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Cat and Mouse | James Patterson | 1,997 | The book begins with Gary Soneji breaking into Alex Cross' home in Washington DC and contemplating the murders of Cross and his family. In London the killer dubbed Mr. Smith by the press is conducting a live autopsy. Mr. Smith explains to his victim what he will be feeling and that he envies his victim. At union station, Soneji opens fire on the crowd with a rifle. Cross and Sampson receive a call from Soneji letting him know where he is. Cross was expecting Kyle Craig, who had faxed Cross a letter asking for help with the Mr. Smith case. When Sampson and Cross get there, four people have already been killed. Cross and Sampson find the rifle and discover that it had been set up on a timer to randomly shoot downward. Soneji was actually on a train headed to New York City. Soneji is at Penn Station in New York City. There, he stabs a man in the back with a big hunting knife he used to kill Roger Graham in Along Came a Spider. Soneji then escapes in a subway. Cross is driving by the school and stops when he sees his girlfriend Christine’s car. When she gets home, they go for a walk, and Christine confesses that she worries about him getting hurt or killed in the line of duty. The two begin to kiss passionately, but are interrupted by Cross' pager. Cross has been called by an NYPD detective, Manning Goldman, who is investigating the Penn Station murder. Goldman is sure that Soneji behind it. Once in New York City, Cross meets with Goldman at Penn Station. A total of three people have been stabbed with a knife laced with poison. The next day Cross takes his cat, Rosie, to Quantico to be examined by the FBI. Cross is afraid that Soneji did something to the cat before giving her to him. He also meets with Kyle, who wants Cross involved in the Mr. Smith case but Alex refuses. Cross agrees to see Agent Thomas Pierce, whose own girlfriend was one of Mr. Smith's victims. Afterwards, Alex checks on Rosie, who had nothing wrong with her. In London, Mr. Smith calls the police a few blocks down telling them where to find Inspector Drew Cabot's body. Thomas Pierce is in London. He works on the Mr. Smith case almost exclusively. He’s trying to figure out the message Mr. Smith is trying to send. Sampson and Cross are in Wilmington, Delaware. They are going to visit Soneji’s wife and daughter. Cross smells decay and sees flies. They find the decapitated body of a Labrador Retriever. They discover that Soneji had decapitated his wife, but spared their daughter. Later, Cross goes to Lorton prison, where Soneji had been kept during Along Came a Spider. Cross was there to meet with a prisoner named Jamal Autry who told Cross that Soneji was raped in prison and contracted AIDS. Cross now understands that Soneji is planning one final rampage before he dies. In New York City, Soneji quietly breaks into Manning Goldman’s house at night, and hits him over the head with a lead pipe. Kyle Craig lends Alex use of the FBI helicopter to make his way to NYC. Cross meets with Goldman’s partner. They make their way to Goldman’s home in Riverdale. In the bedroom there is blood everywhere. The blood was splattered on the bed, the walls, and the floor. This was a brutal attack. Elsewhere in a bar, Soneji pick up a woman and goes with her to her apartment. Alex and the NYPD think Soneji is going after the man that raped him in prison, Shareef Thomas. They find Shareef in Brooklyn inside a crack house. A struggle ensues as they try to arrest Thomas, and Cross shoots and kills him. In Paris, Mr. Smith attacks and kills a young doctor who had just left his girlfriends house. At Bellevue Hospital, Soneji goes to find Thomas, who he believes is in intensive care. Soneji is dressed as a male nurse and wearing another disguise. Soneji goes into the room, only to find Cross and Detective Groza, Goldman’s partner, waiting for him in the room. Soneji is impressed, but prepared, as he throws a small Incendiary bomb at the detectives. Cross and Groza pull the bed on them to shelter themselves from the brunt of the bomb. Soneji makes his way out of the hospital and escapes in a city bus. Cross is afraid that Soneji plans on blowing up the bus. Cross thinks Soneji is trying to reach Grand Central Station, which proves to be correct, when Soneji makes his way out of the bus and runs toward it carrying a baby in his arm. Groza and Cross follow Soneji. They corner Soneji who swears that Cross will pay for everything. Soneji gets away by throwing the baby. The baby is caught but while everyone looks at the baby on the air Soneji makes a run for the tunnels. Groza and Cross pursue Soneji again. Soneji attacks Groza from behind. Alex and Soneji fight. Soneji swears that he'll go after Cross, even if he dies. Cross shoots Soneji in the jaw. The madman falls to the ground, accidentally detonating the other bomb in his pocket, burning him. A few days later, Cross returns home. He spends the entire day with his family. Kyle Craig calls Cross and again asks for help on the Mr. Smith case. Cross says no. Alex's family throws him a party. That night, an unknown assailant attacks Cross and his family, beating them and shooting him; Cross believes that it was Soneji. Agent Thomas Pierce examines the scene and wonders why the kids were left to live. He deduces they were beaten to make a statement but killing them was not the plan. Pierce concludes that Soneji is innocent of the attacks. Pierce examines the room and notices all the blood in the room. Soon he is told Cross has gone into cardiac arrest due to loss of blood. Kyle and Thomas head to St. Anthony’s Hospital. Thomas reminisces about his days in medical school and his girlfriend, Isabella, who was murdered by Mr. Smith. Traumatized, Pierce had given up medicine. Back in Paris, Inspector Rene Faulk investigates the young surgeon's disappearance. After looking and analyzing evidence at Cross's home, Pierce is sure that Soneji was not Cross' attacker. Pierce finds Cross' shield, burned and charred. Sampson and Pierce head to Princeton, New Jersey to examine the area where Soneji was raised. They went to talk with Soneji’s grandfather, Walter Murphy. They dig in the back and find human and animal bones, which had apparently been Soneji's first victims. At the hotel, Pierce gets an e mail from Mr. Smith that he took a young surgeon in Pierce’s honor. Mr. Smith has been contacting Pierce before he commits a murder and challenges Pierce to stop him. Pierce needs to go. Sampson is not happy with it. Mr. Smith named himself after Valentine Michael Smith from the book Stranger in a Strange Land. Mr. Smith does another live autopsy on Abel Sante. On the way to Paris, Pierce reviews notes and tries to determine what kind of a person Mr. Smith really is. Upon reaching Paris and checking into a hotel, Pierce reads his e mail from Mr. Smith and tells him where to find the doctor’s body. Pierce is accompanied by an Interpol agent named Sandy Greenberg. In the email, Mr. Smith tells Pierce not to trust her. Pierce recovers Dr. Sante’s body. His head had been separated from the body and the head had been cut in half. Pierce is at the Cross house. He’s examining Cross' room and is convinced that Soneji had a partner. Pierce takes Sampson with him to Princeton and to meet a childhood friend of Soneji’s, Simon Conklin. Pierce thinks he’s the one that tried to kill Cross, but Conklin has an alibi. After interviewing Conklin, Pierce is not only convinced Conklin did it, but that Soneji had been taking orders from him. Pierce breaks in to Conklin’s house. Pierce can’t find evidence that Conklin tried to kill Alex but after viewing the house is now sure Conklin is the killer. The book resumes going to Alex’s point of view. He is addressing a group of FBI agents at Quantico. It is revealed that the attack had been a hoax, orchestrated by Craig in order to manipulate Pierce, who is none other than Mr. Smith. Pierce had actually killed his girlfriend when he caught her cheating on him with another doctor. The resulting trauma created in Pierce a split personality, with the "Mr. Smith" becoming more and more dominant. The authorities only have circumstantial evidence. The FBI is hoping that being involved in this case will let Pierce go after Conklin and let the FBI catch him in the act. Sara Greenberg tells the agent that Pierce was spotted at all the recent murders. Agents are outside Conklin’s house. Inside, Pierce begins a live autopsy on Conklin, but first is trying to get a confession from Conklin for attacking Dr. Cross. The agents go in, but it’s too late. Conklin is dead and Mr. Smith has escaped. Before dying, Conklin had confessed to trying to kill Cross. Cross offers to go to Boston, Massachusetts to look at Pierce’s apartment. The apartment is full of pictures of Pierce’s dead girlfriend. Cross receives a voicemail from Pierce telling Cross where to find Smith’s next victim. The victim is found but all the organs were removed. Mr. Smith later kills a prostitute. Cross returns home and tries to find a connection. He writes the name of the victim in order and finds the connection. It was in the names. It spelled i-m-u-r-d-e-r-e-d-i-s-a-b-e-l-l-a-c-a-l-a-i-s. (I murdered Isabella Calais). The s in Calais had not been completed. Alex knew the last victim would be Dr. Straw, the man Isabella was having the affair with. The FBI set up another stakeout. Pierce shows up but keeps going in his car. Cross goes after Pierce and go on a high speed chase. The cars eventually go on a side road. Pierce loses Cross for a few minutes. When Cross and Sampson find Pierce’s car, Pierce is gone. Alex knows he wants to complete the puzzle. The S for Smith. Cross returns to Boston. At the apartment Smith had done a self autopsy. Alex tries to stop Pierce from killing himself and the two end up fighting. Sampson shoots Pierce, pointblank. it:Gatto & topo |
The Kingdom of this World | Alejo Carpentier | 1,949 | The prologue to the novel is Carpentier’s most often quoted text, in which he coins the term lo real maravilloso ("marvellous reality") in reference to seemingly miraculous occurrences in Latin America. This is contrasted with the lack of magic and imagination in European folklore. Furthermore, his trip to Haiti in 1943 is recounted, as well as some of the research he did to gather facts for the novel. Carpentier also denounces the commonplace and formulaic instances of the marvellous that is found in surrealist novels due to its inorganic and false origins, as opposed to the natural magic that is found in Latin America. Ti Noel recalls the tales that a fellow slave, Mackandal, would regale on the plantation of their master, Lenormand de Mezy. Mackandal would tell tales of magical characters and mythical kingdoms with rivers rising in the sky. He is said to not only have irresistible qualities that appeal to black women, but also the ability to captivate men. He suffers an accident in which his left hand is caught in machinery, and his arm is dragged in up to the shoulder. Being useless to his owner, he departs for the mountains and discovers many secret herbs, plants, and fungi that appear to have magical qualities. Ti Noel joins Mackandal and both learn about the magical attributes of these natural elements. Mackandal suggests that the time has come, and no longer goes to the plantation. After the rain season has passed, Ti Noel meets with him in a cave populated with strange items. Mackandal has established contact with surrounding plantations, and gives instructions to ensure the death of cows using secret herbs. The poison spreads, killing livestock by the hundreds as well as Frenchmen, wiping out adults and children. Madame Lenormand de Mezy dies as a result, and the deaths continue with entire families suffering the same fate. At gunpoint, a slave eventually explains that Mackandal has superhuman powers and is the Lord of Poison. Death within the plantations returns to normal rates as a result and the Frenchmen return to playing cards and drinking, as months pass with no word of Mackandal. Mackandal, now with the ability to transform into animal forms, like bird, fish, or insect, visits the plantation to affirm faith in his return. The slaves decide to wait four years for Mackandal to complete his metamorphoses and once again become a human, with testicles like rocks. After four years, he returns during a celebration and all present are delighted. The chanting alerts the white men, and preparations are made to capture Mackandal. He is captured and tied to a post in order to be lashed and burned in front of massive black crowds, but he escapes, flying overhead, and lands among the crowd. He is again captured and burned, but the slaves are certain that he has been saved by African Gods and return to their plantations, laughing. Lenormand de Mezy's second wife has died and the city has made remarkable progress. Henri Christophe is a master chef. Twenty years have gone by and Ti Noel has fathered twelve children by one of the cooks. He has told these children many stories of Mackandal and they await his return. A secret gathering of trusted slaves takes place: Bouckman, the Jamaican, speaks of possible freedom for the blacks emerging in France and also mentions the opposition from the plantation landowners. An uprising is planned; as a result of this meeting, conch-shell trumpets sound and slaves, armed with sticks, surround the houses of their masters. Upon hearing the conch-shells Lenormand de Mezy is frightened and manages to hide. The slaves kill the white men and drink much alcohol. Ti Noel, after drinking, rapes Mademoiselle Floridor, who is Lenormand de Mezy's latest mistress. The uprising is defeated and Bouckman is killed. Lenormand de Mezy arrives in time to spare Ti Noel and other slaves, but there remains talk of complete extermination as the black slaves pose a threat with their voodoo and secret religion. Lenormand de Mezy takes Ti Noel and other slaves to Cuba, where he becomes lazy, conducts no business, enjoys the women, drinks alcohol, and gambles away his slaves. Pauline Bonaparte accompanies Leclerc, her army general husband, to Haiti. On the way there, she enjoys sexually tempting the men on the ship. Solimán, a black slave, massages her body and lavishes loving care on her beauty. Leclerc develops yellow fever, and Pauline trusts in the voodoo and magic of Solimán to cure him. Leclerc dies, and Pauline returns to Paris while the Rochambeau government treats the blacks very poorly. However, there is the emergence of black priests who allow the slaves to conduct more business internally. Ti Noel has been won in a card game by a plantation owner based in Santiago, and Lenormand de Mezy dies in abject poverty shortly afterwards. Ti Noel saves enough money to buy his passage, and as a free man, he discovers a free Haiti. Now much older, he realizes that he has returned to the former plantation of Lenormand de Mezy. Haiti has undergone great development, and the land has come under the control of the black man. Ti Noel is abruptly thrown into prison and once again made to work as a slave among children, pregnant girls, women, and old men. Henri Christophe, formerly a cook and now king due to the black uprising, is using slaves to construct lavish statues, figures, and a magnificent fortress. Ti Noel considers slavery under a fellow black man worse than that endured at the hands of Lenormand de Mezy. In times past, the loss of a slave would be a financial loss, but as long as there are black women to continue supplying slaves, their deaths are insignificant. Ti Noel escapes and returns to the former plantation of Lenormand de Mezy, where he remains for some time, and later returns to the city to find it gripped by fear of Henri Christophe's regime. King Christophe is tormented by thunder strikes and ghosts of formerly tortured subjects, and eventually he and Sans-Souci Palace are overrun by the blacks and by voodoo. Left alone, he commits suicide and his body is taken by the remaining African pages to the magnificent fortress where they bury him in a pile of mortar. The entire mountain becomes the mausoleum of the first King of Haiti. Henri Christophe's widow and children are taken to Europe by English merchants, who used to supply the royal family. Solimán accompanies them and enjoys the summers in Rome, where he is treated well and tells embellished tales of his past. He encounters a statue of Pauline whose form brings back memories, and sends him into a howl, causing the room to be rushed. He is reminded of the night of Henri Christophe's demise and flees before succumbing to malaria. Ti Noel recalls things told by Mackandal, and the former plantation of Lenormand de Mezy has become a happy place, with Ti Noel presiding over celebrations and festivities. Surveyors disrupt the peace at the plantation, and mulattoes have risen to power; they force hundreds of black prisoners to work by whiplash, and many have lost hope as the cycle of slavery continues. Ti Noel, thinking of Mackandal, decides to transform into various animals to observe the ongoing events; he metamorphoses into a bird, a stallion, a wasp, and then an ant. He eventually becomes a goose, but is rejected by the clan of geese. He understands that being a goose does not imply that all geese are equal, so he returns to human form. The book concludes with the end of Ti Noel's life, and his own self-reflection upon greatness and The Kingdom of This World. |
Conan the Liberator | Lin Carter | null | Following the events of the story "The Treasure of Tranicos", Conan joins a conspiracy of former comrades-in-arms to overthrow Numedides, the mad and tyrannical king of Aquilonia. As commander of the rebel forces, he has the prospect of becoming king himself if they succeed, but he has not only Numedides' loyal troops, led by General Procas, to overcome, but the spells of the evil sorcerer Thulandra Thuu. Chronologically, Conan the Liberator overlaps the events of the story "Wolves Beyond the Border", and is followed by the story "The Phoenix on the Sword". |
Things as They Are or The Adventures of Caleb Williams | William Godwin | null | Caleb Williams, a poor, self-educated, orphaned young man, and the novel's first-person narrator, is recommended a job on the estate of the wealthy Ferdinando Falkland. Although Falkland is generally a reserved and quiet master, he also has sudden fits of rage. Concerned about his outbursts, Caleb asks Mr Collins, administrator of Falkland's estate, if he knows the cause of Falkland's odd temper. Collins proceeds to tell of Falkland’s past, citing Falkland’s long history of stressing reason over bloodshed. Falkland’s neighbour, Barnabas Tyrrel, was a tyrannical master who oppressed and manipulated his tenants. Tyrrel became the enemy and competitor of Falkland, who was loved for his brave and generous demeanor. Falkland continually righted the many wrongs Tyrrel caused members of his household and his neighbors, which only elevated the community's respect and esteem for Falkland. The conflict between the two men came to a head when, at the funeral services for Emily Melvile—Tyrrel's niece whom he had unfairly arrested out of his jealousy of her admiration for Falkland—Tyrrel physically attacked Falkland. Tyrell himself was found murdered shortly afterward. Although immediately considered a suspect for Tyrrel's murder, Falkland defended himself on the basis of his stainless reputation. Instead, two tenants of Tyrell were found with incriminating evidence, convicted of the murder, and both hanged. Falkland’s emotional state, Mr Collins explains, has been wavering ever since. The account of Falkland’s early life intrigues Caleb, though he still finds the aristocrat's strange behaviours suspicious. Caleb obsessively researches aspects of the Tyrrel murder case for some time and his doubts gradually increase. He convinces himself that Falkland is secretly guilty of the murder. When Caleb’s distrust is exposed, Falkland finally admits that he is the murderer of Tyrrel, but forces Caleb to be silent about the issue under penalty of death. Caleb, however, flees the estate, but is later convinced to return to defend himself with the promise that, if he can do so effectively in court, he will be freed. Falkland’s half-brother oversees a fraudulent trial of the two and, eventually, sides with Falkland, having Caleb arrested. The anguish of a life in prison is documented through Caleb and other wretched inmates. Eventually, a servant of Falkland supplies Caleb with tools he can use to escape, which he successfully does, venturing into the wild. Caleb must now live a life evading Falkland's attempts to recapture and silence him. In the wilderness, Caleb is robbed by a band of criminals, physically attacked by one in particular, and then rescued by a different man who takes him to the headquarters of this same group of thieves. Caleb’s saviour turns out to be the Captain of these thieves. The Captain accepts Caleb and promptly banishes Caleb’s attacker, a man called Jones (or Gines in some editions), from the group. Caleb and the Captain later debate the morality of being a thief and living outside the oppressive restrictions of the law. Shortly afterward, a sympathiser of Jones tries to kill Caleb and then compromises his whereabouts to the authorities, forcing Caleb to flee once more. As he is boarding a ship to Ireland, Caleb is confused for another criminal and again arrested. He bribes his freedom from his captors, before they discover that he is in fact wanted after all. While Caleb makes a living by publishing stories about notorious criminals, the vengeful Jones subsequently puts out a reward for Caleb’s capture and keeps Caleb’s movements under surveillance. Ultimately betrayed by a neighbour, Caleb is taken to court; however, Caleb’s accusers do not show up and he is abruptly released only to be immediately ensnared by Jones and sent to confront Falkland, face to face. Falkland, now aged, gaunt, and frail, claims that he deliberately did not show up in court, so that he could persuade Caleb to put in writing that his accusations are unfounded. However, Caleb refuses to lie for Falkland, and Falkland threatens him, but lets him go. Falkland later sends the impoverished Caleb money to try to further persuade him. Next, Caleb attempts to make a living in Wales, but must move around frequently as Jones continues to track him. When Caleb finally decides to travel to Holland, Jones confronts him and reveals to him the true scope of Falkland’s tyrannical power, warning Caleb that he will be murdered or caught and executed if he attempts to leave the country. At last, Caleb convinces a magistrate to summon Falkland to court so that he can make his accusations public and reveal Falkland’s guilt once and for all. Before an emotional court, Caleb vindicates himself and makes his accusations of Falkland; however, he reveals his sadness at having become part of the same vicious mindset as Falkland that forces people into groups competing for power. Ultimately, Caleb finds a universality among all humans, whether the oppressor or the oppressed, finding humanity even in Falkland. He even voices his admiration and respect for many of Falkland's positive qualities, including his ideals. The two forgive each other and it is noted that Falkland soon dies thereafter. Despite his noble pursuit of justice, though, Caleb is not contented, but rather, feels his success is hollow and himself responsible for Falkland's death. Caleb concludes with an explanation that the point of the book is merely to straighten out the details of Falkland's turbulent history, rather than to condemn the man. The original and more controversial manuscript ending was not officially published, though is often included as an alternate ending in many current editions of the novel. In this version, Falkland argues in court that Caleb's agenda is merely revenge. Caleb responds, claiming himself to be a voice of justice and offering to gather witnesses against Falkland, but the magistrate suddenly silences him and denies his offer, calling Caleb insolent and his accusations ludicrous. With some pages missing, the story jumps to the final scene of Caleb imprisoned some time later, with none other than Jones as his warden. Caleb’s narration now seems erratic and disorganised, implying that he has gone mad. Caleb has been told that Falkland has died recently, but he does not seem to remember who Falkland is. In his delirium, Caleb concludes that true happiness lies in being like a gravestone that reads, “Here lies what was once a man.” |
Baksho Rahashya | null | null | Feluda is approached by an established businessman, Mr. Dinanath Lahiri, claiming to have mistakenly swapped his suitcase (Bengali: baksho) in a train with one belonging to one of his co-passengers and asks Feluda to return it. This apparently simple problem takes Feluda, Topshe and Lalmohan babu to Shimla, and into a realm of deceit and mystery (Bengali: rahashya) involving a long forgotten diamond and an old priceless manuscript titled A Bengalee in Lamaland, written by Shambhu Charan Bose. The other major characters in the story are Dinanath Lahiri, a rich kindhearted businessman, his nephew, Prabeer Lahiri, a struggling actor obsessed with his own voice and Mr. Lahiri's co-passengers on the train- Mr.Naresh Pakrashi, Mr. Brijmohan Kedia and Mr.G. C. Dhameeja,who is also of some importance. The story is enriched with Feluda's extreme detection capability and another breathtaking adventure. On the way Feluda and the gang face many challenges, but at the end of the story Feluda gets much desired success, and the villain is trapped. Like many other Feluda stories, Jatayu brings the exquisite comic relief in the story and the story becomes enjoyable to everyone. |
First Test | Tamora Pierce | 1,999 | The first Protector of the Small book tells of Kel's fight to become an accepted and equally-treated first-year page. Pierce places Kel in a position that many women currently find themselves in: whilst the laws may have been changed to favour gender equality, the reality of entering into a traditionally male domain presents many hurdles. Kel is accepted into the royal page program, however is placed on probation for the first year. She is forced to deal with hazing from her all-male peers, including derogatory writing on her walls, the destruction of her belongings and discrimination from the training master. This is in addition to Kel being the first female to openly try to become a knight within the century. Throughout the novel, there is the ever-lurking question of whether the training master will let her continue to train, because he, like many, does not believe that women can equal men in combat. While all this is going on and it is almost enough to make Kel leave, a secret benefactor encourages her with gifts. When Kel is getting ready for her first day of training, she receives an unexpected gift of a new dagger and a whetstone for sharpening of incredibly high quality, which, at that time, were unaffordable except by people who were one of the higher classes. At midwinter feast time, she also receives a powerful bruise balm from a mysterious gift-giver. In this book Keladry of Mindelan, known as Kel, faces a tough year ahead to become a page when Lord Wyldon has put her on probation. This book is about a girl who finds a way to cope with being in probation and trying to accept herself and push herself so Lord Wyldon will approve. Keladry hates bullies, and after realizing that Joren of Stone Mountain and his friends were bullying first year pages, defied tradition and started patrolling the halls, fighting the boys whenever she found them hurting others. Nealan, (Neal), one of the oldest page in the history of pages, becomes her best friend as well as her sponsor, and the other first-year pages gradually accept her as she defends them from the bullies. |
Conan the Barbarian | Catherine Crook de Camp | null | The book retells the story of the hero's youth, in a version quite different from the account established in previous tales by Howard, de Camp and Carter. Conan is the son of a blacksmith in barbaric Cimmeria, learning "the riddle of steel" from his father as the latter forges a sword. His village is massacred by the cultic followers of Thulsa Doom, an evil sorcerer, and Conan himself enslaved. Set with others to push a millstone, he develops prodigious strength over the years, ultimately pushing it all by himself. As an adult he wins his freedom and embarks on a life of adventure, ultimately wreaking his vengeance on the fiendish Doom with his father's sword. |
The Sands of Time | Michael Hoeye | 2,001 | Mild-mannered watchmaker Hermux Tantamoq is up to his ears in trouble again. All of Pinchester is talking about his friend Mirrin Stentrill's paintings, which are monumental portraits of cats! After all, cats are not a popular topic in a city of rodents — and everyone knows they never really existed. Then a mysterious old chipmunk appears in Hermux's shop with what he claims is a map of the royal library of a prehistoric kingdom of cats. Before long Hermux is hot on a trail of treachery and deceit, leading all the way from Pinchester to an ancient tomb that lies buried in... The Sands of Time! |
No Time Like Show Time | Michael Hoeye | 2,004 | Hermux is back in Pinchester after his adventures in the desert, trying to return to his normal life as a watchmaker. He receives a mysterious invitation to the Varmint Variety Theater from the impresario, Fluster Varmint. Fluster is being blackmailed and needs Hermux's help to save his theatre. But show business is a whole new world of weirdness for our modest hero. Hermux ends up saving the show and finding out who black mailed Fluster. |
What Is To Be Done? | Nikolai Chernyshevsky | 1,863 | Within the framework of a story of a privileged couple who decide to work for the revolution, and ruthlessly subordinate everything in their lives to the cause, the work furnished a blueprint for the asceticism and dedication unto death which became an ideal of the early socialist underground of the Russian Empire. |
Death Match: A Novel | Lincoln Child | 2,004 | Every once in a rare while, the most perfect of 'perfect' matches ('supercouples, of 100% compatibility) is located. Then tragedy suddenly strikes. One of the "supercouples" is found dead in their Arizona home, an "unquestionable" double suicide. Child's analysis of the topic proves a useful tool to opine on the topics of psychology, relationships, cutting-edge computer technology and artificial intelligence. |
Throne of Jade | Naomi Novik | 2,006 | After defeating Napoleon's forces at the battle of Dover, Laurence and Temeraire are confronted by envoys from Imperial China, including Prince Yongxing, brother of the Jiaqing Emperor. The Chinese are eager to get their rare Celestial dragon back from the British. Celestials are only allowed to accompany royalty—Temeraire was intended for Napoleon, Emperor of the French—and Laurence, a mere commoner, is deemed unworthy of Temeraire by the Chinese. After several failed attempts to convince Laurence and the Royal Aerial Corps to return Temeraire to China, the Chinese and the British agree to have Temeraire and his flight crew — including Laurence — accompany the Imperial envoys back to China. As the land routes are deemed unsafe, the Navy has a dragon transport, HMS Allegiance, captained by Laurence's former second officer Tom Riley, ferry the Celestial and his crew on a voyage to China. During the voyage, attempts are made on the life of Laurence in order to remove him from Temeraire. In addition, political machinations on the part of the British, French, and Chinese are discovered that threaten the position of Britain in the East, as well as the stability of the Chinese throne. Finally, Laurence has ongoing difficulties with both Captain Riley, a staunch supporter of the slave trade (Laurence himself descends from known abolitionists) and the diplomat Arthur Hammond, sent along to smooth the operation. During the sea voyage, Temeraire catches a respiratory illness from Volatilus, a slow-minded though sweet-natured Winchester serving in the courier corps who visits the Allegiance with dispatches. By use of a posset made using an extremely smelly mushroom, the cooks of the Chinese delegation are able to restore Temeraire to health. This event, though seemingly unimportant at the moment, shapes the next two novels of the series. After their arrival in China, Temeraire gets to meet his family, including his mother, and sees the greatly improved conditions of dragonkind in China: Chinese dragons are citizens in their own right and, amongst other things, may take the Confucian civil service exam. He also begins courting an Imperial dragon named Mei. Laurence, meanwhile, suffers more direct attempts on his life, including confrontations with Yongxing and his companion, the albino Celestial Lien. Hammond is able to deduce that Yongxing has designs on Prince Mianning, the heir-apparent whose dragon is Temeraire's twin brother, and that Temeraire was sent to France not because the Chinese esteem Napoleon but so that Temeraire himself could not be used to complicate the line of succession. Thus, his presence is necessary to lend legitimacy to any puppet king Yongxing intends to set upon the throne. At a theatre production in the British delegation's honor, Yongxing attempts to put his plans in motion, but is prevented by the actions of Temeraire and Laurence, and is himself killed in the ensuing scuffle. As a result, the Emperor of China himself adopts Laurence as an honorary son, at a stroke resolving the issues with Laurence's social status and easing relations with Britain. Temeraire, after much deliberation, decides to return to Britain, partially out of love for Laurence and partially to attempt to bring the greater civil liberties of China back to the commonwealth. |
The Brothers K | David James Duncan | 1,992 | Papa Chance is a former pitcher who has settled down with his wife in the mill town of Camas, Washington. They have six children. Everett Chance, the eldest, is a natural politician and powerful speaker whose passionate opposition to the Vietnam war creates much of the family tension in the book. He spends much time and effort pursuing a young Russian literature student named Natasha and finally wins her heart from draft exile in British Columbia by sending her an epic letter/novel. Everett does not have great natural athletic gifts but is a scrappy competitor. Second oldest, Peter Chance, is the intellectual brother who will study at Harvard and then in India. Though a natural athlete, Peter spends most of the book having renounced gifts of the body in his dogged pursuit of spiritual growth. After being kidnapped by con artists on an Indian train he finds enlightenment and he returns to the family in their hour of need. Kincaid Chance, the youngest brother, narrates the book yet is the member of the family we finally learn the least about. He has little or no athletic ability and serves as a mirror to reflect for us the colorful personalities that surround him. Irwin Chance, the third son, is a strapping athletic prodigy and beautiful soul. He is naturally enlightened, much in the vein of Alyosha Karamazov, and deeply religious. Yet, after conflicts with the Seventh-day Adventists in Camas, Irwin's conscientious objector status is denied and he is sent to Vietnam. After witnessing an incident where his commanding officer mistreats a Vietnamese prisoner, Irwin has a mental breakdown and is committed to an Army mental institution in California. The family, suffering from the great divisions of the 1960s and Vietnam, pulls together to travel to California and bring Irwin home. The youngest children are twins, Beatrice and Winifred (Bet and Freddy). Much like Kincaid, they reflect their brothers and yet make important contributions to the family and the novel. |
The Glory That Was | L. Sprague de Camp | null | Twenty-seventh century Earth is united by a worldwide democratic government presided over by a constitutional monarch, though the former is veering toward totalitarianism and the latter is a megalomaniac. To neutralize the World Emperor the power-hungry prime minister has ceded to him control of Greece for use in a mysterious secret project. Now Greece is surrounded by a force field cutting it off from the rest of the world, and people of Greek descent everywhere have vanished, presumably spirited away to the isolated region by the Emperor's agents. One such kidnapped citizen is Thalia, wife of classical scholar Wiyem Flin. Anxious to get her back, he recruits his friend, magazine editor Knut Bulnes, into a desperate attempt to penetrate the force barrier. Bulnes, hoping to obtain an exclusive story on the Emperor's mysterious project, agrees. The two succeed, sailing a boat through the barrier when it is temporarily disrupted by a storm. Inside the force field, Flin and Bulnes are astounded to find themselves not in 27th century Greece at all, but to all appearances the Classical Greece of Pericles and the Peloponnesian War. Pretending to be foreign philosophers, they establish themselves in Athens as they attempt to unravel the mystery, and begin to discover that all is not as it seems; the wife of the playwright Euripides, for instance, is a dead ringer for Thalia, though if she is Thalia she has no memory of her life with Flin, nor does she recognize him. But the true shock is when Pericles, the leading citizen of Athens, turns out to be the Emperor! Somehow, the two outsiders must uncover what he has done to Greece and how, thwart his insane scheme, and unmask the conspiracy that threatens to turn Greece back three thousand years and the rest of the world into a police state. Not to mention their original object of recovering Thalia! |
Page | Tamora Pierce | 2,000 | Kel has been allowed to continue her training to be a knight. While she has been allowed to continue by Wyldon of Cavall, her stiff, old-fashioned training master, she's still not accepted by many of the male pages. Though she and her friends Neal, Merric, Cleon, and Owen continue to fight the hazing of the first years, the others appear to have lost interest. Kel wonders if she is the only one who really cares. Meanwhile, Joren of Stone Mountain, once Kel's self-acclaimed archenemy, appears to have drastically changed. Ever since he became a squire, he has been civil, almost friendly to Kel and her friends. She does not trust this apparent change of heart at first, but as the years pass, she begins to think that she has nothing to worry about from him. At the beginning of the book, Kel hires a maidservant. Lalasa is the niece of one of the palace servants and her uncle begs Kel to take her. He claims that Lalasa has been treated badly by some people and that she will be left alone if she has a proper mistress. With some trepidation, Kel accepts and hires Lalasa. On the very first day of training, Kel also adopts a ragtag dog who calls himself Jump. Through Daine, the Wildmage, Jump communicates that he wants to stay with Kel. Even though she does her best to leave him with Daine, he always manages to return. After Kel has fought her way through all the training, survived all the ordeals, she is finally allowed to take the 'Big Examinations,' the test given to all fourth-year pages to allow them to train to be squires. During the course of the book, Kel develops a crush on Neal, which he does not return. It also seems that Cleon has feelings for her, and shows them on one occasion. |
Alexandr v tramvaji | Pavel Řezníček | null | The story presents many characters, including Madame Tussaud who wishes to gain weight in order to bring the police presidium to crumble down into hell, Alexander's portagé, Primář Karlach, the evil philosopher-doctor, who was deposed from his hospital and has returned; Countess Willma, a wealthy countess from a somewhat surrealist estate (e.g. the furniture in the upper floor has been burning for 200 years and there are strange things, like cigarettes in the sky) and a whole ensemble of wax dummies of historical people. As Řezníček uses his traditional style of writing, it is nearly impossible to follow the line of events, because he often interrupts the descriptions of situations with intermezzos, such as (from another work) "a women is spinache" ("žena je špenát") around which numerous later sentences are based, showing what something is and what something else is not (this line is also special in his work, as un-traditionally it is referred and debated on the following pages as well, unlike his classic form of showing many such proclamations upon another). These types of sentences are often illogical and often they fail to actually have a point, therefore much of them are just plain descriptions (in the style of "Man on the ground" only expanded with numerous other words). The events of this book lead through various unconnected situations up to Řezníčeks classic ending, in which all the characters are brought into one place and taken care of (another such ending was in his book Strop, in which all the characters, one by one were brought into the "swamps for blind", where they stayed), this time before a tribunal from which they escape. Another part of Řezníček's writing is the usage of himself in his novels, describing himself in the first, but also in the third person ("Řežníček, ten ......ďábel", "Řezníček that......devil...."). He frequently breaks the fourth wall by insulting the readers or the book or supremely praising them (both may occur in the same book). |
Diamonds Are Forever | Ian Fleming | 1,956 | British Secret Service agent James Bond, 007 is sent on an assignment by his superior, M. Acting on information received from Special Branch, M tasks Bond with infiltrating a smuggling ring running diamonds from mines in Sierra Leone to the United States. Bond must travel as far as possible down the pipeline to uncover those responsible. Using the identity of Peter Franks, a country house burglar turned diamond smuggler, he meets Tiffany Case, an attractive go-between who developed an antipathy towards men after being gang-raped as a teenager. Bond discovers that the smuggling ring is operated by "The Spangled Mob", a ruthless American gang run by the brothers Jack and Seraffimo Spang. Bond follows the pipeline from London to New York, where he is instructed by Shady Tree to earn his fee through betting on a rigged horse race in nearby Saratoga. At Saratoga Bond meets Felix Leiter, a former CIA agent working at Pinkertons as a private detective investigating crooked horse racing. Leiter bribes the jockey to ensure the failure of the plot to rig the race. When Bond goes to pay the bribe, he witnesses two homosexual thugs, Wint and Kidd, attack the jockey. Bond calls Shady Tree to enquire further about the payment of his fee and is told to go to the Tiara Hotel in Las Vegas. The Tiara is owned by Seraffimo Spang and operates as the headquarters of the Spangled Mob. Spang also owns an old Western ghost town, named "Spectreville", restored to be his own private vacation retreat. At the hotel, Bond finally receives payment through a rigged blackjack game where the dealer is Tiffany Case. However, he disobeys his orders by continuing to gamble in the casino after "winning" the money he is owed. Spang suspects that Bond may be a 'plant' and has him captured and tortured. However, with Tiffany's help he escapes from Spectreville aboard a railway push-car with Seraffimo Spang in pursuit aboard an old Western train. Bond re-routs the train to a side line and shoots Spang before the resulting crash. Assisted by Leiter, Bond and Case go via California to New York, where they board the Queen Elizabeth to travel to London. However, Wint and Kidd observe their embarkation and followed them on board. They kidnap Case, planning to kill her and throw her overboard. Bond rescues her and kills both gangsters; for precaution, he makes it look like a murder-suicide. Case subsequently informs Bond of the details of the pipeline. It begins in Africa where a dentist would pay miners to smuggle diamonds in their mouths which he would extract during a routine appointment. From there the dentist would take the diamonds and rendezvous with a German helicopter pilot. Eventually the diamonds would go to Paris, and from there to London. There, after telephone instructions from a contact known as ABC, Case would then meet a person to explain how to smuggle the diamonds to New York City. After returning to London, Bond flies on to Freetown in Sierra Leone and then to where the next diamond rendezvous takes place. With the collapse of the rest of the pipeline, Jack Spang (who turns out to be the mysterious ABC) shuts down his diamond smuggling pipeline by killing its participants. Spang himself is killed when Bond shoots down his helicopter. |
Street Magic | Tamora Pierce | 2,001 | While Briar and his teacher Rosethorn are helping the locals in Chammur, Briar realizes that all is not as it should be in Chammur's streets. As a former 'street rat' himself, he tends to have an interest in the affairs of local gangs. He discovers a gang known as the Vipers roaming through territory not their own. After further investigation, Briar discovers that the Vipers are the pet gang of a local Noblewoman. While Briar investigates the Vipers, he discovers Evvy, a local girl with stone magic. At first, she runs away from him, but she gradually learns to trust him. When Evvy singularly refuses to study with local stone mage Jebilu Stoneslicer, Briar takes her training in hand himself. The Vipers attempt to kidnap her many times, so Lady Zenadia doa Atteneh can use Evvy's powers as a stone mage to further increase her riches. When they finally kidnap her, Briar comes to her rescue. |
The Turkish Gambit | Boris Akunin | 1,998 | The novel opens with a young Russian woman of "progressive" sympathies, Varvara Suvorova, traveling to meet her fiancé Pyotr Yablokov, who has volunteered to fight in the war. Her guide steals all her luggage and disappears as she approaches the war zone, but she is rescued by Erast Fandorin, who has been fighting as a volunteer to forget his tragedy. He accompanies her to Russian army headquarters to which he's bringing an important message. Upon arrival, Varvara is reunited with Pyotr, and Fandorin delivers his message: the Turkish army is advancing towards the Bulgarian town of Plevna, which sits on the road to Sofia and must be taken so the Russian army can easily advance through Bulgaria and into Turkey. Varvara sees little of her fiance, who is busy with his duties as an army cryptographer, so she spends her time at the correspondents' club, where she meets various interesting characters: Irish reporter Seamus McLaughlin, French reporter Charles Paladin, Romanian liaison Colonel Lukan (unlike Bromfield's English translation, some others use proper Romanian spelling "Lucan"), Russian hussar officer Count Zurov (Fandorin's old friend from The Winter Queen), and the charismatic General Sobolev (based on the real-life Mikhail Skobelev). Fandorin is informed that a Turkish agent, Anwar Effendi, is conducting an intelligence operation against the Russian army and might even have penetrated Russian headquarters. This is confirmed when the telegram directing the Russian army to take Plevna is mysteriously changed to an order to take Nikopol, a strategically irrelevant town. Varvara's fiance Pyotr, who encoded the telegram, is jailed on suspicion of treason. Fandorin is charged with finding Anwar and uncovering the Turkish plot. Because of the diversion of the Russian army to Nikopol, Turkish troops arrive in Plevna first. The French reporter, Paladin, sneaks into the Turkish camp and determines that only a small number of troops are in the town. Based on this information, the Russians attack Plevna, only to be bloodily repulsed because Paladin's data were incorrect and the Turks are there in strength. The Russian army settles in for a siege. The Russians' first attempt to break the siege of Plevna ends in defeat when the Turks, who somehow have advance knowledge of the Russian attack plan, concentrate their artillery on the Russian formations before the Russians have a chance to move forward. Fandorin immediately suspects Colonel Lukan, who predicted to Varvara that the attack would fail. He asks Varvara to follow Lukan back to Bucharest and investigate him, but that effort ends when Paladin kills Lukan in a duel over Varvara's honor. Investigation of his possessions shows that he was indeed taking money from a mysterious J. In the following attempt to storm Plevna, Sobolev leads his troops in an attack that breaks through Plevna's defenses and actually enters the city, but he is unable to advance further due to insufficient strength. He sends several messengers to headquarters to request reinforcements, but all are killed in the fray. In the end, Count Zurov breaks through to the Russian side, but after meeting the journalists at their observation outpost disappears on his way to the headquarters and Sobolev, out of ammunition, is forced to withdraw. Later, a search party finds Zurov murdered on the battlefield, apparently stabbed by gendarme colonel Kazanzaki, whom dying Zurov managed to shoot. Pyotr unsuccessfully tries to hang himself, feeling responsibility for the carnage and defeat as he left the telegram unguarded when he went to welcome Varya and then sent it without checking; for the spy, knowing the not too strong Russian cipher, it was easy to replace it. Three attempts to storm Plevna having failed, the Russian and Romanian armies besiege the city. By December, the Turks inside Plevna are starving. Varvara, on her way back from the hospital where she had been sent due to a case of typhus, encounters McLaughlin the Irish reporter, who informs her that he has been tipped off that the Turks will surrender that night in a distant sector. She tells Fandorin, who guesses correctly that the Turks are not surrendering but trying to confuse the Russian army so they can stage a breakout. Thanks to his last-minute warning to Sobolev, the Russians manage to repel the attack after a fierce fight, the Turks in Plevna surrender, and McLaughlin, who has disappeared, is assumed to be the spy. Fandorin is dispatched to London to track down McLaughlin. Varvara, less and less enthusiastic about her fiance and more and more intrigued by the dashing general Sobolev, accompanies the army as it advances through Bulgaria to Adrianople. Shortly thereafter, the Turks sue for peace, and negotiations commence. At the train station, where Sobolev has his headquarters, Paladin suggests that they ride the train into San Stefano, the undefended western suburb of Constantinople. Sobolev agrees, and he, Paladin, Varvara, and his entourage all ride in to San Stefano accompanied by one Russian battalion. They set up headquarters in a bank building, and Paladin has convinced General Sobolev to advance into Constantinople when Fandorin suddenly appears and unmasks "Charles Paladin", the French journalist, as Anwar Effendi, the master Turkish spy. Fandorin recounts his investigation and notes how nobody at Paladin's newspaper had ever seen him and how Paladin's stories for years had been filed from cities where Anwar was known to be. His earliest byline "Paladin d'Hevrais" is a reference to Anwar's birthplace Hef-rais in Bosnia. (In the Russian original, the name is Charles d'Hevrais, Paladin being Bromfield's change.) Fandorin points out that it was Paladin who had distracted Peter Yablokov from encrypting the order to attack Plevna by telling him Varvara had arrived, thus gaining the opportunity to change the text from "Plevna" to "Nikopol". Paladin/Anwar admits his identity, but then draws a gun and drags Varvara as a hostage into the bank's vault. Inside the vault, Anwar tells Varvara that after Sobolev entering Constantinople, the British fleet off the coast would open fire and Western powers would have declared war to Russia, bringing ruin to it. Even so, a Turkish regiment is advancing into San Stefano, originally planned to strike at Sobolev's rear. In the meantime, Anwar explains to Varvara that everything he has been doing is in the name of his ideals. His purpose is to defend the development of human rights, reason, tolerance and non-violent progress in the Western world against the expansion of the despotic and barbaric Russian empire. His fatherland Turkey, which he deeply loves, is nevertheless the chess piece that he has planned to sacrifice or at least risk in his gambit in order to achieve a greater purpose - namely, to "protect humanity from the Russian threat". Varvara angrily objects to Anwar's condemnation of Russia, stating that it has great literature as exemplified in Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. Anwar counters that Russian literature is pretty good, but in general literature is a toy and can't be very important. He remarks that despite the absence of great literature in Switzerland, life there is much more dignified than in Russia. By the time their conversation has ended, it becomes clear that the Turkish attack has been driven off by Sobolev's soldiers, and Anwar, realizing that he is now trapped, lets Varvara out of the vault and kills himself. In March, the Russians, Romanians and Turks sign the Treaty of San Stefano, ending the war. Varvara and Pyotr board the train back to Russia, and Fandorin is there to say goodbye before he leaves by ship for a diplomatic post in Japan – farthest possible from home, the only thing he asked when offered a reward. Varvara congratulates him for defeating Anwar, but Fandorin replies that Anwar did achieve his long-term goals: the peace treaty is too generous, and the other powers of Europe will force Russia to settle for less, leaving Russia weakened and impoverished with little to show for the war. Fandorin tries to say goodbye to Varvara but he cannot get the words out, and it is clear that they both have deep feelings for each other. Varvara takes his hand but says nothing, and boards the train, crying as she watches Fandorin while the train pulls away. The novel ends with a newspaper article proving Fandorin right; the European powers object to the treaty and will meet to agree on a new settlement much less favorable to Russia. |
3rd Degree | Andrew Gross | 2,004 | In this installment after a house with a family home blows up and Lindsay rushes in to save whoever may have survived the blast, a group of killers known as August Spies vow to kill every three days. They target various political figures time and time again. Lindsay Boxer, with the San Francisco PD, Claire Washburn, the Medical Examiner, Cindy Thomas, a Chronicle Reporter who recently broke-up with her pastor boyfriend from the previous novel, and Jill Bernhardt an Assistant District Attorney who is revealed to have been a victim of spousal abuse for a while, dive into the case. The case takes a deadly turn when Jill is murdered. Oddly enough this actually leads the remaining three ladies to find a tie-in to a case that Jill's father prosecuted and to a cover up years old that has launched this terrorist action. Lindsay resolves the case in typical fashion by bringing in the college professor that caused it all. She had previously decided to make a go of a relationship with her FBI laison Joe Molinari when he is introduced in the middle of the book. He is Deputy Director of Homeland Securtiy. He ends up getting a call from the vice president while on a date with Lindsay. Lindsay and Joe have a date while traveling on the case, which ends up being mocked by her former partner (Warren J) while at work. Their second date is at Lt. Boxer's apartment although they ignore dinner because he comes early and they sleep together. Later she feels very guilty because Jill had just thrown out her abusive bullying husband, and ignored a chance to call her or visit with her because of the date. it:Terzo grado (romanzo) |
The Dons of Necropolis | null | null | Ricky Bianca needs to know why his father committed suicide when he was a child on Christmas Eve. Unfortunately, his father at the time was fighting the Mafia from controlling the funeral industry. The Mafia sent a friend to deliver a letter on that holy night and after reading the letter, he blew his brains out. The letter was never found and no one but the head Don, Salvatore Biganti, knows what it contained. When Ricky heard the blast, he ran to his father's aid only to see him on the floor bleeding profusely from his temple. He knelt in a pool of blood and held his father's head, unsuccessfully trying to stop the bleeding. Subsequently, Ricky has no recollection of the event but suffers from wild nightmarish hallucinations. His mother soon thereafter died in an upstate sanitarium of severe depressive catatonia. His aunt in Connecticut raises him and after twenty years he decides to return to New York as a Funeral Director, back to the industry that holds the secret. His Psychology Professor friend at college advised him to get the answers his mind so desperately needs, before his hallucinogenic demons devour him. His innocence is lost as this cryptic industry leads him through a maze of deceit, greed and evil. Subsequently, he gets caught in an intricate spider’s web of organized crime, secret cults and unspeakable atrocities. The truth is, the known is worse than the unknown and it sends him spiraling down into a hell of fiendish demons and worse nightmares. |
Conan of the Isles | Lin Carter | null | When King Conan is in his mid 60s, the kingdom of Aquilonia is attacked by Red Shadows, sorcerous sendings of unknown origin. To track them to their source and eliminate the threat, the king abdicates in favor of his son Prince Conn and takes ship for the far west with his old comrade Sigurd of Vanaheim. The quest takes them to the islands of Antillia and into conflict with the wizard priests of the dark god Xotli. The book ends with Conan literally sailing off into the sunset: "A few hours later, the great ship, which the folk of Mayapan were to call Quetzlcoatl – meaning 'winged (or feathered) serpent' in their uncouth tongue – lifted anchor. She sailed south and then, skirting the Antillian Isles, into the unknown West. But whither, the ancient chronicle, which endeth here, sayeth not." |
Legion | William Peter Blatty | 1,983 | The story opens with the discovery of a twelve-year-old boy who has been murdered and crucified on a pair of rowing oars. Kinderman already sees that the boy is mutilated in a way identical to the victims of a serial killer known as the Gemini Killer, who was apparently shot to death by police twelve years previously while climbing the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. A priest is later murdered in a confessional, once again bearing the mutilations distinctive of the apparently deceased killer. The fingerprints at the two crime scenes differ, however. Further victims soon follow, including one of Kinderman's friends, another priest, who is slain in a hospital, his body drained of blood before being decapitated. Yet again the Gemini Killer's mutilations are present. Investigations lead Kinderman to the psychiatric wing of the hospital where his friend was slain. Here he finds a number of suspects: * Dr. Freeman Temple - a psychiatrist who has a dismissive and even contemptuous attitude towards his patients. * Dr. Vincent Amfortas - another doctor at the hospital. He is very mysterious and not very talkative, and is seemingly apathetic towards everything since the recent death of his wife. * Patients - there are a number of elderly people at the hospital suffering from senile dementia. The fingerprints of different senile patients are found at murder scenes, but interviews with the patients make it clear they are seemingly incapable of carrying out the elaborate killings and mutilations. * Tommy Sunlight - a mysterious patient, found wandering aimlessly eleven years ago dressed as a priest, who brags of being the Gemini Killer reincarnated and who claims to have carried out the recent murders, even though he logically could not have done so, being secured in a locked cell in a straitjacket. At one point he claims the doctors and nurses let him out to kill. He also looks identical to Damien Karras, a priest who supposedly died in The Exorcist by falling down a flight of stairs. * James Vennamun - the actual Gemini Killer himself. His body was never found, suggesting he may have survived and is resuming his crimes. In the end, the implication is that the Gemini Killer possessed the body of Damien Karras and spent many years trying to gain control of the body, during which time Karras was held in a mental hospital. He lacked any identification and was nicknamed Sunlight because he sat in the sun's rays as it passed through the window of his cell. Upon finally gaining control of Karras' body, the Gemini occasionally left it to possess the bodies of the patients suffering from senile dementia, and as they were in an open ward with access to the outside world, he could use them to go forth and commit murders. This is why the fingerprints of several senility patients were found at the crime scenes; their bodies carried out the murders but the Gemini Killer was in control of them. The Gemini's motive originally was to shame his father, a preacher, whom he hated. When his father dies of natural causes the Gemini Killer feels his mission is over and he has no reason to remain in possession of Karras' body. Feeling compelled to explain everything to Kinderman, he summons the detective, explains all of this, successfully demands that Kinderman tells him he believes that he (Sunlight) really is the Gemini Killer, and then effectively wills himself to die from heart failure. Dr. Temple suffers a stroke and ends up mentally disabled. Dr. Amfortas dies in an accident (although he was terminally ill anyway, suffering from a disease he refused to treat so he could join his deceased wife). The final chapter of the novel, an epilogue, has Kinderman at a burger-bar with his faithful partner, Atkins. Kinderman explains to Atkins his thoughts and musings of the whole case and how it relates to his problem of the concept of evil. Kinderman ends by concluding that he believes the Big Bang was Lucifer falling from heaven, and that the entire Universe, including humanity, are the broken parts of Lucifer, and that evolution is the process of Lucifer putting himself together back into an angel. |
Wolf Brother | Michelle Paver | 2,004 | In pre-agricultural Europe,the hunter-gatherers of the Forest live in clans, each represented by a particular animal or life form. Torak and his father, of Wolf Clan, live together in the forest. During Torak's twelfth year, his father ("Fa") is killed by a bear which has been possessed by a demon. Before Torak's father dies, he tells Torak to swear an oath to head north and find the Mountain of the World Spirit, and ask the World Spirit to help destroy the bear before it kills all life in the forest. His guide will find him and help him on his quest. Torak reluctantly leaves his father as the bear comes back to kill him. Torak heads north and soon encounters an orphaned wolf cub. Torak initially tries to kill the cub in order to eat it, but he doesn't have the heart. He discovers that he can communicate with the cub. The Cub smells Torak is of the Wolf Clan, who was fed by a wolf as a baby, and accepts Torak as his pack-brother. He realizes the cub is the guide, and Torak names the cub "Wolf". Over time they become good friends. A few days later Torak and Wolf are captured by the Raven Clan, who accuse Torak of stealing one of their roe deer. They are taken to the Raven camp so Torak's fate can be decided by Fin-Kedinn, the Raven Clan leader. Torak's captors are a teenage boy named Hord, a girl named Renn, and a man named Oslak. In the Raven camp, Torak is taken to Fin-Kedinn. Unlike the other Ravens, Fin-Kedinn treats him with kindness and respect, until Fin-Kedinn realizes who Torak's father was. To regain his freedom, Torak fights Hord, who is much bigger and stronger, to prove his innocence. He wins by temporarily blinding Hord with steam from some broth which is cooking nearby. This, together with the dog whistle which Torak has made to summon Wolf, makes Fin-Kedinn and Saeunn, the Raven mage (shaman), see Torak as the possible fulfillment of a prophecy about a "Listener". The prophecy states that the Listener, who "talks with silence and fights with air", will offer his heart's blood to the World Spirit and thereby kill the demon-bear. One interpretation of this prophecy is that Torak must be sacrificed, and his blood taken to the Mountain of the World Spirit. Fin-Keddin reveals to Torak that his Fa was the Wolf Clan's mage, and the Demon Bear was created for the sole purpose of killing his Fa. They then lock Torak away while they debate his fate. Torak escapes, helped by Renn, who believes that Torak must go to the Mountain of the World Spirit himself. Renn tells Torak the rest of the prophecy, which says he must find three parts of the "Nanuak", the brightest soul, to please the World Spirit and ensure its aid. On their journey together, guided by Wolf, Torak finds the first part of the Nanuak when he falls into a river, the second part in a cave, and the third part while crossing the treacherous glacial flow close to the High Mountains. Nearly at their destination, Renn and Torak are recaptured by the Ravens and taken to the Raven Clan's new temporary camp. Fin-Kedinn releases Torak, believing him to be the one who should go to the Mountain. Fin-Kedinn also reveals that Torak's Fa was killed because he dedicated himself to thwarting a group of rogue mages, the Soul Eaters, who have turned to evil in their determination to rule the Forest. Torak and Wolf climb the mountain, followed by the bear. Torak is unexpectedly attacked by Hord, who believes himself to be the one who must take the Nanuak to the mountain. Torak realizes that the prophecy's "heart's blood" means Wolf, and as Wolf carries off the Nanuak, Hord and the bear are engulfed by an ensuing avalanche, and fall down the mountain. Torak escapes from under his hiding place and looks for Wolf, but he only hears his howl in the distance, along with the howls of other wolves. Torak howls to Wolf, promising that he will one day return for him, before turning to head back into the forest. |
El árbol de la ciencia | Pío Baroja | 1,911 | The first part of the novel deals with the life of the medicine student Andrés Hurtado. Through his family, teachers, classmates and diverse friends, Baroja draws a merciless painting of the bourgeois and proletarian 19th century inhabitants of Madrid. The second half of the novel tells the stay of Hurtado (now a doctor) in Alcolea, a fictitious town in Castilla-La Mancha (where the author shows the dreadful conditions the peasant had to endure such as caciquism, ignorance, apathy or resignation), his return to Madrid (where he works as a hygiene doctor — emphasizing the description that Baroja makes of prostitution in the 19th century Madrid) and, finally, his unfortunate marriage to Lulú, a young woman he met when he was a student. IV is in direct dialogue (it is totally different from the rest of the novel in which third-person narration is predominant) and contrasts the English pragmatism (supported by Doctor Iturrioz) to the German idealism that Andrés Hurtado defends. ca:El árbol de la ciencia es:El árbol de la ciencia eo:La arbo de la sciado (romano) eu:Jakintzaren arbola |
Dead Boys | Richard Calder | 1,994 | 1 - STRANGE BOYS Doll-junky Ignatz Zwakh lives in the Mut Mee guesthouse in Nongkai. He has preserved the excised womb and matrix of his dead lover Primavera, and gets high injecting himself with Lilim junk... The future: the dolls have evolved into the Meta: female Lilim who infect human males, and Elohim dead boys who keep the Lilim numbers under control. Elohim Inquisitor Dagon, armed with his gamekeeper gun, wants to hunt down traitoress Vanity St.Viridiana who has turned catgirl and is heading to Mars where she is offered sanctuary. Instead the governess sends Dagon on a mission to track down an information broker who sold Vanity a virus... Ignatz is proposition by human prostitute Phin but turns her down. Ignatz finds a ball of paper in the jar containing Primavera's pickled uterus: a message from his daughter in the future, sent back in time through the quantum magic of the Lilim. Having been infected by Primavera Ignatz will infect whatever woman he sleeps with the doll plague, and his daughters message tells him who he has to infect. Fearing that Primavera's nanomachine infection has driven him mad Ignatz seeks help from Dr International, who examines him... 2 - STRANGE GIRLS Ignatz' daughter Vanity has defected to Paris, Mars. Since Ignatz time the Martian diplomats have been responsible for banning the killing of Lillim by 'slink-riving' (impaling through the vagina). Mars is off-limits to human terrestrials and Elohim. Mutagenic rain soaked up by the early Mars colonists has rendered the Martians immune to Lilim doll plague infection. By this time Ignatz has died and Vanity wears Primavera's fossilized womb as an amulet. By the time of Vanity's generation the quantum magic is no longer strong in the Lilim. Vanity meets her new social worker Sabine before going to La Sucette bar where she has oral sex with a Martian called Tintin, fantasising she is being executed in the old belly spike manner by Dagon. Frustrated, Vanity sends instructions back to Ignatz... 3 - STRANGE SEX Ignatz wakes from his stupor, finding Dr International has tried to drug him to steal the sexstuff from Primavera's womb. Later Ignatz gives a present of a sentient phallus called Mr Rochester to Phin's grandmother, as he intends to infect her with the doll plague the next day. Back at the hotel he once again gets high on Primavera's womb... Inquisitor Dagon is in Paris, Mars, tracking down Vanity. Entering her abode he causes one catgirl Lilim to spontaneously die from Black Orgasm, executes another with his gamekeeper, before giving in to his marauder urges with a third, killing her by eating her ovaries from her living womb. Vanity arrives back at her apartment and Dagon captures her, rendering her unconscious. Ignatz beings to sense the Meta reaching back through time and changing reality, creating a new past where the Lilim were created by the Nazis converting Jews into cyborg weapons. Ignatz meets Phin and barters with her a price to let him get her pregnant. Ignatz features begin to take on an Elohim aspect... 4 - STRANGE GRACE Dagon has taken Vanity back to Bangkok, Earth, and reveals the history that the Meta (the god-like descendent of the self-replicating nanoware that was the seed of the dolls) is overwriting... ...how the Human Front government was overthrown by a CIA-backed coup, with Queen Titania leading a new age of human/doll co-existence, with the Elohim inheriting the ability to trigger the death-wish of the Lilim, and thus keep them from overrunning the humans they need to replicate and survive as a species. Back then Dagon had still been known as Ignatz Zwakh, and following Primavera's death he was summoned by Titania to return to England. Over time Ignatz turns fully into Elohim. Later Titania is arrested by the presidium and executed. Ignatz is tutored by Mephisto in the ziggurat that has grown from the Seven Stars, where Lilim desire death and Elohim desire murder. Phin has also moved to London, where she begins transforming into a Lilim. Ignatz/Dagon is expelled for slink-riving a Lilim in violation of the Martian treaty and is sent to Bangkock, where he is reunited with Phin, now transformed into Vanity, before she flees to Mars... Back in Dagon's present the condemned Vanity begs Dagon to kill her, and begins to fellate him... ...as back in Ignatz's present Phin breaks off from the same act in disgust at Ignatz's Meta-infected semen and leaves. 5 - STRANGE TIMES Having failed to get Phin pregnant Ignatz leaves the Mut Mee, tying Primavera's womb around his neck as an amulet. Ignatz goes to the Wat Khek datamart to look up Dagon, and finds his history changing: Dagon/Ignatz is now born Gabriel Strange 100 years earlier, with Primavera his sister...aliens from Mars make contact with Earth in the nineteenth century fuelling a technical revolution...Dagon slaughters numerous Lilim in the ziggurat before being captured...in 1978 Dagon is sentenced to 15 years years in a virtual prison in Nongkai, Thailand... 6 - STRANGE BEAUTY Ignatz meets pornomarketeer O'Sullivan, who gives him an erotic magazine. Through the magazine Ignatz and Vanity communicate, exchanging sexual fantasies. Ignatz goes to a bar, and finds himself transformed... ...into Dagon, where he has been released from his virtual imprisonment where he had dreamed his life as Ignatz. Dagon joins Mephisto on the spaceship Sardanapalus, where their mission is to fly through the green sun that is all that will be left of meta superfemininity. In doing so Dagon travels through a closed time-loop back to where he started... 7 - STRANGE GENETALIA Ignatz visits a virtual masseuse, where he dreams of a pastoral existence with Primavera. As Meta infects the universe Ignatz realises that when he returns to reality it will be just as fictitious. Dagon hunts Vanity through a multiverse of realities... |
Seemanto-heera | Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay | null | Unlike most of the novels featuring Byomkesh, this one does not involve any violent crime or major plot twists. The story revolves around the theft of a priceless heirloom, the Seemanto-heera or "Frontier Diamond", belonging to the heir of the Roy clan, one of the minor rulers of North Bengal. Byomkesh and Ajit have been invited by the current heir, a young Rai Bahadur Tridibendra Narayan Roy to recover the diamond. The diamond had been in the possession of the ruler for generations and a legend had been built around it. According to the legend, if the diamond were to ever be lost, then the line of succession would end. Tridibendran was the sole heir of his line according to the rules of succession where only the eldest son became ruler, but he did have an uncle, Sir Digindra Narayan Roy who was the younger brother of his father. Sir Roy was an established painter and sculptor who worked with mixed media such as plaster of paris. Sir Roy received a lavish monthly pension but since he wasn't heir-apparent, he did not get possession of the diamond. Consumed by greed, he did steal it while the diamond was on display in Calcutta and he replaced it with a fake that looked exactly the same to the untrained eye. He then notified his nephew that he had taken the diamond. Tridibendra had sought the services of Byomkesh and Ajit to recover the diamond but also requested the utmost secrecy, since he didn't want the press to get wind of this loss. Byomkesh and Ajit returned to Calcutta and checked Sir Roy's house in Ballygunge. The house was very well protected by high walls and a number of guards. Both Ajit and Byomkesh then applied for the post of a secretary to Sir Roy but were detected by the latter and thoroughly humiliated. Not one to lose heart, Byomkesh still boasted that he would find and recover the diamond by the end of the week to which the arrogant Sir Roy took immediate offence. Sir Roy then offered to let him search the house for seven days because he was so confident it wouldn't be discovered. Byomkesh immediately took up the challenge because he realized that this might be the only chance to examine the house and he had already inferred that Sir Roy had hidden it there. Searching for the diamond turned out to be an aruduous task with the work been made even harder by the constant scorn of Sir Roy. Byomkesh could not find anything but he did notice that there were quite a few plaster sculptures including various figurines of Nataraj of different sizes. One was placed on a table in the living room and Byomkesh noticed that Sir Roy stared at the table often though the other items on the table were inconspicuous. Byomkesh asked if he could have the small Nataraj figurine to which Sir Roy said he could, but he also said that this was a priceless work-of-art that had been exhibited at the Louvre and he didn't want Byomkesh to break it because there was nothing hidden inside. Byomkesh took the figurine home but he was disheartened that his major line of enquiry had been busted. Almost casually, he put his initials on the bottom of the figurine. The next day's search seemed to be friutless as well. When he came home though while staring at the figurine, he noticed that the initials were gone and he immediately came to the conclusion that the figurine had been exchanged while he was away. So he had the diamond in his possession for an entire day without being aware of it! He returned to Sir Roy's house and used a sleight-of-hand to replace the figurine with his initials with the one it had been replaced by at his home. He returned the figurine to Tridibendra and when they broke the figurine, they found the diamond inside. |
The Little House | Virginia Lee Burton | null | The story centers on a house built at the top of a small hill, far out in the country. Her builder decrees that she "may never be sold for gold or silver" but is built sturdy enough to one day see his great-great-grandchildren's great-great-grandchildren living in her. The house watches the seasons pass, and wonders about the lights of the city, which grow ever closer. Eventually a road is built in front of the house. This is followed by roadside stands, gas stations, and more little houses. Next, the small houses are replaced by tenements and apartments. Streetcars, an elevated railroad, and a subway appear to surround the house. Finally, two gigantic skyscrapers are built—one on each side; now living in the city, the house is sad because she misses being on the small hill in the countryside and that her exterior looks shabby due to no one living in her and the city's environment. One day the great-great-granddaughter of the builder sees the house and remembers stories that her grandmother told about living in just such a house, albeit far out in the country. When the great-great-granddaughter discovers that it is the same house, she arranges to have her moved out of the city, to a hill in the country where she can once again watch the seasons pass and live happily ever after. |
The Return of Conan | Björn Nyberg | null | In the kingdom of Aquilonia, a year of peace for King Conan and his new queen Zenobia is broken when the latter is abducted by a demon. Conan learns from the wizard Pelias of Koth that the eastern sorcerer Yah Chieng of Khitai is responsible, and begins a quest to recover her, little realizing that the fate of the world as well as Aquilonia rests on the outcome of the contest. Chronologically, The Return of Conan falls between Howard's novel The Hour of the Dragon (also known as Conan the Conqueror), and the four short stories collected as Conan of Aquilonia. In the both hardcover Gnome Press edition and the paperback Lancer/Ace edition of the Conan stories, The Return of Conan follows Robert E. Howard's novel Conan the Conqueror; it is the final volume chronologically in the Gnome edition (though one additional volume, Tales of Conan, contains stories issued out of sequence), while in the Lancer/Ace edition it is followed by the short stories collected as Conan of Aquilonia. |
Genus Homo | P. Schuyler Miller | 1,950 | A bus is trapped in the cave-in of a tunnel, and its passengers are preserved for millennia in a state of suspended animation. When their vehicle is ultimately uncovered they awaken to a future in which humankind has vanished from the face of the earth, and gorillas have evolved to intelligence and become the dominant species. The preserved humans must now adjust to a world in which they have become obsolete. |
Staying On | Paul Scott | 1,977 | Staying On focuses on Tusker and Lucy Smalley, who are briefly mentioned in the latter two books of the Raj Quartet, The Towers of Silence and A Division of the Spoils, and are the last British couple living in the small hill town of Pankot after Indian independence. Tusker had risen to the rank of colonel in the British Indian Army, but on his retirement had entered the world of commerce as a ‘box wallah’, and the couple had moved elsewhere in India. However, they had returned to Pankot to take up residence in the Lodge, an annex to Smith’s Hotel. This, formerly the town’s principal hotel, was now symbolically overshadowed by the brash new Shiraz Hotel, erected by a consortium of Indian businessmen from the nearby city of Ranpur. We learn about life as an expat in Pankot principally by listening to Lucy’s ponderings, for it is she who is the loquacious one, in contrast to Tusker’s pathological reticence. He talks in clipped verbless telegraphese, often limiting his utterances to a single "Ha!". He has been purposeless since being obliged to retire, and it is left to Lucy to make sense of the world herself. It is a sad story of frustration that she recounts to herself. She remembers how the young Captain Smalley came back to London on leave in 1930, visited his bank, where she, a vicar’s daughter, worked, and tentatively asked her out. She was swept off her feet by the thought of marrying an army officer and dreamt of a glamorous wedding with his fellow officers making an arch with their swords, but life turned out very differently. His job was dull administration, and his early attentiveness in bed rapidly waned. He prohibited her from fulfilling herself by taking part in amateur dramatics. Not only this, but she ranked fairly low in the social pecking order among the white women in Pankot and suffered numerous indignities. A symbol of this retrospection is that their preferred conveyance is the tonga, a horse-drawn carriage in which they choose to sit facing backwards, "looking back at what we’re leaving behind". It falls to Lucy to navigate a path between her husband’s obstinacy and obtuseness and the increasingly pressing demands of India’s slow transition to modernity. The question of who pays the gardener, for example, requires the skilful management of human relationships. She also tries to maintain some continuity in her life, through correspondence with her old acquaintances (characters in the Raj Quartet), such as Sarah Layton, who have moved back to England. It is clear she blames Tusker for insisting on ‘staying on’—at one point they could have retired comfortably to England, but he has been reckless ("nothing goes quicker than hundred rupee notes"), and now she has no idea if they could afford it. She entreats him to tell her how she would stand financially if he were to die. At long last, he writes her a letter, setting out their finances and also remarking that she had been "a good woman" to him. But he also tells her not to ask him about it, as he is incapable of discussing it face to face: "If you do I’ll only say something that will hurt you". Nevertheless, she treasures this, the only love letter she has ever received. Meanwhile we see the new India that is replacing the British Raj, symbolised by Mrs Lila Bhoolabhoy, the temperamental and overweight owner of Smith’s Hotel, and her much put upon husband and hotel manager, who is Tusker’s drinking companion. The richly humorous context includes the engagement of servants, the railway service, poached eggs, hairdressing and the church organ. The intimate relationship between the Smalleys' servant Ibrahim and Mrs Bhoolabhoy's maid Minnie adds an "Upstairs, Downstairs" aspect. Mrs Bhoolabhoy’s greed induces her to trade her ownership of the now shabby Smith’s hotel for a share in the competing consortium. She instructs Mr Bhoolabhoy to issue the Smalleys with a notice to quit the Lodge. On receipt of this letter, Tusker flies into an impotent rage and drops dead of a heart attack. Lucy is downcast and puts on a brave face as she prepares for the funeral and a solitary life. But, at last, she is free to return to England. She will be able to scrape by on her £1,500 a year. She is a survivor, because she can adapt, as is shown by the fact that, at the last moment, she breaks a previously upheld taboo and invites her hairdresser, Susy, who is of mixed race, to dinner. |
St. Ronan's Well | Walter Scott | 1,823 | Valentine Bulmer and his half-brother Francis Tyrrel had been Mrs Dod's guests at Cleikum Inn when they were students from Edinburgh, and she gladly welcomed Francis when he arrived, some years afterwards, to stay at the inn again, to fish and sketch in the neighbourhood. A mineral spring had in the meantime been discovered at St Ronan's, and he was invited by the fashionable visitors to dine with them at the Fox Hotel, where he quarrelled with an English baronet named Sir Bingo Binks. On his way back to the Cleikum, he met Clara Mowbray, to whom he had been secretly engaged during his former visit; he had been prevented from marrying her by the treachery of Bulmer, who had now succeeded to the earldom, and was expected at the spa. Tyrrel was visited by Captain MacTurk, and accepted a challenge from the baronet, but failed to keep his appointment, and was posted as an adventurer by the committee of management. He also disappeared from the inn, leading his hostess to consult Mr Bindloose, the sheriff's clerk, under the belief that he had been murdered. A Mr Touchwood came to change a bill, and talked of having been abroad for many years. He showed great interest in the affairs of the Mowbray family, and, having taken up his quarters at the Cleikum, made friends with Rev Mr Cargill, who had been disappointed in love, and startled him with a rumour that Clara was about to be married. Soon after the earl's arrival, it was reported that he had been shot in the arm by a foot-pad; and, while his wound was healing, he spent his time gambling with John Mowbray, the young laird of St Ronan's, who had borrowed his sister Clara's money to try to improve his luck. Having allowed him to win a considerable sum, his lordship made proposals for Clara's hand, explaining that his grand-uncle had disinherited his only son, and devised his estate to him, on condition that he chose as a wife a lady of the name of Mowbray. In a letter to his friend Jekyl, the earl confessed that he had been winged in a duel with Tyrrel, whom he met on his way to fight Sir Bingo, and that he had also wounded Tyrrel. A few days afterwards the company at the Well assembled at Shaw's Castle to take part in a play, and Mr Touchwood persuaded Rev Mr Cargill to accompany him. While they were walking in the grounds the minister reminded Clara of a secret in his keeping, which made it impossible for her to marry. He also encountered the earl, and, believing him to be Bulmer, attempted to warn him. The next morning, as John Mowbray was endeavouring to induce Clara to consent to the marriage, he received an anonymous communication that the earl was an impostor; and, in an interview with him, she rejected his suit with loathing and scorn. His lordship then wrote to Jekyl, telling him the circumstances under which, when he was only sixteen, he had arranged with Mr Cargill for a secret marriage between her and Tyrrel; but, learning subsequently the contents of his uncle's will, had incurred their lifelong hatred by impersonating his brother at the ceremony. Tyrrel, who after the duel had gone to a nearby village to recover from his wound, reappeared just in time to rescue Mr Touchwood from drowning; and, at an interview with Jekyl, who undertook to clear his character, offered to forego his claim to the earldom, of which he had proof, if his brother would leave Clara alone. The earl sneered at the proposal, and, as he was forming fresh schemes for attaining his end, he discovered that Hannah Irwin, Clara's former companion, was dying at St Ronan's, and anxious to confess her share in the secret marriage. Solmes, the earl's valet, was instructed to carry her off, while his master got the brother into his power by ruining him at play, and then promised to cancel the debt if Clara consented to acknowledge him as her husband within four-and-twenty hours. Mowbray believed he had prevailed with his sister, when Mr Touchwood unexpectedly arrived, and announced himself as Scrogie, the disinherited son, who by bribing Solmes, and in other ways, had learnt everyone's secrets, and was ready with his fortune to arrange all their difficulties. However, Clara had escaped from her room during the night, and, after appearing at the manse to forgive her cousin, who had been confided to Mr Cargill's care, had made her way to the Cleikum, where, in a seeming trance, she had a final interview with Tyrrel, and died soon afterwards from congestion of the brain. Mowbray, meanwhile, in his search for her, encountered the earl and his companions engaged in a shooting match, and killed him in a duel arranged on the spot by Captain MacTurk, with whom he fled to the Continent to escape imprisonment. Mr Touchwood had consequently to seek some other outlet for his wealth, and the Etherington estates were never claimed by the rightful heir, who determined to pass the remainder of his life in a Moravian mission. |
The Island of Sheep | John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir | null | The action occurs some twelve years later on from the last novel, when Hannay, now in his fifties, is called by an old oath to protect the son of a man he once knew, who is also heir to the secret of a great treasure. He obtains help from Sandy Arbuthnot, now Lord Clanroyden, and Lombard. The action takes place in England, Scotland and on the Island of Sheep. This is located in what Buchan describes as 'the Norlands': clearly the Faroe Islands. There are several stereotypical villains, in particular D'Ingraville from The Courts of the Morning, and the book also focuses on Hannay's son, Peter John, now a bright but solemn teenager. |
Some Buried Caesar | Rex Stout | 1,939 | Wolfe and Archie are on their way to show orchids at an upstate exposition when a tire blows and their car crashes into a tree. Uninjured, they notice a house across a large pasture and decide to walk there, to phone for help. On their way across the pasture, they are threatened by a large bull. Archie runs for the fence to divert the bull, giving Wolfe time to climb to safety atop a large boulder. Wolfe is subsequently retrieved by car. Wolfe and Archie get a lift to the house, where lives Thomas Pratt, the owner of a large chain of fast-food restaurants. Pratt plans to barbecue a champion Guernsey named Caesar, the very bull that threatened Wolfe and Archie, a few days later. The idea is to get publicity for Pratt's restaurants by serving beef from a bull that has been purchased for the then-fantastic price of $45,000. The plan has outraged the members of the Guernsey League, who are in town for the exposition. Clyde Osgood, son of a despised neighbor, shows up and offers to bet Pratt $10,000 that Pratt will not barbecue Caesar. Pratt accepts the bet, and Wolfe offers Archie's services in exchange for a comfortable stay at Pratt's house: Archie will help guard the bull from possible theft. During his watch that night, Archie discovers Clyde's body, gored to death in the pasture. The bull is using its horns to push at the corpse. Everyone involved assumes that the bull killed Clyde, but Wolfe thinks not. |
Palace Walk | Naguib Mahfouz | 1,956 | Al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad is the tyrannical head of his household, demanding total, unquestioning obedience from his wife, Amina, his sons, Yasin, Fahmy and Kamal, and his daughters, Khadija and Aisha. A fearsome and occasionally violent presence at home who insists on strict rules of Muslim piety and sobriety in the house—for example, his wife is hardly ever allowed to leave the house, to maintain the family's good name—al-Sayyid Ahmad permits himself officially forbidden pleasures, particularly music, drinking wine and conducting numerous extramarital affairs with women he meets at his grocery store, or with courtesans who entertain parties of men at their houses with music and dancing. Because of his insistence on his household authority, his wife and children are forbidden from questioning why he stays out late at night or comes home intoxicated. Yasin, the eldest son, is al-Sayyid Ahmad's only child by his first marriage, to a woman whose subsequent marital affairs are the source of acute embarrassment to father and son. Yasin shares his father's good looks, and, unbeknownst to al-Sayyid Ahmad, Yasin also shares his tastes for music, women and alcohol, and spends as much time and money as he can afford on fine clothes, drink and prostitutes. Fahmy, Amina's elder son, is a serious and intelligent law student, who is heavily involved in the nationalist movement against the British occupation; he also pines for his neighbor, Maryam, but cannot bring himself to take any action. Khadija, the elder daughter, is sharp-tongued, opinionated, and jealous of her sister Aisha, who is considered to be the more beautiful and marriageable. Aisha, meanwhile, is more mellow and conciliatory, and tries to maintain peace. Kamal, the baby of the family, is a bright young boy who frightens his family by befriending the British soldiers who have set up an encampment across the street from the Abd al-Jawad house; he is also very close with his mother and his sisters, and is deeply dismayed when the prospect of marriage for the girls arises. Major elements of the plot include al-Sayyid Ahmad's philandering, Yasin's cultivation of the same hobbies, Fahmy's refusal to cease his political activities despite his father's order, and the day-to-day stresses of living in the Abd al-Jawad house, in which the wife and children must delicately negotiate certain issues of sexual chastity and comportment that cannot be discussed openly. Through the novel, Yasin and Fahmy gradually become aware of the exact nature of their father's nighttime activities, largely because Yasin begins an affair with a young courtesan who works in the same house as al-Sayyid Ahmad's lover. After glimpsing his father playing the tambourine at a gathering in the house Yasin understands where his father goes at night, and is pleased to find that they have similar interests. Amina, meanwhile, has long ago guessed her husband's predilections, but represses her resentment and grief so intensely that she behaves almost willfully ignorant of the whole matter. The family provides the novel with its structure, since the plot is concerned with the lives and interrelationships of its members. However, the story is not set in isolation; indeed, the characters themselves are important mediators between issues of local or wider scope. For example, the theme of 'authority' (particularly its establishment and subversion) is woven into both the maturation of the children of the al-Jawad family and the wider political circumstances which provide the novel with its temporal boundaries. The novel's opening chapters focus upon the daily routine of the al-Jawad family. Amina, the mother of the family, greets the return of her husband, al-Sayyid Ahmad, from his late-night socialising. She rises once again at dawn to begin preparing food, assisted by her daughters Khadija and Aisha. Her sons join their father for breakfast. At this meal, as with any other dealing with the patriarch, strict etiquette is observed. Subsequent chapters proceed to explore the characters of family members, particularly their relationships with one another. The marriage of the children provides a key focus, as do challenges to the supreme authority of the family's patriarch. |
You Suck: A Love Story | Christopher Moore | 2,007 | The story of You Suck continues directly from the previous novel, Bloodsucking Fiends. Jody, one of the mature suckers and newly minted vampire, has remained in San Francisco despite her promise to the police to move away after the previous incidents. Tommy, her boyfriend, is shocked at the beginning of the sequel to discover that Jody has "turned" him (i.e., made him a vampire)—hence the title of the novel, although she explains that she did it so that they could be together forever. They struggle to survive and to maintain their relationship despite the efforts of others to eliminate them.. |
Less than Angels | Barbara Pym | null | Catherine Oliphant is a young writer, who lives with anthropologist Tom Mallow. Tom begins a romance with a student, Deirdre Swann, and his relationship with Catherine fizzles out. At the same time, she becomes interested in reclusive anthropologist Alaric Lydgate, who has recently returned from Africa. A hilarious sub-plot involves the activities of Deirdre's fellow-students Mark and Digby, and their attempts to curry favour with influential academics. Tom departs for Africa, where he is killed during a time of political unrest. Deirdre begins to return Digby's fondness for her, and Catherine seems about to begin a relationship with Alaric. |
Down in the Bottomlands | Harry Turtledove | null | The story concerns a field biologist working at "Trench Park" named Radnal vez Krobir. He is a citizen of Tartesh, a Homo neanderthalensis nation which seems to take in much of the west part of the Bottomlands and what in the real world is France and Spain. He is doing a two-year stint as a field guide to tourists from his and other nations who are visiting the Park to see the plants and animals there. During one of those tours, a military officer of the "Kingdom of Morgaf" (real-world Britain and Ireland) is killed by one of the other tourists in his party. Radnal must call higher authorities to investigate the matter, and in the course of their investigation, they determine that the deceased man had a microprint in his effects outlining a plot by another nation to set off a "starbomb" (nuclear weapon) near the "Barrier Mountains" (a range of mountains joining the Sierra Nevada (Spain) and the Rif across where the real-world Strait of Gibraltar is), thereby setting off one of the many geologic faults in the area, knocking a gap in the mountains, and reflooding the Bottomlands to form a new central sea, instigated apparently by Krepalga (a Homo sapiens nation occupying all or part of the Middle East, which would have benefited by having a real-world-type Mediterranean Sea up to its west border). Radnal and other characters eventually find who killed the Morgaffo officer and with the unwitting help of a koprit bird (similar to a shrike) native to the Park, track down the location of the bomb, where it is defused. Koprit birds apparently have a habit of stealing bright shiny things; it stole the detonator wire from the bomb and used it to decorate its food-hoard bush to attract a mate, as the wire had been disguised as jewelry to smuggle it in past security. The conspirators had sabotaged all the tour party's transport, leaving them stranded far below sea level on the hot dry abyssal plain. This leaves a squad of Tarteshan secret police and police and army with the job of evacuating the tour party, by giving each member a big backpack tank of drinking water and marching them out; partway up to sea level a helicopter finds them and flies the party the rest of the way. (The author realises that in such an ordeal, people cannot live on such small rations as a capful per day from a water bottle, as too often found in stories and in attempted survival in the real world.) The story ends with Radnal being honored by his fellow subjects of the "Hereditary Tyrant" (i.e., King) of Tartesh at a great festival in Tartesh's capital Tarteshem, for saving the Bottomlands from certain destruction where he meets again a woman named Toglo vez Pamdal, who was in his tour party. She had told him she was a "distant collateral relative" of the Hereditary Tyrant but it turns out is actually his niece. They shake hands at the story's conclusion and presumably begin a romantic relationship. The story is told from Radnal's point of view and we see him describe Trench Park and its animals and plants to the tourists. Through these descriptions, we come to understand the unique geography and ecosystem contained within the Bottomlands and its Trench and how animals and plants would have adapted to a desert environment two kilometers below average sea level. We also see how the geography of the area would have been different from our timeline, including things like deep river canyons as the rivers around the Mediterranean would have incised such canyons in their descent down the old continental shelf; hydroelectric dams on such rivers generated 80% of Tartesh's electricity. The novella first saw print in January 1993 in Analog magazine and has been reprinted twice since then, once in 1997 in The New Hugo Award Winners, Volume IV and then again in 1999 with a couple of other novellas in a book called Down in the Bottomlands. The edition Down in the Bottomlands and Other Places (ISBN 0-671-57835-9) has on its front cover a color picture of the finding of the bomb's wires - with one error: the artist drew all the human characters with Homo sapiens chins, but he got their Homo neanderthalensis heavy brow ridges correct. |
Belle-Belle ou Le Chevalier Fortuné | null | null | A king, driven from his capital by an emperor, was forming an army and demanded that one person from every noble household become a soldier or, face a heavy fine. An impoverished nobleman, too old to serve himself, with three daughters was distressed by this news. His oldest daughter offered to go and was equipped. She told a shepherdess whose sheep were in the ditch, that she pitied her. The shepherdess thanked the daughter calling her a "beautiful girl." Ashamed that she could be recognized so easily, the oldest daughter went home. The second daughter also set out. She scorned the shepherdess for her folly, but the shepherdess bid farewell to the "lovely girl." The second daughter also returned home. The youngest, Belle-Belle, set out. She helped the shepherdess. The shepherdess, a fairy, told her that she had punished her sisters for their lack of helpfulness and stopped them from their mission. She gave Belle-Belle a new horse and equipment, including a magical chest that would appear and disappear. The horse would be able to advise her. The fairy told the girl to call herself Fortuné. The youngest daughter, now called Fortune, set out and reached a city. There she wanted to send gold back from the chest, but when she discovered that she had lost the key, the horse told her how to open the chest. She sent back gold and jewels, but as soon as her sisters touched some, the jewels became glass and the gold turned into counterfeit coins; they told their father to keep the rest safe. Fortuné went to join the king. At the horse's advice, she met a woodcutter who cut down an enormous number of trees, and took him into her service. Then she did the same with a man who tied up one foot to hunt, so there would be some chance of his prey escaping, then a man who put a bandage over his eyes so that he would not shoot everything, a man who could hear everything on the earth, a man who blew hard enough to move windmills (and if he stood too close, knock them over), a man who could drink a lake, and a man who could eat an enormous amount of bread. She asked them to keep their abilities secret. Fortune met the king and queen-dowager, his sister-in-law, who made her welcome. The queen found the knight attractive, and Fortuné found the king attractive. Many ladies also paid her attentions, greatly to her embarrassment. A lady-in-waiting, Florida, whom the queen sent to woo the knight on her behalf, was so in love with Fortuné that she defamed the queen instead. The queen managed to question Fortuné and learn that "he" was not in love, though he sang love songs after the custom of the land, but eventually grew so displeased with his refusal that when news of a dragon came, she told the king that Fortuné had begged leave to be dispatched against it. When the king summoned him, rather than denounce the queen, Fortuné went. The man with the super hearing, heard the dragon coming. At the horse's advice, he had the drinker drink a lake, the strong woodcutter fill it with wine and spices that would make the dragon thirsty, and had all the peasants hide in their houses. The dragon drank and grew drunk. Fortuné attacked and killed it. The king was pleased, but the queen was still displeased with Fortuné. She told the king that he had said he could win back the treasure that the emperor had taken, without any army. Fortuné went with his men, and the emperor said he could have back the treasure only if one man could eat up all the fresh bread in the city. The glutton ate it all. The emperor added that one man must drain all the fountains, reservoirs, and aqueducts, and all the wine-cellars. The drinker did so. The emperor's daughter suggested a race against her, and shared with the fleet-footed hunter the cordial she used, but it put him to sleep. The man who could hear heard him snoring; the sharp-eyed man shot and waked him, and he won the race. The emperor said he could carry away only what one man could carry, and the strong woodcutter carried off everything he owned. They came to a river while they were leaving, the drinker drank it so they could pass. The emperor sent men after them, but the man who powered windmills sanks their boats. The servants began to quarrel over their reward, but Fortuné declared that the king would decide their reward, and they submitted themselves to him. The king was pleased. The queen made an open declaration to Fortuné. When Fortuné refused her, she attacked him and herself and called for help, saying that he had attacked her and her injuries stemmed from her resistance. Fortuné was sentenced to be stabbed to death, but taking off the clothing revealed that she was a woman. The king married her. |
Death In Winter | Michael Jan Friedman | null | It is the first novel featuring Capt. Jean-Luc Picard to be set after Star Trek Nemesis. The plot concerns an attempt to stop a plague on a Romulan colony called Kevratas, and the relationship between Picard and Dr. Beverly Crusher. It also describes Dr. Crusher's first encounter of a similar plague as a teenager on the colony of Arvada III. A faction of the Romulan Star Empire wishes to keep the plague alive in an attempt to undermine newly appointed Romulan Praetor Tal'aura. Picard will be faced with working alongside allies new and old, as well as an enemy from the past who has a way of turning up when Picard least expects. This book also includes characters Doctor Carter Greyhorse, a scientist whose past has landed him in a penal colony, along with Pug Joseph, a former member of Starfleet turned merchant, both of whom served with Picard aboard the USS Stargazer. |
The Black Unicorn | Terry Brooks | 1,987 | Ben Holiday, court magician Questor Thews and the sylph Willow each have a vivid, prophetic dream. Ben dreams that Miles Bennett, his former law partner back in Chicago is in trouble. Questor dreams of the location of two ancient books of magic, and Willow dreams of a black unicorn containing great power, and a golden bridle that can harness the animal. Only the half-dog court scribe Abernathy voices his misgivings about the dreams. Upon returning to the old world, Ben discovers that Miles is fine. Suspicious, he hurries back to Landover. Unbeknownst to him, Meeks (the evil wizard that originally sent Ben into Landover) has stowed away in Ben's clothing using his magic, returning as well. At the castle, Ben finds that Questor has found the books of magic, though they seem useless. One is filled with illustrations of unicorns, and the other appears burned from the inside. Willow is still missing. That night, Ben is attacked by Meeks. The old wizard casts a glamour over each of them, so that Meeks appears as Ben and Ben appears as a common peasant. Failing to recognize his true identity and thinking him an intruder, Questor has Ben thrown out of the castle. Ben searches for Willow, hoping to convince her of his identity and prevent her from delivering the bridle to Meeks. Along the way he encounters Edgewood Dirk, a prism cat from the fairy world. Dirk is able to recognize Ben as the High King, and taunts him for his inability to overcome his situation. Ben is able to arrange a meeting Willow's father, the River Master, who fails in an attempt to capture the Black Unicorn and keep it as his own. Later, Ben encounters the Earth Mother, who tells them that Willow has gone to the Deep Fell to retrieve the golden bridle from the witch Nightshade. Unsure if the witch has returned to the Deep Fell since their last encounter, Ben enlists the help of the G’home Gnomes, Filip and Sot, to investigate. They find that she has indeed returned and are apprehended. Nightshade reveals that she is no longer in possession of the bridle, it having been stolen by the dragon Strabo some time ago. Seeing an opportunity to regain the bridle from the dragon, Nightshade transports herself and her captives to Strabo's lair. Meanwhile, Questor and Abernathy have been evicted from the castle for failing to capture the black unicorn. They make their way to Strabo's lair, seeking the dragon's help in determining the nature of the black unicorn. Nightshade and her prisoners appear, and Strabo admits that he has already given up the bridle to Willow for the price of a song. This infuriates Nightshade, and the meeting devolves into a furious battle between dragon and witch, while Ben and company escape. Ben is finally able to convince his friends of his identity, and they eventually come across Willow, who has harnessed the black unicorn in a small meadow. Meeks arrives, still in disguise, and tries to persuade a confused Willow into bringing the unicorn to him instead of the true king. Edgewood Dirk enters into the confusion, prompting Meeks to launch an explosive attack against the Prism Cat. Willow mounts the black unicorn and flees, while the firefight turns the meadow into a scorched battlefield and scatters the party. Abernathy, Questor, and Willow are captured by Meeks and his army of imps. Alone, Ben and Edgwood Dirk have one last cryptic conversation, and the cat disappears. Thinking on the cats’ words, Ben acknowledges his love for Willow, and finds that he can break Meek's spell by conquering his self-deception. Ben summons the Paladin, who charges off to rescue Willow. As the Paladin battles with skeletal creatures summoned by Meeks, Abernathy bites the wizard in the leg, making him drop the books of magic. Streaking through the air, the black unicorn rips the binding from the books, releasing a multitude of white unicorns who scatter. A brief but intense battle of magic between the unicorn and Meeks erupts, and Meeks is finally vanquished. It is revealed that the fairy world sent unicorns into various worlds to help restore peoples' faith in magic. Landover wizards from long ago captured these unicorns, imprisoning their spirits in one book and their bodies in another. Occasionally the spirit of the unicorns would break free, manifesting as the black unicorn, and the bridle was created to recapture this creature. Meeks had hidden the books before becoming exiled to Earth, and sent the dreams to set into motion events that would return possession of the books to him. In the epilogue, a white unicorn dashes down the streets of Chicago, leaving onlookers in wonder. |
Magic Kingdom for Sale -- Sold! | Terry Brooks | 1,986 | The novel begins with Ben Holiday, a trial lawyer from Chicago, lamenting the loss of his wife and unborn child in a car accident. He finds an advertisement in an upscale Christmas catalog claiming to offer a magical kingdom for one million dollars by a man named Mr. Meeks. Although skeptical, Ben pursues the offer out of a desperate need to start a new life. Ben receives a magical medallion and is transported through a swirling mist to the kingdom of Landover. He learns that Landover is a world that connects many other worlds such as Earth. It is surrounded by the Fairy Mist wherein reside creatures of Fairy that created Landover and guard the passages to these worlds. Unfortunately, he finds it not exactly as described. He soon finds that Landover has not had a true king in twenty years. The son of the last king did not wish to take up the throne and escaped with the court wizard, Meeks, to Earth. They have been selling the throne to dozens of people in the past two decades, but no one has been able to face the challenge and successfully complete so much as a few months as king. Further, kings of Landover used to be protected by a magical knight called the Paladin, but he has not been seen since the last king's death. Further, Ben has only four loyal subjects. The court wizard is a hack named Questor Thews, who is also Meeks' half-brother. Abernathy is the court scribe, who was unfortunately transformed into a large dog by one of Questor's spells gone awry. Finally, two creatures called Kobolds, Bunion and Parsnip, serve Ben as caretakers of the castle and as protection against the wild creatures of the kingdom. Ben's coronation is barely attended, so he decides to travel the land to gain the pledges of the local rulers. He travels first to meet with the Lords of the Greensward, the most prominent landowners in the kingdom. They agree to serve Ben only on the condition that he rid them of Strabo, a dragon that ravages their countryside. Next Ben visits the River Master and the Fairy fold of Elderew, a city of outcasts from the Fairy Mists. The River Master also places conditions on his pledge, requiring Ben to stop the Lords of the Greensward from polluting their rivers. In the river country Ben stumbles upon a sylph named Willow. She is also a fairy creature who turns into a tree some evenings. She claims that the Fairies have foretold that she will marry Ben. Though he initially rebuffs her, he finds himself falling in love with her over time. Ben is entreated by Fillip and Sot, two of a race of thievish "G'Home Gnomes" to rescue some of their people from a clan of trolls. They manage to do so, but barely escape with their lives. They finally decide to ask for the help of the witch Nightshade, and travel to her home in the marshes known as the Deep Fell. She tells Ben to enter the Fairy Mists, where he may be able to obtain mind-controlling Io Powder to use on Strabo. Ben does so and endures a series of frightening trials by the Fairy creatures to obtain the powder. Emerging from the mists, he finds that Nightshade has used her magic to banish all of his companions to Abbadon, Landover's underworld. Nightshade attempts to trick Ben out of his Io Powder, but Ben uses some of the substance on the witch and sends her to an uncertain fate in the Fairy Mists. Ben travels to the Fire Springs to confront Strabo, and is surprised to find the dragon to be sentient and rather well-spoken, if still vicious. Ben uses the Io Powder on Strabo, and rides him to Abaddon to rescue his friends. He also extracts a promise from the dragon to stay out of the Greensward. Finally, Ben is challenged by the Mark, lord of Abaddon, to a duel for the throne. Ben's medallion responds during the fight and transforms Ben into the Paladin, allowing him to subdue the demon. The challenge is witnessed by the leaders from the Greensward, Elderew, and the Troll tribes, who then swear their allegiance. Ben Holiday, King of Landover, then sets about to restore Landover to its former glory. |
The Talismans of Shannara | Terry Brooks | 1,993 | The Elves and Paranor are both now back in the Four Lands, and the former Walker Boh has inherited Allanon's powers. Moreover, the Sword of Shannara has been found. Knowing all these, Rimmer Dall decides to attempt to destroy all of The Scions of Shannara. Rimmer Dall dispatches the Four Horsemen (Famine, Pestilence, War and Death) to Paranor, sends Wren an untrue friend and wants to deceive Par Ohmsford, whose wishsong is growing steadily more uncontrollable. All the traps laid by Rimmer Dall come to fruition even before the Ohmsfords realize that all of the charges laid by the shade of Allanon have been fulfilled. The Scions struggle to control their powers: Walker Boh has problems using the knowledge and power he received, Wren Ohmsford has to gain the confidence of the Elven minister as well as the head of the Elven army, and Par Ohmsford struggles to use the Sword of Shannara. In a clash with a Shadowen, which happens to be Coll in disguise, Par Ohmsford finds out that the Sword really works and is truly the lost Sword of Shannara. During the fight, through the truth that is revealed by the Sword, Par discovers who he had really fought, and then follows Coll to help him. Together they go to Rainbow Lake and finally, with the help of the King of Silver River, Par saves his brother from Rimmer Dall, the leader of the Shadowen. However, due to back-firing of his own wishsong magic, he is left behind. Rimmer Dall imprisons Par Ohmsford at Southwatch and starts trying to break into his mind. First Trap Against Walker Boh At Paranor, Walker Boh fights the Four Horsemen, defeating all of them but losing his old friend Cogline in the fight with Death. Later, Walker dreams of Allanon, who asks him to help the Ohmsfords before they are lost. At Arborlon, Wren Ohmsford sets out to war against a Federation army. With the help of Triss and Tiger Ty, she manages to lead the Elves to a first victory, but then Creepers, who are responsible for the fall of the Dwarves, come to the aid of the Federation army. Damson Rhee, with help from Matty Roh and Morgan Leah, rescue Padishar Creel, who goes north to summon the army of the Free-born to aid the Elves in their war against the Federation. Damson Rhee, Matty Roh and Morgan Leah then travel further south in search of Par Ohmsford. At the same time Coll realizes what has happened to him and starts traveling north to Southwatch to rescue Par Ohmsford. However, he is captured by a group of slave traders. Second Trap against Wren Wren Ohmsford is deceived by Shadowen and captured to be taken to Southwatch. Morgan Leah manages to attack the wagon in which she was being carried and rescues her. On her way back to the elves she is rescued from the Shadowen by Tiger Ty and his Roc who tracked her. Tiger Ty informs Wren Ohmsford that he met Padishar Creel and the free born army were on their way to help the elves. Wren Ohmsford with Tiger Ty and Triss by her side fly south to destroy the Creepers. At Southwatch Walker Boh and Rumor, the moor cat, appears and helps Morgan Leah just as he is about to be attacked by a Shadowen patrol. Coll Ohmsford is rescued by Damson Rhee and Matty Roh from the slave traders. Coll Ohmsford, Damson Rhee and Matty Roh travel towards Southwatch to meet with Morgan Leah and rescue Par Ohmsford. At Matted Brakes, Wren Ohmsford successfully destroys Creepers with the help of Triss, Tiger Ty, Stresa and Faun. As the Elven army battles the Federation, Shadowen attack Wren Ohmsford from the deep forest and are about to kill her when Faun, the tree squeak, gives up her fears and attacks the Shadowen just to give Wren enough time to call the magic of the elf stones and burn them up. Wren discovers Faun's dead body lying among her Home Guards. On the same day Desidio is also lost. Just then, when the Elven army is almost about to lose, the Freeborn army appear out of eastland with men and Rock Trolls. Elves headed by Triss and Barsimmon Oridio, Men headed by Padishar Creel and Chandos and Trolls headed by Axhind join forces under Wren Ohmsford to attempt to crush down the Southlander army. Destruction of Southwatch Walker Boh, Coll Ohmsford, Damson Rhee, Matty Roh, Morgan Leah, and Rumor (the moor cat) journey into Southwatch, the Shadowen stronghold, from where they have been draining the Earth's magic. They rescue Par Ohmsford by help of the Sword of Shannara. Par learns that, being half elven and half Shannara, he is partially Shadowen. He finally frees "The stolen Earth Magic" which was bound by Shadowen, bringing down Rimmer Dall and other Shadowen and dark creatures of its type. Walker Boh, Par Ohmsford, Coll Ohmsford, Damson Rhee, Matty Roh, and Morgan Leah escape just before Southwatch crumbles to the ground. With the release of the Earth Magic, the lands' beauty is restored and the sickness that was destroying the land is cured. The Earth Magic kills all the Shadowen and Creepers in the Federation army which leads to victory of the elves and their allies. |
The Elf Queen of Shannara | Terry Brooks | 1,992 | Wren Elessedil, a descendant of the legendary Jerle Shannara, was charged by the shade of the Druid Allanon to travel to the distant island of Morrowindl and find the Elves to return them to the Four Lands. The catch was that not one Elf had been seen in the Four Lands for more than a hundred years. No one in the Westlands knew of them---except, finally, the Addershag, who told Wren how to locate one. Tiger Ty, the Wing Rider, carried Wren Ohmsford and her friend Garth to the only clear landing site on the island of Morrowindl, where the Elves might still exist. A Splinterscat, Stresa, and a Tree Squeak, Faun, help her reach the city of Arborlon. The island has become a prison since demons began appearing. Only the magic of the Loden keeps Arborlon safe, but its power is failing, and if the Elves are not returned to the Westland soon, they will not survive. When Wren reached the Elves, she learns of her past and discovers that she is of true Elven blood, because the current Elf Queen, Ellenroh Elessedil, is her maternal grandmother. Nine companions, Aurin Striate, an acquaintance Wren and Garth befriend on their way into the city; Triss, Captain of Home Guard; Cort and Dal, Elven Hunters; Ellenroh Elessedil, current queen of the Elves; Eowen, the queen's closest friend; Gavilan Elessedil, the queen's nephew and Wren's cousin; Wren; and Garth set out on a journey to the Westland. Ellenroh becomes fatally ill, and before she dies, she informs Wren that she is to inherit the Loden and become the Queen of the Elves after Ellenroh, though she was orphaned at birth and raised as a Rover. Upon Ellenroh's death, Eowen reveals that the demons they are trying to avoid were created as an accident by Elves. She reveals that the elves succeeded in regaining their lost magic and to protect their nation from the Federation they created an army of replica elves, but that they became addicted to the magic and transformed into the demons. Wren leads the company with the Loden, but loses all her companions to the demons, Drakuls, and the Wisteron. Only Wren and Triss, Stresa, and Faun remain when the volcano on the island of Morrowindl erupts, destroying the island. Tiger Ty gathers the small company and flees Morrowindl, where Wren restores Arborlon to its original location in the Westland. |
The Druid of Shannara | Terry Brooks | 1,991 | The Druid of Shannara takes off where The Scions of Shannara left off focusing on the story of Walker Boh as he attempts to fulfill the task given to him by the shade of Allanon, to return the Druid castle of Paranor to the Four Lands. Left in the Hall of Kings with the Asphinx attacking, Walker fends off the poison with his magic for days whereas the Asphinx could have killed any normal mortal. Finally realizing that there is only one way out of his predicament, he breaks off his arm in terrible agony. He fights his way through the Hall of Kings amazingly finds his way to Storlock for the Gnome Healers to help him to the best of their abilities. We are told right away that Coll is still alive, and the thing Par killed was a fake. Coll is imprisoned in a prison called Southwatch and is trying to figure out a way to escape. Meanwhile, The King of the Silver River realizes the state of the Four Lands and makes a beautiful woman out of the elements surrounding him in his garden including a dove for a heart. The King tells his daughter, Quickening, of the task that she must carry out for there is trouble in a lost city to the north and the people of who to take with her. Morgan Leah returns to Culhaven to carry out a final request from his old friend Steff who met his demise in The Scions of Shannara and quickly becomes imprisoned. Rimmer Dall hears about Quickening and the rumors surrounding her appearances: that she's the daughter of The King of the Silver River and is making miracles happen. Rimmer Dall dispatches a dangerous assassin known as Pe Ell to kill her. When Quickening goes to Culhaven, she quickly restores hope in the land by bringing back the beautiful Meade Gardens. Doing this, though, takes a toll on her and she becomes weak. Quickening falls into Pe Ell's arms and asks him to find her somewhere to sleep. Pe Ell does so, but doesn't kill her because he is attracted to her. After Quickening recovers she requests Pe Ell to break Morgan Leah out of prison, and he does so, reluctantly. Morgan Leah is also attracted to Quickening and both he and Pe Ell agree to go on a journey with her. Morgan Leah because of his instant emotional attraction and Pe Ell because he wants to find out what makes her so special. The three set off to go find Walker Boh. While this is happening, Walker had returned home under the care of Cogline. Walker, still very weak, lays in bed as Cogline tries to coax Walker to get up and think positively. Rimmer Dall with a handful of Shadowen confront Cogline, bound to take out the last of the messengers of the druids. Cogline knew this was coming after hearing from Allanon and grabbed the Druid Histories before he and Rumor got killed. Finally, Quickening reaches Walker Boh and heals him the best she can, though his arm is still missing. She takes the party north the travel with her to get the black elfstone and in return Morgan will get his sword back, Pe Ell will get what he wants, and Walker Boh will become whole. They travel north and meet Horner Dees who is the only known survivor to ever go into Eldwist, an ancient city turned completely to stone and had no intentions of ever going back, though is soon persuaded. They finally make it to Eldwist and confront Uhl Belk, a brother of The King of the Silver River and been there just as long. Days go by avoiding a creeper called The Rake, and the Maw Grint, the child of the Stone King, which is in the form of a gigantic worm like creature that turns to stone everything in his path. Finally they were able to trick him into letting go of the black elfstone and as soon as this happens Pe Ell takes off with Quickening as a hostage. Confronted by Walker, Dees, and Morgan, Pe Ell stabs Quickening, though it appears that Quickening actually pushes herself against Pe Ell's magical blade, thus taking from Pe Ell the choice of killing her. Surprised, confused and enraged, Pe Ell flees. He doesn't get far before he dies in consequence of having killed Quickening, apparently from some kind of retaliatory magic which Walker suggests might have been placed on Quickening by the King of the Silver River to avenge her death. Walker Boh, Morgan Leah, and Horner Dees take Quickening out of the city and up to the cliffs above Eldwist. Quickening bids farewell to Morgan and the others. She tells Morgan to sheath the broken Sword of Leah in the earth. Quickening then calls for Walker, who takes her to the edge of the cliff. Using her magic, she communicates to Walker the purpose for her existence, which is to restore Eldwist, freeing it from its stone shell. At Quickening's request, Walker releases her, and she falls from the cliff and disintegrates. The dust of Quickening's body settles over Eldwist, and plant life spontaneously grows, quickly covering the whole peninsula, leaving the only visible stone the domed building wherein Uhl Belk resides. The three of them leave, all taking different paths. Horner goes home, Morgan leaves to find Par, and Walker leaves to recover lost Paranor. Also mentioned briefly in the book, Wren journeys with Garth to the village of Grimpen Ward in the Wilderun to seek out a seer called the Addershag, hoping to learn the fate of the Elves. Wren is told by the Addershag to go south to the Blue Divide and light a fire for three days above the caves of the Rocs. Wren and Garth escape Grimpen Ward, chased by the men who have been keeping the Addershag as a prisoner. |
A Knight of the Word | Terry Brooks | 1,998 | John Ross, having failed on a mission from the Word in which fourteen school children were killed in San Sobel, California, tries to leave his life as a Knight of the Word behind him. He returns to the Fairy Glen in Wales to tender his resignation to the Lady, but she refuses to appear to him; instead, he meets the ghost of his ancestor, Owain Glyndŵr, who tells him that the decision to give up being a Knight is not his to make. Frustrated, John returns to America, where in Boston he meets and instantly falls in love with the beautiful Stefanie, who seems to amply reciprocate his feelings. Deliriously happy, he embarks together with her on a long trek across the United States, culminating with both of them finding work at a homeless center in Seattle. Feeling that he has found a very satisfactory new life, with a loving woman at his side and a demanding job helping an important social cause in cooperation with idealistic, sympathetic activists, he increasingly feels that his time as a Knight of the Word can be relegated to the past. He ignores the infrequent dreams of a demon-haunted future, including one in which he kills his much-beloved boss, Simon Lawrence. Lawrence is known locally as "the Wizard of Oz" because of his successful charity ventures in Seattle (AKA the Emerald City); by energetic campaigning, and building up a reputation as an idealistic, dedicated activist, Lawrence succeeded in pushing many politicians to support the homeless - though this is not a very popular cause and with little electoral benefit accruing. However, Lawrence's sterling reputation is threatened when he is being investigated for alleged financial impropriety, by a famous reporter named Andrew Wren who is (without his own knowledge) - influenced and manipulated by a demon. This demon is a changeling - during the day it works to subvert, and at night morphs into a giant hyena-like creature to feed on the homeless living in the ruins under modern Seattle. Nest Freemark, now a 19-year-old college student, has returned to Hopewell, Illinois for the weekend before Halloween. She muses on events over the last five years, including her grandfather's death in the spring, Wraith's disappearance when she turned 18, and the fact that she is no longer in touch with most of her childhood friends (or John Ross). She has not used her magic in years and is unsure if she has it any longer. She travels with her twiggy sylvan companion, Pick, through the park and has an encounter with the tatterdemalion Ariel, a ghost-like messenger of the Word formed from the memories of dead children. Nest learns that John Ross is in need of her help and reluctantly agrees to fly to Seattle to talk to him. She is disturbed to learn that John is now especially vulnerable to falling to the side of the Void, and the Word has dispatched someone to kill him if this happens. This resounds with Nest, as she recalls that John admitting that he would have killed her five years ago if she had been turned to the Void. Arriving in Seattle, Nest takes a walk at night with Ariel; they hear the demon hunting and killing people in the underground city, but Ariel will not let her pursue it. She meets with John the next day, but cannot convince him to return to his duties as a Knight; however, she does cause changes in his dreams - now John also dreams about killing her. Nest also runs into O'olish Amaneh, the Word-serving Native American that she met five years before, and finds that he is the one sent to kill John if he should turn to the Void. That night, Ariel informs Nest that Boot, a sylvan in a local park, has seen the demon. Just as they're getting crucial information from Boot, the demon attacks them in its hyena form and kills Boot, his owl Audrey, and Ariel. It chases Nest through a nearby residential area, but she narrowly escapes on a bus. Later that same night, the demon sets fire to the homeless shelter and John and Stefanie rescue many tenants, but one of their coworkers is killed in the fire. John was exceedingly groggy and foggy-headed when Stefanie tried to wake him to help deal with the fire, and he's troubled by this. The next day, Halloween, John and Nest meet. They share information and decide that Nest should leave town. Andrew Wren, in possession of (demon-provided) evidence that John and Simon are embezzling from the shelter, meets with John and leaves him with the suspicion that Simon is the demon. His suspicions are reinforced when Stefanie tells him that Simon has fired him, to distance himself from the scandal. John heads to a fund-raising event at the art museum and confronts Simon, who reveals himself as a demon, nearly kills John, and leaves him on the floor. John repents for faltering in his service to the Word and is once again infused with magic to heal and strengthen him. He searches for Simon with the intent to kill him, but just as he finds him, Nest intervenes. On the way out of town, she realized that Stefanie is actually the demon, because of parallels between Stefanie's actions and those of Nest's father (also a demon), not to mention the timing issues and other evidence that lead her to this truth. John realizes that he's been subtly led toward the Void ever since Stefanie came into his life, after San Sobel; as a shape-shifting demon, Stefanie forged documents to support the embezzlement accusations, attacked Nest and her friends in the park, set fire to the shelter to explain the wounds she'd sustained trying to kill Nest, lied about John being fired, and morphed into Simon at the museum so John would be tricked into killing the real, innocent Simon and completing his turn to the Void. Finally, John confronts Stefanie at his apartment. She does not deny being a demon, but tells John that even so he is still in love with her (which he feels to be true) and that she could continue to make him happy. When he rejects the offer, the demon-Stefanie, afraid of his now-returned magic, leaps out a window. Faced with the demon's onslaught when it crashes to the street below, the waiting Nest finds that Wraith has not left her- he lives within her and Nest can assume his form in response to threatening dark magic. Together, she and John destroy Stefanie - or, in fact, they destroy the shape-changing demon who had taken her form as well as various other forms, human and non-human, male and female. (Though the term is not explicitly used, Stefanie in fact fits well with the traditional depiction of a succubus - a female demon who takes the form of a human woman in order to seduce men.) Nest returns to Hopewell, and John resumes his service as a Knight of the Word, once again using his dreams of the future to change things in the present and keep the Void at bay. |
Running with the Demon | Terry Brooks | 1,997 | Nest Freemark is a fourteen-year-old girl of Hopewell, Illinois, who is gifted with magical powers bequeathed to her from her mother's lineage. She lives with her grandmother Evelyn and grandfather Bob, as her mother apparently committed suicide at a young age. She is one of a rare few in the world who can see the spiritual warfare underlying the events in the real world. She can see "feeders" - small shadowy creatures that feed on human emotion, influence thoughts, and ultimately attempt to "devour" people, causing their real world demise. Nest is enlisted to guard the nearby park and wilderness, a regional feeding ground for feeders, as many generations of Freemark women before her. She is aided in this task by a six-inch tree-like sylvan named Pick, an insightful barn owl named Daniel, and an ethereal wolfen creature named Wraith, who appears at opportune moments to protect Nest, but whose origins are initially unknown. On July first, Nest is awakened by Pick and informed that a young local girl, Bennett Scott, has run away from home (and her mother's abusive boyfriend) into the park and is at risk of being attacked by feeders. She rescues the girl and is almost overrun by feeders when Wraith appears to fend them off and help her escape. Meanwhile, a demon of the Void has come to the town of Hopewell. Once a human, this demon now possesses magical powers including the ability to blend in easily among other people and influence their thoughts. He befriends Derry Howe, a less intelligent resident of Hopewell, and places in his mind the idea of setting a bomb during the fireworks display on the Fourth of July. Since the display is sponsored by the company that owns the factory, Derry is fooled into believing that the company will have to end a town-crippling strike in apology for the injuries at the show. The following morning, Nest meets up with her friends, including Bennett's older brother Jared, upon whom she has a crush. They run into a teen bully named Danny Abbot, and Nest uses magic to knock him to the ground to protect her friends. Later that day, an alarmed Pick leads Nest deep into the park forest and shows her a great oak tree with crevasses in its trunk. The tree is actually a prison for a maentwrog - a powerful magic beast known for devouring multitudes of people. The demon has weakened the tree and the maentwrog is threatening to break free, but Nest and Pick do a patch job to strengthen the tree's integrity. At dinner, Nest is introduced by her grandfather to a traveler named John Ross, who has recently come to town. He claims to have known Nest's mother, but his true purpose for being in Hopewell is to track and defeat the demon. John is a "Knight of the Word", charged with helping preserve the balance between the Word (the representation of goodness and light in the world) and the Void (the summation of evil and darkness). After his post-graduate work, John traveled to Wales and happened upon a glade called Fairy Glen in the country around Betws-y-Coed. He is met by the Lady (the voice of the Word) and learns that he is the descendant of Owain Glyndŵr, a great Welsh "patriot and warrior" who served the Word. John was then charged by the Lady to embrace the Word and fight against the Void whenever he is called on. After returning to America, he is visited by a Native American named O'olish Amaneh, who reminds him of his oath and hands him a rune-engraved staff of great magic. Upon taking the staff, John's leg is crippled as a reminder that he is dependent upon the staff, and through it, the Word. John fights the Void in both the present, and an apocalyptic future where demons are beginning to enslave humanity. When John sleeps, he has unavoidable dreams in which he experiences his life in this horrific time. In these visions he finds clues concerning his new mission, as well as the consequences if he should fail. During these visions, he is a skilled warrior of magic, free of his limp, fighting valiantly to free slaves and thwart the demons. However, if John uses his magic in the present, he finds himself without that magic for the duration of his next dream. He is reduced to a vulnerable fugitive who has to scurry and hide to avoid the demon armies. John has found through his dreams that the demon is Nest's father, and if John does not stop him, Nest will be converted to serving the Void and will be a great leader of the demons in the future. That evening, Nest sneaks out after dark to meet with O'olish Amaneh, whom she fatefully ran into earlier that day. O'olish Amaneh is the last of the Sinnissippi tribe that used to live in the area, and invites her to dance with the spirits of the Sinnissippi. At midnight, he summons the spirits of his tribe and dance among them. Nest sees a vision of her grandmother as a young lady, running with feeders and interacting with the demon. O'olish leaves Hopewell that night contemplating his own visions, while Nest struggles with the meaning of hers. The next day, July 3, John attends church with the Freemark family when they find the feeders crawling all over, invisible to the congregation, but Wraith appears and scares them off. The feeders have never entered the church before, and Nest realizes that the demon must be nearby. The demon confronts her in a wing of the church, threatens her, and demonstrates his power by killing a church member. That night, the demon influences Danny Abbot to tie up Nest and leave her in a cave. The demon comes to Nest and taunts her, telling her he can do anything he wants to and she is powerless. While the demon is away, Nest is rescued by her friends and grandfather. In addition, while John Ross is spending a romantic evening with his new love interest Josie, the local cafe owner, the demon influences a group of townspeople to attack him. John is incapacitated and forced to use magic to escape. While everyone is otherwise engaged, the demon confronts Nest's grandmother, Evelyn, at the Freemark house and is surprised to find that she no longer has magic of her own. She assaults him in futility with a shotgun, and he kills her. However, anticipating her death, Evelyn had left Nest a secret note telling her to trust in her magic and in Wraith. Finally, on July 4, Jared Scott is beaten by his mother's boyfriend and slips into a coma. The feeders, however, drive the boyfriend into a craze and he ends up accidentally killing himself. Pick is captured by the demon, and Nest and John confront him at the site of the maentwrog tree. While Nest's grandfather stops Derry Howe from injuring anyone at the fireworks show, the demon manages to release the maentwrog. Through extensive magic use, John is able to defeat the creature, but passes out. The demon takes advantage of this to confront Nest's grandmother, and kills her. The demon confronts Nest alone and teaches her of her past. She learns that her grandmother once became friends with the demon and would "run with him" instead of fighting against him. At this time, she thought him simply another person, not a demon. The demon tried to seduce her grandmother, but she resisted, and turned to the side of the Word. In revenge, the demon seduced her daughter, Nest's mother, and she bore him a daughter, Nest. When Nest's mother found out after Nest was born that he was a demon, she apparently lost her mind and committed suicide. Now the demon is back for Nest, and by touching her, he can convince her to join the Void. Wraith appears, but the demon reveals that Wraith is actually a gift from the demon, sent to protect Nest until he could come back and claim her. Nest holds the demon at bay for a time, but when he is about to lay his hand on her, Wraith turns on the demon and tears him to pieces. Nest learns from Pick that even though Wraith was created by the demon, her grandmother long ago expended all of her magic to convince Wraith to defend Nest against the demon as well. The next day, Nest and her grandfather decide to be foster parents for Bennett Scott, as the kids have been legally removed from their home situation. Nest visits the hospital and uses her magic to bring Jared out of his coma, while John Ross leaves Hopewell on a bus, knowing his life cannot afford him the luxury of staying with Josie. He falls asleep, anticipating a new mission from the Word. |
Angel Fire East | Terry Brooks | 1,999 | John Ross has a vision of the future where a crucified Knight of the Word (one that resembles himself) tells him that a "Gypsy morph" is about to be created in the present. The creation of a Gypsy morph is a rare event - it is a convergence of magic that can become a powerful tool for either the Void or the Word depending on who unlocks its secret. The morph, however, will dissipate within a month if the secret remains hidden and the magic will be lost. John manages to catch the morph in the Pacific Northwest and escape his demon pursuers. The morph changes from creature to creature before settling on the appearance of a four-year-old boy. The only word the boy says is "Nest", prompting John to head back to Hopewell, Illinois to find out if Nest Freemark, whom he has not seen in ten years, can help him. However a resourceful demon named Findo Gask has been tracking John. He has recruited three other demons - Penny Dreadful (a young goth-type girl with crazy red hair and a penchant for self-destruction), Twitch (a half-crazed hulking albino man), and an ur'droch (a lethal demon who remains in its dark, shadowy form instead of taking on a human guise). Findo has heard the Gypsy morph's words in the ether and knows where to go to intercept John Ross. He and the three other demons arrive in town before him. Nest, now a 29-year-old divorcee, had won several Olympic track gold medals, but had to retire from running because she nearly turned into the ghost-wolf Wraith during an event. She still lives in her house near the park and tends to the area with the sylvan, Pick. Four days before Christmas, she is visited by Findo Gask and immediately recognizes him as a demon. He threatens her but does not harm her. She also meets Penny at church, but does not realize she is a demon. Later that day, Bennett Scott, whom Nest saved from falling off a cliff when Bennett was a preschooler fifteen years earlier, appears on her doorstep. Bennett is now a single mother of a young girl, Harper, and trying to get clean from a drug addiction. Nest naturally invites her to stay with her. That night, while Christmas caroling, Nest and her church group are attacked by Twitch. Nest nearly has to call on Wraith when Penny appears, calls him off and pretends that he is a mentally disabled relative, and no one is seriously hurt. Later that night, John Ross arrives with the Gypsy morph boy, whom they decide to call "Little John". The next morning Nest and John fill each other in on recent events. Bennett and Harper go for a walk in the park where they meet Penny. Penny offers Bennett drugs, but before she can accept, O'olish Amaneh appears and takes them home. Nest then goes for a walk in the park with O'olish, whom she also has not seen in ten years, who suggests that if Nest spends some time attempting to communicate with Little John instead of waiting for him to open up to her it may help unlock his secrets. He also tells her that soon he may never see her again as he plans to return to his ancestors. He then mysteriously disappears, as usual. Nest takes his advice and tries to talk to Little John, but no progress is made. Later that day the group does some tobogganing and narrowly avoids an assassination attempt by Findo Gask, thanks to Pick's last-minute warning. Instead, Findo Gask kills the park worker Ray Childress that night with the trap he intended for Nest and her guests. The next evening O'olish Amaneh again appears to Nest, and encourages her to persevere with Little John. After he leaves her, he is pursued by Findo Gask and his demon minions. Surrounded, he disappears in a whirlwind of snow. That night, Nest, Bennett, and the kids go to a neighborhood Christmas party while John spends some time with his old flame, Josie Jackson. Bennett abandons her child at the party, leaving Nest a note explaining how she intends to leave for a while. She meets up with Penny who gives her drugs, then Penny and Findo Gask trick her into falling off the cliff in the park that nearly claimed her fifteen years ago. Nest returns home with Harper and Little John and is attacked by the ur'droch. Wraith comes forth from her to successfully repel him. Before Wraith reenters Nest, Little John calls her "Mama" and runs into her arms, but refuses to do so after Wraith returns to Nest, foreshadowing what is to come. The next day, Christmas Eve, Bennett's body is found and Nest has to tell Harper that her mother has died, and that now she will be Harper's family. That evening, however, Harper and Little John are kidnapped by Findo Gask. Nest knows from previous interactions with Findo Gask that he doesn't know that Little John is the Gypsy morph. She also realizes that Penny is in league with Findo Gask and they are likely hiding out at the house where she was attacked by Twitch. She and John head over to the house for a preemptive strike, but before doing so, Nest knows she needs to check to see if the demons have booby-trapped or otherwise warded the house with invisible magic. She needs Pick to find this out for her, so she sends out Wraith to find Pick in the park. Wraith bounds forth and runs from within her, this time severing their magical tie. Nest realizes neither one of them was happy with Wraith being trapped within her, and knows it is for the best that he remain separate but near to her, still remaining her protector. Nest, Wraith and John Ross are successful in destroying Findo Gask's three demonic henchmen (Penny, Twitch, and the ur'droch) and rescuing the children, but John is mortally poisoned. Finally, when Little John sees that Wraith has left Nest permanently, the Gypsy morph is able to become what it was meant to be: an unborn child of destiny within Nest's womb. Findo Gask, thinking that the Gypsy morph's time ran out and its magic had dissipated, leaves town. Nest, perceiving her magical conception, decides to name the child John Ross Freemark, and heads back for home to start a new life with Harper and her future child. John Ross, weak and poisoned, lays down by the river in the park. As he passes into death, he sees the Lady, the voice of the Word, reaching out to him and calling him home. As John takes her hand his body disappears and his staff falls to the ground. O'olish Amaneh appears from the shadows, picks up the staff and surveys the horizon in contemplation of the continuous struggle between the Word and the Void. |
Soldados de Salamina | Javier Cercas | null | The novel is divided into three sections. The first and third section depict the historical investigation of a fictional Javier Cercas into the life of the fascist Rafael Sánchez Mazas. The second section is a biographical retelling of Mazas's life. In the first section of the novel, a fictionalized version of the author, also called Javier Cercas and a journalist, interviews the son of Mazas. During the interview Cercas is told the story of how Mazas's escapes from execution by the Republicans at the end of the Spanish Civil War with the help of a lone soldier. Encouraged by his eccentric girlfriend, a TV fortune teller, Javier begins investigating the incident. Early on, he writes a brief article in his newspaper based on the retelling by Mazas's son. In response to this Cercas becomes obsessed with finding the soldier who spared the life of Mazas. The second section of the novel takes place during the war itself (1936–1939). The nucleus of this section of the book is Rafael Sánchez Mazas's life. Cercas presents him as a writer and idealist of the Falange Española and close collaborator of José Antonio Primo de Rivera. The narrative in this section focuses on the particulars of his escape from execution at the end of the Spanish Civil War. When a group of prisoners is taken to the forest to be executed, Mazas is able to flee and hide in the bush. A Republican soldier finds him but decides to spare his life and when asked by another soldier if anyone is there he replies that no one is. Helped by several deserters, Mazas evades the retreating Republican forces and eventually returns to Falangist custody where he became an important propagandist for the Francisco Franco regime. In the third section in the novel, after having written the biography in the second section, the Cercas character is still curious about the story of Mazas's escape. Following a series of leads, Cercas comes in contact with an old man named Miralles. Miralles had fought for the Republicans in the civil war and later became a member of the French Foreign Legion responsible for heroic feats during the Second World War. Cercas discovers him sequestered in a retirement home in his old age. Cercas comes to believe that Miralles was the soldier who saved Mazas from execution. However, Miralles will neither confirm nor deny having been the soldier to save Mazas. The fictional Cercas ends the novel with a monologue questioning the historical explanation which he had investigated and the nature of heroes. |
Conan of Aquilonia | Lin Carter | null | At the age of 60, King Conan of Aquilonia engages in his final struggle with his arch-foe, the black magician Thoth-Amon of Stygia, servant of the evil god Set. First Conan must journey to Hyperborea to rescue his kidnapped son Prince Conn from an unholy alliance of the Stygian sorcerer and the witch queen Louhi. Next Conan and Conn carry the struggle to their enemy's stronghold in Stygia itself at the head of an invading army and aided by the white druid Diviatix. Pursuing their defeated foe southward, they confront him again, first in the kingdom of Zembabwei and at last at the very edge of the world, where Conan and Thoth-Amon face each other in a final astral duel. |
Fossil Hunter | Robert J. Sawyer | null | The story takes place roughly sixteen years after the events of Far-Seer. In lieu of Afsan's discovery of the Quintaglio's real place in the universe, the Larskian faith has been abolished and worship of the Original Five hunters reinstated. Dybo is now the Emperor, with Afsan as his court astrologer, and Novato has been put in charge of the Quintaglio Exodus; a project meant to help the Quintaglios escape from their doomed world before it breaks apart. Toroca, son of Afsan and Novato, is now head of the Geological Survey of Land, meant to take a global inventory of the resources available for the Exodus project. While undertaking the Geological Survey, Toroca finds a mysterious blue artifact, made of a seemingly indestructible material even harder than diamond. It appears to be mechanical, with moving parts, but having been found in some of the oldest rocks, is too old to have been manufactured by Quintaglios. He also begins to take notice of clues which cast into doubt his belief in the origin of the world as set forth in the book of Lubal. The world appears to be much older than five thousand kilodays, due to the rate of erosion being too slow, and during an expedition to the South Pole, he finds that it is inhabited entirely by many unique types of Wingfingers. Toroca hypothesises that they evolved from a common wingfinger ancestor. Meanwhile, Dybo's rule has been challenged by Rodlox, the governor of the province Edz'Toolar. As Afsan had previously suspected in Far-Seer, Rodlox claims that the children of the previous Empress were exempted from the culling of the Bloodpriests, with the weakest child being made the future Emperor (as opposed to the strongest as tradition dictates) and the rest being sent away so that the royal family could be more easily manipulated. Rodlox claims that he is Dybo's brother, and that he was the strongest child and thus the rightful emperor. The Imperial Bloodpriest goes missing shortly after, his absence bolstering Rodlox's conspiracy theory. Much political turmoil follows; all across the land, Bloodpriests are driven out and sometimes killed. With no means of birth control, the Quintaglio population begins to swell eightfold as a result. With the Quintaglios' natural predisposition towards territorial aggression, it is only a matter of time before civil war erupts. Dybo consults Afsan, his most trusted advisor, to come up with a solution for the problem. If Rodlox were to become the new Emperor, he would cancel the Exodus and doom the Quintaglios to extinction- Dybo must win Rodlox's challenge. Rather than face him in single combat, as Dybo would most certainly lose to Rodlox, Afsan suggests that all eight of the Empress' children participate in a replay of the culling, against a scaled up Bloodpriest: a Blackdeath. Such a scenario would give Dybo a one-in-eight chance of victory. As Afsan helps Dybo prepare for his battle against the Blackdeath, he finds out that one of his children has been murdered, her throat slashed open by a piece of broken mirror. Afsan undertakes an investigation to try to find her killer. Dybo begins to train for his battle against the Blackdeath. Toroca finds himself increasingly attracted to Babnol, a member of the Geological survey team. Babnol in turn worries about Toroca's obsession with the blue artifact, and she sneaks into his cabin, steals it, and dumps it overboard. The Geological Survey team must now head back to where the original artifact was discovered, to try to find another one. Meanwhile, back on land, the congestion has gotten unbearable. With the Bloodpriests in dispute, seven out of every eight Quintaglio hatchlings have not been culled, and the population has swelled. Tensions are boiling, and the situation explodes when mass Dagamant (a Quintaglio bloodlust fueled by territorial aggression) occurs. Many Quintaglios are killed in the ensuing battle before the situation is defused. It becomes apparent that this will happen again and again until the Bloodpriests are reinstated. The Geological Survey team returns to the coast of Fra'Toolar, where the original artifact was found, to search for another. To speed up the process, they resort to blasting the cliffs, surmising that the mysterious blue material will not be damaged by the explosions. Their blasting exposes an enormous object made of the blue material, and after finding a mysterious double door, explore the inside. Within, they find the mummified remains of an extraterrestrial, and various creatures that are extinct on the Quintaglio's world, among them, birds. Another of Afsan's children has been murdered. Suspicion falls upon another of Afsan's children, Drawtood. Afsan confronts Drawtood, who confesses to his crime. Suffering from paranoia, Drawtood had intended to murder all of his siblings, out of fear that they were going to come after him. Rather than face the consequences of his actions, Drawtood commits suicide, and drinks a vial of poison. Soon, it is time for the battle against the Blackdeath. After being starved for several days, the Tyrannosaur is released into an arena, where it proceeds to devour each of the Royal siblings one by one. Rodlox doesn't go down without a fight, and indeed, almost defeats the Blackdeath by utilising his superior agility to disorient it. It topples over and he leaps on its back to deliver the finishing bite; however, he is killed when the Blackdeath suddenly rises to its feet and somersaults forward, crushing him with its massive bulk. Dybo has studied natural Blackdeath behavior prior to the battle, and has come up with a strategy. He positions himself carefully, with the sun setting behind him. As the Blackdeath prepares to attack, Dybo bites off its own arms, reducing them to stumps, and mimics the dinosaur's roar. In profile, Dybo resembles a juvenile T. Rex, and the Blackdeath retreats, refusing to accept a challenge from what it perceives as a lesser male. Dybo is declared the winner, and has earned the right to rule. In the aftermath of the battle, Dybo sets about cleaning up the mess the challenge has caused. The Bloodpriests are reinstated. The Imperial Bloodpriest is found, but he has been injured; before he dies, he reveals that Dybo was in fact the weakest of the Imperial hatchlings; however, the switch was not pulled as an attempt to control the Royal family. It is revealed that because the Bloodpriests had been saving only the strongest offspring, that the Quintaglios had become too aggressive; the Bloodpriests were performing a breeding experiment with the Royal family, to try to usher in a less violent generation. With the Imperial Bloodpriest now dead, he needs a replacement; Afsan suggests that Toroca be appointed as his replacement. With Toroca's theory of evolution, Afsan presumes that he would be the best person for the job. Dybo concurs, and assigns him to the task. Meanwhile, Wab-Novato has finished construction on a prototype glider, based on bird remains recovered from the giant blue structure. The test flight of the machine is a success; the Quintaglios have taken their first step towards flight. Studies on the giant blue artifact have made it apparent that is an alien starship, and that these beings brought dinosaurs and other creatures to this world from another, millions of years ago; explaining why species in the Quintaglios' fossil record appear suddenly rather than gradually. The book ends with Dybo declaring that the Quintaglios are not merely going to the stars; they are going home. |
Sunshine | Robin McKinley | 2,003 | The story is set in an alternate universe, taking place after the “Voodoo Wars”, a conflict between humans and the “Others”. The Others mainly consist of vampires, werewolves, and demons, though the main conflict occurs between humans and vampires. As a result of this war, “bad spots”, or places where black magic thrives, have appeared more frequently. Rae "Sunshine" Seddon, the pastry-making heroine of the novel, has the misfortune of being caught off-guard at her family's old lake side cabin and is abducted by a gang of vampires. She is confined to the ballroom of an abandoned mansion with Constantine, a vampire shackled there by vampires of a rival gang, led by Constantine’s enemy Bo. Bo’s intention is to allow Constantine to slowly die of hunger and exposure to sunlight. Rae is brought as bait for him, and the vampires cut her upper chest as temptation. However, Rae not only manages to defy the supposed power that any vampire has over a human, but also uses her all-but-forgotten magical powers of transmutation, taught to her by her grandmother, to effect an escape. Rae realizes that the magical lineage she has ignored allows her to draw power from the sunlight, ergo transferring her ability through touch to Constantine and allowing him to be under the light of day, so long as contact is maintained. Through this symbiotic relationship, the two of them make an escape. Despite her best efforts, all does not return to normalcy once Rae is back home. Her friends and family are shocked by her survival of an encounter with vampires, and over time she both starts to become more affected by the trauma and refuses to tell anyone the circumstances leading to her alliance with a vampire. As it becomes clear that the conflict with Bo and his gang is only beginning, Sunshine begins to embrace her magical ability, is coerced into working with the "Special Other Forces", wonders what kind of tentative partnership can exist between two individuals whose races are bitter enemies, and, finally, works with Constantine to overthrow Bo for good. |
Conan of Cimmeria | Lin Carter | null | In a number of episodes Conan, now in his mid- to late-twenties, is followed from the end of his career as a mercenary soldier for King Yildiz of Turan to his initial adventures in the black kingdoms of Kush. In between he visits his native Cimmeria and the far north then makes his way southward where, in Argos, he gets his first taste of life as a sea rover as the right hand man of the pirate queen Bêlit. Chronologically, the eight short stories collected as Conan of Cimmeria fall between Conan and Conan the Freebooter. |
The countess cathleen | William Butler Yeats | null | The play is set ahistorically in Ireland during a famine. The idealistic Countess of the title sells her soul to the devil so that she can save her tenants for starvation and from damnation for having sold their own souls. After her death, she is redeemed as her motives were altruistic and ascends to Heaven. |
A Glass of Blessings | Barbara Pym | 1,958 | The central character and narrator, Wilmet Forsyth, is a married woman with a comfortable though routine life. She does not need to work and enjoys a life of leisure. When not lunching or shopping she occupies her time, somewhat guiltily, with occasional "good works", particularly at the instigation of her slightly eccentric do-gooder mother-in-law. She becomes drawn into the social life of her church, St. Luke's. After a church service one day she renews her acquaintance with a close friend's attractive but ne'er-do-well brother, Piers Longridge. She develops a romantic interest in Piers, and begins to believe that he is her secret admirer. The admirer is in fact her close friend's husband. Wilmet fails to realise that Piers is gay until she becomes aware of his relationship with Keith, a lower-class young man. The subject of homosexuality is not infrequent in Pym's work, but it is usually referred to in oblique and subtle ways. This novel is surprisingly frank about the subject, especially for a comedy of manners published in 1958. The reader can reach no conclusion other than that Piers and Keith live together in a romantic relationship. |
Champagne for One | Rex Stout | null | Archie gets a phone call from Dinky Byne, who is expected at a dinner party that night, given by his aunt in honor of four young, unwed mothers. These women have recently left Grantham House, a home where expectant unwed mothers receive support, room and board in the months prior to giving birth. Dinky wants to beg off the dinner, saying he has a bad cold, and asks Archie to fill in for him. Archie agrees and, chatting with Rose Tuttle after dinner, learns that Faith Usher carries around a vial of cyanide. Apparently Faith wants to have it handy should she ever decide to commit suicide. Rose is worried, and Archie reassures her by promising that he'll see to it that nothing bad happens. But something bad happens a few minutes later, when Faith suddenly dies, poisoned by cyanide later shown to have been in her champagne. Those present hope that Faith suicided, largely because they hope to avoid notoriety. But Archie had been keeping his eye on Faith and is certain that she put nothing in her glass – therefore, it must have been murder. Archie comes under pressure from the guests, the police and the Police Commissioner himself to back off his position regarding Faith's death. Meanwhile, Edwin Laidlaw hires Wolfe to see to it that the investigation does not result in the discovery that he is the father of Faith's child. Wolfe agrees to identify and expose the murderer – if there is one – before the police learn of Laidlaw's role in Faith's life. The book reflects the transitional situation of American sexual mores at the time of writing, on the verge of the sexual revolution of the 1960s. Unwed mothers are a major issue in the book, and comprise a large part of its cast of characters. They are presented sympathetically, but still unwed motherhood is presented as "a problem" for which they need to be helped. The preferred solution is to provide a friendly and supportive environment during pregnancy and to have the baby given over to adoption immediately upon birth. The option of the unwed mother keeping and raising her child is presented as a far more problematic idea. Indeed — as it ultimately turns out — it has much to do with the circumstances that led to the murder being investigated. In chapter 2 Archie Goodwin is rather shocked to discover that one of the young women, Rose Tuttle, had given birth outside marriage not once but twice. He recounts at length his moral dilemma at hearing this: "I had on my shoulders the responsibility for the moral and social position of the community, at least in part (...). To list my objections would have been fine if I had been ordained, but I hadn't, and anyway she had certainly heard these objections before and hadn't been impressed. (...) While it was none of my business if she kept on having babies, I absolutely wasn't going to encourage her." On the other hand, in chapter 6 Archie is surprised to learn that Edwin Laidlaw seriously expects his bride-to-be to remain a virgin until their wedding night. His reaction to this is scathing: "Laidlaw turned out to have an old-fashioned streak (...) an old fogey at thirty-one." |
Touch Not the Cat | Mary Stewart | 1,976 | The heroine, Bryony, has the gift of telepathy, and is able to communicate subliminally with a man she regards as her lover, but whose identity she is unsure of. She knows that he is a blood relative, and assumes him to be one of her three male cousins, twins Emory and James, and the younger Francis. Bryony returns to the UK having received a telepathic message and discovers that her father has been hit by a car, and has died after speaking some mysterious phrases. She remains puzzled about the identity of her telepathic contact. Her initial preference is for James, but she gradually realises that the twins are plotting to steal her inheritance, and that her secret lover is a long-standing friend to whom she had not known she was related. Bryony gradually solves her father's puzzles, some of which include a maze depicted on the family's arms, the motto being "Touch not the cat". In the book's climax, the twins attempt to murder Bryony and flood the family gardens, so they can sell them for redevelopment. They are stopped by Bryony's lover. |
Special Topics in Calamity Physics | Marisha Pessl | 2,006 | Blue van Meer is the film-obsessed, erudite teenager whose head is filled with a witty pop culture lexicon, in contrast to most-90210-watching teenagers. She is the daughter of itinerant and arrogant academic Gareth van Meer, who, after the death of his amateur lepidopteran-catching wife (and Blue's mother), never manages to stay at a college for more than a semester. During Blue's senior year, however, they settle in the sleepy town of Stockton, North Carolina. She starts to attend the St. Gallway School and befriends a group of popular, rich, and ultra-mysterious teenagers called the Bluebloods: murky and rebellious Milton; flamboyant and flaming Nigel; ice-queen and pterodactyl Jade, free-loving, flower-child Leulah, and the dreamy Charles. The Bluebloods are also close friends with the film studies teacher at St. Gallway, Hannah Schneider, a perplexing woman who intrigues Blue more than she should. A drowning, a series of unfortunate events, and Hannah's own eventual death on a camping trip lead Blue to question everything she believes in. |
The Invasion | K. A. Applegate | 1,996 | Young teenagers Jake and Marco leave the mall one evening. On the way out, they meet Rachel and Cassie, who are together, and Tobias—all kids from their school—and decide to walk home together. While taking a shortcut through an abandoned construction site when an alien spacecraft lands nearby. The badly injured alien pilot, an Andalite named Prince Elfangor, emerges from the ship and explains to the kids that the Earth is being invaded in secret by a race of aliens called the Yeerks, a slug-like parasitic species who infest humans through their ear canals and take complete control of the human's body, turning them into what is called a Controller. The human controllers are still self-aware but the Yeerk in their head has complete control over their body and what they say. Elfangor tells them that more Andalites will not come to Earth for a year or more, and by then, Earth will already be completely taken over. To combat the Yeerks, he gives the humans morphing ability: the power to become any creature they touch by absorbing the creature's DNA. Elfangor warns them to never stay beyond two hours in a morph, or they will be trapped in that form forever. The Yeerks, led by Visser Three, arrive to kill Elfangor and eliminate all traces of him and his ship. The humans hide and watch, but are discovered and chased by the Yeerks. The group escapes shaken, but more or less unhurt. The next morning, Tobias visits Jake and informs him that the previous night was not just a dream; he had already morphed his pet cat. The five kids meet at Cassie's farm, where a police officer arrives and informs them that a group of teenagers were sighted setting off fireworks in the abandoned construction site the previous night. He asks if they know anything about it, and the five of them realize that the police officer is a Controller. Later that day, Jake's older brother Tom expresses a similar interest in the teenagers at the construction site and presses Jake for information. Marco realizes—much to Jake's anger—that Tom is also a Controller. Tom invites Jake and Marco to a meeting of a local community club called The Sharing, which the teens quickly determine is a front for the Yeerks to acquire new hosts. They also discover that their assistant principal Mr. Chapman is the leader of The Sharing and a human-Controller. The next day, Jake morphs into a green anole lizard to spy on Chapman, and discovers that there is an entrance to the Yeerk Pool—a large, underground control center where the Yeerks can feed and recuperate—in their school. The teenagers, newly christened as Animorphs (from Animal Morphers) by Marco, head to The Gardens, a large zoo and amusement park, to acquire some new, battle-capable morphs. That evening, they decide to infiltrate the Yeerk Pool in order to rescue Tom, but find that Cassie has been kidnapped by the policeman-Controller. With no time to plan a strategy, the four remaining Animorphs head into the Yeerk Pool. They manage to rescue Cassie, but find themselves outnumbered and outgunned by Visser Three and his Yeerks. Jake, Rachel, Marco, and Cassie barely escape along with a woman who is free. During the escape, the policeman-Controller is killed. Tobias is able to escape later, but has to stay in morph too long and gets stuck in morph as a red-tailed hawk. The Animorphs fail to rescue Tom, and Jake promises to keep fighting the Yeerks until the Andalites arrive. *The main human characters are introduced. *Andalites are introduced. *Elfangor is introduced. *Yeerks are introduced. *Visser Three is introduced. *The Animorphs' battle begins. *Tobias morphs into a red-tailed hawk and remains so for more than two hours, which means he cannot morph back. *Jake uses thought speak while in human form early on in the book, thinking at Tobias while in cat morph, but in subsequent books it is stated that this is impossible. This is because K. A. Applegate changed her mind about this, but forgot to correct the scene. *When talking to Elfangor, Visser Three's dialogue gives the impression that the two have never met, but The Andalite Chronicles reveals that in reality Elfangor was indirectly responsible for Visser Three acquiring his current host (Although this implied lack of knowledge could have simply been Visser Three's attempts to taunt Elfangor with how little he has accomplished in his struggle against Visser Three) *When Tobias comes over to Jake's house he said that when he morphed, his cat freaked out and scratched him, and he still had the scratches, even though in all other books, when you morph and demorph, any injuries you have in human form will be gone. |
Conan the Warrior | Robert E. Howard | null | In these stories from Conan's late 30s, the Cimmerian becomes involved in the civil wars of a lost city, a contest over treasure in the black kingdoms, and the border wars between the kingdom of Aquilonia and the savage Picts in the wilderness to the west. Chronologically, the three short stories collected as Conan the Warrior fall between Conan the Buccaneer and Conan the Usurper. |
Wizard at Large | Terry Brooks | 1,988 | In an attempt to return Abernathy to his former human self, court wizard Questor Thews inadvertently sends the canine court scribe, along with Ben Holiday's royal medallion, to Earth. Specifically, Abernathy ends up with the medallion in the menagerie of Michel Ard Rhi, a cruel former prince of Landover who was banished from Landover years ago. Ard Rhi is now a Washington state billionaire who keeps a collection of rare and magical items in his personal castle. As part of the botched spell, Abernathy is exchanged for one of Ard Rhi's magical artifacts, and a strange bottle appears in Landover in Abernathy's place. The bottle contains a Darkling, a creature similar to an evil genie that corrupts its master. The bottle is stolen by the G'home Gnomes Filip and Sot, and Ben gives chase along with Questor, Willow, and Bunion. Ben and Willow later decide to use Questor's magic to travel to Earth to find Abernathy. With the help of Miles, Ben's old law partner, and Elizabeth, the daughter of one of Ard Rhi's employees, Abernathy is rescued. However, Ard Rhi uses his influence to have the party detained at a police station. Meanwhile, Questor continues to pursue the Darkling. He finds that through a series of thefts, the bottle has ended up in the hands of the evil witch Nightshade. Knowing that only the High Lord can defeat Nightshade, Questor decides to try to convince the dragon Strabo to fly him through the fairy mists to Earth. Using an itch spell, Questor gets the dragon to agree. They arrive at the last moment to rescue Ben and his friends from the police station and fly them back to Landover, but not before Questor uses his magic to restore Ard Rhi's conscience and convince him to give away his vast estate. Ben and Questor confront Nightshade, and Ben uses his medallion to summon his knight champion, the Paladin. Nightshade, however, uses the Darkling to conjure a perverse version of the Paladin, and the creations give battle. Questor, meanwhile, manages to shrink himself and act as a stopper in the Darkling's bottle, cutting off the source of its power. The Darkling is destroyed, Nightshade flees, and order is restored to Landover. |
Both Sides of Time | Caroline B. Cooney | 2,001 | Annie Lockwood, a young woman who is interested in the Victorian era, contemplates whether or not she is in the right relationship with her current boyfriend, Sean. When she enters the amazing Stratton Mansion she is wrenched from her time (approximately 1995) back 100 years into the past. In this past, she meets the inhabitants of the house, including a young man named Strat. Murders happen in the house, and Annie soon falls in love with Strat, and she ends up going back and forth between the two time periods, but it must be decided where and with whom she will ultimately remain. |
Prisoner of Time | Caroline B. Cooney | 1,998 | Prisoner of Time follows Strat's younger sister, Devonny, as she accidentally slips one hundred years into the future, to Annie Lockwood's time, and begins to fall in love with Annie's younger brother. This happens at both an inopportune, and an opportune time, as she was about to marry a young man whom she does not love. Devonny is an independent minded young woman with her own ideas for business ventures. However, in a time when the role of women are to stay at home and please their husbands, Devonny soon finds herself engaged to a British noble she does not love nor respect. With the family's business and reputation hanging in the balance, Devonny agrees to marry the noble, despite how she knows he is an avoidant person and she will be dominated by her mother-in-law. In the meantime, Devonny tries to help her friend Flossie, who has fallen in love with an Italian construction worker, elope. In the present, Todd Lockwood, Annie's brother, tries to find his own place in the world. With failed business enterprises and difficulty living up to Annie, Todd finds confidence only when he is coaching a girls' soccer team. In the past, Devonny despairs at her circumstances, with the disappearance of her brother Strat and the death of her friend Harriet, hoping that at least Flossie will find happiness. She discovers at the wedding that her father was blackmailed into ensuring Devonny would marry nobility and that the blackmailer was Aurelia Stratton, Devonny's mother who has been incarcerated and driven to desperation to ensure her own escape. Devonny calls out to Time for help, in hopes that Strat or Annie will come to save her. Instead, she arrives in the present and meets Todd. In the modern age, she is able to find strength within herself that the women of Todd's age possess that embolden her to take action regarding her own future once she returns. When she returns Lord Hugh David, the Britishman to whom she was supposed to marry, Devonny finds that he really does love her. |
For All Time | Caroline B. Cooney | 2,001 | Charles Lattimer (Mark Harmon) is an everyday man facing middle age and a marriage (to Catherine Hicks) coming to an end. He stumbles across a time slip that occurs on one of his regular train rides, as the train goes through a tunnel. Coming across an antique watch, he learns it allows him to get off the train during the time slip, whereupon he finds himself back in the 1890s. Before long he finds a new found love, played by Mary McDonnell, and a new purpose there. The watch gets broken and complications occur when the portal back to the past starts to close, leading him to a decision that could leave him stranded out of his own time. Co-stars Mary McDonnell, Catherine Hicks Nominated for the Golden Reel award in 2001 Best Sound Editing - Television Movies and Specials (including Mini-Series) - Music Chris Ledesma (music editor) Bob Beecher (music editor) Best Sound Editing - Television Movies and Specials - Effects & Foley Mark Friedgen (supervising sound editor) Kristi Johns (supervising adr editor) Anton Holden (sound editor) Tim Terusa (sound editor) Rusty Tinsley (sound editor) Michael Lyle (sound editor) Bill Bell (sound editor) Mike Dickeson (sound editor) Bob Costanza (sound editor) Gary Macheel (sound editor) Richard S. Steele (sound editor) |
The Protector's War | S. M. Stirling | null | Eight years after the Change, Clan Mackenzie and the Bearkillers, led by Juniper Mackenzie and Mike Havel, respectively, have carved sections out in the Willamette Valley for their groups. They have become bitter rivals with the Portland Protective Association (PPA), led by the Armingers. The Barons of the PPA constantly violate ceasefires between the three warring factions. During one of their raids, Eddie Liu, Baron and Marchwarden of the PPA, is confronted by a small group of Mackenzies, led by Eilir Mackenzie and Astrid Larsson. After a short skirmish, Liu leaves, again swearing revenge against the Clan. In the meantime, a small group of British soldiers, led by Sir Nigel Loring, Alleyne Loring and John Hordle, formerly of the Special Air Service, are on their way to Portland, having left England by sailing ship after being imprisoned by King Charles III. Upon arrival, Lord Arminger isolates them, and has them to help him find and obtain nerve gas. They trick him into taking a test canister of nerve gas and multiple canisters that have been neutralized. The British then defeat their guards and escape to the south. Mike Havel, the Bear Lord and Signe Larsson Havel, his wife, go on a scouting mission to find and destroy Crusher Bailey, a PPA Associate who has been raiding and taking slaves. Crusher Bailey attempts to ambush the couple, who have been masquerading as travelers with a horse herd and a wagon of valuables. Mike and Signe retreat to the ruins of what was once a porn video store. The two prepare to fight off the bandits while they are waiting for the backup force, led by Will Hutton, to arrive. During the fight, the British refugees see the fight and attack the bandits. The bandits flee, losing most of their forces, and the British help the Bearkillers find and annihilate the enemy camp. Sir Nigel and his son meet the Mackenzies during the fight, and come across their old friend Sam Aylward. Aylward was formerly a sergeant under Sir Nigel, and the British troops choose to join the Mackenzies. At this point, the MacKenzies tell the story of their raid into PPA territory where after ambushing a horse-drawn train, they captured Norman Arminger's daughter and heir, Mathilda. Soon after, Eddie Liu and his massive bodyguard Mack arrive on a diplomatic mission. After negotiating with Lady Juniper, they leave. Astrid Larsson and Eilir Mackenzie with their small band of Rangers discover an enemy camp of PPA knights. Liu returns as they attempt to warn the Mackenzies. Liu shoots nerve gas at the guards, killing all of them, and frees Mathilda. Liu searches Rudi Mackenzie's tent for a book that Mathilda gave Rudi that contains the key to PPA codes. A fight breaks out, with Liu and his troops fighting the Mackenzies and Rangers. Mack seriously wounds Rudi before he is killed by Hordle, and Liu is killed by Eilir Mackenzie. The Bearkillers arrive soon after and mop up the remaining PPA knights. Rudi is saved by Signe, who overcomes her distaste for him and saves him with a blood transfusion. The book ends with Rudi's initiation into Wicca. |
Not the End of the World | Christopher Brookmyre | 1,998 | LAPD cop Larry Freeman is given the task of 'baby-sitting' a B-movie film festival as a way of easing himself back into work after the death of his son, but things soon turn violent when a right-wing Christian group targets ex-porn actress Madeline Witherson. As Larry investigates the attacks on Maddy and the disappearance of an oceanic survey vessel it becomes clear that certain parties are not content to wait for the Apocalypse. |
The Fox and the Hound | Daniel Pratt Mannix IV | 1,967 | Copper, a bloodhound crossbred, was once the favorite among his Master's pack of hunting dogs in a rural country area. However, he now feels threatened by Chief, a younger, faster Black and Tan Coonhound. Copper hates Chief, who is taking Copper's place as pack leader. During a bear hunt, Chief protects the Master when the bear turns on him, while Copper is too afraid of the bear to confront him. The Master ignores Copper to heap praise on Chief and Copper's hatred and jealousy grow. Tod is a red fox kit, raised as a pet by one of the human hunters who killed his mother and litter mates. Tod initially enjoys his life, but when he reaches sexual maturity he returns to the wild. During his first year, he begins establishing his territory, and learns evasion techniques from being hunted by local farm dogs. One day, he comes across the Master's house and discovers that his presence sends the chained pack of dogs into a frustrated frenzy. He begins to delight in taunting them, until one day when Chief breaks his chain and chases him. The Master sees the dog escape and follows with Copper. As Chief skillfully trails the fox, Tod flees along a railroad track while a train is approaching, waiting to jump to safety until the last minute. Chief is killed by the train. With Chief buried and Master crying over a dead dog he trains Copper to ignore all foxes except for Tod. Over the span of the two animals' lives, man and dog hunt the fox, the Master using over a dozen hunting techniques in his quest for revenge. With each hunt, both dog and fox learn new tricks and methods to outsmart each other, Tod always escaping in the end. Tod mates with an older, experienced vixen who gives birth to a litter of kits. Before they are grown, the Master finds the den and gasses the kits to death. That winter, the Master sets out leg hold traps, which Tod carefully learns how to spring, but the vixen is caught and killed. In January, Tod takes a new mate, with whom he has another litter of kits. The Master uses a "still hunting" technique, in which he sits very quietly in the wood while playing a rabbit call to draw out the foxes. With this method, he kills the kits; then by using the sound of a wounded fox kit, he is also able to draw out and kill Tod's mate. As the years pass, the rural area gives way to a more urbanized setting. New buildings and highways spring up, more housing developments are built, and the farmers are pushed out. Though much of the wildlife has left and hunting grows increasingly difficult, Tod stays because it is his home range. The other foxes that remain become unhealthy scavengers, and their natures change—life-bonds with their mates are replaced by promiscuity, couples going their separate ways once the mating act is over. The Master has lost most of his own land, and the only dog he owns now is Copper. Each winter they still hunt Tod, and in an odd way he looks forward to it as the only aspect of his old life that remains. The Master spends most of his time drinking alcohol, and people begin trying to convince him to move into a nursing home, where no dogs are allowed. One summer, an outbreak of rabies spreads through the fox population. After one infected fox attacks a group of human children, the same people approach the Master and ask his help in killing the foxes. He uses traps and poison to try to kill as many foxes as possible; however, the poison also kills domestic animals. After a human child dies from eating it, the humans remove all of the poison, then the Master organizes a hunt in which large numbers of people line up and walk straight into the woods, flushing out foxes to be shot. The aging Tod escapes all three events, as well as an attempt at coursing him with greyhounds. One morning, after Tod's escape from the greyhounds, the Master sends Copper on the hunt. After he picks up the fox's trail, Copper relentlessly pursues him throughout the day and into the next morning. Tod finally drops dead of exhaustion, and Copper collapses on top of him, close to death himself. The Master nurses Copper back to health, and both enjoy their new popularity, but after a few months the excitement over Copper's accomplishment dies down. The Master is left alone again, and returns to drinking. He is once again asked to consider living in a nursing home, and this time he agrees. Crying, he takes his shotgun from the wall, leads Copper outside, and pets him gently before ordering him to lie down. He covers the dog's eyes as Copper licks his hand trustingly. |
Figgs & Phantoms | Ellen Raskin | 1,974 | The story centers on Mona Lisa Figg Newton, a teenage girl living in the fictional town of Pineapple with her eccentric family, including: her tap dancing mother, Sister Figg Newton; her uncles, Truman the Human Pretzel, Romulus the Walking Book of Knowledge, Remus the Talking Adding Machine, and Kadota with his Nine Performing Kanines; and her cousin Fido the Second. The only family member Mona gets along with is her uncle Florence, a book dealer. A main concern of the characters is Capri, the Figg family heaven, which involves a ritual passed down through the Figg family for generations. Uncle Florence's greatest wish is to find his Capri. Mona's greatest fear is that her uncle will succeed and leave her alone. One of the novel's unusual characteristics is its interactive status. The opening pages classify it as a "mysterious romance or a romantic mystery," but the book never mentions the mystery again. Rather, to unravel the truth about some of the novel's most mysterious happenings, readers must follow the trail of literature, history and music that Florence leaves behind him, by investigating the writings of Joseph Conrad, William Blake and Gilbert and Sullivan. While the book can be read on its own as a surrealistic journey, solving the mystery leads to greater insight into the truth about Florence. |
Conan the Adventurer | L. Sprague de Camp | null | In these stories from Conan's early thirties, the Cimmerian starts as a leader of the Afghuli tribe in Vendhya, sojourns in the black kingdoms south of Stygia, and ends up as a Zingaran buccaneer. Chronologically, the four short stories collected as Conan the Adventurer fall between Conan the Wanderer and Conan the Buccaneer. |
Conan the Freebooter | L. Sprague de Camp | null | In these stories from Conan's late twenties, the Cimmerian is a mercenary with the Free Company in the city-states of Shem and the lands to the north and east, a war leader of the steppe-raiding Kozaki, and finally a soldier in the service of the kingdom of Kauran. Chronologically, the five short stories collected as Conan the Freebooter fall between Conan of Cimmeria and Conan the Wanderer. |
Histoire de l'oeil | null | null | Story of the Eye consists of several vignettes, centered around the sexual passion existing between the unnamed late adolescent male narrator and Simone, his primary female partner. Within this episodic narrative two secondary figures emerge: Marcelle, a mentally ill sixteen-year-old girl who comes to a sad end, and Lord Edmund, a voyeuristic, English émigré aristocrat. Simone and the narrator first consummate their lust on a beach near their home, and involve Marcelle within their activity. The couple are exhibitionists, copulating within Simone's house in full view of her mother. During this second episode, Simone derives pleasure from inserting hard and soft boiled eggs for her vaginal and anal stimulation; she also experiences considerable enjoyment from the viscosity of various liquids. The pair undertake an orgy with other adolescents, which involves some broken glass and involuntary bloodletting, and ends with Marcelle's psychological breakdown. The narrator flees his own parents' home taking a pistol from the office of his bedridden, senile, and violent father. They view Marcelle within a sanatorium, but fail to break her out. Naked, they flee during night back to Simone's home, and more displays of exhibitionist sex ensue before Simone's widowed mother. Later, they finally break Marcelle out of the institution, but unfortunately, Marcelle is totally insane. Deprived of her therapeutic environment, she hangs herself. The pair have sex next to her corpse. After Marcelle's suicide, the two flee to Spain, where they meet Sir Edmund. They witness a Madrid bullfight, which involves the prowess of handsome twenty-year-old matador, El Granero. Initially, El Granero kills the first bull that he encounters and the animal is consequently castrated. Simone then pleasures herself by vaginally inserting these taurine testicles. Unfortunately, El Granero is killed by the next bull that he fights, and his face is mutilated. As the corpse of El Granero is removed from the stadium, his right eye has worked loose from its socket, and is hanging, bloody and distended. Simone, Sir Edmund, and the narrator visit the Catholic Church of San Seville after the day's events. Simone aggressively seduces Don Aminado, a handsome, young, Catholic priest, fellating him while Simone and the narrator have sex. Sir Edmund undertakes a blasphemous parody of the Catholic Eucharist involving desecration of the bread and wine using Don Aminado's urine and semen before Simone strangles Don Aminado to death during his final orgasm. Sir Edmund enucleates one of the dead priests' eyes, and Simone inserts it within her vagina, while she and the narrator have sex. The trio successfully elude apprehension for the murder of Don Aminado, and make their way down Andalusia. Sir Edmund purchases an African-staffed yacht so that they can continue their debaucheries, whereupon the story ends. In a postscript, Bataille reveals that the character of Marcelle may have been partially inspired by his own mother, who suffered from bipolar disorder, while the narrator's father is also a transcription of his own unhappy paternal relationship. In an English language edition, Roland Barthes and Susan Sontag provide critical comment on the events. |
Conan | Lin Carter | null | After a letter reflecting on Conan's life written by Howard to P. Schuyler Miller and John D. Clark, both fans of Howard's work, is an essay on the invented prehistory in which the hero's adventures are set tracing its development up to Conan's own time. The stories gathered in this collection then follow the Cimmerian from his escape from slavery in Hyperborea through his days as a youthful thief in Zamora, Corinthia and Nemedia, to the beginning of his stint as a mercenary soldier for King Yildiz of Turan. To Conan's discomfiture, the supernatural is his constant companion. Chronologically, the seven short stories collected as Conan are the earliest in Lancer's Conan series. The stories collected as Conan of Cimmeria follow. |
The Visitor | K. A. Applegate | 1,996 | The Animorphs get together and decide that they need to make their next move against the Yeerks. The only lead they have is that Mr. Chapman, their assistant principal, is a Controller. Jake asks Rachel to try to get to him through his daughter Melissa, an old friend of hers. However, Melissa has become distant lately, and Rachel fears she has become a Controller like her father. Rachel remembers Melissa's pet cat (Fluffer McKitty), and the Animorphs plan to infiltrate Chapman's house to find out what they can; Rachel morphs Melissa's pet cat to gain access. Once in the house, Rachel follows Mr. Chapman into a basement room and discovers that he communicates directly with Visser Three, the leader of the Earth invasion, through holographic technology. While in the room, she is spotted by Visser Three, who orders Chapman to kill her because she might be an Andalite. Rachel doesn't react, and Chapman reasons with Visser Three to allow Rachel to escape shaken, but unharmed. Before she leaves the house, Rachel follows Melissa and learns that she is not a Controller, but has pulled away from her friends because she believes her parents — now both Controllers — don't love her anymore. Rachel decides to keep the encounter with Visser Three a secret from her friends, and convinces them that she needs to infiltrate Chapman's house again. She does a few nights later, this time with Jake stowed away on her back as a flea. Rachel is careful to stay out of Chapman's and Visser Three's sights, but is again found out. Visser Three is sure now that she is an Andalite bandit, and orders Chapman to bring Rachel to him. He also tells Chapman to bring Melissa so that she can be infested, because she is a security risk to Yeerks; it was her cat that the "Andalite" used. Chapman rebels against his Yeerk (Iniss 226), causing Iniss to momentarily lose control of the host body and fight to take it back. Iniss is tired by the effort and opts not to take Melissa, planning to explain the circumstances face to face with the visser. Iniss takes Rachel and Jake, still morphed as a flea, to the abandoned construction site, and he allows Chapman himself to speak to Visser Three. Chapman reminds the Visser that he willingly became a Controller on the condition that the Yeerks not take Melissa, and if they were to violate that contract, he would make life as hard as he could for the Yeerk in his head. Since Chapman is in a position of some influence at the school and is regularly meeting with parents, this would be very disastrous, and Visser Three grudgingly gives in. The other Animorphs show up to rescue Jake and Rachel and barely escape from one of Visser Three's monstrous morphs. The next day, Rachel writes an anonymous note to Melissa, telling her that her father loves her more than ever, despite not being able to show it. |
The Season of the Witch | James Leo Herlihy | 1,971 | Gloria decides to run away from home with her gay friend John McFadden. Both of them have a reason to leave: Gloria wants to find her estranged father, and John wants to avoid joining the Army and being sent to Vietnam. They head from Michigan to New York City, where they meet a host of colorful characters. The novel explores the personal freedoms of the late 1960s, including casual drug use, draft evasion, and homosexuality, and goes beyond that to incest. |
The Beginning | K. A. Applegate | 2,001 | Continuing on immediately from The Answer, Rachel attacks the Yeerks in control of the Blade ship, and kills Tom and his Yeerk, before dying at the hands of his Yeerk allies shortly after; the Ellimist briefly stops time to memorialize her death, tells his own story to her, and she dies. Tom's morph-capable Yeerks escape in the Blade Ship, abandoning the disabled Pool Ship to the Animorphs. Visser One, realizing that he is defeated, leaves Alloran-Semitur-Corrass's body after being knocked unconscious by Ax. The remaining Animorphs, as well as Alloran (freed after more than two decades under Visser One's control over his body), contact the Andalite fleet, and after hours of negotiations, the Andalite fleet promotes Ax to rank of Prince, and declares the war over. The Animorphs attend Rachel's funeral, where a statue is erected in her honor, and Tobias flies away with Rachel's ashes. It is also revealed that the Animorphs lived in California, a fact that had not been revealed through the course of the series. The remainder of the book describes the development of the characters over the course of three years after the war. Jake, Marco, and Cassie become instantly rich and famous, while Ax returns to the Andalite homeworld a hero. Surrendered Yeerks are allowed to choose an animal form in which to become a nothlit, and similarly Arbron's Taxxons are granted their wish and become nothlit anacondas or other big snakes, relocated to the Amazon Rainforest. Unable to morph out of his Taxxon form, Arbron is soon killed by poachers. This may have been for the better, as Arbron is finally freed from the Taxxon's hunger. The free Hork-Bajir colony is moved to Yellowstone National Park, and are protected by Toby Hamee and Cassie. Toby becomes a non-voting member of the US Senate while Cassie serves as an adviser to the President. Humanity has also developed an alliance with Andalites. Some developments between the two races are companies such as Microsoft and Nintendo building new electronics and Andalites morphing into humans to experience the sense of taste. Marco embraces his new fame, and winds up becoming the self-proclaimed "spokesman" for the Animorphs, as well as a TV star. Cassie uses her powers in the government to become an activist for the environment and the Hork-Bajir. Jake however adjusts less easily than they do to the new conditions and becomes depressed. A year after the conclusion of the war, Esplin 9466 (formerly Visser Three and later Visser One) is put on trial in The Hague, Netherlands for war crimes against humanity and is found guilty. Jake has slumped into depression in the year since the war ended, having minimal contact with his friends and not morphing at all. During Jake's testimony at the trial, Esplin's defense lawyers attempt to discredit Jake by claiming that he himself is a war criminal for his actions, such as his emptying of the Pool ship that killed 17,372 Yeerks. Though this objection is overruled, Jake is deeply shaken by it, as he feels that it, along with many of his actions during the war, was immoral or mistaken. In a desperate bid to cheer Jake up, his friends capture him and dump him into the ocean, thinking that by forcing him into a dolphin morph (dolphins being naturally happy) they can cheer him up. Jake remains aloof however. Esplin is forced to live out his remaining days without a host in a purple box (the Andalites constructed the box and had it painted purple for some unknown reason). Two years after Esplin 9466's sentencing, Ax is charged with finding the Blade Ship. He notes that the military is being shrunk back, and that he easily has the most interesting assignment. The ship crew finds a mysterious DNA sample, a polar bear. Ax leads the investigation team. As First Officer Menderash-Postill-Fastill later recalls, the ship came alive and attacked. Menderash broke off from the ship, but they were then attacked by pirates. He is the sole survivor. Meanwhile, Jake finally concedes to the U.S. government and agrees to train some special ops teams to use the morphing power to combat terrorists. After a few months of meetings, two Andalite officials approach him. Menderash relays Ax's story. Jake agrees to help. He informs Cassie and Marco. Cassie is currently involved with another man, Ronnie. Cassie and her boyfriend are spending time assessing potential new places for the Hork-Bajir to inhabit. Cassie offers to come, but Jake declines, saying that her role is over, and that she is doing what she wants to do the most. Jake also believes that Cassie will be happier if she stays on Earth. He asks her to find Tobias, who has since shut himself away from the world, and has remained angry at Jake for Rachel's death. Tobias however, relents and joins Jake on the mission. Marco agrees to come, but only after yelling at Jake, and telling him that he cannot undo his past mistakes, and that, just as during the war, they will only succeed if they follow his instincts, no matter how "crazy, reckless and ruthless." Jake selects two of his students (Santorelli and Jeanne Gerard) to come as well. They are picked because they have no close friends or relatives. As the mission is top-secret and unauthorized, Jake and the others conduct a very elaborate plan. Marco knocks out two Andalites who are guarding a shuttle. They use the shuttle to take off and board a captured Yeerk cruiser. They then crash the shuttle into the ground. The official story would be that terrorists overpowered the Andalite guards but could not pilot the ship and crashed. The ship is an elegant cruiser. Menderash, following an Andalite tradition, believes it bad luck to board the ship before it is named; after Tobias notes that it is "beautiful and dangerous and exciting," the group gives it the only fitting name, the Rachel. After several months in space, the Animorphs find the Blade Ship, only to discover that Ax has been assimilated into an entity only known as The One, giving Ax a new mouth which split open the lower part of Ax's face. The One threatens to consume the Animorphs, as it had done to Ax. Jake comments on Marco's earlier call to be "crazy, reckless and ruthless," and, with a smile that Marco notes makes him look like Rachel, orders them to ram the Blade ship. |
The Encounter | K. A. Applegate | 1,996 | Tobias and Rachel liberate a caged red-tailed hawk from a car dealership (Dealin' Dan Hawke's Used Cars) where it is being used as a mascot in advertisements. Later that evening, Tobias sees a shimmer in the air and is perplexed by it. He decides to check it out again the next day, and this time notices a flock of geese seemingly run into an invisible wall in the air. Tobias suspects the anomaly to be a Yeerk ship using optical camouflage and tells the other Animorphs about it. The group morphs into wolves to follow the last known direction of the ship into the mountains. They arrive at a lake guarded by Park Service human-controllers and Hork-Bajir-controllers. The ship decloaks over the lake, revealing itself to be a massive logistics ship that collects water and air for the Yeerk Pool ship in orbit. Tobias also sees the hawk that he and Rachel freed, and has an urge to be with her. The Animorphs return from the mountains and make plans to morph into fish in the lake and get sucked up by the ship so they can disable it from the inside, thus deactivating the cloaking device while it is above a city and revealing the Yeerk invasion to the general public. Tobias heads up to the lake again to scope out potential hiding places, but his hawk instincts overpower him on the way and he kills and eats a rat. Greatly disturbed by the experience, he flies to Rachel's gymnastics exhibition at the mall and tries to commit suicide. He flies around the mall in a panicked state until Marco smashes open a skylight for him (with a baseball) to escape. Tobias regresses into his hawk instincts for several days, living in the woods and hunting rodents. His human side only re-emerges when he saves a man escaping from Hork-Bajir near the mountain lake. He returns to Rachel to talk about what happened, and he decides that he needs to keep fighting the Yeerks to remain human. The Animorphs revisit the lake and hide in a cave until the Yeerks arrive. They then morph trout, and Tobias carries them to the lake to avoid notice by the Yeerks who have locked down the area. The others are successfully sucked up into the ship, but they discover that the water tank is sealed off inside; they are trapped. They communicate this information to Tobias and ask him to bring the ship down if possible. Meanwhile, Tobias is spotted and identified as an "Andalite bandit." To avoid attacks from Yeerk Bug Fighters and helicopters, he lands on top of the logistics ship, the one place he can be sure the Yeerks won't risk firing. A dozen Taxxons emerge out onto the deck to kill him, but Tobias aims for its eyes. The Taxxon, trying to shield itself, accidentally makes it easier for Tobias to grab its Dracon beam. He fires the beam at the ship's bridge, causing it to fly out of control and crash into the other Yeerk ships (Bug Fighters and USFS helicopters). A large gash is torn in the side of the ship, and the other Animorphs come pouring out with the water that had been collected. They are able to morph into birds and escape. Tobias again sees the female hawk, but the Yeerks, mistaking her for him, kill her. The remains of the downed truck ship are disposed of by the Yeerks, thus leaving no evidence for the Animorphs to show the world. Tobias is distressed over the death of the hawk, but realizes that it is this emotion that makes him human, as a true hawk would not care if another hawk had died. Tobias discusses this with Rachel, and begins to accept his newfound balance between being a hawk and a being a human. Tobias states that Marco had previously acquired a bald eagle morph and that he used it during the escape from the Yeerk ship. However, Marco never acquired a bald eagle; his raptor morph is an osprey. |
The Android | K. A. Applegate | 1,997 | While sneaking into a concert in dog morph, Jake and Marco discover that they are unable to detect a smell from their friend Erek King, something impossible, as all living things smell (Marco describes Erek as a "black hole of smell"). They then realize that he is also a member of the Sharing. When the Animorphs investigate further, they find out that he is really an android with a hologram projected around him, after he is hit by a bus and his hologram fails for a few seconds. Marco finds out from Tom that there is a barbecue for The Sharing going on at a nearby lake, and the Animorphs go there to find out whether Erek is working for the Yeerks. Only certain animals can see through Erek's hologram, so Ax and Marco morph wolf spiders, while the rest of the Animorphs go into their bird morphs (except Jake, who morphs a fly) to act as lookouts. While in morph, Marco and Ax confirm their suspicion that Erek is an android. However, Marco is then grabbed by a bird, who tries to eat him. He is forced to demorph in full view of Erek. Erek projects a hologram around him and from the Controllers. Erek tells Marco to come visit him at his house, and to bring the other Animorphs. After some thought, the Animorphs decide to go. In case it's a trap, they leave Rachel behind, who will morph into grizzly bear and storm the place if Ax thought-speaks a distress call. Once they get there, Erek reveals he is part of an ancient race of androids called the Chee, whose creators, the Pemalites, were destroyed by the Howlers thousands of years ago. The Chee managed to escape to Earth with a few of the last remaining Pemalites (which resembled humanoid canines), and fused their essence with wolves, creating dogs. A few members of the Chee are working against the Yeerks. Erek agreed to "become" a Controller, but in reality he controls his Yeerk. When he goes to the Yeerk Pool, he simply projects a hologram of the Yeerk going in and out of his ear, realizing that the Yeerks have very little ability to communicate while in the pool. The Chee have amazing physical strength, but they have one drawback: their programming means they cannot hurt anyone. Erek tells the Animorphs that they can change their programming with the Pemalite crystal. They find out that the Yeerks are currently in possession of the crystal, and have it in a high security facility. They agree to attempt to retrieve the crystal so the Chee can join the fight. To get it, they decide to sneak in using cockroach and spider morphs. They are chased by a rat and just barely escape being burned by a furnace, but they reach the highly guarded room. They morph into bats to echolocate and avoid the complex wiring that protects the crystal from normal means. However, once Jake has the crystal in his mouth, the Animorphs realize that he can't echolocate out of there. They go into battle morphs and race out, where they are stopped by twenty Hork-Bajir warriors. Marco sees Erek outside the windows looking in, powerless to help them. During the fighting, Marco ends up by the windows. Gasping, he smashes the window and gives the Pemalite crystal to Erek before dying. When Erek delivers an electric shock to Marco's heart and he comes to, Marco realises that all of the Hork-Bajir are dead, and the Animorphs and Erek are fine, Erek having massacred the Hork-Bajir. Erek says that he has realized why the Pemalites put the pacifist programming in him- as his memory remains perfect, Erek will never be able to move past the memory of the violence that he has committed and will constantly remember it as though it just took place-, and changes his programming back to what it was. He says that he can never join the actual fight, but he can pass on information. He gives Marco a phone number for a safe, untappable line so they can communicate. At the end of the book, Homer, Jake's dog, drops the Pemalite crystal into the ocean. |
The Unlikely Spy | null | null | The story is about crucial events that decided the outcome of World War II. German Intelligence tries to learn the time and place of invasion into France by Allied forces. The future of the war depends on this information, so British Security Agencies and MI5 in particular try to conceal the truth from Germans by giving them false information. All this is accomplished by the MI5 official Alfred Vicary, a former professor of History in one of London Universities. The German spy Catherina Blake, whose real name is Anna Steiner, actually is close to learning the secret, but some little failures help Alfred Vicary to reveal her true identity. So he devises and carries out his plan of Double Cross. The basic idea of it is that after uncovering the German spy Catherina Blake, instead of capturing and imprisoning her, the British Intelligence provides her with false documents which she accepts as information she seeks. Then she sends the content of those papers through other spies to Germany, and so German Spy agencies are being deceived without having the least idea of it. The story ends with depiction of the night Catherine tries to escape from Britain. If she could have fled she would be able to tell all she knew about British Intelligence agents and their Double Cross operation, and maybe Germans would understand that they had been deceived all the time. But Anna does not manage to escape and gets killed by the fire opened by British martial ship. So Germans remain ignorant of the secret they tried to reveal. And this causes their defeat in World War II. |
Cold Fire | Tamora Pierce | 2,002 | Daja and Frostpine are staying with some friends of Frostpine's. While they are staying there, Daja realized that the two eldest daughters of the family (the twins Niamara (Nia) and Jorality (Jory) possess ambient magic. She devises a testing mirror to determine the aspect of their magics. Nia is discovered to possess Carpentry magic and Jory to possess Cooking. Since Daja has no skill in either of those areas, she entrusts the twins to local mages. Her only responsibility is in teaching them to meditate. Since the twins are complete opposites in personality, this proves to be a challenging task. Meanwhile, Daja makes friends with a local firefighter, Ben Ladradun. He is trying to form an organized fire brigade from the villagers, but it isn't working. Daja and Ben suspect that many if not all of the recent fires were set on purpose. As Ben searches to discover the "fire-bug", Daja works tirelessly to make Ben a pair of living metal gloves to protect him from burning. Daja ends up saving many people from burning buildings as the amount of fires increases. In the end it is revealed that Ben is the "fire-bug" and Daja captures him and gives him to the authorities; who end up burning him to death. Ben set fires because the only time he got respect was when he was a victim of the flames or when he was fighting them. His emotionally and physically abusive mother created his twisted way of thinking. |
In High Places | Arthur Hailey | null | The novel is set during a fictional crisis of the Cold War. The characters are presented as attempting to lead Canada as it faces the imminent threat of thermonuclear war. James McCallum Howden is portrayed as Canada's Prime Minister, the leader of an unnamed party. The Howden government possesses a rocky, unstable majority in Canada's Parliament. Howden's political struggles are shown in counterpoint with the mingled strength and troubled feelings that he gets from his marriage. He and his wife Margaret are depicted as having a pleasant, passionless relationship, with the politician troubled by guilt over the memories of a past extramarital affair with his assistant, Milly. Despite this misstep, Howden is portrayed as a sympathetic character. Three high-ranking aides and political allies of Howden are also followed through their work, Arthur Lexington, Stuart Cawston, and Brian Richardson. Lexington and Cawston fight to protect their chief and his political position as Canada moves closer to what the novel depicts as the greatest crisis in its national history. During the course of the novel, it becomes increasingly clear that Howden's premiership is gravely threatened by the consequences of an amoral political pact that Howden was forced to make with an erstwhile ally in order to gain the party leadership. The deteriorating relationship between Howden and this former ally forms one of the key plot movements of the novel. |
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir | Bill Bryson | 2,006 | Bryson spent his childhood growing up in Des Moines, Iowa. He was born on December 8, 1951, which was also the tenth anniversary to the USA’s entry into World War II. He was a part of the baby-boom generation that was born right after World War II ended. He describes his early years of life and his parents, William and Mary Bryson. His father was a well-known sports writer for the Des Moines Register, the leading newspaper in Des Moines. His mother was also a writer; however, she wrote for magazines like Better Homes and Gardens, Good Housekeeping, and House Beautiful. He recounts many things that were invented during his childhood that fascinated him, which include frozen dinners, atomic toilets, and television. His middle-class, all-American lifestyle is shown constantly throughout the book, and the influence of his depression-era raised parents rubs off on him. He also remembers his adventures as "the thunderbolt kid," an alter ego he made up for himself when he felt powerless. He was able to vaporize people with his heat vision and thought that he came from another planet. He tells amusing stories of his misadventures as Billy Bryson also, including his first days in school when he figured out that when the entire class was running drills to protect themselves from a bomb, he would simply read comic books instead. However, when the principal and a police officer came in one day to supervise, he got in loads of trouble. Trouble was something fairly common for "the thunderbolt kid", seeing as throughout his childhood his teachers were not too amused by his abilities. In fact, Bryson recounts how he really wasn't too interested in getting up before noon, thus not even going to school very often. Despite his unique behavior, Bryson tells his story through the eyes of a child, filled with hilarious observations about basically everything: from Lumpy Kowalski's curious nickname to all the joy that was to be had in the marvelous department stores. Even though he focuses mostly on his childhood, he tells of many of the events that were happening at the time, including the development of the atomic bomb, and the beginnings of the civil rights movement. Bryson is constantly ironically praising the time in which he grew up, citing all of the fun that children could have in those days while still noting that it probably resulted in buttock cancer for many of Bishop's atomic toilet aficionados. He tells of his first days in Jr. High and High School, and during both he began smoking, drinking, and stealing, although he didn’t get caught for any of it. He met Stephen Katz in Jr. High, when they were both in the school's A/V club. Katz would accompany Bryson on many of his travel experiences. At the end of the book, Bryson tells the reader that "life moves on," and that he wishes that the world could be more similar to life in the 50s and 60s. The last lines of the book are, "What a wonderful world that would be. What a wonderful world it was. We won’t see its like again, I’m afraid." |
Crampton Hodnet | Barbara Pym | null | The action takes place in North Oxford, some time before World War II. Miss Doggett and her companion Miss Morrow, characters who reappear in another Pym novel, Jane and Prudence, like to entertain students and young clergy at their Victorian home in Banbury Road which is gloomy and surrounded with laurel bushes. When an unmarried curate, Mr. Latimer, comes to lodge at their house, he sees the homely Jessie Morrow as a suitable potential wife, but she rejects his proposal, knowing that he has no real interest in her. Meanwhile, Miss Doggett's cousin, the don Francis Cleveland, a Reader at the fictitious Randolph College, falls in love with and contemplates an extramarital affair with one of his students, Barbara Bird, but returns disappointed to his wife Margaret. In the book, Crampton Hodnet is mentioned by Mr. Latimer as a village which he pretends he was visiting when he was actually out walking with Miss Morrow. |
The Clan Corporate | Charles Stross | 2,006 | In this installment, Miriam Beckstein spends most of her time in the first parallel world, a virtual prisoner. She has ruffled enough feathers and stirred up enough trouble that her uncle, the clan's head of security, keeps her well isolated, and unable to travel unchaperoned. At one point in the story, she manages to escape surveillance for a short time, but she quickly gets herself back in trouble, and her activities are strongly circumscribed thereafter. There's a subplot involving Mike Fleming, a cop who dated Miriam a couple of times. Mike has been pulled into a government task force that is investigating the clan's activities and plans with the help of a member of the clan's security apparatus who turned his back on the clan at the end of book two. There are occasional references to the moral and security implications of holding him prisoner outside the criminal justice system, but they are not explored in any depth. |
Imperium: A Novel of Ancient Rome | Robert Harris | 2,006 | Part One – Senator – 79-70 BC The books opens and it is Tiro, M. Tullius, the secretary of Cicero who is the narrator, looking back in time over the thirty-six years he was with his master. They met when he was twenty-four years old and Cicero twenty-seven on the family estate in the hills of Arpinum. Cicero decides to consult the leading teachers of rhetoric, most of whom lived in Greece and Asia Minor, and borrows Tiro, never to return him. After trying the so-called Asiatic method, Cicero decides to enrol in the school of Apollonius Molon, a lawyer from Alabanda, who had retired to Rhodes to open his rhetorical school. It is here that Cicero develops the physical physique and voice that will make him such a popular and effective orator. Returning to Rome and becoming a senator, Cicero does a year of obligatory government service in Sicily and makes his way back to Rome to seek his fame and fortune. The plot develops when the senator and lawyer are visited some months later by Sthenius of Thermae, who has fled from Sicily after being threatened by the Governor of Sicily, Gaius Verres. Cicero decides to defend him and raises the matter in the Roman senate but his motion is talked out by Catulus and finally Hortensius, an aristocrat, Cicero’s arch rival and the leading lawyer in Rome. Cicero despatches Tiro to the National Archive, Catulus’s domain, to check Verres’s quaestorian records as governor and finds no accounts submitted. In the meantime, Verres finds Sthenius guilty of spying in his absence and sentences him to death. Tiro arranges for a place to hide him – in one of his wife’s garrets in the Roman slums – and a decision is made to appeal to the tribunes and a deal is made with Palicanus, one of Pompey’s lackeys – Pompey the Great will assist over Sthenius if Cicero supports Pompey's consular ambitions. Gaius Verres, the pro-praetor of Sicily, sends his freeman Timarchides to search Cicero’s house and Terentia, his wife, berates her husband to act. The next day Cicero, accompanied by Terentia and Quintus, his brother, makes a speech before the ten tribunes and Sthenius is safe as long as he remains in Rome.Crassus returns to Rome, victorious after his defeat of Sparticus and Cicero goes out to welcome him, following an invitation, on the Appian Way. However, the two men intensely dislike each other and refuses to support Crassus’s request for a triumph. Pompey the Great also returns from Spain and strikes a bargain with Crassus that they will share the consulship and Cicero’s career looks finished. Sthenius, who has been ignored for some time, turns up at the house one morning, accompanied by Heraclius and Epicrates who have also been swindled out of their estates by Verres. Over dinner one evening, Cicero declares his intention to stand for election as aedile and to accomplish it by prosecuting Gaius Verres for extortion, based on the accumulated evidence. Over the following months, Quintus acts as his campaign manager. Pompey is given his triumph. Gaius Verres returns to Rome. At the embezzlement court, chaired by Glabrio, Cicero submits his postulates, an application to prosecute. However, the court also receives a second application to prosecute Verres from Verres’s quaestor, Caecilius Niger – a time delaying tactic by Hortensius and Cicero has to fight it out at the Temple of Castor and eventually wins against a biased jury, surprisingly supported by Catulus, the hard and snobbish old senator who is, nevertheless, a patriot to his marrow. Cicero is forced to borrow money from Terentia to support his case and leaves Rome on the Ides of January to seek evidence against Verres in Sicily. He, Lucius, his cousin, and Tiro gather a lot of incriminating evidence, particularly after a raid on the office of the tax collectors in Syracuse where they find out about the extent of Verres’s extortion from a set of duplicate records (the originals have been removed) kept by Vibius, the financial director during Verres’s term of office. On a visit to the stone quarries, the encounter crews of merchant ships imprisoned there that should have been captured pirates whom Verres had ransomed. Cicero has an argument with Metellus, the Governor, over his appropriation of the records but is allowed, under law, to make a fair copy of them and is supported by leading members of the city’s most eminent men. On his return to Rome, Cicero discovers Hortensius hoping to tie up the extortion court’s time until the consular elections. To fund his case and also his aedile election campaign, Cicero is obliged once more to borrow money from Terentia. At the first round of the elections, Cicero learns that Verres is bribing the voters with his immense wealth; Marcus Metellus also draws the election court as praetor. At his wit’s end, Cicero pays a visit with Tiro to Pompey’s house and a secret bargain is made. The second round of the aedile elections takes place on the Field of Mars Marcus Cicero is victorious against all the odds. His energies renewed, Cicero brings all this Sicilian witnesses to the extortion court, on the 5th August in the consulship of Gnaeus Pompey Magnus and Marcus Licinius Crassus, and the trial of Gaius Verres begins. With only ten days to go until the games of Pompey the Great, Cicero follows Terentia’s advice and makes a short, withering speech saying he will make his case in the space of ten days and his success if confirmed when the court hears of the case of a Roman citizen, named Herennius, beheaded by Verres because he knew of the Governor’s taking bribes from the pirates. On the last day, a Sicilian named Numitorius tells the story of Publius Gavius, flogged to death in public despite saying ‘I am a Roman citizen’ at every stroke of the lash. All that is left is to determine the fine. Verres disappears and Hortenius makes a written offer of one and a half million which Cicero and his team reject. However, Pompey pays a call to his house who orders them to accept it (it turns out Cicero had asked Pompey to ensure Glabrio, the judge of the extortion trial, remained independent) – Pompey himself does not want to be caught in the middle of a civil war between the people and the senate. Part Two – Praetorian 68-64 BC Cicero enjoys two years of success and happiness. In his thirty-ninth year he is looking forward to the elections for a praetorship. He maintains relations with Pompey and decides to take on the case of Marcus Fonteius, the former governor of Further Gaul who is being prosecuted for corruption. Cicero does it so that he can deal with the rumour that he supports foreigners above his own people and lay it to rest. Back in the extortion court he wins his case against the Gauls but is saddened by the death of his cousin, Lucius, whom Tiro knows commits suicide, as well as his father. Whilst staying at the family farm, news arrives that Rome is threatened by pirates and Pompey request his presence at a council of war back in Rome. A plan is hatched to divided the Mediterranean into fifteen zones, with each zone to have its own legate, responsible for scouring his area clean of pirates and then to make treaties with the local rulers to prevent their return – all to report to one supreme commander, Pompey the Great. Knowing that the aristocrats will baulk at this concentration of power, Cicero persuades Pompey not to put his name anywhere on the bill setting up the supreme command and to leave it to the people to vote it to him. Rome is in a panic with the burning of Ostia by the pirates and when the Latin Festival finishes, Gabinus mounts the rostra to demand a supreme commander and at a meeting in the Senate Pompey’s arrival is greeting with boos and jeering and Piso and the other aristocrats attack him for wanting to be a second Romulus in their determination to vote down the lex Gabinia. Back at Pompey’s mansion there is a determination to prevent Crassus stealing Pompey’s glory. Cicero’s plan is to have Gabinus summon Pompey to the rostra the next day, asking him to serve as supreme commander, and to have Pompey reject it and then the people would demand he take it. Cicero writes his speech and Pompey makes his announcement to retire from public office. Crassus and Pompey are evenly matched against one another, with each having enough supporters to veto the bill if required. Crassus turns up at Cicero’s house and suggests a joint supreme command, and offering to support Cicero for consul if he conveys the offer to Pompey but Cicero’s rejects the proposal, despite being threatened by Crassus with suffering the same fate as Tiberius Gracchus. Tiro is dispatched once more to the National Archive to research Gracchus and Cicero learns that his agrarian reform law was vetoed by the tribune, Marcus Octavius, and Gracchus called upon the people to vote him out of office but was later beaten to death with sticks by the aristocrats and his body thrown into the Tiber. At a meeting at Pompey’s house, Cicero reads out the extract from the Annals and it is decided to use the same precedent – although a dangerous one for the health of the republic – to get Pompey the supreme command. Gabinus oversees a vote although he is opposed by a fellow tribune, Trebellius, a supporter of Crassus, and so Gabinus puts it to the voters to vote him out of office. Catalus tries to intervene and Roscius tries to propose splitting the joint command but is ignored by Gabinus and the lex Gabinia is passed. Pompey later arrives in the forum wearing the paludamentum, the bright scarlet cloak of every Roman proconsul on active service, and leaves the city to tackle the pirates, not to return for another six years. Cicero is elected praetor and is allocated the extortion court. The lex Manilia is proposed, granting command of the war against Mithradates to Pompey, along with the government of the provinces of Asia, Cilicia and Bithynia, the latter two held by Lucullus, which is opposed by Catulus and Hortensius. Marcus Caelius Rufus, the son of a wealthy banker, becomes Cicero’s pupil and brings him political gossip. Cicero is summoned to the house of Metellus Pius, pontifex maximus, and requested to prosecute Catilina over his extortion as governor in Africa. Turning down a governorship of a province and the lucrative money-making opportunities, Cicero opts instead to defend Caius Cornelius, Pompey’s former tribune, who has been charged with treason by the aristocrats and the jury acquits him of all charges. Events take a turn for the worse when Publius Clodius Pulcher lays charges against Sergius Catilina for the crimes he committed in Africa and Cicero thinks about defending Catilina. Terentia gives birth to a baby boy named Marcus, much to the household’s delight, and Cicero goes to Catilina’s house once more and says he is so guilty he cannot be is advocate. Cicero leaves Rome to campaign among the northern for their vote in the consulship election. He is assisted and stays with governor Piso who tells him that the aristocracy are behind Antonius Hybrida and, on his return to Rome, learns that Hybrida and Catilina are planning to run on a joint ticket. He learns from his close friend, Atticus, that Crassus is attempting to hijack the election through bribery. Using two political agents, Ranunculus and Filum, he eventually is taken to a bribery agent, Gaius Salinator, who tells him under duress that he has been paid by Crassus to deliver votes for Hybrida and Catilina and that Crassus is attempting to buy eight thousand electoral votes at the cost of twenty million. Tiro is dispatched off to meet with Caelius Rufus, who is now working for Crassus, to find out what his plans are. Rufus, who dislikes old baldhead intensely, agrees to hide Tiro in a secret panel behind a tapestry during an important meeting. About twenty important men meet at Crassus’ house, including Caesar and Catilina, and on his return to Cicero they work together on his transcribed notes, finding out that the conspirators plan to seize control of the state, introduce a land reform bill, sell of vast amounts of conquered land abroad and then annex Egypt for further acquisition of land in Italy for the plebs. It is Terentia's idea to Cicero to use the aristocrats to support him. A copy of the meeting’s notes are sent to Quintus Hortensius Hortalus. Cicero makes a devastating attack on Mucius in the senate, calling him a whore for being paid to slander Cicero’s reputation, and then goes on to indirectly attack Crassus for using bribery to reject an anti-bribery bill. Cicero then turns his attack on Catilina and, on returning home, has to wait for a reaction from Hortensius. He receives a message and is taken to Lucullus’ new house outside Rome, and Quintus Metellus, whom tried to block Cicero’s efforts in Sicily, is also present. They are suspicious of the meeting’s notes but Tiro convinces them by recording their own conversation using his shorthand script and in the early hours of the morning a deal is struck between the ‘new man’ and the aristocrats. The next day is the consular election on the Field of Mars. On returning home Cicero informs Quintus of what has transpired, and Terentia is also supportive. Cicero puts on a splendid show with a large crowd of supporters and followers accompanying him on the parade and Hortensius comes up to him with a message which leaves Catilina and Hybrida confused as they know the two men are arch enemies. The aristocratic centuries have been instructed to switch their support from Catilina to Cicero and, despite Crassus’ vote purchase, the turnout is large enough to swing the election Cicero’s way, and he is the outright winner for consul with 193 centuries, followed by Hybrida with 102. At the age of forty-two, the youngest age allowable to achieve the supreme imperium of the Roman consulship, the ‘new man’ has achieved his ultimate ambition. |
The Athenian Murders | José Carlos Somoza | 2,000 | The novel interweaves two apparently disparate storylines: the first being an ancient Greek novel published in Athens just after the Peloponnesian War and the second contained within a modern-day scholar's notes on his translation. In the ancient novel (which is itself called The Athenian Murders) a young ephebe named Tramachus is discovered on the slopes of Mount Lycabettus, apparently attacked by wolves. His tutor at the Academy, Diagoras, enlists the help of a "Decipherer of Enigmas" (a detective named Heracles Pontor) to learn more about Tramachus's death. As Diagoras and Heracles investigate, more youths from the Academy are discovered brutally murdered. Their investigation takes them all over Athens, from mystery cult worship services to a symposium hosted by Plato. Meanwhile, the translator (who is never named) provides frequent commentary on the work, especially as it appears to him to be an example of a (fictional) ancient literary device called eidesis. "Eidesis" is supposedly the practice of repeating words or phrases so as to evoke a particular image or idea in the reader's mind, as it were a kind of literary steganography. As the translator works on the novel, he soon deduces that the "eidetic" secret concealed within the novel is The Twelve Labors of Heracles, one labor for each of the twelve chapters of the novel. The translator becomes obsessed with the imagery, going so far as to see himself depicted within the ancient work. Partway through the novel, the translator is kidnapped and forced to continue the translation in a cell. His captor turns out to be the scholar Montalo, whose edition of The Athenian Murders is the only surviving copy of the work. Montalo himself had obsessed over the novel, hoping to find in it a proof of Plato's Theory of Forms. He felt that should an eidetic text, such as this novel, evoke the same ideas in each reader it would then prove that ideas have a separate, independent reality. However, Montalo finished the translation only to discover that the book proved the opposite—that the book proved his (and the translator's) reality did not exist. The translator finishes the work only to have the same realization: that they themselves are characters in The Athenian Murders, which was written by a colleague of Plato named Philotextus as a way to incorporate Plato's theory of knowledge while criticizing the philosophical lifestyle. |
Flipped | Wendelin Van Draanen | 2,001 | Julianna "Juli" Baker meets Bryce Loski two days before the beginning of second grade; it's something about those blue eyes that attract her. Juli knows it's love while Bryce, like any seven-year-old boy, doesn't. Juli stalks Bryce all through his childhood; staring at his house, asking him to play, following him at school, etc.Everyday, Bryce watches Juli climb the sycamore tree at the bus stop, which Juli is very attached to. Ever since Juli retrieved a kite at the uppermost branches, she has loved the view. She constantly asks Bryce to come join her in the tree, as well as yelling out how many blocks away the bus is. Bryce, being unbelievably shy and annoyed by all the attention, asks out Juli's nemesis, Shelly Stalls, to get rid of his admirer. Bryce looks over his shoulder for Juli every time he's with Shelly, which of course causes Juli to think he's being forced to date her. This provokes a catfight between Juli and Shelly over Bryce. The two break up, and Bryce is back to square one. There comes an incident in sixth grade when, much to Bryce's chagrin and irritation, Juli constantly sniffs Bryce's hair in spelling from her assigned position behind him. According to Juli, his hair smells like watermelon and he has blond earlobe fuzz, even though he has really dark hair. Bryce is disgruntled from this seat change, because Juli had initially sat next to him where she whispered him answers. Now that she's behind him, he's lost that advantage, and his grades slip, especially in spelling. This halts, however, when as Juli sniffs him, she begins to whisper answers in his ear. Bryce, torn between feeling grateful and awkwardly guilty for hating her so much when she's helping him, follows the answers anyway until the end of the year. Juli, on the other hand, can't stop thinking about Bryce in the many years she's known him. Obliviously missing his discomfort being around her, she continues to try to get him to like her. However, Juli's motives change when her beloved sycamore tree is cut down. Although Juli stays up in the branches for hours and misses school to protest its excision, she is brought down and isn't the same for weeks. Unbeknownst to Juli, Bryce feels horribly about Juli's tree, considering Juli asked Bryce to come up to protest with her and he declined. He frets over whether he could have made a difference, and contemplates many times apologizing to Juli but chickens out each time. Matters aren't helped when Bryce's wise but stubborn grandfather takes a fond liking to Juli and pesters Bryce to be friends with her—he doesn't seem to understand Bryce's annoyance with the girl. Juli's spirits are lightened when her father, who she admires more than anyone, paints her a picture of her sycamore tree. Juli often sits out with her dad on the porch for hours, listening to him talk and watching him paint. Juli hangs the picture in her room so she'll always be reminded of what the tree represented for her. Things with Juli start to change when Juli gives Bryce and his family a batch of chicken eggs. Bryce's mother immediately expresses concern that the eggs might be fertilized, so Bryce and his best friend, Garret, sneak over to her house and try to spy on the chickens in her backyard in search of a rooster (The chickens are a result of Juli's winning science fair project, which Bryce is a bit bitter about but means a lot to Juli.) Confused about the differences between chickens, hens, and roosters, they head home without answers. Bryce's family, however, has a new concern—salmonella. Juli's yard has always been very messy, and the family is concerned about poisoning in the eggs. Bryce's father tells him to just say no to Juli about the eggs, but Bryce ends up just throwing the eggs away before his parents come down for breakfast. This goes on for two years, but ends when Juli catches Bryce throwing the eggs into the trash can and tells him she's lost over a hundred dollars giving him the eggs when she's been selling them to her neighbors. She runs home, leaving Bryce feeling miserable. Things take a dive for the worse in eighth grade when Juli overhears Bryce talking to Garret about her mentally challenged uncle. Garret makes a joke about Juli being mentally injured as well. Bryce wants to punch him, (To be exact "slug him") but doesn't want to lose his friend, so he pretends to laugh. Juli, furious and hurt, decides to abandon every thought of Bryce, even though Bryce's grandpa is very good friends with Juli and helps her tame her yard. The flip comes here: the more angry Juli is and the more she ignores him, the more Bryce notices and likes Juli, especially after he finds an old article about Juli's protest for her tree from elementary school. Bryce begins to see that Juli is smart, spirited, and "iridescent", as Grandpa Chet calls her. And for once, Bryce can't get Juli out of his head, and Juli hates Bryce the way Bryce hated her. The climax comes at the eighth grade basket boys' luncheon, an auction in which boys are sold off to win money for charity. Shy Bryce hates this event but has no choice in the matter. Bryce, being incredibly cute, gets auctioned off to Shelly and Miranda, the prettiest girls in his school, and Juli buys Jon out of pity, a boy who didn't get many offers. While on their lunch date, Bryce finds he can't focus on Shelly and Miranda: he just wants to talk to Juli. He gets his chance when Shelly and Miranda get into a huge food fight over him. While they're fighting, Bryce sneaks over to Juli's table, pulls her away from her date, and asks if she likes Jon. She answers that no, she doesn't, but is clearly still annoyed at Bryce and wants nothing to do with him. Bryce, in his relief, takes her hands, leans in, and tries to kiss her, but she yanks back and runs away. Unfortunately for Bryce, this act is witnessed in front of his entire class, so he is dogged the rest of the day by taunts, especially by his friend Garret. It is implied that Bryce drops Garret as a friend in favor of Juli by the end. Juli manages to get home without Bryce seeing her, but Bryce is determined now. He calls, knocks on her door, and eventually climbs her window. Juli ignores him by sitting in the living room, until she looks out the window and sees Bryce's last attempt at winning her heart: he plants a sycamore tree in her front yard. Juli now realizes Bryce has changed and waves back at him from her bedroom window. |
Conan the Usurper | L. Sprague de Camp | null | Conan, about forty in these stories, embarks on the most desperate gamble of his life — leading a revolution against King Numedides of Aquilonia, with the end of making himself king in his place. From his low point as a treasure-seeking fugitive in the Pictish Wilderness, he is retrieved by allies from his days in the Aquilonian army to lead the revolt. The borderlands suffer grievously during the war, but in the end Conan takes the throne, only to suffer the customary uneasiness of the head that wears the crown, from an attempted assassination involving Stygian sorcerer Thoth-Amon to magical treachery on the battlefield as he strives to defend his hard-won kingship against predatory foreign powers. The Aquilonian civil war between Conan and Numedides is not actually depicted, but occurs offstage as background to the action of "Wolves Beyond the Border", Howard's only non-Conan tale set in the Hyborian Age. De Camp later made the war itself the subject of his novel Conan the Liberator, co-written with Lin Carter. "The Phoenix on the Sword", which Howard rewrote from an earlier Kull story, marks his only use of Thoth-Amon as an antagonist, in a somewhat peripheral role — he and Conan never even meet! In later stories de Camp and Carter would later elevate the Stygian sorcerer into one of Conan's principal enemies. Howard later reused the plot of "The Scarlet Citadel" as the basis of his only Conan novel, The Hour of the Dragon (afterwards retitled Conan the Conqueror). Chronologically, the four short stories collected as Conan the Usurper fall between Conan the Warrior and Conan the Conqueror. |
Conan the Wanderer | L. Sprague de Camp | null | Conan, now about thirty-one, survives a Turanian trap that crushes his Zuagir raiders and seeks bloody revenge on Vardanes of Zamora, their betrayer. Afterwards he moves on to other adventures, engaging in skull-duggery in the cannibal-haunted city of Zamboula and ultimately gaining command of a band of Kozaki in the service of Kobad Shah, king of Iranistan. In this final adventure he once again encounters his arch-enemy Olgerd Vladislav, his predecessor as chief of the Zuagirs. Chronologically, the four short stories collected as Conan the Wanderer fall between Conan the Freebooter and Conan the Adventurer. |
The Power of the Dog | Don Winslow | 2,005 | The novel begins in 1975 with the main character Art Keller watching the opium poppy fields of the Mexican state of Sinaloa burn. The burning is done in preference to the use of Agent Orange. Keller has just begun his career as a DEA agent, coming over from operative work with the CIA, and a veteran of Viet Nam's Phoenix Program. Keller tells us that though there are similarities, this isn't Operation Phoenix but Operation Condor. Keller's career looks like it might end before it begins, until he works his way into the friendship of the Barrera brothers and Miguel Angel Barrera, referred to us as Tío (meaning Uncle/Valued Elder Patron). Tío sets it up so that Don Pedro Aviles, the main drug lord of Sinaloa, is assassinated, while giving Art Keller the credit for the drug lord's death during an arrest. Tío then leads the Sinaloa heroin traffickers into the modern age as the cartel's new leader. |
Curse of the Viking Grave | Farley Mowat | 1,966 | The novel is set in the northern Manitoban forests and in the Barrens to the north. Jamie, Awasin, and Peetyuk divide their time between studying with Jamie's uncle, Angus Macnair, and trapping in the woods. When the Chipeweyan camp nearby succumbs to deadly influenza, the boys help with supplies and nurse the survivors, while Angus travels south in search of medical help. However, Angus contracts pneumonia on the journey and is hospitalized. Jamie is anxious both to obtain money for Angus's treatment and to avoid being placed with Child Welfare. He prepares to return to the Viking tomb he discovered (in Lost in the Barrens) which he believes may contain valuable archaeological relics. The boys and Awasin's sister, Angeline, set out to the still frozen north by dog sled and cariole and eventually meet up with Peetyuk's people, with whom they stay until the thaw. They realize that the Ihalmiut are struggling to survive, and so they decide that most of the profits from the grave should go to help them. The medicine man tells them the story of the heroic Viking known as Koonar and claims that a curse will descend on anyone who disturbs his rest. Defying the curse, Jamie uncovers a sword, a soapstone box, and other ancient pieces. Planning to take the artifacts to Churchill, the travelers set out again, this time by canoe, and brave the treacherous Big River which leads to Hudson Bay. |
Storming Heaven | Dale Brown | null | After Admiral Hardcastle warns the world about America's lack of guards against terrorism, the horrors begin. Henri Cazaux, a psychopathic terrorist, attacks the heartland and then the San Francisco airport with explosives. The country is terrorized. The US authorities are overwhelmed. A single-engine Cessna, loaded with explosives, attacks the White House. Soon after publication, when Frank Eugene Corder flew in a Cessna at low altitude to the White House and crashed on the grounds, newspapers noted similarities. No explosives were found in the wreckage of the plane Corder flew. |
Squire by Tamora Pierce | Tamora Pierce | 2,001 | Squire tells the story of Keladry of Mindelan's years as a squire, between the ages of fourteen and eighteen. Having passed the "big examinations", Kel becomes a squire without a knight-master. While she becomes frustrated at waiting for offers from knights, her best friend, Nealan of Queenscove becomes squire to Alanna the Lioness, the first lady knight in Tortall, and Kel's personal hero. While Kel is disappointed at not becoming the Lioness's squire, she shortly receives an equally prestigious offer from Lord Raoul of Goldenlake, commander of the elite King's Own and a personal friend to the Lioness. As Lord Raoul's squire, she travels with the King's Own and participates in routine duties ranging from chasing rogue centaurs to helping to rebuilt villages afflicted by natural disasters such as mudslides. Along the way, Kel acquires a baby griffin from the bandits who kidnapped him from his parents' nest. Due to the high incidence of kidnapping immature griffins for their magical powers, griffin parents attack any human who has ever touched one of their offspring, so this task is not without its dangers. As knight-master, Raoul teaches Kel the fineries of command, and hones her proven skills in jousting, eventually entering her into tournaments where she jousts against other squires and knights. She jousts twice against Wyldon of Cavall, her previous training master, a political conservative who was initially vehemently opposed to Kel's training to be a knight. After the second time, she meets three girls, two of them sisters, who explain that they wish to train for knighthood as well. Kel gives them some advice, noting that the sisters appear serious about it while the third girl seems more like the type that jumps around from idea to idea. When a political marriage is arranged for Prince Roald, the heir apparent, the Yamani Princess he is betrothed to, turns out to be Shinkokami (nicknamed Shinko), a friend from Kel's childhood years in the Yamani Islands; one of her ladies-in-waiting is Yukimi noh Daiomoru, another of Kel's old friends. Shinko's anxiety about her upcoming marriage, and the prospect of integrating into Tortallan society, become catalysts for the three to reforge their friendship, as Kel introduces Shinko to various aspects of Tortallan culture. She also introduces Yuki to her squire friends, and she and Neal strike up a quick romance. Joren of Stone Mountain is found to be the noble who paid two men to kidnap Lalasa Isran, Kel's maid. He is, however, acquitted with a fine. Kel protests the unfairness of the law to the monarchs and gets them to attempt to change it. Princess Shinkokami's introduction to the subjects of Tortall provides an excuse for the Grand Progress, a progress of the royal family, nobility and other notables. Against his wishes, Raoul joins the progress, with Kel in tow. This becomes a chance that lets Kel strike up a secret romance with Cleon of Kennan, and Raoul becomes involved with the commander of the Queen's Riders, Queen Thayet's former bodyguard and right-hand lady, Buriram Tourakom. Kel's second Midwinter as a squire sees her facing the ordeals of knighthoods of her older friends Prince Roald and Cleon of Kennan (who is at this point Kel's sweetheart). Their Age group includes Joren of Stone Mountain, who dies in the Chamber, and Vinson of Genlith, who is punished by the Chamber for all the evil deeds he has done to women, namely by feeling every injury done to them. On the Midwinter after her eighteenth birthday, Kel is scheduled to undergo the Ordeal of Knighthood, a ritual that determines if a squire is worthy to become a knight. Of all her year-mates, her name is drawn for the last day of midwinter. Kel waits anxiously while all her friends pass their Ordeals, but her anxiety is disproven; she passes the Ordeal and receives her knight's shield after seeing a disturbing vision in the Chamber, as well as a sword from the Lioness, who had been anonymously sending her gifts of weapons and training equipment throughout her page and squire years. |
Koko | Peter Straub | 1,988 | Shortly after the end of the Iranian Hostage Crisis, the newspaper Stars and Stripes publishes an article chronicling a series of brutal, ritualistic murders in Far East Asia. All of the victims have had their eyes and ears removed, and each was found with a playing card slipped into his or her mouth with the word "KOKO" written on it. Shortly thereafter, a reunion of Vietnam War veterans is held at the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington DC. Four survivors of a doomed platoon—Michael Poole (a pediatrician plagued by grief over the death of his young son from cancer and ambivalence about his marriage), Tina Pumo (owner of a Vietnamese restaurant), Conor Linklater (a journeyman construction worker) and Harry Beevers (an opportunistic lawyer)-- gather to discuss the Koko killings. Because the word "Koko" holds special significance to the members of their platoon, and because the killings recall the events in a series of books he wrote, the men believe that the killer is Tim Underhill, another member of their platoon who disappeared years earlier in southeast Asia. Beevers convinces the men to help him track down Underhill, hoping that later they can sell the story of their adventure to the news media and become millionaires. While Pumo remains in New York to finish work on his soon-to-be-reopened restaurant, Beevers, Poole, and Linklater travel to Asia in search of Underhill, while the killer travels to America to continue his killing spree, which is meant to atone for an atrocity committed by Beevers and other members of the platoon years earlier, during the war. Much of the plot is interspersed with flashbacks to the four friends' time in Vietnam. Harry Beevers, the lieutenant of the group, was forceful and merciless. Tina, Conor, and Michael were soldiers in his platoon, along with several other men, most notably Victor Spitalny, a foul-tempered and arrogant young man, and M.O. Dengler, a philosophical and thoughtful man from a small town. After Vietnam, it was said that, while Dengler and Spitalny were traveling together in Bangkok, Dengler was brutally murdered in an alleyway while Spitalny fled the scene. Spitalny has not been accounted for since then (fifteen years before the platoon's trip to Singapore). Michael, Conor, and Harry fail to find Underhill in Singapore, but are given several leads while milling around sketchy clubs in the heart of the city that lead Michael and Conor to Bangkok and Harry to Taipei. While Conor searches the darker side of Bangkok, Michael wanders the flower market and residential areas of Bangkok. Before he does so, he visits the scene of Dengler's death, among other landmarks, but his search turns up fruitless. However, while wandering aimlessly around the city, thinking of his wife Judy and the strained relationship between the two of them, he sees an elephant, which delights him, and very soon afterwards finds Underhill at a small neighborhood fair. Upon meeting him, Michael realizes that Underhill couldn't possibly be Koko. His personality and state of mind are far too stable for vicious homicides. Michael convinces Underhill to return to America and help them find Koko. It is agreed that Underhill will accompany Michael and Conor on the flight to San Francisco where they meet with Harry and return to New York together. Meanwhile, back in America, Tina Pumo is murdered by Koko in his apartment. Tina's girlfriend, an attractive young Chinese woman named Maggie Lah, comes to visit him shortly there-after. Maggie realises something is wrong on arriving at Tina's apartment, as the front door has been left open, and enters the apartment trying not to attracting notice. Koko realises she has entered but is not sure of her whereabouts. Koko attempts to lure Maggie into exposing herself to him & gives his position away in the process. Maggie smashes an empty plant pot on Koko's head and knocks him briefly to the floor. This gains Maggie the few precious seconds she needs to escape, and she runs off. She is pursued, but the small lead she has is enough, and she makes it to safety. Michael, Conor, Beevers, Underhill, and Maggie mourn Tina's death, though Maggie does not attend the funeral, as she's worried about what Tina's relatives will say about her position in his life. The five get together and deduce that the murderer is, in fact, Victor Spitalny, having seen such horrors in the war that he has snapped and gone on a murderous rampage. Michael and Maggie begin a relationship. Underhill and Beevers stay at Beevers' house and man the phones in case Koko calls. Michael, Maggie, and Underhill travel to Milwaukee, where Spitalny's parents live, and speak with the two of them. They do not trust the father, George Spitalny, and Maggie develops a hatred towards him. Conor returns home and develops a relationship with the cousin of a man he works with, a woman named Ellen Woyzak. Beevers posts many fliers around town, each of them displaying a coded message only understandable by Koko, telling him to meet Beevers at a park in the center of town a few days later. In Milwaukee, the trio find out that Dengler and Spitalny went to the same school together, and speak to several of Spitalny's old classmates. None have anything particularly odd to say about Spitalny, though Michael agrees to meet one of them for lunch the next day and another for drinks that evening. Out of curiosity, Michael, Underhill, and Maggie go to see Dengler's mother. She turns out to be a religious maniac who taught M.O. Dengler a twisted version of Christianity, along with her husband, who is now deceased. When Michael meets Dengler's classmate for drinks, the man tells him that Dengler's parents had violently abused him several times to correct any errors he might have made. Furthermore, Dengler's father had been arrested and put in prison (and gruesomely murdered two years later by another prisoner) for sexually assaulting Dengler, beginning when he was five or six. Underhill learns the same information at the library, as well as the fact the Karl Dengler is Manny Dengler's real father (where Mrs. Dengler is not his real mother). Michael is shocked by the news and returns with Maggie and Underhill to New York. Conor and Ellen are waiting fervently for them at the airport, where Underhill is arrested because Harry Beevers had made an anonymous call to police so he could get Michael and Underhill out of the way and capture Koko alone. It is revealed that Koko has been telling people that his name is Underhill, thus framing Underhill for any murders he may have committed. Michael explains this to Murphy, the policeman who arrested Underhill, and reveals that Koko is not Spitalny as they had thought, but M.O. Dengler, their beloved comrade. Dengler killed Spitalny, switched dog-tags, and had a mob destroy his face and body. Murphy scolds the group for not telling the police of their findings before letting them go. Meanwhile, Harry Beevers decides to trap Koko in a killing box and hides in an arcade in Chinatown. He moves down a flight of stairs, a knife in one pocket and a pair of handcuffs in the opposite pocket. He hears something in the darkness and reaches for his knife. Beevers then remembers, belatedly, that the knife had fallen through a hole in his coat pocket earlier on that day, and he transferred it to the same pocket as the handcuffs, to make it easier to find. Koko seizes him and draws him into the darkness beneath the stairs. Michael, Maggie, Underhill, Conor, and Ellen travel quickly to where they think Beevers met Koko--a cave-like arcade in Chinatown. Murphy and his squad of police trail them. They are unaware of the policemen's presence until Underhill alerts Michael to the sight of them. Michael and the group flee in different directions down a deserted street by the arcade. Underhill and Maggie alert Michael after finding a bloody knife on a lower level of a tenement building that they were hiding in. Michael, Conor, and Underhill find Beevers tied up, gagged, and injured. Koko/Dengler is nearby, and smashes a lightbulb, throwing the group into darkness. The policemen catch up with them and negotiate with Koko to release the four men . Koko/Dengler stabs Michael in the side and does the same to Underhill, however he gags Underhill and steals his jacket so that he could be easily mistaken for Underhill himself in the dim light. After Michael alerts the police that the small man in the coat is not Underhill, Koko/Dengler murders one of the officers and escapes. In the aftermath, Koko/Dengler travels to the Honduras and is never heard from again. Michael, Underhill, Maggie, Conor, and Ellen all survive, however Beevers commits suicide six months after the scene in the basement, having no purpose in his life and no more illusions of grandeur to hold onto. Two years later, Michael and Maggie are together and live in a loft above Tina Pumo's old loft, where Underhill lives with Vinh and his daughter. Underhill narrates the end of the story, and imagines Koko's first few days in Honduras and the constant anxiety that would come with them. |
Dawkins' God: Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life | Alister McGrath | 2,004 | McGrath begins with an overview of evolutionary biology and Darwinist theory. He then presents Dawkins’ view that the current state of scientific knowledge should lead a rational person to conclude that there is no God. McGrath argues that Dawkins fails to declare or defend several crucial assumptions or premises. McGrath also defends other conclusions in the book, including: * the scientific method cannot conclusively prove that God does or does not exist; * the theory of evolution does not necessarily entail any particular atheistic, agnostic, or Christian understanding of the world; * Dawkins’ refutation of William Paley’s watchmaker analogy does not equate to a refutation of God’s existence; * Dawkins’ proposal that memes explain the evolutionary development of human culture is more illogical and unscientific than a clearly articulated defence of Christianity; * Dawkins is ignorant of Christian theology and mischaracterizes religious people generally. McGrath argues that Dawkins’ rejection of faith is a straw man argument. According to McGrath, Dawkins’ definition that faith “means blind trust, in the absence of evidence” is not a Christian position. In contrast, argues McGrath, accepting Dawkins’ definition would require blind trust since he offers no evidence to support it. Rather, it is based upon what McGrath calls “an unstated and largely unexamined cluster of hidden non-scientific values and beliefs” (p. 92). McGrath then argues that Dawkins frequently violates the very tenets of evidence-based reasoning that Dawkins himself claims to uphold and use to dismiss all religious belief. Also on page 92, McGrath states "... Darwinism neither proves nor disproves the existence of God (unless, of course God is defined by his critics in precisely such a way...)." |
A Suitable Boy | Vikram Seth | 1,994 | A Suitable Boy is set in post-independence, post-partition India. The novel follows the story of four families over a period of 18 months as a mother searches for a suitable boy to marry her daughter. The 1349-page novel alternatively offers satirical and earnest examinations of national political issues in the period leading up to the first post-Independence national election of 1952, including inter-sectarian animosity, the status of lower caste peoples such as the jatav, land reform and the eclipse of the feudal princes and landlords, academic affairs, inter- and intra-family relations and a range of further issues of importance to the characters. A suitable boy centres on Mrs. Rupa Mehra's efforts to arrange the marriage of her younger daughter, Lata, with a "suitable boy". At the heart of the novel it is a love story, set in a young, newly independent India. It begins in the fictional town of Brahmpur, located on the Ganges between Banares and Patna. Brahmpur, along with Calcutta, Delhi, Kanpur and other Indian cities, forms a colourful backdrop for the emerging stories. Lata is a 19-year-old college girl, vulnerable, yet determined to have her own way and not be influenced by her strong mother and opinionated brother, Arun. Her story revolves around the choice she is forced to make between her suitors, Kabir, Haresh, and Amit. The novel is not simply based on one story. This epic novel covers the various issues faced by post-independence India, including Hindu-Muslim strife, abolition of the Zamindari system, land reforms and empowerment of Muslim women. The novel is divided into 19 parts, with each part focussing on a different story (and eventually coming back round again). For example part 1 is about Lata's story; part 2 is about a courtesan (the beginning of a major subplot featuring Maan Kapoor); part 3 is about Lata again; part 4 is about Haresh; part 5 is about the Brahmpur political scene etc. Each part is described by a rhyming couplet on the contents page. |
Count Robert of Paris | Walter Scott | 1,832 | At the end of the 11th century, the Byzantine capital of Constantinople was threatened by Turkic nomads from the east, and by the Franks from the west. Unable to rely on his Greek subjects to repel their incursions, the emperor was obliged to maintain a body-guard of Varangians, or mercenaries from other nations, of whom the citizens and native soldiers were very jealous. One of these, the Anglo-Saxon Hereward, had just been attacked by Sebastes, when a Varangian officer, Tatius, intervened and led him to the palace. Here he was introduced to the imperial family, surrounded by their attendants; and the Princess Anna was reading a roll of history she had written, when her husband Brennius entered to announce the approach of the armies composing the first Crusade. Convinced that he was powerless to prevent their advance, the emperor offered them hospitality on their way; and, the leaders having agreed to acknowledge his sovereignty, the various hosts marched in procession before his assembled army. As Emperor Comnenus, however, moved forward to receive the homage of Count Bohemond, his vacant throne was insolently occupied by Count Robert of Paris, who was with difficulty compelled to vacate it, and make his submission. The defiant knight, accompanied by his wife Brenhilda, afterwards met the sage Agelastes, who related the story of an enchanted princess, and decoyed them to his hermitage overlooking the Bosphorus. Here they were introduced to the empress and her daughter, who, attended by Brennius, came to visit the sage, and were invited to return with them to the palace to be presented to the emperor. At the State banquet which followed, the guests, including Sir Bohemond, were pledged by their royal host, and urged to accept the golden cups they had used. On waking next morning, Count Robert found himself in a dungeon with a tiger, and that Ursel was confined in an adjoining one. Presently an aggressive orangutan descended through a trap-door, soon followed by the armed Sebastes. Both were overpowered by the Count, when Hereward made his appearance, and undertook to release his Norman adversary. A treasonable conference was meanwhile taking place between Tatius and Agelastes, who had failed in endeavouring to tamper with the Anglo-Saxon; and the countess had been unwillingly transported by the slave Diogenes to a garden-house for a secret interview with Brennius, whom she challenged to knightly combat in the hearing of her husband. Having hidden the count, Hereward encountered his sweetheart Bertha, who had followed Brenhilda as her attendant, and then obtained an audience of the imperial family, who were discussing recent events, including a plot in which Brennius was concerned for seizing the throne, and received permission to communicate with the Duke de Bouillon. Bertha volunteered to be his messenger, and, at an interview with the council of Crusaders at Scutari, she induced them to promise that fifty knights, each with ten followers, should attend the combat to support their champion. Having made his confession to the Patriarch, while Agelastes was killed by the orangutan as he argued with Brenhilda respecting the existence of the devil, the emperor led his daughter to the cell in which Ursel was confined, with the intention of making him her husband, instead of Brennius. She had, however, been persuaded by her mother to intercede for the traitor, and Ursel was merely placed under the care of the slave doctor Douban to be restored to health after his long imprisonment. The emperor had decided that Brennius should fight the Count of Paris, instead of the countess, and all the preparations for the combat had been made, when the ships conveying the Crusaders hove in sight; and, after defeating the Greek fleet, they landed in sight of the lists. Brennius, in the meantime, was pardoned, and, in answer to shouts of discontent from the assembled crowd, Ursel was led forth to announce his restoration to liberty and the imperial favour, and the conspiracy was crushed. Hereward then appeared to do battle with Count Robert, and, saved from the knight's axe by Bertha, he joined the Crusaders, obtaining on his return the hand of his betrothed, and, ultimately, a grant of land from William Rufus, adjacent to the New Forest in Hampshire, where he had screened her when a girl from the tusk of a wild boar. |
Castle Dangerous | Walter Scott | 1,832 | During the struggle for the Scottish crown between Edward I and Robert Bruce, the stronghold of his adherent Sir James Douglas, known as Castle Dangerous, had been taken by the English, and Lady Augusta had promised her hand and fortune to its new governor, Sir John de Walton, on condition that he held it for a year and a day. Anxious to curtail this period, she determined to make her way thither, accompanied by her father's minstrel, Bertram, disguised as his son, and they were within three miles of their destination, when fatigue compelled them to seek shelter at Tom Dickson's farm. Two English archers, who were quartered there, insisted that the youth (Lady Augusta in disguise) should be left at the neighbouring convent of St Bride's, until Bertram satisfied Sir John as to the object of their journey, and this arrangement was approved of by Sir Aymer de Valance, the deputy governor, who arrived to visit the outpost. As they proceeded together towards the castle, the minstrel entertained the young knight with some curious legends respecting it, including the supernatural preservation of an ancient lay relating to the house of Douglas, and the future fate of the British kingdom generally. De Valance would at once have passed the stranger into the stronghold as a visitor; but the old archer Gilbert Greenleaf detained him in the guard room until the arrival of the governor, who, in the hearing of Fabian, Sir Aymer's squire, expressed his disapproval of his deputy's imprudence, and thus the seeds of disagreement were sown between them. Sir John, however, wished to be indulgent to his young officers, and accordingly arranged a hunting party, in which the Scottish vassals in the neighbourhood were invited to join; but, at the mid-day repast, a forester named Turnbull behaved so rudely to the governor that he ordered him to be secured, when he suddenly plunged into a ravine and disappeared. The young knight took fresh offence at being ordered to withdraw the archers from the sport to reinforce the garrison, and appealed to his uncle, the Earl of Pembroke, who, instead of taking his part, wrote him a sharp reproof. He then opposed the governor's wish that the minstrel should terminate his visit, which induced Sir John to threaten Bertram with torture unless he instantly revealed his purpose in coming to the castle. The minstrel declined to do so without his son's permission; and, the Abbot having pleaded for delay on account of the boy's delicate health, Sir Aymer was ordered to meet a detachment at an outpost, and then to bring him to the castle to be examined. As he passed through the town he encountered a mounted warrior in full armour, whom neither the inhabitants nor his followers would admit having seen. The old sexton, however, declared that the spirits of the deceased knights of Douglas could not rest in their graves while the English were at enmity with their descendants. On reaching the convent, De Valence roused Father Jerome, and insisted that the youth (Lady Augusta) should at once accompany him. He was, however, allowed to return to his bed till daybreak, and upon the door of his room being then forced open, it was empty. During the night, Sister Ursula, who had hidden in the room, elicited Lady Augusta's secret, which she had already guessed, and, having narrated the circumstances under which she had entered the convent without taking the vows, they escaped through a concealed postern and found a guide with horses waiting for them. A scroll which his lady-love had left behind her explained matters to Sir John, who, in his despair, was comforted by the sympathy of his lieutenant; and the faithful minstrel, having been admitted to their confidence, steps were at once taken to track the fugitives. Having reached a thicket, Sister Ursula (whose original name was Lady Margaret) disappeared to join her friends, and Lady Augusta was escorted, first by the celebrated Douglas, and then by Turnbull, to a spot where they met Sir John, to whom the forester delivered a message with which he refused to comply, and mortally wounded the man when he attempted to lead the lady away. But Sir James was at hand, and the two knights fought until summoned by the church bells to Palm Sunday service, at which the old bishop officiated in the presence of an excited assemblage of armed English and Scotch warriors eager to attack each other. Bertram met Lady Augusta in the churchyard, and was arranging for her safety, when De Walton and The Douglas renewed their combat, and an encounter also took place between De Valence and Sir Malcolm Fleming, Lady Margaret's lover. The life of the Sir Malcolm was saved by the intercession of Lady Margaret, and Sir John surrendered his sword and governorship on the arrival of a messenger with the intelligence that an English force, commanded by the Earl of Pembroke, which was advancing to prevent an anticipated attack on the castle, had been utterly defeated by Bruce and his followers. He and his troops, however, were allowed to retire with their arms, Sir James Douglas having chivalrously transferred his claim upon her lover to the Lady Augusta of Berkely, who, in return for his courtesy, decorated the brave Scotchman with a chain of brilliants which had been won in battle by her ancestor. |
Genius Loci | Ben Aaronovitch | null | A young Bernice Summerfield lands a job as an archaeologist on a colony world. She discovers evidence that the planet was previously inhabited by a sapient species. |
Conan the Buccaneer | Lin Carter | null | Conan, now in his late thirties and captain of the Wastrel, becomes embroiled in the politics of the kingdom of Zingara when he seeks the rumored treasure on the Nameless Isle. The fugitive Princess Chabela, the privateer Zarono, and the Stygian sorcerer Thoth-Amon are among those mixed up in the treasure quest. Chronologically, Conan the Buccaneer falls between "The Pool of the Black One'" in Conan the Adventurer and "Red Nails" in Conan the Warrior. |
Der Tunnel | null | null | Allan, an idealistic engineer, wants to build a tunnel at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean connecting America with Europe within the space of a few years. The idealist's scheme is thwarted for financial reasons, and the tunnel construction (in particular a segment dug under a mountain) experiences several disasters. A fiasco seems inevitable, the army of workers revolt, and Allan becomes a figure of universal hatred throughout the world. After 26 years of construction, the tunnel is finally completed; however, the engineering masterpiece is outdated as soon as it opens, as aeroplanes now cross the Atlantic in a few hours. |
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