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Sir Percy Hits Back | Baroness Emma Orczy | 1,927 | Fleurette is a beautiful, innocent country girl who has been protected by her indulgent, wealthy father from the worst horrors of the revolution. Her father Citizen Armand, whom she calls Bibi, is frequently away from home because of his exalted position in the government, but he dotes on her and showers her with gifts and affection during his infrequent visits to their house at Lou Mas, in Dauphiné near Larangne. As Fleurette's mother is dead, she is looked after by Old Louise the housekeeper when Bibi is away. She also spends much time at the Frontenac family farm and is in love with her childhood sweetheart Amédé, the son of the local épicier M'sieu' Colombe. Amédé is now twenty and will soon be leaving the village to become a soldier and fight the English. On Fleurette's 18th birthday, Bibi comes home to visit and all seems perfect in Fleurette's world. Yet, although the horrors of the Revolution appear far away, in reality they are nearby, for a group of soldiers has arrived in the village to arrest the Frontenac family at their chateau. When the soldiers arrive at the farm they discover that Madame de Frontenac and her crippled daughter Rose have disappeared. Only Charles de Frontenac, farmer and descendant of a long line of aristocrats, is at the house. They turn the house over looking for his wife and daughter with no success for the Scarlet Pimpernel has beaten them to it. Meanwhile, oblivious to what is happening at the farm, Fleurette hears a mysterious voice that tells her "Papers and valuables are behind the panel in Madame's room" She realises that 'Madame' is Madame de Frontenac and rushes excitedly to the chateau, thinking that the message is from St. Antoine, and that perhaps Madame has mislaid some papers. She arrives at the farm to discover the soldiers have trashed the place. Remembering a secret cupboard that Madame had shown her and Rose, Fleurette takes a wallet, a money-bag and a small casket and hides them in her pockets and under her shawl. She is just about to leave for home when she runs into her father standing by the stables with a tricolour sash around his waist. She gets away without him discovering what she has been doing and gives the items to her lover Amédé to hide in his father's tool shed. The next day, a group of soldiers arrive to search the Colombe's premises, having been tipped off that the items are there. They find the items and march off with Amédé, M. de Frontenac, and the soldiers who were there before. It's not long before Fleurette hears that Amédé has been accused of theft and, determined to clear his name, she takes old Louise and searches for her father to explain what really happened in the hope that he can intervene. She eventually finds him down in Orange at the Commission, for her father is none other than Citizen Armand Chauvelin, the arch-enemy of the Scarlet Pimpernel. Chauvelin may be ruthless and merciless, but it appears that he can also be gentle and caring where Fleurette is concerned. It turns out that the soldiers who took Amédé, M. de Frontenac were actually the 'English spies' and he is terrified of what might happen to Fleurette after he hears her story. It is not long before Chauvelin's fears come true as Lieutenant Godot, whom Chauvelin has threatened to denounce for losing the prisoners to the Scarlet Pimpernel, brings Fleurette in front of the Committee on a charge of treason. To make matters worse there is a witness: Old Louise's daughter Adele who has always resented Fleurette's wealthy lifestyle. With his daughter apparently trapped by laws that he had helped to create, Chauvelin is determined to save her, thinking even now that if only he can capture the Scarlet Pimpernel, perhaps he would be able to trade the Englishman for his daughter's life. Despite his best efforts to forestall the inevitable process of trial and guillotine from happening to his beloved daughter the day arrives when Fleurette must face condemnation from her own father. After suffering intense mental anguish for weeks it finally occurs to Chauvelin that he may have to turn to his bitter enemy for help; for surely the Scarlet Pimpernel is the only person who can save Fleurette - but will Sir Percy be willing to help his enemy's child considering Chauvelin's previous treatment of Lady Blakeney? de:The Scarlet Pimpernel fr:Le Mouron rouge |
What a carve up! | Jonathan Coe | 1,994 | Godfrey, son of the wealthy Matthew and Frances Winshaw of Yorkshire, is shot down by German anti-aircraft fire during a secret wartime mission over Berlin, on 30 November 1942. His sister Tabitha alleges that he was betrayed by their brother Lawrence, but no-one believes her, and she is committed to a mental institution. Nineteen years later, after a party to mark the 50th birthday of their other brother Mortimer, Lawrence is attacked in the night by an intruder, but survives, killing the intruder in the process. The intruder, a middle aged man, remains unidentified. Later, in the 1980s, a young novelist, Michael Owen, is commissioned to write a history of the Winshaw family, receiving a generous stipend from Tabitha Winshaw to do so. He works on this on and off, but with no deadline or pressure to complete, the project stagnates and Michael becomes reclusive, staying in his London flat watching videotapes of old films – in particular the 1961 British comedy What a Carve Up! starring Kenneth Connor, Shirley Eaton and Sid James. He emerges back into society, and resumes his interest in the project, following a visit from a neighbour, Fiona, seeking sponsorship for a 40-mile bicycle ride. The novel focuses by turns on the various figures in the Winshaw family: the lazy, hypocritical, populist tabloid newspaper columnist Hilary, the ambitious and ruthless career politician Henry, the brutal chicken and pork farmer Dorothy, the predatory art-gallery owner and art dealer Roderick (Roddy), the investment banker Thomas, and the arms dealer Mark. In each of these sections the novel depicts the way in which actions by individuals from the same family, serving their own greedy interests, have distressing and far-reaching consequences. Michael's renewed interest in the Winshaws coincides with the appearance in his life of Findlay Onyx, a private detective hired by Tabitha to pursue the mystery of whether or not Lawrence was complicit in Godfrey's death. Michael develops a warm, but platonic, relationship with Fiona. She suffers from the symptoms of some mysterious illness, but her consultations are constantly delayed, or her records are misplaced, by underresourced health service professionals. She is eventually admitted to hospital, but because treatment was not administered soon enough, she dies shortly after New Year, 1991. Very soon afterwards Michael is surprised to be invited by Mortimer Winshaw's solicitor, Everett Sloane, to attend the reading of Mortimer's will at the remotely located Winshaw Towers in Yorkshire. Until this point he believes he was invited to write the history by chance, but as events transpire he is more deeply related to the family than he realizes. He attends the reading of the will along with the artist Phoebe, one of Roddy's conquests and lately Mortimer's personal nurse. The family members learn that they will inherit nothing from Mortimer but his debts. As the night progresses events begin to shadow those of the film of What a Carve Up! more and more, with the various members of the family meeting violent deaths that accord with their professional sins. It is the night that allied warplanes embark on the bombing of Iraq following Saddam Hussain's invasion of Kuwait in 1990. It is revealed that Michael is the son of Godfrey's surviving co-pilot, who was also Lawrence's mystery attacker. The following morning Tabitha ensures that she is piloting Hilary Winshaw's seaplane to take Michael home, but deliberately destroys the plane, killing them both. |
Operation: Red Jericho | null | 2,005 | In 1920, the heroes of the story Rebecca and Doug McKenzie, leave Shanghai aboard their uncle's ship Expedient, intent on discovering the whereabouts of their missing parents who have disappeared while on a secret mission to the deserts of Western China. Faced with terrifying bloodthirsty pirates, submarines and deadly torpedoes, their task quickly becomes a dangerous struggle to survive. Rebecca and Doug discover the answers they seek lie in a tangle of mysterious age-old societies guarding ancient secrets, and particularly a strange and dangerous substance, known as Daughter Of The Sun, which lies at the heart of the mystery. Imprisoned on a pirate island off the China coast and facing certain death, they must find a way to escape if they are to continue their desperate quest. |
Echo | Francesca Lia Block | 2,000 | Echo feels overshadowed by her beautiful, angel-like mother, Eva, and lacks the attention of her artist father, Caliban. The summer her father is diagnosed with cancer, she encounters Storm, a boy with angel wings, and falls in love with him, but he tells her it is not the right time. She leaves for school in autumn, where she starts dating a poet Thorn, with whom she lives until she develops an eating disorder and drops out of school. Eva refuses to accept Caliban's death, and believes a white horse that mysteriously appears in her garden is a reincarnation of her husband. Echo meets Nina and her boyfriend Mark, both of them obsessed with sports and perfect bodies, and aspires to be like them. Even after she is warned by Nina's brother Skye, whom she rather likes, she continues their friendship, which ends with them completing a blood sacrifice on her. Smoke is a talented musician, who leaves the love of his life, Wendy, and their ill baby daughter, Eden, in faith he poisons everything he touches. As a little girl, Eden predicts Smoke will fall in love with Echo, and he does, years later. He loves Eden more, however, which seems to end their relationship. Valentine is flirtatious, glamorous and beautiful, and Echo wishes to be just like her. She leaves her behind however, when heading for a new life in New York, where she finally starts painting again. Valentine, after losing her job, turns to prostitution. In New York, Echo finally meets Storm again. She realises that before he could love her, she had to love herself. |
Wayside School is Falling Down | Louis Sachar | 1,989 | 1. A Package For Mrs. Jewls: Louis brings a package containing a computer meant for Mrs. Jewls up to her classroom. She then drops it out the window as part of the lesson she’s teaching on gravity. 2. Mark Miller: A nervous new student named Benjamin Nushmutt (Mark Miller) joins Mrs. Jewls’ class. Because he feels ashamed of his name, he convinces everyone that it’s actually Mark Miller. Louis brings in Benjamin’s lunch and must for the time being leave it on the teacher’s desk since there’s apparently no one to claim it. 3. Bebe’s Baby Brother: Bebe writes nasty notes on her homework about Mrs. Jewls and blames it on her nonexistent younger brother Ray Gunn. He actually is on the nineteenth floor which you can see if you have the book in chapter 19. 4. Homework: Mac disrupts Mrs. Jewls’ lesson on decimals with a wild story about him mismatching and losing his socks. Next, he disrupts a lesson on dinosaurs with stories about watermelons. In the end, Mrs. Jewls gives up and assigns extra homework, which Mac complains about to Nancy. 5. Another Story About Socks: Shari brings in a hobo for show-and-tell. The hobo tells a little bit about his life story and expresses a distaste for socks due to once winning a spelling bee without wearing any. When he leaves, the students take this notion to heart right before a spelling test. 6. Pigtails: Paul struggles with his desire to pull Leslie’s pigtails. When she announces that she’s getting her hair trimmed soon and promises to save him some split ends, Paul gets excited enough to knock himself out the window. Finding no other means to reel him back in, Leslie extends Paul her pigtails. 7. Freedom: Myron wishes to be free like a wild bird he befriends, whom he names Oddly. He attempts to satisfy this desire by wandering into and getting lost in the school basement. He throws both his shoes into the darkness while being pursued and then makes a run for it, eventually meeting the men with the attaché case. They give Myron an ultimatum: to be safe or free. Myron chooses to be free; gets one shoe back; and finds his way back to Mrs Jewls’ classroom. She later finds his other shoe in the refrigerator of the teachers’ lounge. 8. The Best Part: Todd brings a toy dog to class that keeps him out of trouble and can transform into a vicious wolf. In her bid to use that toy to her advantage, Joy misses that last detail and gets her pinkie chomped on. 9. Mush: The lunch special for the 18th day in a row is Mushroom Surprise. Ron surprises everyone by ordering just that, which causes him to temporarily fall in love with and even kiss the mouth of the first person he sees: Deedee. The chapter ends when Mrs. Jewls enters the cafeteria just as Ron takes another bite. 10. Music: During band practice, Benjamin examines his time at the school so far and ponders as to whether or not he should tell everyone his real name. Mrs. Jewls asks him why he isn’t performing but can’t hear him over the loud music. And every time she asks him to speak up, the other students mistakenly think she wants them to play louder and so do just that. A complaint from the other teachers courtesy of Mr. Kidswatter convinces Mrs. Jewls to encourage the loudness all the more. Ultimately, Benjamin decides his alias as Mark Miller is far superior to his true identity. 11. Kathy And DJ: DJ becomes upset when he loses a watch given to him by his great-grandfather. Kathy tries to no avail to make him feel worse about it in order to amuse herself and only ends up even more dumbstruck when she finds out why he’s upset: because he feels a bird may mistake it for food and choke on it. Eventually, Myron’s bird friend Oddly finds it, and DJ rewards it to Kathy, mistaking her taunts for comfort. First time Kathy sings about the school falling down to the tune of London Bridge Is Falling Down. 12. Pencils: Jason has a bad habit of chewing pencils. Mrs. Jewls solves the problem (until further notice) by literally taping his mouth shut. 13. A Giggle Box, A Leaky Faucet, And A Foghorn: Joe and John poke fun at Dana for laughing and crying at animal stories, calling her “giggle box” and “leaky faucet”. To add insult to injury, they even give her a box of tissue paper as a wrapped package like she’d get on her birthday. When Mrs. Jewls reads a story about a skunk whose mother is run over, Dana blows her nose hard enough to warrant the nickname “foghorn”. Mrs. Jewls actually admires the girl’s emotions and wish more students could be as appreciative of stories. Dana then fears having a crush on John. 14. Calvin’s Big Decision: Calvin announces that he’s getting a tattoo for a birthday present. Despite other suggestions, he settles for a potato tattoo on his ankle. 15. She’s Back!: The students of Mrs. Jewls’ class claim to see Mrs. Gorf at random times on random spots around the playground. After relating his own bad experiences of his old teacher Mrs. Drazil, Louis watches for the former teacher while Deedee hangs from the monkey bars. Everyone feels assured when Mrs. Gorf doesn’t seem to appear, though they ignore a larger set of footprints under the bars, made right next to Deedee’s prints. 16. Love And A Dead Rat: Dameon denies being in love with Mrs. Jewls. To prove the opposite, he takes up a dare to leave a dead rat in her desk. The two reason these dealings and reconcile enough to disgust the rat back to life that it walks out. 17. What?: Jenny comes late to class one day after reluctantly drinking prune juice during breakfast and so misses the story that Mrs. Jewls reads. Jenny is allowed to read the story herself, and she ends up regurgitating because of the prune juice. This chapter is written with the events happening backwards. 18. The Substitute: Mrs. Jewls’ class gets a female substitute teacher who’s actually named Benjamin Franklin, whom the students plot to prank. When “Mark Miller” decides to tell everyone that his real name is Benjamin Nushmutt, they merely add it to the prank by pretending that they too are all named Benjamin. When the teacher reveals her own name, the students are not sure what to think. 19. A Bad Case Of The Sillies: Allison wonders if maybe her homeroom is in fact on the 29th story since there’s no 19th. After getting knocked down the stairs a short way by Ron and Deedee and her windbreaker torn, Allison proceeds to class and finds everybody ignoring her, especially when Jason accidentally swallows his pet goldfish. A frustrated Allison leaves the room and finds herself inducted into the classroom of Miss Zarves. 19. A Wonderful Teacher: Allison meets three other students of Miss Zarves’ classroom: a grown woman named Virginia; a teenage boy, Nick; and a slightly younger boy, Ray (Bebe’s made-up brother). None of these three remember where they originally came from but don’t care since Miss Zarves gives A’s no matter which answers are right or wrong. Allison soon starts forgetting her own origins while the teacher provides an extremely difficult assignment of writing down numbers from zero to one million and then alphabetizing them. During a two-minute break, Allison meets Mark Miller, who – in a twist of his counterpart in Mrs. Jewls’ class – is often called Benjamin Nushmutt. 19. Forever Is Never: Allison continues struggling to remember her origins while other students memorize the dictionary. She then realizes how Miss Zarves’ system works: assign lots of work so the students have no time to think; make them memorize stupid things so that they forget what’s important; and give good grades no matter what to keep them happy. Allison then proceeds to reenact some of her old classmates’ mannerisms to frustrate Miss Zarves and leave that room. Following a sharp stabbing pain in her gut and foot, Allison wakes up back at the bottom of the stairs where Ron and Deedee pushed her! They apologize, and all proceed to their homeroom where Jason introduces his goldfish. 20, 21, & 22. Eric, Eric, & Eric: Mr. Kidswatter holds a card from Charley’s Barber Shop with the message “Mr. Kidswatter is a Mugworm Griblick”, signed by someone named Eric. He suspects the three Erics in Mrs. Jewls’ class. Despite his tough questioning, all only end up leaving him holding the bag. 23. Teeth: Rondi grows in her missing front teeth and thinks she no longer looks cute. A conflict against Terrence to have him return Stephen and Jason’s ball ends up revealing her new teeth to everyone, compliments abounding. Rondi then remembers Uh-Oh! to duck when Terrence tries punching her. 24. Another Story About Potatoes: Joe orders some potato salad from Miss Mush. He and John then shape it into Mrs. Gorf’s face, and it immediately comes alive. They triumph over this menace by eating it. 25. A Story That Isn’t About Socks: Stephen dresses up in a leisure suit for Class Picture Day, contrasting the silly outfits that his classmates and Mrs. Jewls wear. 26. The Mean Mrs. Jewls: Mrs. Jewls teaches about England, the number 11, and pickles. A voice in her head tells her to be rotten whenever the students do something wrong, regardless how or what she teaches. After Leslie answers a question wrong, Mrs. Jewls threatens to dump brine on her until Paul intervenes, drenching the teacher instead. As punishment for acting so cranky, Mrs. Jewls sends herself home early on the kindergarten bus. 27. Lost And Found: After Joy steals and eats her lunch, an unsuspecting Maurecia goes looking for it and finds a paper bag containing $20,655. Joy insists on spending it for themselves if not for Maurecia’s honesty. A former pencil maker named Mr. Finch, whom the money belongs to, comes along to give Maurecia $500 and promise her free ice cream from his future ice cream parlor as tokens of appreciation. An opportunistic Joy mentions her involvement of the recovery by admitting she stole Maurecia’s lunch and is given only a pencil. 28. Valooosh: A dance teacher named Mrs. Waloosh teaches all of Mrs. Jewls’ students (except Myron since he ditched and went to gym class instead) the art of ballroom dancing. When the session ends, the participants end up injured; great at said type of dancing; and speaking in the same accent as the new teacher. 29. The Lost Ear: Benjamin once more attempts telling the class his real name, but then Mac tells a story about a hippie who lost his ear in a haircutting accident. Although Benjamin succeeds, his fear of being weird is laid to rest when the others relate events recent to the book. Mrs. Jewls even gives him the lunch meant for him that Louis placed on her desk back in Chapter 2. Later, Allison encounters Mark Miller from Miss Zarves’ class. He holds a bag containing an ear like the one from Mac’s story (proving said story to be false), which he states Miss Zarves told him to take to the hospital. 30. Wayside School Is Falling Down: A brewing storm makes a fire drill go awry when Mrs. Jewls’ class panics in various ways. She rings her cowbell enough times for the wind to carry the sound far away. Eventually, the school itself is stuffed full of cows, having been attracted to said bell. Wayside School temporarily closes down; the teachers and students are relocated to other schools; and Louis stays behind to remove the cows. |
The Laughing Cavalier | Baroness Emma Orczy | 1,913 | March 1623. William or Willem van Oldenbarnevelt, the Lord of Stoutenburg in the Netherlands is a man on the run. His father, the Dutch statesman Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, "John of Barneveld" in the book, was falsely accused of treason and sent to the gallows by the Stadtholder, Maurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange in 1619 while his brother Reinier van Oldenbarnevelt, the lord of Groeneveld, has since been arrested and executed for plotting to avenge their father's death by killing the Prince. These three are all real historical figures, and the father was executed after a hurried trial. Meanwhile, Stoutenburg, now a fugitive for his part in the plot, is determined to get his revenge. While on the run, Stoutenburg asks for shelter from Gilda Beresteyn, the daughter of a rich merchant. Gilda was once in love with Stoutenburg, but has never forgiven him for abandoning her to make a more profitable marriage. Despite her reservations she lets him into her room for a short time and feeds him, but eventually she sends him away again for she knows her father, who is a friend of the Prince of Orange, will not approve. Nine months later and Gilda is walking across Haarlem, with her serving men, to the New Year's Eve service. On route she witnesses three foreign adventurers intervening on behalf of a Spanish woman, who is being attacked by a mob by the Postern gate. After the fracas is over, Gilda speaks to the poor strangers about their gallant actions and is strangely taken by Diogenes and his twinkling eyes. Yet despite kissing her hand, he refuses any offer of assistance and only succeeds in offending her by requesting that he be given her leave to go to the Lame Cow to quench his thirst. Gilda continues to church, where rather than listening to the service she sits and fumes about the behaviour of the mysterious stranger. Determined to spend some time praying, she stays behind afterwards in the empty church but is disturbed by a secret meeting between Stoutenburg and his allies (including her brother Nicolaes), when Stoutenburg, fuelled by rage, shouts out his plans to murder the Prince. Her brother follows her out of the church and it soon becomes apparent that Gilda has overheard everything. She begs her brother to reconsider his part in the evil plot, but he refuses and instead asks her to swear that she will not tell their father. She also refuses, but Nicolaes still tells the rest of the group that she can be trusted not to betray them. Stoutenburg is not convinced and persuades Nicolaes that he has to arrange for Gilda to be taken away for a few days, so they can complete their plans to kill the Stadtholder before she can tell anyone. Beresteyn, who has seen Diogenes in the Lame Cow, follows the adventurer to Frans Hals' house, where he has gone to be painted, and hires him to kidnap his sister for a large sum. After seeing her portrait, Diogenes recognises her as the lady he had spoken to the night before. With the help of the Spanish woman he saved from the mob, Diogenes bundles Gilda and her maid into a sledge and takes her out of Haarlem. He leaves her under the care of his fellow philosophers for the night and returns to Haarlem, as he has promised Hals that he will sit for him so he can finish the painting. Afterwards, he accompanies Hals to the Lame Cow, where he meets Gilda's distraught father. Nicolaes is furious at Diogenes' appearance back in Haarlem, but can say nothing for fear of giving away his role in his sister's kidnapping. One thing leads to another and before he knows it, Diogenes has promised Gilda's father that he will find his daughter and personally return her to him, for which Mynheer Beresteyn insists he will give the adventurer half of his considerable fortune. Diogenes is now in a conundrum, for he is a man of his word and therefore has to find a way to fulfil his contract with Nicolaes to deliver Gilda to the house of a Jewish banker in Rotterdam, as well as meeting his promise to return her to her father. One word from Gilda could send him to the scaffold, yet despite her vehement verbal attacks on him, he is starting to have deep feelings for her, something which won't go down well with Stoutenburg, who is still determined to marry her. (Incomplete) |
Wayside School Gets A Little Stranger | Louis Sachar | 1,995 | #Explanation: The cows that entered the school in Wayside School is Falling Down finally left the school after 243 days. So the children all returned to the school. #A Message From The Principal: Mr. Kidswatter says a nice speech on the PA system, but he forgets to turn it off, and expresses irritation about having to return from his extended vacation to Jamaica. #Poetry: The students all come up with poems about a specific color. #Doctor Pickle: The chapter introduces Pickell (aka Dr. Pickle), a psychiatrist who uses a pickle-like stone to hypnotize people and use aversion therapy to break people's bad habits. Usually, he also adds a command to do an unusual thing when a particular person says a key word, such as when he helps a woman quit smoking by making her think her cigarettes feel and taste like worms, and then making her slap her husband's face when he says the word "potato." He is ultimately banned from practicing psychiatry and becomes a counselor at an elementary school... #A Story with a Disappointing Ending: Paul is sent to visit the new school counselor (Dr. Pickell/Pickle) when he couldn't control his urge to pull Leslie's pigtails. Dr. Pickell/Pickle makes Paul think Leslie's pigtails are rattlesnakes, and also commands him to attempt to eat Leslie's ears (which will, to Paul, appear to turn into candy) when she says the word "pencil" in his presence. Leslie breaks her pencil, and borrows one from a classmate. #Pet Day: All the students bring their pets to school. The pets have unusual names; one pet is an orange named Fido. Similar to Who's on First by Abbot and Costello. #A Bad Word: After Mr. Kidswatter spills his coffee while opening a door he declares the word "door" a bad word and requires everybody to call it "goozack" from that point forward. Todd shows up late to school, and, having not heard the announcement, says the word "door," thus earning him his name on the board. #Santa Claus: It's almost Christmas, but Kathy is the only one in the class who doesn't believe in Santa Claus. #Something Different About Mrs. Jewls: Mrs. Jewls leaves the school when she announces that she will be having a baby soon, leaving Mr. Gorf to substitute for her. #Mr. Gorf: Mr. Gorf arrives to class. #Voices: At first Mr. Gorf seems like a nice teacher, but then he reveals that he is the son of the infamous Mrs. Gorf. Mr. Gorf has the ability to take away one's voice by snorting it up a third nostril in his nose. He can then mimic it perfectly just by touching his nose. With this talent, he begins to call the students' parents and say spiteful things to them. #Nose: He continues removing the students' voices until Miss. Mush, the cafeteria cook, destroys Mr. Gorf's malevolent ability by smashing a pepper pie in his face, making him sneeze repeatedly until he literally sneezes his nose off, causing the voices to return to their rightful owners (although it takes a few minutes for the voices and people to line up correctly, due to the number of voices taken). Miss Mush says that she heard Kathy say, "Have a nice day" in the previous chapter, and decides that either Kathy had started to be nice, or Mr. Gorf could steal people's voices. She took the action that she did, banking on Kathy's unlikeliness to start being nice. It is revealed at the end of the chapter that the voice used by Mr. Gorf at first belonged to a Scottish man, who lost his voice 20 years previously; with Mr. Gorf's loss of his nose, he is able to speak again. #The New Teacher: The second of the substitutes, Mrs. Drazil, arrives. She appears nice, although it is suggested that she has a dark and mthe same time. The coffeepot was borrowed from Mr. Kidswatter's office, and has not been seen since the experiment. In a continuation of Paul's meeting with Dr. Pickell/Pickle, Leslie notes that the classroom will need a new pencil sharpener, upon which Paul licks her ear. #A Light Bulb, a Pencil Sharpener, a Coffeepot, and a Sack of Potatoes: Mrs. Drazil's class throws a light bulb, a pencil sharpener, a coffeepot and a sack of potatoes out a window to see which one lands first. #An Elephant in Wayside School: All is well with Mrs Drazil and the students until an old feud between her and Louis re-emerges. When Louis is around his old enemy (who forces him to do a homework assignment he missed over 15 years previously and shave his moustache, and also puts the trash can on his head when he insults her), he changes -- going from an easy-going, mustachioed fellow to a stern, clean-shaven humbug. #Mr. Poop: With Mrs. Drazil watching him, Louis changes from being fun to being a boring, strict Yard Teacher (or, as he says, "Professional Playground Supervisor"). He refuses to let the kids play with the balls because they are filthy and not properly inflated, and later refuses to let the kids onto the playground because the blacktop is gray and needs to be painted black. A fed-up Joy throws his handbook into the paint can. #Why the Class Must Get Rid of Mrs. Drazil: The title is paradoxical to the entire plot. Mrs. Drazil acts very nice to the class and the reason isn't revealed until the end: despite her niceness to the class (including baking the best cookies the class ever tasted), the children loved Louis' old personality; consequently, Mrs. Drazil must be removed from the picture because she forced him to shave his moustache. #The Blue Notebook: The students abscond with Mrs. Drazil's blue notebook, intent on reading it. In so doing, they realize that in order to get rid of Mrs. Drazil, they must find Jane Smith, a former student whom Mrs. Drazil dislikes more than Louis. Jane Smith left Mrs. Drazil a nasty note stating that she didn't do her homework (as found in the notebook, it was the 12th time in a row); also, she (at the time the note was written) was moving, and wasn't going to tell Mrs. Drazil where. She closes her note by telling Mrs. Drazil to "rub a monkey's tummy with [her] head." #Time Out: In every Wayside book, the 19th chapter is always portrayed as the 19th floor. In this installment, Miss Zarves has a cow in her class, presumably left over from the events in the previous book (It is mentioned in the first chapter that Louis had cleared the school of cows, but kept hearing an untraceable "moo.") The cow continually distracts Miss Zarves to the point where she can no longer teach. She goes to Principal Kidswatter to complain, but he doesn't see or hear her. She finally storms out of the school, intending to quit, but the three men with the attaché cases stop her and tell her she is a good teacher and that the school needs her. Miss Zarves returns to the school feeling validated. #Elevators: Elevators get installed to the school, but one can only go up and one can only go down. They work perfectly once, and then never again. #Open Wide: Jason has a dentist appointment with Dr. Payne, but his appointment is interrupted by a phone call from the irate mother of a boy named Kendall who refuses to pay for her son's tooth extraction because the wrong tooth was pulled, and it is also suggested that a lawsuit may ensue. It is suggested that Dr. Payne is really Jane Smith when she tells her to tell her lawyer to "rub a monkey's tummy with her head." This suggestion is confirmed when Jason looks at Dr. Payne's dental certificates. #Jane Smith: Jason tells Deedee, a classmate of his, about that, and they, quite intentionally, make Mrs. Drazil aware of Jane Smith's whereabouts, occupation, and name change. Later, Mrs. Drazil decides to pay a visit to Jane Smith's home; breaking into the house, intent on forcing Jane to do her missed homework. Jane escapes in a motorboat, but not without breaking her ankle when she jumps onto the concrete below; Mrs. Drazil pursues her in a rowboat. As far the novel has it, the two are neither seen nor heard from again. (It is stated in this chapter that Jane performs unnecessary dental procedures to make additional money; she drills 25 teeth, at $60 each, to make $1,500, but not all of the teeth had cavities.) #Ears: This chapter talks about Miss Wendy Nogard, who has an ear on the top of her head that can hear other people's thoughts. After her boyfriend Xavier Dalton ditched her upon discovery of her third ear, she became bitter and hateful, intentionally hurting every man she dated by listening to their thoughts, and saying things accordingly. (It is mentioned that Xavier, who had been shy, got over his shyness and began dating other women, but broke all of their hearts, because of an unrealized love for Miss Nogard.) She especially hated children because they were so happy, and became a substitute for Mrs. Jewls at Wayside School. #Glum And Blah: Miss Nogard arrives to the class, and makes everybody miserable by listening to their thoughts using her third ear and saying the exact things that they don't want to hear. #Guilty: After Miss Nogard hears Maurecia's thoughts that she accidentally ripped a page in the dictionary, she purposely tries to make her feel guilty. Upon Maurecia's confession, Ms. Nogard makes her read [both sides of] the torn page to the class, then announces that there will be a test afterward, as the page is now unusable and must now be memorized. Maurecia believes that one of her classmates told on her. #Never Laugh At A Shoelace: Mac forgets to bring something for show and tell, but the moment he realizes this, Ms. Nogard calls on him. He thus uses his shoelace. He invents a story about an African man named Howard Speed, who was the fastest man in the world, and lived before shoelaces were invented. His shoes thus kept falling off when he ran, and he developed blisters, which often bled and had pus in them. Howard couldn't use Velcro, as Velcro trees only grow in Australia (as Mac claims; Velcro is actually a man-made product based on burdock burs, and thus Velcro doesn't grow in Australia or anywhere else). Howard attempted to keep his shoes on by nailing his feet into his shoes, and then by gluing his feet into his shoes (with the drawback that he would peel off a layer of skin whenever he would take his shoes off, such as to take a bath). Mac further claims that Thomas Edison invented the shoelace, thus ending Howard's troubles with his shoes; however, with shoelaces being a new invention (at that time), Howard wasn't used to them, and when it appeared he was going to win a race, his shoelaces came undone, and he tripped and broke his nose, lost some teeth and got two black eyes. #Way-Up-High Ball: The Erics play a game of way-up-high ball, where they throw a ball to bounce on the school wall, and get points equal to the number of stories the ball reaches. The person who catches the ball also scores the same number of points; thus, the thrower can score double points by catching his or her own throw. A player who breaks a window is also credited with double points. It is suggested, but not explicitly stated, that a thrower who does not hit the wall does not score (such an event is termed a "glopper"). Finally, Louis attempts a throw; the ball never comes back down, as it hits somewhere between the 18th and 20th stories, and there is no 19th story. #Flowers For A Very Special Person: Louis brings in flowers, intending them for Miss Nogard, but ultimately gives them to Mr. Kidswatter instead. Under his breath, he calls Mr. Kidswatter a "maggot-infested string bean," and when asked to repeat what he said, says "magnificent human being," instead. #Stupid: After Miss Nogard hears Ron's thoughts of not completing his homework, for every question they take up, she purposefully asks Ron for the answer to make him feel bad. She also always calls on people who got questions wrong, and assigns them three pages of homework, plus redoing the previous homework. #The Little Stranger: Mrs. Jewls came back with her baby. Everyone except Wendy loses their anger and plays with the baby. When Wendy hears the baby's thoughts, her anger disappears. She falls in love with Louis and shows everyone her third ear. Louis doesn't care, and still loves Wendy, who knows that his love is genuine without reading his thoughts. |
Sideways Arithmetic From Wayside School | Louis Sachar | 1,989 | The first chapter introduces Sue, a new student in Mrs. Jewls's class. She is bewildered to discover that the arithmetic lessons involve adding words instead of numbers, using verbal arithmetic. Chapter 1 has 11 problems all about adding and subtracting using words. In the next chapter, Sue complains that they're not supposed to do math that way, and says a few problems for example, seven + four = eleven), which Mrs. Jewls states is impossible, and the reader has to figure out why the problems Sue mentioned are impossible. In the next chapter, Mrs. Jewls tells Sue that if she doesn't understand how to do math here, she should change to a different school, but when Sue inadvertently gets a question correct, Mrs. Jewls lets her stay. Chapter 4 also contains multiplication problems. Chapter 5 is about recess, where after a storyline is told, the students have to figure the answer of a few questions about what happened at recess. Chapter 6 involves Mrs. Jewls having trouble filling out report cards because she doesn't have all the grades, so she needs to figure out the answers on the quizzes in order to grade the students. Chapter 7 involves more logical questions, and Chapter 8 presents the reader with "true or false" tests in which the assertions refer to themselves. The last chapter is about Sue finally making a new friend, Joy, and they go home together after school. |
The Act of Roger Murgatroyd | Gilbert Adair | null | Colonel ffolkes and his wife Mary have invited a few house guests to spend the Christmas holidays at their remote country seat in Dartmoor. When the guests have already settled in nicely, three latecomers disturb the peace and quiet of the party. Selina ffolkes, the Colonel's 21-year-old daughter, arrives late on Christmas Day with two admirers in tow: Donald Duckworth, a young American art student; and Raymond Gentry, an ill-mannered gossip columnist who, uninvited and slightly drunk, soon gets on everyone's nerves. The whole action of the novel takes place on Boxing Day when, early in the morning, Gentry is found murdered in the attic. Snowed in and unable to call the police, the party decide to ask their neighbour, a retired Chief Inspector with Scotland Yard, for help. The latter agrees but finds a rival sleuth in Evadne Mount, one of the house guests and a celebrated author of whodunits in her own right. When the Chief Inspector starts his preliminary investigation of the crime, it soon turns out that each of the guests has a skeleton in the cupboard. |
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes | Anita Loos | null | Responding to a male friend’s suggestion that she should write down her thoughts because it would make an interesting book, the blonde Lorelei Lee narrates the novel in the form of a diary complete with spelling and grammatical errors. Lorelei Lee had been working in movies in Hollywood when she met Mr. Gus Eisman, a button manufacturer from Chicago. He installs her in a New York apartment, visiting her whenever he is in town and spending a small fortune ‘educating’ her. This consists mostly of footing the bill for gowns from Madame Frances, jewellery from Cartier, dinners at the Ritz, orchids, parties, etc. She meets an English novelist named Gerry Lamson who disapproves of her relationship with Eisman. He intends to get divorced so that he can marry her to save her from such a man. Lorelei, fearing the scandal of being involved in a divorce and not wishing to give up the opportunity of a trip to Europe paid for by Eisman decides that she would not like to marry Gerry, who in any case bores her. Lorelei is dismayed that her friend Dorothy wastes her time with a boy named Mencken, who only writes for a magazine when she could be spending time with Mr. Goldmark, a wealthy movie producer. (This is an inside joke. Author Anita Loos was good friends with writer, essayist and literary magazine editor, H.L. Mencken.) She and Dorothy set sail for Europe on the RMS Majestic; Mr. Eisman promises to meet them in Paris later. Lorelei is distressed when she realises District Attorney Bartlett is also onboard ship. She relates to a sympathetic Major Falcon the story of how she came to know Bartlett. She reveals that her father packed her off to Business College in Little Rock. While training to be a stenographer, a lawyer named Mr. Jennings offered to employ her. She learned that he was a sexual predator, became hysterical and shot him. During the trial, which Mr. Bartlett prosecuted, Lorelei gave such compelling testimony that the gentlemen of the jury all burst into tears and she was acquitted. This prompted Judge Hibbard to buy a ticket to Hollywood for her so that she could use her talent to become a professional actress. He also names her ‘Lorelei’ because he believed it expressed her personality. Major Falcon informs Lorelei that Bartlett is now a senator travelling to Vienna for a secret conference. Major Falcon reveals that his mission is to find out what Bartlett is up to in Vienna. He encourages Lorelei to become friends with Bartlett, discover official secrets, and pass them on to him. Meanwhile, Lorelei deplores Dorothy's wasting time with a man who is a mere tennis champion. Bartlett, who is attempting to seduce Lorelei, agrees to tell her of his mission in Vienna if she will accompany him there. She agrees and he admits that he is negotiating a deal for military hardware. Lorelei decides she prefers Major Falcon to Bartlett and does not go to Vienna, but hides out in her cabin until Bartlett debarks. They arrive in London where it seems the aristocrats are selling off all their family jewels to wealthy Americans. Lorelei meets Mrs. Weeks, who is selling a diamond tiara for ten thousand pounds. She casts her eye around the room for a wealthy man to buy it for her and settles on Sir Francis Beekman, whom Lorelei calls ‘Piggie’. She is warned that he is a miser, but with flattery and the promise of discretion (because he is married) she manages to get him to buy the tiara for her. Dorothy takes up with an unemployed ballroom-dancer named Gerry. They meet the Prince of Wales and Dorothy teaches him some American slang. They sail to Paris. Lorelei thinks it is divine; she is especially impressed with Coty, Cartier and the ‘Eyeful’ Tower. She spends time with a French viscount but he spends hardly any money on her. It leads her to decide that a kiss on the hand may make one feel very good but a diamond tiara lasts forever. Sir Francis Beekman’s wife, Lady Beekman, has learned that her husband bought the diamond tiara for Lorelei and arrives in Paris to confront her. She is furious because in thirty-five years of marriage her husband has never given her a gift. She accuses Lorelei of seducing her husband. Dorothy defends Lorelei’s reputation (to great comic effect). The next morning, Mr. Robert Broussard bursts into their room and rants at them in French. As they do not speak French, Broussard telephones his son, Louis to act as translator. They learn that Robert is Lady Beekman’s lawyer. Through a French waiter named Leon, (who speaks English) Lorelei learns that Robert and Louis plan to show the ladies the Paris sights, while charging everything to Lady Beekman and while waiting for an opportunity to steal the tiara from Lorelei to give to Lady Beekman. They go to Fontainebleau, the Folies Bergere and the Palace of Versailles. Lorelei has made a paste copy of the diamond tiara and, by playing one against the other she manages to keep the real tiara and send them away with the fake one. Mr. Eisman arrives in Paris and after many shopping trips with Lorelei he moves on to Vienna to look at a button factory he may want to buy. He puts Lorelei and Dorothy on the Orient Express, telling them to meet him in Vienna. Lorelei meets Henry Spoffard, who comes from one of the most famous and affluent families in Philadelphia. He is a staunch Presbyterian, prohibitionist and moralist. He censors movies. Lorelei too is a reformist – she is trying to reform Dorothy. They arrive in Munich but are not impressed by the art museums, theatre or eating habits of the Germans. Lorelei begins to fear arriving in Vienna, wondering how she can spend time with both Mr. Eisman and Mr. Spoffard. In Vienna, Lorelei meets ‘Dr. Froyd’ (Sigmund Freud) at the request of Spoffard who is concerned about her health. Lorelei tells Freud that she has always done as she likes. Freud decides he cannot analyse Lorelei because she has never repressed a desire. He advises her to cultivate some inhibitions. Lorelei and Dorothy visit The Demel Restaurant, where Mr. Spoffard’s mother is being cautioned by her companion, Miss Chapman about Lorelei’s character. Miss Chapman suggests to Spoffard’s mother that Lorelei is the reason her son has been neglectful of her of late. Fearing that Miss Chapman will cause Spoffard to renounce her company, she takes Spoffard out for a moonlit drive and tells him all about herself and her beginnings in Little Rock. She puts a slant on the story that makes it sound like a Puritan spiritual biography. Spoffard begins to cry because of the ordeals Lorelei has suffered and even compares her to Mary Magdalene. He arranges for Lorelei to meet his mother. Explaining that she is a Christian Scientist, Lorelei tells Spoffard’s mother that if there is no disease then there is no harm in anything, so why not drink champagne? Spoffard’s mother, who enjoys the champagne, decides that Christian Science is a better religion than Presbyterianism. Lorelei gives her a beautiful hat to wear, but since Spoffard’s mother has an Edwardian hairstyle, it does not fit. Lorelei whips out some scissors and bobs Spoffard’s mother’s hair. The meeting is a success. Lorelei and Dorothy go on to Budapest with Mr. Eisman who has decided not to do business in Europe. Mr. Spoffard writes, proposing marriage to Lorelei. This puts her in a quandary. Spoffard has money but she is no attracted to him. Henry Spoffard is waiting for Lorelei when she arrives in New York. He tells her he has looked everywhere for an engagement ring but none were good enough for her, so he gives her his college ring. Using all her self-control, she tells him she happy he is so full of nothing but sentiment. Lorelei decides that she should come out into polite society and plans a debutante ball for herself. The debut ball lasts three days. It is reported on the front page of the newspapers. Society sports club members mix with bootleggers. The police are called but Dorothy wins over Judge Schultzmeyer. Unsure about marrying Spoffard, Lorelei decides to discourage his love by going on a mammoth shopping spree and charging it all to him. Whilst on the train to New York, she meets Gilbertson Montrose, a movie scenario writer. She realises how much more fascinating Montrose is compared to Spoffard. She enlists Dorothy’s help to get rid of Spoffard. Dorothy shows Spoffard everything Lorelei has bought and tells him she has gone to look at the Russian crown jewels with a view to buying them. She tells him that there is mental illness in Lorelei’s family and that she is pathologically extravagant. Meanwhile, Lorelei is having lunch with the fascinating Mr. Montrose. She tells him of her plan to rid herself of Spoffard. When Montrose expresses regret because he hoped Spoffard could be made to finance his new movie and she would star in the lead role, Lorelei decides she would like to marry Spoffard and have a movie career. Fearing she has already lost Spoffard, she telephones Dorothy but Spoffard has already left for Penn Station. Lorelei rushes to him and informs him that her extravagance was faked – every jewel she bought was paste and it was a test of his love. She says he fell into the trap and should be ashamed of himself. Remorseful, Spoffard vows to marry her and finance Montrose’s movie. Lorelei gets everything she wants but says she is simply happy to make everyone else happy. |
Our Lady of the Assassins | Fernando Vallejo | 1,994 | A writer called Fernando returns to Medellín after an absence of 30 years. He finds the place transformed into Colombia's "capital of hate". Fernando meets Alexis, 16 years old, a male prostitute and a hitman - a Medellín child - with whom he falls in love. But their tender love is doomed. Alexis needs no reason to kill: like an Angel of Death he opens fire on anybody who rubs him the wrong way. Fernando and Alexis are bound by an intense passion as they wander from church to church, murder to murder. Alexis explains to Fernando the meanings and symbols of the dangerous world of the Medellín guns, while the author tells the boys the remembrances of his childhood in a Medellín that is not more the one he knew. When Alexis is finally killed by two teenagers on a motorbike, Fernando looks for his killer. He finds Wilmar, another boy who keeps a surprising resemblance with late Alexis, not only in his body but also in his behaviors. Trying to live the same with Wilmar, he is soon informed that he is dating with the killer of Alexis. But he can not kill him, because Wilmar confessed to him that Alexis killed his brother before. Fernando proposed to Wilmar to leave the country. The boy agreed, but when he goes to his home to greet his mother for the last time, he is killed also. Fernando winds up alone in the middle of a city where love seems not possible. |
Deception: A Novel | Philip Roth | null | At the center of the book are conversations between a married American named Philip, living in London, and a married Englishwoman—trapped with a small child in a loveless upper-middle-class household. The lives of both characters are gradually revealed as they talk before and after making love. |
Damia's Children | Anne McCaffrey | null | Humanity has found a new ally in their ongoing war against the Beetle Hive, a tenacious species called the Mrdini. In order to better understand each other, some humans and 'Dinis are raised together from childhood; one such family are the children of Damia and Afra Lyon, powerful psychic Talents of the Raven-Lyon clan who form the backbone of humanity's teleportation network. But the two species' common enemy, the expansionist Beetle aliens, are once again encroaching on inhabited territory, necessitating that despite their youth, Damia's Children must become the last line of defense for both Human and 'Dini. Damia's Children tells the first half of a story which is continued in Lyon's Pride. |
The Jewels of Aptor | Samuel R. Delany | 1,962 | In a post-atomic future, when civilization has regressed to something near the Middle Ages, or even before, a young student and poet, Geo, takes a job as a sailor on a boat with a strange passenger, a priestess of the goddess Argo, who is heading toward a mysterious land of mutants and high radiation, called Aptor, presumably to recapture a young priestess of Argo, her daughter, who has been kidnapped by the forces of the dark god Hama. |
The Ballad of Beta-2 | Samuel R. Delany | 1,965 | The story is about the history of an ill-fated multi-generational interstellar expedition of discovery. By the time the spaceship has arrived at the destination star system, the descendants are incapable and uninterested in settling the system's planets, and continue to live in the spaceship as an obscure backwater culture isolated from broader human history. A quote from the ballad written for the book: |
What Is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng | Dave Eggers | 2,006 | As a boy, Achak is separated from his family during the Second Sudanese Civil War when the Arab militia, referred to as murahaleen (which is Arabic for traveller), wipes out his Dinka village, Marial Bai. During the assault, he loses sight of his father and his childhood friends, Moses and William K. William K escapes, but Moses is believed to be dead after the assault. Achak seeks shelter in the house of his aunt with his mother, who is frequently identified throughout the book with a yellow dress. Before they are hidden, they hear the screaming of Achak's aunt, and his mother goes to investigate. Achak never sees her again afterward. He evades detection by hiding in a bag of grain, and credits God for helping him stay quiet. He flees on foot with a group of other young boys (the "Lost Boys"), encountering great danger and terrible hardship along the way to a refugee camp in Ethiopia . Their inflated expectations are shattered by the conditions at the camp, and eventually they are forced to flee to another refugee camp in Kakuma, after Ethiopian president Mengistu is overthrown and soldiers open fire on them. They make it to Kenya and finally, years later, he moves to the United States. The story is told in parallel to subsequent hardships in the United States. |
Equinox | Mel Keegan | 1,973 | Equinox concerns the sexual and violent encounters that ensue -"the search for erogenous gratification of a diverse collection of people"- when an unnamed Black sea captain, sailing his 72-foot diesel boat, the Scorpion, with his dog Niger and two teenagers Gunner and Kirsten, docks at a small American seaport and meets its inhabitants including Robby, a naive drifter; Catherine, a Countess; Proctor, an artist; Bull, the town sheriff (who is himself an active criminal) and his equally thuggish operative Nazi; and various low-life characters including the black and white twins (self described rape artists) Nig and Dove. A lost wallet is traced to its owner, the artist Jonathan Proctor. At his studio, Proctor tells the Captain the story of his life in picaresque episodes, culminating in his first encounter, many years before, with the bewitching Catherine. She is depicted as a kind of baleful Madonna: depraved, hypocritical, perversely saintlike. Proctor mobilises the Captain and the other characters in a kind of amorous military assault against her as a personification of religious double standards. In the novel's closing movement, the perpetrators of an appalling sex crime are protected by their corrupt friends, while the completely innocent vagabond Robby is lynched and punished in their place. The apparent brevity of the novel thus detailed, and the slightness of its narrative, is only achieved by passing over its many long and very explicit sexual descriptions. These are polymorphous, bisexual, often involving multiple and underage partners, and incorporating urophilic and SM elements. Though very detailed and gratuitous (in that the author seems to revel in and enjoy the sexual descriptions), these passages are generally written in a poetic, obscure and oblique language which removes them from the realm of mere pornography and inserts the novel into a modern tradition of challenging and thoughtful erotica shared by such works as Burroughs' The Wild Boys and Trocchi's Cain's Book. There is an additional leitmotif relating to the myth of Faust, and at several points the Captain himself is either likened to the Devil or actually supposed to be Satan himself. Though sexually rapacious, the Captain's character is sympathetic, and in his conduct and attitudes seen to be one of the least truly evil personages in the narrative. |
The Devil in Amber | Mark Gatiss | 2,006 | Lucifer Box is feeling his age as he goes about the business of a Royal Academy assassin in 1920s New York. Box has been assigned to kill a fence and cocaine dealer named Hubbard by the Royal Academy (which is a front for the British Secret Service in the Box novels). The assassination does not go smoothly and Box only survives due to the timely intervention of Percy Flarge, a younger agent of the same type as Box. After Flarge leaves, Box discovers a cloth with curious ancient writing hidden on Hubbard's corpse. His superior, Joshua Reynolds feels that it is time for Box to retire and allow Flarge to take his place but assigns Box to investigate the Fascist Anglo-United States Tribune (FAUST), and its sinister leader, Olympus Mons. At a costume party Box meets Professor Reiss-Mueller and Sal Volatile, a defector who wishes to leave FAUST, hints that the organisation constitutes a grave threat to the world and arranges for Box to attend a meeting of FAUST, where Box discovers that his sister, Pandora Box, has become a fascist convert and is second in command of the organisation. Later that night Reiss-Mueller meets with Box and identifies the writing on the cloth Box retrieved from Hubbard. The writing is part of an occult invocation intended to summon the devil. Back at his hotel, Box has a meeting with Christopher Miracle, who informs Box that Olympus Mons has been carrying out an archaeology dig at a castle on the border between Switzerland and France. The castle is known to Box, having been the location of an undisclosed espionage adventure during World War I, which led to the death of Box's lover and valet, Charlie Jackpot, and left Christopher Miracle a broken man. At their next meeting Sal Volatile confides to Box that FAUST has an interest in the occult and is actively seeking the "Lamb of God", which Sal claims to have found. The meeting is interrupted when Sal Volatile is murdered and Box knocked senseless. On waking, Box discovers that he has been framed for murdering Sal during a lover's quarrel. Percy Flarge informs him that the Royal Academy has ordered that Box is to be given no assistance by their organisation and that Box is to be charged (and presumably executed) for the murder of Sal Volatile. With the assistance of Rex, a gay bellhop who Box initiated during the early chapters, Box boards the Stiffkey, an old tramp freighter commanded by Captain Corpusty, who proves to be a fan of Box's paintings and commissions a portrait by Box on the journey to England. While on board, Box discovers the ship is transporting cocaine disguised as communion wafers and seduces the cabin-girl Aggie, whose real name turns out to be Agnes Dei ("Lamb of God"). While in an intimate embrace with her Box has a vision of a ram's head with glowing eyes. Box then discovers that Captain Corpusty intends to betray him to the police and he escapes, taking Aggie with him. Aggie is wounded, but Box remains free. He witnesses the spectre of the ram's head again and meets Mrs Croup who has an intense and unhealthy interest in famous murderers. Mrs Croup assists him in reaching St Beads nunnery, where Aggie was raised. There Box discovers that Olympus Mons and his amber shirted thugs have arrived first and witnesses them murder several nuns while seeking Aggie. Box is discovered and taken prisoner. Mons and Pandora Box reveal that Aggie is descended from Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene and from a long line of descendants who have been raised to be perfect sacrifices. Mons conducts a séance to discover Aggie's whereabouts and gains a riddle in return. Box escapes with the aid of Mrs Croup who uses dynamite for fishing. Box finds his way to Aggie only to find Percy Flarge has laid a trap for him. Box is again captured and is put on a train to be transported to London with Aggie. During the journey, Box accuses Flarge of betraying his country in favor of FAUST but Flarge appears to know nothing. The journey is interrupted by Box's domestic, Delilah, who Box passed a coded message to during his one phone call. Box is forced to kill Flarge's domestic "Twice" Daley in an escape attempt but ends up being chloroformed by Professor Reiss-Mueller. The action transfers to the border of France and Switzerland. Professor Reiss-Mueller explains that the Metropolitan Museum serves as a similar front for the United States Secret Service as the Royal Academy does for the British Secret Service. He tells of an old legend about the Devil being entombed at this site and states that Olympus Mons intends to release the Devil to assist him in conquering the world. Box quickly realizes that he is Reiss-Mueller's prisoner. He slips away and visits the grave of his old friend, Charlie Jackpot where he meets Percy Flarge. Flarge confesses that he has been compromised by dabbling in the occult but denies betraying his country. Together they decide to raid the castle. On their way there they discover the dead body of Reiss-Mueller and the unconscious Delilah. On awaking Delilah relates how the Professor intended to perform the ritual himself and reap the reward, but was killed by a goat headed specter. The party of three enter caves below the castle and discover Mons, Pandora and the FAUST fraternity preparing to sacrifice Aggie. The Satanists are met by a number of cloaked and robed VIP's including Joshua Reynolds, the head of the Royal Academy and the boss of Box and Flarge. When the ritual begins Box intervenes and succeeds in rescuing Aggie and banishing the Devil but only at the cost of the life of his sister, Pandora. Mons attempts to undo the damage Box has done but only succeeds in destroying himself and bringing down the roof of the cave system. The heroes escape but so does Reynolds who attempts a getaway by cable car. Box intervenes and Reynolds is killed when the cable car crashes. The book closes on Box finally being reunited with Aggie and him promising her an adventurous future. |
The Russian Debutante's Handbook | Gary Shteyngart | 2,002 | The novel opens on the 25th birthday of its protagonist, Vladimir Girshkin. Vladimir is a Jewish immigrant whose family moved from Russia when he was a boy. The novel begins in 1993, in New York City, where Vladimir works for the Emma Lazarus Immigrant Absorption Society (for a measly $8.00/hour). He shares an apartment with his girlfriend, an overweight redhead named Challah who works as a dominatrix. Vladimir is painfully conscious of his parents' disappointment in his inability to make something more of himself, and spends most of his days in a dull routine. He is approached by an Aleksander Rybakov, an immigrant Vladimir refers to as "The Fan Man", due to the electric fan he carries with him and treats as an old friend. Rybakov introduces himself as the father of the Groundhog, a mafia figure in the Eastern European city of Prava / Prague, referred to in the book as "the Paris of the 90s". He asks for Vladimir's assistance in obtaining full citizenship to the United States, and offers Vladimir compensation (presumably obtained from the Groundhog's business dealings). Vladimir is encouraging but quickly dismisses the old man as mentally ill. He goes out drinking with his friend Baobab one night, where he meets a young woman named Francesca, who comes from a wealthy family and has attended a prestigious university. Vladimir inserts himself into her social scene and enjoys the attention that comes from being a Russian Jew in such gentile society. Vladimir lives with Francesca and her family for several months. Dating Francesca stretches Vladimir's limited means to such a degree that he is forced to borrow money, first from his parents, and then from Mr. Rybakov. Baobab informs Vladimir that he can get $20,000 by going to Miami and posing as Baobab's boss's son for a college interview. Vladimir readily agrees, despite the deception involved, and finds himself in Miami with Baobab's boss Jordi. Jordi attempts to have sex with Vladimir, who flees in terror and secures a flight back to New York. On the way to the airport, Baobab informs Vladimir that Jordi is an important figure in a Catalan drug cartel who would happily kill Vladimir over such a slip-up. With help from Baobab's actress girlfriend, Vladimir is able to stage a false naturalization ceremony for Mr. Rybakov back in New York. Immediately thereafter, Vladimir is whisked to Prava as the Groundhog's favored son. Once there, Vladimir proves himself quite resourceful and establishes a Ponzi scheme for the Groundhog, operating under the misnomer PravaInvest. Using his knowledge of English and portraying himself as a wealthy business man, he runs his scam on the significant North American expatriate population living in Prava, including a substantial student population. Vladimir quickly becomes an important figure to these students, and begins dating a young girl from Cleveland named Morgan. Things seem to be going quite well for Vladimir with the help of his friend Frantisek, who helps to create a false PravaInvest film to secure "investments" for the pyramid scheme. But Mr. Rybakov finds out that he is not a real citizen of the US, and the Groundhog punishes Vladimir by taking him to an unknown city and allowing skinheads to beat him. Vladimir is upset by this and plans an escape from the hospital and from Prava with the help of Frantisek and Morgan. After a lengthy pursuit, Vladimir arrives safely at the airport and goes back to America with Morgan. |
Babylon 5: Dark Genesis - The Birth of the Psi Corps | Gregory Keyes | 1,998 | In 2115, existence of telepathy has been proven. The resulting media frenzy, panic, violence, and bloodshed lead to the creation of the Metasensory Regulation Authority, the precursor of the Psi Corps, largely due to the efforts of Lee Crawford, an Earth Alliance senator. Much effort is put into establishing the events that had triggered appearance of the telepaths. Crawford's closest aid and successor, Kevin Vacit, continues the search and establishes an ambiguous relationships with the rogue telepaths who refuse to join the tightly regulated Corps. Kevin Vacit is a telepath prodigy who masks his abilities from the Corps and Crawford. Earth Gov has ruled that the director of PSI Corps can not be a telepath and Vacit is able to hide his ability from the PSI Corps tests. A relationship with his bodyguard leads to the birth of his daughter Fiona, who Vacit hides with the Telepath Underground. Fiona does not know who her father is and so she fights to bring down PSI Corps along with other Underground leaders. Fiona is captured by the PSI Corps and undergoes reeducation at the telepath concentration camp where she meets Stephen Walters. With the aid of Stephen she escapes the camp and rejoins the underground. Unknown to Fiona is the fact that Stephen is actually a PSI Corps special operative sent by her father (Vacit) to break her out of the camp. Fiona marries Matthew Dexter, a man she met while inside the telepath concentration camp and gives birth to a baby boy who she names Steven. During this period, Steven Walters defects to the Telepath Underground for real, cutting all remaining ties with Psi Corps. Vacit and Ms Alexander (his aide) travel to Venus investigating the reports of a ship found on the surface. Leaving their ship and venturing alone into the atmosphere of Venus, the pair encounter a Vorlon who tells them about the coming of the Shadows and why telepaths were created among the younger races. The Vorlon leaves a telepathic command in the mind of Ms Alexander for her or her descendant to come to the Vorlon homeworld when the time is right. Lyta Alexander, her granddaughter, carries this embedded command. On the return to Earth, Kevin changes his plans about assisting the underground after realising that the only way they can be ready for the Shadows is if the PSI Corps can control the evolution of telepaths on earth and to reproduce the best of the best who will be needed to defeat the coming of the Shadows. Vacit's daughter Fiona and her husband Matthew are killed in a PSI Corps attack on their home base and their child is given to Stephen to look after. Stephen gives the child to a girl to look after while he goes back to assist Fiona and Mathew. After he realises that they have both been killed he returns to where he left the girl but she and the baby are gone. Baby Steven is picked up by PSI cops and adopted by the Corps. Little Stee is given a new name by his Grandfather, the now director of PSI Corps Kevin Vacit. The book ends with the reveal that the new name given to Stevie Dexter is Alfred Bester. ru:Тёмное происхождение: Рождение Пси-Корпуса |
The Nightmare of Black Island | Mike Tucker | null | On a lonely stretch of Welsh coastline, a fisherman is killed by a hideous creature from beneath the waves. When the Doctor and Rose arrive, they discover a village where the children are plagued by nightmares, and the nights are ruled by monsters. Bronwyn Ceredig, the old woman of the village, suspects that ailing industrialist Nathaniel Morton is to blame, but the Doctor has suspicions of his own. |
When the Eagle Hunts | Simon Scarrow | 2,002 | It is the winter of AD 44 and after a series of bloody battles, Camulodunum (modern-day Colchester) has fallen to the invading Roman army. As General Vespasian, legate (Legatus legionis) of the Second Legion, helps plan their next campaign, General Plautius's wife and children are shipwrecked in a storm. They fall into the hands of a dark sect of Druids who now demand the return of their brotherhood taken prisoner by the Romans. Durotrigan tribesmen raid several towns near Camulodunum and the legion is sent to repel them. They stumble upon a village pillaged with its population massacred. Loot is found as then raiding party intend to return. Hence the legion ambushes the returning raiders. The local merchant laison Diomedes secretly executes the survivors of the ambush and sets off to a vendetta to avenge his lost family. After the attack Macro and Cato are summoned to General Plautius' tent. Two soldiers (Centurion Macro and Optio Cato) volunteer from the Second Legion of Legate Vespasian to venture deep into hostile territory in an attempt to rescue the prisoners before they are sacrificed to the Druid's dark gods. Cato and Macro are sent to locate the General's missing family with only the help of two British guides; Boudica and her cousin Prasutagus. It is revealed that Prasutagus was once a druid and with his help Macro and Cato infiltrate a village holding prisoners, but Plautius' family is nowhere to be found. The group then raids a druid lodge site, but find only a Greek merchant liaison impaled on a spit. The merchant informs the group of a druid headquarters in his dying moments. The group then heads over to the headquarters and encounters a prisoner transfer revealed to have Plautius' family aboard. In a daring ambush Macro is injured and they are unable to rescue the prisoners. The Roman army arrive soon enough as they continue their campaign against the Durotrigans. Cato is dressed up like a woad in nude and is sent to investigate a secret entry point. After returning Cato leads a small ban of Romans to infiltrate the stronghold and rescue the General's family whilst it is under siege. The attack goes without a hitch and there is desperate fighting to save the General's family. The book ends with Cato taking a serious sickle wound after taking out the Head Druid and saving the general's family from a funeral pyre. |
L | null | null | The main theme in the story is an expedition to prove main character Erlend's theory about Pacific islands. He believes that their inhabitants came from South America on skates. This is, of course, an impossible theory, but the story is kept alive with Loe's personal, at times naïve, style. The book is divided into two parts. The first part is about how Erlend, inspired by Thor Heyerdahl's Kon-Tiki, came up with the theory, and the planning of the expedition. The second part is about the expedition itself, which takes place on Manuae in the Cook Islands. The seven boys in the expedition, including fictionalized versions of Loe and artist Kim Hiorthøy, all feel that they have not contributed to "build Norway", so this trip is like their way of saying "sorry", and placing Norway on the map once and for all. Erlend strongly believes that his theory is correct and that they will be praised as heroes when they return. In the end of the book the boys feels like this wasn’t enough to place Norway on the map, so they start another experiment, where they try out the different ways of governing a country. For example, they try out apartheid and communism. They spend the last days on the island sitting around and waiting for the boat to pick them up. When they come home there is no marching band waiting at the airport, and realise that it will take more to get Norway "out there". no:L (roman) fi:L (kirja) sv:Expedition L |
The Great Santini | Pat Conroy | 1,976 | The Great Santini tells the story of hard-nosed Marine fighter pilot Lt. Col. Wilbur "Bull" Meecham, who calls himself "The Great Santini," and the family he runs with a strict hand. It follows the Meecham family as they move to and struggle to fit into the Marine town of Ravenel, South Carolina. The book is set in 1962 before the Vietnam War. Conroy makes the point that Santini is a warrior without a war, and in turn is at war alternately with the service that he loves and his family. The novel explores main character Ben Meecham's growth into manhood, his experiences playing basketball for his high school, as well as his friendships with a Jewish classmate and an African-American farmer. The novel exposes the love-hate relationship between Ben and his father, and the lengths Ben goes to in an effort to win his father's acceptance and love. The novel is based on Conroy's own childhood experiences growing up in a military family. Conroy's own father, Donald Conroy, was the inspiration for "Bull" Meecham. |
Mass Effect: Revelation | Drew Karpyshyn | 2,007 | The book serves to fill in much of the background details of the game, such as locations and the internal politics of the Council's races, as well as characters. A considerable amount of the plot revolves around the galaxy's views on Artificial intelligence, as this appears to be a major plot point in the game. The book tells of a young Alliance lieutenant David Anderson and his efforts to find a survivor of an attack on a top-secret Alliance base, lieutenant Kahlee Sanders. As the book progresses it is revealed the base was attacked purposely by the Blue Suns mercenary group, who were hired by the leading scientist on the base. A turian spectre, Saren is assigned to help Anderson and find clues as to where the missing scientist is. Eventually they find the scientist, but Saren escapes with the information the scientist was researching to an ancient alien ship which he plans to use for his own evil deeds as portrayed as the main plot in the game Mass Effect. |
Rash | Pete Hautman | null | The novel is set in the year 2074, in a future U.S., now called the United Safer States of America, that has become obsessed with safety and security. Nearly every potentially unsafe action has been criminalized, including school fights. The main character is Bo Marsden, a 16-year-old at high school. Bo's father and brother are in prison, and Bo tends to see his own rash behavior as genetic. Things get out of control when Bo tries to assault his classmate, Karlohs Mink, and is arrested. As a result, Bo is sentenced to work making pizzas in the Canadian tundra, where he is surrounded by hungry bears and eats only pizzas everyday. Bo finds prison life boring and dangerous, and he is tired of eating pizzas. However, on the strength of his running ability, Bo is soon invited to join the Goldshirts, together with his extremely strong roommate Rhino. The Goldshirts are a specially privileged group at the camp because they play football for the camp warden, Hammer, who bets money on the matches. Training to play the sport, which is now highly illegal, makes Bo stronger and more self-confident. At the same time, Bork, an artificial intelligent being which Bo invents for his science project in the school, mutates and becomes a rogue, spreading across the web. Using its great knowledge of criminal law, Bork arranges the early release of Bo and his family members. Rogue AI programs are illegal, and Bork is eventually discovered and destroyed by Security&Safety. Bo, however, has already gained what he needs: his high school graduation certificate and the skills of running and football. He takes his grandfather's shoes and decides to go to South America to play football, as it is still legal there. |
More Dissemblers Besides Women | Thomas Middleton | null | Act 1, Scene 1: Milan: The Duchess' balcony (above) and street (below) Lactantio praises the Duchess, who, according to a vow made upon her husband's death, has remained abstinent for seven years. He asks his lover, Aurelia, if she would follow the Duchess' example if he died. Aurelia replies that she would drop dead on the spot if Lactantio died. Lactantio tells Aurelia that, although he plans to marry her, they must keep their relationship a secret for the time being for the sake of his uncle, the Lord Cardinal, an extremely pious man who eschews the company of women. Lactantio is the Lord Cardinal's only heir, but in order to inherit his estate, he must keep the old man happy by seeming to shun the company of women. Lactantio also mentions that his uncle is a great admirer of the Duchess' constancy. Act 1, Scene 2: The Lord Cardinal's home: The Lord Cardinal's study The Lord Cardinal praises the Duchess' constancy to a group of Lords. He says that he has written several books celebrating the Duchess' strict adherence to her vow. The First Lord points out that the Duchess' constancy would be even more commendable if it were tested. He suggests that, rather than being hidden away from all men, the Duchess should be presented with some sort of temptation. The Lord Cardinal agrees that the Duchess should be tested in order to prove her perfection. The Lords exit. The Lord Cardinal calls for his nephew, Lactantio. He mentions how pleased he is that Lactantio, like himself, is totally uninterested in women. Lactantio enters reading a book. He takes great pains to demonstrate his (supposed) seriousness and distaste for women. Lactantio's former mistress enters disguised as a page. (The mistress has been posing as a boy page so she could live—and sleep—with Lactantio without arousing the Lord Cardinal's suspicions.) In a whisper, Lactantio asks the "Page" why she looks so pale. The "Page" tells him that she is pregnant. She gives him a letter announcing the arrival of a gentleman friend from Rome. Lactantio realizes that the "Gentleman" is, in fact, his lover, Aurelia. He tells the "Page" to welcome the "Gentleman" in. Aurelia enters disguised as a gentleman. The Lord Cardinal insists that the "Gentleman" stay as a guest in his home for as long as he is in Milan. The "Gentleman" accepts the invitation. The Lord Cardinal exits. Lactantio takes Aurelia into his arms and urges her to renounce her former lover, General Andrugio. Aurelia swears that she loves Lactantio alone, but notes that he may have some other competition: her father is pushing her to marry the Governor of the Fort, an extremely elderly gentleman whom Aurelia does not care for at all. Lactantio barely has time to reply before Aurelia's father enters, accompanied by the Old Governor of the Fort. Aurelia worries that she will be discovered. Lactantio greets Aurelia's father and introduces Aurelia as a foreigner who does not speak the language. Aurelia babbles a bit of gobbledygook in a supposedly foreign tongue, but her father is not fooled for a second. He scolds his daughter for her ridiculous ruse and "gives" her to the Old Governor of the Fort on the spot. Aurelia, her father and the Old Governor of the Fort all exit. Lactantio curses Aurelia's father and worries about how he will excuse the "Gentleman's" absence to his uncle. Act 1, Scene 3: The Duchess' balcony (above) and street (below) The Duchess is sitting in her balcony (above). She tells her serving-woman, Celia, how happy she is because she has adhered to her vow. The Lord Cardinal enters and tells the Duchess that, in order to prove her perfection, her constancy must be tested—she must be exposed to a desirable man. The Duchess agrees to be tested. The Cardinal tells her to look down at the street, where a procession celebrating the recent victories of General Andrugio will soon pass by. The Lord Cardinal exits. Trumpets sound, and General Andrugio enters in a procession below. He is accompanied by several nobles, including Lactantio, who sing his praises. As part of the procession, a winged Cupid descends and sings a song in General Andrugio's honor. While the Cupid is singing, a Lord passes General Andrugio a letter. Andrugio reads the letter. The nobles sing some further praises and exit. Andrugio seems sad. In an aside, the Lord who delivered the letter says that Andrugio is upset because he has just received news of Aurelia's impending marriage to the Old Governor of the Fort (remember that Aurelia was Andrugio's former lover). Meanwhile, above on the balcony, the Duchess confesses that she has failed the Lord Admiral's test—she has fallen in love with General Andrugio at first sight! Act 1, Scene 4: The Lord Constable's house: servants' quarters The "Page" asks Lactantio's man-servant, Dondolo, to dry a shirt for her. In a rambling speech filled with sexual innuendo and jokes about the "Page's" disguised pregnancy, Dondolo says he will not do anything for the "Page" unless she agrees to sing a song for him. The "Page" sings a bawdy song about Cupid. Dondolo is pleased. Act 2, Scene 1: The palace The Duchess orders Celia to bring her some colorful dresses. She does not want to wear mourning clothes any longer now that she is in love. Celia exits to get the clothes. Speaking to herself, the Duchess says that she will have to use trickery to win Andrugio's love. Overwhelmed by the complexities of her new situation, she busts into tears. The Lord Cardinal enters. He assumes that the Duchess is crying for her dead husband and tries to console her. The Duchess tells the Lord Cardinal that, after many years of mourning, desire has finally overcome the strength of her constancy: she has fallen in love with another man. The Lord Cardinal is shocked and extremely upset to hear this news. He demands to know the name of the man the Duchess has fallen in love with. The Duchess tells him she has fallen in love with his nephew, Lactantio (by this ruse, she hopes to warm the Lord Cardinal up to the idea of her remarrying, thereby opening the door for a match with Andrugio). Rather than reacting with delight (as the Duchess had hoped), the Lord Cardinal vows to banish Lactantio from the city. He exits. The Duchess laments her inability to soften the Lord Admiral up. Act 2, Scene 2: The Lord Cardinal's residence: The Lord Cardinal's study Soliloquizing in his study alone, the Lord Cardinal decides that his nephew cannot be blamed for the Duchess' attraction to him. He decides not to banish Lactantio, and to allow a relationship with the Duchess to go ahead. Act 2, Scene 3: The castle Andrugio disguises himself as an old soldier and goes to the castle, where Aurelia is being held prisoner by the Old Governor of the Fort. Aurelia is extremely happy to see Andrugio. She swears her never-ending love to him. Andrugio promises to rescue her soon. He exits. Speaking to herself, Aurelia says she will dump Andrugio and return to Lactantio as soon as she has been rescued. Act 3, Scene 1: The Lord Cardinal's residence Increasingly anxious about her pregnancy, the "Page" begs Lactantio to make good on his promise to marry her. Lactantio scornfully replies that he has promised to marry scores of mistresses and has no intention of marrying any of them. The "Page" bursts into tears. Dondolo enters. He has just returned from the castle, where he had been sent to spy on Aurelia. Lactantio asks him what he has learned. Dondolo says that he could not manage to actually speak with Aurelia, but was able to communicate by means of sign language. All of the "signs" that he reports receiving from Aurelia are of an absurd and bawdy nature. Lactantio scolds Dondolo for his nonsense and calls him an ass. Dondolo criticizes Lactantio's "Page," whom he says is good for nothing. He makes a series of sly remarks regarding the "Page's" disguised gender (Lactantio is apparently unaware that Dondolo has seen through the "Page's" disguise). Lactantio calls Dondolo a fool. In an aside, Dondolo swears to get revenge on Lactantio for calling him a fool. He makes plans to join the Gypsies, and meditates happily on the freedoms afforded by a Gypsy lifestyle. He exits. Lactantio professes his hatred for Aurelia's former lover, Andrugio. He worries that Andrugio will use Aurelia's captivity as a means to ply his way back into Aurelia's heart. The Lord Cardinal enters. The "Page" is still weeping. The Lord Cardinal says that Lactantio is too strict with the "Page." He says that he will assign her to a new master: the Duchess herself. The "Page" has no choice but to accept this new appointment. She exits—now more distressed than ever. Arguing that Lactantio has been too severe in his rejection of women, the Lord Cardinal declares that it is time for his nephew to marry. Still posing as a "serious nephew," Lactantio rejects the suggestion. The Lord Cardinal tells Lactantio that the Duchess herself is in love with him and cannot live without him. Lactantio is secretly overjoyed by this news, but maintains his "serious nephew" guise for his uncle's sake. The Lord Cardinal encourages him to go to the Duchess and proclaim his love. Lactantio "reluctantly" agrees to follow his uncle's wishes. He exits. A group of lords enters. The Lord Cardinal delivers a speech arguing that the Duchess has kept her vow for too long and should be encouraged to remarry. The lords are persuaded by the Lord Cardinal's argument. They make plans to persuade the Duchess to choose a new husband. Act 3, Scene 2: The palace Celia tells the Duchess that Lactantio secretly hates Andrugio (it is not clear how she gained knowledge of Lactantio's inner thoughts). The Duchess says that she can use this information to her advantage. Lactantio enters. The Duchess tells Lactantio that she loves him madly. Lactantio quickly agrees to marry her. The Duchess asks Lactantio if he has any enemies. Lactantio tells her that he has only one enemy: General Andrugio. The Duchess makes plans to set a trap for Andrugio (but it's actually a trap for Lactantio). She tells Lactantio to forge a letter in Andrugio's hand. In the phony letter, "Andrugio" makes a bold declaration of his love for the Duchess. Lactantio signs Andrugio's name to the letter and gives it to the Duchess. The Duchess instructs Lactantio to arrest Andrugio and bring him to her. Act 4, Scene 1: Outside the castle Andrugio waits outside the castle to rescue Aurelia, but Aurelia does not show up to meet him at the appointed time. Lactantio enters with a guard and arrests Andrugio. Andrugio begs them to wait a bit, but Lactantio insists on taking him away immediately. Act 4, Scene 2: Outside the castle Aurelia escapes from the castle disguised as a gypsy. She is surprised to find that Andrugio is not waiting for her. Dondolo enters. He is very happy to meet a "real" Gypsy. He asks the "Gypsy Girl" (Aurelia) where her company is. Aurelia recognizes Dondolo immediately. She asks if he is Lactantio's servant. Dondolo haughtily replies that he serves no man. He says that he has left his master to pursue a Gypsy lifestyle. Before Aurelia has a chance to press Dondolo further, a company of Gypsies enters singing and dancing. The Gypsy Captain addresses Aurelia in a strange Gypsy language (this language includes words such as "piss-kitch.") Aurelia tells him that she cannot understand the Gypsy language because she has only recently turned to the Gypsy lifestyle. The Gypsy captain welcomes her with good cheer. Dondolo requests admittance into the Gypsy company. The Gypsy Captain picks Dondolo's pocket while he reads his palm. Dondolo tries to pay the Gypsy Captain and realizes that his money has been stolen. Exceedingly impressed, he begs the captain to teach him the art of Gypsy thievery. The Gypsy Captain tells Dondolo that he will have everything he desires. He gives him the new "Gypsy Girl" (this is the second time that Aurelia has been "given" to an undesirable male) and instructs him to get her pregnant so she produce Gypsy children. Dondolo is very pleased. The Gypsy Captain marks Dondolo's face with bacon (to "Gypsify" him) and instructs him to go out and steal as much as he can for the company. Aurelia's father and the Old Governor of the Fort enter. They are searching for Aurelia. Aurelia is afraid she will be discovered. The Old Governor encourages Aurelia's father to ask for the Gypsies "supernatural" assistance to help them locate Aurelia. Aurelia's father is wary of the Gypsies. The Old Governor of the Fort gives Aurelia some money and asks her to tell him his fortune. Aurelia tells him that the woman he is looking for will board a ship soon. She advises him to forget the woman and leave her alone because she will never return his love. Aurelia's father and the Old Governor of the Fort rush off to the docks to prevent Aurelia's supposed departure. The Gypsies are very impressed by Aurelia's fortune-telling skills. They dance and drink for joy. Act 4, Scene 3: The palace The Lord Cardinal and a group of lords encourage the Duchess to remarry. The Duchess feigns reluctance. The Lord Cardinal and lords exit. The Duchess soliloquizes about Lord Cardinal's hypocrisy. The "Page" enters. The Duchess is quite impressed by "him." She makes plans to provide "him" with a good education, which will include singing and dancing lessons. The "Page" exits. Lactantio enters with Andrugio and a guard. Andrugio proclaims his innocence and asks the Duchess why he has been arrested. The Duchess asks Lactantio and the guard to leave. When they are gone, the Duchess shows Andrugio the phony letter (supposedly written by Andrugio, but actually written by Lactantio). She orders him to read the letter aloud. Andrugio insists that he did not write the letter. The Duchess brushes his protestations aside and tells him that the letter has won her heart: she is in love with him. Before Andrugio has time to answer, the Duchess orders Lactantio and the guard to take Andrugio to the palace prison. Andrugio is completely baffled. He worries that the Duchess' attention will ruin his chances of reuniting with Aurelia. Act 5, Scene 1: The palace The "Page" is taking music lessons. Celia supervises. The music teacher teaches the "Page" how to sing a "prick song" (a song performed from written music, with a quibble here on "prick," another word for "penis," pertinent here because the "Page" secretly does not have one—jokes like these are fundamental to this scene). After a series of incidents that make the "Page's" situation increasingly awkward, Celia dismisses the music teacher and introduces Cinquepace, the dancing teacher. Celia exits. An usher enters to play a viol. Cinquepace tells the "Page" to dance. In an aside, the "Page" worries that dancing might kill her. She tells Cinquepace that she does not know how to dance. Cinquepace threatens to pull down the "Page's" pants and spank "him" if "he" will not dance. The "Page" leaps, falls, and goes into labor. She calls for a midwife. Cinquepace is completely baffled. Act 5, Scene 2; The palace Celia tells the Duchess that Andrugio has paid one of his prison guards to find a "Gypsy Girl" (Aurelia) for him. The "Gypsy Girl" was brought to Andrugio's prison cell, where he greeted her with kisses and a passionate embrace. The Duchess is shocked and jealous. She calls for the "Gypsy Girl" to be brought before her. Aurelia enters, still disguised as a Gypsy. The Duchess asks the "Gypsy Girl" if Andrugio truly loves her. Aurelia replies in the affirmative and says Andrugio has promised to marry her. The Duchess worries that Andrugio might be crazy. She tells the "Gypsy Girl" to go away. Aurelia exits. The Duchess calls for Andrugio. Andrugio enters. The Duchess asks if he is truly in love with a Gypsy girl. Andrugio says that he is not. The Duchess calls for the "Gypsy Girl" again in order to get to the bottom of the story. Aurelia re-enters, no longer disguised as a Gypsy. Aurelia and Andrugio beg for the Duchess' pardon. The Duchess is relieved to learn that Andrugio is not crazy. She commends the couple and says that she will not get in the way of their love. Lactantio enters. Aurelia asks the Duchess if she is truly free to marry whomever she pleases. The Duchess replies in the affirmative. Aurelia says that, in that case, she would like to marry her heart's true love: Lactantio. Worried that his chances for marrying the Duchess will be ruined, Lactantio calls Aurelia a fool and says that he no longer has any interest in her whatsoever. Realizing she has just let two prospective husbands slip through her fingers, Aurelia begs Andrugio to forgive her. Andrugio rejects her. The Lord Cardinal enters with a group of lords. He tells the Duchess that it is time for her to announce the name of the man she has decided to marry (assuming she will name Lactantio). The Duchess feigns offense and says that she has no intention of ever breaking her vow. "The Page" enters. She is no longer disguised as a boy and carries an infant in her arms. The Duchess tells the Lord Cardinal that Lactantio is the baby's father. The Lord Cardinal vows to disinherit Lactantio, but the Duchess insists that he has already been punished enough. She offers to provide ten thousand ducats for the "Page's" dowry so she can marry Lactantio. The play ends on a note of festivity. |
Azure Bonds | Jeff Grubb | 1,988 | The trilogy’s titular “finder’s stone” plays a relatively limited role and has an essentially introductory presence in the novel. The story begins with the main character, an adventuress named Alias, awakening in a disoriented and amnesic state. She soon discovers that she has a newly acquired azure colored tattoo imprinted on the inside of her sword arm in the space between her wrist and elbow. At first she attributes her memory loss to inebriation and the tattoo as a drunken prank by companions. She soon finds that the tattoo is magical in origin, resists attempts to remove it and most worryingly, exerts a power to compel her actions. Before long, Alias becomes the nucleus of a disparate party of adventurers namely; a mysterious lizard-creature named Dragonbait, a southern mage called Akabar Bel Akash, and a halfling "bard" named Olive Ruskettle. The novel's plot follows the actions of the party which are combinations of the group’s investigations and interruptions caused by the compulsions of the tattoo. It is later revealed that Alias herself is in fact a complicated, magically created, artificial being intended by her creators to be their proxy in various nefarious purposes. The tattoo was to be a means of control as well as a branding of ownership by each of the collaborating parties involved in her creation. Her long term memories were actually granted to her by her sole benign (but misled) creator and her short term memory loss is due in part to the gap between the end of her artificial memories and her premature awakening. Alias eventually wins the freedom to control her actions and is able to embark on a life of her own. Events towards the end of the novel result in Giogioni Wyvernspur (a recurring supporting character), inadvertently acquiring the finder’s stone forming the back-story of the next novel in the trilogy, The Wyvern's Spur. |
Green Angel | Alice Hoffman | 2,003 | Green is a quiet and shy 15-year-old girl, approaching her 16th birthday. She lives with her mother, father, and beautiful younger sister Aurora, in a house on the city's green outskirts. While her sister is wild, charming and impatient, Green is timid and reserved, and has the infinite patience required to tend to the family garden. After mastering the art of tending the garden, she becomes the garden's main caretaker. One day, her family goes to the city to sell produce, leaving Green behind. There, her family perishes as a result of a conflagration in the city, believed to be done by a secretive, malevolent group of people. Many people in the city die that day, leaving behind orphans and heartbroken survivors. Ashes from the fire make Green half-blind and singes her hair, forcing her to cut her hair off. Green, deeply sorrowed, changes her appearance and personality and renames herself Ash as she decides to destroy her past to cover the internal pain she is suffering. She tattoos almost her entire body with black roses, vines and bats, continuing to suffer but growing indifferent toward her pain. Over time as she takes care of herself, through interactions with several kinds of animals that dote on her, a silent boy she calls Diamond, and a kind old neighbor, Green starts to heal from her pain. As she grows, she finds her leaf and stem tattoos turning green and the rosebuds turning red. Finally, on her 16th birthday, she is no longer Ash, as she once used to be, but is once again Green, finding the taste of summer and apples within her. Now, after her recovery, she is strong enough to tell her family’s tragic story. |
The Ringmaster's Daughter | null | null | The novel uses a frequent Gaarder device of telling a story within a story. It is narrated by a Norwegian named Petter, who recounts his life since childhood. Petter grows up with a single mother and had few friends, although he does possess an overly-imaginative mind. As an adult Petter sells ideas, stories, and plots to frustrated writers, and soon expands to include clients across Europe. In the meantime Petter meets and falls in love with a woman named Maria. Maria tells him that she is leaving for Stockholm and that they must never see each other again, but first asks Petter to father her child. Eventually writers and members of the publishing industry become suspicious, and rumors spread of a "Spider" who sells ideas to everyone. At a publishing convention in Bologna Petter is warned that his life may be in danger, so he takes the first flight out. Going into hiding, Petter arrives on the Amalfi Coast, where he falls in love with a woman named Beate. Both are initially secretive about their pasts, but as Petter begins to tell Beate some of his stories, Beate gets angry and disgusted, telling him that she will only see him once more on the following day. During the night Petter dawns on the realization that Beate must have heard the same stories from her mother, Maria, thereby making him Beate's father. |
The Way of the Scarlet Pimpernel | Baroness Emma Orczy | 1,933 | The action starts in 1792 before the execution of Louis XVI. Middle-aged lawyer Bastien, the Maître de Croissy (once the star of the Paris bar who counted Kings and aristocrats amongst his clients), is reduced to living in rented accommodation with his wife, Louise, and young son, Charles-Léon. Deprived of his income by the revolution, Bastien now takes work where he can get it, including that put his way by key figures in the revolutionary government even though he has strong royalist sympathies. Aware of his contacts, the Baron de Batz approaches Bastien with a scheme to free the King, and hankering after a return to his old lifestyle, he is more than willing to get involved. De Batz asks de Croissy to talk to some of his clients about the possibility of taking considerable bribes (paid for by the Austrian Government)in exchange for the King's freedom. This he does with some success, yet the Austrian gold is not forthcoming at the agreed time and the plans come to nothing. The subsequent trial and execution of the King and the further involvement of de Batz, can be read about in Sir Percy Leads the Band. A year has passed, it is now September 1793 and little Charles-Léon is gravely ill. His parents try to secure a permit to take him to their house in the Isère district near Grenoble, but although the Doctor is willing to sign a permit for the child, his parents are not allowed to leave Paris for more than seven days. Louise is distraught, as there is no-one in Grenoble she trusts enough to look after her sick baby. Listening to all this is Louise's childhood friend Josette Gravier who announces that she has a plan. Josette idolises the mysterious Englishman known as The Scarlet Pimpernel and is sure that he will be able to arrange a permanent permit for Louise, if only she can get a message to him. The rest of the household doesn't share Josette's enthusiasm for the Pimpernel, and doubt he even exists. The matter appears to be settled when Bastien reveals that, although the Baron de Batz's schemes to free the King came to nothing, he still has a number of incriminating letters from influential members of the government which could easily discredit them and send them to the guillotine. He proposes to use the leverage the letters give him to obtain a permit for his wife to stay with his ill son in Grenoble. Bastien puts his plan into action, but he is playing with fire and not long after meeting with the those implicated (the Citizen Representatives Chabot, Bazire and d'Églantine), his clerk Maurice finds his body in their offices. The Maître de Criossy has been brutally murdered to silence him for good, and his death covered up as suicide. Josette starts to fear for Louise, who is unable to eat, sleep or speak since hearing the news. The originals of the letters are in Louise's keeping and surely it can't be long before those who killed Bastien turn their attention her way. Luckily the Scarlet Pimpernel has heard of their plight and arranges for Louise and her son to escape to England before they can be arrested. Josette is grateful that her hero has succeeded but although the de Croissys are free, Maurice and she have been left behind in Paris. Josette receives a letter from Louise saying she is well in England and still has the letters, but otherwise, daily life continues as normal, until one day, Maurice is arrested. Fearing for Maurice's life, Josette gets up the courage to face citizen Chabot and uses her knowledge of the letters to barter for Maurice's freedom and their unhindered passage to England. She is given a permit to go to England to fetch the letters from Louise, but does not realise that the representatives have engaged Citizen Chauvelin to follow her and take the incriminating documents from her. Chauvelin offers friendly assistance to Josette whilst in England and she naïvely starts to trust him as a friend. However once back in France, Chauvelin steals the letters then fabricates up a set of blank look-alikes. He tells Josette that the originals were stolen by the English spies but he has managed to get them back—and then gives the blank copies to Josette, pretending they are the real letters. Not long afterwards Citizen Chabot arrives in Rouen and during a meeting with Josette has her searched by the guards. With the packet of letters now in his possession, he scornfully tells her that she will face the guillotine for her blackmail, along with her lover. Yet when he opens the package he finds only blank papers. Enraged, Chabot is convinced that Josette has tricked him, and turns the guest house upside down looking for the papers (Chauvelin, who is seeking to turn the letters to his personal advantage has not told Chabot that he has them in his possession). Whilst the soldiers are searching the guest house, Chauvelin assures Josette that he swapped the originals for blanks for her own safety and then has her arrested for treason and taken to the cells. He decides to open the original letters to see what leverage he can get from them but to his horror finds that his package is also blank save for that, all too familiar, maddening doggerel... "We seek him here..." Will Chauvelin succeed in cornering the English Spies? Can the Scarlet Pimpernel save Josette and Maurice from the guillotine? and what will happen to the incriminating letters? de:The Scarlet Pimpernel fr:Le Mouron rouge |
Fabiola | Nicholas Cardinal Wiseman | 1,854 | The story is set in Rome in the early 4th century AD, during the time of the persecution of Christians under the Roman Emperor Diocletian. The heroine of the book is Fabiola, a young beauty from a noble Roman family. She is spoiled by her father Fabius, who cannot deny her anything. Fabiola seems to have everything, including a superior education in the philosophers, yet under the surface, she is not content with her life. One day, in a fit of rage, she attacks and wounds her slave girl Syra, who is a secret Christian. The proud, spoiled Roman girl is humbled by Syra's humility, maturity and devotion to her in this situation, and a slow transformation begins, which finally culminates in her conversion to Christianity, brought on by Syra and of her own cousin Agnes, whom she adores and dotes on. Another thread of the story deals with the young boy Pancratius, a pious Christian and son of a martyr, who is himself preparing for martyrdom. Pancratius' nemesis is Corvinus, a bullying schoolmate who is irritated by the young Christian's saintliness. He does everything to bring him and the Christian community of the catacombs down. This includes the orchestrating of the lynching of their former teacher Cassianus, who is secretly Christian. Yet Pancratius shows his enemy the meaning of Christian forgiveness when he saves his life shortly after Corvinus had Cassianus killed. Another major villain in the story is the enigmatic Fulvius, an apparently rich young man from the East who soon reveals himself to be a hunter of Christians who turns them in to the authorities for money. His aim on the one hand is to gain the hand of either Fabiola or Agnes, and on the other hand, to uproot the Christian community in Rome. After some dramatic events that reveal his surprising connections to Syra, who is his long-lost younger sister Myriam, Fulvius rejects his evil ways, converts to Christianity and becomes a hermit. |
The Art of Destruction | Stephen Cole | null | The TARDIS arrives in 22nd century Africa, where agri-teams are growing food in the rich soil around a dormant volcano to feed the hungry millions of Earth. However, the time travellers detect an alien signal nearby. As something moves in the volcanic tunnels, the Doctor realises an ancient trap has been triggered. The Doctor and Rose meet Solomon Nabarr and Basel who explain that the Time travellers have just landed right by Mount Tarsus in Chad. |
Past Continuous | Yaakov Shabtai | 1,977 | The Novel focuses on three friends, Goldman, Caesar, and Israel, in 1970's Tel Aviv, as well as their acquaintances, love interests, and relatives. The story begins with the death of Goldman's father on April 1 and ends a little after Goldman's suicide on January 1. The past is woven into this short "present" period, through a complex stream of associations. The three men, lurching between guilt and depression, lose themselves in sexual adventures, amateur philosophy or compare their lives unfavorably to those of their sometimes heroic, sometime pitiful elders. The older characters can always hold firm to something or other, whether socialism and hatred of religious Jews, insights gained in Siberia, or refusal to admit that Israel is not Poland. The younger characters seethe instead in doubt and sweat. |
The Price of Paradise | Colin Brake | null | Laylora, the Paradise Planet, is a world of breath-taking beauty, where peace-loving Aboriginals supposedly live in harmony with their environment. Years ago, a human called Rez arrived on the planet as a baby in an escape pod, and was adopted by the native people. The Doctor and Rose arrive to answer a distress signal from a group of scientists, who were shot down by an EMP, only to find that the once-perfect eco-system is showing signs of failing. Natural disasters are becoming more frequent, and creatures from ancient legends are appearing and attacking people. The Doctor realises that the planet is a perfect equation, when left alone it is a paradise, but when alien objects visit the planet, the equation becomes unbalanced, and the planet causes disasters to try to repair itself. |
Feeling Sorry for Celia | Jaclyn Moriarty | 2,000 | The story's protagonist is a 15-year-old-girl named Elizabeth Clarry. Elizabeth lives in a suburb of Sydney, Australia, with her mother and her dog, a collie named Lochie. The story begins when Elizabeth, who attends an exclusive private school called Ashbury, is forced to begin a letter correspondence with a student from the local comprehensive high school (Brookfield), by her new English teacher, Mr. Botherit. The recipient of Elizabeth's letter is a girl named Christina Kratovac. Elizabeth and Christina become friends almost immediately. Elizabeth confides in Christina as she feels very alone and confused about her life. She does not fit in at Ashbury and she has an awkward relationship with her father (who left Elizabeth's mother when she was pregnant and moved to Canada with another woman and her son), who has just been reintroduced into her life in a permanent way. But mainly, her concerns revolve around her best friend, a wayward, free-spirited girl named Celia Buckley who has run away from home without leaving any details as to her whereabouts. Added to this are the barrage of letters that Elizabeth constantly receives from various societies and clubs, each pointing out her faults and generally bringing her down. The letters are reflections of Elizabeth's own subconscious thoughts and are not actually real. Eventually, Elizabeth learns of Celia's whereabouts (she joined a circus) but grows more concerned than before as Celia's letters make it seem like she is being harassed by the circus manager. Elizabeth devises a plot with a boy from Ashbury, Saxon Walker, who Elizabeth has been running with (training for a marathon), and with whom she has romantic interest in. Together they "save" Celia and bring her home. It soon becomes apparent, when Celia returns to school, that Saxon has a crush on Celia, and that that is the reason he befriended Elizabeth - to get close to Celia. Saxon and Celia begin a relationship, much to Elizabeth's dismay. Elizabeth is incredibly hurt by both Saxon's actions, and Celia's apparent blindness to Elizabeth's feelings. Elizabeth notices that Celia does not seem like the same person anymore and that her and Saxon don't seem good for each other - they make a suicide pact that luckily, is unsuccessful. Elizabeth finds much needed comfort and friendship in Christina, who has been having serious problems of her own after she had sex with her boyfriend, Derek, and the condom broke. Things then get worse for Elizabeth when her dog, Lochie, is run over by a truck. Elizabeth is devastated by both Lochie's death and Celia and Saxon's insincere sympathy over it. Elizabeth then suddenly receives an anonymous letter from someone expressing sympathy for her loss. It is soon revealed by Christina, that the anonymous person is a boy from her school, Brookfield, and that he has a crush on her. Though Christina will not tell Elizabeth his name as he asks her not to. Elizabeth then meets her step-brother, Ricky, who she soon discovers is in fact not her step-brother, but actually her half-brother. Her father got his second wife pregnant with Ricky, when Elizabeth's mother was three months pregnant with Elizabeth, and he never told the truth about it. Elizabeth is not particularly upset about it, but her mother is devastated and goes on a retreat to recover. During this time, Elizabeth decides to throw a sleepover party at her house with Celia and Christina and Maddie (Christina's cousin), and also takes the opportunity to invite the Anonymous Boy who had been writing her letters. Ricky comes to the party as well as, unbeknown to any of them, Ricky is dating Maddie. They all have a good time at the party, but it culminates in Celia, Saxon, Maddie and Ricky, going missing. Eventually they are discovered. They had decided that they wanted to go to New York and get away from everything but are prevented from doing so by their parents. The novel ends with Elizabeth much happier with her life, despite the dramas that had recently happened. Her friendship with Christina (a much more healthy, equal friendship than the one she had with Celia), her success at the local running marathon, and her burgeoning relationship with Jared (Anonymous Boy), all give her a new found confidence. She accepts that Celia will always be her friend, but that perhaps not her best friend, and that that is okay. The last page is Elizabeth writing a letter to one of the clubs that had been sending her letters and bringing her down, telling them that she never wants to hear from them again and if they write to her still, she won't open the letter, signifying the change in the way she sees herself. |
The First Sir Percy | Baroness Emma Orczy | 1,920 | March 1624 and a lot has happened since the plot on the life of the Stadtholder was foiled two months earlier. With the help of Mynheer Beresteyn, Diogenes has finally met his real father, an English Nobleman, and realised his true identify as Sir Percy Blake of Blakeney, heir to a large estate in Sussex. Now an English Lord, the once penniless soldier of fortune is getting married to Gilda Beresteyn, the woman he was paid to kidnap back in January. Mynheer Beresytn has arranged a double wedding for the pair along with his son Nicholaes and his bride to be, Kaatje van den Poele. The day is to be one of great celebration, with guests coming from far and wide including the Stadtholder Maurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange who owes Diogenes his life for informing him of Lord Stoutenburg's plot against his life. Also due to attend are Diogenes' fellow 'philosophers' – Socrates and Pythagoras. Pythagoras, however has fallen foul of Lord Stoutenburg after coming across the fugitive and his servant Jan, while lost in the Veluwe on the way to the wedding. Stoutenburg recognises the philosopher and after plying him with lots of wine, gets Jan to take him back out into the snow and kill him. Jan leads Pythagoras away from his planned route, shoots him in the back and leaves him for dead. On the day of the wedding, Diogenes is concerned about his friend and sends Socrates and a group of men out to look for him. The wedding celebrations are torturous for the adventurer who is not used to formal Dutch traditions and just wants to whisk his new bride away to their new life in England. Diogenes enlists the help of the Stadtholder to break up the celebrations early so he can go against tradition and carry off his wife in the face of scandalized and protesting wedding guests but just as he is about to ride off, a curious spectacle presents itself to view. Socrates arrives on horseback, with the barely alive Pythagoras across his saddle. The Stadtholder agrees to stay on so his personal doctor can administer to the adventurer and when he is eventually able to speak, he is able to relay Stoutenburg's new plans to assassinate the Stadtholder in some detail. It seems that the Archduchess Isabella has troops crossing the IJssel and coming up from Kleve. They plan to seize the cities of Arnheim and Nijmegen then march across the Veluwe and confront the Stadtholder with a vast army. On top of this, Stoutenburg is plotting to poison the Stadtholder using chemicals he has been taught to manufacture by Francis Borgia. The Prince of Orange asks Diogenes to fight at his side but the philosopher is torn between his feelings for his new bride and the call of honour and duty. Gilda settles the matter when she brings him his sword, telling him he must leave for Vorden within the hour. Nicholaes travels with Diogenes as far as Barneveld but on returning to the house, he tries to convince Guilda that her husband is a traitor and is in league with the Archduchess. Diogenes makes a brief stop in Vorden where he delivers the Stadtholder's orders to Messire Marquet and his troops, but on route to Wageningen he is suddenly chased and shot at by men on horses. Plunging into the river Ijseel to evade his attackers his horse is shot through the neck and the waters sweep over his head. Four days have passed and there is no news from Diogenes, the archduchess's troops have crossed the IJssel and overrun Gelderland. Nicholaes has been sent to Amersfoot to tell his father of the Stadtholder's coming and that they must evacuate the town. Fugatives from Ede have reached the Stadtholder's camp at Utrecht and it soon becomes obvious that Diogenes has failed in his task to deliver orders to Messire Marquet and Mynheer De Keysere. Gilda is worried, but refuses to believe her husband can have failed in his task. She watches for him from the window and eventually spots him riding into the city. On hearing the news, Nicholaes exclaims that Diogenes return is impossible but won't say any more when questioned. He then tries to get the Stadtholder away before he can talk to the Englishman, insisting that Diogenes has sold his sword to the Archduchess. When Diogenes, weary and dazed arrives at the door, Nicholaes attacks him with cries of "Assassin!" but Gilda wrests his sword from her brother before he can do her beloved any serious damage. The three philosophers, now with fresh horses follow Nicholaes and the Stadtholder and manage to frustrate Nicholaes's plans to deliver the Stadtholder into the hands of the Archduchess. However, before the traitor meets up with Lord Stoutenburg, he shoots at Diogenes with a poisoned bullet and the resultant smoke causes him to go blind. Nicolaes and Stoutenburg return to Amersfoort with 4000 mercenaries and demand the surrender of the city. After taking over Mynheer Beresteyn's house, Stoutenburg threatens to get his troops to murder the population of the town unless Guilda agrees to marry him. A commotion outside the house reveals a blind Diogenes is back and is entertaining the troops. Stoutenburg is determined to hang his nemesis, but thinks he can use the adventurer to his advantage in winning Guilda for he is convinced she will prefer a strong masterful man to a weak helpless one. The sad condition of her husband only seems to make Guilda more committed to him, so changing tack, Stoutenburg promises Guilda he will only spare Diogenes' life if she will agree to be his wife. She reluctantly gives in, but once she has gone to her room, he tells Jan to hang him anyway. Faced with the gallows, Diogenes barters his privileged knowledge of the Stadtholder's plans for a mug of port. Stoutenburg them tells Mynheer Beresteyn that his son-in-law is a traitor, and knowing the Burgomaster's views on such behaviour leaves him alone in the dining hall with Diogenes and a loaded gun... |
The Triumph of the Scarlet Pimpernel | Baroness Emma Orczy | 1,922 | The story starts in Paris in April 1794, year II of the French Revolution. Theresia Cabarrus is a beautiful but shallow Spaniard who is betrothed to Citizen Tallien the popular Representative in the Convention and one of Robespierre's inner circle. She is credited with exercising a mellowing influence over Tallien, whom she met in Bordeaux but although she is engaged to be married to him, what little love she has appears to be lavished on another. Bertrand Moncrif is a good-looking but impulsive young man who appears determined to martyr himself in opposition to the revolutionary government. To this end, he has gathered the siblings of his long-term sweetheart, Régine de Serval, into his plan to denounce Robespierre at one of the Fraternal suppers. Despite warnings from Régine he insists on carrying through his plans which inevitably go awry and the wrath of the mob is soon turned towards the small group. After a timely intervention on the part of the Scarlet Pimpernel, using the guise of the coal heaver Rateau (who also appears in several short stories in The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel - The Cabaret de la Liberté, Needs Must and A Battle of Wits), the de Servals are saved from a lynching while Moncrif lies unconscious and unseen under a table. When he eventually awakens, Bertrand heads straight for Theresia's house (whom he worships) and all thoughts of his old love Régine disappear in her wake. Theresia is horrified to find him at her house as Tallien, Robespierre and several other high-ranking political figures are due at her apartment for a meeting. Realising that he is putting her at risk, Bertrand hides in the kitchen while the men meet. Also present is Citizen Chauvelin, who plans to use Theresia to entrap his old enemy the Scarlet Pimpernel and has been planting ideas to the effect in Robespierre's mind. Robespierre makes it clear that he knows Bertrand was behind the fracas at the supper and implies that Theresia and Bertrand are involved. Despite the implied threat, she refuses to help trap the Pimpernel, but after the party has left she discovers that Bertrand has been taken by the daring Englishman from her kitchen. Chauvelin returns brandishing a note left by the Pimpernel, to persuade her to take part in his plan once more. Peeved at the Pimpernel removing her plaything, she eventually agrees. In England, Moncrif and the de Servals are finally free to resume an almost normal life. Theresia arrives at Dover dressed in men's clothes and claiming she has been driven out of France by her association with Bertrand, in fear of her life. An obviously staged row between the Spaniard and Chauvelin outside Sir Percy's cottage fails to persuade our hero that she is up to anything but mischief, but he seems to relish the prospect of such an intelligent and wily adversary and promises not to reveal her true identity to anyone for he "is a lover of sport." With her plans to seduce Percy scuppered, Theresia turns her attention to Sir Percy's wife Marguerite and uses an all too willing Bertrand to set the trap. Lady Blakeney is kidnapped yet again and taken to France and imprisoned as bait for Sir Percy. Can our dashing hero evade capture and live to enjoy a day "when tyranny was crushed and men dared to be men again"? de:The Scarlet Pimpernel fr:Le Mouron rouge |
The Chinese Bell Murders | null | 1,958 | Judge Dee is a newly appointed magistrate to the town of Poo-yang. He has one case left over from the previous judge, a brutal rape-murder of a woman called Pure Jade. She was the daughter of a local butcher named Hsai who lived on Half Moon Street. The girl's lover stands accused but Judge Dee senses something in the case is not right so he sets out, with his aides, to find the real murderer. He also has to wrestle with the problem of Buddhist Temple of Boundless Mercy, run by the abbot called "Spiritual Virtue". Rumor has it that the monks, who can cure barren women, are not a virtuous as they seem. Poo-yang was the setting for many Judge Dee stories including: The Emperor's Pearl, Necklace and Calabash, Poets and Murder, and The Red Pavilion. |
The Chinese Gold Murders | null | 1,959 | Judge Dee is a recently appointed magistrate to the miserable town/district of Peng-lai. His predecessor has been murdered and so Judge Dee must investigate. The investigation is made more complex due to the disappearance of his chief clerk as well as the new bride of a wealthy local shipowner. Meanwhile a tiger is terrorizing the district, the ghost of the murdered magistrate is stalking members of the court, a prostitute has a secret message for Judge Dee, and the body of a murdered monk is found to have been placed in the wrong grave. What could possibly relate all these events? The town of Peng-lai was the setting for other Judge Dee stories including: The Lacquer Screen, and three of the short stories from Judge Dee at Work. fr:Trafic d'or sous les T'ang |
The Big Orange Splot | Daniel Pinkwater | 1,977 | The main character, Mr. Plumbean, lives on a "neat street" where all the houses look the same. A seagull flies over his house and drops a can of bright orange paint on his roof, but instead of repainting his house to look like all the others on the street, Mr. Plumbean paints it to resemble his dreams. His neighbors send people to talk him into repainting his house to look like theirs, but everyone he talks to ends up painting their houses like their dreams also. In the end, all the neighbors say: "Our street is us and we are it. Our street is where we like to be, and it looks like all our dreams." The drawings were made with markers, and if one looks closely one can see the marker lines. In an interview in 1978 Daniel Manus Pinkwater revealed the hallucinogenic undertones clearly referenced throughout the story. Due to this interview the book was pulled from most libraries in Missouri in the early 1980s. Many believe the seagull was a reference to his older brother Steven "Seagull" Pinkwater. |
The Chinese Lake Murders | null | 1,960 | In the year 666, Judge Dee, the newly appointed magistrate of the fictional town of Han-yuan, must solve three murders. Han-yuan is an isolated town famous for its floating brothels or "flower boats". The murders seem to be related but just how they are connected is a mystery. The whole investigation turns into a maze of political intrigue, sordid greed, and dark passions. Han-yuan was also the setting for another story The Morning of the Monkey, a short novel in The Monkey and the Tiger. |
The Chinese Maze Murders | null | 1,957 | Judge Dee is the magistrate in the fictional border town of Lan-fang. He confronts three mysteries involving poisoned plums, a mysterious scroll picture, passionate love letters, a hidden murder, and a ruthless robber. These are all somehow linked to the Governor's garden maze. Lan-fang was the setting for another Judge Dee novel, The Phantom of the Temple and two short stories from Judge Dee at Work. |
The Haunted Monastery | null | 1,961 | Judge Dee and his three wives are on their way back from a visit to family in the capital accompanied by the Judge's aid Tao Gan when a terrible storm forces the party to take shelter for the night in an isolated Taoist monastery of sinister repute. The wives go directly to bed but the Judge is required to pay a courtesy visit to the Abbot. Thus begins an endless night of murder, mayhem and madness as the Judge, suffering from the beginnings of a head cold, solves the mysterious deaths, punishes the guilty and brings two star-crossed young couples together. 'I ought to give up being a magistrate and set up for a matchmaker!' he says in disgust. |
The Stones of Nomuru | Catherine Crook de Camp | 1,988 | Terran archeologist Keith Salazar’s excavation of the ancient Kukulkan city of Nomuru is endangered by the plans of the avaricious Conrad Bergen to develop the site. Their dispute is complicated by rivalry over Kara Sheffield, Salazar’s former wife, and an invasion of the lands of the civilized Kukulkanians by the Chosa nomads. To preserve his dig and advance his suit, Salazar must avoid being murdered by Bergen, bestir the civilized natives to battle the nomads, and manipulate his superior at the museum funding him in order to secretly supply Terran weapons to his allies. |
The Emperor's Pearl | null | 1,963 | Judge Dee, magistrate of Poo-yang a flourishing walled city on the Grand Canal, is attending the Dragon Boat races accompanied by his three ladies aboard his own official barge. He is mildly annoyed by the intrusions of assorted callers and the loss of a blank domino (he and his ladies are keen players). He is more than annoyed when the sad, sudden death of a young student crewing one of the boats turns out to be deliberate murder. Even more disturbing is the murder of the young Second Lady of a prominent local merchant and collector which is witnessed by the Judge himself. Obviously very odd things are going on at the deserted villa at the edge of the River Goddess's overgrown mandrake grove! Throw in an apparently cursed Imperial Treasure and a perverted madman and the Judge has his hands full. Poo-yang was the setting for The Chinese Bell Murders. Three other cases: Necklace and Calabash, Poets and Murder, and The Red Pavilion took place during his term as magistrate. |
The Lacquer Screen | Robert van Gulik | 1,964 | In 663, Judge Dee is the young magistrate in the fictional town of Peng-lai. On a visit to a senior magistrate he is shown a beautiful lacquer screen which is mysteriously altered to show a murder scene instead of a love scene. With the senior magistrate convinced he is going insane, a wealthy banker in town does kill himself, or is it murder? Judge Dee and his faithful servant Chiao Tai go undercover and join a gang of robbers to solve the case. The town of Peng-lai was the setting for other Judge Dee stories including: The Chinese Gold Murders, and three of the short stories from Judge Dee at Work. fr:Le Paravent de laque |
The Red Pavilion | null | 1,964 | Judge Dee, the magistrate of Poo-yang, has an unexpected meeting with the most powerful and famous courtesan on Paradise Island, Autumn Moon. Then, a man who was well known to be studying to pass the Imperial exams dies, was it suicide or was he murdered? His last week was spent in the company of Autumn Moon. Only a few hours later, she herself is found dead and Judge Dee is drawn into a web of lies and sad stories in the world of the prostitutes of Imperial China. Poo-yang was the setting for many Judge Dee stories including: The Chinese Bell Murders, Necklace and Calabash, Poets and Murder, and The Emperor's Pearl. |
The Monkey and the Tiger | null | 1,965 | The first story is called "The Morning of the Monkey" and is set in the fictional city of Han-yuan in the year 666. One morning a gibbon drops an emerald ring right at the entrance to Judge Dee's house. This leads to the discovery of a strangely mutilated body out in the nearby forest. Han-yuan is the setting for several other Judge Dee stories including The Chinese Lake Murders and one of the stories from Judge Dee at Work. The second story, called "The Night of the Tiger", takes place a decade later when Judge Dee is returning to the capital at Chang'an when bandits force Judge Dee to take cover in an isolated country house. There he must fight off the vicious cut-throats as well as solve a murder. |
Dragons in the Waters | Madeleine L'Engle | 1,976 | Dragons have been seen in the mists behind Christ de Reginero. Simon's Aunt Leonis accepts an invitation for Simon to travel by freighter to Venezuela with Simon's cousin, Forsyth Phair. Phair recently purchased a valuable heirloom painting of Simon Bolivar from Aunt Leonis. It is a relic of Simon's forebear, Quentin Phair, who fought at Bolivar's side. The portrait was sold to raise money to support Simon and Miss Leonis, who is ninety years old. Forsyth proposes to donate the portrait to a museum in Caracas — but all is not as it seems. A dangerous "accident" involving a forklift and odd interactions aboard the Orion lead fellow passengers Poly and Charles O'Keefe to believe that Simon's "Cousin Forsyth" may be a source of danger to Simon. When Forsyth is murdered and the portrait stolen, Poly does not know what to think, but it is clear that Simon is still in danger. Another passenger, Mr. Theo, calls for Poly's godfather, Canon Tallis, to come and investigate, but Tallis and Simon are both kidnapped by the local police chief upon arrival in Port of Dragons, Venezuela, and left stranded in the jungle. Miss Leonis also arrives, having learned before the murder that the check paying for the portrait was worthless. She has also just read Quentin Phair's letters and journals, thus learning belatedly that Simon's heroic ancestor left behind a wife and son among the Quiztano Indians of Dragonlake in Venezuela. Phair also started the "Caring Places", two large buildings in which Quiztano healers, some of them with medical degrees, help the sick and the dying. The connection between Quentin Phair and Umara of the Quiztanos is the underlying cause of Simon's current predicament, part of a tangled web of murder, smuggling, blackmail and a generations-old grudge. Alejandro Hurtado, a friend of Tallis, initially arrests Jan, a Dutch sailor with Quiztano blood, but the ship's first mate, Lyolf Boon, soon confesses to Phair's murder. Simon and Tallis fight off an attack from a wild boar, but Tallis receives a leg injury, which becomes infected. When a wildcat attacks, Tallis orders Simon to run away. Panicked, Simon does so, but feels guilty afterward. Both are rescued by the Quiztanos and brought to Dragonlake. Miss Leonis is already there, and is dying. The Quiztanos hail Simon's arrival as the long-awaited "return of the Phair". After some initial resistance, Simon decides to stay at Dragonlake and continue the good work that his ancestor started with the Caring Places. |
Michaelmas | Algis Budrys | 1,977 | The novel is set in the near future (at least at the time of writing, now actually in past time). The public image of the eponymous protagonist, Laurent Michaelmas, is that of a world-renowned newsman. In fact, Michaelmas controls world events just as much as he reports them. His means of influence is an immensely powerful self-aware artificial intelligence called Domino, which originated as a modest telephony appliance in Michaelmas' youth. Over the years, Domino has evolved into a digital omnipresence that can penetrate and control any electronic or computerized equipment, most notably communication networks of all kinds. Domino was created by Michaelmas, and its existence is known only to him. Domino is also the confidante and intellectual sparring partner of Michelmas, compensating in part for the loss that Michaelmas suffered when his wife was killed in an accident many years ago. By the time of the novel, Laurent Michaelmas has successfully used his power to create and sustain world peace. One of his achievements is the success of UNAC (the fictitious United Nations Astronautics Commission). UNAC, organizing space travel as a joint international project is important to Michaelmas as a symbol of a more united world. When an astronaut believed to have been killed in a failed mission turns up miraculously saved, a threatening scenario starts to unfold. As the novel progresses, Michaelmas slowly learns that a possible extraterrestrial presence may be interfering with the new world he has worked so hard to create. |
The Willow Pattern | Robert van Gulik | 1,965 | Judge Dee is now a senior member of the Chinese government and has been appointed the Chief Judge in the Tang capital of Chang-An. One of the city's oldest, and most important aristocratic families becomes the subject of investigation. Three murders are committed and Judge Dee must find the connection. |
Murder in Canton | null | 1,966 | Judge Dee is now the most senior judge in all of China and his authority is little less than that of the Emperor himself. Canton is the most important trading port in the country, filled with merchants from many other lands, some as far away as India and Baghdad. When one of the secretive but very powerful Imperial censors goes missing in Canton, Judge Dee must come to the city in disguise and investigate. He is aided by a beautiful blind girl who collects crickets. This is the last story in the internal chronology of Judge Dee. |
The Phantom of the Temple | Robert van Gulik | 1,966 | Judge Dee, a magistrate in the fictional Lan-fang district has a problem: a mysterious phantom is haunting a Buddhist temple. In addition, some 20 bars of gold have gone missing, not to mention the merchant's beautiful daughter. When a body is discovered without a head, Judge Dee must quickly solve the case. Lan-fang was the setting for another Judge Dee novel, The Chinese Maze Murders and two short stories from Judge Dee at Work. |
Necklace and Calabash | null | 1,967 | Judge Dee is a magistrate in the fictional Poo-yang district, its a wealthy area through which the Grand Canal of China runs (part of modern-day Jiangsu province). The Emperor's daughter lives in the district at the Water Palace but it falls under a special administration run by the military commander. Judge Dee goes to the area for a few days of relaxing fishing but soon meets with a strange Taoist hermit, then a body is found in the river. Then the Emperor's daughter appeals to Judge Dee for aid. The mysteries keep building up and Judge Dee has to tread very carefully to avoid serious political fallout from his investigations. Poo-yang was the setting for many Judge Dee stories including: The Emperor's Pearl, The Chinese Bell Murders, Poets and Murder, and The Red Pavilion. |
Poets and Murder | null | 1,968 | Judge Dee is a magistrate in the fictional Poo-yang district, its a wealthy area through which the Grand Canal of China runs (part of modern-day Jiangsu province). During the mid-autumn festival in the city of Chin-hwa, Judge Dee is a guest of a small group of distinguished scholars. However, he learns during dinner that a young girl has been murdered and the accused is a beautiful poetess. She is thought to have whipped her maidservant to death, but why? Then the body of a student is also discovered. Poo-yang was the setting for many Judge Dee stories including: The Emperor's Pearl, The Chinese Bell Murders, Necklace and Calabash, and The Red Pavilion. The book was also published in the US under the title of The Fox Magic Murders. |
The Doomed City | Arkady Strugatsky | null | The novel is set in a mysterious world where enigmatic Mentors run a sociological experiment. The mentors gathered volunteers from Earth from various places and times: from Germany of 1940s, the USA of the 1960s, Sweden of the 1970s, etc. The volunteers do not know the goals or conditions of the experiment. In spite of different native languages the people can effortlessly communicate with each other. Most of the people live in the City that is skirted by a swamp on one side and a desert on the other. Apparently, the experiment runs out of control, the City is shaken by a social unrest and an egalitarian system of job rotations is replaced by a dictatorship. The main character — Andrei Voronin — is an astronomer from Leningrad of 1950s. He struggles to find his identity and his place in the strange city, at first being a vehement opponent of the dictatorship, and later becoming a leading adviser of the dictator. Naively idealistic at the beginning of the novel, he seems to have become crass in the second half. However, eventually, he leads an expedition to explore the desert. The expedition proves difficult in the extreme. The members are exhausted, they turn back or perish. Eventually, only Andrei and Izia (Joseph Katzman) forge ahead. They encounter deserted cities and ruins of Earth cultures that show that the mysterious world is very old and the humans inhabited it for a long time. As Andrei and Izia proceed, they ponder the strange world and the meaning of human existence. They run out of supplies, but they keep going on eager to learn what is beyond the "zero point". Andrei dies on the border shooting at his double. He then finds himself back in the Leningrad of 1950s, where his Mentor tells him that he passed the First circle, but "there are many of them ahead". |
The Sweet Far Thing | Libba Bray | 2,007 | The prologue begins with two men who are searching a river in London (three years before the events of the book) for dead bodies to fence any jewelry or money left upon them. They come across the body of a girl wearing the same crescent moon amulet as Gemma’s. At Spence academy Gemma struggles to open the realms. Pressure builds on her as her friends plot to use her magic to alter the courses of their lives, such as Ann trying to counteract her plainess with the magic in hopes of seducing Tom or joining the theatre. But after much struggling Gemma finds a backdoor-like entry into the realms. By touching a mysterious stone unearthed during the reconstruction of the east wing of Spence Gemma can enter the realms. There Gemma, Felicity, and Ann find Pippa among a group of girls she claims to have saved from entering the Winterlands. Pippa leads the group of girls and attempts to teach them manners in a similar fashion that she was taught at Spence, even though Pippa obviously didn't pick many of these up herself. Pippa asks Gemma to help her cross the river in the realms into the afterlife, but finds that she cannot because she has become a creature of the realms. Pippa asks Gemma to give her some magic and feeling guilty, she does. After a three month absence, Kartik finds Gemma at Spence Academy to tell her that their destinies should not cross again. Gemma angrily stomps off, trying to appear aloof. A later meeting at a boat dock in London crushes Gemma's hope that they could be together. Kartik enlists as a sailor for the HMS Orlando to escape from Gemma and the Rakshana. He refuses to reveal to Gemma the details of his business with the Rakshana or what he will do beyond being a sailor. Despite his coldness, Gemma continues to long for his touch. While waiting for his boat to come in, Kartik lives with the gypsies and helps Gemma arrange a meeting with the Rakshana. The topic of the meeting was her brother Tom, whom the Rakshana was trying to enlist in the club. The meeting was cut short by Mr. Fowlson, a loyal Rakshana member, who unsuccessfully tried to capture Kartik and Gemma. The cost for their safe escape was Mr. Fowlson's discovery that Gemma did indeed have the magic, unlike what she had said to him previously. This incidents ends with Kartik and Gemma leaving the docks after a kiss. At the peak of her tolerance, Gemma finally gave in to her visions and tried to follow the clues left by a mysterious girl in a lavender dress. This leads her to an illusionist who informs Gemma that this girl lived at Spence during her mother's time there. On a whim, Gemma and her troupe of girls venture into the Winterlands to find The Tree of All Souls. When they find it, they all place their hands upon its bark and see different 'visions'- their dreams coming true before their eyes. Gemma alone had a talk with Eugenia Spence who informed her more of the girl in the lavender dress. She also learns that the girl had in possession a dagger which posed a threat to the Winterland creatures. With their affection for each other growing, Kartik finally asks Gemma if she can take him into the realms to see his brother. Once there, they go to into the Cave of Sighs where they make love in each other's dreams. Gemma then offers Kartik a bit of her magic and he uses it simply to kiss her. Afterwards, Kartik finds his brother and is upset by what has become of him, he leaves the realms without the peace he'd hoped to find. Felicity and Ann grow angry with Gemma when she refuses to bring them into the Realms, but since Gemma has broken the seal between the two worlds they soon discover they no longer need her and they cross over by themselves. Gemma panics for her friends are unaware of the war that is breaking out amongst the creatures and, fearing for their safety, follows them into the Realms. She finds them visiting Pippa, whose power has grown but whose sanity is very quickly waning. Pippa attempts to kill Gemma when she refuses to believe that she is 'the chosen one'. Felicity attempts to stop her but Pippa pushes her away in her rage, Felicity is taken aback. When Pippa sees what she's done to her friend she apologizes and asks Felicity to stay with her forever, offering her berries that would doom Felicity into a half-life in the realms. The true relationship between the two is revealed when they share a kiss, but Felicity ultimately refuses the berries and leaves in tears. Time begins to run out for Gemma as creatures of the Realms' patience wears thin. With the seal broken between the two worlds, the creatures run loose, crossing back and forth between the Realms and reality. They attempt to capture Gemma while she is at Spence in order to sacrifice her to the Tree of All Souls. Gemma and her troupe (Kartik, Fowlson, Ms. McCleethy, Ann, and Felicity) quickly cross over into the Realms while the war is raging between the creatures. They are waylaid by Pippa, who sacrifices Ms. McCleethy in Pippa's castle in the Borderlands. Soon after, the castle collapses with Pippa inside. The group of girls following Pippa join Gemma's group to fight the Winterlands. They make their way to the tree where Gemma is stabbed by Amar. Kartik quickly offers himself to the Tree of All Souls in order to save Gemma and they share one last kiss before he is absorbed into the Tree. Gemma then gives her magic back to the land, recreating the barrier between the two worlds, and returns home, heartbroken. After her debut, Gemma moves to America to live independently and attend University. In her dreams, she still sees Kartik where he waits for her in the realms on the other side of the river. |
Mathematicians in Love | Rudy Rucker | 2,006 | Bela and Paul are working towards their Ph.D's under the direction of a mad math genius named Roland Haut, they invent a para-computer called "GoBubble" that predicts the future. They are both involved in a love triangle with Alma. |
A Fairly Honourable Defeat | Iris Murdoch | 1,970 | The lives of several friends are thrown into disarray by the machinations of Julius King. Julius makes a bet with his ex-girlfriend Morgan that he can break up the homosexual couple Axel and Simon; meanwhile, Morgan and her brother-in-law Rupert are conned into embarking on an affair, and Morgan's nephew Peter is falling in love with her. Julius King, returning from a university job in America, seeks out his old school friends, Rupert Foster and Axel Nillson. His former lover, Morgan Browne, Foster’s sister-in-law, has arrived in England at the same time. Foster’s attempts to keep them apart are thwarted by Morgan Browne, still in love with King and determined to confront him. At the same time, she is avoiding her husband, Tallis Browne, who still loves her. The plot is complicated further when, almost immediately and by accident, Julius King meets Tallis Browne. King is intrigued by his old lover’s husband, a rather nondescript fellow with not much personal presence but considerable moral integrity. King himself is a man of formidable intellect, and he does not suffer anyone gladly. He is irritated by what he sees as self-satisfied and patronizing conduct in his friends, and he sets out, without much concern for the consequences, to put them in compromising situations. Morgan, his love from the past, will not leave him alone, and though he has a quick way of chastening her for her importunities, he determines to include her in his plans. Rupert Foster, rather full of himself since he has just finished his book on the power of good and love in life, is ripe and ready to be fooled, and Morgan, full of the hot air of spurned love and dramatizing her problems for all to see, appears to be just the mate for Rupert, if King can somehow get them together. To make the game more interesting, he takes on the extra task of breaking up the homosexual relationship between Axel Nillson and Simon, Rupert’s brother. Using a mixture of high cunning, sheer criminality, and pinches of blackmail, King tempts his friends into situations which they would never have contemplated and which ultimately result not only in revealing flaws in their characters but also in causing serious harm to Rupert, for which King, a cool, nerveless fellow, takes no responsibility. Everyone learns how ridiculously vulnerable they are, but Axel and Simon escape from King’s labyrinth of “now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t,” strengthened in their love and less inclined to be shamefaced about being homosexual. Whether Morgan Browne learns anything is unclear, and the damage done to the Fosters is gratuitously cruel. |
Memoirs of Emma Courtney | Mary Hays | 1,796 | The novel consists of a series of philosophical letters from the heroine, Emma Courtney, to Augustus Harley. Emma is deeply in love with Augustus Harley but her pursuit of him fails - his income is only secure as long as he remains unmarried. Although she initially refuses to accept a life of security by marrying her admirer Mr. Montague, Emma eventually accepts when Augustus Harley is revealed to be already married, and Emma herself is facing financial hardship. Emma's marriage results in a series of tragedies, despite the appearance of a beloved daughter, and her passion for her first love never ceases. Near the end of the novel the two will meet again under unfortunate circumstances. Harley dies after an accident, and Montague commits suicide after a sexual encounter with a maid, whom he leaves pregnant. Emma adopts Harley's eldest son, and devotes herself to the lives of her children. |
GoodKnyght! | Steve Barlow | 2,001 | Willum, a swineherd and Whipping boy for Symon, son of the city's High Lord, longs to go to Knyght School and to become a Knyght. After fighting for Symon in a Tournament for Symon, Willum is sent to Knyght School. After meeting up with a forest dwelling girl named Rose, an Italian restaurateur named Luigi, Humfrey the Boggart, a Pryvate Inquestigator with a speech impediment, a sarcastic harp and a wizard known as The Runemaster who carries the Dragonsbane; a stone which can be used to access the mind of a dragon. When the Dragonsbane is stolen, Willum, Rose and the Harp travel to The Ragged Mountain to retrieve it. |
The Righteous Men | Jonathan Freedland | null | Will Monroe's normal life is disrupted when his wife is kidnapped while he is reporting on a story of a militia man found dead in his isolated log cabin. Further investigation into the death brings Monroe to the conclusion that the dead militia man shared an attribute with a New York City pimp, also recently murdered. They were both described as being 'righteous'. As more murders of 'righteous men' happen across the globe, time seems to be running out for Will and the old and current friends he has enlisted. With a series of clues from a mysterious source, absurd twists and religious factors Will soon finds himself in the middle of a plot to bring about nothing less than Judgement Day. The book focuses on the fact that several people have been murdered in what can only be described as a humane way. What these victims have in common is that they have been described by folk who knew them as "righteous" (hence the title) although they led some mundane or unethical existence (i.e. pimps, drug barons or even call centre employees). Nothing seems to fit to connect the murders together. A rookie NY Times reporter is sent on a murder case (the pimp) and is then sent of to do a story in Seattle where he finds another victim here whilst trying to report on freak weather conditions. While he's away, his wife gets kidnapped by what turns out to be the Hassidic community in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. What these "Righteous Men" turn out to be are based on Jewish folklore: that the world rests on 36 men who perform righteous acts to others. They themselves may not know that they are one of 36 and will always lead a life so far removed from what they are about. But without these men - the world will not be spared by God. So while the killing of the real 36 continues, the world (according to this story) is in grave danger. The killings seem to be done in the name of God; but as it is a Jewish story, why would they want this to happen? It turns out that the killings are being done by a faction of the Christian Church (The Church of the Reborn Jesus) who hold the notion that the Jews have forfeited their role as the chosen people (replacement theology) and by killing the 36 should bring about the Second Coming (something the Jews do not believe). |
Artemis Fowl: The Time Paradox | Eoin Colfer | 2,008 | Angeline Fowl, Artemis Fowl's mother contracts a debilitating disease, which Artemis can not heal with magic, but tries and makes Angeline's condition worse. Artemis desperately contacts Captain Holly Short and №1, in hopes that they will be able to shed some new light on his mother's condition. They determine Angeline is suffering from Spelltropy, a fairy disease that is spread through the use of magic, and can only be cured by the brain fluid of the silky sifaka lemur of Madagascar. Unfortunately, the lemur is extinct, due to a ruthless deal Artemis made almost 8 years ago with a group called the Extinctionists. Foaly tells him that his mother will die without the cure. Artemis pleads for №1 to open up the time stream, allowing him to save the lemur, and thus his mother. Foaly argues against the idea, but due to Artemis' lying to Holly, saying that she infected Angeline with Spelltropy, Holly agrees to help Artemis immediately to make up for it, and Foaly had to give in. They arrive nearly eight years earlier in Artemis' study. The time stream causes Artemis become much hairier while Holly is physically reduced to an adolescent. Artemis assures Holly that the past Butler will quietly slip the lemur into the room (to avoid Angeline seeing it) and that they will simply be able to leave. Butler however, does not act according to Artemis' predictions. He tranquilises the two, and locks them in the trunk of the Fowl Bentley. Artemis and Holly escape with the help of Mulch Diggums, a kleptomaniac dwarf who has partnered up with Artemis in the future. After following his younger self to an animal park to retrieve the lemur, Artemis breaks into the wrong cage and is attacked by a gorilla, and Holly is forced into action. She heals his wounds with magic, and in a giddy haze of relief after realising he almost died, she kisses him. After, they save the lemur from Rathdown Park, but are forced at gunpoint to release it to young Artemis. While hurrying to the shuttleport in Tara, a guilty Artemis confesses his lie to Holly, who is outraged. Artemis redeems himself by giving Holly a chance to talk with Commander Root, who is dead in their time. Holly becomes neutral to Artemis, then thanks him. They commandeer a shuttle and fly it to Morocco, where the younger Artemis will trade the lemur to the Extinctionists for a hundred thousand euros. The money will go to an Arctic expedition, to help Artemis find his missing father. Instead of capturing the lemur, Holly is captured herself, and sold by the younger Artemis to the Extinctionists, who plan to execute her. Older Artemis races to the rescue, but falls in the execution pit himself. There he discovers that the "flames" are holograms, and meets his old nemesis Opal Koboi, who has put the mesmer on the leader of the Extinctionists to help her collect rare species for her research. Artemis escapes, Holly finds him, and they fly back to Fowl Manor to return to the future. However Opal follows them into the time stream, escaping into the future. She takes over Angeline's body and pretends that she was Artemis' mother, but reveals herself when Artemis is about to inject the Spelltropy cure into her system. She also reveals that she caused the resembling symptoms to Spelltropy and made the whole incident herself (she dropped out of the time stream 2 days early and took control). As Koboi gloats, Artemis reveals that he is in fact the Artemis from the past. The older Artemis, returned at the same time, sneaks up to Opal and tranquilises her. Butler was mesmerised by Opal and takes out Holly and №1. When Butler is ordered by Koboi to take out the younger Artemis, he fights Koboi's mesmer and has a heart attack, but is revived by Artemis with a defibrillator. Opal recovers quickly and flees; however, realising that Artemis and his forces have been significantly weakened in the battle, she returns. Artemis takes "the lemur" and flies away from the Manor grounds in a plane, luring Opal away. In the ensuing chase, Opal exhibits the astonishing strength she has won in her research on endangered animals, pulverising entire sections of the plane with her fists, and eventually forcing Artemis to crash land on the coastline, breaking his collarbone in the process. Artemis escapes from the wreckage of the plane and runs to the shore, ascending a rope bridge and crossing over two large boulders. Opal relentlessly pursues him, eventually obtaining the lemur, only to discover that it's not actually a lemur, but Artemis' little brother's play-thing, Professor Primate. Artemis shoots the boulder which Opal is standing on and reveals it to be the shell of a kraken that was unknown to anyone except Artemis himself. The shell explodes and Opal is buried beneath the rubble. When a Lower Elements Police team search for her, they find she has disappeared. Artemis debriefs the others and finds that his mother knows everything that happened to her. The 10-year-old Artemis has his mind wiped and is sent back in time by №1, but retains an interest in fairies that will set the events of the series in motion. It is then revealed that in addition to the initial time 'paradox' that occurs when Artemis goes back in time to save the Lemur, another (second) paradox exists, because Artemis' interest in fairies sets of a series of events, which have originated from his initial interest in fairies. In this way, both these events are dependent on each other. The series of events that inspires his interest in fairies is also dependent on the second time paradox, from which the reader concludes that a time paradox is always dependent on another. When everyone is gone, Artemis tells his mother the truth about everything, because Opal forgot to wipe his mother's mind. |
Sexy | Joyce Carol Oates | 2,005 | Sexy follows the character of Darren Flynn, a sixteen-year-old high school student and swim club member that questions his own sense of self and sexuality. When a teacher catches one of Darren's swim team members plagiarizing, that member is thrown off of the team. This prompts several other students to anonymously accuse the teacher of hitting on boys, which ruins the teacher's life. Darren chose not to take part in the accusations but is now torn between his moral objections and his fear of being thought of in the same light. |
The Convenient Marriage | Georgette Heyer | 1,934 | When the wealthy and eligible Earl of Rule proposes marriage to Elizabeth Winwood, she resigns herself to marrying against her will to rescue the fortunes of her impoverished family. Her youngest sister Horatia decides to take matters into her own hands, meeting with the Earl and convincing him to marry her instead of Elizabeth, thus leaving Elizabeth free to marry her true (but far less eligible) love. Part of the deal she proposes to Rule is that she will not interfere with his activities after their marriage. The wedding takes place and, as tacitly agreed upon, the Earl continues his association with his mistress, Lady Caroline Massey. Horatia quickly becomes a popular and fashionable society wife, spending vast amounts of money on sensational outfits and at gambling on cards. The Earl is also obliged to make regular financial donations to support Horatia's likeable but debt-ridden brother, Pelham. Meanwhile, Horatia meets and befriends Lord Lethbridge, who seeks revenge on the Earl for his role in thwarting Lethbridge's attempts to elope with Lady Louisa (Rule's sister) several years earlier. Lethbridge gains Horatia's favour by staging a hold-up of Horatia's carriage, where he heroically rides up to save her from the highwaymen. The Earl warns Horatia against continuing her friendship with Lethbridge, but when he declines to explain why, Horatia disregards his warning. Horatia, who wants to teach her husband a lesson, goes to a masked ball that the Earl had forbidden her from attending, with Lord Lethbridge as her escort. Having heard that Lethbridge is an excellent card player, she attempts to coerce Lethbridge into playing with her and he eventually relents, proposing that they play for a lock of her hair. Before the game can start, Lord Rule (who has followed Horatia disguised in a domino and mask) steps on Horatia's gown, ripping it. While she is away fixing her dress, he incapacitates Lethbridge and dresses himself in Lethbridge's mask and domino. When Horatia returns she doesn't realise her husband has taken Lethbridge's place and they begin to play cards. Horatia is badly beaten and during the game begins to realise the inappropriateness of her actions. When she gives up the lock of her hair, Rule (masquerading as Lethbridge) steals a kiss. Horatia, furious and indignant, rushes out and bumps into Lady Massey, who happens to be at the same ball. The next day Horatia confesses what happened to Rule because she can't bear for him to hear it from Lady Massey. The Earl explains his ruse and Horatia decides to end her friendship with Lethbridge. Rule, discovering that he has fallen for his own wife, sets out to court her. However, not knowing that the Earl has broken off his relationship with Lady Massey, Horatia is polite but distant. When the Earl leaves town to see to business on his country estate he is disappointed by Horatia's decision to remain in London. Horatia fills her days with entertainments to drown out her feelings of loneliness with her husband away in the country. She attends a ball and upon getting in her carriage to go home, is kidnapped and taken to Lord Lethbridge's house where he intends to ruin her to gain his revenge on Rule. Horatia manages to knock him out and escape but in the process loses a very distinctive brooch from the Earl's heirloom set of jewels. Horatia calls upon her brother Pelham and his friend, Mr Pommeroy, to restore the brooch to her before Rule returns from his estate. They are unsuccessful because Rule's jealous cousin, Mr Drelincourt, has found the brooch at Lethbridge's house and has immediately set forth for Rule's country estate to share this news. Lethbridge overtakes Drelincourt on the road and wrests the brooch from him. Drelincourt continues on his journey anyway and Rule is furious at his cousin's insinuation that Horatia and Lethbridge are having an affair. Rule sets off back to London, meets Lethbridge on the way and the two men have a swordfight, which Rule wins. Meanwhile, Pelham and his posse plan to hold up Lethbridge's carriage and steal back the brooch. However, they get the carriages confused and accidentally hold up Rule's carriage instead (Lethbridge still being in the country, recovering from his wounds). Horatia, learning that Pelham has not recovered her brooch is miserable and anxious because she wants to act on her feelings for her husband, but can't while she still believes Lethbridge has the brooch in his possession. She receives an anonymous note saying that her brooch will be restored to her if she attends Vauxhall pavilion at midnight. Horatia, thinking Lethbridge sent the note, makes the meeting with Pelham and Mr Pommeroy hidden nearby in the bushes. She is surprised when the Earl arrives and returns her brooch to her. He confesses his feelings for her and she affirms that they are reciprocated. |
The Talisman Ring | Georgette Heyer | 1,936 | On his deathbed, Baron Lavenham arranges a marriage between his great-nephew, Sir Tristram Shield, and his young French granddaughter, Eustacie de Vauban. His grandson and heir, Ludovic, is on the run on the Continent, after allegedly murdering a man in a dispute over a valuable heirloom, the talisman ring. The romantic Eustacie, appalled by her betrothed's phlegmatic character, runs away and soon encounters a smuggler, who turns out to be her cousin Ludovic. The two take refuge at a local inn, after Ludovic is injured escaping from Excisemen. There they encounter an older lady, Miss Sarah Thane, who vows to help them. After finding her bandboxes and meeting the Excisemen following the smugglers on the blood trail from Ludovic's injury, Tristram decides to follow them under the impression that Eustacie encountered trouble from the smugglers. At the hotel, against Sarah Thane's efforts he conducts the excisemen towards Eustacie and Ludovic. Tristram recognizes him, but leads the others to believe that he is one of Lord Sylvester's bastards, much to the former's crossness, to account for the resemblance. When they leave he examines Ludovic's hands and pronounces innocence as the ring is not on them. Together with Sarah Thane, now a loyal accomplice and Eustacie's self-appointed chaperon, they conclude that the murderer is no other than Basil and hatch a plan to break into his home at the Dower House. On the course of the next days Tristram spreads the word that Eustacie ran to meet Sarah Thane whom she knew from Paris to smooth over the ripples of her escape. It is concluded that Eustacie will stay with Sarah, to protect Ludovic, and thus Basil pays her a visit there. During the discussion Eustacie pretends that for architectural reasons Sarah would very much like to visit the Dower House and Basil invites them both there. They go and after a while they are joined by Tristram whom Basil "sends" to show Miss Thane the house around when Eustacie requests that they talk in private. They leave without finding the ring but the butler, having seem them knock on the panels in the house, shares that to Basil who understands at once that they know. Recollecting that his butler has spoken to the Excisemen he asks for the appearance of the "bastard" and realizing who it is calls in the Bow Street Runners. The residents of the Red Lion inn get rid of them after making them believe that Sarah is Ludovic dressed in women's clothes and professing indulgence on their blunder. Basil then lays a trap announcing that he is going to London. Hearing this, Ludovic tries, against all advice to break into the house and escapes later with the help of Tristram, summoned by Miss Thane. Basil next tries to break into the inn and kill Ludovic but is stopped by sir Hugh, and in the struggle, he loses a quizzing glass. The next morning Sir Tristram realizes that the quizzing glass is rather disproportionate and after several tries he finds the ring in the shaft. The next morning he calls the Bow Street Runners and lays a trap for Basil who, while trying to escape, punches Miss Thane on the temple. She wakes up with Tristram is nursing her, and is rather annoyed when he proposes to her in her state, tough she confesses later on "I have been meaning to marry you these ten days and more!”. |
An Infamous Army | Georgette Heyer | 1,937 | In the early summer of 1815, while the Battle of Waterloo is just a threat, Brussels is the most exciting city in Europe and many of the British aristocracy have rented homes there. The novel opens in the home of Lord and Lady Worth, where several of their friends are discussing the precarious situation in Belgium. Everyone is anxious for the Duke of Wellington to arrive from Vienna. When the other guests leave, Lady Worth's brother, Sir Peregrine Taverner, (Perry) expresses his fears about remaining in Brussels, especially since his wife, Harriet is expecting their third child. In the end he decides that if his brother-in-law deems it safe to stay, then it must be safe enough. After he goes, Judith tells her husband about her hopes that Worth's brother, Colonel the Hon. Charles Audley (who is a member of Wellington's staff and is still in Vienna) will fall in love with her new friend, Miss Lucy Devenish. This leads her husband to accuse her of trying to play match maker and remark "I perceive that life in Brussels is going to be even more interesting than I had expected." Amongst the fashionable ton partying in the metropolis, Lady Barbara Childe (the granddaughter of Dominic, Duke of Avon) is making her mark. Lady Barbara, or Bab as she is called my her family and friends, is a young widow of great beauty and charm who can make any man fall in love with her. Her elder brother, the Marquis of Vidal highly disapproves of his sister's flirtations and is annoyed that she has made herself the talk of fashionable society. Furthermore, Bab has taken up with the notorious Belgian Comte de Lavisse. It is the general consensus that Bab is heartless. Bab has another two brothers besides the Marquis, Lord George Alistair, who was said to look and act exactly like his grandfather did in his younger days and Lord Harry Alistair, aged eighteen. Both are serving in the army. After a ball, (where Bab had scandalized Brussels by appearing with painted toenails) her sister-in-law, Lady Vidal, warned Bab that if she or any of her brothers cause a scandal, the Marquis will insist on them all returning to England. To which Lady Barbara responding that she would simply stay in Brussels alone. A few days later, Judith is surprised to walk into her parlour one morning and find that Charles had arrived. The Duke and his staff were finally in Brussels. Later that evening, at another party, Charles sees Barbara for the first time and is enchanted. This dismays Judith as she wanted Charles to fall in love with Lucy and as such she refuses to introduce Charles to her. As a result Charles asks his friend, the young Prince of Orange to make his introduction. Against the advice of their other friends, the Prince agrees, but not before warning Charles that "it is the road to ruin." Charles and Bab dance together twice, leading nearly the whole assembly to whisper about how Bab had seized upon the nicest man in Brussels. A little while later, Charles meets Lucy Devenish looking quite disheveled and upset. He doesn't ask her for any explanation and after he helped her fix herself up, the two become friendly. At the end of the party, Judith is at ease because Charles had admired Lucy and had not said anything about Bab. Worth however feels that Charles is already head over heels in love with Bab. The next day, Charles meets Bab with her notorious Belgian suitor, the Count de Lavisse. Needless to say, the men did not get along. However, Charles seemed to have made an impression on Bab for she confessed to Lady Vidal that she had lost her heart to a younger son. Sometime later, Charles asks Bab to marry him and she accepts, but not before warning him that she would make a terrible wife and that she might change her mind in a week. Charles only laughs and says that he is willing to risk it. Judith is dismayed and cannot understand what Charles sees in the girl. Charles is adamant that Judith will like Barbara once she gets to know her. Meanwhile, Bab is worried that she will change her mind, so she asks Charles to marry her soon. He refuses because he wants her to be certain that she loves him before she marries him. This leads Bab to say that Charles is a much better person then she is. Meanwhile, Barbara's brother George arrives in Brussels. He shows up uninvited to a party given by Lord and Lady Worth, in search of his various siblings. He makes his excuses to Judith and is about to go off in search of Bab, when Judith is surprised to see him staring at Lucy Devenish. Her surprise increases when Lord George excuses himself, saying, "I have seen a lady I know. I must go pay my respects." He promptly goes to Lucy's side and looks teasingly at her downcast face. When Judith questions the two, George explains that they had met several times and that he was worried that Lucy had forgotten him. Lucy looks at him with reproach and says that she did not forget. She then walks away to find her aunt and George goes off to look for Bab. Judith seeks out Lucy to ask her about the strange meeting. Lucy brushes her off and says that she doesn't wish to speak of Lord George Alistair. After the party, George and Bab discuss her engagement, revealing the depth of her feelings for Charles as well as her reasons for being so callous a flirt. She had been married at eighteen to a much older man named Jasper Childe whom she grew to hate, and she swore from then on that no man would possess her ever again. And now, even though she loves Charles, she cannot help rebelling against him. Lady Barbara is determined to make sure that Charles knows how awful she is. He endures much of her flirtations. At one point, it becomes too much. Harriet Tavener, Judith's brother's wife, had snubbed Bab, leading Bab to charm Perry as punishment. Lady Tavener is devastated and Charles takes the matter into his own hands. In a way that reminds Perry unpleasantly of Worth, Charles tells him that he must leave for England at once and be done with such nonsense. Perry agrees with him and immediately makes arrangements to go home, but not before making peace with his wife. This leads to a violent quarrel between Barbara and Charles and their engagement is terminated. After the quarrel, Charles meets Lucy who is extremely upset about something. Charles convinces Lucy to confide in him and she does so. All of Charles friends are distressed at his unhappiness. He had a new hard look and he rarely smiled. He and Lucy have become very close and Bab goes around creating bigger scandals every day. Then, at the Duchess of Richmond's famous ball, comes the news that Napoleon is marching towards the Belgian border. The city soon empties of officers including Charles, George, Harry and nearly every other young man at the ball. The next day, Barbara goes in search of Charles, desperate to make peace with him before the battle, only to learn from Judith Worth that he has gone. When Worth discovers that Barbara's brother, the Marquis of Vidal, has gone back to England, Worth takes Barbara in. Lady Barbara is convinced that Charles has fallen in love with Lucy, until Lucy goes to see Barbara to ask her if she heard anything from her brother George. Lucy then confesses that she and George have been married for nearly a year. The marriage had been kept secret because neither the Duke of Avon (George's grandfather) nor Lucy's uncle Mr. Fisher would have approved of the match. Until now she had confided in no one but Charles who promised to look out for George. By now the wounded are starting to arrive in Brussels from the first skirmishes and Judith and Barbara help to nurse the wounded in the street. As the situation becomes more and more desperate, the two woman become very close, Barbara is finally showing her true inner strength and courage. At the end of the whole thing Judith admits to her husband that she had misjudged both Barbara and Lucy from the start. The entire second half of the book is devoted to a historically accurate, almost minute by minute account of the Battle of Waterloo, one of the most pivotal and bloodiest battles in history. All the historic events are recounted in detail, including the magnificent charge of the Scots Greys and the final turning point where Wellington himself tells the final line of defence, the British First Foot Guards, to "Up Guards and at'em". The Guards rise from behind the slope of a hill and from their extended line pour such a devastating fire upon the attacking French column that the French withdraw in disarray. Seeing this, Colonel Sir John Colborne leads his regiment, the Fighting 52nd, across the battlefield from the right flank and Wellington calls for a general advance of Peregrine Maitland's Grenadier Guards, completing the French rout. During the battle, Charles comes upon Lord Harry Alistair, who is obviously dying. Charles reflects on how he has lost so many friends in one day. While trying to deliver a message from Wellington, Charles is hit by cannon fire. Badly wounded, he is ironically carried off the field by none other than his old rival Lavisse, whose regiment has fled in disarray. Lavisse tells him he will see to the delivery of the message but admits that the honours of the day go to Audley. The Duke and Duchess of Avon arrive in Brussels having heard of all the scandals that their grandchildren have been making. While they are at the Worth's, Charles's servant comes to tell the Earl about his master's condition. Worth goes to find him and bring him to Brussels and he promises Bab that he will bring Charles back safely. When Worth brings Charles back, he is in danger of his life and has had his left arm amputated. The surgeons say that they might have to cut off his leg, but Worth steps in and stops them from doing it. Charles regains lucidity, aided by the ministrations of the Duchess of Avon. Although he is not the carefree young man he once was, Charles proposes once more to Bab, telling her to take out the ring that she had given back to him, "there it stays until I give you another in its place". Bab accepts, promising that she will make him a terrible wife, but she doesn't care. {| class="wikitable" |- !Devil’s Cub !An Infamous Army |- |Dominic Alastair, Marquis of Vidal |Dominic Alastair, Duke of Avon |- |Miss Mary Challoner |Mary (Challoner) Alastair, Duchess of Avon |} {| class="wikitable" |- !Regency Buck !An Infamous Army |- |Julian St John Audley, Earl of Worth |Julian St John Audley, Earl of Worth |- |Miss Judith Taverner |Judith (Taverner) Audley, Countess of Worth |- |Captain the Hon. Charles Audley |Colonel the Hon. Charles Audley |- |Sir Peregrine ("Perry") Taverner |Sir Peregrine ("Perry") Taverner |- |Miss Harriet Fairford |Harriet (Fairford), Lady Taverner |} |
The Spanish Bride | Georgette Heyer | 1,940 | After the siege and sack of the Spanish city of Badajoz by British and Portuguese forces in 1812, 14 year old, convent raised orphan, Juana, and her older sister sought sanctuary among officers of the 95th Rifles in the British camp outside the city walls. From the first moment he saw her, Brigade-Major Harry Smith fell deeply in love with Juana. Over all objections from his brother officers, Harry married Juana a few days later. Instead of letting herself be sent home to her husband's family, she chose to accompany Harry with the army. She remained with him throughout the rest of the Peninsular War, accompanying the baggage train, sleeping in the open on the field of battle, riding freely among the troops, and sharing all the privations of campaigning. Her beauty, courage, sound judgment and amiable character endeared her to the officers, including the Duke of Wellington, and she was idolized by the soldiers. After the defeat of Napoleon, Harry took Juana to London and installed her in lodgings. As Harry spoke fluent Spanish he had never bothered to teach Juana to speak English so engaged a tutor for her. Harry had volunteered for service in the United States, where he witnessed the burning of the capitol at Washington. Following the Battle of New Orleans Harry returned to England. In the meantime Harry’s family had visited her in London and persuaded her to come and stay with them in Cambridgeshire. When Napoleon escaped from Elba, Harry returned with his regiment to Europe. Juana insisted on accompanying Harry and was in Belgium during the Battle of Waterloo. Following the battle she insisted on searching the field for her husband’s body when she was told that he had been killed. However the report referred to another officer called Smyth and Juana was finally reunited with the uninjured Harry. The book ends with the pair embracing and Juana saying, “Mi tirano odioso!” (My odious tyrant) Although the book is written as one of Heyer’s Regency novels, she did a great deal of research; reading the diaries of other Peninsular veterans and Harry’s brother officers. |
The Corinthian | Georgette Heyer | 1,940 | Sir Richard Wyndham, an accomplished Corinthian, is being forced into marriage by his family, who want him to have an heir. Depressed by the life laid out before him, he nevertheless agrees to this course. The night before he is to announce his choice he comes across Penelope Creed, a young girl in boys' clothes, hanging helplessly from an upper story window. She is a very wealthy orphan who is running away from her own distasteful marriage plans. The two become allies, leave London in search of Miss Creed's childhood sweetheart, and find themselves in the middle of a dangerous game of mystery, theft, and murder. |
Faro's Daughter | Georgette Heyer | 1,941 | The beautiful but poor Deborah Grantham presides over her aunt's gaming house in Regency London. Here she meets Max Ravenscar who is determined to prevent his young cousin and ward from contracting an inappropriate marriage to Grantham. Incensed by the idea that she would exploit an innocent, Deborah decides to take her revenge on Ravenscar which eventually leads to the pair falling in love. |
The Reluctant Widow | Georgette Heyer | 1,946 | The heroine, Elinor Rochdale, daughter of a ruined gentleman, accepts the role of a governess to sustain herself. Stepping into the wrong carriage at a Sussex village, Elinor finds herself in the wrong house, required by the sensible, sophisticated Edward Carlyon to marry his profligate cousin, Eustace Cheviot. In a somewhat dazed state, Elinor soon finds herself coerced into becoming the wife of a dying man, the mistress of a ruined estate and a partner in a secret conspiracy to save the family's name in only one night. Following Eustace's death, a sub-plot surrounding Cheviot and information supplied to the French - with whom the country is at war - comes to light and results in some spirited battles between Elinor and Carlyon. Ultimately, the incriminating information is taken back into safe hands and Elinor and Carlyon fall in love. |
Venetia | Georgette Heyer | 1,958 | The beautiful Venetia Lanyon, thanks to a reclusive and over-protective father, grew up in the country, away from the world with only her younger brother Aubrey, bookish and lamed, for company. Her peace and quiet is one day disturbed by the rakish Lord Damerel, who arrives to spend time at his ancestral home next to the Lanyon's house. At first, she sensibly keeps away from him, but when Lord Damerel finds an injured Aubrey and not only takes him into his home to recover but also treats him with great kindness and strikes up a friendship with the awkward young man, she revises her first opinion of him and they soon become the best of friends. When Venetia and Lord Damerel fall in love, however, Damerel is convinced that marriage with him would cause Venetia's social ruin and insists that it would be wrong to inflict this upon her. When Venetia's older brother's wife and mother-in-law, about whom he had failed to inform the family, descend on the Lanyons, Venetia's domestic situation becomes intolerable and she is invited to stay for a London season with her aunt and uncle as a way to escape the awkwardness and also to find a husband. During this time, she discovers through a chance encounter that the mother she had been led to believe was dead is actually very much alive and had simply left her father for another man when the children were very young. Venetia realises that this is the cause of her relatives' over-protectiveness - they are concerned that she might follow in her mother's footsteps. Venetia, however, still very much loves Damerel and sets about creating her own happy ending, seeking the help of her disgraced and estranged mother to convince both her uncle and Damerel that the marriage should take place. |
The moon riders | Theresa Tomlinson | 2,002 | This story is about the Moon Riders, known historically as the Amazons. The main character is Myrina, who joins the Amazons in her teenage years and becomes one of the very prestigious moon dancers. Myrina joins the Moon Riders when she is 14. She becomes friend and confidante to Cassandra the prophetic princess of Troy. As the 'Snake Lady' she acquires a gang of four young orphans who travel with her, until all but one have been killed. |
Master Class | Terrence McNally | null | At its core is the diva Maria Callas, a glamorous, commanding, larger-than-life, caustic, and surprisingly drop-dead funny pedagogue holding a voice master class. Alternately dismayed and impressed by the students who parade before her, she retreats into recollections about the glories of her own life and career. Included in her musings are her younger years as an ugly duckling, her fierce hatred of her rivals, the unforgiving press that savaged her early performances, her triumphs at La Scala, and her affair with Aristotle Onassis. It culminates into a monologue about sacrifice taken in the name of art. |
Song Quest | Katherine Roberts | null | Singer Graia leads a class of final year novices from The Echorium to the beach, on the pretext of searching for the remains of a ship wreck. Kherron runs away from the group, eager to make his own discovery, and happens upon an injured sailor, named Cadzi, in a cave, whome he promises to help in return for a way off the Isle of Echoes. Meanwhile, Rialle, Frenn and Chissar explore the beach together until Rialle begins to feel faint and hear voices; the group quickly return to The Echorium, where First Singer Eliya tells Rialle she can hear the merlee, and asks her to leave with Second Singer Toharo on the Wavesong the next time it sails, to persuade the merlee to give the ship safe passage. While Rialle prepares for the journey, dismayed that Frenn has been taken for orderly training without saying goodbye, Kherron returns to the Echorium to try to warn the Singers about Cadzi's ship, only to storm off when he is ignored. Rialle persuades the merlee to briefly stop the storms they have been creating, allowing both the Wavesong and Cadzi and Kherron's row boat to leave the Isle. Cadzi soon falls asleep, but Kherron finds the mainlander ship he spoke about, and persuades the captain Metz to let them on board. He quickly learns that this vessel is hunting merlee for their eggs, and it put to work extracting the eggs from the dead merlee. Rialle, meanwhile, is delighted to find Frenn has stowed away on the Wavesong, and, although she dislikes sea travel, she enjoys meeting the merlee. Briefly, she swims with the merlee and learns what has upset them: they are being hunted and kidnapped by mainlanders. However, she is soon put in danger as the merlee panic at the sight of the hunting vessel Kherron is on. Rialle is saved from drowning by Singer Toharo, but spends the remainder of the voyage unconscious. Upon arriving in Silvertown, Toharo and Rialle - disguised as an orderly for security - begin to learn that the merlee are being captured on the orders of the Karchlord, a ruler in the mountains, and they must travel there. Kherron, after being attacked by and killing Metz and then discovering the presence of the Wavesong, agrees to travel to the mountains with the hunters, who are Karcholders working for the Karchlord. The Singers first visit Lord Javelly, who is known to be assisting the hunters, where Rialle and Frenn discover quetzal kept in cramped and filthy conditions, a sight which angers Singer Toharo. Rialle is even more appalled when, journeying up into the mountains, she discovers a pool of merlee, frozen to death. Kherron arrives in the Karchlord's palace, where he meets Lazim - Cadzi's son, who begins to explain the Karchhold to him - and Frazhin, the Khizpriest who can force the truth out of someone with a black khiz spear. Frazhin uses the khiz to test if Kherron is a spy. Kherron then sneaks back to the priest's levels to see what happens to the merlee eggs and discovers the priests injecting them with something which they claim is medicine,but which Kherron suspects is poison. Frazhin then asks Kherron to spy on the newly-arrived Singers at a banquet, and he accidentally reveals that Rialle is a Singer. At the banquet, Rialle is shocked to see one of the quetzal from Lord Javelly's palace delivered, to serve the Karchlord as entertainment - quetzal are perfect mimics. That evening, the Singers quickly fall asleep before Singer Toharo can contact the Echorium. Rialle wakes up drugged in a cage, surrounded by quetzal. Frazhin wants to use the quetzal's mimicking power to steal her Songs and use them to attack the Isle of Echoes. Kherron is tasked with caring for Rialle, as he pretends to despise her, but secretly he promises to help her escape. However, he first asks her to heal the Karchlord Azri, who has stopped eating the priest's poison but is still ill. As soon as she tries, the noise of the quetzal summons the priests and the Challa puts the Karchlord to sleep so he cannot help. Frazhin takes Rialle away, but first she tells Kherron what songs will heal Azri. As Rialle is led to the Isle of Echoes, becoming increasingly confused as she is repeatedly drugged, Kherron discovers Frenn, who narrowly escaped the avalanche which killed the rest of the Singer delegation and has been left with one arm and leg paralysed. Although the pair initially argue, Frenn is forced to accept that Kherron is now on his side, and Kherron proceeds to heal Azri as instructed so that he can lead a war party after Frazhin. As the war party travels to the coast, they attempt to release the captive quetzal into the forest, but the quetzal, communicating through a reluctant Kherron, insist on coming with the group to rescue the quetzal still in Frazhin's possession. Rialle wakes up on a boat sailing for the Isle of the Echoes, and asks the merlee to delay their progress with a fog. Frahzin's ships are becalmed, giving Azri's oar-boats time to catch up. A battle begins, and with the help of the merlee and quetzal Azri is soon winning. Frazhin uses his power to push the last remaining boat towards the Isle, and then tries to force Rialle to sing. Fighting against him, she uses Aushan, making it difficult for Azri, Kherron and Frenn to approach and rescue her. When Frazhin's ship begins to sink, he pushes a bound Rialle overboard and tries to escape, only to be attacked viciously by the angry quetzal. Azri, Kherron and Frenn return to the Isle. Azri makes a peace treaty and swears never to hunt half-creatures again, and Kherron - whom Singer Eliya has been keeping track of through farlistening - is made into a Singer and asks to sing therapy to Frenn to show how he has reformed. The day after the Karcholders leave - all except Lazim, who elects to remain on the Isle - Frenn, Kherron and lazim go down to the beach, where they find Rialle being carried to shore by the merlee. Shortly afterwards, Singer Eliya dies of exhaustion after singing Yehn to several war criminals, including Frazhin and Lord Javelly. After the funeral Eliya shares with Singer Toharo, led by the newly appointed First Singer Graia, Kherron finally apologises to Rialle and, as Frenn begins to regain use of his arm, Rialle realises that the wounds they have suffered will heal over time. |
December 6 | Martin Cruz Smith | 2,002 | In late 1941, Harry Niles has many of the same problems in Tokyo as Rick Blaine encounters at the same time in Casablanca. Harry's place, the "Happy Paris", a bar-club for American and European expatriates, newspapermen and diplomats, is in Tokyo's entertainment district and it's only 24 hours or so before Japanese fighters and bombers will hit Pearl Harbor. During that time, Niles has to consult with the local US ambassador, get rid of a passionately dangerous lover, shrug off the brutal attentions of the police, escape the vengeance of an aggrieved samurai officer and take himself off the island, the exit points from which are all tightly stoppered. Fortunately, he has the benefits of a largely unsupervised childhood in Tokyo, is highly fluent in the Japanese language and culture, and is subtle, swift and cunning. |
Cross | James Patterson | 2,006 | Alex Cross narrates the opening section of the book in flashback from Washington, D.C. in 1993. Pregnant Maria Simpson Cross and Alex live happily together, but mob hitman Michael Sullivan aka The Butcher and his partner Jimmy "Hats" Galati are out to make life miserable for him. While on an errand for boss Dominic Maggione in the Baltimore/Washington area, Sullivan rapes a college teen and participates in the execution of Chinese Jiang An-lo, but is witnessed by Cross and partner John Sampson. After Sullivan pays a frightening visit to Cross at night, Alex loses his wife to gunshots the next night. The action takes in place in D.C. in 2005. Cross prepares to return to private practice, leaving the FBI over the objections of director Ron Burns. At the same time the Butcher has to do a job in Venice for the new boss, Maggione's son, who does not like Sullivan. He realizes that something is strange with his targets. It’s a trap and the couple were sent by Maggione Jr. to kill him. Because of luck and his excellent skills he survives and seeks bloody revenge. He wants to kill Maggione. Both Alex and the Butcher go to work, the former trying to solve a series of rape and murder cases in southeastern D.C., the latter trying to protect his family from the vendetta-wielding John Maggione. But he is not aware that Alex thinks he committed the rapes he's investigating-and killed his wife so many years ago. The Butcher is in Washington, still trying to fend off attacks from Maggione, but Alex is on to him. The Butcher manages to kill John Maggione in a complicated plot, but find Alex and Sampson waiting for him. A shoot-out begins in which Alex is injured and Sullivan killed. Sampson ends the story by confessing a long-kept secret. |
Coal Run | Tawni O'Dell | 2,004 | In a town haunted by a deadly mine explosion that took the lives of almost half the male population thirty years earlier, the reverberations are still being felt in the current generation of survivors, among them the narrator Ivan Zoschenko, the local deputy and fallen football legend, "the Great Ivan Z," whose father died that day. His pro career sidelined by an injury, Ivan now spends his days dispensing his own unique form of occasionally wise, usually comic, almost always dangerous justice and his nights drowning his regrets and guilt in a bottle. His story takes place during a week's time while Ivan is seemingly preparing for an old teammate's imminent release from prison. In doing so, he introduces a rich cast of characters – his fiercely independent single-mom sister, the long-absent Vietnam vet he idolized as a child, the town's no-nonsense pediatrician who brandishes vaccinations on the doorsteps of neglectful parents like a Wild West sheriff, and the old friend and onetime mirror image of himself who now lives the kind of simple life Ivan both admires and pities. During the events of this week, Ivan confronts his demons and reveals himself to be a man whose conscience is burdened by a long-held and shocking secret involving the ruined life of a young girl that must be finally reckoned with. |
Sister Mine | Tawni O'Dell | 2,007 | Shae-Lynn Penrose drives a cab in a town where no one needs a cab—but plenty of people need rides. A former police officer with a closet full of miniskirts, a recklessly sharp tongue, and a tendency to deal with men by either beating them up or taking them to bed, she has spent years carving out a life for herself and her son in Jolly Mount, Pennsylvania, the coal-mining town where she grew up. When the younger sister Shae-Lyn thought was dead arrives on her doorstep followed closely by a gun-wielding Russian gangster, a shady New York lawyer, and a desperate Connecticut housewife, Shae-Lynn is forced to grapple with the horrible truth she discovers about the life her sister's been living, and one ominous question: will her return result in a monstrous act of greed, or one of sacrifice? Tawni O'Dell's trademark blend of black humor, tenderness, and keen sense of place is evident once again as Shae-Lynn takes on past demons and all-too-present dangers. |
The Tale of Benjamin Bunny | Beatrix Potter | 1,904 | When Mr. McGregor and his wife leave home in their gig, Benjamin Bunny and his cousin Peter Rabbit venture into Mr. McGregor's garden to retrieve the clothes Peter lost there in The Tale of Peter Rabbit. They find the blue jacket and brown shoes on a scarecrow, but Peter is apprehensive about lingering in the garden because of his previous experience. Benjamin delays their departure by gathering onions, which he wraps in Peter's handkerchief. He then takes a casual stroll around the garden, followed by an increasingly nervous Peter. Rounding a corner, they see a cat and hide under a basket, but the cat then sits on top of the basket for hours, trapping the pair. Benjamin's father enters the garden looking for his son. He drives the cat from the basket and locks her in the greenhouse, then frees Benjamin and Peter, and punishes them for going to Mr. McGregor's garden by whipping them with a switch he had brought. Once home, Peter gives the onions to his mother, who forgives his adventure because he has recovered his jacket and shoes. Following his return, Mr. McGregor is puzzled by the scarecrow's missing clothes and the cat locked in the greenhouse. |
Lady of Quality | Georgette Heyer | null | The novel is set in Regency England somewhere around 1818, and events are related through third-person narrative. As the story opens, a wealthy, beautiful and intelligent woman named Annis Wychwood reaches the age of majority. Now having greater control over her personal and financial affairs, Annis decides to move to Bath and live alone, to the displeasure of her brother and his family. Several years later, on the way back to Bath after a visit to her childhood home, Annis meets Lucilla Carleton and Ninian Elmore. Lucilla is running away to Bath to avoid her marriage to Ninian, a match that her guardian is very much in favor of, and Ninian is escorting her to ensure her safe arrival. Annis volunteers to chaperone Lucilla and notifies the girl's guardian of her plans. Lucilla's guardian sends a relative, Oliver Carleton, to investigate her new living arrangements. Carleton is a rake – a sexually experienced man who refuses to conform to many of society's guidelines. His biting wit has earned him the label of rudest man in England, but he and Annis soon find mutual enjoyment in lively banter. As Carleton and Annis's friendship develops, they discover deeper feelings for each other. Carleton proposes marriage, but Annis refuses, unwilling to relinquish her independence. Using the excuse that he must find Lucilla a new guardian, Carleton returns to London. Annis's brother, Sir Geoffrey Wychwood, hears rumors of her developing relationship with Carleton and sends his wife and children to Bath to discourage Carleton. Soon after their arrival members of the household contract influenza, and Annis nurses them until she too becomes infected. When Carleton hears that Annis is seriously ill he returns to Bath, arriving on the first day that she is able to get out of bed. Annis agrees to marry Carleton, despite the objections of her brother. |
Lyddie | Katherine Paterson | 1,991 | The novel begins as Lyddie and her family are in her house, and a black bear enters through the open door. Lyddie's mother sees this as the end of the world but, it wasn't the bear left with no one harmed. Lyddie's father left for the gold rush, and no one knows if he will return. Lyddie's mother leaves Lyddie and her brother Charles (aka Charlie) to work on the farm. Lyddie is sent to work at a tavern as a housemaid, and Charlie is sent to work at the Baker's mill. At the inn Lyddie is treated almost as a slave. She goes home once during the winter, where she meets a runaway slave. Before she leaves, she lends him the money she and Charlie received for a calf they sold. When she returns to the inn she is fired. Lyddie then works at a textile mill, to earn enough to pay the debt on her family's farm. At the mill, she is taken under the wing by a woman who is involved in the struggle for better conditions at the mill. Although she struggles at first, Lyddie is soon considered the best girl on the floor by her supervisor. In a letter, Charlie tells her how he likes it at the Baker's mill, and how he is considered part of the family, as well as how he is allowed to go to school when work is slack. She receives word that her baby sister has died, and that her mother had been sent to an asylum, where she later dies. Her uncle brings Lyddie's other sister to the boarding house, and she works there at the mill with Lyddie for a while, but is then sent to live with Charlie at the Baker's mill. Luke Stevens proposes to Lyddie, and she refuses. Luke also sent a letter from Ezekial Abernanthy, the slave she met at her house, paying back the money she lent him. Her Uncle eventually sells the farm and she is left with nothing but a chance for college Lyddie decides to sign a petition for better working conditions. When she is let go from the company for 'moral turpitude' (actually, she was only fired because she caught Mr. Marsden trying to rape another worker after hours and Mr.Marsden knew she would've alerted others, causing him to lose his job), she writes a letter to her supervisor, Mr. Marsden. She returns home briefly. Lyddie plans to marry, but chooses instead to go to a college known for accepting women as well as men. Though the novel ends there, Lyddie later appears in Paterson's Jip: His Story. |
Cousin Kate | Georgette Heyer | 1,968 | Kate Malvern is a beautiful orphan who is forced to become a governess when her father dies. However due to her youth and beauty she loses the job and has to go to her old governess' house whilst looking for a new position. Despite the fact that she is a lady she thinks of becoming a lady's dresser or opening her own shop and Sarah Nidd, her governess, decides to take action. She writes to Lady Minerva Broome, Kate's half-aunt, who comes and takes her away to Staplewood. From Aunt Minerva's description, Kate imagines Staplewood to be a warm welcoming home whereas it turns out to be cold and uninviting. Although Aunt Minerva's husband, Sir Timothy, is the very opposite of the lady, he is an invalid and allows Lady Broome to do what she wishes. Soon after arriving in, Kate meets Torquil, the beautiful Broome heir. He is very temperamental and tells Kate how he would love to drown in a lake. Kate soon discovers Aunt Minerva to be controlling even to the point of always having Torquil watched. Everything in Staplewood is very formal, with Sir Timothy in one part of the house and Torquil in another. Soon she begins to notice strange things however. Torquil seems to be afraid of his mother and always does what she tells him. In the middle of a storm one night, Kate awakes and finds her door locked. Then she hears a man scream. When she asks her aunt the next morning Lady Broome is not able to give a satisfactory answer but merely replies she must have heard Torquil who is afraid of storms. Yet, the scream did not sound like Torquil, but rather more like a full grown man. Then Mr Phillip Broome arrives, Sir Timothy's beloved nephew. Yet Aunt Minerva seems to hate him and Torquil, before he comes hates and fears him, but when he sees Phillip is delighted to see him. Phillip immediately seems to take a dislike to Kate, though she does not know why, but after getting to know each other, Kate learns that his only reason for disliking her at first had to do with her Aunt. When Kate doesn't receive any letters from Mrs Nidd she becomes worried. She begins to think that her aunt may have something to do with this, but refuses to think of that for more than a second. Her gratitude make such thoughts terrible. Yet when Mr Nidd, Mrs Nidd's father-in-law, arrives, she finds out that none of her letters have made it and the suspicion once more comes to her mind. She quickly writes a note to Sarah via Mr Nidd, knowing that this time it will arrive. One night Aunt Minerva asks Kate to marry Torquil. Kate is shocked and refuses, but Aunt Minerva tells her to think on it. Kate's suspicions are further stirred up. On the journey home Phillip proposes to Kate, but she at first refuses, saying that it wasn't proper since she had no money, but at Phillip's persistence agrees happily. Yet when they arrive back at Staplewood they find the house in chaos because Aunt Minerva has taken ill. Despite this fact she spends a happier time in the house than with Lady Broome healthy. All too soon Aunt Minerva gets better and once again talks about marriage to Torquil. Kate refuses once more and Lady Broome tells her that it would be payment for all her kindness. Still Kate cannot agree to such a scheme. Therefore Aunt Minerva tells Kate about why she wished her to marry Torquil. After having to give up a fashionable life Lady Broome had become obsessed with the Broomes and was determined that Torquil had an heir, but Torquil is insane. Therefore she is determined Kate marry him and Minerva would shut him up. Kate is horrified and leaves the room. When she hears Mrs Nidd's voice she begs her to take her away. Mrs Nidd tells Kate to compose herself and makes herself familiar with the house. Soon Kate has to tell Lady Broome about her engagement with Phillip, but when she does Aunt Minerva has a terrible reaction. She calls Kate a slut and numerous other things that cause her to sleep terribly that night. The next morning she determines to leave as soon as possible, but before she is able to, she has to tell Torquil that she is leaving. He becomes angry, but does not harm her. Yet later on Lady Broome is found dead, having been strangled by Torquil. Torquil then drowns himself in the lake, like he described to Kate at the beginning. Phillip and Kate are left to deal with the tragedy and although Kate is upset about the death of Torquil, Phillip reasons that he would have had an awful life otherwise and that dying was better for him than living. |
False Colours | Georgette Heyer | 1,963 | Kit Fancot returns home to England from diplomatic service in Vienna to find that his twin brother Evelyn has disappeared. Although this would not normally be a problem, Evelyn is supposed to meet the autocratic grandmother of the lady to whom he has proposed. Kit is obliged to impersonate his brother to save the betrothal. When Evelyn doesn't reappear, Kit has to indefinitely stay in the appearance of Evelyn and decides to retire to his family home in the countryside. Evelyn's chosen lady, Cressy, comes with her grandmother to the Fancot family home however. By careful deduction Cressy is able to work out that Evelyn is actually Kit in disguise, but as they have fallen in love with each other, she helps him with the deception. Eventually Evelyn comes home with a tale of what happened to him. He discloses that he met the lady of his dreams and Kit thinks up of a fantastical idea to make sure that both brothers can get what they wish without any scandal. |
The Nonesuch | Georgette Heyer | 1,962 | Sir Waldo Hawkridge, known in London society as 'the Nonesuch' for his sporting abilities and perfect manners, is obliged to go into Yorkshire to inspect a property that he has just inherited. Sir Waldo is a very wealthy and philanthropic man, and intends to renovate the house to turn it into yet another of his charity orphanages. While there, he meets Tiffany Wield, a positively dazzling young heiress who is entirely selfish and possessed of a frightful temper, as well as her far more elegant companion-governess, Ancilla Trent. While Waldo's young cousin, Lord Lindeth, falls in and out of love with the young ladies of the neighborhood, Waldo must convince the practical Miss Trent that it is not above her station as a governess to fall in love with him. |
A Civil Contract | Georgette Heyer | 1,961 | Viscount Lynton comes home to find himself the heir to debts after the death of his father. With a mother and two sisters to support, plus no means of restoring his family's wealth, he is facing disaster. When he visits his soliciter to discuss selling the family home, a marriage of convenience is suggested as an alternative. Though reluctant, Lynton meets with Mr Chawleigh, a common Cit, and with Jenny, his plain and exquisitely shy daughter, and eventually agrees to be married. It is a simple contract; Jenny gains a title and Lynton receives enough money to take care of his family obligations and save his estate. However, he remains in love with Julia Oversley, who is the exact opposite of Jenny. While Julia is ethereally beautiful and elegant, Jenny is plain and dowdy. The marriage is not a very happy one, although Jenny, who has been secretly in love with Lynton for a long time, tries to make his life as comfortable as she can. In turn, Lynton, who is an honorable gentleman, resolves to bury his feelings for Julia and protect his new wife as he launches her into society. His father-in-law, Mr Chawleigh, is well-meaning but lacks the social graces with which Lynton is familiar and thereby makes it difficult for Lynton to forget he is in his debt. The young man often wishes he were free of his obligations to him. A veteran of the Peninsular War (1808–1814), Lynton has followed the exile and return of Napoleon with keen interest. Having read about the forthcoming battle in Belgium, he decides to gamble on the stock exchange. His personal involvement with previous battles lead him to the conviction that Wellington will not lose, so rather than take his father-in-law's advice to sell his funds he gambles on victory. And, as he had foreseen, shares plummet down, only to soar again at the news of Wellington's victory at Waterloo (1815). Lynton has made his fortune, and no longer needs his father in law's financial support. However, Jenny's pregnancy and confinement have brought the two men to a greater understanding of one another. Rather than insult Chawleigh by paying him back, he suggests that the property titles held by Chawleigh be passed on directly to his newborn grandson. Lynton's final act of including Chawleigh as one of the newborn's names, is a mark of respect that delights the older man. In the meantime, Julia has married an older and wealthy suitor, whom she flaunts on a rather nerve-wracking visit to Lynton's. The latter realizes with a guilty feeling that he will probably be much happier and comfortable with devoted Jenny than he would ever have been with beautiful but self-centered and demanding Julia. The novel ends with a scene intended to illustrate the contentment of married family life with a comfortable and supportive woman whom Lynton realises he genuinely loves, albeit a calmer affection than the youthful passion that characterised his feelings for Julia Oversley. |
The Story of the Glittering Plain | William Morris | 1,891 | The book concerns the quest of Hallblithe of the House of the Raven to rescue his fiance the Hostage, who has been kidnapped by pirates, which ultimately takes him to the utopian Land of the Glittering Plain, also known as the Land of the Living Men, whose inhabitants are supposedly immortal. |
Charity Girl | Georgette Heyer | 1,970 | Charity Girl revolves around the character of the wealthy, athletic Viscount Ashley Desford and his mission to save “charity girl” Charity Steane from a life with her uncaring relatives. The novel also takes up the Viscount’s friendship with Henrietta Silverdale, his neighbor and childhood friend. The narrative opens on a conversation between the Viscount and his father, the Earl of Wroxton. Wroxton asks Desford to look into the affairs of his younger brother Simon. Wroxton fears that Simon has fallen into bad company and will destroy his reputation. Desford declines to interfere in Simon's doings, saying that the last person Simon is likely to listen to is his older brother. In the same conversation, Wroxton also reproaches Desford for having failed to marry Henrietta nine years ago. Desford protests that, while he loves Henrietta as a sister, there is no passion between them and that she cared to marry him as little as he cared to marry her. Later in the novel, it emerges that, at that time, Henrietta had begged Desford not to propose marriage to her, even though it was the wish of both their families. When Desford learns that Henrietta is wooed by the wealthy Mr. Cary Nethercott, he visits her and meets the man, whom Desford pronounces appropriate but immensely dull. Later, at a party, Desford meets Charity Steane, who prefers to be called “Cherry.” She is almost nineteen years old, but is basically being used as an unpaid servant by the aunt and cousins with whom she has lived since her father abandoned her and failed to pay the bill at her boarding school. Desford later encounters Charity running away from home and, against his better judgment and the morals of the 19th century that say a man can easily compromise a young unattended woman by being on the road with her, he takes her to her grandfather’s house in London . However, upon arriving in London, it’s apparent that Cherry’s grandfather, Lord Nettlecombe, has left his London home for the season. So Desford takes Cherry to stay with Henrietta and her mother. The plot thickens. When Desford finally tracks Nettlecombe to Bath, Desford finds that the old man has recently married his housekeeper, as a matter of economy. He also shows no interest whatever in his granddaughter's plight and resents the implication that she is in any way his responsibility. Wilfred Steane, Cherry’s father, then shows up after an absence of many years, hoping to blackmail Desford into marrying Cherry on the grounds that he has compromised her reputation. Desford is vigorously defended by his younger brother, Simon, who pretends that Desford is engaged to Henrietta. Cary Nethercott, who had previously shown so much interest in Henrietta, resolves Cherry’s problems by proposing marriage and being accepted. On the last page of the novel, Desford tells Henrietta that he has always loved her and will not break off the engagement that his brother invented for them. Henrietta admits she loves him in return and they become engaged for real. Simon, though, has the last words in the novel: "But if you should get into any more scrapes, Des, just send me word, and I'll post straight back to rescue you!" |
Frederica | Georgette Heyer | 1,965 | Frederica Merriville has long been in charge of her younger siblings. Since her parents' death, she has taken it upon herself to make sure that her beautiful sister Charis is well married, whilst believing herself to be on the shelf. To further this end, she brings the family from their country home to London and introduces herself to a distant relation, the selfish and indolent Marquis of Alverstoke, asking him to sponsor her sister into "the ton" and the subsequent Season. The Marquis is initially reluctant but agrees to sponsor the Merriville ladies out of mischief, mostly to annoy his sister Louisa who had been demanding similar assistance to launch her own daughter into society. At their combined debut ball, Alverstoke's homely niece is easily outshone by Charis' beauty. The Merrivilles are liked by everyone for their easy and engaging manners and good breeding. Charis is admired by many young men but she falls for the Marquis's slow-witted and handsome cousin Endymion Dauntry. Frederica also acquires her own share of admirers, including (to his own astonishment) Alverstoke himself. Alverstoke is fascinated by her frank and open manners, unlike the society manners of London's fashionable ladies. He is also delighted by the high spirits of the two youngest Merrivilles, her brothers Felix and Jessamy, and comes to like them for their own sakes. He slowly but deeply falls in love with Frederica and is ready to do anything for her sake. |
Simon the Coldheart | Georgette Heyer | 1,925 | In the year 1400 14-year-old Simon the illegitimate son of Geoffrey of Malvallet fends for himself after his mother’s death. He forces himself into the service of Fulk of Montlice – his natural father’s most hated foe. Simon works his way up from Fulk’s Page until he is on equal footing with Montlice’s son & heir, his friend Alan. He meets Geoffrey of Malvallet, the legitimate son of Simon's father. Alan, Geoffrey and Simon become great friends both to each other and to the Prince of Wales (later Henry V). When Simon is sent to Belremy, it seems he is faced with an impossible task. First besieging the city, then by attacking the actual city, Simon is able to take the town, but not the castle, where the regal Lady Margaret resides. On finding out that Alan has been taken prisoner, Simon goes up to the castle himself, and after threatening the lady's life, her cousin Raoul is forced to make a submission. On hearing this, Margaret declares that she will never submit to the English and tries to fling herself on Simon's dagger. Simon is too quick for her though and takes her prisoner. Later Margaret obtains a dagger, but finds herself unable to kill Simon. When Simon is forced to go away for a few days, Margaret takes the opportunity to flee to her friend, only to find that he has too submitted to the English. Margaret is then kidnapped by Raoul. Simon goes to search for her and finds Margaret in the arms of Raoul, struggling wildly. Simon's temper gets the best of him for the first time in his life, and he kills Raoul. Geoffrey, Simon, Margaret and her companion are forced to flee. The men bring them back to Belremy, and out of gratitude, Margaret hands in her submission. Simon tells her that he wants to marry her and she is indignant. However later, when someone is lurking in the bushes, she runs to him as she afraid that he will be killed. Simon, is recalled to the Prince, but Margaret shows him that she wants him to come back. Eventually Simon comes back and Lady Margaret finally agrees to marry him. Beauvallet (1929) follows the adventures of Simon’s Great Great Great Grandson Sir Nicholas Beauvallet. My Lord John (1975) covers much the same period (1393–1413). King’s Henry IV & Henry V (Simon’s friend) also appear in it. |
My Lord John | Georgette Heyer | 1,975 | John of Lancaster is the son of Henry IV and the favourite brother of Henry V. This book chronicles his life from 1393 through until 1413. Although incomplete (the book is finished where Heyer left it) the Historical Note at the end fills in the gaps. Uses a lot of Middle English language but includes a Glossary for easier reading in the back. Simon the Coldheart (1925) covers much the same period (1400–1418). Kings Henry IV and Henry V also appear in it. |
The Conqueror | Georgette Heyer | null | It chronicles the life of William of Normandy (the Conqueror) from his birth in 1028 to his conquest of England in 1066. Born the illegitimate son of Robert, future Duke of Normandy, William has to fight to prove himself in the eyes of his people and the eyes of his enemies. After the fight is won he then has to prove himself to Lady Matilda, daughter of Count Baldwin of Flanders, to win her love. |
Royal Escape | Georgette Heyer | 1,938 | Two years after the execution of his father (Charles I), 21-year-old Charles II and his men fail miserably to free his kingdom from the tyrannical rule of Oliver Cromwell at the Battle of Worcester. The King would rather die trying to restore the monarchy, than sit by and watch the power of the English Commonwealth grown under its corrupt leaders. He decides to disguise himself as a peasant and leave England for France so he can free his realm when the right time comes. |
Gould's Book of Fish | Richard Flanagan | 2,001 | Gould's Book of Fish is a fictionalised account of the convict William Buelow Gould's life both at Macquarie Harbour and elsewhere during his life in Van Diemen's Land. ===Chapter titles (the twelve fish)=== #The Pot-bellied Seahorse #The Kelpy #The Porcupine Fish #The Stargazer #The Leatherjacket #The Serpent Eel #The Sawtooth Shark #The Striped Cowfish #The Crested Weedfish #The Freshwater Crayfish #The Silver Dory #The Weedy Seadragon |
Neveryóna | Samuel R. Delany | 1,983 | Neveryóna (a full-length novel), the sixth and longest tale of the Return to Nevèrÿon series, focuses on fifteen-year-old Pryn, who is extraordinary in this culture because she can read and write. Pryn is the great niece of an unsung genius of Nevèrÿon, a woman who invented both the loom and the spindle. Because she did not have the good fortune also to discover that wool made the best and strongest cloth, however, all the credit for her work tends to be given to other people. Pryn’s travels take her (and the reader) not only to explore the revolutionary forces of Gorgik’s campaign—and some of its internal squabbles—but also through the homes of several wealthy conservatives. In the first half of the novel, Pryn finds herself in Neveryóna, an upper class suburb of Port Kolhari, an uneasy guest in the emotionally embattled gardens of a wealthy merchant woman, Madame Keyne, whom we first met in the third story, “The Tale of Potters and Dragons,” and who is now actively financing a crackpot group of counter rebels who want to put an end to Gorgik’s project. In the second half, once Pryn travels into the south, she is taken up by the powerful Jue Gruten family, who represent the far more lethal and aristocratic forces of the nation who want to end this rebellion. Here the webs of power are almost too complex and wide reaching for Pryn to comprehend, even though she now realizes that one can fight them, a single incident at a time, as she manages to free a single slave from their grip, whom the Earl has tried to use as a scapegoat. But Pryn and the reader now have a far clearer picture of what Gorgik is up against. Between the novel’s first part and its second part, Pryn spends some time with a good-hearted but sadly limited peasant family, who live in the little town of Enoch and who represent the working classes that Gorgik will have to enlist somehow if he is to succeed. (A city name that appears several times throughout Delany’s non-Nevèrÿon work, notably in The Mad Man [1966], "Enoch" is mentioned in Genesis as the first city built by man, specifically by Cain’s son, Adam and Eve’s grandson, after whom it was named. In Delany's work, “Enoch” is never a big city. Rather it is a very old and small city—often much older than it thinks it is—which has forgotten its own historical origins.) These are the people who have the least sense of their own history. Their perfectly sensible wants conspire, nevertheless, to defeat their own best interests, and the only role they can conceive of in which Pryn can stay among them is that of the town prostitute. It is the most devastating section of the novel. An added irony is that this section is written using all the characters from that central myth of romanticism, “Tristan and Isolde” (with Pryn playing the part of Isolde), employing elements from many of the versions, including the story of “Tristan’s Leap,” and the tales of Malot, King Mark, and Bragenge from Wagner, and even the dwarf Frocsin, from Jean Cocteau’s film version from the forties, “The Eternal Return” (1943). In Delany’s version, apathy and despair have replaced passion and romance. Only the power of Pryn’s own imagination gives her a weapon to fight free from the seductions of these simple people’s basic goodness and her own ensnarement in their fundamental hopelessness. |
Bumface | Morris Gleitzman | null | Angus wants to be Bumface, a pirate character he has created. Bumface is brave, bold, wild and free. He stars in the stories Angus tells his younger brother and sister. Instead, Angus is just plain tired from having to change his sister Imogen's nappies and scrape food off the walls. He has to look after his siblings while his famous soap opera actress mother works and chases men. His father and stepfathers don't have time to look after their own children. Angus doesn't want to be mum's Mr Dependable or dad's Mr Reliable he just wants to be Angus. In the end, Angus gets his own back. |
Christy | Catherine Marshall | 1,967 | While attending a Christian revival meeting, 19-year-old Christy Huddleson is fascinated when she listens to the founder of an Appalachian mission program as he describes the work his group is doing and the needs of the Cutter Gap community. Christy, the daughter of a well-to-do family in Asheville, North Carolina, finds herself drawn to the idea of volunteering for the mission to be a teacher to the needy Cutter Gap students. Her parents are initially reluctant, but she persists and soon makes the trip to the remote area. From her first day in the Appalachians, she is challenged by the filthy conditions and primitive folk medicine beliefs of the mountain people, but her mentor at the mission, a Quaker named Alice Henderson, encourages her to notice also the beauty in the community and people, and to help preserve the best of the Appalachians in ways that will help the locals to become self-sustaining. Christy and her co-worker, minister David Grantland, attempt to educate local students and to teach their neighbors an alternative to the family feuding and cycle of revenge that have been a tradition for decades. Local physician Neill MacNeill is an agnostic who grew up in the mountains and who seeks to make Christy more sympathetic to locals' concerns and traditions. Plot threads include Christy's experiences in the school house and her burgeoning friendships with local women, David's challenges in reaching a community that views him as an interfering outsider, family feuds, moonshiners who use schoolchildren as their assistants, and questions of faith. As Christy becomes better acquainted with MacNeill and Miss Alice, she discovers that the physician's late wife was Miss Alice's daughter (conceived when a predatory visiting minister raped Alice as a teen), and that the physician's agnosticism was partly a reaction to the apparent injustice of his wife's death. Christy's faith is tried by these and other revelations, at the same time that she is romantically drawn both to the minister and the physician. The fictional village of Cutter Gap is based on a community centered on Morgan Branch, near Del Rio, Tennessee in Cocke County, Tennessee. Local landmarks associated with the story are marked for visitors, including the site of the Ebenezer Mission in the smaller nearby community of Chapel Hollow. At a women's society meeting where Christy was giving a talk regarding the plight of those living in Cutter Gap, a woman shares with her information regarding the Danish folk schools established by Grundtvig, in which adults learned to use traditional folkways and crafts to become self-sustaining. A wholly fictional MacNeill performs trepanation on an accident victim and studies trachoma in the local population. Several characters also suffer from typhoid fever, and the educated characters in the book set out to teach better hygiene to the local population in order to prevent the disease. MacNeill also lectures Christy on the origins of moonshining and the reasons why many locals — including MacNeill — consider its prohibition to be an unfair block to their earning money from their crops. Christy eventually marries the physician. Catherine Marshall, the widow of Dr. Peter Marshall when she wrote the book, following up on her best seller "A Man Called Peter," has been quoted as saying the book was about 75% percent historical, although the main characters (the physician) and mountain woman descended from ancient royalty, are fictionalized. While in the book it is implied she ends up with the doctor, the real "Christy," Catherine Marshall's mother, married a minister. |
The Entropy Effect | Vonda McIntyre | 1,981 | The Enterprise is engaged in an unprecedented scientific study of a naked singularity primarily by Spock's efforts, when a top priority message forces Captain Kirk to divert to Aleph Prime, a mining colony in a nearby system. The interruption ruins the observation cycle, making the time a complete waste of effort. Upon arrival, the high priority of the message seems to have been a mistake: the Enterprise was needed simply to ferry a single criminal to Rehabilitation Colony Seven, in the same system. The criminal turns out to be a theoretical physicist, Dr. Georges Mordreaux, convicted of murder and unethical research on self-aware beings. Spock thinks he would yield insights on the phenomenon he'd been researching - namely that for some unknown reason, the increase of entropy has begun to accelerate. This effect would cause precarious ecosystems to collapse and unstable stars to go nova within two decades, and result in the end of the Universe in less than eight more. But the case against Mordreaux seems very odd, with incomplete evidence, and Spock disbelieves that Mordreaux could be capable of the violence inherent in the crime. Prosecutor Braithewaite accompanies them on the journey, convinced that Mordeaux is dangerous. He also has a nagging feeling he's seen Spock before, though Spock is certain they've never met. While at the planet, Hikaru Sulu meets up with his idol, Captain Hunter, who commands Aerfen, the fighter ship that had been his first choice for assignment. As Kirk and Hunter are friends, he manages to arrange a transfer, leaving his friend and lover Security Chief Flynn behind. Meanwhile, Spock attempts to interrogate the Aleph Prime computers to obtain information on Mordreaux's case, only to discover the records apparently no longer exist - and he later ascertains that this is due to a virus which has also infected the Enterprises computers, the library computer alone being unaffected owing to its protected status. The purpose of the virus is to remove all trace or mention of Dr. Mordreaux from all Federation records. Clearly the virus was written by an expert, as Spock (who is, of course, one of Starfleet's top computer scientists) only discovers it after it has done its work on the Enterprise. While en route, odd things continue to happen, such as Scotty seeing Spock appear in two places at the same time. Suddenly, a disheveled Mordreaux appears on the bridge and shoots Kirk and Flynn with an old-fashioned slug-throwing gun. The slugs, however, contain a neurophilic metallo-organic substance, colloquially termed 'spiderweb', that seeks out and strangles nerve fibers, and are thus extremely deadly, generally used only in the rare outbursts of terrorism in the Federation. Flynn alerts security before she succumbs, but Mordreaux is still confined to his quarters. Kirk is rushed to sickbay where Doctor McCoy struggles to save him, but he dies while Spock is mind-melded to him. The drugged Braithewaite later sees the two terminate the life support that was maintaining Kirk's brain-dead body. As Braithewaite begins to put together facts to form a working theory of conspiracy, Spock determines from their incarcerated physicist that he has, in fact, developed a time travel device using the transporter. Since Kirk's death was committed through time travel, Spock modifies the Enterprise transporter to try to save Kirk, which results in Scotty's earlier observations. Spock then tries to go farther and farther back in time, to stop the damage to the timeline before it starts, only to be thwarted again and again by the inexorable tendency of the universe to follow the same paths as before. Spock, already haggard from weeks of continuous scientific observation, is pushed to the limits of endurance by the stresses of time travel. In the present, the Enterprise falters from the power drain required by the time travel device. As Scotty struggles to brings systems back online, he is compelled by Braithewaite's evidence that some kind of mischief is afoot. However, McCoy tries to divert attention, to give Spock enough time to accomplish his plans. Spock discovers that the Mordreaux that murdered Kirk is from a timeline in which he and Kirk had successfully defended Mordreaux against the earlier charges; at some unspecified time after this, Mordreaux lost his sanity, decided it would have been better if he had been sentenced to rehabilitation, and returned to take revenge on those he blamed for his persecution. It was only some years afterward, when he managed to regain his sanity, that he realised the entropy effect himself, and began working to undo the damage he had caused; the naked singularity was merely one of the first physical manifestations of this damage. Mordreauxs from other timelines had attempted to go back in time to persuade earlier versions not to attempt time travel, but just like Spock, they had all failed - and, in fact, exacerbated the problem by further eroding the already-fragile timeline. During one of these trips, Spock encounters the younger Braithewaite, explaining why the lawyer found him familiar. Ultimately, it is Mordreaux who convinces himself to halt the research. A version of the physicist from a period where the fabric of reality is being torn asunder jumps back to join Spock as he confronts the younger Mordreaux, at a time just before he sends his friends back in time (which act will cause the naked singularity and the acceleration of entropy increase). The strain of so many travels is too much for his body and it disintegrates. The sudden realization by the younger scientist that he'd rather die than face the consequences lead him to destroy his device and his research. Spock returns to the "present" of the restored timeline to find that all is well, but that he has the memories of both versions of reality. It might be theorised that this is because Braithwaite activates the auxiliary time-changer unit installed in the transporter console, thus pulling the 'original' version of Spock into the 'new' timeline before the 'original' timeline ceases to exist. Needless to say, Spock decides not to reveal any of this, citing merely 'unpredictable events' as explanation for various anomalies, such as his being out of uniform (as a disguise of sorts for his trip back to Aleph Prime, as he did not wish to be identified as a Starfleet officer by any Aleph citizen who might see him) or the partly healed bullet graze inflicted by the future Mordreaux. He informs Kirk that the singularity is in the process of forming an event horizon and becoming a Hawking black hole prior to its self-destruction; in the alternate reality which is now his reality, Spock's observations made it clear from the beginning that the singularity would shortly destroy itself, though he was unable to deduce its cause. The novel ends with the Enterprise leaving the vicinity of the singularity, with Sulu about to be granted a field promotion to Lt. Commander, Kirk having realised that it may be the only way to persuade Sulu not to transfer. |
Mockingbird | Walter Tevis | 1,980 | A central character is the dean of New York University, Spofforth, an android who has lived for centuries yet yearns to die. The novel opens with his failed attempt at suicide. Spofforth brings a teacher, Paul Bentley, to New York. Bentley has taught himself to read after a Rosetta Stone–like discovery of a film with words matching those in a children's primer. Bentley says he could teach others to read, but Spofforth instead gives him a job of decoding the written titles in ancient silent films. At a zoo, Bentley meets Mary Lou, explains the concept of reading to her, and the two embark on a path toward literacy. Spofforth responds by sending Bentley to prison for the crime of reading, and takes Mary Lou as an unwilling housemate. The novel then follows Bentley's journey of discovery after his escape from prison, culminating in his eventual reunion with Mary Lou and their assistance with Spofforth's suicide. |
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