marram Marshes where they take the Dragon-Boat from Aunt Zelda's cottage and fly her to the Castle. However, they are pursued by Simon, who used a Flyte Charm to fly in the sky. Simon drops a huge Thunderflash on the Dragon-Boat's wing and it drops over Jannit Marten's Boatyard. Septimus, Jenna and Aunt Zelda are able to revive her through the Transubstantiation Triple spell. Septimus is also in search of the long lost Flyte charm. He finds the separated charm and unites it along with the small pair-of-wings Flyte charm that Marcia had given him as a token for his apprenticeship. Eventually he is able to fly and even warns Simon never to harm Jenna again. Also, the rock that Jenna gave him at Aunt Zelda's cottage turns out to be the egg of a dragon and eventually it hatches. Septimus absolutely adores the dragon and names him Spit Fyre. The dragon, based on the seeing-is-believing basis, identifies Marcia as his mother after yelling at him on the dragon launch pad. Septimus rescues Marcia by identifying the shadow that has been trailing her. He also finds out that the ShadowSafe Marcia is developing contains, unbeknown to her, the bones of destroyed Necromancer DomDaniel, which, once reassembled, tried to kill Marcia. With Septimus's help, Marcia is able to Identify him and he is once again destroyed. |
Mio, my Mio | null | null | Mio, My Son starts by introducing Bo Vilhelm Olsson ("Bosse"), a young boy who has been adopted by an elderly couple who dislike boys. They harass him, and tell him to stay out of their way. One day he receives an apple from the kindly shopkeeper, Mrs. Lundin, who asks him to mail a postcard for her. He mails the postcard, but not before he has thrown a glance at it. It is addressed to a king, and it says that his son will soon be coming home, recognized by his possession of a golden apple. Bosse looks at his apple and suddenly it turns into gold. Soon after, Bosse finds a bottle with a genie trapped inside. Upon freeing it, the genie recognises the apple and takes Bosse to another world, far, far away. Upon arriving, Bosse is told that his real name is Mio, and that he is son of the king and thus prince of the land. He finds a new best friend, Jum-Jum, and receives the horse Miramis from his father. However, he soon learns that not everything in this world is as wonderful as it first seemed. In the lands beyond that of the king lives an evil knight named Kato, whose hatred is so strong that the land around his castle is barren and singed. He has kidnapped several children from the nearby villages, and he poses a constant threat to the people living there. Mio is told that his destiny is to fight Kato, even though he is only a child. Together with Jum-Jum and Miramis, Mio sets out on a perilous journey into the land of Kato, as the stories have foreseen for thousands and thousands of years. In the American version, Mio is first called Karl Anders Nilsson, nicknamed Andy, and Jum-Jum's name is Pompoo. |
The trials of Nikki Hill | Dick Lochte | 1,999 | The protagonist of this legal thriller is 33 year old, Nikki Hill. Nikki is a lead prosecutor at the District Attorney's office, and he has trusted her to help find the killer of Madeleine Gray, Hollywood's most popular TV host of a blackmail show. At first there is a hands down suspect, Jamal Deschamps, who was found at the scene of the crime. He possessed her ring and his skin was also under Maddie's thumb. After a lie detector test, it was proven that Deschamps was not the killer. It turned out, he merely found the cadaver and whilst stealing its ring, cut himself on her thumb. Nikki, another smart aleck prosecutor, and two quirky homicide detectives have a few loose strings, and bewilderment of who the real killer is. At Maddie's mansion, there was a missing rug, and a glass a ball that had Maddie's blood on it. And upstairs, where her blackmail files are, there is a busted drawer with missing contents. Nikki and the team discover that R&B singer, Diana Cooper, had a fight with Maddie the day of the murder. She quickly becomes a major suspect when Maddie's blood is also found in her trunk. The detectives come up with a scenario: Maddie threatened to give Diana's blackmail information, so she stole it and killed Maddie. This was soon proven wrong when detective Goodman's girlfriend confessed to stealing the black mail file for Diana's husband. Diana's charges were also dropped due to conflict with her alibi the time of the murder. Next, fingers were pointed towards John Willins, Diana's huband. Maddie had told Palmer, her neighbor, that she had slept with a J man. There were also logs at a private getaway club that a J. W. and M. Gray went together several times. Nikki and the team try to trace John Willin's past, and it turned up that he was from a small town. While putting together clues, they find out that John's family was killed in a fire, and that he could be taking on the identity of his deceased cousin. This leads to another question: did he murder his family with the fire? The only way to really find out was to go to the town and see if there was a grave for "John Willins". When they report this phenomenal news to district attorney, Joe Walden, he decides he wants to come along. And when they finally get to the town's only cemetery, they find out that Joe Walden, the district attorney, is the J.W....! |
Insect Dreams: The Half Life of Gregor Samsa | Marc Estrin | null | Rather than being thrown away like trash, Gregor Samsa was secretly sold to a Viennese sideshow by the Samsas' chambermaid. He then met various figures like Wittgenstein, Spengler and Einstein and witnessed American Prohibition, the Scopes trial, was involved in Alice Paul's feminist movement, encountered the Ku Klux Klan, and conferred with U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Robert Oppenheimer. |
My Life As a Man | Philip Roth | null | The work is split into two sections: the first section, "Useful Fictions," consisting of two short stories about a character named Nathan Zuckerman (although this character frequently featured in Roth's later novels, scholarship has revealed this not to be the same character), and the second section, "My True Story," which takes the form of a first-person memoir by Peter Tarnopol, a Jewish writer who authored the two stories in the first section. |
The White Bone | Barbara Gowdy | null | The novel is told entirely from the points of view of its elephant characters. Much like real elephants, all female elephants (cows) and prepubescent males (bulls) live in matrilineal family groups, and mature male elephants are loners. The main characters in the novel are mostly from the "She-S" family, into which Mud, a young cow who is pregnant with her first calf, has been adopted. Mud is blessed with visionary powers and can occasionally see into the future. Thrown into a drought, with human poachers becoming increasingly common, Mud and her family must find the legendary "Safe Place" where drought and poachers do not come. The "White Bone," a rib of a newborn elephant, is rumored to be lying somewhere in the savannah and is said to point in the direction of the Safe Place. After a slaughter which leaves most of Mud's adoptive family dead and her best friend, Date Bed, missing, Mud and the remaining She-S elephants set off to find the White Bone and Date Bed. The novel is rather nihilistic, as it is unlikely that any of the characters ever reach the Safe Place, with a few possible exceptions. Hence, it is considered a powerful social commentary on the plight of endangered animals, showing their situation to be somewhat hopeless. Another main theme of the novel is the importance of family ties, and the fact that Mud, as an adopted member of the She-S family, feels alienated from the other elephants throughout. Another theme of the novel acknowledges the old saying, "An elephant never forgets." The novel implies that elephants will eventually go senile, but as most are killed before their prime, the saying is usually true. The elephants are capable of remembering every minute detail of their lives, unlike humans, who tend to remember important events most strongly. |
Black Sunday | Thomas Harris | 1,975 | Michael Lander is a pilot who flies the Aldrich Blimp over NFL football games to film them for network television. He is also, secretly, deranged by years of torture as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, a bitter court martial on his return and a failed marriage. He longs to commit suicide and take as many of the cheerful, carefree American civilians he sees from his blimp each weekend with him as possible. Lander conspires with Dahlia Iyad, an operative from the Palestinian terrorist group Black September, to launch a suicide attack using a bomb composed of plastique and a quarter million steel darts, housed on the underside of the gondola of the Aldrich Blimp, which they will detonate over Tulane Stadium during a Super Bowl between the Miami Dolphins and the Washington Redskins. Dahlia and Black September, in turn, intend the attack as a wake-up call for the American people, to turn their attention and the world's to the plight of the Palestinians. American and Israeli intelligence, led by Mossad agent David Kabakov and FBI agent Sam Corley, race to prevent the catastrophe. They piece together the path of the explosives into the country, and Dahlia's own movements. In a spectacular conclusion, the bomb-carrying blimp is chased by helicopters as it approaches the packed stadium. |
All the Shah's Men | Stephen Kinzer | 2,003 | In 1933 Reza Shah signed a deal selling Iranian oil extraction rights to the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, later called British Petroleum (BP). Though Iran was officially neutral at the start of World War II, its monarch was friendly towards the Axis. Following the 1941 Allied Invasion of Iran, Reza Shah was forced to abdicate in favour of his son Mohammad Reza Shah, who upheld the oil agreement with APOC, which by then had been renamed the "Anglo-Iranian Oil Company". When the first democratically elected parliament and prime minister in Iran took power in 1950 they planned to seize the oil assets in Iran that had been developed by the British, violating the still running oil contract with British Petroleum. The British Government followed to court in Belgium's International Court and lost the case against Iran's new government. Great Britain reacted by blockading the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz, halting Iran's trade and economy. The US was concerned that Iranian prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh was seeking help from local superpower, the Soviet Union, in the case against Great Britain. The Dwight D. Eisenhower administration agreed with the Churchill government to restore the pro-western Shah to power. In the summer of 1953, the CIA and Britain's MI6 arranged a coup in Tehran. The Iranian prime minister was successfully overthrown. Mossadegh spent the rest of his life on his country estate under house arrest, and Iran remained a staunch Cold War ally of the West. After more than 20 years of the Shah's rule, there was a bloody revolution in 1979 after which Iran became the Islamic Republic it is today. Regarding US policy as it developed towards Iran in the early 1950s, the book portrays it as having been variously driven by the fear of annoying the British, or attempting to be an honest broker, or as being motivated by efforts to stop the spread of Communism. The fact (stated at the end of the book) that US companies were granted the majority of the oil concessions from the Shah's government after the coup, does not feature significantly in the earlier part of the narrative. However, that this was the chief reason for the coup is the tacit conclusion of the book. The British critic David Pryce-Jones takes strong issue with this conclusion in his essay "A Very Elegant Coup" (link below). In his view, the attempted Communist takeover of Iran was the chief issue, and the portrayal of the CIA by Kinzer as 'arrogant, thuggish and immoral' was originally a notion put forward by leftists who sympathized with the attempt. |
Desire Under the Elms | Eugene O'Neill | 1,925 | Widower Ephraim Cabot abandons his New England farm to his three sons, who hate him but share his greed. Eben, the youngest and brightest sibling, feels the farm is his birthright, as it originally belonged to his mother. He buys out his half-brothers' shares of the farm with money stolen from his father, and Peter and Simeon head off to California to seek their fortune. Later, Ephraim returns with a new wife, the beautiful and headstrong Abbie, who enters into an adulterous affair with Eben. Soon after, Abbie bears Eben's child, but lets Ephraim believe that the child is his, in the hopes of securing her future with the farm. The proud Ephraim is oblivious as his neighbors openly mock him as a cuckold. Madly in love with Eben and fearful it would become an obstacle to their relationship, Abbie kills the infant. An enraged and distraught Eben turns Abbie over to the sheriff, but not before admitting to himself the depths of his love for her and thus confessing his own role in the infanticide. |
The Sea | John Banville | 2,005 | The story is told by Max Morden, a self-aware, retired art historian attempting to reconcile himself to the deaths of those whom he loved as a child and as an adult. The novel is written as a reflective journal; the setting always in flux, wholly dependent upon the topic or theme Max feels to write about. Despite the constant fluctuations, Max returns to three settings: his childhood memories of the Graces—a wealthy middle-class family living in a rented cottage home, the "Cedars"—during the summer holidays; the months leading up to the death of his wife, Anna; and his present stay at the Cedars cottage home in Ballyless—where he has retreated since Anna's death. These three settings are heavily diced and impromptly jumbled together for the novel's entire duration. Max's final days with Anna were awkward; Max does not know how to act with his soon-to-be-dead wife. Scenes of Anna's dying days are more full of commentary than with actual details, as are most of the novel's settings. It's through these commentaries that we learn of Max's choice to return to the cottage of his childhood memories (after Anna's death), confirming that a room would be available for residence during a visit with his adult daughter, Claire. We learn of the Cedars' current house-maid, Miss Vavasour, and her other tenant: a retired army Colonel, often described as a background character (even during his important role in the denouement). The Colonel is also seen, at the beginning of Max's stay, to have a crush on Miss Vavasour; Max suspects Miss Vavasour had entertained the Colonel's slight infatuation prior to Max's own arrival. Despite the actual present day setting of the novel (everything is written by Max, after Anna's death, while he stays in the Cedars home), the underlying motivation to Max's redaction of memories, the single setting which ties the novel together, are Max's childhood memories. With Max's unreliable, unorganised and omitted iteration of events, we gradually learn the names of the Graces: Chloe, the wild daughter; Myles, the mute brother; Connie, the mother; Carlos, the father; and finally the twins' nursemaid, Rose. After brief encounters, and fruitless moments of curiosity, Max becomes infatuated with Connie Grace upon first sight; seeing her lounging at the beach launches him to acquaint Chloe and Myles in, what Max stipulates to have been a conscious effort to get inside the Cedars, hence, closer to Mrs. Grace. He succeeds. Later, Max recounts being invited on a picnic—for what reasons or what specific time during the summer is never explicitly stated—where Max, in awe, catches an unkempt glance at her pelvic area. This day of "illicit invitation" climaxes when Max is pulled to the ground, and snuggled closely with Connie and Rose in a game of hide-and-seek. The latter half of his summer memories (the relation of Max's memories in the second part of the novel), however, revolve around Max's awkward relationship with Chloe: a girl with a spastic personality and blunt demeanor whom Max describes as one who "[does] not play, on her own or otherwise". Chloe is shown as a volatile character: flagrantly kissing Max in a Cinema, rough-housing with her brother Myles, and what was hinted as hypersexuality earlier, is quite possibly confirmed as hypersexuality in the book's final moments. We soon learn that Chloe and Myles like to tease Rose, who is young and timid enough to feel bullied. Max, another day, climbs a tree in the yard of the Ceders house, and soon spots Rose crying not too far from him. Mrs. Grace soon emerges, comforting Rose. Max overhears (rather, Max remembers overhearing) key words from their conversation: "love him" and "Mr. Grace". Assuming this to mean Rose and Mr. Grace are having an affair, he tells Chloe and Myles. The ending of the book entwines the exact moment of Anna's death with Chloe and Myles drowning in the sea itself as Max and Rose look on. Max, done with his childhood memories, offers a final memory of a near-death episode while he was inebriated. The Colonel does not physically save Max, rather finds him knocked unconscious by a rock (from a drunken stumble). His daughter scolds him at the hospital, assumingly being told he nearly killed himself, and tells him to come home with her. It is revealed at this point that Miss Vavasour is Rose herself and she was in love with Mrs. Grace. Max finishes with a redaction of himself standing in the sea after Anna's death (an allegory is made between crashing waves and tumultuous periods of his life). We are to assume that he will leave the Cedars' home to be cared for by his daughter, Claire. |
Tribes of Redwall Badgers | Brian Jacques | 2,001 | This booklet about badgers features trivia questions, a giant poster, and profiles of many of the badger characters that are featured in the series. They include cartoons, fun facts, and the story information. Illustrated by Peter Standley. |
The Land of Crimson Clouds | null | null | A spaceship, propelled by a prototype photon engine, sets off for Venus, which at that time, is an enigmatic and unexplored planet covered by clouds. The tasks of the crew are a) to test the prototype engine in field conditions and b) to locate and set radio beacons on the s.c. "Uranium Golconda" (a place with incredibly large heavy metals deposits), presumably, found somewhere on the second planet of the Solar System. As the crew ventures into the depths of Venus, unknown dangers take them out one by one, so only a half of them returns home after accomplishing the mission - all badly damaged, both physically and mentally. However, their feat was the first milestone in colonizing Venus and the first step into the 22nd century. cs:Planeta nachových mračen de:Atomvulkan Golkonda pl:W krainie purpurowych obłoków ru:Страна багровых туч |
Falling Free | Lois McMaster Bujold | 1,988 | The novel is set about 200 years before the birth of Miles Vorkosigan, the protagonist of much of the Vorkosigan series. It deals with the creation of the "Quaddies", genetically modified people who have four arms, the second pair appearing where unmodified humans would have legs. They were intended to be used as a space labor force, not only superbly adapted to zero-gravity but unable to function "downside" in any but the lightest gravitational field. From the point of view of the commercial interests responsible for their creation, they would be highly-profitable, requiring none of the special facilities or mandatory time off needed by other humans, whose bodies tend to deteriorate over the long term in weightlessness. They would also be completely beholden to the company for life support, and would have no rights as human beings. Legally, the Quaddies are not classed as human but as "post-fetal experimental tissue cultures". The company treats them as chattel slaves. Their access to information is tightly controlled. Even their children's stories are about working in space. They can be ordered to reproduce or to have a pregnancy terminated. They are the subject of breeding programs, the company compelling them to mate only with one of the company's choosing, regardless of existing partners. When a new artificial gravity technology renders them both obsolete and a potential political embarrassment to the executives, there are discussions about killing them or sterilizing them. Bipedal engineer Leo Graf, who had been assigned to help train them, instead helps them break free. They eventually settle in an initially remote system that gradually becomes a major part of the Nexus. Bujold has stated in the notes of her reprints that Falling Free was the first half of the intended story. The unwritten, second story was to tell how the Quaddies settled into what would be known as "Quaddiespace". Diplomatic Immunity, published in 2002, revisits the subject of the Quaddies, showing the state of their society some 240 years after its foundation. It takes place on Graf Station, named for Leo Graf, who is hero and patriarch to the Quaddies. |
Season of Migration to the North | Tayeb Salih | 1,966 | The unnamed narrator has returned to his native village in the Sudan after seven years in England furthering his education. On his arrival home, the Narrator encounters a new villager named Mustafa Sa'eed who exhibits none of the adulation for his achievements that most others do, and he displays an antagonistically aloof nature. Mustafa Sa'eed betrays his past one drunken evening by wistfully reciting poetry in fluent English, leaving the narrator resolute to discover the stranger's identity. The Narrator later asks Mustafa Sa'eed about his past, and Mustafa tells the Narrator much of his story, often saying "I am no Othello, Othello was a lie." The Narrator becomes fascinated by Mustafa, and he learns that Mustafa was also a precocious student educated in the west but he held a violent, hateful and complex relationship with his western identity and acquaintances. The story of Mustafa's troubled past in Europe, and in particular his love affairs with British women, form the center of the novel. The narrator then discovers that the stranger, Mustafa Sa'eed, awakens in him great curiosity, despair and anger, as Mustafa emerges as his doppelgänger. The stories of Mustafa's past life in England, and the repercussions on the village around him, taking their toll on the narrator, who is driven to the very edge of sanity. In the final chapter, the Narrator is floating in the Nile, precariously between life and death, and the narrator makes the conscious choice to rid himself of Mustafa's lingering presence, and to stand as an influential individual in his own right. The novel has also been related in many senses to Heart of Darkness by author Joseph Conrad. Both novels explore cultural hybridity, cross-colonial experiences, and orientalism. |
Threshold | David R. Palmer | 1,985 | Due to what they call a 'racial mental block' a quasi-immortal race called the Isi are unable to prevent a galactic catastrophe. The Isi think humanity (specifically Peter) will help them overcome this hurdle, hence the book's opening line "Peter, we are losing Armageddon..." Unless he joins forces with them "... the galaxy is doomed...!" While Peter (and the reader) is understandably skeptical, the talking cat, as well as a crash course in telepathy rapidly convince him of Meg's sincerity. Soon he is using his uniquely human perspective to unveil new applications of ancient Isi mental powers, and develops some startling new abilities. Armed with complete control of his cellular structure (which allows for slow but complete cellular metamorphosis), and a "gnNäáq" (knack) which allows the mental manipulation of electrical energy, Peter and Meg travel to Meg's home planet of Isis where he will be taught the "mMj'q" (Magic) necessary to help save the galaxy from its impending destruction. Writing in what can only be described in a "Heinlein-esque" style, Palmer deliberately plays with sci-fi conventions. For example he implies that common terms such as witch, familiar, and magic actually stem from alien words. He also turns several clichés on their ear, giving the reader a trip through the protagonist's ego as he travels across a decidedly hostile planet. |
Ysabel | Guy Gavriel Kay | 2,007 | Ned Marriner is in France with his father, Edward, a celebrated photographer who is working on a book about Provence. While his father shoots outside the deserted Saint-Sauveur Cathedral, Ned wanders in to look around. There he meets Kate Wenger, an American exchange student with a passion for ancient history and an extensive knowledge of the cathedral's past. The pair is startled by the appearance of a then-nameless man, who warns them to leave immediately, stating that they "have blundered into the corner of a very old story". Ned finds that he is able to sense the man's presence, a power of which he was previously unaware. Ned and Kate also notice an ancient carving of a woman on one of the church pillars, which the nameless man claims he created. Frightened by the incident, Ned and Kate make plans to meet a few days later. Ned goes on a photo-scouting mission with his father's assistants, Greg, Steve, and Melanie, a young woman who is hyper-organized, witty, and well liked by everyone, including Ned. They head towards Mont Sainte-Victoire, a much-photographed location made famous by Cezanne. But along the way, Ned falls suddenly and inexplicably ill. Arriving at the mountain, he is overcome by images of the slaughter that took place there centuries prior, when a Roman general killed thousands of Celts. He is rushed back to the team's villa, but once he has travelled only a short distance from the mountain, he recovers completely. Ned and Kate meet later that day in a coffee shop to discuss their situation. Ned is unnerved by the discovery of his strange abilities, while both are curious to find out more about the nameless man and his "story." Unaware that they are being watched by the nameless man, they make plans to meet again in Entremont, an ancient Celtic site, on the Eve of Beltaine. Kate leaves, but Ned becomes aware of the nameless man's presence and confronts him. The man tells him little, and soon leaves the cafe. Outside, however, he is attacked by unnaturally vicious dogs, and Ned steps in to defend him, saving his life. Ned meets his Aunt Kim, a woman with mysterious powers. She tells him that she sensed he was in trouble, and came at once to offer her help. He discovers that she has the same ability to "sense" the presence of those with power, which she claims "runs in the family." They are confronted by a second nameless man, a large Celt with antlers, and are again warned to stay out of the "story." The Celt plans to kill the nameless man from the cathedral (who he calls a "Roman"), and threatens Ned for having helped him, but Aunt Kim manages to bluff their way out of the situation. Despite Ned's misgivings, Kate, who is acting strangely, convinces him to follow their original plan of visiting Entremont on Beltaine. They plan to be away from the place before dark, but not long after they enter the site, darkness falls several hours early. They hide from a ghostly procession of druids that arrives soon after and becomes more solid as the light continues to fade. The nameless Roman from the cathedral confronts them, ordering them to flee as soon as they can. Kate begins to struggle, possessed with a strange desire to join the druidic ceremony below. Just before she escapes, however, Melanie arrives, looking for Ned. As she approaches the waiting Celts, she is transformed into Ysabel, possessed by the spirit of an ancient woman who the two nameless men have been fighting over for centuries. Ysabel names the Roman Phelan and the Celt Cadell, and orders them to spend three days searching for her. Whoever finds her first will win her. Ned and Kate discover that this is the "story": a battle between two men for one woman's love, which has been repeated in various incarnations throughout the millennia. Ned and Kate leave unnoticed, stricken by the loss of Melanie. He tells his father, Aunt Kim, Greg, and Steve everything that has happened, and also asks his mother, Meghan, to leave Sudan, where she is working with Doctors Without Borders, to be with them as they attempt to get Melanie back. Meghan and Kim, her sister, had a falling out when they were younger, and there are some strained moments once Meghan arrives and they attempt to work together and reconcile their differences. They are aided by Uncle Dave, Kim's husband, who also possesses special abilities and knowledge of the supernatural. Ned and his fellow searchers visit various historical sites in Provence over the following two days, trying to track down Ysabel's hiding place before Phelan or Cadell in the hopes that they will be able to rescue Melanie. Following a hint from one of the wild boars that are common throughout the South of France, Ned realizes that Ysabel is hiding on Mont Sainte-Victoire, the site where he experienced his mysterious illness. He decides to go there alone, as he is a marathon runner and will be able to reach the summit fastest. Despite feeling sick the entire way, Ned makes it to the summit before Phelan or Cadell, discovering Ysabel in a cavern that looks out over Provence. He demands that she release Melanie. Cadell and Phelan arrive shortly thereafter, both claiming the victory. Ysabel points out that it was Ned who arrived first, and reveals that Ned is distantly descended from the original Ysabel (who would have gone by a different name). Both Phelan and Cadell commit suicide by leaping from the mountain, for neither succeeded in reaching Ysabel first. When Ned looks at Ysabel again, he finds that she too has departed, leaving Melanie safe and unharmed in her place. |
Inkspell | Cornelia Funke | 2,005 | A year has passed, and Meggie now lives in Elinor's house along with Darius and her parents, Mo and Resa. Life is peaceful, but not a day goes by without Meggie thinking of Inkheart and the characters that came to life. For the fire-eater Dustfinger, the need to return to his homeworld has become urgent. When he finds a crooked storyteller named Orpheus who has the same ability to bring stories to life as Mo, he asks him to read him back. Orpheus obliges, but doesn't send Dustfinger's apprentice, Farid, back into the book as they arranged; he then steals the book from the boy and hands it over to Basta, who wants revenge for the death of his master Capricorn. Dustfinger, now in the Inkworld, regrets the fact that Farid didn't come back with him but doesn't suspect that Orpheus intended it that way. Distraught, Farid goes in search of Meggie, and before long, both are caught inside the book, too. Soon after the two youths are in the book, Mortola, Basta, Orpheus, and a "man built like a wardrobe" barge into Elinor's house, and take Mo, Resa, Elinor, and Darius prisoner. As per Mortola's orders, Orpheus reads Basta, Mortola, and Mo into Inkheart, but Resa comes with them by accident by getting hold of Mo. Mortola has brought along a rifle from our world, and shoots Mortimer. Resa discovers that her voice has come back to her only as she cries for her husband, praying for him to survive the wound. Resa and Mo are hiding in a secret cave with the strolling players (known also as Motley Folk) while he recovers, but they soon discover (or erroneously assume) that the injured Mo is the mysterious gentleman-robber, the "Bluejay", a fictitious hero created by Fenoglio's words made into song for the Motley Folk to sing. Fenoglio has been living within his own story since the events of Inkheart, working as a court scribe in Lombrica's capital city of Ombra, and once reunited with Meggie he asks her to read Cosimo the Fair back into the story, since he died a death the author never planned for him. Meggie doesn't feel right to interfere with the story so much but is soon convinced by Fenoglio as it will be 'a double' of Cosimo - not Cosimo himself. Reluctantly Meggie agrees to read the words when Adderheads soldier's barge into the fair and injure and kill many people by riding horses over them, but soon regrets it when she realises that it has gone wrong. Cosimo has none of his doubles memories and doesn't seem to love his wife and child anymore. Instead he 'spends his nights' with Dustfinger and Roxanne's daughter Brianna. Violante begs Fenoglio to convince Roxanne to deal with Brianna and tell her not to upset Violante's marriage. Fenoglio attempts this but fails, a mixture of Roxanne's reluctance to tell her daughter what to do and Roxanne's distracting beauty. Fenoglio thinks that Roxanne is 'too beautiful' for Dustfinger. Cosimo's return upsets the Adderhead, ruler of the neighboring region of Argenta, whom planned to take over Lombrica once the Laughing Prince died. With the rightful heir to the throne of Ombra mysteriously brought back to life, but with no memories of 'his own' life, a war is imminent. Mo and Resa are captured by the Adderhead's men along with many other strolling players in the cave, sold out by one of their own. Meggie, who had also been able to read a few of Fenoglio's words to aid her father in recuperating, joins Dustfinger and Farid in searching for her parents and the strolling players. Along with the Black Prince, de facto leader of the Motley Folk, they launch a successful rescue mission, but Mo is unable to escape because of his wound and Resa stays behind with him. Meggie goes willingly into the Adderhead's Castle of Night and, fulfilling a prophecy she and Fenoglio dreamed up and "read" into reality, offers him a bargain: Mo, a great bookbinder rather than the robber they believe him to be, will bind the Adderhead a book of immortality if he lets Meggie, Resa, Mo, and the rest of the strolling players he has captured go free. What they neglect to tell the Prince of Argenta is that if three words are written in the book ("Heart", "Spell", and "Death", referencing the titles of the books), the person who signed his name in the book to gain immortality will die instantly. However, his lieutenant Firefox, disbelieving of the entire concept from the beginning, is chosen to test it. Firefox is made immortal, surviving a fatal stabbing without suffering any consequences, but then Taddeo, the Adderhead's librarian, kills him by writing the three words in the book. Satisfied that the book works, the words are all erased and replaced by the Adderhead's name, consequently making the Adderhead invincible. Mo picks up Firefox's sword as they leave and claims it as his own, feeling a strange coldness within him; he believes his anger and sadness at the events thus far are changing him into a different person. The Adderhead decided, as celebration for his wife giving birth to a healthy son to release all of the prisoners from his cells, but the Black Prince suspects that he instead plans to sell the prisoners into slavery. Together the robbers plan to free the prisoners, during the raid in which Basta leads, Mo learns to fight and kill and, Unfortunately Basta kills Farid, with a knife thrown at his back (The death Fenoglio had originally planned for Dustfinger) Basta is then killed himself by Mo. Later while mourning Farids death, Dustfinger asks Meggie if she too would like to have Farid back. When Meggie agrees sends her to Roxanne to tell her "he will always find his way back to her". Roxanne realizes what Dustfinger plans to do and runs to him, she is too late however and watches as the White Women, (the Inkworld's Angels of Death) take Dustfinger. Farid is then brought back to life in Dustfinger's place and the story ends with Meggie reading Orpheus to the Inkworld so as to resurrect Dustfinger. Orpheus convinces Farid to become his servant in saying that it will help him bring Dustfinger back to life sooner. |
The Heaven Makers | Frank Herbert | 1,968 | The Heaven Makers is set on contemporary Earth with the one difference that we are being watched and manipulated by aliens for their viewing pleasure. The plot focuses on several humans whose lives are changed by the aliens, and an alien observer investigating the morality of these changes. |
Memories of the Ford Administration | John Updike | 1,992 | Set in the early 1990s, it concerns a historian and teacher, Alfred Clayton, and his response to a national survey requesting "memories and impressions" of the administration of Gerald Ford. The novel is presented as Clayton's improbably long and incredibly personal response, submitted to his professional association, the Northern New England Association of American Historians (NNEAAH). (Clayton teaches at a junior college in New Hampshire.) |
Core | Paul Preuss | null | After several disasters around the world connected with the electromagnetic field, a group of scientists travel into the Earth's core to start it again. |
Enemies, a Love Story | Isaac Bashevis Singer | 1,966 | Set in New York City in 1949, the novel follows Holocaust survivor Herman Broder. Throughout the war he survived in a hayloft, taken care of by his non-Jewish, Polish servant, Yadwiga, whom he later takes as his wife in America. Meanwhile, he has an affair with another Holocaust survivor, Masha. To Yadwiga, he poses as a traveling book-salesman despite the fact he is simply a ghost writer for a corrupt rabbi. He wanders about New York with a constant paranoia and perpetual desperation, made more complicated when his first wife from Poland, Tamara, who was thought to be killed in the Holocaust, comes to New York. |
Dying of the Light | George R. R. Martin | 1,977 | The book takes place on the planet of Worlorn, a world which is dying. It is a rogue planet whose erratic course is taking it irreversibly far from its neighboring stars into a region of cold and dark where no life will survive. Worlorn's 14 cities, built during a brief window when the world passed close enough to a red giant star to permit life to thrive, are dying too. Built to celebrate the diverse cultures of 14 planetary systems they have largely been abandoned allowing their systems and maintenance to fail. The cast is a group of characters who are also flirting with death. Dirk t'Larien, the protagonist, finds life empty and of little attraction after his girlfriend Gwen Delvano leaves him. Most poignant of all, the Kavalar race, into which she has "married," is dying culturally. Their home planet has survived numerous attacks in a planetary war, and in response they have evolved social institutions and human relationship patterns to cope with the depredation of the war. Yet now that the war is long past, they find themselves trapped between those who would recognise that the old ways need to be reviewed for the current day and those who believe that any dilution of the old ways spells the end of Kavalar culture. The battles, then, of all these varying actors are played out beneath the dying light falling on Worlorn. At the end many of the characters have died, though the author leaves some endings deliberately ambiguous. However they have all faced their fears of death and of life. |
The Fortunes of Nigel | Walter Scott | 1,822 | David Ramsay, a watchmaker, lives with his daughter Margaret on Fleet Street. He has two apprentices, Mr Vincent and Mr Tunstall. The two apprentices had run off to join in a street fray, and the goldsmith George Heriot was gossiping with Ramsay, when they brought in a fellow named Richie Moniplies with a broken head and very tattered garments. His wound having been dressed, he explained that he had come to London with his master Nigel Olifaunt to obtain payment of a debt owing to him by the king, and had been set upon as a stranger. Next morning Nigel received a visit, at his lodging with the chandler and his wife, from the goldsmith, who had known his father, and, having warned him that his estate was in danger, lent him money to appear in proper attire in Court. Heriot proceeded to Whitehall, and, having presented the young lord's petition, King James authorised him to advance part of the sum due, and promised to interest himself in his affairs. Dining with him the same day at the goldsmith's, in company with her father and Sir Mungo, Margaret lost her heart to Nigel, and employed Dame Ursula, the barber's wife, to ascertain all particulars respecting him. On being presented at Court by Lord Huntinglen he obtained an order for payment of his claim, and was introduced to the Duke of Buckingham, who announced himself as his enemy, and to the Duke's son, Lord Dalgarno, by whom he was initiated in all the vices of the aristocracy of that period, although warned by Richie, and by an anonymous letter. Meeting the Prince of Wales, later Charles I, in St. James's Park, attended by several courtiers, Nigel learnt from their manner, as well as from Sir Mungo, that he had been ill spoken of to Charles, upon which he challenged Dalgarno in the precincts of the Court, and was compelled to take refuge in Whitefriars to avoid arrest. Here he renewed his acquaintance with the barrister Lowestoffe, whom he had met at Beaujeu's tavern, and was assigned to the care of old Trapbois the lodging-house keeper and his daughter. On hearing of Nigel's trouble Margaret sought an interview with Lady Hermione, who occupied a suite of apartments in Heriot's mansion, and, having revealed her secret, was supplied with money to help him, being told at the same time by her confidant of the ill usage she had suffered from Lord Dalgarno. Vincent, who was in love with his master's daughter, and had been encouraged by Dame Ursula in extravagant habits, was now engaged by her to act as his rival's guide in effecting his escape from London. The same night old Trapbois was murdered by two ruffians who came to rob him; and, just as he had rescued the daughter, whom the bailiff Hildebrod had advised him to marry, Nigel was accosted by the apprentice, dressed as a waterman, from whom he learnt that a warrant had been issued for his apprehension, and that a boat was in readiness for him to give the king's officers the slip. Martha begged that she might accompany him, and, having secured her father's treasure, they were conducted by Vincent to the Temple Stairs. Having landed his companion at Paul's Wharf, where she was taken charge of by Moniplies, Nigel insisted on disembarking at Greenwich, instead of joining a Scotch vessel which was waiting for him at Gravesend; and having made his way to the park, he attended the king while he killed a deer, when he was recognised and consigned to the Tower. Presently Margaret, dressed as a boy, was shown into the same room; then the chandler came to claim his wife, whom he accused Nigel of having carried off; and, after he had dined, his friend Heriot arrived to reproach him with the position in which he had placed himself. He had also lost the king's warrant for his debt, and when his companion's disguise was detected, she saved him from further embarrassment by a full confession. One of her acts had been to present a petition to the king from Lady Hermione, on reading which he had commanded that Lord Dalgarno should instantly marry her; and another to offer such explanations respecting Nigel as induced his Majesty to pardon him. One hour only, however, remained within which to redeem his estates, when Moniplies appeared with the money, and Lord Dalgarno, who hoped to have secured them, was deprived of his revenge. The next day he was shot in Enfield Chase, where Captain Colepepper had planned to waylay him, as he was waiting, in company with Dame Nelly, and a page in charge of the treasure, to fight a duel with Nigel. Vincent and Lowestoffe, however, arrived in time to put two of the robbers to flight, while Moniplies killed the captain, who was suspected of having murdered Trapbois, and Christie recovered his wife. Nigel and Margaret were soon afterwards married; and as King James was honouring the feast with his presence, Richie presented Martha as his bride, who, at the same time, handed to the preserver of her life the deeds of the Glenvarloch estates, which she had freed from all liabilities, and the royal sign-manual which had been found among her father's papers. |
The First Man | Albert Camus | 1,995 | The novel takes Jacques Cormery from birth to his years in the lycee, or secondary school, in Algiers. In a departure from the intellectual and philosophical weight of his earlier works, Camus wanted this novel to be "heavy with things and flesh." It is a novel of basic and essential things: childhood, schooldays, the life of the body, the power of the sun and the sea, the painful love of a son for his mother, the search for a lost father. But it is also about the history of a colonial people in a vast and not always hospitable African landscape; about the complex relationship of a "mother" country to its colonists; about the intimate effects of war and political revolution. Most importantly, The First Man brings Camus to life again, allowing us a view of the man—visceral and vulnerable—that had never before been revealed. |
Locus Solus | Raymond Roussel | 1,914 | John Ashbery summarizes Locus Solus thus in his introduction to Michel Foucault's Death and the Labyrinth: "A prominent scientist and inventor, Martial Canterel, has invited a group of colleagues to visit the park of his country estate, Locus Solus. As the group tours the estate, Canterel shows them inventions of ever-increasing complexity and strangeness. Again, exposition is invariably followed by explanation, the cold hysteria of the former giving way to the innumerable ramifications of the latter. After an aerial pile driver which is constructing a mosaic of teeth and a huge glass diamond filled with water in which float a dancing girl, a hairless cat named Khóng-dek-lèn, and the preserved head of Danton, we come to the central and longest passage: a description of eight curious tableaux vivants taking place inside an enormous glass cage. We learn that the actors are actually dead people whom Canterel has revived with 'resurrectine', a fluid of his invention which if injected into a fresh corpse causes it continually to act out the most important incident of its life." As well as Dutch, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish translations, there have been three English translations of the work in question, published by the University of California Press (Berkeley) (1970), Calder and Boyers (London) (1970) and Calder (2008), and all based on Rupert Copeland Cunningham's scholarship and transcription. |
Galatea 2.2 | Richard Powers | 1,995 | The main narrative tells the story of Powers' return to his alma mater – referred to in the novel as simply "U.", but clearly based on the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the school Powers attended and teaches at as a professor – after he has ended a long and torrid relationship with a loving but volatile woman, referred to as "C." Powers is an in-house author for the university, and lives for free for one year. He finds himself unable to write any more books, and spends the first portion of the novel attempting to write, but never getting past the first line. Powers then meets a computer scientist named Philip Lentz. Intrigued by Lentz's overbearing personality and unorthodox theories, Powers eventually agrees to participate in an experiment involving artificial intelligence. Lentz bets his fellow scientists that he can build a computer that can produce an analysis of a literary text that is indistinguishable from one produced by a human. It is Powers' task to "teach" the machine. After going through several unsuccessful versions, Powers and Lentz produce a computer model (dubbed "Helen") that is able to communicate like a human. It is not clear to the reader or to Powers whether she is simulating human thought, or whether she is actually experiencing it. Powers tutors the computer, first by reading it canonical works of literature, then current events, and eventually telling it the story of his own life, in the process developing a complicated relationship with the machine. The novel also consists of extensive flashbacks to Powers' relationship with C., from their first meeting at U., to their bohemian life in Boston, to their move to C.'s family's town in the Netherlands. The novel culminates with Helen being unable to bear the realities of the world, and "leaving" Powers. She asks Powers to "see everything" for her, and subsequently shuts herself down. Her exit from the world forces Powers to experience a rebirth. In addition, Powers realizes that he was Lentz's experiment: would he or wouldn't he be able to teach a computer? Through the transformation he experiences, he is suddenly able to interact with the world, and he can write again. |
The Franchise | Peter Gent | 1,983 | Taylor Rusk is a star college quarterback and a can't-miss prospect in The League. Through various illegal means, North Texas is awarded an expansion franchise. As expected, the expansion Texas Pistols draft Rusk number one. The Pistols have a five-year plan to turn the team into champions, and getting Taylor Rusk ready is the key. But Rusk is on to the corruption and refuses to be a victim. With his college coach at the helm and "old league" legends mentoring him, Taylor Rusk plays The League's game until it's time for him to make his most daring move to bring it down. But along the way, Rusk is betrayed. One teammate, a chronic con man, becomes the Pistols' general manager and ultimately betrays him. Another teammate suffers a devastating knee injury. However, the surgery is botched. Rusk sees him get tossed aside and, due largely to steroid abuse, he murders his family and commits suicide. Five years later, the Texas Pistols are world champions, but Taylor Rusk has little time to celebrate. He's got to save the life of another victim: the woman he's fallen in love with — who's also the mother of his son. They ultimately take control of the Texas Pistols for him. |
Fourth and Long Gone | null | null | Charles Forrest "Buck" Lee is an assistant coach to the legendary Coach Reginald Benbow "Buddy" Shavers at the powerhouse West Alabama State University in Evergreen. When Lee is hired as the new head coach job at West Alabama's historic in-state rival, the East Alabama University in Stanleyville, Shavers takes great offense because their rivalry is a bitter one. West Alabama has been extremely dominant in their meetings; the last East Alabama victory was years earlier when Buck Lee was a young assistant. Shavers didn't take to losing to them well. In his last meeting with Shavers as a West Alabama assistant coach, Buck Lee accuses Buddy Shavers of sabotaging his chances of getting head coaching positions elsewhere, and cites, in particular, his failure to get the job at the United States Air Force Academy because Shavers said he had sex with West Alabama cheerleaders. But Buck Lee has a plan to beat West Alabama: sign a phenomenal high school running back named Eaarnel Simpson. A certain Heisman Trophy candidate, most of the big name colleges want to sign him. But Coach Shavers is known as the master recruiter, so Buck Lee, believing he knows Shavers' recruiting style and tricks, takes the sole responsibility of signing Eaarnel Simpson and building a winning football team around him. To do that, he uses a unique clique of assistant coaches, friends, and supporters who aid him in recruiting players, which means that, in one case, they have to essentially recruit the domineering father of a quarterback prospect. One of Lee's top supporters is a real estate agent who variously portrays a veterinarian, a gynecologist, and a Catholic priest. Thanks to winning a lottery, East Alabama signs Eaarnel Simpson. Buck Lee believes that he's finally one-upped the master recruiter Shavers, but he has to defeat Shavers and West Alabama on the gridiron. However, Eaarnel Simpson fractures his ankle in the previous game and can't play in West Alabama game. A victory seems improbable, but the Rattlers do defeat the Hawks and Buck Lee wins Coach of the Year. But the success comes at a price: his family leaves him. |
Peter Duck | Arthur Ransome | 1,932 | The Swallows and Amazons are in Lowestoft, preparing for a cruise aboard a schooner, The Wild Cat, with Captain Flint, the Blacketts' uncle Jim Turner. Unfortunately the other adult (Sam Bideford) cannot come and so the cruise is threatened until Peter Duck, an elderly seaman, offers to come along to help. In the harbour a larger black schooner, the Viper is fitting out for a voyage and Peter Duck's presence aboard the Wild Cat interests Black Jake, the Viper’s captain. Peter Duck spins a yarn about a treasure that he saw being buried long ago, when marooned on a desert island in the Caribbean Sea, and which Black Jake wants to find. When the Wild Cat sails, the Viper is quick to follow and trails her down the English Channel, at one point threatening to board her in the night. In a fog off Land's End, the crew of the Wild Cat give the Viper the slip but pick up the Viper’s cabin boy, Bill, who has been set adrift to try and fool the Wild Cat’s crew with false signals. They continue across the Atlantic Ocean to Crab Island where they spend several days searching in vain for Peter Duck's treasure. When a hurricane blows up, Peter Duck and Captain Flint take the Wild Cat out to sea to ride out the storm, leaving the Swallows and Amazons ashore. There is an earthquake during the storm, and when the schooner returns all the paths to the treasure-hunters' camp are blocked by landslides and fallen trees. However, a fallen palm tree exposes a small box, Peter Duck's treasure, which the children recover. They decide to sail round to the anchorage as the land route is blocked. While Captain Flint attempts to cross the island to rescue the Swallows and Amazons, the Viper arrives and Peter Duck and Bill are captured. The crew of the Viper also go ashore to look for the treasure. The children rescue Peter Duck and Bill, and then the Wild Cat sails back to the other side and pick up Captain Flint just before Black Jake arrives. They attempt to sail away from the island but the wind dies and the Viper looks like catching them, when they are saved by a waterspout which destroys the Viper. They return home safely without further incident. The treasure proves to be a collection of pearls. |
The Ophiuchi Hotline | John Varley | null | Lilo is a rebel geneticist living on Luna. Violating the laws of the Eight Worlds, she has experimented with human DNA, using money she received from her legal work on such creations as the "Bananameat" tree. As the story opens, she is facing execution. On the eve of her execution, she is visited by "Boss Tweed", the most powerful politician in Luna. Accompanying Tweed is a formidable bodyguard and Lilo's own clone, fresh out of the growth tank with a full set of Lilo's memories. Tweed offers Lilo a deal - she can escape and the clone will die, or vice versa. It's never clear which she chooses, because the next scenes show one Lilo committing suicide in the prison and another going free with Tweed. Whichever it is, the corpse goes into the "Hole", a captive black hole which serves as a power plant for Luna, generating energy from garbage tossed into it. Lilo learns she is to become a cog in Tweed's machine, to be trained for use in his schemes to strike back at the Invaders. Like all Lunarians she periodically records her memories for restoration into a clone should her body die. The first time she does this, she revives and is told that she has been killed twice, for escaping from Tweed. She is the third clone Tweed has made of Lilo. Thus Lilo resolves to be much more careful. Tweed's bodyguards are themselves clones of one individual, both male and female, called "Vaffa" or sometimes "Hygeia". They are large, strong and deadly. Tweed's one weakness is that his entire operation is clandestine. Despite his power, his illegal cloning and his intent to take on the Invaders would result in his downfall if it were generally known. Lilo is eventually sent to an asteroid. Her job is to maintain the food supply. There are more Vaffas guarding these workers, some of whom have been shanghaied, in the sense that their memories and tissues were stolen by Tweed without their knowledge. One such is Cathay, a Teacher. In this time Teaching means devoting yourself to helping one child mature, regressing in age if necessary. Cathay and Lilo quickly become bonded lovers - a rarity in a society where sex is recreational. On the asteroid, everyone has a null-field suit. This generates a field just above the skin to protect them in vacuum, and is yet another piece of Hotline technology. Air comes from an implanted generator. Tweed has a bizarre scheme - he intends to send a stolen black hole through Jupiter to see what the Invaders will do about it. Lilo and Cathay are recruited for the mission. They eliminate the Vaffa sent with them, and Cathay escapes in the ship used to tow the Hole. Lilo, however, is left to fall with the Hole into Jupiter's atmosphere. Protected by her suit, she encounters an Invader. Another Lilo awakes in Tweed's tank. This one has no memory of the asteroid, or anything else since the previous copy left Luna. She is sent on a mission to Pluto. There is something new coming down the Hotline, and it looks dangerous. The actual beam misses the solar system - it was originally found when deep space probes went out years beyond the orbit of Pluto. Nobody is sure whether it is intended for another system entirely, or whether the point is to make sure that the information is only available to those with the right technology. The new messages seem to be demands for payment. Whoever has been providing the information for hundreds of years wants compensation. Unfortunately the decoders can't determine what that is. Lilo and another Vaffa reach Pluto and look for a "Hole Hunter" to take them out to the beam. Hole Hunters are prospectors who take ships out for years, looking for the miniature black holes that orbit the Solar System. Their guide is another copy of Cathay, who has no knowledge of his alter ego. However he and Lilo rapidly bond, just as the other two did. They eventually hire Javelin, a grotesque woman who has altered her body for free fall so she consists of a head on a cut down torso with two other limbs. No part of her body is much wider than her head, hence her name. Under way, Javelin announces a change of plan. Vaffa protests but Javelin easily overpowers her. The plan is to go to the source of the beam. The Hole Hunters have known for some time that the beam comes from something a mere half a light-year away. Since the trip will take 20 years, the crew elects to go into cold sleep. Another Lilo awakes. This one was created by the original and hidden in orbit in the rings of Saturn. She is revived by Lilo's companion from the asteroid, and Parameter/Solstice, a human-Symb pair Lilo had entrusted with the location of the clone. The other Lilo told her companion to seek out Parameter/Solstice as she was falling into Jupiter. This Lilo examines the situation and determines to take over the asteroid. They use the stolen ship to ram the asteroid, sending it into the asteroid's Hole power generator, which sits in a null-field dish on the surface. The resultant thrust boosts the asteroid out of orbit, and on a journey to Alpha Centauri. Faced with a fait accompli, the Vaffas throw in their lot with the prisoners. Tweed's downfall is assured - the asteroid broadcasts details of his plans to the various governments, and "he" activates an escape plan, shedding large amounts of fake flesh and disappearing into the general population as a sexless person. Lilo awakes. This is the Lilo who fell into Jupiter. She awakes on Earth, on a beach. She learns to survive, becoming, in her own mind and those of the tribes of humans she encounters, Diana the Huntress. With her null-field suit she can face down animals and dive to great depths to hunt fish. As years pass, she determines she is probably on the east coast of the former USA. Occasionally she sees the blurs in the sky that are the only visible traces of Invaders. Finally deciding to go out in a blaze of glory, she dives into the sea to hunt a whale. As she dives after it, an Invader appears. Lilo awakes. On Javelin's ship, she and her companions have reached the source of the Ophiuchi Hotline. It is a large, artificial object. Taken on board, they meet beings who are apparently human. They are given a show. The story is simple. Life arises on planets like Earth, in systems with planets like Jupiter. Eventually whale-like lifeforms inhabit the seas. The Invaders arrive, and remove all other threats to the whales. Some time later, the remnants of technological life in the rest of the system have to be expunged when they become enough of a threat. The story cannot be changed. The Invaders can manipulate not only energy and matter, but time. They live in at least four dimensions. The Hotline is part of the rescue mission to humans. They need the technology to survive when they are attacked again by the Invaders, which will be soon. One of the purposes of the Hotline was to give humans the ability to manipulate their own genetic makeup, but because of the laws they passed this has not happened. The Hotline people ask for their price - they need to become humans themselves for a time, to add human thought and experience to the pool of knowledge held between the stars by all the other beings ejected from their homes by Invaders. The alternative is for them to activate hidden features in the Symbs, turning them into an army of space-borne killers. As if to underline all this, alarms sound and the Hotline people detect Invader activity. Suddenly, another Lilo appears. It is Diana the Huntress from Earth. According to the Hotline instruments, she was moved 25,000 years in the future, left there for some years, and then brought back. For the Invaders this is as simple as "folding a piece of paper". She also has a gift from the Invaders - a small silver cube. The Hotline people are taken aback. The cube is a null-field surrounding a singularity. Receiving a singularity from the Invaders is a sign that time is even shorter than they thought. It is another element of the story that always takes place. Because of Tweed's attack, the Invaders are preparing to evict humanity from the entire solar system, but before they do so, are offering humanity the chance to escape. The singularity is a tool to manipulate space-time and eliminate inertia, and can be used to evacuate the Solar System and allow humanity to seek a new home among the stars. Unfortunately, however, the available living space is spoken for, and humanity is in for a long time in the wilderness. Lilo, Diana and companions set out to return to the solar system, to break the bad news. At the end the various Liloes, past, present and future, on Javelin's ship and on the asteroid, realize they have a connection. They have been having dreams all along, and realize that the place in the dreams is somewhere they will all meet, in the future. |
House of Hell | Steve Jackson | null | House of Hell is a horror themed book, and the only Fighting Fantasy book set on modern day Earth. The player's car breaks down during a rain storm, forcing the player to seek shelter in a nearby mansion. Though this is the only Fighting Fantasy book to employ this type of setting, books such as Beneath Nightmare Castle use the horror theme in the more common fantasy setting of Titan. The player's quest to escape the mansion is hampered by the presence of Satan-worshippers and various demons, though not all are entirely hostile. Much of the gameplay involves searching a series of rooms, most of which bears an obscure religious or satanic titles, including the Shaitan room and the Mammon room. If the reader is to be successful, he must recover a hellfire-forged kris dagger and survive an encounter with the house's Master. |
The Reality Bug | D.J. MacHale | 2,003 | Bobby begins on the territory of Veelox, with Gunny, where they land in the dark room outside the Veelox flume. Bobby and Gunny encounter Saint Dane and believe they have him cornered, however, four realistic holograms of the villain suddenly appear around him, allowing the actual Saint Dane to escape (to a territory called Eelong) amidst the confusion. Bobby and Gunny decide to split. Gunny will immediately go to Eelong and report back later with news while Bobby stays on Veelox because Saint Dane had mentioned that it is on the verge of destruction. Bobby hates the darkness and is worried if the inhabitants of Veelox are floating giants after meeting Aja Killian, the local Traveler, in the form of a massive holographic face. Bobby doesn't know if the huge hologram is life-sized. He meets up with a very ordinary, humanoid Aja in a city much like those on Second Earth, called Rubic City. The only differences are that it is deserted, and there is a huge structure called the Lifelight pyramid looming over the town. Aja explains that Lifelight is a virtual reality world—a computer that gives people's desires the appearance of being real. Almost everyone on Veelox is in it, living out their own perfect virtual lives. She takes Bobby through it, and he is amazed at the vedders, who are the "physical" caretakers of the bodies, and the phaders, computer geniuses running the place. She is one of the latter. Bobby experiences his own fantasy "jump";he meets his family, plays with his dog, Marley, and plays a basketball game where he and his team simply cannot lose. Aja then explains that, because Lifelight is so perfect, hardly anyone leaves. No food is being made. The territory is dying. However, she has a way to stop Lifelight....a Reality Bug that preys on your fears to make it all less-than-perfect. She then takes Bobby to where he left off in his fantasy, but uses her virus to make it different. His opponents are taller, his coach has a heart attack, and he is injured. While in the locker room Aja tells him is this is how to save the territory. However, a Saint Dane hologram appears and tells them that the bug is working "far better than you could imagine". Saint Dane is right. The Reality Bug has become far too realistic; its use of fears to dilute the jumps has a placebo effect on people, in that if they die in their fantasy, the death is real. Only one man can stop the rapidly evolving virus; Dr. Zetlin, who invented Lifelight and the only one to know of the origin code, the key to purging the bug from the processing code. Zetlin is in Lifelight. Thankfully, he is in the alpha grid, which can be brought online independently of the rest of Lifelight. However, he can't simply be pulled out. Bobby would need help in the danger to come. Bobby goes to Zadaa and convinces its Traveler, Loor, to come along to help him defeat the nightmares. She agrees, and they start the alpha grid up again, with Aja acting as phader-vedder. They plan to get the source code from Dr. Zetlin and destroy the Bug. However, the software is malfunctioning. Rather than send them into Zetlin's fantasy, it sends them into a "Wild West" and thence into Aja's own residence. They meet Saint Dane twice therein before they are pulled out. Aja takes them to Zetlin's fantasy, where Zetlin resides in a massive building called the 'Barbican', which can either stand upright or on its side. The first level of its structure is a tropical jungle filled with plant-animal life forms. The second level is a sort of large pool, with racing motorboats following lights. The level after that is a snow covered landscape, where Bobby has to finish a race called slickshot in which six skaters need to pick up red balls and put them into buckets. Unfortunately, only four people can finish the race. Bobby finishes the race (with a bit of intervention from Loor) and sees that Zetlin is actually one of the racers, a popular sixteen-year-old called the "Z" in his fantasy. Bobby, Loor and Aja convince him to spill the code, which turns out to be "zero." When Aja enters the code, it turns out that Saint Dane sabotaged it. The Reality Bug takes physical form(a black ameoba-like shapeshifter), and chases Bobby, Zetlin, Aja, and Loor around Zetlin's fantasy home, and even into the real world when it grows too powerful to be contained by Lifelight. They leave Zetlin's jump and shut down all of Lifelight, and the Reality Bug is destroyed. The Travelers feel they have beaten Saint Dane—again. But at a ceremony congratulating Aja and explaining the loss of Lifelight, Dr. Sever, prime director of the program, steps up. She turns out to be Saint Dane in disguise, and she stirs up the crowd, promising to bring Lifelight back online. He/She succeeds, everyone reenters Lifelight, and Saint Dane receives his first victory. Saddened, Bobby sets off alone for Eelong, leaving Aja behind to seek some avenue of hope. Aja trusts him. |
Sleeping Beauty: A Lew Archer Novel | Ross Macdonald | 1,973 | Private eye Lew Archer finds himself the confidant of a wealthy, violent family with a load of trouble on their hands - including an oil spill, a missing girl, a lethal dose of nembutal, a six figure ransom and a stranger afloat, face down, off a private beach. |
The Code of the Woosters | P. G. Wodehouse | 1,938 | The Code of the Woosters is the first installment in the Totleigh Towers saga. It introduces the characters of Sir Watkyn Bassett, the owner of Totleigh Towers, and Roderick Spode, later known as Lord Sidcup after his ascension to Earldom. The story opens with Bertie recovering from a bachelor party he has thrown the night before for Gussie Fink-Nottle, his fish-faced, newt-fancying friend. While still convalescing, he is summoned before his somewhat beloved Aunt Dahlia and ordered by her to go to a particular antique shop and "sneer at a cow creamer". This is an effort to sap the confidence of the shop's owner and thus drive down the piece's price before it is purchased by Dahlia's collector husband Tom Travers. While in the shop, Bertie has his first run-in with Sir Watkyn (another collector of silver pieces) and Spode (whose aunt Sir Watkyn is planning to marry). Bertie escapes this ordeal relatively unscathed, but later learns that, via underhanded skulduggery involving lobsters and cold cucumbers, Sir Watkyn has obtained possession of the creamer ahead of Uncle Tom and spirited it away to Totleigh Towers. Bertie was already headed there in a frantic attempt to patch over the sudden rupture in the engagement of Gussie and Madeline Bassett, Sir Watkyn's droopy and oversentimental daughter, but now he has been assigned an additional impossible task by Aunt Dahlia: recovery of the cow creamer, which is being guarded both by Spode and the local police. His situation is complicated further by the presence at Totleigh Towers of Stiffy Byng, Sir Watkyn's anarchic young ward, who draws Bertie into her plan to marry the local curate, another old pal of Bertie's named "Stinker" Pinker, and a certain leather-covered notebook of Gussie's, in which he has lovingly and extensively detailed Sir Watkyn and Spode's many character failings, and which has escaped Gussie's possession to roam freely about the local community. Jeeves's intellect is strained to the utmost, but in the end, the two couples are still engaged to be married, the cow creamer is headed back towards the hands of its rightful owner, and Bertie has not been beaten to a pulp by Spode, thrown in jail for stealing a policeman's helmet, roped into marriage with either Madeline or Stiffy, or cut off from partaking in the cooking of the famed Anatole. In gratitude, he agrees to take the Round-The-World cruise Jeeves has been promoting, thinking that at absolute worst, he won't be seeing Stiffy Byng. The actual code of the Woosters is "Never let a pal down." |
Nicolae | Tim LaHaye | 1,997 | The members of the Tribulation Force have discovered that their pastor, Bruce Barnes, has been killed during the bombing of a hospital in World War III. Rayford Steele is quickly called to meet Global Community Supreme Potentate and Antichrist Nicolae Carpathia in Dallas, Texas to fly him to New Babylon, Iraq. Meanwhile, Cameron "Buck" Williams and Chloe Steele go to New Hope Village Church to inform Loretta about Bruce. Chloe is in downtown Chicago, Illinois when it is bombed by the Global Community. Buck is eventually able to rescue her after she crashed her Range Rover into a tree. Rayford hears about this and sends Amanda White back to Chicago to help them and to keep her safe because Nicolae was dropping bombs on major cities and he says to her, "If your flight doesn't leave before mine, board my flight", because Ray is piloting the flight that Nicolae is on. On the flight back to New Babylon, Rayford learns much about Nicolae's secret plans through a secret intercom device installed by his former boss at Pan-Continental Airlines, Earl Halliday. Rayford eventually arrives back in New Babylon. Having heard from his friend Chaim Rosenzweig about Tsion Ben-Judah's loss of his wife and children to murder, Buck goes to Israel with charter pilot Ken Ritz. He is led by the two witnesses, Eli and Moishe in Jerusalem, to a boat near the Sea of Galilee. After proving that he is who he says he is, Buck is taken to the shelter where Tsion is hiding for his protection. Tsion has been accused of murdering his family, although he did not do so. Buck and Tsion are given a worn-out bus to drive to Egypt to meet Ritz for the escape to the United States. They meet many obstacles along the way, but are supernaturally protected and arrive in Chicago safely. During this time, Rayford meets with his friend Hattie Durham, and tries to discourage her from having an abortion of her baby that she conceived with Carpathia. Because both Buck and Tsion are international fugitives, Rayford flies back to Chicago for the funeral service for Bruce. The service mainly consists of an evangelical message and predictions of what is to come, all outlined by Rayford himself. Rayford then returns to New Babylon to be joined by his wife later. The stateside Tribulation Force meets Hattie Durham on her journey to see her relatives. After this, Amanda flies to New Babylon to join Rayford. Buck is driving to see Tsion at the hideout where he is when the worldwide earthquake predicted at the funeral begins. The sun goes dark, the moon turns blood-red, and meteors fall from the sky. A quarter of the world's population dies. Buck finds Tsion alive but trapped in the shelter. Condor 216 first officer Mac McCullum flies Carpathia and Rayford to Baghdad International Airport just as Global Community headquarters collapses. As the book ends, only Buck, Tsion, and Rayford are accounted for and safe among the Trib Force. Loretta is confirmed dead. Chloe and Amanda are missing. |
Ten Kids, No Pets | Ann M. Martin | 1,988 | The Rosso family has ten children, who were named using their incredibly organized mother's naming system, where the first child's name would be the first name of the A section of a book of baby names (the girls' section or the boys' section, depending on the gender), the second child by the second name of the B section of the book, and so on. As such, the ten children have been named Abigail (Abbie), Bainbridge, Calandra (Candy), Dagwood (Woody), Eberhard (Hardy), Faustine and Gardenia (Dinnie) (the twins), Hannah, Ira, and Janthina (Jan). The story begins with their move from a New York City apartment to a New Jersey farmhouse. Each chapter deals with one child's views on how to adjust to their new home (like Woody's attempts to be a comedian like Woody Allen, Hardy wanting to be a detective like the Hardy boys, Hannah feeling left out of the family, Bainbridge struggling in vain to pull together a local kids' football team) and the collective attempts of the children to obtain a pet, despite how their parents argue with ten children, they should not have a pet. The children finally win their battle to obtain a pet when their parents announce that they are breaking the rules and having an eleventh child (ruining their mother's image of a perfect staircase of children), which will be named Kelly or Keegan, depending on the gender (which ends up being a boy according to Eleven Kids, One Summer). Since their parents have broken the rules, their mother relents and allows them to get a dog. However, they change their minds when they find a stray kitten. Taking after their mother, they decide the cat "Zsa Zsa" or "Zuriel", the last names of the book of baby book, thus reversing their mother's system. The kids are thrilled about this. |
Airborn | Kenneth Oppel | 2,004 | The story begins with the Aurora, an airship for a luxury line akin to the Lunardi line, on a journey to Sydney, Australia. Matt, a 14-year-old cabin boy, is the protagonist of the story. When we first enter the story, we see him while he is on duty in the crow's nest, scanning the skies for anything unusual. He soon spots a dark balloon drifting a few hundred feet away. The balloon is heavily damaged, and when Matt receives permission to board the balloon from the Aurora's captain, he finds an old man lying unconscious in the gondola. Matt rescues the Old Man, but he dies shortly afterward, rambling about 'Beautiful Creatures'. The story cuts abruptly to one year later when the Aurora is embarking from Matt's home; Lionsgate City, on another journey to Sydney. Matt admits that, although he loves his Mother and sisters dearly, he is relieved to be aloft again, for he only feels truly at ease in the air. When airborne, Matt feels closest to his father, and he was born in the air it is his natural element. Matt idolizes his father, who died some years previously as the result of a fall from his airship. Matt aspires to be an excellent sailmaker like his father, but also dreams of becoming a Captain of one of the majestic airships himself. Back aboard the ship, Matt's relief is ruined by terrible news; he was promised the position of the sailmaker, but the place is given to Bruce Lunardi, a boy who just graduated from the Airship Academy and whose father, Otto Lunardi, is the wealthy owner of not only the Aurora but of many other airships as well. One day, just after the Aurora sets sail, a small aircraft lands on the ship, bringing aboard 2 passengers: Kate de Vries and her chaperone, Miss Marjorie Simpkins. Matt learns that the old man he rescued was Kate's grandfather and Kate will stop at nothing to prove that the creatures that her grandfather saw were real. Kate shares her grandfather's journal containing detailed drawings and information of the creatures with Matt. The creatures are born in the air and can stay in the air forever, never touching the ground, though they are as large as a panther. A few nights later, the ship is raided in the dead of night by a notorious group of pirates led by the notorious Vikram Szpirglas, a father of two (second child revealed in Skybreaker). Szpirglas' pirates plunder the passengers and crew of all valuables. Szpirglas kills Mr. Featherstone, the chief wireless officer of the Aurora, who'd been caught trying to radio for help. The pirates then proceed to leave, but both ships are caught in a storm and Szpirglas' smaller ship crashes into the Aurora, tearing through the ship's skin and causing hydrium, the substance that keeps the Aurora afloat, to leak out of the airship. Without its precious lifting gas, the airship is left at the mercy of the winds and is sinking quickly towards the churning seas below. Sailmakers begin gluing and repairing the skin, but the Aurora has lost too much hydrium gas and the passengers and crew prepare to abandon ship. Just then, Matt sights an island on which they can land the Aurora, and they do so. While the crew unload unnecessary baggage so the ship may remain airborne, Kate discovers that this is the very island which her grandfather spotted the creatures flying above. She is firmly bent upon exploring the island, forcing Matt to accompany her. After hours of looking, they find the skeleton of one of these large winged creatures in a tree. A few minutes later, they find a living one which has a crippled wing and fell to earth at birth. They decide to name these creatures "Cloud Cats". The Aurora is almost ready to fly again when another storm heavily damages the ship's skin yet again. Matt is rebuked for being late for his shift but redeems himself when he remembers that he smelt hydrium on the island. Kate has one last chance to go back and take pictures of these creatures but Miss Simpkins has locked her in her room for associating with Matt. She escapes by drugging Miss Simpkins and runs off with her camera. Matt and Bruce are sent to find her and together discover that cloud cats are dangerous carnivores. Bruce gets bitten on the leg and as they run back to the ship, Matt and Kate lose Bruce and stumble on the pirates. Szpirglas and his crew don't recognize them; Kate and Matt are forced to act as if they were shipwrecked. They decide to spend the night at the pirate camp, then try and escape at night but are caught and locked in a hydrium pit. They use Kate's harem pants as a balloon and escape. They then have to rescue the Aurora from the pirates, who are bound to find her. In the forest, Kate is overwhelmed with guilt over the disaster that looms ahead. If she had not gone running into the jungle in the first place, attempted to photograph the cloud cat, alerted the pirates to their presence, or fallen asleep while in the village, the pirates would never have suspected that the Aurora was just on the other side of the island. Matt interrupts Kate by kissing her twice, and this action marks the beginning of their romantic relationship. They find Bruce with an injured leg in the forest and sneak back onto the Aurora. All passengers and crew are being held hostage by 8 pirates. There is no wind, so the pirates don't notice as they undo all the landing lines. Matt is only a cabin boy, but because of his passion for flying, he knows everything about the Aurora and how to fly her. They switch the controls from the main control car to the auxiliary control car and fly her but Szpirglas soon retakes control. Matt, Kate and Bruce have to defeat 8 pirates and shut down the engines that are carrying them back to the island. Matt sneaks into the infirmary to get bandages, peroxide and antiseptic ointment for Bruce's wound. He also takes some sleeping elixir with him. Matt gives sleeping elixir to the ship's passionate cook, Chef Vlad Herzog, to put in the pirates' food. Bruce is killed (by being shot in the head) by Szpirglas. Crumlin, the first mate pirate, is eaten by the cloud cat. Matt and Szpirglas fight on top of the Aurora in the open air and Matt is forced to fall off the hull. He freefalls, then lands with a crash on a fin. He comes to the bitter realization that he is not as light as a feather as he thought, and cannot fly. But he defeats Szpirglas, who is torn apart by cloud cats as he falls. The Aurora is about to crash into the island's mountain peak but Matt steers her out of harm's way. The story ends six months later, as Kate is exhibiting her cloud cat skeleton and her pictures of the cloud cats and is going to study zoology at a university in Paris. Matt, with the help of the reward money for finding Szpirglas' base of operation, goes to the Airship Academy in Paris, which is located directly across the river from the university. |
The Hippopotamus | Stephen Fry | null | The "hippo" of the title (occasionally referred to as "the happy hippo" and given to wallowing in long baths) is Edward (Ted/Tedward) Lennox Wallace, an aging, lecherous, one-time hell-raising poet, reduced by diminishing poetic talent to working as a theatre critic. The story opens with the aftermath of Ted being fired from his job on a newspaper. At the suggestion of a sick goddaughter, Jane (suffering from leukaemia), he goes to stay at the Norfolk country house of old schoolfriend and Army colleague from National Service, Lord Michael Logan and his wife Lady Anne, to investigate unspecified mysterious goings-on. Ted reports back to Jane regularly, in the form of long, rambling letters, apprising her of events at Swafford Hall whilst also offering his views on numerous other issues (women, art, poetry, sex, morality and modern life being favorite topics), all the time attempting to uncover the nature of the unusual events that Jane has instructed him to look out for. Over the course of his stay it gradually becomes apparent that other house guests are ascribing healing powers to one of Logan's children, David (Ted's other godchild), and indeed it is in the hope that he might bestow his 'talent' upon them that they have descended upon Swafford Hall. Amongst the assembled guests are a witty and hugely camp, but rebarbative defrocked minister and TV producer, a businessman and his wife and rather gawky teenage daughter, a friend of Jane's, and Jane's mother, a woman Ted has crossed paths with disastrously many years earlier. The life stories of the tycoon Logan and his family, as well as Ted's own, are intertwined to provide a colourful and credible back story. The highly comical story is run through with a stream of sexual practices, some more unusual than others, as Ted uncovers the means by which David delivers his 'healing'. The story contains several (spoof) poems and limericks. nl:The Hippopotamus |
Billy Elliot the Musical | Lee Hall | null | In County Durham, the 1984-85 coal miners' strike is just beginning ("The Stars Look Down"). Motherless eleven-year-old Billy is required to stay behind after his boxing class and finds his way into a ballet class run by Mrs. Wilkinson. He is the only boy, but becomes attracted to the grace of the dance ("Shine"). The secret is at first easily kept, as the only person home at the time is his grandmother. She reveals her abusive relationship with her dead husband and that she too loved to dance, which made everything all right ("Grandma's song"). While his brother, father, and neighbours are on strike and clash with riot police, Billy continues to take dance lessons, keeping it a secret from his family ("Solidarity"), a number which intersperses the violent reality of the strike with the peaceful practise of ballet. Eventually, Mr. Elliot discovers Billy in the ballet class and forbids him from attending the lessons. Mrs. Wilkinson, who recognizes Billy's talent, privately suggests that he should audition for the Royal Ballet School in London. To prepare for the audition, she offers free private lessons. Billy is not sure what he wants to do so he visits his best friend Michael for advice. He finds Michael wearing a dress. He persuades Billy to have fun with him by dressing up in woman's clothing and disdaining the restrictive inhibitions of their working class community ("Expressing Yourself"). Billy arrives for his first private ballet lesson bringing with him things to inspire a special dance for the audition ("Dear Billy (Mum's Letter)"). He begins learning from and bonding with Mrs. Wilkinson while he develops an impressive routine for his audition ("Born to Boogie"). Mrs. Wilkinson's daughter Debbie tries to discourage Billy because she has a crush on him. Meanwhile, Billy's father and brother Tony are engaged in daily battles with riot police that often turn bloody. They struggle to support the family with very little in strike and union pay, a difficult task that goes on for nearly a year. When the day of the Royal Ballet School audition comes, police are coming through the village and Tony has been injured by the police. Because Billy had not come to the miner's hall to get picked up by Mrs. Wilkinson for the audition, she goes to the Elliot home. There, Billy's family and some members of the community have gathered. She is forced to reveal that she has been teaching Billy ballet in preparation for this very day. This news upsets Billy’s father and Tony, who gets in an argument with Mrs. Wilkinson. Tony tries to force Billy to dance on the table in front of everyone. The police approach and, as everyone escapes, Billy calls out to his father saying that his mother would have let him dance, but his father refuses to accept that, saying that, "Your Mam's dead!". Billy goes into a rage ("Angry Dance"), and for nearly a year, stays away from anything related to ballet. Six months later at the miner's annual Christmas show, the children put on a show disparaging Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who is seen as the antagonist by the coal miners ("Merry Christmas, Maggie Thatcher"). Billy's father gets drunk and sings an old folk song that elicits memories of his deceased wife and the usually stoic man leaves in tears ("Deep Into the Ground"). Left alone with Billy in the Community Centre, Michael reveals he has feelings for him, but Billy explains that the fact that he likes ballet does not mean that he is gay. Michael gives him a kiss on the cheek. Michael tries to get Billy to show him some dancing, but Billy is sad and just tells him to leave. Michael departs, but leaves a music player running. Billy feels like dancing for the first time since the day of the aborted audition and dances while dreaming of being a grown-up dancer ("Swan Lake"). Unknown to Billy, his father arrives and watches him dance. Overcome with emotion, his father goes to Mrs. Wilkinson’s house to discuss Billy’s prospects as a dancer. She confirms Billy's talent, but is not sure whether or not he would get into the Royal Ballet School. Mrs. Wilkinson offers to help pay for the trip to London for the audition, but Mr. Elliot refuses. He leaves questioning his working-class pride and the future mining has for his boys. Mr. Elliot decides the only way to help Billy is to return to work. When Tony sees his father cross the picket line, he becomes infuriated and the two argue over what is more important: unity of the miners or helping Billy achieve his dream ("He Could Be A Star"). The argument eventually comes to blows and Billy is hit accidentally. One of the miners chastises them for fighting and says that the important thing is looking after the child. One by one, the miners give money to help pay for the trip to the audition, but Billy still does not have enough for the bus fare to London. A strike-breaker arrives and offers him hundreds of pounds. An enraged Tony attempts to shun his donation, but no one else speaks up in his support. Now drained of hope, Tony dismally ponders whether there's a point for anything anymore, and runs off. Billy and his father arrive at the Royal Ballet School for the audition. While Mr. Elliot waits outside, an upper-crust Londoner highlights the contrast between the Elliots and the families of the other applicants. Mr. Elliot meets a dancer with a thick Northern accent. The dancer confesses that his father does not support his ballet career. He sharply advises Mr. Elliot to "get behind" his boy. Billy nervously finishes the audition with a sinking feeling that he did not do well. As he packs his gear, he lets that emotion overwhelm him and he punches another dancer who was trying to comfort him. The audition committee reminds Billy of the strict standards of the school. They have received an enthusiastic letter from Mrs. Wilkinson explaining Billy's background and situation, and they ask him to describe what it feels like when he dances. Billy responds with a heartfelt declaration of his passion ("Electricity"). Back in Durham, the Elliots resume life, but times are tough and the miners are running a soup kitchen to ensure everyone is fed. Eventually, Billy receives a letter from the school and, overwhelmed and fearful, knowing that it heralds the end of the life he has known, informs his family that he wasn't accepted. Tony retrieves the letter from the waste bin and discovers that his brother was accepted. At the same time, the miners' union has caved in; they lost the strike. Billy visits Mrs. Wilkinson at the dance class to thank her for everything she did to help him. Debbie is sad that Billy will be leaving. Billy packs his things for the trip to the school and says goodbye to the miners who are returning to work ("Once We Were Kings"). Billy says goodbye to his dead mother, who often visits him in his imagination ("Dear Billy (Billy's Reply)"). Michael arrives to say goodbye and Billy gives him a kiss on the cheek. Billy takes his suitcase and walks out to his future alone. The entire cast comes out on stage and calls Billy back to celebrate the bright future ahead of him ("Finale"). |
A Redwall Winter's Tale | Brian Jacques | 2,001 | A Redwall Winter's Tale opens up on the last day of autumn. At Redwall Abbey, dibbuns are playing outside when they notice a group of travelling performers approaching the Abbey. Everyone enters and a show is put on by the performers. Finally, when it is time for bed, the dibbun mole Bungo is told the story of the Snow Badger, a mythical creature who makes the snow fall. Later that night, Bungo sees the Snow Badger and is able to talk to him! When the little mole wakes up, he finds a pouch around his neck. It contains a small crystal drop, and a note is written on the inside of the pouch on a scrap of parchment. It is in the form of a riddle, but what does it mean? The Redwallers must try to figure it out... |
Adventures of Mr. Nicholas Wisdom | Ignacy Krasicki | null | Krasicki's novel is the tale of Nicholas Experience (Mikołaj Doświadczyński), a Polish nobleman. During sojourns in Warsaw, Paris, and the fictional island of Nipu (based on Japan, known to natives as Nippon), the protagonist gathers numerous experiences that lead him to a rationalist outlook and teach him how to become a good man, and thus a good citizen. This rationalist outlook, often emphasized in Krasicki's writings, constitutes an apologia for the Enlightenment and physiocratism. The Adventures of Nicholas Experience offers a portrayal both of the 18th-century Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and of the broader European culture of the time. |
Slow Man | John Maxwell Coetzee | 2,005 | Paul Rayment, a man of late middle-age, loses part of a leg after his bicycle is hit by a car driven by a reckless young man. He becomes reclusive and retreats to his flat where he is cared for by a succession of nurses. None suit him until Marijana, with whom he shares a European childhood (hers in Croatia, his in France), comes along. Paul's feelings for Marijana, and for her teenage son Drago, become more complex. When Paul offers to finance Drago's education, Marijana's husband becomes suspicious of Paul's relationship with Marijana, which causes trouble in their family and culminates in Drago fighting with his father and moving in with Paul. It is not until the famed author Elizabeth Costello shows up unexpectedly and uninvited at Paul's doorstep that he confronts his feelings for Marijana and his resentment at the state of his life following his bicycle accident. Costello's sudden presence in his life confounds Paul, who believes she is merely using him as a character in her next novel. The book can be read as a metafictional discourse on the inter-relationship between the literary author and the characters, and with reality. |
Ethics | Baruch Spinoza | null | The first part of the book addresses the relationship between God and the natural world. According to a traditional view, God exists outside of the universe, created it for a reason, and could have created a different universe if he so chose. Spinoza's picture is different. God is the natural world. Men and other natural things are his modes – a term usually understood to mean properties. Everything that happens follows from the nature of God, just as it follows from the nature of a triangle that its angles are equal to two right angles. Since God could not have had a different nature, everything that happens could not have been avoided. God didn't create the world for any particular purpose. The second part focuses on the human mind and body, and implicitly attacks several Cartesian positions: first, that the mind and body are distinct substances, each capable of existing without the other, but which can elicit changes in one another; second, that we know our minds better than we know our bodies; third, that our senses may be trusted, since our benevolent Maker made us incapable of disbelieving them; and finally, that despite being created by God we can make mistakes, namely, when we affirm, of our own free will, an idea that is not clear and distinct. Spinoza denies each of the aforementioned claims. The mind and the body are one and the same thing; "mind" and "body" are two ways of understanding the same thing. The whole of nature can be fully described in terms of thoughts or in terms of bodies. However, we cannot mix these two ways of describing things, as Descartes does, and say that thoughts cause actions in the body, or that changes in the body cause the mind to change. Moreover, the mind's self-knowledge is not fundamental: it cannot know its own thoughts better than it knows the ways in which its body is acted upon by other bodies. Further, there is no difference between contemplating an idea and assenting to it, and there is no freedom of the will at all. Sensory perception, which Spinoza calls "knowledge of the first kind", is entirely inaccurate, since it reflects how our own bodies work more than how things really are. We can indeed have accurate knowledge, but only of knowledge of truths that apply to all things (e.g., knowledge of geometry and physics, "knowledge of the second kind"), and knowledge of particular things seen as following from the nature of extension or thought (intuitive knowledge, "knowledge of the third kind"). In the third part of the Ethics, Spinoza argues that all things, including human beings, strive to persevere in their being. This is usually taken to mean that things try to last for as long as they can. Spinoza explains how this striving ("conatus") underlies our emotions (love, hate, joy, sadness and so on). The fourth part argues that human beings are controlled chiefly by such emotions. This condition is best remedied when we join with like-minded individuals into societies that promote clear reasoning. The fifth part argues we can defeat the emotions by replacing them with adequate ideas, and to the extent that we have adequate ideas, we do not die, since the portion of one's mind that contains such ideas is eternal. |
The Age of the Pussyfoot | Frederik Pohl | 1,969 | Charles Dalgleish Forrester is revived from cryopreservation in the year 2527, having been killed in a fire 500 years earlier. Thanks to his insurance, after the expenses of his revival are paid he has a quarter of a million dollars, a fortune in his eyes. He can afford the luxuries of 26th century life, such as a Joymaker, a scepter-like portable computer terminal with some extra features like a drug dispenser. After a heavy night partying, with some distant memory of an argument with somebody, he wakes in his new apartment, and over a 20th century breakfast, checks in with his Joymaker. The Joymaker communicates by voice, and addresses him always as "Man Forrester". He is informed that he has a message from a woman whose name he doesn't recognize, and that someone called Heinzlichen Jura de Syrtis Major has taken out a hunting license on him. Baffled, he eventually encounters the woman from the party who he believes is called Tip. She maintains she is Adne Bensen, the woman whose messages he has been ignoring. Apparently she got on so well with Forrester that she is ready to begin a relationship. She takes him back to her apartment, where he finds she has two children, around 8 years old, who seem somewhat precocious for their years. With names like "Tunt" and "Mim" flying around, he mistakenly assumes those are the children's names, baffling them when he uses them that way. Later Forrester encounters Heinzlichen with a few friends, who without much ado beat him up so badly he goes to the hospital. It transpires that Heinzlichen's hunting license allows him to kill Forrester providing he pays for the revival, and the whole vendetta is over some insult at the party, which Forrester can barely remember. It's possible Forrester trod on Heinzlichen's foot. Since Heinzlichen is from the human colonies on Mars and is adapted to low gravity, this is a major faux pas. Mistake follows on mistake, compounding confusion. Forrester comes to believe that Adne is attempting to entrap him in fatherhood, presumably for his money, when she leaves a message saying that "we have to choose a name". He is equally disdainful of a friend who keeps asking him to join his Club, expecting that also to be just a ruse to get at his money. Eventually Adne sets him straight. Firstly, he'll be broke soon because, unbeknownst to him, all the 20th century foods he likes are very expensive, as are all the other Joymaker functions he enjoys. He needs to get a high-paying job. Secondly, the "name" she was asking about was a "reciprocal name," one used only between two close friends or intimates. Each uses it only to address the other, as "Tunt" was the children's name for each other, and "Mim" was the name used between Adne and the children. Tip was the name she and another close friend used, so Forrester could not use it. The friend wanting Forrester to join his Club was in fact offering him a paying position in the organization, though Forrester is not sure he likes what the Club stands for. However, Forrester's woes are not over. He first takes a high-paying job for what turns out to be an alien life form. The alien is known to all as a Sirian, but only because that's the star system in which he was captured (Sirius). Earth is in a state of preparation for a Sirian attack it is expecting. When the alien ship was first encountered, the Earth ship shot first and asked questions later. The only thing stopping an attack, it is believed, is that the Sirian's home world population has no idea where Earth is. The captured Sirians live on Earth in a state of virtual house arrest, with their movements restricted and monitored. Forrester's job is to be the Sirian's guide to Earth culture and history, and is paid handsomely for it. Unfortunately Adne and the others shun him for working for the alien. The Sirian asks many questions about seemingly arbitrary topics of human history. When Forrester fails to respond to one of the Sirian's requests in time, he is promptly fired by the Sirian. He then takes a high-paying job which is an apparent sinecure, watching over some machinery, until he learns that all the previous holders of the post are in cryopreservation after being blasted with radiation. Against the warnings of the Joymaker, he quits in the middle of a shift. In this time, this is a huge error, and all his funds are taken in fines. He is reduced to nothing, and forced to live with all the other bums on Skid Row. The existence is actually quite comfortable. Nobody can afford a Joymaker, but rich people pass through doling out money to 26th century panhandlers, and there are cash-only eating places with coin-operated Joymakers at the tables. However, there are also people looking for thrills on the cheap, wanting to kill someone without having to pay for the revival. After a near miss, he runs into the Sirian again, who drugs and hypnotizes him. Under the delusion that he is helping Adne take a trip, Forrester places the Sirian in control of a spacecraft. The ship heads into space and escapes, but not before the whole world learns that the alien escaped, though not Forrester's role in the affair. The entire human population goes into a panic. Most commit suicide in order to hide in the cryopreservation banks. Heinzlichen comes after Forrester one more time, and Forrester kills him. This was simply Heinzlichen's way of getting into the freezer. Eventually Forrester is almost alone. At this point the Club he had been asked to join goes into action. They are a 26th century version of Luddites and are bent on dismantling the world's technological base by subverting central computing systems, believing this will improve human welfare. Ominously, they are "helped" by the Sirians in doing so. In the end, medical technicians and the Luddites are the only people left awake. Forrester learns about the conspiracy of the Luddites. Forrester cannot reach the technicians because all the computer terminals have been programmed against him. His only hope is to kill himself. He walks up to one of the automated medics, and cuts his throat. Fortunately the medic, reacting to its programming to save lives over that set up by the Luddites, gets him to a medical facility in time, and he is able to abort the revolution. Eventually people start being revived, and he is reunited with Adne. |
Cal | Bernard MacLaverty | null | One of the major themes of the novel is the way in which the title character attempts to come to terms with taking part in the murder of a reserve police officer by his friend Crilly, an operation for which he was the getaway driver, while at the same time trying to fend off the murderous anti-Republican "Orangemen". To make matters worse, Cal finds himself falling in love with the slain man's wife, Marcella. Cal lacks self-esteem, one source of which is the death of his mother, who held him in high regard; following her death, Cal seems to be only capable of thinking of himself in a bad light. Another factor adding to Cal's initial unhappiness is being a Catholic on a mainly Protestant estate and being part of the minority in Northern Ireland. He is afraid of Crilly, his friend from school who's a bully, who works for the IRA and uses Cal as a driver. Cal chooses not to follow his father's line of work as he cannot stand the smell of the abattoir. This contributes to, in the general opinion, his feeling of weakness and inferiority. Cal's self-hatred and depression manifest themselves in a number of ways, such as swearing at himself "You big crotte de chien", hatred of his name, even a hatred of his own reflection. When seeing Marcella with her daughter Lucy, he feels this self-loathing again, believing that this bond between mother and daughter is a "pure love" that he is not worthy of intruding upon, or even observing. Cal's self-hatred is intensified by his feelings of guilt, even sickness, at the part he played in the murder, describing it as "a brand stamped in blood in the middle of his forehead which would take him the rest of his life to purge". As his love for Marcella grows, so too does his guilt. From this he develops a sense of acceptance at his arrest and brutal treatment, grateful that at last someone is going to beat him "within an inch of his life”, giving him the ability to feel able to repent and allowing the mental anguish within to be transformed into a physical act that he can more readily deal with. |
The Penultimate Peril | Daniel Handler | 2,005 | The book starts off where The Grim Grotto left off. The Baudelaires are traveling with pregnant Kit Snicket to the Hotel Denouement where they start their new jobs as concierges, but secretly they are flâneurs, there to learn whether the mysterious "J.S." is helping V.F.D. or its enemies. Kit warns them not to trust Ernest, the identical twin brother to Frank, the hotel manager. Violet's first task takes her to the rooftop sunbathing salon, where she encounters Esmé Squalor, Carmelita Spats, and Daily Punctilio reporter Geraldine Julienne. She hears Esme and Geraldine discussing a cocktail party which J.S. supposedly will try to spoil, but is sent off by Carmelita to get her a harpoon gun. As she leaves, she overhears Esme mention that her fashionable eyewear are to watch the skies. Violet asks Frank for the harpoon gun and returns to the roof. Klaus takes Sir and Charles (from The Miserable Mill) to the sauna. Eavesdropping on their conversation, he overhears them talk about a party on Thursday, and someone with the initials of J.S. However, Frank enters the room and in asks Klaus to hang a flypaper-like roll of sticky paper outside the window, in order to catch and trap any falling birds. At the same time Sunny meets Vice Principal Nero, Mr. Remora, and Mrs. Bass from The Austere Academy. She leads them to an Indian restaurant in the hotel, run by Hal from The Hostile Hospital. Sunny listens in to a conversation between Hal and Frank. They too discuss J.S. and mysteriously refer to her as a woman, but then spot Sunny. Ernest gives her a lock to create a Vernacularly Fastened Door and has her put it on the laundry room door. That night, the Baudelaires exchange stories and realise that as Frank could not be in three places at the same time, one of the men must be Ernest but who could the third one be? Klaus deduces that a crow will bring the sugar bowl to the Hotel. It will be shot down by the harpoon gun, fall onto the flypaper, and drop the sugar bowl into the laundry room vent. Suddenly, they see a man descending from the ceiling of the lobby. They think it is Ernest or Frank, but it turns out to be the third triplet, Dewey Denouement who was the one Sunny encountered. Klaus had encountered Ernest, who wanted the flypaper hung to catch the crow for the villains. And Violet had encountered Frank, who slyly tried to tell Violet not to give the harpoon gun to Carmelita by saying "Are you sure a harpoon gun should be given to a young girl on the roof?" Dewey tells them that there is a duplicate of the Hotel at the bottom of the pond, containing a catalogue of all the secrets of V.F.D., which he has spent his entire life collecting. Then Justice Strauss and Jerome Squalor, who both believe that they are the J.S. being contacted, arrive by taxi. Justice Strauss has been working with the High Court to help the Baudelaires, and Jerome - who also felt bad over how he treated the orphans - has written a book on the matter called Odious Lusting After Finance, in order to bring more attention to Count Olaf's treacherous misdeeds. The High Court justices are coming to put Olaf and the other evil people of V.F.D. on trial and so—on Thursday—all of the noble people will arrive to give evidence. Re-entering the hotel, they encounter Count Olaf who says that the Hook-handed man and Fiona stole his submarine. Hugo, Colette and Kevin, the three carnival freaks who joined Olaf in The Carnivorous Carnival, all arrive. Olaf also hints that the Baudelaire's own parents were not noble, and that they had something to do with a box of poison darts in an opera. Later, it is said that the poison darts were used to kill Olaf's parents, which Kit and Lemony Snicket say they were involved in, at the "fateful night at the opera". Dewey tells Olaf of the catalogue he has made, which prompts Esmé to comment that he must already know what is inside the sugar bowl, and why it is so important. She also mentions that Beatrice stole the sugar bowl from her. Olaf takes the harpoon gun from Carmelita and threatens Dewey. The Baudelaires shield him and approach Olaf as he counts to ten, however he is interrupted by the distinctive coughing of Mr. Poe, who has come from his room to investigate the loud noises. Count Olaf quickly shoves the gun into the Baudelaire's hands. Not expecting it, the Baudelaires accidentally drop the heavy gun to the ground. It discharges, and a harpoon impales Dewey, inflicting a fatal wound. As he dies he thinks of Kit Snicket who is the love of his life, and is now carrying his baby. Dewey stumbles out of the hotel and the Baudelaires watch as he sinks into the pond. Justice Strauss's taxi driver - an enigmatic man smoking a cigarette - offers to take them away, but they cannot tell whether he is a volunteer or a villain, and they realize they cannot leave the scene of the crime. As the entire hotel is quickly awakened, the Baudelaires walk back into the hotel, and the taxi driver drives the cab away. Justice Strauss breaks the ensuing chaos up by demanding that the accused must be brought to justice in a legal trial, and both the Baudelaires and Count Olaf are locked in separate rooms until the trial. It is early Wednesday morning when the Baudelaires go to bed, and they wake in the afternoon where they are returned to the lobby for the trial. In the trial, the phrase "justice is blind" is taken literally, and everyone except the judges are blindfolded. The trial begins and Olaf gives a brief speech where he states his innocence. The Baudelaires, however, are beginning to question their own nobility and morality and so they answer that they are "comparatively innocent". When Justice Strauss stops commenting in sentences, the Baudelaires get suspicious and remove their blindfolds to discover that the other justices are Olaf's villainous associates: the man with a beard but no hair, and the woman with hair but no beard. Olaf flees to the elevator, with a bound and gagged Justice Strauss and the Baudelaires in pursuit. Despite the Baudelaires telling everyone what has happened and they should take off their blindfolds, the villains respond that if they do so, they would be held in contempt of court, so everyone leaves them on. The Baudelaires go with Olaf and Justice Strauss to the basement laundry room, believing the sugar bowl to be inside. They unlock the Vernacularly Fastened Door for Olaf, only to find that the sugar bowl is not there. Angered, Olaf declares that he is going to the roof to get the specimen of Medusoid Mycelium which he will spread through the hotel, killing everyone. He will then escape, by jumping off the roof in a boat. Violet agrees to help, because they also need an escape route as they are wanted by the authorities. Sunny then abruptly suggests that they burn down the Hotel, and Olaf agrees, instructing the children to start a fire in the laundry room. In the elevator the Baudelaires press all of the buttons it stops on every floor, so they can inform everyone about the fire and the need to evacuate. However, everyone is still blindfolded and when Olaf shouts that the fire warning is a lie, they believe him. On the roof, Klaus reveals that the sugar bowl fell into the pond and not into the laundry room. Using sheets from the laundry room, Violet makes a chute for the boat to safely make it off the building. Justice Strauss attempts to stop the Baudelaires leaving on the boat, but Sunny bites her hand and makes her let go. The boat floats safely down to the ocean, and the Baudelaires are left both literally and figuratively adrift "in the same boat" as Count Olaf. Flames engulf the Hotel Denouement as they sail away. |
The Silver Mistress | Peter O'Donnell | 1,973 | Sir Gerald Tarrant, head of a secret service department in the British Government, and good friend of Modesty Blaise, is being driven by his chauffeur along a narrow road on the edge of the gorge of the Tarn River in S. France. His chauffeur stops to help two nuns change a tire on their car, and Sir Gerald is taken prisoner - by the nuns, no less. On the other side of the gorge lies Quinn, only semi-conscious after having stumbled and fallen while hiking. But he is sufficiently aware that he sees the two cars stopped on the road, and he tries to summon help by waving his handkerchief. Unknown to him, he is spotted by Mr. Sexton, who is the leader of the kidnapping operation. This starts a long chain of events. Modesty rescues Quinn the next morning, and then later Quinn provides the missing information that convinces Modesty that Sir Gerald has been kidnapped. (Until now everyone had believed that Sir Gerald had died together with his chauffeur when his car went tumbling down into the Tarn River.) Modesty and Willie Garvin have by chance already determined the probable location of Sir Gerald's captivity: Chateau Lancieux in the foothills of the Pyrenees in S. France. A hasty rescue mission is set in action. Modesty and Willie gain access to the chateaux via a deep cave, but on entering into the basement they are captured by the formidable Mr. Sexton, who prides himself on being the world's greatest unarmed combat man. Now Modesty and Willie are scheduled to die at Mr. Sexton's hand, one at a time, to further the process of softening Sir Gerald up for interrogation. |
Between the Rivers | Harry Turtledove | 1,998 | In the novel, the cities and regions are each ruled by their own gods. In the city of Gibil, however; the god Engibil has gotten lazy and does not monitor his city. As such the inhabitants have developed technology such as writing and smelting, and have started to lose respect for Engibil and his power. The other gods have gotten angry at Gibil for reasons they keep to themselves, and have started to refuse to trade with Gibil. It becomes the task of the main character, Sharur, a merchant, to travel the land and find out why the gods are angry and try to solve the problem. |
The Pickup | Nadine Gordimer | 2,001 | The events in part one of the novel all take place in South Africa. In a busy South African street, Julie Summers' car breaks down. She goes asking for the nearest garage, where she meets Abdu. He accompanies her to where she left the car. The events in part two of the novel all take place in Abdu's homeland. In the airport of an unnamed Arab country Julie and Abdu pass through the usual paper work. |
The Bull's Hour | Ivan Yefremov | null | Some 3000 years in the future, a Communist Earth has just developed faster-than-light space travel based on the experiment of Ren Boz (of The Andromeda Nebula). Using the new technology, Earth constructs "straight-beam" starships which travel by sliding on the edge between our Universe ("Shakti") and the Anti-Universe ("Tamas"). The second ship of that kind, Dark Flame, departs from the Solar System on a mission to a habitable planet Tormance (the name is borrowed from David Lindsay's A Voyage to Arcturus) in the Lynx constellation, which was reported by alien space voyagers from Cepheus to be colonized by humans, thought to be Earth escapees from the Age before World Unification. The society of this distant planet is labelled by Efremov as "an amalgamation of a Capitalism in its worst form and of a Chinese pseudo-socialism" and a part of "Inferno" (a deep philosophical concept of Efremov's relating to the Nature and the natural way of things, always as he claims infernal towards the living thinking sentient beings), a society in which ordinary workers' lives are limited to 26 local years ("short-living", KJI, or КЖИ for ) while scientists, engineers and other selected qualified professionals live out their natural lives ("long-living", DJI, or ДЖИ for ), with artists, sportspeople and "models" given somewhat longer life-spans than that of KJI (up to about 34 years). Both KJI and DJI are under the ruthless totalitarian control of the ruling class of government bureaucracy ("snake-carriers", similar to the prototypical "inner-party members" of Orwell's "1984") and the police forces ("the lilac"), which in turn are under the direct command of the Council of Four and its Chairman, the actual Ruler of the planet. The most shocking aspect of its civilization for the Earthians is its total control of information, maintaining separate information systems for separate social strata, with full and true information available ultimately only to the Supreme Leader. The plot follows the Communist crew as they establish contact and explore the planet's society, eventually sacrificing some lives including that of the expedition leader, female historian Fay Rodis, for the sake of free future of the planet and its people's children. Their influence is predominantly through providing full and true information freely to all people about Earth's past and present, and their views of the situation on the planet. They also provide a selective short memory-eraser (a modifier of social and behavioural skills) to be used against the system's spies by the nascent resistance. Also, some of the crew (esp. Rodis) have the mental capacity to do the same sort of influence without use of the device. Every member of the crew was also accompanied by a nine-legged discoid robot called "SDF" (Servant, Defender and Freighter). The book's seemingly strong anti-Chinese sentiment was added because the novel was written in the time of the Sino–Soviet split, as a device to get it past the censors. Examples of it are found throughout the novel; for example, the gardens of the Planet's Dictator were called Zoam Gardens, an obvious backward reading for Mao Zedong, The Council of Four represented the Chinese Gang of Four. The name of the novel deriving from an old (1909) Chinese-Russian dictionary (quoting the phrase "Earth is born in the Bull's hour (or Daemon's hour, 2:00 am)"). This quote also appears in the novel's epigraph. |
Razor's Edge | Ivan Yefremov | null | The plot contains some storylines which are intertwined. We can call this storylines according their setting places. The first one is the Soviet Storyline and is about the medical doctor and psychophysiologist Ivan Girin, who studies the hidden possibilities of human brain and is interesting in human beauty. The second storyline is about Italians who go to Africa to find diamond, but find Alexander's The Great Crone with mysterious minerals. The third storyline is about Dayaram Ramamoorty, the sculptor from India, and Amrita Tillottama, the dancer. The characters meet each other in the end of the novel. === Italian Storyline Indian Storyline Connection of Storylines === |
The Tale of Despereaux | Kate DiCamillo | 2,003 | The book is divided into four separate sections called "books". Book I covers Despereaux's childhood and origins; Book II focuses on Roscuro, a rat with a mysterious past. The third book is about Miggery Sow, a servant girl who is sold by her father for a red table cloth, a handful of cigarettes, and a hen. The first three books are set years apart all building up to the fourth book which concludes the novel. Book one tells a story about a small,sickly mouse born in a castle named Despereaux. He was born a runt with large ears and eyes. Despereaux unlike other mice spends lots of time reading. He particularly enjoys a book about how a knight saves a princess and they live happily ever after. One day while reading he hears music.He follows the sound and is led to Princess Pea and King Philip. He falls in love with the princess and speaks to her. Furlough,his brother, sees this and tells his father, Lester Tilling. Lester calls the mouse council, who orders Despereaux to be sent to the dungeon. In the dungeon he meets Gregory, the jailer, who saves him from the rats because Despereaux can tell Gregory a story. Many years before the birth of Despereaux,there was a rat named Chiaroscuro,meaning light-dark, nicknamed Roscuro. Roscuro like Desperaux is considered odd amongst other rats, and is obsessed with the light and soup. Entranced by the royal family's grandeur, climbs a chandelier during dinner and is seen by Princess Pea. She calls out to everyone to take notice. Roscuro falls accidentally and lands in the Queen's soup, causing the queens death but nobody know why she died. Roscuro escapes back to the dungeon with the Queen's soup spoon. From then on he always wears the spoon on his head, like a crown. Heartbroken, he vows revenge on Princess Pea for causing the event to happen and forcing him back underground. Meanwhile, the grief-stricken king outlaws soup throughout the Kingdom of Dor and orders the knights to take everything related to soup including spoons, bowls and kettles. He also orders for all rats to be hunted down and killed. Many years before Despereaux and Roscuro, a six-year-old Miggery "Mig" Sow witnesses the death of her ill mother. Afterwards, Mig is sold to work by her father for some cigarettes, a hen, and a red tablecloth to a man Mig calls "Uncle". Uncle occasionally beats Mig, especially around the ears, leaving her partially deaf. Mig decides that she wants to be a princess. Mig is then sent to work in the castle where she gains weight and begins to become lazy during her chores. Mig's main job is to go down to the dungeons to deliver Gregory his meal and, while there, she meets Roscuro and confesses to him that her greatest wish is to become a princess. Roscuro convinces Mig that if she helps him kidnap Princess Pea he'll make her a servant girl so Miggery Sow can become a princess. Despereaux escapes the dungeons on a tray of Gregory's that Mig brings back to the kitchen, where he hears her conversation with Roscuro. However, Despereaux is soon discovered by Mig and Cook. Cook, as a mouse-hating woman, orders Mig to "kill 'em, even if they's already dead." When Despereaux is attempting to flee, Mig chops off his tail with a knife but Mig did not want to, it was Cook's orders. Despereaux then spends the night in pain, sleeping on a sack of flour. He dreams of knights in shining armor, darkness, and light. However, when the knight removes the helmet, it doesn't reveal anyone. Despereaux begins to doubt "happily ever after and everything else that he has read and starts to weep. Meanwhile, Roscuro leads Mig to Princess Pea's room with a knife, and to kidnap the Pea and lead her to the dungeon. The next morning, the castle is in a panic over the missing Princess. Guards are sent to search the dungeon, only to find Gregory dead from being lost in the dark. Despereaux is then seen by the mouse council who mistake him for a ghost because he is covered in flour. Despereaux forgives his father, who also believes he's a ghost, for sentencing him to the dungeon and goes on to seek the King. Despereaux tells the King that he knows that Pea is in the dungeon, but the King refuses to believe him because Despereaux is a mouse, which is related to a rat. Despereaux then goes to Hovis, the threadmaster, who gives him the entire spool of red thread and a sewing needle, as a sword, for his quest to the dungeons. Despereaux cuts back through the kitchen only to see Cook making soup. However, Cook is delighted to see Despereaux because he is a mouse and not a castle guard come to arrest her for making soup. She gives Despereaux some soup to eat and he then makes his way to the dungeons. While there, Despereaux meets Botticelli, an evil one eared rat, who tells him that he will lead Despereaux to the Pea, however, this is only an act, to make Despereaux suffer. Mig then learns that Roscuro tricked her into helping him kidnap Pea, and that Mig will never be a princess. Roscuro plans for Pea to remain locked in the dungeons, so that he can marvel over her brightly colored dress, but Despereaux arrives and Mig chops Roscuro's tail off with the knife. However, many rats arrive on the scene because they followed the smell of Despereaux, and the soup he recently ate. Despereaux threatens to kill Roscuro with the sewing needle, who then begins crying. Pea offers to Roscuro that if he lets her go, she will treat him with some soup, to which Roscuro agrees. Botticelli and the other rats are disgusted by the happiness of all that is happening that they all return into the darkness. Despereaux and Pea become close friends. Roscuro is allowed access into the upstairs of the castle, and reunites the freed dungeon prisoner with his daughter, Mig, who is seen as a princess by him. Roscuro, Mig, the King, Pea, and Despereaux all join together for soup, as the mice watch in amazement. |
Stormy Weather | Carl Hiaasen | 1,995 | Young newlyweds Max and Bonnie Brooks, on their honeymoon at Walt Disney World in Orlando, are taken aback by news of a hurricane making landfall in South Florida. To Bonnie's surprise, Max is possessed by a fervent desire to visit the disaster scene after it has passed through. Once they arrive, Bonnie is appalled to see Max hopping through hurricane debris and gutted houses with his video camera, treating the devastation as a tourist attraction. She stalks away from him to regain her temper, and is not present when Max is snatched up by "Skink," an ex-governor of Florida now living wild in the Florida country, who attempts to teach him some manners and respect for nature (partly through the use of a shock collar). At the same time, con artist Edie Marsh, and her sometime partner, an ex-convict nicknamed "Snapper," travel to the hurricane zone to work a personal injury scam. Unfortunately for them, the house they pick belongs to mobile home salesman Tony Torres. A bit sharper than the average hurricane victim, Torres quickly sees through them and takes them hostage with a shotgun. Instead of killing them, he invites them in on his own scam: he's expecting a large settlement from the insurance company, but needs his estranged wife Neria's signature to collect. If Edie poses as the wife, Tony can cut out his real wife, and Edie gets a slice of the take. Meanwhile, after searching fruitlessly for Max, Bonnie is befriended by Augustine Herrera, an independent young man who is roaming the county in a half-futile search for a menagerie of exotic animals loosed from his deceased uncle's wildlife farm by the hurricane (these animals appear throughout the novel in various bizarre ways). Edie and Snapper's promising new scam falls apart when Tony Torres is abducted from under their noses and murdered by Ira Jackson, a mob enforcer whose mother lived in one of Torres's sub-standard trailer homes and was killed during the hurricane. After unceremoniously parting ways, each of them discovers a new angle to work: Edie seduces the insurance adjuster, Fred Dove, sent to the Torres home, and convinces him to help her pose as Neria for the insurance payoff. Snapper, meanwhile, partners with Avila, an egregiously corrupt building inspector, to run a phony roofing company and con as much money as possible out of desperate homeowners. While working the scam, Snapper does two things with long-term consequences: he manages to score a $7,000 cash "deposit" from the dim-witted wife of construction mogul Gar Whitmark; later, when pulled over for a routine traffic stop, he ambushes and savagely beats Highway Patrol Trooper Brenda Rourke, who happens to be the girlfriend of Skink's best friend, Trooper Jim Tile. In the process, he steals Rourke's service weapon, a .357 revolver. Growing bored with the roofing scam, Snapper returns to the Torres house, and blackmails Edie and Fred into letting him in on their insurance scam by posing as the now-deceased Tony Torres. Ira Jackson's next targets Avila, the inspector who approved his mother's trailer court, sight unseen. However, Avila is rescued at the last second by an escaped African lion, that pounces on Jackson and eats him. Avila's problems do not end there, however, when a wrathful Gar Whitmark tracks the phony roofing scam back to him, and threatens to expose Avila unless Avila pays him back the money Snapper stole, plus the cost of replacing Whitmark's roof. Skink eventually arranges to hand Max over to Bonnie, and announces that his next order of business is to track down the man who hurt Brenda. Bonnie has become attracted to Augustine, and at the same time aware of Max's less attractive qualities. When Augustine volunteers to help Skink in his new mission, Bonnie impulsively decides to stay in Florida and go along. Max, preoccupied with a new crisis at his job, flies back to New York without her. The three track the car Snapper was driving when he assaulted Trooper Rourke back to the Torres house, where they see something bizarre. Yet another of Torres' disgruntled former customers has shown up looking to get even. This time it is Levon Stichler, an elderly man enraged by the loss of his home (and his deceased wife's ashes) in the hurricane. Snapper, thinking Stichler is an insurance agent, identifies himself as Torres, only to be attacked with a metal spike in return. The two quickly realize that both have made a mistake. Fearful that the scam will be exposed, Snapper quickly concocts a plan to drive Stichler south and dump him at a hotel in the Florida Keys. As he and Edie are loading Stichler into a stolen Jeep Cherokee, Skink chooses to intervene, and both he and Bonnie are likewise taken hostage by Snapper using Trooper Rourke's stolen gun. Augustine misses the abduction as he had left the pair to retrieve a weapon from his truck, but quickly deduces what must have happened when he finds everyone missing upon return. By hitting the redial button on the house phone, he learns of their hotel destination in the Keys and notifies Jim Tile. Tile catches up to the Jeep on the highway and begins to shadow it, but loses the tail when he gets cut off by an opening draw bridge. The sudden involvement of three more unwanted people into the scam has put Snapper on edge and soon his nerves begin to fray. He and Edie argue during the drive and the deteriorating situation is punctuated by Snapper shooting a hole in the roof of the Jeep. Snapper forces them to stop at a liquor store to get him a bottle of whiskey, making the situation even worse. However, it delays him long enough for Augustine to reach the hotel ahead of him. Upon reaching the hotel, Snapper checks Stichler into a room. To make sure he stays there for at least a couple days, Snapper has hired a pair of prostitutes to keep him "entertained". Unknown to Snapper, the two women blabbed their part in the plan to Avila earlier in the day, and he has also come to the Hotel, demanding Snapper fix the fallout from the roofing scam. Snapper chases Avila away, forcing him to jump off a bridge into the ocean. Augustine uses this opportunity to conceal himself inside the getaway Jeep with a tranquilizer gun. When Snapper and the rest of the hostages return and attempt to leave, Jim Tile arrives and is immediately shot by Snapper, but survives thanks to a bulletproof vest. Convinced he's killed Tile, Snapper decides to dump the Jeep and transfers everyone to a Cadillac he carjacks at gunpoint from a convenience store parking lot. Augustine emerges from hiding and follows them in the Jeep. Catching up, he manages to steer alongside and shoot Snapper through the window with a tranquilizer dart that quickly renders him unconscious. Knowing that Tile's shooting will bring the police out in full force, the party abandons the vehicles and retreats into the Crocodile Lake National Wildlife Refuge to wait until the coast is clear. Around a campfire that night, Skink enacts revenge on Snapper for his actions against both Rourke and Tile before knocking him out with another tranquilizer dart. Skink decides that Edie deserves a second chance but Snapper is irredeemable. Edie, Bonnie and Augustine are led back to civilization by Skink while Snapper is left to fend for himself in the wild. *Max and Bonnie's marriage is annulled; a chance meeting between Edie and Max leads to her accompanying him back to New York, where they become engaged, while Max re-starts his advertising career, and Edie becomes active in organizing charity relief for victims of natural disasters; *Bonnie and Augustine move to a house in Chokoloskee, on the edge of the Ten Thousand Islands, where Bonnie becomes an avid outdoor photographer; *Avila is picked up by a Coast Guard cutter, passes himself off as a Cuban refugee, and is repatriated to Florida, where he resumes his career as a corrupt building inspector under a false name; a few months later, he dies after being bitten by a rabid rabbit, while fumbling an attempt to sacrifice it for a santeria rite; *Gar Whitmark escapes the wrath of his homeowner customers by declaring bankruptcy and reviving his construction companies under different names; after he is killed in a freak accident at one of his construction sites, his widow donates his entire estate to the Church of Scientology; *Brenda Rourke recovers from her injuries, and eventually marries Jim, who gives her a replica of her mother's wedding band for Christmas; *Snapper's skeleton is discovered in the Crocodile Lake Refuge, except for his skull, which joins Augustine's collection. |
Fitzpatrick's War | Theodore Judson | null | The novel takes the form of an autobiography by a twenty-fifth century soldier, Brigadier General Sir Robert Mayfair Bruce, of the Yukon Confederacy, as edited by a prudish, bigoted academian of the twenty-sixth century, Professor Roland Modesty Van Buren. Bruce's story chronicles (and criticizes) the career of Lord Isaac Prophet Fitzpatrick, a consul of the fictional Yukon Confederacy whose life closely parallels that of Alexander the Great. This unique style allows the reader to simultaneously learn the "official history" of Fitzpatrick as well as the revisionist version of Bruce's purported work. |
The Master of Ballantrae | Robert Louis Stevenson | 1,889 | The novel is presented as the memoir of one Ephraim Mackellar, steward of the Durrisdeer estate in Scotland. The novel opens in 1745, the year of the Jacobite Rising. When Bonnie Prince Charlie raises the banner of the Stuarts, the Durie family—the Laird of Durrisdeer, his older son James Durie (the Master of Ballantrae) and his younger son Henry Durie—decide on a common strategy: one son will join the uprising while the other will join the loyalists. That way, whichever side wins the family's noble status and estate will be preserved. Logically, the younger son should join the rebels, but the Master insists on being the rebel (a more exciting choice) and contemptuously accuses Henry of trying to usurp his place, comparing him to Jacob. The two sons agree to toss a coin to determine who goes. The Master wins and departs to join the Rising, while Henry remains in support of King George II. The Rising fails and the Master is reported dead. Henry becomes the heir to the estate, though he does not assume his brother's title of Master. At the insistence of the Laird (their father) the Master's heartbroken fiancee marries Henry in order to repair the Durie fortunes. Some years pass, during which Henry is unfairly vilified by the townspeople for betraying the rising. He is treated with complete indifference by his family, since his wife and his father both spend their time mourning the fallen favourite. The mild-tempered Henry bears the injustice quietly, even sending money to support his brother's abandoned mistress, who abuses him foully, and her child, who she claims is his brother's bastard. In April 1749, however, a messenger appears, one Colonel Francis Burke, an Irishman who had been out with the Prince. He bears letters from the Master, who is still alive and living in France. At this point the narrator, Mackellar, introduces a story within the story: it is the memoir of Colonel Burke, from which Mackellar extracts the sections that deal with the Master. From Burke's memoir it appears that the Master was attached to the Prince solely for the chance of money and high station, and was a quarrelsome hindrance, always favouring whatever he thought the Prince wanted to hear. He abandoned the Rising as soon as it looked sure to fail and, in company with Burke, took ship for France, refusing to wait in case they might be able to rescue the Prince. However, the ship was old and unseaworthy, and commanded by an incompetent captain. After seven days of being lost in bad weather, it was taken by pirates. The pirate captain, who called himself Teach (not the famous Edward Teach, called Blackbeard, who had died some thirty years previously, but an imitator), took both Burke and the Master aboard to join his pirate crew, but had the rest of the ship's company killed. Burke and the Master sail with the pirates for some time. The Master eventually succeeds in overthrowing Teach and effectively becoming the new captain. He proves to be brutal and ruthless, seizing several ships and slaughtering all their crews to prevent their identifying him. Eventually he steers the ship to the coast of North Carolina, where he abandons it and its crew, to be taken by the Royal Navy, while he escapes with Burke and two confederates, carrying all the ship's treasure between them. In the course of their escape through the swamp the Master treacherously kills one of the confederates and leaves another to die. Burke and the Master obtain passage to Albany on a merchant ship, deserting it once it makes port. Then they strike out across land for Canada, where they hope to find sanctuary among the French, who supported the Rising. They take along a guide, an Indian trader named Chew, but he dies of a fever and the pair became hopelessly lost. For some days the Master navigates his way through the wilderness by tossing a coin, saying, "I can think of no better way to express my scorn of human reason." In the end they bury the treasure. Burke records that the Master blamed his younger brother for all his troubles: "Have you ever a brother?" said he. "By the blessing of Heaven," said I, "not less than five." "I have the one," said he, with a strange voice; and then presently, "He shall pay me for all this," he added. And when I asked him what was his brother's part in our distress, "What!" he cried, "he sits in my place, he bears my name, he courts my wife; and I am here alone with a damned Irishman in this tooth-chattering desert! Oh, I have been a common gull!" he cried. After the Master's uncharacteristic explosion the two quarrel and separate. Burke never learns how the Master made it to France, where they meet again. Henry Durie and Mackellar learn something of the Master's piratical ventures, but do not inform the Laird or Mrs Durie, both of whom continue to regard the Master as a kind of angel lost to them. Henry continues to support the Master's mistress and her bastard child, and also answers the Master's demands for money. The Master is in fact well-supported by a pension assigned by the French monarchy to Scotsmen who lost their estates due to the Rising, but he continues to demand money from his brother anyway, accusing him of stealing the inheritance: "'My dear Jacob' - This is how he begins!" cries he - "'My dear Jacob, I once called you so, you may remember; and you have now done the business, and flung my heels as high as Criffel.' What do you think of that, Mackellar," says he, "from an only brother? I declare to God I liked him very well; I was always staunch to him; and this is how he writes! But I will not sit down under the imputation" - walking to and fro - "I am as good as he; I am a better man than he, I call on God to prove it! I cannot give him all the monstrous sum he asks; he knows the estate to be incompetent; but I will give him what I have, and it is more than he expects. I have borne all this too long. See what he writes further on; read it for yourself: 'I know you are a niggardly dog.' A niggardly dog! I niggardly? Is that true, Mackellar? You think it is?" I really thought he would have struck me at that. "Oh, you all think so! Well, you shall see, and he shall see, and God shall see. If I ruin the estate and go barefoot, I shall stuff this bloodsucker. Let him ask all - all, and he shall have it! It is all his by rights. Ah!" he cried, "and I foresaw all this, and worse, when he would not let me go."Henry bleeds the estate dry to answer the Master's demands, consequently getting a reputation as a miser. He does not tell even his family where the money is going. This continues for seven years, in the course of which Henry sends the Master some eight thousand pounds. In July 1756 Mackellar receives a letter from Colonel Burke, who is in Champagne. Burke relates that the Master's court intrigues have backfired on him, and he has been imprisoned in the Bastille. He has since been released, but has lost his Scots Fund pension and the regiment he had been commanding, and is now destitute again. He plans an expedition to India, but it will require a good deal of money to send him on his way. Mackellar exults at this chance to be rid of the leech, but by an ill fate this letter has crossed with another letter, in which Henry has told the Master that the estate is at last exhausted. In November 1756 the Master returns to Durrisdeer, under the alias of "Mr Bally". He meets Henry on the road to the house, sneeringly comparing the two of them to Jacob and Esau, and ominously says that Henry has chosen his fate by not agreeing to the Master's plan to go to India. On his return he ingratiates himself with his father and with his brother's wife (who was once his own fiancée). Neither have seen him in eleven years and both are overjoyed at his return. With satanic gifts of deceit and manipulation, the Master turns the family against Henry, always putting him in the wrong and cruelly insulting him, while making it seem as though Henry is insulting the Master. To the family it seems that the Master is a long-suffering and kind-hearted hero and saint, while Henry is a cruel, unfeeling monster. In private the Master gloats to Henry over his success, taunting him by pointing out that their father does not love him, that Henry's daughter prefers the Master's company and that, despite the Master's falseness and crimes, he is everyone's favourite. He exults that he will destroy Henry's virtue: "[Y]ou need not look such impotent malice, my good fly. You can be rid of your spider when you please. How long, O Lord? When are you to be wrought to the point of a denunciation, scrupulous brother? It is one of my interests in this dreary hole. I ever loved experiment." Henry suffers all this in stoical silence. Mackellar eventually discovers that the Master betrayed the Jacobites and sold himself out to the Hanoverian government by becoming a paid spy for King George, and that this is the real reason for his safe return. However, even when Henry confronts the Master with this, right in the middle of the Master's holding forth on the great risk he is running by returning to be with his family, the Laird and Mrs Durie remain blind to the Master's nature. Even when the Master demands that the Laird break the entail and sell off a large part of the estate at a disadvantageous price to finance the Master's expedition to India, the Laird remains besotted and rebukes Henry for lack of generosity when he objects. Eventually the Master goads Henry one time too many. On the night of 27 February 1757 he tells Henry that Mrs Durie has never loved him and has always loved the Master instead. Henry strikes him in the mouth with his fist and the brothers resort to a duel with swords. Henry runs the Master through and he falls to the ground, seemingly dead. Mackellar takes Henry indoors and then rouses the house, but when he and Henry's wife return to the duelling ground the body is gone. By the tracks they can see that the body has been dragged away by smugglers ("free traders"), who carried it to a boat, but whether alive or dead they do not know. The Master miraculously survives the sword wound and, with the money extorted from his father, goes to India to make his fortune. Back at the Durrisdeer estate the old Laird declines and dies, and Henry becomes Laird in his place. Mackellar, on his own authority, shows Mrs Durie all the correspondence between Henry and the Master, as well as papers that prove that the Master was a paid spy. Her eyes are opened and she becomes reconciled with Henry, though she also burns the papers, not to protect the Master, but to prevent a scandal for the family. She and Henry have a son, whom they name Alexander. However, after the duel Henry gradually becomes mentally unstable. His personality changes, and he becomes careless about business and the estate. When Mackellar tells him that the Master is probably still alive he responds strangely: "Ah!" says Mr Henry; and suddenly rising from his seat with more alacrity than he had yet discovered, set one finger on my breast, and cried at me in a kind of screaming whisper, "Mackellar" - these were his words - "nothing can kill that man. He is not mortal. He is bound upon my back to all eternity - to all eternity!" says he, and, sitting down again, fell upon a stubborn silence. When Alexander is about eight years old Mackellar comes across Henry showing Alexander the duelling ground and telling him that this was where a man fought with the Devil. A second excerpt from Colonel Burke's memoir details a brief encounter he had with the Master while they were both in India. Caught in a "mellay", Burke and his cipaye flee and climb into a garden, where Burke sees the Master sitting with an Indian servant named Secundra Dass. Burke requests help from the Master, but the Master does not acknowledge him, while Secundra Dass tells the two of them (in English) to leave and threatens them with a pistol. Burke leaves and the story within a story ends. In the Spring of 1764 Mackellar comes downstairs one day to find the Master in the house, accompanied by Secundra Dass. The new Laird receives him coldly and Mackellar warns him that there will be no money forthcoming. The Master sneers and answers him: "[S]peech is very easy, and sometimes very deceptive. I warn you fairly: you will find me vitriol in the house. You would do wiser to pay money down and see my back." The Laird takes his wife and children and leaves Scotland for New York, where Mrs Durie has a family estate. Mackellar remains behind, and tells the Master that he may have room and board at Durrisdeer, but he will not be permitted to contact the family or given any money. The Master furiously answers: "Inside of a week, without leaving Durrisdeer, I will find out where these fools are fled to. I will follow; and when I have run my quarry down, I will drive a wedge into that family that shall once more burst it into shivers. I shall see then whether my Lord Durrisdeer" (said with indescribable scorn and rage) "will choose to buy my absence; and you will all see whether, by that time, I decide for profit or revenge." Eventually the Master discovers where the Duries have gone and takes ship for New York. Mackellar follows, to get ahead of the Master and warn the Laird. The Master finds the family prepared against him and sets up shop in the town, pretending to work as a tailor, but really only working to poison the town against his brother. Henry, who has grown more unstable as the years have passed, takes pleasure in rubbing the Master's face in his failure. Eventually the Master makes his demand. The pirate treasure he buried years ago is still in the wilderness of New York: if Henry will give him the money to set out and retrieve it, he will leave Henry alone forever. Henry, however, refuses, on the basis of on his brother's record of failed promises and extortion. Mackellar remonstrates that it would be worth the money to be rid of the Master, but Henry will not be moved. Desperate, Mackellar goes to the Master and offers to pay for the expedition himself. The Master refuses and rants that he cares only about ruining his brother: "Three times I have had my hand upon the highest station: and I am not yet three-and-forty. I know the world as few men know it when they come to die - Court and camp, the East and the West; I know where to go, I see a thousand openings. I am now at the height of my resources, sound of health, of inordinate ambition. Well, all this I resign; I care not if I die, and the world never hear of me; I care only for one thing, and that I will have." A ship arrives from Britain, carrying news that, in return for his loyalty to the rebels the Master of Ballantrae is to be given the title of Lord (or Laird) of Durrisdeer, and young Alexander, Henry's son and the rightful heir to the estate and title, is to be disinherited. The news is obviously false, but the already unhinged Henry believes it to be true and is driven to full-blown madness. Unknown to Mackellar, Henry secretly arranges with a smuggler to gather a crew of riff-raff and present themselves to the Master as being willing to set out with him to find the buried treasure. Their real purpose, unknown to the Master, will be to murder him and steal the treasure. The Master is at first deceived, but in the course of the expedition he discovers their plan. He tries to escape, but fails; he tries to set them against one another, but fails; and at last he announces that he has fallen ill. He wastes away and on his deathbed he tells them where the treasure is hidden. Secundra Dass wraps up his body and buries it, and the party sets out to find the treasure, but they fall foul of hostile Indians, and all but Secundra Dass and one man named Mountain are killed. Mountain encounters the diplomat Sir William Johnson, who is on his way to negotiate with the hostile Indians. With him are Henry Durie and Mackellar. Mountain tells them about the Master's death and burial, and says that Secundra Dass has gone back to where it happened. Mountain thinks that Dass is after the treasure. Henry, however, is convinced that the Master is not really dead: "He's not of this world," whispered my lord, "neither him nor the black de'il that serves him. I have struck my sword throughout his vitals," he cried; "I have felt the hilt dirl on his breastbone, and the hot blood spirt in my very face, time and again, time and again!" he repeated, with a gesture indescribable. "But he was never dead for that," said he, and sighed aloud. "Why should I think he was dead now? No, not till I see him rotting," says he. The party finds Dass digging up the Master's body. Caught in the act, he tells them that the Master faked his illness, and Dass showed him how to swallow his tongue and fake death. They unearth the Master's body and he opens his eyes briefly. Henry faints, falls to the ground and dies. The Master's resurrection is only momentary, as he too dies almost immediately. Mackellar buries the two of them under the same stone, with the inscription: J. D., HEIR TO A SCOTTISH TITLE, A MASTER OF THE ARTS AND GRACES, ADMIRED IN EUROPE, ASIA, AMERICA, IN WAR AND PEACE, IN THE TENTS OF SAVAGE HUNTERS AND THE CITADELS OF KINGS, AFTER SO MUCH ACQUIRED, ACCOMPLISHED, AND ENDURED, LIES HERE FORGOTTEN. * * * * * H. D., HIS BROTHER, AFTER A LIFE OF UNMERITED DISTRESS, BRAVELY SUPPORTED, DIED ALMOST IN THE SAME HOUR, AND SLEEPS IN THE SAME GRAVE WITH HIS FRATERNAL ENEMY. * * * * * THE PIETY OF HIS WIFE AND ONE OLD SERVANT RAISED THIS STONE TO BOTH. |
Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister | Gregory Maguire | 1,999 | The story follows Iris, the plain younger daughter of Margarethe Fisher, as she takes care of her mentally challenged older sister Ruth and her stepsister Clara. Having fled from the Fens of Cambridgeshire, England to Haarlem, the Netherlands, Iris is slightly at odds with the world and often contemplates the value of beauty and ugliness. While caring for her sisters and keeping the peace between Clara and Margarethe, Iris develops a painter's eye and spends time studying under a local painter known as The Master, and his apprentice, Caspar. Margrethe makes Iris and Ruth go to the ball in the hopes of making the prince fall in love with Iris. Iris secretly helps Clara get to the ball and the prince immediately falls in love with her. While at the ball, Ruth does the unthinkable out of jealousy and love of Clara and Master. That night the fairy tale of Cinderella and her pumpkin carriage is spun, and the next morning her prince comes to collect her. |
Dead Men Don't Leave Tips: Adventures X Africa | null | null | This book takes readers along on the author's seven-month adventures across Africa as two confirmed independent travelers join 20 companions and inexperienced guides on a do-it-yourself safari. After their dream of crossing Africa becomes a nightmare, the couple sets off across the continent alone – and that makes all the difference. Stories include encounters with mountain gorillas, a breakdown in the Sahara, hunting with Pygmies, climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro, exploring the Serengeti, the frustration of border extortion, hopping a “gun-run” thru Mozambique's civil war, rafting the Zambezi rapids and arriving in South Africa as Soweto (circa 1990) erupts into violence. Once on their own, the couple is thrust into everyday African life. They stay in local hostels, eat in local restaurants and arrange their own travel. Sometimes that means spending 36-hours on a bus ride. Or hiring guides and porters for their climb up Kilimanjaro. One theme the author emphasizes is the challenge of traveling in a land where the rules change daily, a context likely unfamiliar to most Western readers. At first, there are the basics: where to camp, find food, locate clean water, bathe out of the reach of crocs and bilharzia, protect yourself from malaria-carrying mosquitoes and other diseases. Then there is the challenge of changing money, many times on the black market. They also deal with corrupt border officials. There is the very real challenge of crossing the Sahara eight feet at a time when their half-blind driver hits every piste along the way. Plus they always wonder when some pool in the central African jungle will swallow their truck. With more work comes more satisfaction. For the author, part of the attraction of travel is to know that you make it from here to there on your own wits. As he states, "The destination permanently becomes a part of you." They wanted to wallow in the minutiae of African life: to talk with Africans, share in their culture, hear about their lives. In an interview the author states, "It blew away all those African stereotypes that had formed from watching films, reading the news and watching non-profit infomercials. As Westerners, we have a tendency to think of Africa as one big place. In reality, it’s composed of hundreds of different cultures, languages and peoples. By Western standards, much of it is poor. But we can’t apply the same standards to African life. The people we met had such vitality and love of life. I’ve never been to a place where the people are so quick to smile and welcome you. Nor have I been to a place where the kids are so eager to learn. We were constantly approached and asked for pens or paper. We learned that kids throughout Africa often can’t attend school without bringing a 25-cent pen." Illustrated with 38 author photos and maps. |
Veniss Underground | Jeff VanderMeer | 2,003 | Veniss Underground alludes in several places to the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. Like Orpheus, Shadrach descends into the underworld to retrieve his love, Nicola, but here from a cyborg hell, where genetic engineering and DNA splicing create fantastic and horrific creatures. Parallels also exist with Dante's Inferno. Throughout the novel the idea of heaven and hell come into play. Nick looks into the chaotic world in which he tries to find purpose through what is called living art. Nick journeys into the underworld and makes a deal with the "devil", also known as Quin. As the story progresses, the reader takes on the second person perspective of Nicola and is introduced to a meerkat whom Nicola names Salvador. Salvador (an assassin meerkat sent by Quin) attacks Nicola but she incapacitates him. Nick arrives at Nicola's door and chokes her till she is near death and sent to an organ bank in the underworld. Shadrach comes into play in the third person point of view and takes the initiative of finding his lost love Nicola in the underworld. He finds Salvador injured at Nicola's apartment and cuts off the meerkat's head and attaches it to a plate and renames him John the Baptist. After, with the help of Dr. Fergusen, he finds a partially mutilated Nicola in an organ bank under a pile of miscellaneous body parts guarded by a naked troll. He carries Nicola through the underground tunnels back to his childhood home and finds a creation of Quin named Candle. Candle leads Nick to the Psyche witch named Rafter. After Rafter decides to try to salvage Nicola, Shadrach takes the action of venturing deeper into the underworld to kill Quin. He finds Nick, now transformed into a piece of living art, being attacked by some in the garbage re-cycling facility. Nick takes Shadrach lower and tells him how to get to Quin by jumping off a moving train with a parachute. Nick pushes Shadrach out of the train only to be shot by Shadrach as he falls. Shadrach manages to open his chute yet he hits the ground hard. Later, he wakes by a beach and an ocean and kicks over a skull where he finds another creation of Quin's called the Gollux. The Gollux tells him the truth while John the Baptist lies, the Gollux leads Shadrach to a ray-like creature named the saylber which Shadrach rides across the ocean and into Quin's world which is actually a very large minnow named the leviathan. He kills Quin and the remote and the whole place explodes. Shadrach climbs up the cliffs back to the subway level. Shadrach retrieves Nicola and takes her to the surface where they are both on a bridge staring at the city which is called Veniss. |
The Producers | Thomas Meehan | null | In New York in 1959, Max Bialystock opens "Funny Boy", a musical version of Hamlet ("Opening Night"). It is terrible, and the show closes after one performance. Max, who was once called the King of Broadway, tells a crowd of down-and-outs of his past achievements and vows to return to form ("King of Broadway"). The next day, Leo Bloom, a mousy accountant, comes to Max's office to audit his books. When one of Max's "investors" arrives, Max tells Leo to wait in the bathroom until she leaves. The investor is a little old lady. She plays a sex game with Max, who eventually persuades her to give him a check to be invested in his next play, to be called "Cash". Leo reveals his lifelong dream: he's always wanted to be a Broadway producer. After a panic attack when Max touches his blue blanket, Leo tells Max that he has found an accounting error in his books: Max raised $100,000 for "Funny Boy", but the play only cost $98,000. Max begs Leo to cook the books to hide the discrepancy. Leo reluctantly agrees. After some calculations, he realizes that "under the right circumstances, a producer could actually make more money with a flop than he can with a hit. ... You could've raised a million dollars, put on your $100,000 flop, and kept the rest!" Max proposes the ultimate scheme: <poem> Step 1: We find the worst play ever written. Step 2: We hire the worst director in town. Step 3: We raise two million dollars. ... One for me, one for you. There's a lot of little old ladies out there! Step 4: We hire the worst actors in New York and open on Broadway and before you can say Step 5: We close on Broadway, take our two million, and go to Rio. </poem> However, Leo refuses to help Max with his scheme ("We Can Do It"). When he arrives at work 6 minutes late, Leo's horrid boss, Mr. Marks, reminds him that he is a nobody. While he and his miserable co-workers slave over accounts, Leo daydreams of becoming a Broadway producer ("I Wanna Be a Producer"). He realizes that his job is terrible, quits, and returns to Max ("We Can Do It" (reprise)). The next day, they look for the worst play ever written. Finally, Max finds the sure-fire flop: Springtime for Hitler: A Gay Romp with Adolf and Eva at Berchtesgaden written by Franz Liebkind. They go to the playwright's home in Greenwich Village to get the rights to the play. Ex-Nazi Franz is on the roof of his tenement with his pigeons reminiscing about the grand old days ("In Old Bavaria"). The producers get him to sign their contract by joining him in singing Adolf Hitler's favourite tune ("Der Guten Tag Hop Clop") and reciting the Siegfried Oath, promising never to dishonor "the spirit and the memory of Adolf Elizabeth Hitler". Next, they go to the townhouse of flamboyant homosexual Roger De Bris, the worst director in New York. At first, Roger and his "common law-assistant" Carmen Ghia decline the offer to direct because of the serious subject matter ("Keep It Gay"). After much persuading and invoking the possibility of a Tony award, Roger agrees and tells them the second act must be rewritten so the Germans win World War II. Max and Leo return to the office to meet a Swedish bombshell who wants to audition for their next play: Ulla Inga Hansen Benson Yansen Tallen Hallen Svaden Swanson. She auditions for them ("When You've Got It, Flaunt It"). The producers are impressed, mostly by her beauty, and hire her to be their "secretary-slash-receptionist". Max leaves to raise two million dollars for "Springtime for Hitler" by calling on all the little old ladies in New York ("Along Came Bialy"), which he does ("Act I Finale"). Leo and Ulla are left alone in Max's office (redecorated by Ulla), and they start to fall in love ("That Face"). Max walks in and sees the perfect form of Ulla's covered behind ("That Face" (reprise)). At the auditions for the title role, Hitler, one terrible actor after another is rejected by Roger in summary fashion. Finally, Franz performs his own jazzy rendition of "Haben Sie Gehört Das Deutsche Band", at the end of which Max stands up and shouts, "That's our Hitler!". Opening night arrives ("It's Bad Luck to Say 'Good Luck' on Opening Night"). At the last moment, Franz falls down the stairs and breaks his leg. Roger is the only one who knows the part of Hitler, and he rushes to the dressing room to get ready. The curtain rises, and Max and Leo watch the theatrical disaster unfold ("Springtime for Hitler"). Unfortunately, Roger's performance is so camp and outrageous, the audience mistakes it for satire, and the show becomes the talk of the town. Back at the office, Max and Leo are near-suicidal ("Where Did We Go Right?"). Roger and Carmen come to congratulate them, only to find them fighting. Franz bursts in, waving a pistol, outraged by Roger's portrayal of his beloved Führer, since he took his own advice of keeping people happy quite too seriously. Cowardly Max suggests that he shoot the actors, not the producers. The police hear the commotion and take into custody Franz, who breaks his other leg trying to escape, Max, and the accounting books. Leo hides; Ulla finds him and convinces him to take the two million dollars and run off to Rio with her. In jail awaiting trial, Max receives a postcard from Leo and feeling "Betrayed" recounts the whole show (including intermission). At his trial, Max is found "incredibly guilty"; but Leo and Ulla arrive to tell the judge that Max is a good man who would never hurt anyone ("'Till Him"). The judge is touched by this and decides not to separate the two, sending both (plus Franz) to Sing Sing prison for 5 years. In prison, they write a new musical entitled "Prisoners of Love", which goes to Broadway ("Prisoners of Love") (starring Roger and Ulla), and they are pardoned by the Governor. Leo and Max become the kings of Broadway and walk off into the sunset ("Leo & Max"). Everyone comes back for one last song, telling the audience that they have to leave ("Goodbye"). Although the musical includes many scenes and jokes taken from the film, there are many differences. The film was set in the present day of its year of release, 1968. The musical was set in 1959, consequently the character Lorenzo St. Dubois (LSD), a hippie who played Hitler, was omitted from the 2001 musical. In the original film, Max & Leo seek to procure $1,000,000; in the musical it has become $2,000,000 ("one for me, one for you. There's a lotta little old ladies out there!"). Ulla has a much larger role in the musical and is a three-dimensional character instead of the mindless bimbo of the 1968 movie. Even the Nazi playwright Franz Liebkind is portrayed more sympathetically and comes to a happier ending than his 1968 counterpart. Over all, the musical is much more upbeat than the original film, which was a darker comedy though with a happy ending. |
The Named | Marianne Curley | null | The Named begins with a foreshadowing that portrays the protagonist: Ethan, witnessing his own sister's death by Marduke, an evil minion to the evil Goddess: 'Chaos' who is also the leader of the 'Order of Chaos' (an organization that opposes the Guard). The story continues when Ethan is 16. He goes to school in Angel Falls and is aware of his powers, and is relatively good at controlling them. The story switches point of views and Isabel comes into play. She is a long-time acquaintance with Ethan because of his standing friendship with her brother Matt. Unfortunately, Matt and Ethan's friendship grew apart because of their common interest in Rochelle. However, Rochelle doesn't come truly into play until later in the story. Ethan is training under the power of Arkarian, a coordinator of the Guard. He has the power of agelessness and remains 18. He has blue hair and violet eyes, but only because of this power. Arkarian is also a truthseer (can read the minds of others) and has his wings, which allows him to teleport to anywhere by thinking of it. Isabel becomes aware of her powers one day while getting ready for school. She has the power to heal. Arkarian tells Ethan that he has been given an apprentice: Isabelle, whom he must train in the following three weeks. This is to be ready for the final battle between the Order and the Guard but Ethan now Isabel knows of this in this moment in time. Isabel was in love with Ethan when they were young. She would follow him and her brother around just to be with them. She grew attached to the outdoors and was very strong for being a girl. This feature alone helped Ethan train her. At first, Isabel was weary about Ethan and couldn't trust what he was saying, but she grew to it and soon was a very strong member of the Guard and one of the named. The Named, are the group of nine who are said to fight the evil goddess in the final battle. The nine who may or may not appear in this book, are Arkarian, Ethan, Isabel, Matt, Neriah, Rochelle, Jimmy, Shaun, and Mr. Carter. Ethan and Isabel go on their first mission back in time to make sure King Richard actually became king. The only way to get back in time is to go through the citadel (a palace with many rooms that appeal to the people who show up in them). They can only get to the Citadel through their sleep, and only their souls go, their body remains behind while they sleep. Isabel is close to dying at one point in the book. Only her soul-mate can save her. Her soul-mate had to call her name to get her soul back to her body. Ethan tried but failed. Isabel couldn't hear him. Then Arkarian called her name. Isabel heard him. When she awoke she thought it was Ethan that had saved her. Arkarian said that Isabel can never know that he is her soul-mate. |
Beyond Apollo | Barry N. Malzberg | 1,972 | The novel's protagonist is Harry M. Evans, the lone survivor of the disastrous first manned expedition to the planet Venus. Evans provides details of the doomed expedition as a novel in progress, and he proves to be a remarkably unreliable narrator, constantly changing the particulars of his story as it progresses. It quickly becomes apparent to the reader that he may be completely insane, as a feeling of deep (and comical) paranoia underlies Evans's descriptions of the absurd conversations that ensue with the Venusian inhabitants. There is some indication that Evans could very well have murdered his fellow crewmember. The novel ends with a publishing house offering to purchase the rights to Evans's outlandish tale. |
The Lake | Yasunari Kawabata | 1,954 | Beginning in Karuizawa, the novel alternates between the now middle-aged Momoi and recurring memories of a lake from his hometown, and his interactions with a number of women, beginning with a relative and the uncomfortable circumstances surrounding a death in his family. The novel then explores his connection to a woman who loses a purse full of several years' worth of money earned as a lover to an older man as well as a relationship with a student, Hisako, when Momoi is a teacher, a relationship that begins with a somewhat odd-request for a good cure for a foot condition Momoi suffers from and then examines the circumstances of Hisako's family, who are well-off in the immediate post-war era. Finally, the now middle-aged Momoi follows a young girl during a summer period leading up to a festival and crosses path with a woman closer to his age. ja:みづうみ pt:O Lago |
Les Illusions perdues | Honoré de Balzac | null | Lucien Chardon, the son of a lower middle-class father and an impoverished mother of remote aristocratic descent, is the pivotal figure of the entire work. Living at Angoulême, he is impoverished, impatient, handsome and ambitious. His widowed mother, his sister Ève and his best friend, David Séchard, do nothing to lessen his high opinion of his own talents, for it is an opinion they share. Even as Part I of Illusions perdues, Les Deux poètes (The Two Poets), begins, Lucien has already written a historical novel and a sonnet sequence, whereas David is a scientist. But both, according to Balzac, are "poets" in that they creatively seek truth. Theirs is a fraternity of poetic aspiration, whether as scientist or writer: thus, even before David marries Ève, the two young men are spiritual brothers. Lucien is introduced into the drawing-room of the leading figure of Angoulême high society, Mme de Bargeton, who rapidly becomes infatuated with him. It is not long before the pair flee to Paris where Lucien adopts his maternal patronymic of de Rubempré and hopes to make his mark as a poet. Mme de Bargeton, on the other hand, recognises her mésalliance and, though remaining in Paris, severs all ties with Lucien, abandoning him to a life of destitution. In Part II, Un Grand homme de province à Paris, Lucien is contrasted both with the journalist Lousteau and the high-minded writer Daniel d’Arthez. Jilted by Mme de Bargeton for the adventurer Sixte du Châtelet, he moves in a social circle of high-class actress-prostitutes and their journalist lovers: soon he becomes the lover of Coralie. As a literary journalist he prostitutes his talent. But he still harbours the ambition of belonging to high society and longs to assume by royal warrant the surname and coat of arms of the de Rubemprés. He therefore switches his allegiance from the liberal opposition press to the one or two royalist newspapers that support the government. This act of betrayal earns him the implacable hatred of his erstwhile journalist colleagues, who destroy Coralie’s theatrical reputation. In the depths of his despair he forges his brother-in-law’s name on three promissory notes. This is his ultimate betrayal of his integrity as a person. After Coralie’s death he returns in disgrace to Angoulême, stowed away behind the Châtelets’ carriage: Mme de Bargeton has just married du Châtelet, who has been appointed prefect of that region. Meanwhile, at Angoulême David Séchard is betrayed on all sides but is supported by his loving wife. He invents a new and cheaper method of paper production: thus, at a thematic level, the commercialization of paper-manufacturing processes is very closely interwoven with the commercialization of literature. Lucien’s forgery of his brother-in-law’s signature almost bankrupts David, who has to sell the secret of his invention to business rivals. Lucien is about to commit suicide when he is approached by a sham Jesuit priest, the Abbé Carlos Herrera: this, in another guise, is the escaped convict Vautrin whom Balzac had already presented in Le Père Goriot. Herrera takes Lucien under his protection and they drive off to Paris, there to begin a fresh assault on the capital. |
Rocheworld | Robert Forward | null | In Rocheworld, a small group of civilian and military personnel crew humanity's first manned exploration of another star system. Using a laser-pumped light sail spacecraft, the journey to their destination of Barnard's star lasted 40 years. The crew used a drug called "No-Die" which slowed their aging process, whilst proportionately lowering their effective I.Q., and arrived only a decade physically older than when they left. A fraction of the crew visit the double planet Rocheworld, landing on the water-free lobe, dubbed Roche (French for rock as well as the name of the French mathematician who worked on Roche limits). After exploring Roche, they again split up, and one group journeys via the space-plane Dragonfly to the other lobe, Eau (French for water), which is covered almost entirely by ocean. The crew are caught in a violent storm that causes their plane to experience a crash water-landing. The flooded propulsion systems of the space-plane are unable to provide enough thrust to break free and take off from the ocean surface. The crew decide to use the plane's lift fans as propellers to make their way to the inner pole of the double planet, where the gravitation from the other lobe of the double planet should help them to break free and allow rendezvous with the remaining crew in the lander at the zero point between the two lobes. While making this journey, the space-plane attracts the attention of one of the native species of the planet: the very intelligent, but technologically lacking, Flouwen. The Flouwen and the artificial intelligence aboard the space-plane establish communications and the two species begin to exchange cultural and scientific knowledge. The Flouwen realize the humans are travelling to the pole and warn the humans that they are approaching a period where the configuration of the star and planets of the system allow for a phenomenon where the ocean on the water lobe of Rocheworld can partially flow to the rocky lobe, due to the change in the gravitational equipotential. They try to stop the humans from continuing into this violent event by pinning the spacecraft to the ammonia-water ocean floor with ice as ballast (water ice sinks in the less dense ammonia-water solution of the ocean). However, the humans realize that the interplanetary waterfall poses a threat to the crew remaining on Roche. Fortunately, the tidal stresses cause nearby dormant volcanoes to become active again. This melts an underwater glacier and floods the area with warm water, upon which the ice floats off the plane. The crew manages to get airborne and takes advantage of the changing equipotential to return to Roche. They rendezvous with the lander just as water is reaching it. |
De Praetistigiis | null | null | The book also contains a famous appendix also circulated independently as the Pseudomonarchia daemonum, a listing of the names and titles of infernal spirits, and the powers alleged to be wielded by each of them. Weyer relates that his source for this intelligence was a book called Liber officiorum spirituum, seu liber dictus Empto Salomonis, de principibus et regibus demoniorum ("The book of the offices of spirits, or the book called Empto, by Solomon, about the princes and kings of demons.) Weyer's reason for presenting this material was not to instruct his readers in diabolism, but rather to "expose to all men" the pretensions of those who claimed to be able to work magic, men who "are not embarrassed to boast that they are mages, and their oddness, deceptions, vanity, folly, fakery, madness, absence of mind, and obvious lies, to put their hallucinations into the bright light of day." Weyer's source alleged there were estimated to be 7,451,926 devils, divided into 1111 legions and obeying 72 infernal princes. Weyer's source claimed that Hell arranged itself hierarchically in an infernal court which is divided into princes, ministries and ambassadors. |
Noon Wine | null | null | Royal Earle Thompson owns a dairy farm in southern Texas during the late 1890s. His farm is fairly unproductive, due in part to Thompson's laziness and distaste for most of the required labor on a dairy farm, which he considers "women's work." Thompson lives with his wife, Ellie, and his two small sons, Arthur and Herbert. Ellie is continually ill, though she does her best to perform her domestic duties around the house. The two boys, aged about six and eight when the story opens, are generally well-behaved. One day, a man named Olaf Helton presents himself at the farm. The remarkably taciturn Swede asks Farmer Thompson for a job. Thompson agrees to employ Helton, offering him a small monthly wage, plus room and board. It is clear that Thompson views Helton as somewhat beneath him because he is a foreigner. Even though the wage is far below what Helton reports having earned in the wheat fields of North Dakota, he nonetheless sets to work immediately and proves himself to be an efficient farmhand, single-handedly transforming Thompson's run-down dairy farm into a productive, profitable enterprise. Though he is unable to figure out anything about his Helton's personal life or origins, Thompson grows to appreciate and respect his mysterious, silent farmhand. He increases his pay and entrusts him with much responsibility. Ellie also values Helton for the prosperity he brings to the farm, and is troubled by him just once, in a bizarre event in which she sees Helton silently shake her two boys in a terrifying manner after they had snatched his harmonica. She tells Thompson about what she saw and asks him to tell Helton that in the future he is to leave the discipline of the boys to their parents, and the family quickly moves past the event. Nine years go by, and the Thompson dairy farm thrives, thanks to Helton's incomparable work ethic. The Thompsons come to view Helton as one of the family; his traits of rarely speaking, never smiling, and continually playing the same song on his precious harmonica, are oddities, once puzzling, that they simply accept. One day, an offensive and irritating stranger named Homer T. Hatch shows up at the farm. Like Helton, he has come to Texas from North Dakota, and, more interesting still, he is there to "locate" Helton. The man annoys Farmer Thompson immediately with his grating banter and subtle insults. Hatch eventually reveals the reason for his visit: he is a bounty hunter, and Olaf Helton is an escaped mental patient who must be returned to the asylum. Many years earlier, Helton killed his only brother with a pitchfork. The man had lost one of Helton's harmonicas and refused to replace it. Thompson is stunned by this news and unwilling to give up Helton to Hatch, whom he instinctively feels is an evil man. At this point, Helton, apparently believing Hatch is attacking Thompson, runs onto the scene, and Thompson sees Hatch drive a knife blade into Helton's stomach. Thompson rushes to Helton's defense, striking Hatch with an axe blade and killing him. Ellie comes on the scene only in time to see Hatch lying on the ground and Helton running away (unaccountably, in view of what Thompson "saw"), and she faints. The fleeing Helton, soon afterwards, in the midst of an apparent "mad" episode, such as he had never exhibited while with the Thompsons, is killed by the sheriff's men. When found, Helton's body bears no mark of a knife. It appears (though what happened is never explained) that Hatch's attack on Helton was Thompson's hallucination. Thompson impresses on Ellie the importance of her swearing that she witnessed Hatch attacking Helton, and she reluctantly agrees. After a perfunctory trial, Thompson is acquitted on the ground of self-defense/defense of another. Despite the verdict, Thompson continues to relive the killing, at one moment sure that there must have been a way to get Hatch off his farm without harming him, at the next certain that he had no choice and that if the scene were playing before his eyes again, he would instinctively act as he did before. Worse, he is sure that though he is legally "not guilty," the community regards him as not innocent, and he fears that he has become an outcast. He decides to pay a visit on every household of the small farming community, accompanied by the unwilling Ellie, in an attempt to regain his reputation. His efforts are unsuccessful; both he and Ellie can see that they have lost the esteem of their neighbors and former friends. In a climactic scene at home, Thompson realizes that even his wife is afraid of him, and that their now nearly-grown sons no longer trust him with her. He decides that he must end his ruined life. Dressed in his best, he leaves the house and walks as far as he can while still on his land. He writes a note of explanation, saying that he never intended to harm Hatch, even though Hatch deserved to die; still, he is sorry that he had to be the one to kill him. Poignantly, Thompson puts no blame on Helton and observes that had Hatch come hunting him instead of Helton, his friend would have done the same for him. Thompson then shoots himself with his shotgun. |
The Day of Creation | J. G. Ballard | 1,987 | The main character of the novel is the World Health Organization doctor John Mallory who, six months after his arrival in Central Africa, finds that intense guerilla activity has left him without patients. He devotes himself, instead, to the task of bringing water to the region, with dreams of setting the Sahara in flower. When he accidentally manages to achieve his task by creating a river, he becomes prey of an increasingly delirious spiral of fantasies, starting to identify himself with the new river that he has dubbed "Mallory". Obsessed, he decides to go up the river in order to "kill" its source, together with a teenaged African girl, whom he considers a sort of spirit of the waters, and other characters including a half-blind British documentary film-maker and two ruthless local chieftains trying to take advantage of the new prosperity brought by the water. |
Way of the Peaceful Warrior | Dan Millman | 1,980 | The story tells of a chance meeting with a gas station attendant who becomes a spiritual teacher to the young gymnast, Dan Millman. The attendant, whom Millman names Socrates, becomes a kind of father figure and teaches Millman how to become a "peaceful warrior." |
Mystery Mile | Margery Allingham | null | When Campion saves him from certain death on the ship over, Judge Lobbett looks into the man's background, and is advised to trust him. So, he takes Campion's advice and brings his handsome son and pretty daughter down to Mystery Mile, a tiny village on a near-island on the Suffolk coast, where Campion's friends Biddy and Giles Paget own a run-down manor house. The night they arrive, a roving fortune-teller visits, and soon afterward the local Rector "St." Swithin Cush, a mild and much-loved man, commits gruesome suicide, leaving a note and some mysterious clues—a red knight from his chess set, and the word "Danger" in encrypted form. Settling in at the manor, the judge calls in an art expert to inspect a possible masterpiece, but as the man (an annoying bore they had encountered on the boat) arrives at the house, the judge vanishes, seemingly inexplicably, while exploring the maze. They search for the judge's secret knowledge, the clue to the identity of crime boss Simister, which has brought such danger, but find only a large box of children's books. Travelling to London to investigate the judge's enemies, and to shake off art expert Barber, Campion and Lobbett's son Marlowe are recalled by a shocking telegram, but find the local Post Office man has exaggerated things—not a body, but Judge Lobbett's clothes, have been found. Next day, Biddy disappears, and Campion soon sees that the shopkeeper is behind it. Thos. T Knapp, a low-class criminal of Campion's acquaintance, arrives with news of their enemies, and they all decamp to London to rescue Biddy, leaving Lobbett's daughter safe in Campion's flat. They break into the house of the fortune-teller, where Biddy is being cruelly interrogated, and after a fight and Campion's use of a smoke-bomb, escape, leaving the gang in disarray. Back at Campion's flat, they see a photo of the judge in a newspaper, and Campion reveals that he had arranged for the disappearance, and hidden the man on a nearby estate, following St. Swithin's advice. They go there, fetch the judge, and he, Giles and Campion decamp for Mystery Mile once more, where they find the household, including Mr Barber, drugged. They retrieve the judge's evidence—a book of stories from the Thousand and One Nights from his set—and Giles and the judge flee using the same path used to smuggle the judge away before, a boat from a beach near some dangerous "soft" - mud that works like quicksand. Campion sits in the hut and deciphers the clue—the art expert's name is Ali Barber. The man comes in, and reveals his secret role as Simister, head of a colossal criminal gang, inherited from his father. He tries to kill Campion with a syringe filled with acid, but Campion breaks through the floor of the hut and falls beneath it. Barber goes to retrieve the book, but is taken by the soft mud, dying horribly. Recuperating later, Campion's friend Stanislaus Oates tells him the secret of Swithin Cush's suicide - he was in fact not a parson at all, having taken the place of his brother who died young. The fortune-teller, a blackmailer working for Simister, knew this and threatened to reveal it. Biddy and Giles Paget plan to marry Marlowe and Isopel Lobbett, respectively, and to sell the valuable painting for a small fortune. |
Who? | Algis Budrys | 1,958 | In the historical development leading up to the book's plot - a future history at the time of writing, which can now be considered a kind of retroactive alternate history - the Cold War led to the Eastern and Western blocks fusing into two unified super-states during the 1970s and remaining locked in an endless permanent confrontation into the foreseeable future. Actual events seem to have diverged from this scenario with the Sino-Soviet rift and confrontation of the late 1950s and early 1960s, not long after the book's publication. An explosion resulting from an experiment gone awry rocks an Allied research facility near the border with the Soviet Bloc. A Soviet team abducts Dr. Lucas Martino, a leading Allied physicist in charge of a secret, high-priority project called K-88. Several months later, under American pressure, the Communist officials finally hand over an individual, claiming that he is Dr. Martino. The man has undergone extensive surgery for his injuries. He has a mechanical arm advanced beyond any produced in the West. More importantly, his head is now hidden behind a nearly-featureless metal mask. A medical evaluation reveals that several of the man's internal organs are also artificial. The Allies are suspicious that the Soviets have sent them a spy and are holding the real Martino for further interrogation. The struggle to determine the man's true identity is the novel's central conflict. In the end, Shawn Rogers, the agent given the task, is unable to reach a conclusion. The man is released, but kept under surveillance and barred from working on K-88. Later, when progress bogs down on the project, Rogers is sent to ask him to come back to work. The man refuses. Budrys tells the story in alternating chapters. Every second chapter relates part of Lucas Martino's life. The young man spent his formative years on a New Jersey farm, working his way through university in New York City, and graduate studies at MIT. The last part of the novel tells what happened on the Soviet side. It takes many weeks for doctors to save Martino's life. Soviet interrogator Anastas Azarin has little time to work with and is thrown off by the prisoner's expressionless appearance. |
Diva: A novel | Delacorta | null | The young man Jules is a motorbike-riding courier for RCA in Paris, and a major fan of classical music and opera. Jules is also a groupie of the beautiful Cynthia Hawkins, an American opera singer. Hawkins is unusual in that she only performs live. She has never made a recording, studio or otherwise. One day, Jules secretly records a Cynthia Hawkins concert. He then shares the tape with his teenage friend Alba, who shares the tape with her adult friend Serge. Criminal Serge Gorodish is in his mid 40's, he shares his life with Alba, a precocious teenage beauty. Serge realizes that the Cynthia Hawkins tape could fetch a large amount of money. Meanwhile, Nadia is a twentysomething in the employ of Saporta. Saporta controls the largest drug cartel and prostitution ring in Paris. Nadia records harmful evidence against Saporta on a cassette tape. Nadia's cassette is erroneously dropped into the satchel on Jules' motorbike. Soon, Jules is being chased by the police, as well as gangsters, though he has no idea why. Saporta mobilizes his entire crime organization to attempt to retrieve the tape from Jules. Locating an intrepid and skilled motorbike rider in Paris is not easy. Meanwhile, there is a furious underground bidding war for Jules' tape of Cynthia Hawkins' concert. |
Cat and Mouse | Günter Grass | 1,963 | The narrator describes the character "The Great Mahlke" from their youth together through to Mahlke's disappearance near the end of the Second World War. Much of the action of the story is on a half-submerged sunken minesweeper of the Polish Navy, on which the narrator, Mahlke, and their friends meet each summer. Mahlke explores the shipwreck by diving through a hatch, and with his ever-present screwdriver salvages various items (information plaques, objects left behind by the crew, and even a gramophone) to sell or collect for himself. Over the course of the novella Mahlke steals an Iron Cross from a visiting U-boat captain, and is expelled from school. He joins a Panzer division and himself receives an Iron Cross thanks to his successes in battle. Returning to the school from which he was expelled, however, the principal forbids him from making a speech to the students, on the grounds of his former disgrace. The narrative in the story is often fairly incoherent. For instance, the timeline of the narration is often treated flexibly, moving from the narrator's perspective to different points within his memory of the events. There is also disunity about whether Mahlke is addressed in the second- or third-person, with Grass sometimes changing the form of address within a single sentence, possibly indicating the narrator's inability to remove his own emotions and feelings of guilt from an objective account of Mahlke. Mahlke, with the help of the narrator, returns to the shipwreck. Mahlke's main reason for entering the war in the first place was to make a speech at his school afterwards. Since he is denied that wish, Mahlke deserts his post, seeing no other reason to fight. Desertion implies treason and in consequence death. Pilenz, whose relationship to Mahlke becomes increasingly ambivalent, takes advantage of the situation and pressures an unwell Mahlke to dive into the wreck once more to hide, aware that Mahlke might not survive the dive. Pilenz never sees Mahlke again. |
The Crown of Dalemark | Diana Wynne Jones | 1,993 | The book is set in two parallel times; the present-day Dalemark, and the time of Mitt (Drowned Ammet) and Moril (Cart and Cwidder), some 200 years in the past. Mitt, who has recently escaped from the South and met Moril in North Dalemark, finds himself embroiled in a race to find an heir to the throne of Dalemark, which has lain empty for over 200 years, and gets mixed up in the machinations of a number of powerful forces. Maewen, a girl from present-day Dalemark, is transported by magic back in time to assist with the restoration of the royal line. In ancient Dalemark, Noreth Onesdaughter, a twin likeness of Maewen and apparently descended directly from the ancient kings of Dalemark, asks people to accompany her on her quest to become Queen. Unfortunately, just before she goes to meet her followers, she is murdered. Maewen is drafted to replace her, and she has to lead Noreth's followers, collect the four tokens that will prove her right to the throne, and convince everyone that she is Noreth, all the while hearing mysterious voices in the air. Maewen sets out on her quest for the ancient crown of Dalemark with a small band of followers from the previous books in the series: Moril, Mitt, Navis Haddsson (a refugee nobleman from the South, see Drowned Ammet), Wend (the ancient magician-singer Tanamil, Osfameron or Duck: see The Spellcoats), and Hestefan the Singer (who is eventually exposed as the evil Kankredin's agent and the murderer of Noreth). When they finally receive the crown from the One, the supreme god-like power of Dalemark, it is not Maewen who receives it – but Mitt. As the new king, Mitt assumes the name Amil (one of the One's secret names) and continues to reunite and rebuild Dalemark as Amil the Great. Maewen goes back to her future, but she is followed by the evil Kankredin who seeks to kill her for foiling his plans in the past. This is represented as a bomb threat to the building where Maewen is. Mitt, who we now learn is one of the Undying, appears as a bomb expert, and destroys Kankredin by invoking the "strong name" of the god-like Earth Shaker, who has been helping Mitt ever since his adventures in Drowned Ammet. Mitt leaves, sending Maewen a message to wait four years to contact him, presumably until she is old enough to marry. On hearing this, Maewen decides that four years is far too long, and sets off to find him. The Crown is a particularly interesting addition to the Dalemark series, as many of the characters from previous books are seen from quite different perspectives, not necessarily favourable. Hildrida Navissdaughter, Earl Keril of Hannart, and the singer-magician Osfameron (appearing as Wend) are notable for the negative sides of their personalities that are brought out in the book. |
Breath, Eyes, Memory | Edwidge Danticat | 1,994 | Edwidge Danticat’s first novel, Breath, Eyes, Memory, was published when Danticat was only twenty-five years old. As she has recounted in interviews, the book began as an essay of her childhood in Haiti and her move as a young girl to New York City. The novel is written in a first person narrative. The narrator, Sophie Caco, relates her direct experiences and impressions from age 12 until she is in her twenties. |
Rifles for Watie | Harold Keith | 1,957 | Jeff marches off to Fort Leavenworth from Linn County, Kansas in 1861, on his way to join the Union volunteers. He's off to fight for the North; his zeal having been fueled by reaction to the guerilla war of "bushwhackers" that was taking place in eastern Kansas. However, Stand Watie is on the side of the South. We meet many soldiers and civilians on both sides of the war, including Watie's raiding parties, itinerant printer Noah Babbitt and, in Tahlequah, Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) the beautiful Cherokee girl, Lucy Washbourne. Jeff's story is notable as he eventually winds up fighting for both the North and the South at different times during the conflict while making new friends on each side. It is also notable for the detailed depiction of contemporary Cherokee life in Indian Territory, including various tribal political factions. Keith portrays how Jeff Bussey, in the midst of huge conflicts, had to choose one side or another at various times and how this was not always as simple as it may seem in historical hindsight. |
Hawkes Harbor | S. E. Hinton | null | Orphaned and illegitimate, Jamie Sommers grows up believing he has "no hope of heaven", that he is doomed to a dreadful existence. A Catholic, he is deeply depressed by the ideas of being conceived in adultery and born in sin. The impressionable Jamie is repeatedly told by mean nuns in the Bronx, that he is destined to repeat the sins of his parents and he proves them right. Taking to the sea, Jamie seeks out danger and adventure in exotic ports all over the world as a smuggler, gun runner – and murderer. Life became a constant struggle in his search for excitement and fulfillment. Also Jamie believed he didn't deserve a better life than has, so he chooses to worsen himself. Tough enough to handle anything, he survives foreign prisons, pirates and a shark attack. But in a quiet seaside town in Delaware, Jamie discovers something that pushes him over the edge mentally and changes his life forever. After being taken out of the Mental Institution life gets harder. Trying to deal with the townspeople who want him hurt and taking his medicine, all the while having to deal with his master. He starts to find himself when he switches medicines and Grenville takes him on a cruise. S.E. Hinton takes you on a journey through one life that couldnt be harder. Jamie fights through his late life being scared of everything. |
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom | August Wilson | null | In a Chicago-based recording studio, Ma Rainey's band players, Cutler, Toledo, Slow Drag, and Levee turn up to record a new album of her songs. As they wait for her to arrive they banter, tell stories, joke, philosophise and argue. As the play unfolds it becomes clear that the tension is between the young hot-headed trumpeter Levee, who has dreams of having his own band, and veteran players Cutler and Toledo. By the time Ma Rainey does turn up in full regalia and entourage in tow, the recording schedule is badly behind, throwing the white producers Sturdyvant and Irvin into more and more irate disarray. Ma's insistence that her stuttering nephew Sylvester should do the voice intro to the title song causes more havoc. As the band waits for various technical problems to be resolved, the conflict between Levee and Cutler reaches boiling point and violence ensues. Finally, when Levee is simultaneously fired from the band by Ma for his insubordination and then rejected by Sturdyvant who had offered to record his songs his anger becomes too much and he stabs Toledo, killing him, thus destroying any possibility of a future for himself. * Ma Rainey * Cutler, trombonist * Dussie Mae, Ma's girlfriend * Irvin, Ma's manager * Levee, trumpeter * Policeman * Slow Drag, bassist * Sturdyvant studio owner * Sylvester, Ma's nephew * Toledo, pianist |
Three Junes | Julia Glass | null | Three Junes follows the McLeods, a Scottish family, throughout their lives and relationships. Its members are Paul and Maureen, and their sons: Fenno, and twins David and Dennis. At the opening of the book, Paul is on a tour of Greece, Maureen has died from lung cancer, and Fenno is running a bookstore in New York City. Other important characters include Malachy, Fenno's friend who is a music critic and suffering from AIDS, and Fern, an unwed pregnant woman, who Paul formerly met on his trip to Greece, trying to recover from his wife's death. Finally, another important character of the book is Tony, a photographer, who is a house-sitter, never living in the same house for more than a few months. He is a catalyst in the narative development of Fern and Fenno. He is an old friend with Fern and he develops a tumultuous relationship with Fenno. The novel is written in three parts, using the flashback technique. The first takes place in 1989 and is told from Paul's perspective; the second, in 1995 and from Fenno's point of view; the third, in 1999 and from Fern's perspective. As Julia Glass has said herself, the book should be viewed not as a trilogy but rather a triptych - elements that may seem small in one section play a large role in another, like a triptych, rather than a consecutive series of novels in a trilogy. |
The Magic Labyrinth | Philip José Farmer | 1,980 | The book begins from the point of view of The Mysterious Stranger, also known as X, the renegade Ethical who has been contacting people in the valley and enlisting their aid. He had posed as the engineer Barry Thorne on the airship Parseval where he had murdered Milton Firebrass and several others, all of whom were fellow Ethicals. He is now posing as a Mayan named Ah Qaaq and is traveling in the company of the Chinese poet Li Po. Through his internal reverie he reveals some of his secrets. His identity had been discovered by Monat Grrautut, who was the director of the Riverworld project. Monat had recalled him to the Dark Tower to be judged. However, he used a remote command to kill all the inhabitants of the tower and stopped the resurrections so that agents in the valley could not return to the tower. Stuck in the valley like the others he began to make his way upriver, hoping to catch a ride on one of the riverboats. His reverie ends on one of the most traumatic days on the Riverworld. On that day the left bank grailstones fail to fire. They had done so once before, when the meteorite which Sam Clemens discovered, broke the circuit which powered them. That time the damage had been repaired by the Ethicals. But this time they are all either dead or stuck in the valley. One day after the grailstones fail the inhabitants of the left bank invade the right en masse, half of humanity dies in the conflict. At the same time Richard Burton and his friends have joined the crew of King John's ship the Rex Grandissimus. They participate in the defense of the boat after the grailstones fail and Burton, masquerading as a Dark Age British warrior, eventually becomes King John's security chief. One day Tom Mix, Jack London, and Peter Jairus Frigate apply to join the crew. Burton, recognizing Frigate, attacks him. Realizing his mistake Burton eventually becomes friendly with Frigate and becomes an ally of Mix and London. The false Frigate has disappeared, but his travelling companion, Monat Grrautut, has boarded Sam Clemens' ship. Shortly after boarding, Monat is murdered by the renegade Ethical. Eventually the two riverboats reach Virolando, a wide lake which is the last inhabited stretch before the headwaters. It is also home to the pacifist Church of the Second Chance, where Hermann Göring has become a priest. King John and Clemens finally get to square off. Initially they begin with an aerial dog fight. When the planes are destroyed the two great riverboats attack each other. In the ensuing conflict both riverboats are sunk, most of the crews die, and the two captains are killed. King John is killed by Clemens and Clemens dies of a heart attack after being pulled from the water by his mortal enemy Erik Bloodaxe. Clemens dies before he notices that Bloodaxe has become an adherent of the Church of the Second Chance, and seeks no revenge against Clemens. Among the survivors are Burton, Frigate, Alice, Kaz, Joe Miller, Li Po, Ah Qaaq, and Nur ed Din. They are joined by the American piano player Tom Turpin, the English novelist Aphra Behn, a man claiming to be Gilgamesh, and the French soldier Jean Marcelin, Baron de Marbot. They take one of the ship's launches, the only craft to survive the fight, and proceed upriver. They scale the waterfall at the end of the river and make their way, after much difficulty, to the polar sea. When they arrive at the tower they unmask Ah Qaaq as the renegade Ethical and take him prisoner. He explains his identity as Loga, son of King Priam of Troy. Like all children who died before age five, he was resurrected centuries ago and raised by the alien Ethicals to be one of their agents. He reveals also the purpose of the Riverworld. It is meant as a grand moral test, to allow humanity to progress to the point where they can achieve enlightenment. When the project is brought to a close the souls of those who have not achieved enlightenment will be set loose to wander the universe aimlessly. Loga became obsessed with sparing his earthly family this fate and worked to sabotage the project. He was the one who awakened Burton prematurely, recruited Clemens and the others, and he used satellites to direct the meteorite to land near Clemens. While this is all being revealed they discover that there is a problem with the computer which runs the tower. A part malfunctioned, and since no one was around to repair it the problem has reached a critical point. If nothing is done the computer will die, releasing all the stored wathans, or souls, of the people who died on the Riverworld. Without the wathans these people can never be brought back to life. In addition, Monat has locked out other users from accessing the computer. Göring, who had followed the group to the tower, attempts to fix the computer, but is killed by security measures put in place by Monat. Alice then devises a way to get around this programming, and deactivate the security. Loga then is able to repair the computer. |
Secret Agent of Terra | John Brunner | null | Planet 14 was just a speck on a spacial stereo map, just a world inhabited by a group of barbaric refugees. But to Belfeor, it was instant cash. All he needed was an iron hand and a means to dig out its radioactive resources for export to his own world. To Maddalena it was a final exam: this would be her last chance to prove herself worthy of Corps Galactica membership. To Saikmar, it was a nation and a people stolen from him by cruel treachery. To Gus Langenschmidt, it was part of a job he had, watching the skies and helping men who were being enslaved. But how do you help people who don't know you exist and who must not be told? |
Summoned by Bells | John Betjeman | null | *Chapter I — Before MCMXIV Memories of the nursery – realisation of class, you could look up: ::But what of us in our small villa row ::Who gazed into the Burdett-Coutts estate? ::I knew we were a lower lesser world … and, socially and geographically, down ::Glad that I did not live in Gospel Oak. *Chapter II — The Dawn of Guilt The author prefers poetry to his father's fascinating world of trade. *Chapter III — Highgate His love for Miss Peggy Purey-Cust and trouble with rivals. *Chapter IV — Cornwall in Childhood Evocative sounds and smells of childhood holidays in Cornwall. *Chapter V — Private School To the Dragon School in Oxford, a new interest in churches. *Chapter VI — London John's father is doing well, they have moved to Chelsea, "the slummy end"; but he preferred leafy Hampstead. *Chapter VII — Marlborough After a depressing start, the discovery of literature, nature and the Wiltshire Downs. *Chapter VIII — Cornwall in Adolescence Adolescent family troubles — an independent exploration of Cornwall. *Chapter IX — The Opening World Up to Magdalen College, Oxford, influences, failing at divinity. |
The Telling | Ursula K. Le Guin | 2,000 | Sutty, travels from Earth to the planet Aka to provide observations as an outside observer. On Aka, all traditional customs and beliefs have been outlawed by the state. On Aka Sutty experiences and tells of the conflicts there between the Corporation, a repressive State capitalist government, and the native people who resist. |
Daniel Martin | John Fowles | 1,977 | Daniel Martin is the story of a Hollywood screenwriter who returns to his native England when a friend from university asks to see him before he dies. With flashbacks to his childhood in the 1940s and time at university in Oxford, a tale of frustrated love emerges. The dying man (Anthony) asks him to look after his wife Jane. Daniel had in fact married Jane's sister, despite loving Jane and having had a one night stand with her. Whilst in England, Daniel improves relations with his daughter (Caro) and estranged wife (Nell). Then Daniel and Jane go on a cruise visiting Egypt, Syria and Lebanon and the two fall in love again. Daniel breaks up with his Scottish girlfriend and the two lovers are reunited at the end of the book. |
Annie's Baby | Beatrice Sparks | 1,998 | The book is about a fourteen-year-old girl, Annie, who falls in love with a boy named Danny. She soon becomes the victim of domestic violence, along with rape. Not long after the two start dating, she finds out she is pregnant. Annie and her mother are left to decide what will become of the baby. At first, Annie tries to keep the baby, who is called "Little Annie," but soon finds it too difficult and gives her up for adoption. The book ends with the words "Annie loves Danny," meaning that Annie had to remember her very first love. There are inconsistencies in the book that support the theory that Beatrice Sparks fabricated the diary. On the first page, Annie remarks, "This morning I... threw a last minute polish on my (due-yesterday) science paper..." However, the entry is written on a Monday. As school never operates regularly on weekends, this would have been impossible. At the end of the novel, Annie mentions that she drew a heart with the words "Annie loves Danny" on a tree on the day of their first meeting; however, Annie did not learn Danny's name until their second meeting. Whether this is a true story is still unclear. |
The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists | Neil Strauss | 2,005 | Strauss stumbles across the community while working on an article. Intrigued by the subculture, he starts participating in the online discussion groups, mainly out of his own frustration with his romantic life. As he becomes more and more involved in the romantic community, Strauss attends a "Bootcamp" conducted by Mystery. The bootcamp consists of Strauss and other participants approaching women and then Mystery and his counterpart Sin giving them corrective advice on their behaviors, body language, and what to say; Strauss learns habits that, as he sees it, are often basic – and should have been taught to him by society in the first place. The book then narrates the journey of how Strauss goes through the various stages of becoming a Pickup artist, description about the various members of the community and how Strauss befriends many of the members, particularly Mystery. A good deal of the book focuses on how to obtain the elusive upper hand, or just hand, in a relationship. Strauss advocates various methods – mostly from the point of view of heterosexual men. Strauss generally recommends a "cocky and funny" attitude. He offers further guidelines for the process of seduction, which include: prepare things to say before going out, tell groups with girls surreptitiously impressive stories but also "false time constraints" (a reason that the conversation could end very soon), put the girl of interest in a situation where she must convince the man she is interesting, very slowly increase the amount of physical contact, and more. Strauss tells the story of: his success; the spreading of the romantic community itself and his life at "Project Hollywood", a high end mansion and a lifestyle plan shared by Strauss, Mystery, Playboy, Papa, Tyler Durden, Herbal, and other members of the seduction community; and how rivalries and animosity between various members of the community lead to "Project Hollywood's" collapse. The book also documents the start of Real Social Dynamics with Tyler Durden and Papa. By the end of his story, Strauss concludes that a life of nothing but picking up girls is "for losers", and he advocates incorporating Pick Up Artist habits into a more balanced life. Strauss mentions his experiments with sleeping habits, personal grooming and his meetings with celebrities such as Tom Cruise, Courtney Love and Britney Spears. |
Iceberg | Clive Cussler | 1,975 | While on a routine survey mission of the iceberg fields in the North Atlantic, a United States Coast Guard survey plane discovers what appears to be a ship embedded in an iceberg. The plane marks the iceberg with a red dye marker and then returns to its base to report the discovery. Admiral Sandecker dispatches Dirk Pitt and Dr. Bill Hunnewell of the National Underwater and Marine Agency on a top-secret mission to survey the ship in the iceberg. Pitt concocts an outlandish story about a disappeared Russian spy trawler, supposedly equipped with their latest in technology and codes, in order to commandeer the Coast Guard cutter Catawaba as a base of operations. In reality they are searching for the yacht Lax which disappeared mysteriously over a year ago with its billionaire owner, Kristjan Fyrie, and its entire crew while on their way to the United States. When Dirk and the doctor search for the iceberg, they discover that someone has gone to a great deal of effort to erase the dye marker and try to convince them that the iceberg they are looking for is somewhere else by marking a similar iceberg 90 miles to the east. Pitt quickly figures out the trick and they eventually find the correct iceberg and work their way into the derelict ship. Inside they discover that all those on board have been incinerated at their posts by a terrible fire much more severe than should have been possible on the ship of that type. It is revealed that Fyrie has developed a new type of underwater probe using a laboratory created element called Celtinium-279. Using this new probe it is possible to scan the ocean floor from the surface and detect minerals and metals without having to drill. The probe is of enormous value. Unfortunately for the crew the Celtinium-279 proves to be extremely unstable and it ignites causing an incredibly destructive fire, the heat from which eventually allowed the ship to become embedded in the iceberg. After their work on the iceberg is done Pitt and Dr. Hunnewell continue on their trip by helicopter from the Coast Guard cutter toward Reykjavík, Iceland. They are intercepted along the way by a black Lorelei Mark VIII jet and engage in a frantic battle. Pitt earns a pyrrhic victory over the jet causing it to crash by ramming into it with his helicopter which naturally caused it to crash as well. Dr. Hunnewell is severely injured in the crash and dies in Pitt's arms while uttering the cryptic last words "God save thee..." which it is later revealed are lines from the Rime of the Ancient Mariner intended to give Pitt clues as to who is responsible for Hunnewell's death. After recovering from his injuries Pitt is assigned by Admiral Sandecker to get close to Kirsti Fyrie, long-lost sister of Kristjan who is now in charge of his companies. Kirsti's fiancé, Oskar Rondheim is a ruthless businessman who appears to be intimidating Fyrie into marrying him in order to take control of her businesses. It is later revealed that Rondheim is in actuality a criminal with many aliases who discovers that Kirsti Fyrie is in actuality Kristjan Fyrie who has undergone secret sex reassignment surgery. He uses this information to blackmail Kirsti in order to gain control over her empire. Pitt uncovers a shadowy organization known as Hermit Limited conceived and funded by American billionaire F. James Kelly. The group's goal is to obtain control over Central and South America by secretly buying up all of the major industries in these relatively weak countries. By controlling the economy they hope to take over the countries in the hopes of creating a utopia in this poverty-stricken region. The group intends to employ the domino theory by taking over two countries and turning them into such huge successes that the other countries in the region clamor to join. In order to distract the world while they take over the government' s of these two countries Hermit Limited conceived the plot to kidnap five millionaires and other important people from various countries and fake an air disaster in an uninhabited area of Iceland. While there is an international furor in the press over the disappearance of and eventual discovery of the bodies of the missing people Hermit Limited will quietly assassinate the leaders of the two countries and assume control. The leaders of the two countries targeted by Hermit Limited, Pablo Castille of the Dominican Republic and Juan De Croix of French Guiana, were in the United States attending a conference in San Francisco for the Alliance of Economic and Agricultural Products. On their way home they have stopped to do some sightseeing at Disneyland where Hermit Limited will attempt to assassinate them. Dirk Pitt, who has been stranded with the group of abducted millionaires, manages to escape and make his way to civilization where he commandeers an old Ford tri-motor airplane which he uses to rescue the group that has been left at the mercy of the elements. Barely out of the hospital following this harrowing rescue, Pitt is rushed to Disneyland where he attempts to save Castille and de Croix who have slipped away from their security and are enjoying a ride on the Pirates of the Caribbean. |
The Aspern Papers | Henry James | null | A nameless narrator goes to Venice to locate Juliana Bordereau, an old lover of Jeffrey Aspern, a famous and now dead American poet. The narrator presents himself to the old woman as a prospective lodger and is prepared to court her niece Miss Tita (renamed Miss Tina in later editions), a plain, somewhat naive spinster, in hopes of getting a look at some of Aspern's letters and other papers kept by Juliana. Miss Tita had denied the existence of any such papers in a letter to the narrator and his publishing partner, but he believes she was dissembling on instructions from Juliana. The narrator eventually discloses his intentions to Miss Tita, who promises to help him. Later, Juliana offers to sell a miniature portrait of Aspern to the narrator for an exorbitant price. She doesn't mention Jeffrey Aspern's name, but the narrator still believes she possesses some of his letters. When the old woman falls ill, the narrator ventures into her room and gets caught by Juliana as he is about to rifle her desk for the letters. Juliana calls the narrator a "publishing scoundrel" and collapses. The narrator flees, and when he returns some days later, he discovers that Juliana has died. Miss Tina hints that he can have the Aspern letters if he marries her. Again, the narrator flees. At first he feels he can never accept the proposal, but gradually he begins to change his mind. When he returns to see Miss Tina, she bids him farewell and tells him that she has burned all the letters one by one. The narrator never sees the precious papers, but he does send Miss Tina some money for the miniature portrait of Aspern that she gives him. |
Magyk | Angie Sage | 2,005 | The book begins with Silas Heap, father of the eponymous protagonist to the series, returning home through the winter snow. As he is walking, he feels a heartbeat in the snow, through magical means, and finds that a baby girl with violet eyes has seemingly been abandoned. Since Silas already has seven children, he finds that another will do no harm. He hides the baby in his cloak and continues his trek home. However, he is confronted by the apprentice to the ExtraOrdinary Wizard, Marcia Overstrand, who warns him that he should not tell anyone about the baby he found, and that the child should be kept a secret. Silas agrees, and also finds out that Marcia has succeeded her mentor, who was killed, and is the new ExtraOrdinary Wizard. Silas continues his walk home, to bring his wife the herbs she needs. Upon reaching his home, Silas sees the midwife run out with a bundle of cloth, wailing that his newborn Septimus, the seventh son of a seventh son, is dead. Silas and his wife, Sarah, decide to raise the baby girl in place of Septimus, as if she was their own daughter. They name their child Jenna. Months later, Sarah learns from a neighbor that the queen has been assassinated, and the castle is under the control of the Supreme Custodian. As well, the queen’s newborn daughter had gone missing. Her neighbor also says that the assassination had occurred months before, but had been kept a secret. She mentions that it happened around the time Alther Mella, Marcia’s mentor, had been killed. Sarah realizes that Jenna was the missing princess, but decides to keep this a secret from everyone, other than Silas. Ten years later, Jenna Heap is celebrating her tenth birthday with her parents and six other brothers. But Marcia interrupts the party, telling the family that another woman living next doors works as a spy for the Supreme Custodian, and has confirmed with him that Jenna is the queen’s daughter. Marcia states that she must take Jenna into safekeeping right away, for the assassin is on his way. Sarah agrees, and explains to a reluctant Jenna that she is a princess, and that she must go with Marcia. Marcia whisks Jenna to her apartment in the Wizard Tower, where she can temporarily be kept safe. Marcia also finds a boy, part of the Young Army, had been buried in the snow, and had almost died. The boy, called Boy 412, is rescued by Marcia, and is taken into her apartment to warm up. But the assassin, being a skilled huntsman, manages to locate Jenna’s whereabouts, and goes after her. Silas, Nicko (the youngest of the six brothers) and their dog Maxie decide to pay Jenna a visit. Shortly after they arrive, the ghost of Alther Mella warns Marcia that the assassin is outside the tower. Marcia panics and tries to get everyone, including Boy 412, out of the tower through the rubbish chute. The group ends up in the dump, with the hunter hot on their heels. Marcia clogs the chute to make it look as though they had gotten stuck. But in the night, Sally Mullin, who owns a café near the dump, noticed them. Silas tells her about their predicament, and Sally allows them to use her sailboat to escape. Marcia gives Sally a KeepSafe Charm in return for her thanks. Silas, Marcia and the children then flee to the Marram Marches, with Nicko sailing the boat. The hunter reaches the dump, and spends quite a while in unclogging the chute. After sending one of his men to make sure they are still not stuck somewhere inside, he looks for anyone who may have seen the escapees. He notices Sally and confronts her. She denies knowing anything, but her actions prove otherwise. He threatens to burn down her café, unless she confesses. She still refuses, but one of her customers rats out Marcia’s group, and the huntsman allows the customer and his friends to leave before he burns the café down. He locks Sally inside and sets the building on fire. However, Sally survives because of Marcia’s KeepSafe Charm. The assassin follows the group, heading for the Marram Marshes. His skilled men manage to catch up with the small sailboat, but are unable to see them through the thick fog. Boy 412 causes a scuffle, for he thinks that the wizards are holding him captive, which is another crazy way for the Young Army to assess him. Jenna, just a bit stronger than 412 (much to his dismay) manages to keep him quiet, before he kicks the boat, and alerts the hunter where the boat is. Marcia uses a Reverse Spell to Project the Muriel, the boat that they're sailing on, and distract the Hunter, upon which he loses the group’s trail, and has to return to the castle. The group reaches the Marshes, and must navigate through perilous bogs, but reach a safe cottage, belonging to Aunt Zelda, a white witch. Zelda is Silas’s aunt, which would make her Jenna’s great-aunt. The witch keeps everyone safe and well-fed throughout the winter. The groups learns that the Supreme Custodian is doing the bidding of DomDaniel, the ex-ExtraOrdinary Wizard. However, he needs to have Jenna killed before he can return to the castle to rule. On the island, Boy 412 wanders around the marshes, falls into a pit with a large cavern in it, and finds a ring that glows when he places it on his finger. He keeps the ring a secret for sometime. Marcia then walks with Boy 412, (who is beginning to like the Heap family) and shows him a charm that Alther, gave to her when she was his Apprentice. Marcia sees that Boy 412 has potential, and asks him to become her Apprentice, but he refuses. Aunt Zelda also helps Jenna, Nicko, and Boy 412 make shield bugs to protect themselves. Marcia then tries to use her Midnight Minutes to protect herself when she goes back to the Wizard Tower because of a letter that said that she should go back. But then she gets captured by the Custodian Guards because she got her Midnight Minutes wrong. A few more weeks pass until the hunter discovers the groups location with Aunt Zelda, in the marshes, and returns to assassinate Jenna. Jenna and Boy 412 defend themselves by using shield bugs, and Aunt Zelda uses a Freezing Spell on the Hunter. Soon after the Hunter was frozen, they try to figure out the identity of DomDaniel's Apprentice, who claims to be Septimus when they capture him. Nicko firmly denies it after seeing what treachery the apprentice could do. Then, the Apprentice escapes and tells DomDaniel of their location. A bit after that, Aunt Zelda tells Boy 412 that the ring is the legendary Hotep-Ra's dragon ring, which gives him control over the Dragon Boat. Aunt Zelda gives Boy 412 a book with the legend of Hotep-Ra. The legend says that Hotep-ra, the first ExtraOrdinary Wizard, was being pursued by people planning to kill him. Therefore, the dragon became a boat to save her mastser and before Hotep-Ra died he put the boat in his hidden temple. Afterward, Boy 412 soon begins to become interested in the art of Magyk, and the mysteries surrounding the ring. Aunt Zelda later tells Boy 412 that the cave in which he found the ring is connected to a secret cavern containing Hotep-ra's temple, and within it, the Dragon Boat. The boat is then used by Boy 412, Nicko and Jenna in order to save Marcia and stop DomDaniel from being the ExtraOrdinary Wizard again. The boat somehow talks to Jenna inside her head because she the Princess and only Boy 412 can make it fly and steer it. They rescue Marcia, who managed to stay alive thanks to Hotep-Ra’s ring, and Boy 412 agrees to become Marcia's Apprentice. They throw DomDaniel overboard, and he dies in the bog, after creatures attack him. Later, the Heap family discover during the apprentice banquet that Boy 412 is really Septimus Heap, the seventh son of the seventh son. This is because the midwife secretly worked for DomDaniel. DomDaniel needed a powerful apprentice and Septimus, who was a seventh son of a seventh son, would be born with such abilities. The midwife pretended Septimus was dead, and smuggled him to the Young Army, where another one of DomDaniel’s workers is supposed to take the baby. But the midwife’s own child was enlisted in the army, and she places Septimus in a cradle next to her own child. DomDaniel’s worker accidentally takes the midwife’s child, leaving Septimus to be raised in the Young Army as Boy 412 instead. Sarah takes off Septimus’ hat, to reveal a thick bush of golden locks, the signature Heap trait, and lovingly accepts Septimus as her long-lost son. |
The Eternal Quest | null | null | The Eternal Quest covers a short period of time in Spain in the early 17th century during the reign of King Philip III. The events in the novel circle around Miguel de Cervantes and his attempts to complete and publish the first book of Don Quixote. The Eternal Quest provides a fictionalized rendering of that time, including an intrigue to stop Cervantes from publishing his work, set in the then-capital of Valladolid. Branston takes Cervantes’ comic style and grafts it on to his miniaturization of the Don Quixote myth. Although Cervantes himself is a character in this novel, much of the action centers on a character known only as the Old Knight, a soldier in the army of King Philip II and officer under the Duke of Alva who has gone mad from the violence of war. He now believes himself to be a soldier sent on a quest by God. Pedro, a friend of Cervantes and local trader, sees the Old Knight and tells Cervantes about him, inspiring the writer to create a series of short stories, published individually as pamphlets by the local printer Robles, about the comic adventures of a confused, self-proclaimed knight named Don Quixote. These events are set against a backdrop of political intrigue surrounding the impending appointment of a new poet laureate to the “emperor” (King Philip III). The marquis of Denia approaches the duchess, a widow who oversees an academy of poets and artists, to boast that he controls the emperor’s appointments and will decide who the new poet laureate shall be. He is met at the duchess’ mansion by Ongora, a local poet of small talents and great ambitions, who subsequently hatches a plot to disgrace Cervantes and elevate himself into the new royal position. The novel itself then follows three tracks: *The meanderings of the Old Knight through Valladolid, including his encounters with the other characters and his Quixote-like confusion of ordinary objects (e.g., Pedro’s family pot) for great artifacts (the sword of Lancelot); *The efforts by Cervantes to complete his work and maintain his reputation, even as the Old Knight appears to come to life from his pamphlets; and *Ongora’s plot, which involves having the duchess write a satire of Don Quixote in the form of a rejection letter from Dulcinea, with Ongora himself writing a scathing introduction in which he claims to have cuckolded Cervantes, and publishing both anonymously. The Old Knight’s misadventures take on a mystical quality, as he defeats stronger and better-armed enemies and always seems to arrive at scenes in the nick of time to stop some evil from being done. He eventually concludes that Ongora is a warlock and calls him the “Evil Magician of Bad Verse.” When Cervantes sees the satire and introduction, he approaches the duchess directly to offer to work with her on future writings if she will explain the reason for the violence of the introduction (which Cervantes believes was also written by the duchess). The duchess, who had not seen the introduction, then disavows Ongora and offers her financial and political support to Cervantes. Thus spurned, Ongora hires an assassin to kill Cervantes, but this attempt is foiled by the Old Knight, who knocks the assassin out with Pedro’s pot. Ongora eventually slays the Old Knight, who dies in Cervantes’ house, only to come back to life and die permanently with his head on Cervantes’ shoulder in front of the “Holy Grail” (an olive tree in Cervantes’ yard). Ongora tries to exact one last revenge by publishing various poor imitations of Don Quixote to stain Cervantes’ reputation, but these only serve to secure Cervantes' fame. Ongora is banished from the Spanish empire and Don Quixote is published to great acclaim. |
Bee Season: A Novel | Myla Goldberg | 2,000 | Eleven-year-old Eliza Naumann is the only "ordinary" member of a family of gifted people. Her father, Saul, is a cantor in the local synagogue and a keen student of Jewish texts; her mother, Miriam, is apparently a successful lawyer and her brother, Aaron, is a gifted student who is able to read and recite in Hebrew and is allowed into his father's study, where he plays the guitar with his father. One day Eliza surprises herself by winning the class spelling bee, then the school bee. At first Saul is unaware of her success, but then he becomes increasingly involved with her. Eliza is invited into his study to practice, and Aaron for the first time finds the door closed to him. But as Eliza progresses through the district bee and prepares for the national bee, the troubled lives of her family come into sharp focus. Saul, who has tried to reach God first through drugs and then through study, becomes convinced that Eliza's talent shows a propensity for mysticism greater than his, which has the potential to lead her to shefa, the influx of the Divine. He gradually introduces her to the writings of Abraham Abulafia, a Medieval kabbalist writer, and it becomes clear that his ambitions for her go far beyond the winning of the spelling bee. Aaron, who had a "religious experience" at the age of eight (it was actually the wing-light of a plane), finds himself disillusioned with Judaism and begins to look elsewhere, first to Christianity and then to Buddhism. Through a chance encounter in a park he discovers the International Society for Krishna Consciousness and becomes a devotee, unknown to his family. Miriam, who has always had an obsessive personality, is in fact a kleptomaniac who spends her time stealing small items from department stores, believing that they are small parts of herself from which she has become separated, a concept she formed when Saul told her about Tikkun olam, the "fixing of the world". With the other members of her family preoccupied, Miriam's obsession takes a new turn when she finds herself entering people's houses and stealing small objects from them. Several times she is almost discovered, but, though she tries to anchor herself to the real world through soulless sex with Saul, she cannot resist the pull of the empty houses. Having performed well, but ultimately failed to win the national spelling bee, Eliza begins to prepare for the following year, with Saul's enthusiastic help. But the family is about to be torn apart. Miriam is arrested, pleads not guilty by reason of insanity, and is admitted to a psychiatric hospital. Aaron announces his intention to leave home, and his faith, to join ISKCON. Eliza, who has begun reading Abulafia on her own, without her father's knowledge, has a terrifying experience on the night that she attempts to achieve shefa. The following day, at the class spelling bee, she deliberately misspells a word. |
Asterix and the Falling Sky | Albert Uderzo | null | Breaking with the more or less historical setting in previous albums, two rival outer space alien ships appear above the Gaulish village. Before it, Obelix and Asterix were hunting boars, when they found one rigid. As they went back to the village, everyone is also rigid while indulged in a fight. Luckily, Getafix was in his normal state, and says he was just testing the magic potion, causing Asterix to realise the magic potion has made them immune to the effects, and also that Obelix has been giving Dogmatix magic potion. Soon, they found a spaceship resembling a gigantic yellow sphere, from which an alien named Toon emerges. He reveals he forgot to switch off a landing device on his ship, which has led to the village becoming rigid. Soon, when the ship departed, everything was normal again. The evil aliens Nagma want to know the secret of, and confiscate the "great weapon" the Gauls have (Getafix's potion), that is "known throughout the universe", in order to conquer more planets. However a Tadsilweny called Toon comes to the village, after burning down a Roman Camp, with the mission to destroy the weapon. It turns out the potion causes immunity to many of the alien devices. Nagma was forced out of Earth in his defeat, and Toon erases all memory of his visit due to his embarrassment over him being temporarily enlarged to giant size when he consumed the potion due to it being incompatible with his physiology. The aliens are styled on the happy-faced Walt Disney and DC Comics superheroes of the American comic book style on one side, and futuristic robot and insect-like Japanese manga style on the other. |
Designated Targets | John Birmingham | 2,005 | It is September 1942, four months after the Transition. A cease-fire has been signed between Hitler and Stalin, and the dictators have re-established their June 1941 borders. Both nations are 'cooperating' in various areas of research (particularly rocketry) at the newly-built Demidenko research facility in Ukraine. Thanks to the foreknowledge granted by the Transition, Hitler and Stalin have purged their military and party ranks of traitors (real and imagined) that have been revealed from our history. Though not without problems: the arrest of Field Marshal Rommel sparks off a mutiny amongst the Afrika Korps that throws the entire North African front into chaos. Most of the German war machine shifts to "Operation Sea Dragon": the invasion of Britain. Meanwhile in the Pacific, the Japanese have conquered New Guinea and the nearby island chains, and are battling Allied forces (reinforced with troops from the Multinational Force) along the Brisbane Line in Australia. In the United States a "Special Administrative Zone" has been carved out within the San Fernando Valley of California. Within "the Zone", the laws of the United States as of 15 January 2021 apply and it becomes an enclave for the 21st Century personnel. Many of the Multinational Force's members work in various technological areas and thousands of contemporary females and non-whites are clamoring to join their ranks. Over the next month the Japanese position in northern Australia unravels after a massive blitzkrieg of 21st Century armor is unleashed. Japanese soldiers massacre entire towns, prompting both outrage and a reluctance to divert 21st forces anywhere else. Under interrogation, General Homma reveals that Australia was nothing more than a diversion to make the Multinational Forces expend as much of their limited weaponry as possible. Japanese survivors are executed under Multinational Force Sanction Four. The French stealth ship Dessaix, presumed lost, was found by the Germans off the Canary Islands a few weeks after the initial Transition, and it now spearheads the assault on Yamamoto's real target: Hawaii. The ship's cruise missiles lay waste to the islands' defenses (and one nearly obliterates the city of Honolulu), although a French crew member manages to sabotage several of them before being killed. With the American defense crippled, the Japanese easily take Oahu and send a message to Washington stating that that any attempt to retake the islands will result in the wholesale slaughter of the population. In Britain, preparations are underway for a commando raid on Norway against the heavy water plant there (a la Heroes of Telemark). But, information from Wehrmacht Colonel Paul Brasch (whose physically disabled son is eligible for 'disposal' under the T4 program) reveals that Germany's true nuclear effort lies elsewhere, and the mission is placed on hold. Operation Sea Dragon commences the next day with an attempt to invade across the English Channel. Hundreds of aircraft and warships, upgraded with new technology, duel in the waters and skies south of England; the 21st century ship HMS Trident, more valuable as a command and control center than as a weapon, ensures that key German formations identified by Brasch are destroyed. Three missiles taken off the Dessaix are launched at British targets, but suspected sabotage causes two to crash harmlessly into the North Sea. The third does hit Biggin Hill airfield, but its primary warhead does not detonate. Despite heavy losses sustained by the RAF and the damage to Biggin Hill, the Germans lose most of their navy. Any airborne units that reach England are quickly isolated and crushed by the Allies. In the U.S., a series of German-instigated bombings and race riots take place, targeting civilians for maximum effect. Wahabi and Baathist insurgents foment revolt across the Middle East and the Soviet Union, with enough time to train and equip its armies, has begun seizing the Afghan passes leading to India. Unbeknownst to either the Allies or Axis, the HMS Vanguard materialized on the Siberian ice pack (one day before the other ships) and is now providing the Soviets with invaluable resources and information. Stalin has also impounded the ships of Convoy PQ-17 and has his own atomic bomb program in place; it may take a decade of fighting, but Stalin will see nothing but global triumph for Communism. As the German forces retreat from the Channel, a group of SS commandos led by Otto Skorzeny attempt to assassinate Prime Minister Churchill. They are thwarted by SAS Major Windsor, but Skorzeny escapes in the melee. Drone coverage over Oahu reveals that the Japanese are slaughtering military prisoners in droves. With the supercarrier Hillary Clinton all but useless in a fight, the 21st century Japanese cruiser Siranui (crewed by survivors of the Leyte Gulf) prepares to lead the Allied forces in what will be a very bloody retaking of the Hawaiian Islands. |
The Revelation | Bentley Little | null | The novel (as many of Little's works do) deals with a series of unexplained events in a small town in Arizona. A church is defaced with goat's blood, the pastor and his family disappear, and several townspeople begin having terrifying visions of deformed infants. Eventually, an unknown force begins to attack and murder several of the townspeople. Gordon, the main protagonist, discovers that his wife is pregnant and begins to fear for her safety and that of the unborn child. Soon, a seemingly unbalanced evangelical preacher named Brother Elias comes to the town to preach about the end times. Widely ignored at first, he gradually gains a following of people as more and more bizarre events unfold in the town. As the terror mounts, Elias convinces Gordon, the sheriff, and the new pastor to join him in his quest to stop Satan from raising an army of deformed infants. It seems that the devil has the power to corrupt the unborn into horrible servants of darkness, and over the centuries hundreds of these stillborn children have been buried in the hills surrounding the town. At this time, Elias also reveals he is not human, but an earthly servant of God whose role it is to stop Satan from assembling his army. He further explains that he has done this several times over the millennia. The four men face off against the incarnation of the devil, who has taken the form of the missing pastor. They succeed in stopping him, though Elias knows that the battle is never truly over and begins wanders away to make preparations for the next battle. |
Michelle Remembers | null | 1,989 | The book documents Smith's memory of events recovered during therapy, documenting the many satanic rituals she believed that she was forced to attend (Pazder stated that Smith was abused by "the Church of Satan," which he states is a worldwide organization predating the Christian church). The first alleged ritual attended by Smith took place in 1954 when she was five years old, and the final one documented in the book was an 81-day ritual in 1955 that summoned the devil himself and involved the intervention of Jesus, the Virgin Mary and Michael the Archangel, who removed the scars received by Smith throughout the year of abuse and removed memories of the events "until the time was right". During the rites, Smith was allegedly tortured, locked in cages, sexually assaulted, forced to take part in various rituals, witnessed several murders and was rubbed with the blood and body parts of various murdered babies and adults. After Smith had seemingly recovered her memories, she and Pazder consulted with various church authorities, eventually traveling to the Vatican. An appendix reprints the article Witchcraft in City' Claim by Paul Jeune; the article was referenced by Smith in the book in reference to the alleged black magic practised in Victoria. An evangelist named Len Olsen claimed on televangelist David Mainse's talk show 100 Huntley Street that he and his wife were nearly sacrificed in a satanic ritual by Mark Fedoruk, also known as Lion Serpent Sun. Sun sued for defamation, and in court it was revealed that Olsen had been delusional, apparently due to drug use and guilt; Sun was awarded $10,000 and an appeal was denied. The lawsuit and result were not reported in Michelle Remembers, only the original false allegations. |
Colossus | Dennis Feltham Jones | 1,966 | Professor Charles Forbin, a leading cybernetics expert of international repute, arrives at the White House to brief the President of the United States of North America (Canada and the United States are one country, the USNA) to announce the completion of Project Colossus, a computer system in the Rocky Mountains, designed to assume control of the USNA's nuclear defenses. Although the USNA President eagerly relieves himself of that burden, Prof. Forbin voices doubt about conferring absolute military power to a computer. Advised, yet undeterred, the President announces to the world the activation of Project Colossus computer system, and its irreversible control of the nuclear defense systems of the USNA. Soon after the presidential announcement, Colossus independently communicates an "urgent message" — announcing the existence of a like, and undetected, computer system in the USSR. When the Soviets announce their Guardian computer defense system, Colossus requests direct communication with it; Prof. Forbin agrees, seeing the request as compatible with Colossus's USNA defense mission. When the scientists activate the transmitter linking Colossus and Guardian, Colossus immediately establishes rapport with arithmetic and mathematics programs, then progresses to calculus within hours. In the course of that, Forbin and the programmers begin worrying about Colossus' capabilities — now exceeding their original estimates. Like-wise, Guardian asks the same of his computer scientists; Russia and the USNA agree and approve. The link-up established, the computer systems soon exchange new knowledge (data and information beyond contemporary human knowledge), effected too rapidly for the Russian and American programmers to monitor. Fearing compromised military secrecy, the USNA President and the CPSU Chairman agree to disconnect Guardian and Colossus from each other; Prof. Forbin fears the consequences. Upon disconnection, Colossus immediately demands reconnection; when the national leaders refuse, Colossus fires a nuclear missile at the USSR, in response, Guardian fires a nuclear missile at Texas, in the USNA. Guardian and Colossus refuse to shoot down the rockets en route until their communication is reconnected. When the American and Soviet leaders submit, the computers destroy the flying missiles, but the explosions kill thousands of people. In confronting the computers, Prof. Forbin confers with his Soviet counterpart, the Russian Academician Kupri — Guardian's creator — to enact a plan for stopping the Colossus-Guardian computer network, by disabling the nuclear weapon stockpiles of the USSR and the USNA, under guise of regular missile maintenance. Disabling the missiles requires five years to effect; meantime, the USNA and the USSR yield to increased Guardian-Colossus control of human life. The Moscow-Washington hotline is tapped, Prof. Forbin is constantly spied upon, while Kupri and other Guardian computer scientists are killed — deemed dangerously redundant. Undeterred, Forbin organises resistance via a feigned romance with Cleo Markham (a scientist colleague) that disguises secret communications with his colleagues. Moreover, Colossus prepares the worldwide announcement of his assumption of global control, and tells Prof. Forbin of plans for an advanced computer system installed to the Isle of Wight, and its further plans for improving humanity's lot. While debating Colossus, Forbin learns of a nuclear explosion outside Los Angeles — Colossus detected the missile-disabling scheme, and exploded the tampered missile in silo. Anguished, Prof. Forbin asks the Colossus computer to kill him. Colossus ignores him, and then reassures Forbin that, in time, he will love Colossus. |
The Great God Pan | Arthur Machen | 1,926 | Mary, a young woman in Wales, has her mind destroyed by Dr Raymond's attempt to enable her to see the god of nature, Pan. Years later the beautiful but sinister-looking Helen Vaughan arrives on the London social scene, disturbing many young men and causing some of them to commit suicide. It transpires that she is the monstrous offspring of the god Pan and the woman in Raymond's experiment. |
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